Enjoying March Weather

After a week full of rain, the weekend called for sunshine and we had planned on taking full advantage of it.  We moved out our patio furniture, invited friends over to BBQ, and played dominos outside. 

Instead of doing yard work on Sunday, I decided to relax and finished my book, "The Art of Racing in the Rain" outside and actually got some sun.  Abby and I went for a jog, and then we sat outside to cool off because it was cooler out there than in our house. 

Greg decided to work on his laptop outside, so I brought mine out there as well, and our pets decided they wanted to join us. 

If any window is open in our house, you are likely to find Chase.  He has been an indoor cat his entire life, but loves to look at birds, bat at bugs through the screen, and stalk our neighbors.  Chase tries to sneak out when Abby is let out, and he just rolls around on the concrete.  There has been a couple times where he has decided to run off, and I chase him thinking that I may lose him.  Only my family has experienced me when I thought I have lost Chase, and it wasn't pretty (that time he somehow found a way to get above the drop ceiling in our basement).

Anyway, I bought Chase a toy poodle's harnest when he was a kitten because I told myself that I was going to walk him.  That never happened because when we do put the harnest on him, he doesn't want to walk, as if he got 10 pounds heavier and he can only move by crawling.  So, we put this on him when he wants to sit outside with us because we know he can't get too far before we would catch him.

We grilled again that night and ate dinner outside while watching a show on HGTV on our laptops.  A perfect ending to a great weekend!

Half Bath Planning

Our half bath is our next project around the house.  I have so many ideas on my mind, and I can't wait until the finished product is completed in order to blog about it, so I will tell you what we have planned and what Greg surprised me with this weekend.

Once again we have a picture of what the original owner's decorations looked like.  The decorations were fine.  It was just that huge soffit that I always had issues with.  It makes the room so dark because the can light is the only light in the room, and it shines straight down, and the soffit just seems out of place floating over the sink.  So, I've always told myself that we are going to do some exploratory work and if there is nothing in the soffit, then it's coming down.

After running errands on Saturday, I came home and was surprised with a lovely mess.  I'm serious in saying that it was lovely because Greg had started the demo process.  The only unfortunate part was that we were having people over that night to BBQ, so I had to clean it up right away.  It was quite the discussion that evening among our friends.

Greg was able to finish the demo Sunday evening and did it with a smile on his face.

Now, we are ready for drywall!  We spent Friday evening at Home Depot buying some supplies.  We are going to have to scrape the ceiling because it's a popcorn ceiling, and we would rather scrape it then have a bad patch job by trying to match the rest.  We looked at new fixtures to choose from, and we both like a modern designed fixture, but we didn't like the price tag.  I went to Lowes on Saturday and found that they were even more expensive, so we think we may decide to buy the one that we both liked.

For our decorations...
We bought some pictures at Home Goods that were a great price that we couldn't pass up, so we are going to use these for color and design inspiration.

We have hung these on the side wall of the bathroom, opposite of the towel bar that has some towels that match the colors.  The other two walls are missing something.  Mackie gave me the idea to maybe paint what would appear to be a wallpaper on these walls, and I thought this could really be fun.  I did some research, and I have run into many other very exciting how-to design blogs that I now check pretty frequently.  On one of them, I found a design that I'm going to try and use.  I was going to paste in the design, but now I'm having trouble pulling it up.  Oh NO! 

Until next time...

Fashion Star

Today I wanted to share a proud moment of my sister, Mackie, who is graduating college this year and has been working hard all semester for the upcoming fashion show in April.  In their senior year, the students get to design a collection, and Mackie has chosen her design to be her passion of High Fashion.  Mackie has found her love of print making, and she has dyed all of these silk fabrics by wrapping them around a large wine bottle, applying the dye, and microwaving it for the dye to set in.  She could explain it much better I’m sure.  They have to go through Jury, and then the judges decide which looks will make it in the fashion show.  Jury was held last weekend, and Mackie was able to get all of her dresses in!  I’m so excited for her, and I wish her the best of luck in finding a job she loves.

We’re all looking forward to the fashion show including Greg, as he stayed up late the other night to finish the new show, Fashion Star, all by himself!

St. Pat's 10K Race & Weekend in STL

We traveled to St. Louis this past weekend for Greg and his friends to participate in the St. Patrick's Day 10K Race.  The boys decided to make a weekend of it and rented a hotel room for the evening and had a night out downtown.  Greg finished in 44 minutes, and they were all smiles at the end of the race!

Ryan, Jeremy and Greg - Both of them were in our wedding

We took a half day on Friday and got into town early.  My parents surprised us with a finished basement!  They were always going to finish the basement, but as I know now, projects take longer than expected.  At Christmas, they explained how they were going to lay it out, and just like that, they were smart and hired the help to do the items that they couldn't do themselves or that would take several months to complete.  It looked great, and now Greg and I have a bedroom there to call our own.  That afternoon, Greg went to a shooting range with his friends, Jeremy and Andrew,  went out to dinner, and then Andrew and Greg came back to my parents' house and our friends, Jessica and Evan, stopped by as well.  We played a couple games on Wii Sports, and then called it a night.


