Happy Thanksgiving

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1. Parent teacher conferences were this past week, nothing but good news from the teacher. One proud momma here.
2. Still trying to get over the cold that took over my body last Wednesday, I kinda have a voice today.
At some point I'll feel well enough to paint the living room. Bought the paint the beginning of last week, it is still sitting in the foyer..
3. Went to cookie training this past week for the Girl Scouts, another mom and I are going to be the cookie people for our troop. I really don't feel this old..
4. Only one more month and my semester will over over! Twoooo moooore to go. I registered for a psychology and another journalism class a couple of weeks ago for next semester.
5. Our house concert is getting sooo close, it should be tons o'fun!
6. Shopping online just makes life so much easier. From the couch I can shop for new clothes for Makenna and get her approval without the hassle of leaving the house, yes please..we bought new jeans for her since she had NO pants that fit, a few new shirts, a new belt, a new dress, a new pair of uniform shoes and a pair of suede-ish pink flats. She is stylin' now.

1. A couple of weeks ago I chaperoned one of M's field trips. I. feel. so. old.
2. Guitar lessons are going well, 30 minute private lesson every week. My teacher is left handed which makes it easier to learn from him.
3. I wrote two papers this week. Two papers too many.
4. Monday I register for my spring classes, what?! Only two more semesters to go!
5. The weather is getting very fall-y, yesssss.

Girl Scouts and Birthday Party

Some photos from this weekend and last week; girl scouts and M's birthday party!

Daisy invocation

With all the other daisys

Party time!

Cupcakes and toppers

Special dino-burgers

Opening gifts with friends

Digging for dinosaurs

School!

It was the first week of school for both me and Makenna.  My semester started on Monday while Makenna's first day was Thursday. Makenna has really been enjoying her new school and is excited to have her first whole day on Monday.  Pictures of the first day of kindergarten below.

 

 I was pretty sick most of the week, Brent stayed home on Wednesday to take care of me and watch Makenna. On Thursday I was starting to feel better but was experiencing chest pain so it was off to convenient care to see a doctor.  I was prescribed some steriods and antiobiotics to treat the inflammation of my lungs which was causing my pain.  I'm feeling much better now and managed to finish all of the assignments that were due for the week. Woohoo!

Updated

We've been busy around the house over the past couple of weekends. Makenna spent a week with Grandma Helen and Grandpa Lee while attending vacation bible school and has returned. This past weekend we spent a lot of time in Danville with some girlfriends and their husbands from high school. My ten year reunion was also this weekend, we hit up some of the reunion activities with friends.

 My books arrived this weekend for the fall semester, we are getting so close to the start of the school year. Makenna and I start school the same week. I also bought Makenna some uniform items from The Children's Place. They had their uniform pieces 25% off and if you spent over $60 you were able to take another 50% off , so I was able to save about 75% and free shipping! We bought some more pants, shorts, knee socks, leggings and a few more cardigans.

On to the house updates!

New to me $10 restore light fixture, now in the kitchen after being spray painted.

Oil rubbed bronze door hardware, spray painted, yup.

Spray painted the wood mirror black in the downstairs bathroom, looking for a new shower curtain.

Spray painted the light fixture in the blue room, was brown crackle, now black.

Foyer is getting very close to being done!

All woodwork has a least one coat of semi-gloss on it!

Getting there, what do you think about painting the front door black?

Painted the headboard, painted the lamps, new shades, our habitat end tables with new paint and hardware, added curtains behind the headboard and moved the bed.

New to us delta bathroom faucet, bought off craigslist for $20!

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I spray painted my kitchen knobs again, this time to a lighter silver color, no one else can see a difference but I doooo. I'm thinking about changing out the backsplash, maybe, a white subway tile?

I managed to snag a matching pair of nightstands at the Habitat Restore this past weekend. I am working on repainting them right now and finding some new hardware for them. I first came across them last week but they were marked $25 a piece but this past weekend they were lowered to $15 a piece. Whoot!

 The foyer, it is coming along, slowly. The new light is installed, the walls and ceiling have been painted the final grey color (although I have two spots left to finish patching and touchup work to do.) The banister has been stained and poly-ed with a nice glossy blackish color. All of the stair woodwork has been primed, the baseboards along the stairs are finished in the white semi-gloss. One window has been primed, one window has not. It is so much brighter in the foyer with the lighter wall color and woodwork.

 Some photos of Makenna, one at the Japan house.

Wellllllll

1. I haven't posted since February and I'm not ashamed of it.

2. As you can guess finals came and went, we are done with our semester! Woohoo, only three more to go before I am finished!

3. The foyer. It is still not finished. Let me show you how much motivation I have -->        . Hardly any, none, zippo. It will look great when it is done, I'm just overwhelmed by it right now.

4. I've been enjoying my summer thus far. Last week we took a staycation, vacation in Champaign. Went to the Spurlock museum in town, went to a wedding, doctors appointments, caught up with some friends, bbq-ed with some Grandparents, visited Prairie Farms, did some shopping, went to the pool, did some yard work, ate out a lot and more stuff I can't remember.

5. We have five kittens residing in the backyard. They are skittish around people yet, hopefully I can socialize them a bit and then catch them so they can go to the Humane Society to be adopted.

