Lavender Water: A How To Guide

I was lucky enough to head to Hillside Farmacy with my friend Christine and as we were noshing on lavender French macaroons (my macaroon mission will be posted in a different post completely, this is still a work in progress) she was saying how into lavender she said this summer.  Which reminded me of my attempt to make Honey Lavender Ice Cream last summer.  It turned out quite lovely, but my husband, not being partial to the taste of lavender in his food and my body not really being so good with the processing of glucose as of late, made making that ice cream a bit of a waste of time as far as future batches were concerned.  

My mom got me a thing of lavender hand wash for my kitchen sink and I do like to smell my hands after washing them.  Christine was saying she's been using a lavender spray this summer as a light fragrance.  Our common enjoyment of lavender first caused me to try and pawn off some of the giant bag of culinary lavender I bought on Amazon (see below) to make that ice cream which I will now never use, on her.  My next thought was, other than the obvious (sachets) how can I use it around the house?  

Another gift I got from my mom is lavender linen spray from Crabtree and Evelyn.  I will admit to spritzing our sheets with this stuff rather than changing the sheets once a week to buy us a few more nights until I get around to changing them (or as a stalling tactic until the maid comes and does it for me).  You can also use it in your laundry steamer or to spritz your clothes as you iron them.  But this stuff isn't cheap.  It lasts me a very long time, but it's still around $18 and doesn't solve my lavender surplus issue and it's not really intended to spray on your skin.  

So while I was shopping at Hobby Lobby for another project (painting a rug, whole other blog post) I picked up a spray bottle in the paint supply section for $1.50.  I perused some YouTube videos, I saw some talk about using distilled water or vodka and steeping the lavender in it and it seemed like a waste of vodka/that I would end up smelling like a drunken hobo if I used those approaches.  So with nothing to lose, I threw a handful of the dried lavender into a pint glass, filled it with water, and forgot about it for 2 hours.  

Later that night I came into the kitchen to get a beer and remembered my little experiment.  I strained the lavender out with a strainer and then ran it through a dish cloth to get out any fine particles.  I filled my little bottle using a funnel I keep for cooking purposes.  I think getting the organic matter out of the water is pretty important, otherwise I think it would start to smell rotten.  

So there you have it, my bottle of homemade lavender water.  My only complaint is that it's brown and I'm worried about it staining things, like say, a white blouse.  But I'd use it on my brown sheets or dark colored clothing and came back from yoga this morning and spritzed myself in the sweaty face with it and it was rather refreshing.  I think it would be nice to make up a few of these and put a fancy label on them and give them as hostess gifts, but I'm worried the brown color makes this a fairly undesirable gift.  What do you think?

Other uses for culinary lavender include mixing some with your tea leaves.  In 2007 I was in Sydney, Australia and sat down to tea at a delightful tea room and was served a mix of black tea and lavender.  I've been searching all over for it since and the closest I've come is a blend of Earl Grey and lavender.  I'm not a fan of Earl Grey, so I've been mixing some of the dried lavender in with my loose leaf English Breakfast and achieved a much more favorable result.  

Nursery Reveal

Here we are folks, the big nursery reveal.  Finally we are done!  First of all, we

 have our crib.  You will note that this is the same crib as seen on Young House Love.  They did a lot of crib research and wrote a lengthy blog post about it.  I was like, "Wow, they really invested a lot of time and thought into this whole crib thing.  That looks like a lot of work and their crib looks pretty awesome.  Sold."  For more information, read their post.  We got it at Walmart.  The paint color is Olympic's Butter which has grown on me.  We all agree that the paint color looks much better now that the room is complete and I think our baby will find the room cheery.  The mobile on the crib is a hand me down from a friend but you can find it at Pottery Barn Kids still.  Sheet is the Hayley collection sheet from PBK.  Crib skirt is a pink gingham skirt I found at Walmart.  Originally I had wanted the matching Haley crib skirt for 3x the price, but I put it on and you couldn't really see it so I figured cheaper and simpler were the way to go.