Jessica's grandpa passed away last week, and I was able to attend the funeral on Saturday.  Jessica has asked me when she was going to debut on this blog, and unfortunately, this is the first mention of her, but there will be many more in the future, I promise!  Jessica's grandpa was exceptionally welcoming and friendly growing up.  He made me feel like one of his grandchildren, and I just remember him being so funny.  He will be missed!


I should also mention my grandpa, who I was able to see on Saturday before the funeral.  He switched his internet service, and he had asked me how to save his favorites again to the toolbar at the top of the computer.  After a little research, we were able to figure it out.  Greg has always customized his toolbar on his computer, and I thought it was just as easy to type in a website in the browser that I visit frequently rather than saving it to my favorites; however, if my grandpa does it, then I should be able to do it as well.


Sunday we went to Greg's parents house for lunch and had delicious fish and beef tacos and brownies for dessert.  We like to play a game that we call "Guess What's New Around the House", and Greg and I find the new or changed items that they have done since our last visit.  We may no longer be able to play this game when they come to our house since I will be blogging about most of it.  We also were able to look at pictures of all the blankets and quilts that Greg's mom and her mother have made over the years.  I wish I would have counted them all.  All of them very unique and beautiful.  She is very talented.  I have learned how to crochet in the past, but I'm not sure if I will be able to pick it up one day.  I haven't been able to find that niche of mine yet, maybe it will be blogging, I'm not sure.


Enjoy the week and make the most of it!  We are getting rain all week long, but the weekend looks nice, so we may start looking at plants for the lawn.

China Cabinet Complete!

It's done!  I think everyone is tired of us talking about refinishing our China cabinet. Well, our 7 month project has come to an end!

My grandparents bought us most of the China for our wedding, so we wanted to display it in a China cabinet.  My friend, Lisa, refinished a China cabinet for her Dining Room, and I always thought it looked really nice, so I thought that we would do the same.  We purchased our China cabinet from Craigslist, and we wanted to refinish it to a more modern look and to match our dining room table. 

My Aunt Patty had refinished her cabinets and built-in shelves in her house with a dark stain that looked fantastic, so we received advice from her to purchase a wood stripper, stripper remover, wood conditioning treatment, a stain, and then a polyurethane.  It was quite a process! 

We thought the wood stripper would easily strip off the original color and finish, but it took several weekends, well let's be honest, several months for us to get off the stain finish and sand it down.  We started off hand sanding, and then borrowed my Dad's hand sander, which helped immensely, and Greg completed the sanding in a couple weekends.

We first started the project in our garage where I volunteered to park outside because we thought we would finish the project in a couple weeks with the nice fall weather.  After a couple months of parking outside and colder weather moving in, I convinced Greg that we move it down to the bathroom in our basement, and that is where he completed the sanding.  Then, it was onto staining.

Staining wasn't all that bad.  It took several coats to get it to a color that we liked and to match our table.  It wasn't the cleanest project for the small basement bathroom.  Stain was splashed on the walls in areas, so look for that bathroom on a future project of ours!  I also found out the hard way that stain penetrates through plastic drop cloths.  Everyone at my work knew this... and somehow I have never heard of it.  We used some CLR to get the stain off the tile, and I found out the next day that this is some pretty powerful mix.  We ended up having a new look on our tile by accidentally taking off the finish in areas.  We are lucky because it actually looks okay.

We finally took an afternoon off work and completed the staining, and Greg did all of the polyurethane.  Greg installed 3 new lights in the top.  My parents bought us new glass shelves and mirrors to install on the back.  Greg's Mom gave me the hammered metal bowl and trays that I placed in the cabinet to illuminate the light.  Once we started organizing the glasses and plates, I realized that the plates are too wide to fit in the middle because of the wood support going down the back, so I have to put the place setting off to one side. 

We're happy with the end result, and the pictures don't do it justice, so you will have to come see it your yourself.  Greg thinks he is ready for the next staining project, but I think I'll wait for a while.

Curtains & Plates

This weekend was quite a success in finding more items to complete the Dining Room.  I went to the JC Penney Outlet, and to my surprise, they improved their Home Furnishings Department.  They had lots of cute accent chairs that I may try to convince Greg to buy on the upcoming friends and family weekend or another time in the future when we are ready to finish another room. 

I found some yellow plates to add a splash of color in the dining room.  The dinner plates were $1 and the smaller plates were 50 cents, so I think I got a good deal. 

I also went to JoAnn Fabrics and found a fabric pattern that I would like to make curtains from.  I had to order the fabric, so hopefully it will arrive soon enough so I can have my mom help me sew them over the upcoming weekends that we will be home.  I took a picture of the fabric draped over the fabric canvases that we have hanging in the room, so you can have a sneak peak of what they will look like. 