6. I am nearly finished shopping for Makenna's back to school uniform wardrobe. I think all I have left to get is some new socks, new pair of shoes and another cardigan. Lands end had a promotion of 25% off clearance and overstock items on Tuesday with free shipping, so we managed to get a bunch of polos. Then they had a 25% off non sale items with free shipping yesterday, so I ordered her pants and jumpers to round out her uniform. Supposedly their uniforms are the bomb diggity when it comes to quality, so they should hold up nicely.

7. Last night I made flautas for dinner via my Chevy's Mexican restaurant cookbook from the Goodwill, best. five. dollars. spent. ever....

8. I think Makenna starts swim classes again this weekend..or next weekend?

1. Midterms are this week and next week. Yay, it means I'm halfway done. I'm ready for the semester to be done so I can enjoy my summer break away from school. Only three more semesters to go, woohoo. I got a letter this week from the school, I was chosen to be part of an honor society due to my grade point average. You have to go to some reception in Charleston in order to accept, I'm soooo lazy and don't want to.

2. The foyer is still part way done. Primer and one coat of paint is on the walls,  no paint on the ceiling yet and not much of the woodwork is primed yet. My new light fixture is painted and ready to be installed. I would post a picture but I'm going to wait until it is finished, someone is going to cry when they see the woodwork painted..I just know it buuuuuut it isn't the first or the last time it will be painted and it is only pine not an uber fancy wood. I need to get past the guilt and just finish it already. The upstairs bathroom will be on the chopping block next..I would love to get rid of the green vanity that is up there now and install storage somewhere else for the crap that is on it, change out the light fixture (possibly with a fan light combo, I always smack my hand on the chandelier that is there now), paint the trim white (it is a reddish purple right now, previous owners), paint the walls the same color as the foyer and probably remove the light fixture that is above the green vanity.

3. My phone charger broke yesterday, I ordered a new one. I also realized my steam mop was broken too, ordered a part for that.

4. It is realllly warm today, woohoo! It was really sunny earlier too!

5. We bought an attic antennae and installed it (well it technically needs to be mounted but it is IN the attic), we also ran a line from the attic to the basement to tie into the existing cable network. We are good to go with free programming when the city finishes running fiber in the neighborhood, who doesn't love $20 internet via fiber? Our existing cable provider will be getting the axe and we will be saving money, yo. The attic antennae allows us to get all ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CW, some weather channel, me tv?, THREEEE PBS channels (booyeah, we watch a lot of PBS), and Cooltv. There might be one other one too..anyway we basically only watch the networks and PBS so this will be perfect.

6. Brent took Monday off since Makenna didn't have any school and we thought it would be nice to have a three day weekend. It was very nice. Since my birthday is next week, he will be taking that off too!

7. We are going to try out a lemon poppyseed pancake recipe I found on pinterest tonight..mmmmmm.

8. I need to get rid of more crap out of the basement, it is a work in progress. I really have too much Christmas crap and I don't even use it. I also have a few light fixtures to take to the Restore...

1. I got my new phone and I have no idea how I survived without it, nothing short of awesomeness!
2. I still haven't primed crap in the foyer, this project won't be complete for quite some time. #not motivated.
3. This semester has been easy peasy so far, Brent is jealous.
4. I'm obsessed with pinterest.
5. I ordered my new dishes I've been eyeing for some time last week. Yay! Crate and Barrel was running a free shipping promotion, I ended up saving about $17 because of it. Sweeeet. I'm excited to eat warm food again, our current plates suck all the heat out of your food before you are done eating.
6. I dyed my hair back to a dark reddish brown. For now...bwahahaha.
7. February starts this week, eeek to being another year old.

Yay, my new-to-me phone is finally at the post office today which means I could get it tomorrow. We both have smart phones but the ones we have a realllly old and mine is starting to act funny and as technology advances it starts to suck more and more. To the old ebayer we went and bought a used htc eris for my upgrade to cell phone civilization, it has a droid operating system (currently I have a windows based phone) and can do the whole pinch and zoom thing (something I always forget my phone does not have.)

I've worked a little on the foyer since my last post, I stained and polyed the bannister hand rail part of the stairs. It has two coats on it now and needs a third as I just lightly sanded it for a smoother finish. Holy crap the poly product I'm using STINKS, gives me a headache and just stinks for days. Soooo...I haven't put on the final coat yet, procrastination. Nor have I primed a thing, procratination.

My semester started this week. Although I have a major case of senioritis this semester appears to be quite easy, not much busy work, not much extra reading other than my psychology class. I am also taking a philosophy logic and reasoning class this semester. I just remind myself that in a few months I'll have a  nice long summer break and I will be able to simply enjoy the summer before starting back again.

Booooooo. I'm done removing all the wallpaper that I am going to take down. 5 layers on some parts of the foyer and only one layer on the new drywalled parts but...the previous owners didn't prime the drywall first, so the wallpaper is pulling the drywall paper with it. So, I'm done removing wallpaper since if I remove anymore I'll have to skim coat the entire wall I was working on. Next step, skim part of the wall, patch holes, sand, prime, stain bannister, paint walls and woodwork, paint new light fixture (from the homestore) and decide if I want to use the sconce I also bought from the homestore.

At some point we'll install new blinds, curtains and frames. I been eyeing some stuff on pinterest..