Busy bees

1. This weekend was a busy one. Saturday we were all, ahhh we aren't going to do anything, and by Saturday night we were like ahhhh, it is so nice outside lets do something. I should mention that it rained this past week every single day but this weekend was supppper sunny.

2. I finished priming and painting my brackets. They took forever to paint b/c of all the little details. I ended up just painting them my Queen Anne Lilac from Sherwin Williams, the color the porch use to be. About 7 Sunday night they were installed, Ethan was nice enough to let us borrow his finishing nail gun, and it was sweeeet.



3. I pieced together the old post and part of my "new" old post from paca to make one non rotted post, it looks nice. I still need to caulk around a couple of points to help the water stay away.

4. Brent was super nice and mowed the lawn for meeeee!

5. Brent also was super nice and cleaned out the pump filter and skimmer filter for meeee!

6. The front porch is like 99% done, there is one spot on the threshold I could reach with the screen door open while painting from the inside. On the second coat of porch paint we added a non-skid additive to help the porch be less slick when wet.

7. I caught the mouse Brent saw run under the entertainment center, we let him go in a field... far far away.

8. Saturday we went for a picnic at one of the local parks. Blanket.. check, dog..check, food, especially some tasty food from the farmers market from earlier..check.

Halfway

1. The week is halfway over, woohoo.

2. Monday night we had the Grandparents, Dad and Patty over for dinner, it was tasty and everyone enjoyed themselves. The Grandparents brought Brent a bike over, it has worked out really well for him b/c he is so tall and so is the frame. Oh yeah and the fact that it has two pedals! He's been riding it since they brought it over!

3. Tonight it was nice enough not to rain, Brent put a second coat of porch paint down, this coat had some non-slip traction crap in it. Maybe with the non-slip stuff, the porch will be a little less slippery when wet, cause holy crapola it was slippery.

4. I haven't even started priming my porch brackets yet. And I am not sure what color I want to paint them after I prime them. On the plus side, Ethan has a finishing nail gun and agreed to let me borrow it when I install them..sweet!

5. The lawn needs to be mowed.

6. Daisy has been hopping around on three legs since yesterday when she was rough housing with Makenna and Makenna won. She started putting more weight on it this evening, so I am not too concerned. Let me tell you it doesn't slow her down AT ALL.

7. It was warm enough today that I was able to wear my new to me, really cute, black tier skirt that I bought from the goodwill for $3. I must say that it is my favorite skirt at this point, I rocked it with a pair of wedges and a shirt that happened to match my toe polish. I've really been trying to work on working with my wordrobe.

8. I am starting to get my tan on, fake tan that is. Annnnd, I just bought my pool pass for the summer online, watch out, here Makenna and I come (then I'll have a real tan)!

Ta da!

1. Turns out I got an A in all five classes I took this semester, woohoo. Go me. I did manage send my books back like a good girl, those mother's are heavy! Brent's last final is today, he turned in his last assigments last night. Go him. He will have a sigh of relief after this week, since it has been so busy.

2. Last night while Brent was writing his paper, I went ahead and finished taping off the kitchen and then decided to just get it over with and paint it. Ahhhh, it feels so much better in there with the new creamy yellow, works much better with the dark green cabinets and dark blue counters. It feels so much bigger. Here are the before and after photos, these were taken at night in artificial light. Soooo much softer.

3. Pick up some brackets yesterday from the homerdepot. They are ornate victorianish brackets to put next to the porch posts to try and frill up the porch a little. Brent and I decided we liked the larger bracket, so I returned the smaller ones and bought some more big ones. They need to be primed and painted now.....

4. Made a repair to one of the front porch boards, we'll see how long it lasts. I first tried just using some wood filler, but the hole was too deep and it didn't setup properly. So I dug all that out, removed all the rot, blasted it with a hairdrier (I don't have a heat gun) and had read online about bondo being used with success in rehabing damaged wood. Soooo, bondo it was. I laugh as I think of the faces my father and grandfather are making as they read this. See, there are other uses for bondo besides making cat pawprints for school projects..I mean car repairs, lol.

5. For Mother's day/our anniversary of 10 years of dating Brent bought me a new necklace. Sooo pretty, I've been wanting it for a while. The other day at the mall I also found a super cute headband, some ribbon, some feathers, some netting, love it!