I won't talk much about the decal on the wall, yes it looks fabulous.  We got it on Etsy, but I wasn't happy with the seller (thus will not be plugging them) and left them negative feedback.  Plus some of the vinyl shrank, showing gaps between the segments of the tree trunk (which we fixed with a furniture scratch repairer crayon thing) and some of the leaves seem destined to fall off.  Also, the color scheme wasn't quite what we requested.  For the $100 we paid for it, not tragic and still adorable, but come on Etsy seller, WTF?

The rug I found online at Target.  The glider was a source of great angst and anxiety but fortunately we were able to find one with white wood for basically free.  We had planned to buy a $500 leather glider/recliner we could eventually use in our living room at the Room Store but when it came time to check out the glider A) was not in stock and B) they would not allow us to pick it up.  We'd have to pay $60 for delivery.  Yes, we are some cheap assholes.  We said thanks, but no thanks, and peaced out.  Next thing you know, we're walking our dogs and we come across this little stray chihuahua that develops a crush on Ginger and will not let her walk more than 5 steps without taking his nose out of her butt.  So we pick the little guy up, call his owner, who said his roommate must have let him out.  We kept the little guy at our house until he could pick him up on his way home from work.  As he's leaving, he hands D a $100 bill.  We stand in our living room stunned, I mean, holy crap, we're just doing what we hope other people would do for us, that guy must really love his dog!  So next thing we know, we saw this chair on Craigslist for $85, Darryl went to pick it up and we had $15 to spare!  When we're done, we'll probably sell it on Craigslist again and it's pretty nice and comfortable.  It retailed new for around $300 so that's cool. 

Next we have our book shelf full of books from Target and owl book ends from Pottery Barn Kids.  The table is one that I've had since college from Ikea that D painted white.  The lamp is really similar to the PBK one we registered for and didn't get, so I found one that looks EXACTLY like it at Walmart.com for literally a third of the price.  Seriously people, go to Walmart.com.  Plus shipping costs like 15 cents or something stupid cheap.  The whole crib was like $15 in shipping.

The curtain IS from PBK, a registry gift from my mom.  I think it was worth splurging on this item since it blacks out the window and I couldn't find a cheaper substitute anywhere that had the same look and function.  We saved money by only using one panel since our window is kind of small.

The dresser is another Ikea throwback from my college days that D and my dad painted white.  The changing table is also Ikea.  It's pretty sturdy and less than $70, so you can't go wrong.  The bins are pink gingham cubes I got from the Container Store. 

The Noah's Ark embroidery over the dresser is something my mom made while she was pregnant with me and hung in my nursery, so we reframed it for my baby.  Below it is my beloved childhood doll Lolly and the Sleep Sheep we got from our registry as a gift.  On the changing table is my childhood Cabbage Patch doll who has served as our "stunt baby" while we practice things like swaddling and breast feeding holds.  She basically fills in wherever Ginger and Petey cannot. 

The mobile is from another Etsy seller.  This design is called "Isabella".  You can save yourself a ton of money buy buying their kit and stringing it together yourself.  I did not do this (much to D's annoyance).  I just saw myself with a tangled jumbly butterfly mess, sitting in tears on the couch after 6 hours of trying.  I am not crafty.  So I bought it pre-assembled and it arrived in perfect condition.

We are so excited to bring our little girl home to this room!  Of course, she will be sleeping in our room for the first couple of months, but soon enough, she'll transition in here and I hope she'll adore it as much as we do!

Nursery Progress

This weekend my parents were kind enough to come to Austin and donate their entire weekend to slaving away in the nursery while I sat with my feet up. Okay, that's only partly true. My feet were up, but I have not been feeling stellar. I was diagnosed with a borderline case of gestational diabetes after failing both my 1 hour and 3 hour glucose tests and started on a diabetic diet and prescribed Metformin. One of the lovely side effects? Stabbing horrible gas pains in the abdomen despite consuming the maximum recommended dosage of Gas-X. Like grab a throw pillow and wince in pain gas. I'm thinking it makes the average person majorly farty, however with the restricted real estate around my intestines lately, I think it's just getting all stopped up in there. I would kill to be farty right now. I never thought I'd type that. 

