bountiful

I am gonna be working on cooking some veggies this weekend. Actually just made stuffed eggplant... so I have a lot of veggies on hand.

I put them in a basket and it is just such a beautiful sight.

BHG and the patios

I am a huge fan of Better Homes & Gardens. HUGE. I have been through lots and lots of home magazines but this one is certainly my favorite right now. The better homes it is and the gardens is particularly relevant because what do you know, we actually have plants now.

This image from their August issue of a bookcase and some succulents:

Has led me to start a knock off version like this in the front patio. Please do not judge me based on this, I just wanted to place it and see if I liked the general idea and I do.

I'm sure Jason will have more to say about our yard when he comes, we need his landscaping expertise badly. I better start earmarking all my BHG issues for him....

balcony for two

I'm trying to make the balcony more appealing for Matt and Me. Such a wasted space it seems.

I've added a few $5 rugs:

Hung up a birdhouse:

And of course the aforementioned painted stools.

My idea now is to get one of them planter boxes that hang over a balcony and plant some herbs or flowers, something to give it some life.

I WANTED a veggie garden but with el perro in the backyard and his recently noted propensity for digging up a plant probably leaves us with a lets rethink this whole veggie garden in the back patio idea.

I think he was just voicing his landscaping opinions. Messily.

home peek

Have I got a scoop for you guys.

We're having a home peek. Sometimes referred to as an open house, a housewarming, blah blah blah, you know that people just want to get in there and judge for themselves and eat some free food and look inside your medicine cabinets.

Go ahead narc. I'm clean.

Anyway that's what I went with when I made up the invite for our event:

You are the first lucky souls to see it. I haven't even emailed them out and of course I will email you guys the actual one with the address (which means you'll have to leave me a comment saying you'd like to come, I have all your emails).

Now, baring in mind it's me we're talking about and I am an arrogant bastard, is it too arrogant? Or is it more tongue in cheek/witty/sayingwhatwe'rethinking? Also, is it too vague? It's sort of what I'm going for and I'll clarify more in the email but...

Please provide feedback for you see, I have no tact or what's that word, etiquette.

one less project

The chairs are now bright yellow.

Do we like?

grey stool split

After they were painted the four stools got split up into other rooms of the house.

One went into the drum room to hold a lamp and headphones:

The other got placed next to the white couch in the office to serve as both side table or foot rest when typing on the couch:

And two of them managed to stay together and now live on our balcony:

carpel tunnel on my finger

Dude.

Spray painting six chairs and one side table will hurt your finger. The trigger finger. I would switch to my left hand and prop the can up like an old geezer. Not like John Glenn though, that man went up into space at the age of 77, he would have spray painted 14 chairs without tiring.

But enough about the space program.

Yes, I went nuts and spray painted the game side table. I promise you I had it planned all along.

And look at these sexy beasts. ROWR!
Wonder what they will look like in the kitchen.

tacks, tape, and spray

Last week I tried to paint some stools with oil based paint. MISTAKE.

Forgot to take off engagemnent ring. MISTAKE.

Wore shorts. MISTAKE.

Today I remembered I had regular glossy paint and finished them. I love the color but hate the finish cause well, I half assed it. Oh well, lesson learned.

Today I picked a corner of the front of the house and put plastic covering all around it using tacks and tape...
bagged the legs like I learned from Door Sixteen...
And used spray paint. Duh EvY.

Putting the primer on the previously dual toned chair (that yes Man-D, it drove me nuts) took about a minute. And it was dare I say it, fun.
Right now I am taking a lunch break and about to bag the five other chairs about to get sprayed. Stay tuned for the big reveal...

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month one

Don't you love summer? How days go by so fast you don't know what day of the week it is.

Well I finally checked what day it is and it has been one month exactly we've been at #18.

-- mobile blog. spelling irrelevant.

not to be ignored

In all the excitement of the dog I have to give paws to the other two furballs.

All my life I wanted a cat. Unfortunately, I lived with my mother she both hates cats and we lived in apartments that would not allow cats. In fact, when we got LJ & Gadget, I'm not sure we were allowed to have cats in that apartment either but nevertheless they have been with us when we lived in Whittier, La Habra, & now La Mirada. Here's Gadget at the top of the stairs:

They both have quirks but LJ in particular is a freak. That yellow scrunchi in his mouth is one of his favorite toys. He drags that thing into our room, onto our bed, and up and down stairs. Sometimes we toss it and he brings it back. Most times he just watches it. Last night I watched in utter delight as he brought this fluffy liner (not pictured) from the cat carrier in his mouth all the way down the stairs. We always find this fluffy liner lying around so we assume LJ drags it around but I'd never seen him do it. It was so cute and I just wonder why he does it.

LJ also likes to sleep near me. This is the sight I wake up to sometimes:

This is the sight I woke up to this morning as he lay his head on my leg.

Besides allergies, I don't see why more people can't be cat people.

flat & black

This mantle by Door Sixteen is amazing in its simplicity. Just the right amount of accessories:
So I took my cue from her and proped up some stuff that are more my style on the tiny ledge.
That black chandelier was actually part of a frame and I ripped it out. Matt asked if I liked flat black shapes of things.

"Silhouettes? Yeah, I do"

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granny panties & sparkly dangles

We're going to a wedding in a few weeks. I have a purple dress I want to wear and was rummaging through my jewelry looking for good earrings for the dress. There was a pair that once upon a time I must have loved but now they were too Spanish dancer esque. Ole!

