Year In Review

As the year is almost over I figured we would do a year in review post.

1. Cut down the huge rotting tree in the backyard.
2. Had a new roof installed on the back porch, new fascia, soffit and porch posts rebuilt.
3. Had the house painted...for 7 weeks and wrote a fat check.
4. Repainted and finished painting the kitchen cabinets.
5. Tore down the closet in the living room, installed drywall on the the ceiling and crown molding.
6. Traveled to New Orleans and Florida.
7. Makenna started her final year of preschool.
8. We continued going to school..

Next year....

1. Paint my bedroom furniture black.
2. Remodel the foyer (remove wallpaper, paint walls, paint woodwork, stain bannister, new window treatments, new light fixtures) Any takers? This project will probably take me an entire year to finish.
3. Continue going to school...
4. Paint some trim around the house.
5. Repaint the upstairs bathroom and paint the trim.

Christmas and New Orleans Photos

Makenna in her bunk on the train in our room.

Waiting for breakfast on the train.

Katelyn sleeping on the train.

Makenna at the aquarium.

Yummy food at Bubba Gump.

Singing Happy Birthday.

Streetcar to the French Market.

Makenna and Santa at the French Market.

Lafayette Square in the Quarter.

Riding the streetcar with the alligator.

House of Blues.

Taking a tour with Papa.

Opening Christmas presents with Grandpa Pat.

Chris and Kimberly enjoying Makenna's toy.

Take 2

1. Christmas number one was this past weekend, we made lots of cookies too. Insert me gaining some pounds over the holiday via cookies here.

2. I think I made a run of almost all my errands for the week. Meijer, Goodwill, Payless, Gordmans, Payless in the mall, Forever 21. I got home just in time to accept a couple of packages from the mailman. I believe my Christmas shopping is done, I'm waiting on a few packages to come still.

3. I have a cold, Brent had it last week. It really isn't bad, just makes me a little tired and ache.

4. I need to start packing.

5. I received my grade for my psychology final. I like A's. I'm still waiting on my grade for my Technology and Society class.

6. I need to go the library for some reading materials.

Thar she blows!

Yay, the house is finally done! We have a couple of storm windows being repaired still...only three weeks over the scheduled time and $85 over budget. We are very happy with the end result.


Before



We've been busy this week, school work, midterms, house work and such.

 The house is still being painted, we are on week 5 of having the work done. Part of the final color is on the house, yay! A couple of days ago the painter guys started painting the corner boards on the side of the house that is painted the final color. It looks really nice.

Final green color, tan final color, trim being painted.

Primer on..

Green is the final color, it looks different now, I'm too lazy to get a new pic...

Makenna had fun trick or treating, she is was Rapunzel this year. She had a little parade at preschool and then later that night we did traditional trick or treating. After trick or treating, on the way home, Makenna asked if she could have some candy we said yes, she chose a box of jelly beans. After eating only two she was stuffing them back in the box and said she changed her mind and wanted something else. It wasn't until a couple of days later while going through Makenna's candy did we realize those jelly beans were "special" halloween flavors. Some of the colors were the original flavors and then some of them were flavored like vomit, pencil shavings, rotten egg, dog food....I guess we know why she wanted something else, lol. Ps-the rotten egg was THE WORST..

Makenna at preschool

You're hot then you're cold...

We had a chance to pick up a sweet deal on a new fancy kitchen faucet.. so we took it. The installation was pretty quick and it has a lifetime warranty.
It is pretty:

Fiber being run in front of our house.

Photos of the prepping and priming process of getting the house painted.

              

               

1. I have a new obsession with headscarfs. I can find them at the goodwill for about a buck a piece. Fold them up, pompador my bangs and some hair behind the scarf, instant hairdo.

2. Went out with an old friend last night, we have our little gabfests at a local bar downtown. Good food. Good hard cider. Although they were out of the pear cider I wanted to try.

3. Work is still going on the house, they started prepping last Thursday. I think all the lower windows are scraped, filled, sanded and primed. Today is day two of scraping the tongue and groove ceiling, I'm glad I'm not the one with sore hands, shoulders, arms and necks at the end of the day.

4. School work is done for this week. I need to start looking at which classes I want to take next semester. Psychology is a given, maybe two psychology classes..

1. I finished my midterm for my Abnormal Psychology class today, it isn't due until Monday but I feel better now that it is done..although there are a couple of questions I'm still mulling over. It is so hard to believe that the semester is already half way over, it is speeding by.

2. I should have taken a picture of the big tree before we had it chopped down and hauled away, that part of the yard looks so different now.

3. The house was washed last week, the painter dude came for the paint samples today, tomorrow the prep starts. The neighborhood is looking like a parking lot for contractors, lots of revitalization. Contractors for the new building at the end of the block are working, the house two doors down is being worked on in the inside and out, our house is being worked on and our next door neighbor is suppose to have someone out this week about working on his house as well.

4. This week we had our yard all painted with lots of colors and decorated with lots of flags...they are running fiber this week in the neighborhood, sweeet.

1. We had a nice relaxing weekend. Ran around town most of yesterday, including getting our flu shot. Yay! Hopefully that means I will be getting less sick this year.