6. For good measure: A photo of Miss M. after preschool, they had fun with face painting.

DONE!

1. Classes are done for the semester, woohooo! Grades are due today, I know I have an A in all my online classes, that just leaves one, one credit hour class that I took remotely at Parkland. Not sure what I got in that one.

2. I have a list of errands to run today. Run by the post office to return my textbooks to Eastern, they let you rent them. Take some stuff back to the library that is overdue today. Go to the mall for a secret shop, yay new stuff for me!

3. It is still pretty cold today, only around 55 this morning and it is going to rain this afternoon. Actually, it is suppose to rain most of this week, boooo. Since the cold snap this weekend we were unable to get a coat of the brown porch paint up on the porch. It takes a while to dry, so we need some warm and dry days.

4. Yesterday I got around to planting the veggie garden of the year. I still need to plant my lettuce but everything else is in the ground, ok well raised beds, not ground. This year we are growing: red onions, yellow onions, broccoli, tomatoes, brussel sprouts, basil, cilantro, parsley, strawberries and apparently cucumbers...seeds from the first year we had our garden that just keep coming back.

5. I have a little bit of cold, that Makenna gave Brent, and then I got. Just some sinus discomfort, but at least I don't have any homework that I have to do.

6. Maybe this week I can get back on my workout bandwagon. Thought about bringing the elliptical inside and putting it in the guest room for a bit, better accessibility for me.

7. We got a new vacuum this past weekend. It really sucks, literally, it does an awesome job. It had great reviews on amazon, it was recommended on a blog I read and it was the right price (and on sale). My old one had been chewed on by the bunny a long time ago and if you weren't paying attention and grabbed the power cord wrong way watch out, zzzzappp! The floor level adjuster was also broken and it makes a super loud sqeaky sound when you turn it off. Although it was eight years old, it did last. I spent slightly less money on my vacuum I bought this weekend than I did eight years ago, score. Did I mention the new vacuum came with a stair tool?

Finally posting..

1. I finished the rest of my finals for the semester this morning. Scored an A on my psychology final and I have yet to have my nursinig final grade released, this usually means you didn't miss any. I finished just in time to jump in the shower and run to the store for some preschool supplies before picking Makenna up for the day. Now I just need to work on packing up my books to mail back to Eastern. Brent has a paper and two finals left for his semester.

2. Yesterday we finally found the perfect paint colors we were looking for. We decided on Bittersweet chocolate for the front porch floor and cornbread for the kitchen and most likely the dining room. Cornbread is the perfect warm creamy yellow! We tested two other browns on the porch that didn't work out and probably four colors in the kitchen that we loved on swatches but not in actually paint swatches on the wall.

3. Picked up some plants this past week from the homerdepot since they were having an awesome 5 for $10 on some quart plants. I bought quite a few hostas, I have a small obsession with them. We now own some pretty cream and green ones, and by some I mean like 8.

4. It is a short week this week. Brent took a furlough on Friday, it is our 10 year dating anniversary. Can't believe it has been so long! What to do, what to do.

5. This past weekend we had fun going to the first farmer's market of the season, lots of people were there and lots of vendors were there. Kettle corn, vegetarian bbq, lemon shake ups and funnel cakes, yummmmm.

6. Yesterday when Makenna fell asleep in the car, we decided to make the most of it, parked and got some Cocomero. Brent also went and got us a roll from SushiRock, it was sooooo goood. I really want to go and actually eat there. Kofusion watch out.


7. The new pond pump, filter and skimmer for the pond have been working super great. The pond is so clear and the fish like it because they just zoooom all around the pond.

8. A couple of weeks ago I decided I was going to color my hair since the ends of my hair were a good two to three levels lighter than my roots. I read a blog that talks only about hair color cause I looooove hair color. Anyway, I wandered down to Sally's to buy from a line that the blog recommends. WELLA oh my wella. I decided on chestnut by wella, a colorcharm, a demi-permanant color. Freak my hair has never been as shiny as it was after I colored it with this stuff. It did turn out a bit darker than I anticipated but I lovvve the color and apparently it does run a level darker. Go get yourself some. I also picked up a packet of the ion effective care treatment, verrrry nice.