Anyways, I did manage to go through a lot of the hand-me-downs from friends and family, wash them, and put them away.  The color I picked out for the nursery is very.....yellow.  I chose Olympic Paint in Butter.  The folks at Lowe's said it was VOC free and I think they were correct, the room has very little odor to it, perfect for a nursery.  I've always wanted a room that's a beautiful buttery collor.  However, it is a bit more yellow than I was expecting, so we're not completely sure about it.  It's also a huge change from the previous walls which were dark blue, but I think we were expecting something more muted.  We have no intentions of changing it, one weekend spent painting was enough thank you very much, so I'm hoping once we finish decorating the nursery it'll grow on us? 



Inside the crib with my childhood doll Lolly (in pink) and my other childhood baby doll Alberta, serving as the Baby Daniel stunt double for things where we can't wrangle a terrier into position.

Here's the inside of the closet.  It's a bit of a jumbly mess right now because the car seat is in there, once we pull it out and put it in my car it'll be less chaotic at the bottom of the closet.  But for now I have all our little dresses hung up with age specific closet dividers.

Above, a wide shot of the crib against the yellow walls.  The bassinet to the right is a vintage bassinet that will ultimately live in our bedroom for the baby's first three months.  This piece has been in my family for generations.  My parents were kind enough to test it for lead paint (it passed) and spruce it up for us.  It's been impossible to find a skirt to go on it, modern bassinets break apart where the tops come off.  Short of having a skirt custom made, I don't have a solution, but I figure Ginger will probably just hide out under the skirt so it might be for the best that we don't have one.  The blankets on the crib are ones that I had as a baby. 

The lower shot is of our changing table and dresser.  What do I put in the bins under the changing table?  I bought a pack of wipes and newborn diapers, but I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to put in the other bins.  More diapers I assume?  Lotions?  I'm sure I'll figure it out.  The changing table and dresser are covered in toys that were handed down to us.  I put them all through either the dish washer or the washing machine in a lingerie bag.  Some of them made noises and seemed like they may not survive the cleaning.  So far we look like we'll have a 75% survival rate of my cleaning shenanigans.  They were free and I'm sure they were all over the floor and in some other kids mouth and while I GREATLY appreciate the freebies, I wanted to make darn sure they were clean before I gave them to our daughter.  I'm going to let them sit out for a week, then turn them all over and let them sit for another week to make super sure they are dry and don't mildew. 

My mom and I also started to navigate the GIANT stash of bottles that were handed down to us.  We started with cleaning and sterilizing the Platex Ventaires and Dr. Browns as I plan on starting with those.  Our minds were a bit blown with all the parts and accessories, but also, someone was kind enough to give us the little baskets to wash all the pieces in the dish washer, so that was a huge help.  I'm being really careful to only keep one bottle type in play at a time, because I think my brain might explode if I tried to have too many rolling around, trying to figure out what piece goes to what brand bottle.  Plus, I guess normal people only try one brand at a time, then go out and buy a different kind if the first kind don't work to help eliminate any problems?  We are not normal people.  We have been greatly blessed in the bottle department. 

So the room has a LONG way to go, there are a lot of decorative elements that we will register for and continue to hunt for, plus a few more weekends ahead of me where I still have to sort through and wash the hand me downs.  But for now, I'm very relieved, especially because sometimes women with GD have complications that require them to deliver early, that we have a lovely start under our belts!

Happy New Year!

We had one of our most low key New Year's celebrations this year, maybe it's the pregnancy hormones, but maybe I just realized how super duper blessed we are.  Saturday I spent most of the day in the kitchen, cooking chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and sprinkles (YUM!) and the Barefoot Contessa's Greek Salad Recipe.  I added some lettuce to the salad, since D isn't fond of weird veggie only salads.  I also used some of the olive oil we brought back from Tuscany for the dressing.  I hate how Ina Garten is always saying "use 1/4 of a cup of good olive oil," implying that her viewers typically buy some sort of subpar ingredients on a regular basis but since you're making her recipe you should step it up a notch?  Maybe it's just me....

Anyways, I brought half the cupcakes over to a get together at D's brother and sister-in-law's house in the late afternoon.  We visited and had snacks and the boys grilled.  I mostly housed the chips and dips, using pregnancy as my excuse for my usual gluttony over anything dippable. 