I thought I was going to go with a lighter color because I thought the gray color on the walls was going to darken the room too much, but after getting everything all put together in the room, I wanted to add in more green.  I just couldn't find a solid green fabric that matched well enough, and I love that these curtains will be another pop of art in the room.  I can't wait!

I also started to look at flowers to make arrangements for some of the vases in the Dining Room.  It's way too hard for me to look at the flowers and choose something I like.  I will have to search pictures of them on the internet that I like and bring that to the store to copy.  Another project for another day.

Stone Pillar Winery Friends

Saturday was beautiful in Kansas City with temperatures reaching 70 degrees.  Rather than running outside, Greg and I decided to spend the afternoon at the winery! 

We live around 2 miles from Stone Pillar Winery, which is a small, family owned winery that we pass on our way home from work each day.  They have 2 dogs that run around the property that we have grown to love.  There is Ginger, who we found out this weekend is 14 years old, and there is Scout, who became Greg's best friend.

The plan was to meet some friends up at the winery and then go back to our house to continue to hang out.  We didn't get to the wineries until 4:30 pm, and only one of Greg's co-workers and his wife showed up for a half hour before it closed at 6 pm.  We did go out to dinner with Jeremy, and then he and Derek, another one of Greg's friends came over to our house to play Loaded Questions...again.  Once again, we haven't laughed that hard in a long time. 

Derek was dog-sitting that night for a small dog, and Abby and Charlie loved it.  Chase and Abby are also starting to like using our curtains as a blanket.

I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend as well!

Weekend with Mackie

We had another family visitor this weekend!
Mackie decided to come in town!  Abby greeted Mackie with lots of love and smiles, and Chase decided to nip her on the butt.  It was a perfect, relaxing weekend of working out, watching HGTV, walking Abby, watching movies, shopping and going out to dinner.

Mackie cooked us some of her famous salmon on Friday, which I love, and I made some cheddar broccoli soup with sweet potatoes.  Greg provided the vegetables by making a juice.  While we were eating dinner, Greg got us addicted to his trivia game on his phone that we couldn't put down.  Finally, we said one more game, and it ended up being two, and then we watched the movie 50/50, where Abby and Mackie cuddled throughout the entire movie.

We had plans on Saturday to work out, and go out to the movies to see The Vow.  I introduced Mackie to our elastic band work out videos that we like to do, and she was feeling it on Sunday with some sore muscles.  We went to the movie on the plaza for $4 in the afternoon.  Can't beat that!  Then, we shopped around for jewelry to go with her model's dresses for the upcoming fashion show.

Mackie introduced me to a very bad thing this weekend.  She showed me that you could watch more shows on HGTV's website by going to the shows website first, and then clicking on full episodes.  I thought I almost got through my addiction by watching all the episodes that I thought the website had to offer, but now I have so many more to watch.  We watched the show Property Brothers throughout the weekend, which I would say is a new favorite of mine!

After she left on Sunday, it was back to reality with a house that needed to be cleaned and a China cabinet that is nearing completion.  Look forward to an upcoming post on the China cabinet!

Brotherly Love

For those of you that haven't had the pleasure of seeing Chase and Abby play together, you'll enjoy this video that Greg was able to take.

Click play, and then click on the box at the bottom right of the video to make it full screen for the full effect.  The video also has sound!

Half Man, Half Woman

The Miller's, Deanna and Danielle, visited a few weekends ago.  We always love family coming in town and staying at our house, so all are welcome at any time. 

We have a game called Loaded Questions that we like to play with our family and friends.  It's a light hearted game where one simply rolls the dice, lands on a certain color, and reads the question on the card associated with the color.  The colors represent the categories of anything goes, personals, and hypotheticals.  When it's your turn, you will read the question, and those around you answer it, and then you pass it to a person to read the answers, and the person whose turn it is, has to guess who answered which way.  So, sometimes the answers are interesting conversation starters...

There was a particular question that brought us all to tears that I would like to further share with you.  The question was, "What was your favorite halloween costume?"

The, the answers were read, "Butterfly", "Grim Reaper", and "Half Man, Half Woman".

Immediately everyone started laughing, and "laughing" would be an understatement.  We were all bending over laughing, barely breathing with tears falling from our eyes.  But whose answer was it?  Deanna's, Greg's or Shayna's? 

Needless to say, Danielle guessed them all correctly, and I had to explain how my mother never bought our costumes, and we made them every year; however, Mom, I must ask, WHY?!?  How do you think of such interesting ideas to set me apart from all the other trick-or-treaters?

I wish I had a picture of the full costume, but my mom could not find one.  The lower half of the costume consisted of jeans on one side, and a skirt on the other.  As you can see from the pictures, I was wearing a nice necklace on one side, and a tie on the other.  The make-up and hair style were split as well.  Who knows, I was probably dressed in a high heal on one side and sneaker on the other and walked around like that all night long!

I hope you all enjoy, and I can't wait to play the game again with all of you. 
I love you, Mom, and I hope I gain your eye for creativity one day!