2. Our mondo tree gets buzzed into a million little pieces this week!

3. This semester has been pretty nice so far, hopefully it stays that way. I do need to catch up on some readings from my psychology book..

4. Lots of rain today, makes for nice naps on the couch!

5. I finally decided on the paint color for the foyer, Nantucket Gray by Benjamin Moore. That only took four samples...all the colors I chose would change drastically when put next to the woodwork. Now I just need to get the motivation to actually start the project...and buy the paint. Lots of drop-cloths, extension poles and ladders will be involved.

Bahhhhh

1. This is the second week of the semester. One paper written. One quiz taken. Two assigments done. Six chapters read.

2. We reinstalled the porch swing last night. I finally repainted it with a color very close the new trim color for the exterior, a creamy color with green undertones.

3. The baby fish are getting bigger! Most of them have their colors now but some are still black. They were zooming around the pond last night while I was cleaning the pond pump.

4. Makenna's first birthday party is this weekend. I bought the burgers last weekend but still need to take an inventory of the party supplies that I need to buy. And clean the house.

5. Got an update from the painter, now he talking mid to late September. Whawhawha, I should have specified a date in the contract. It isn't a big deal but I would like to get it over with so I can stop second guessing myself.

6. I've been loving me some pinterest lately. It started out as a way to find yummy recipes (like last nights) but I can also use it for wardobe, organizational and decor inspiration.

7. I'm thinking about painting the foyer. I'm wondering if I can find a grey that plays well with the woodwork...yes, I am in love with grey. I'm also wordering how much work taking down the wallpaper will be..eeek. It should be noted that I'm driving Brent crazy with all my projects and he isn't even the one doing them.

8. I finish resealing the metalwork for the gable and the mailbox, this time with products designed for the exterior..

9. I also fixed the fence panels which had popped off the vertical 4x4s when the tree dropped a huge branch on it. We have a "special day" with a tree removal service towards the end of September.  Last night Brent cut down the dead branches on the red bud, they were wayyyy dead.

Grey-er

Second coat on porch with retinted paint, tinted a little darker and grey-er. Before and after shots.

1st coat

2nd Coat retinted a tad more grey and dark

1st coat

2nd coat after retint

Dos

1. Second coat for porch is down. Went back to the paint store to have them retint the paint a little, the porch looked quite a bit more blue than my swatch and posts were reading more grey from my original sample. We'll see how it turned out tomorrow when dry and light outside.

2. The semester started today. I dropped my Women in Technology class, a little too feminised for me annnnd the teacher was a little crazy. I for one don't want to have to write a paper next week or read 69 pages this week, so dropped it was. I picked up a technology and society class and picked a professor that worked for IBM for 30 years, he is pretty laid back and chill. Nicccce. Psychology class looks like it will be easy as pie. Niccce. Only a few more semesters to go and then I'll be done. I think 4 more to go? That is with only taking 2 classes at a time, I'm in no rush, just enjoying the ride.

3. I'm quite enjoying my shiatsu massage chair after two days of painting the porch. Deeeeep tissue massage.

4. Maybe tomorrow I'll start prepping the porch swing for repainting.

Bippity Boppity Blue!

So over the weekend we did a little work on the casa. Brent ran an electrical outlet at the front of the house while I spray painted my porch light fixture (again). I painted it once before installing it and after getting it up there decided it wanted it to be darker than it was...so I just taped around it and taped some newspaper to the ceiling, sprayed it right in place. I also decided hey why not repaint the porch one of the accent colors of the new paint scheme..it is a grey blue navyish color (Mark Twain Grey Brick), from Valspar's Historic Color Line. It is an improvement over the brown, I must say. I have some touching up to do since it was pretty dark by the time I finished on the driveway side. I might roller another coat quickly to see if it darkens a little bit I like how it makes the yellow door pop! I am well aware the house looks crazzzzzy right now.

Close up of body color, trim color and door color

Touch screen pop machine at Jimmy Johns!

Tada! And Vote!

1. I realized I never posted photos of my finished cabinets.. Tada! The cabinets are Martha Stewart's Schoolhouse Slate, the wall color is Martha Stewart's Cornbread.

2. Last week we visited Prarie Fruit Farms. On Tuesdays they sell goat cheese, produce and gelato and we also got to see the goats! We had blueberry, apricot and cucumber mint gelato. My favorite was the cucumber mint, it was yummmmmy. By the way.. this is Carmen.

3. Earlier this week we got rid of a bunch of furniture that was out in the chapel which we either weren't using or had broken. Yay! Next month we have an appointment with a tree company to come cut down the huge mulberry tree which dropped one of its limbs on the fence and is rotting from the inside out. Yay! We've been wanting to get rid of that tree but now we have an excuse, it is super huge so we are paying the professionals to do our dirty work. We are getting closer to when the painters are suppose to start on the house. I'm getting antsy!

4. Speaking of painters, pick which photo you like most. The colors depicted on the house aren't the actual colors, color renderings on the computer suck. Even though the gable above the porch looks darker it won't be, it will be the same color as the body. Pick your favorite by leaving a comment at the bottom of this post or in the cbox app to the right.

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