After the sun set we headed home to change clothes, feed the pups, and then head to NYE bash number two (yes, we're very popular, kind of a big deal, I know) where I brought the rest of the cupcakes for dessert and the greek salad I'd prepared earlier.  We went over to Christine and Parker's for an AMAZING dinner complete with an impressive spread of hors derves, wines, egg nog, a delicious prime rib, yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes, and kale au gratin.  Suddenly, I wished I'd made a more impressive dessert, maybe cupcakes are a bit low brow as a finale for a spread like that, maybe I'm a bit nutty because I'm preggo, but they were moist and totally hit the spot.  I ate two.

We headed home right after midnight, this preggo was A) exhausted and B) *TMI alert* rather gassy.  Like grab on to something wincing in pain with gas cramps gassy.  It was so bad that I had flashes of worry that I was in labor or something.  Then the reality set in that oh-my-god-labor-is-going-to-hurt-that-much-and-more-f*#$!  So we came home where I could take the appropriate medications and wait out the storm in the peace of my own bed.  Also, note, that this isn't  like me being all farty and gross, it was just pains, I would kill to "be all farty".  The baby seems to be jamming up all that business in my digestive tract so it's not getting out, thus the intense stabbing pains in my abdomen, causing me to excuse myself from social gatherings, lest people interpret my periodic gasps and winces of pain as I clutch the nearest pillow as actual labor.  I blame that damn greek salad and all the chopped up veggies.... 

 

New Year's Day we woke up, decidedly un-hungover, and spent the day doing chores around the house.  I picked out a paint color for the baby's room.  There were multiple trips to Lowes.  The paint department guy there officially knows me as the crazy pregnant lady who bought WAY too many sample jars of paint and made off with roughly half their paint chips.

Left to right:  Sliced Cucumber, Lilting Laughter, Yellow Bliss, Butter, and on the bottom, Vanilla Wafer

The Lilting Laughter came off very pink and while I loved the Sliced Cucumber, we realized our ENTIRE house is either green or grey and that it wouldn't kill us to use a different color in one effing room.  Vanilla Wafer is a bit too close too white, so it's in between Yellow Bliss and Butter.  Butter looks best in the daylight, Yellow Bliss, best by artificial light.  We're still trying to decide between the two, but I'm sure it'll look great whichever one we choose.  As you can see we have ridiculously dark blue walls in that room, so a good coat of primer will be required. 

While I was having my color summit in the nursery (attendees included two terriers and D), I also made a big pot of my Guinness Stew.  This is one recipe that I can genuinely claim I made up.  I researched some other versions online, but it was inspired by something D had skiing one time and came home and told me about.  I made some tweaks from the last time I made it.

-Brown the meat in half a stick of butter.  Toss the meat with 2 tablespoons of flour, salt and pepper, then throw it into the melted butter.  I used 2 lbs this time.
-slice up an onion, 4 cloves of garlic, two carrots, 8 oz of sliced mushrooms, and half a lb of new potatoes, sliced in half.
-throw it all in a pot, add a can of tomato paste (4 oz-ish?) pour in a can of Guinness, add a cup of water and one packet of onion soup mix (I made this in the past with 2 packets, but I'm trying to cool it on the sodium being preggo and all and it was perfect)
-throw in some herbs, thyme, a couple bay leaves, some dried parsley, basically anything that sounds good and isn't nailed down
-put a lid on it and slide it into a 350 degree oven for 2 hours (I took it out once to stir it half way through)
-D likes his sauces thick, so I thickened the sauce with a couple tablespoons of flour, but that's totally optional
-I served it with buttermilk biscuits, but if you kept the sauce thinner, some rice or egg noodles might be nice.

And there you have it, flying by the seat of my pants, making it up as I go and never the same way twice, but it always turns out damn tasty and D is a very happy man.    Which is good because he spent the whole day rekeying our locks, replacing door knobs, fixing our brand new fan (which was crappily made, engineer husband to the rescue!).  And that is the very unglamourous way we rang in the new year, but it made me realize how blessed we were to have so many good friends, plenty of food on the table, jobs that allow us to have such nice things, a beautiful home, a darling child on the way, and of course, two of the snuggliest and most entertaining pups on the planet.  Sometimes you have to stop and wonder what you did to deserve all this, you know?