Hence this:

Easy really. Used the pliers to remove the extra dangly jewels to the right and was voila, a simpler looking earring to the left. You'd think this project means I like to save money and you'd be wrong. The past week has been too much shopping. Must quit.

Back to the aforementioned purple dress. Or more importantly me IN the aforementioned dress. Ahem. Since I've been married I have gained 10 pounds. Ten pounds you say, ha, I could do that in a weekend. Don't try to make me feel better.

And while I am working on the slimming down part, I must give a shout out to these suckers that I read about on another blog to wear while you are in the process of slimming down.

No, not Spanx, these are ASSETS by the same chick that made Spanx. Suckers look ridiculous on and I feel like Bridget Jones with giant enormous granny panties but they work at sucking in those wobbly bits. You can grab a pair for your own at Target. And you can thank me later.

In private.

steps

There were a great many pictures taken on our wedding day of my husband.

One of my favorites (by Phil Eastvold):

Rummaging through over 1000 wedding pictures and choosing enough to fill two albums is a daunting task. Also emotional, reliving a very very very happy day.

moon honey sticky paper

Well today I got around to that crazy task of both contact papering my kitchen drawers and printing bridal shower, wedding, and honeymoon pictures. I did two drawers and decided to put off the rest. I know it's gonna be worth it but ugh...

The task of printing the pictures will take a few days. I'm printing them using my canon photo printer and it is slow like... The machine gets too hot, it runs out of ink, it runs out of paper. Know what though? I got extra cartridges and glossy paper cause of work so this is costing me zero dollars, just time.

So far my favorite two honeymoon pictures are the following because well, I took them in the bathroom as we were getting ready to go out to dinner and Matt is looking cool and I am looking like an eager excited nerd in a cute dress.

I like that you can so obviously see me holding the camera and that Matt is wishing I wasn't.

yes master

The master bedroom caused me the most amount of paint color grief but I am happy to report the paint color is fantastic and I am very happy with the room as it is right now:

It is our nerd paradise. With pictures of Disneyland rides on display (above and below) and pictures of yes, Buzz Aldrin and his footprint on the moon by the window.
A giant sliding door window with balcony that we rarely use cause its too dang hot to go out there.
A girly side for me with the clock from Ikea I've been wanting forever and some cute lacy votive and bedside decanter and a bloomy orchid.
And since we have enormous built in bookcases downstairs, the ones in here are mainly for display which I have kept fairly bare cause Matt didn't want a bunch of crap crowding the bookcases just for crowding sakes, which I agree with.

I have uploaded more pictures of the room to our picasa web album: HERE

There are also pictures of the master bath in there, which by the way, fills me with a sense of extravagance since we have TWO SINKS. Who needs two sinks? I dunno, but I like it.

outdoor dining

I badly wanted an outdoor table so I got one at Target for $30 bucks. Now that I had the table I used it as an excuse to make fried quesadillas, arroz, y limonada de fresa.
The catalyst for the strawberry lemonade was the new mason-ish jar mugs with handles I got at the T-get 1/2 off for four of them. Finally feels like summer around here.
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woof

We took Lebowski to the vet yesterday because he's been hacking and stuff. It was important for him to learn what it's like to sit and wait for your doctor to see you. One of those life lessons ya know?Vet said keep an eye on him after his pills are done if he's still doing it, bring him in.

Best part of the visit was the doctor telling us whoever had estimated that Lebowski was six months old was smoking the ganja, okay maybe he didn't say that, but the vet said he guesses Lebowski is about a year and six months AKA fully grown.

I got a big grin on my face when he said that and Matt was happy too. The vet said most people want to hear the opposite that the dog is a puppy but not us. Look at that bushy tail!

cushions for the tushes

A few days ago I bought outdoor pillows from World Market for what I thought would be our future outdoor patio set. Unfortunately the patio set was sold out, which saddened me. Still, I put the cushions on the chairs and it actually helps a little with the comfort of sitting on metal.

I also bought striped lounge chair cushions that I paid too much for. I know I did: $40 each. It was worth it. They're striped green and so comfy that I took a nap in them when the sun shaded that area. It was delicious. Especially when the breeze kicked in. Yum.

framed

Matt & I were at Target buying frames for some art I'd purchased and he asked the question all men ask when their wives are purchasing picture frames. "Don't we have frames for these already? I'm sorry, I just assume we own every possible picture frame size on earth."

I understand but what he didn't understand was that in order to truly make your 5x7 pictures pop, you should mat them to an 8 x 10 picture mated for 5x7.

It's a pair of prints of treehouses. These pictures were purchased on etsy from a seller named atwhim who Ali and I love. BTW etsy is a terrific place to buy just about anything. Everything there is either handmade or hand chosen so if you need a custom present (i.e. Jill trying to get Emily a mother's day present which Emily loved) it's a great place. I had a lady make handmade tissue holders I gave as wedding thank you presents. Anyhow, here's close ups of the prints:

I also bought a frame to fit our wedding vows and put our wedding picture next to them. Awww

all i really needed were three days

I had been feeling that with all I had to do at home I would need a week to do it. I guess all I really needed were three days.

1) coat closet, done.
2) office closet, done.
3) garage, done

The garage part was a double whammy cause I asked Matt if he could help me move the cars so it would be easier to clean in there and he did one better. Pulled both cars into the driveway and WASHED them.

What a team.

A new furry member of our family has been gagging and has puked a couple of times so we are taking him to the vet today. I wake up every morning and hang with him, give him his pill (in a pill pocket which I highly recomend) and watch him. Still has not barked once.

-- mobile blog. spelling irrelevant.