Hallway Makeover

Our house came with an interesting wall pattern in the entry way which spills into the living room.  On top, white stucco texture, on the bottom, weird 1970's grass that was painted over a pink salmon color.  Annnnnd popcorn vaulted ceilings to boot.

This week we're having someone come in and retexture the stucco and remove the weird grass stuff.  We're doing a two toned grey color scheme with a white chair rail.   They will also be scraping down the popcorn and retexturing our tall vaulted ceilings in the living room, hallway, and the baby's room.  We are really excited to update this eyesore to something more contemporary.  I'm looking forward to updating the door knobs, light fixtures, fan, etc to give the room a more polished look. 

We figure we'll be in this house for a while, at least until we are blessed with baby #2, but for now we wanted to improve on D's most hated room.  Can't wait to show you the progress as we go!

Closet Woes

We live in a small house built in the late 70's.  Thus we have limited closet space.  Since I lived here first by myself, I called dibs on the master bedroom closet and refuse to share it.  (Before you feel too bad for D, he has like 3 closets in the study and hallway outside our bedroom.  Plus we both have dressers.)

Behold, my closet in all its "glory".  I use that term loosely.



My closet is 5x5, which is pretty small for a master bedroom closet, so I have a rule, no new clothing article can come into it without something going out of it.  However, with my expanding waist line (and hips, and rib cage, and boobs) I can't wear a lot of my favorite closet staples (all of my carefully aquired Antrho clothing collection, tear).  I know I'll be able to wear them around June, after my body starts to return to its original shape, but for now, I can't wear a lot of what is in my closet yet have no room for the new maternity wear I'm accumulating.  So my mom helped me go through my closet and dressers, weed out a bunch of things that I'll probably never be able to wear again (Note that I anticipate my ass shrinking, but not back to a size 4 probably seeing as it wasn't quite there when I got pregnant in the first place.  Time to let go of that dream.) for Goodwill.  The other items, I bid a temporary farewell to as I boxed them up in a giant Rubbermaid container and put them in storage for the next 6 months or so.  After the baby, when I return to work, I plan on swapping out the contents of that box for my maternity clothes.  I think this is a good strategy for other space strapped preggos out there, it's too annoying to get dressed for work each day and have to try on clothing article after clothing article that is too snug, doubling my getting dressed time. 

My question for those of you out there who have had children or are currently pregnant, did your foot size change?  I've got a pair of spendy designer shoes on my Christmas wishlist and I'm wondering if this is a foolish time to ask for them?  So far all my shoes seem to fit the same.  Just wanted to make sure we're not about to waste a boatload of money as these. 

Yard Makeover

Our yard's grass situation was looking sad.  We had some drainage issues last year and it took a serious hit.  So we embarked on this yard project to help it out.  We've never laid sod before, but we did our best...


The hubs rented a tiller and tore up the dirt....












We tried to preserve some of the grass that looked like it was revivable.... 


Success!







Now we water....



AND I found this neat rock with fossils in it in the yard while we were working on our project.



Hooray fossil rock!

Happy Halloween!

Great minds think alike, Jill at Confessions of An Enginerd had the same idea as me this weekend, revel in all the fall awesomeness and document holiday decor.  Here's what we've got going on at the And Your Little Dog Too house:

Here's our front porch, it's sound activated and zips back and forth making spooky sounds.  I'm going to put a flashing strobe light on it Halloween night.  Also, you can't see it here, but we have Halloween lights around the door that turn on at night.

Yard sign by porch.

I put a new planter full of orange mums by the mailbox.

Our hearth with purple mums, lights from Pottery Barn circa 2006, various Halloween chachkes and a pumpkin that will soon be a Jack-o-lantern.

Bowl of gourds on the end table.

Jack-o-lantern candle holders and new liquor cabinet.

Halloween cupcakes on cupcake plate on the kitchen table, crystal bowl of apples and smaller bowl of Autumnal candy corn mix.

 

There are some other Halloween knickknacks around the house but this was all that I thought was worth picturing.  I'm pretty proud that I was able to infuse some Halloween cheer into our home.  Up next this week, putting together my Halloween costume.  What are you going as?

Dog Days of Summer

(not one of my pups, random interwebs pup, but he's cute!)

To be honest, I feel pretty guilty about writing this post.  I'm a big fan of living in the moment and my favorite time of the year is summer.  But for some reason, I am SO READY FOR THIS SUMMER TO END.  For many reasons, this summer has been a frustrating one.  Our kitchen renovation was a bit stressful/involved combined with minimal free time since we were invited to one million weddings, baby showers, wedding showers, bachelor/bachelorette parties, reunions, etc.  Now, I guess that means that people like us and we're blessed to have all these friends, which I am grateful, but after a while not being the master of your own weekends, well, they just start to feel like another form of WORK.  I was off doing something fun most weekends but after a while, constant social obligations stop feeling fun, which is something I didn't realize until this summer.  I am definitely suffering from social burnout.  I was so concerned with being there for my friends and not wanting to miss any of the fun, that I forgot how much I need down time.

Combine that with a bit of a bumpy patch in my actual work and weather forecasts all next week of up to 104, kind of makes me just want to fast forward through the rest of this month.  So here's what I'm looking forward to in September.

Gardening-I have been out working in the garden beds as often as possible, but it's one million degrees.  I've been prepping the beds for the fall planting and getting my seedlings in the ground so we have good production when it cools off.  Combine that with having to be extra vigilant with the watering schedule so the seedlings don't scorch and shrivel, let's just say I'm looking forward to reaping some of those rewards.  Planted string beans, flowers and will be adding broccoli and cauliflower transplants in Sept.

Getting Back On a Regular Workout Schedule-Summer's social calendar has kept me busy or out of town (or hung over) most weekends.  I have had to double time my home chores in the week/been so drained after work that I have been spending most of my weeknights doing crap around the house.  However, with some recent changes at work and having my weekends back, I'm looking forward to getting my life back in balance.

Some Welcome Pampering-I've recently discovered Groupon and Living Social so I've booked a nice facial and eye treatment as well as planned some lovely meals out for me and the hubs.  Plus I'm looking forward to buying some fall clothes.  With some recent weight fluctuations (see lack of working out above) and financial strain from renovations, I've had to cut shopping and some restaurant dining out of my usual routine.  It'll be nice to buy a couple new pieces for fall.

One More Wedding-Yes, I've been complaining about having too much crap to do on weekends so this may be a contradiction, but C&P's wedding weekend will be fun if I can avoid letting work get in the way.  I'm doing my darnedest to get ahead at work so I can relax and celebrate their nuptials.

Vegas!!!!!!-I'd be lying if I said the promise of this trip isn't what's keeping me from sticking my head in the oven right now (okay, I know, I'm being so dramatic).  We're going at the end of the month with 2 other super fun couples.  The weather in Vegas that time of the year is ideal and I know we're going to have such a good time.  I am a big believer in weekend getaways and Vegas is my favorite spot, can't wait!

Kitchen Before And Afters

Here you have it, the befores and afters of the first phase of our kitchen remodel.  Next on the agenda is some plumbing tweaks on our refrigerator water line and the delivery of our new counter depth stainless steel side by side refrigerator.  Darryl also surprised me with a new TV that he will mount on the wall so I can keep up with my shows while embarking on long cooking projects or just plug my iPod in (so long CD boombox).  Finally, by the end of the month we're going to scrape down the popcorn ceiling, repaint, and replace the heinous fan in the breakfast nook with a nice modern fixture to bring it in line with the new look of our new modern kitchen.

We decided not to replace the countertops, instead we're going to try and repair some of the blemishes ourselves.  I think the high gloss white laminate contributes to the ultra modern feel.  Darryl also was super handy and installed undercabinet lighting.  I cannot sing the praises of that enough, do it, it's probably my favorite thing about the kitchen besides not having my drawers fall apart every time I pull out a fork.  Also very much looking forward to having greater freezer capacity.  I've always wanted to make things like casseroles ahead and keep them in the freezer for a rainy day/day that I don't feel like cooking.  A lot of pasta dishes can be popped directly into the oven frozen and baked.  How awesome would it be to come home from work and do that?  Plus our new fridge has a wine rack and a can rack so I think that'll help us stay organized. 

I'm not going to lie, this kitchen project has been exhausting physically, emotionally, and financially, but while the kitchen isn't huge, I can't wait to have a beautiful new kitchen to entertain in when it's done!

Kitchen Makeover

 

 

 

Well folks, there you have it, the before pictures of our kitchen.  Starting June 18th we kickoff our kitchen remodel.  Spent all day yesterday shopping for a new stove and over the range microwave and cabinet hardware.  We're working this in 2 phases.  Here's the plan:

Phase I, June 18-22

• Sell old stove on Craigslist to make room for our new 5 burner stainless steel gas range with Accubake and a self cleaning oven.  Also, no more annoying broiler drawer down by my feet.  That's a good way for a terrier to scorch their tiny noses.  New stove will be safer.  We went in fully intending on buying a basic cheapo stove and this is what we came out with. 
•  We're having a contractor cut the cabinets above our range to accommodate our new stainless steel microwave.  It's bigger, it'll free up some counter space, it does more things than you can shake a stick at. 
• We're having our drawers completely removed and rebuilt and our cabinets refaced with stained walnut. 
• Repair water damage in cabinet below sink.
• We got all new modern looking brushed nickel hardware.
• We're converting the panel below the sink to a tilt out where we can stash away sponges so our counter top doesn't look as junked up.
• New light fixture over kitchen table.

Phase II, fall-winter 2010

• New countertops, either a granite or silestone. 
• Repaint, scrape down popcorn ceiling.
• New sink and faucet.
• New stainless refrigerator.
• New tile backsplash.

We were going to do it all at once, but we wanted to space it out a bit.  Doing home rennovation, even when you're not doing the work yourself, is daunting but I think it'll be all worth it!

Deck the Halls Y'all!

Here are some photos of our Christmas decorations. On the mantle, my mother sent us these fab stockings from Crate & Barrel. I adore the little snow dog ones for the pups. I'm hoping the matching tree skirt goes on sale after the holidays, because $70 for a tree skirt? Highway robbery. Note the packages on the mantle, we had to put the dogs' squeaky toys and Darryl's gift of summer sausage and cheese for his dad up there, lest we come home and find 2 terriers, stuffing all over the room, with a belly full of Pepperidge Farms, lying on the couch.

This is our tree, I wasn't that impressed with it, but I think I did a bang up job decorating it, Charlie Brown would have been proud. Note that the star is perpetually off kilter. Inevitably, once or twice a week, one of the dogs will ram the tree, sending ornaments flying, and knocking the star off kilter. I've given up.



And here's Darryl's attempt to garland the flat screen. Ignore my dressing mirror awkwardly sitting next to the TV....it doesn't belong there. Anyways, hope you are enjoying your Christmas week!

I Give You Our New Bed!

We got our furniture set, more photos later since there was a bit of a debacle with Darryl's dresser not coming in. But this is the much argued about bedroom set. I think it needs some Euro pillows, no? Maybe in white? Or cable knit white?

Home Improvement

So I know I've been off the grid lately, but here's what I've been up to. Step one, gut entire bedroom. Take paint from pale blue to Silver Sage. Replace fan, repaint cream trim to snow white trim. Scrape down popcorn ceiling, retexture ceiling multiple times due to multiple failures, sand, retexture, fail, repeat, fail, repeat. Rip out carpet, have fits, get drunk with Christine as an attempt to drown out home improvement misery. Nurse massive hangover, realize you measured for new carpet wrong and don't have enough when installers show up. Rewire light switches and replace all drawer pulls and handles.

Spend roughly 2 months searching for perfect bedroom set. Once again, get drunk with Christine. Resume shopping for furniture with massive hangover. Try not to throw up while testing out mattresses. Have nervous breakdown in middle of Bassett store, cave and end up buying set you had previously deemed too expensive due to sheer exhaustion. Wait for delivery, ruminate on areas of room that need to be touched up, especially the ceiling (bane of our existence). Remove all furniture from room, cram into tiny guest room so you can spend the first week of December fine tuning the details prior to furniture delivery this weekend. Try not to lose mind in mean time.

Oh and did I mention we need all new bedding? Spent 6 hours today trying to chase that down and so far, no dice. Why is it so impossible to find exactly what both of us want? FML.