A Rare Day Alone.

In the name of days that can be selfishly taken all for myself, I think there would be a few ways I would choose to spend it.  First and foremost I say set me on a beach, or poolside, with palm trees and a really good book and that's all I really need to declare the day perfect.

Another way would be on an adventure with my family, exploring something or somewhere new and just enjoying a "first time" experience with the people who are mine.

I would also take a day of creating.  I have no end of projects that I want to work on: let me get my hands into a new cake design (here or here), or onto the house that I'm turning into a witch house, or how about a new painting?  I've dabbled with some watercolor recently, but have two ideas for a canvas that I really want to get rolling.  I also have three makeups rolling around in my head and a brand new airbrush that I really want to play with.  I have a couple of sewing projects (tweaks, because let's face it, most of my "sewing" happens with a hot glue gun) that are piled up next to my sewing machine as well.

I found myself with a rare opportunity to be home alone today, and I knew that I did not want to waste it with errands and cleaning like I usually do when I find myself with free time.  Free time is such a relief when you feel you have so much to catch up on, but frankly, today I wanted to catch up on the things that make me happy.

The biggest and most urgent project I have pending is my happy space.  My space where I will make all my creative magic happen.  My space where I can lock the door and all my supplies will be left untouched by children thieving hands.  My space that is all my favorite things and colors and I didn't have to compromise with The Man on the decoration of, and use of space in (though normally we decorate well together so I'm not actually complaining about that, it's just my space).  With all the projects that I want to work on, the one thing I'm missing is a great space to do it in.

Since we moved the three big girls out of the room they shared in the basement (here), and spread them out in the bigger portion of the basement (because teenage girls need room), The Man graciously turned over the now empty room for my use (we'll ignore his pile of stuff taking up a full wall of one side of the room... for now).  The room has been mine for over a year now, but it's just been filling up with clutter.  It's become the catch all of things we don't know where to put.  Not to mention all my different art supplies, and the lack of any type of organization bins or shelves or anything.  Also, kids.  Kids who use said supplies and then leave them lying wherever they feel like... all over the floor and counter.

Plus, the paint in the room is still catered to 9 and 10 year old pre-teen girls.

The room is more of a stress pit for me than a creative, safe haven.

So today, in my rare day off, the only errand I ran was for chick-fil-a lunch and Coke while I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.  I have a very clear vision of one wall that has a counter attached to it.  I'm using the leftover gray paint from when we painted the office (gray being my favorite color) and will paint the wall gray, covering the pre-teen rockstars who loved music so much, and will hang my giant antique mirror on it.  This will become my makeup space.  West gave me an incredible makeup box for christmas so all I need is a stool for my models to sit in and an air compressor and that space will be set up prime for makeups.

But while I'm thinking about it, I feel I also need a shelf along the top of the wall so I can display all our wigs and hats on styrofoam heads.

I plan on creating zones throughout the room for my different projects.  The makeup zone will be the perfect beginning.

Also, I've watched an embarrassingly high amount of Face Off. today.

All in all, my hands are covered in paint and my head is full of makeup daydreams.

I declare today's rare day alone a success.

Ode To My Color Blind Man

The Man tells me this morning, "we better get our stuff for Thanksgiving this week."

I started to laugh.  "You think?"

Thanksgiving is on Thursday and we've been invited to spend it with West's family at his aunt and uncle's house.

West realized what he said and laughed.  "I meant today.  We better get our Thanksgiving stuff today."

"We better get if before the weekend, that's for sure.  Friday won't do us any good."

I've been left feeling contemplative at the beginning of this week.  With a holiday that naturally makes you turn to thoughts of what you're grateful for it was already on my mind.  But after the weekend that I had, gratitude seems to be doubly felt by me today.  

Over the weekend I attended a funeral for the spouse of one of my colleagues.  She lost her husband to cancer and it left me feeling tender as I left her home on Saturday.   To compound that I also received knowledge that a life long family friend drowned in the Great Salt Lake in a boating accident late Saturday night, leaving behind his young wife, 4 year old daughter, and 11 month old son.  My co-worker's spouse was expected as it was evident that he was losing his battle with cancer, he was advanced in age and had lived a long life.  I didn't know him personally, but I see the effects that it's having on my friend.  The drowning broke my heart.  It was unexpected and he still had a full life ahead of him.

I felt raw yesterday as I thought of these two ladies whose husbands have passed on.  Expected or not, long life lived together, or a long life planned together, it's a loss that I'm sure I can't comprehend.  

Nor do I want to.

I feel it's almost cliche to say it but today, this week, and for the rest of my life, I am so thankful for my husband, The Man, West.  

He makes my dreams come true.  

We live life to its fullest.

He loves me unconditionally and leaves me no doubt that he does.

I know trust and security.

I have worth because he sees it in me.

Over the weekend, as we repainted and laid down a lot of the new wood flooring, we talked about how to decorate the TV Room.  The Man has an opinion on how he wants the house to look and so I don't have free reign in the decoration process.  Which I'm okay with, I'm glad we can work on it together and have our house turn into a home as a combination of both of our efforts to make it a beautiful, comfortable place.  

I asked The Man what accent color did he want to do in the TV Room?  I was thinking maybe coral or chartreuse?

So babe, just for you.

I found it.

{source}

Just to be more precise, according to this, I was talking about green or orange.

Thank you for loving me.  I would be so lost without you.

Before Pictures: Office and TV Room

The plan for today was to post the vlog I did with my dad.

But I had issues getting it to upload so I'll have to play around with it again tonight and get it up tomorrow.

Sad news, I know.

I guess I'll ramble on about my Veteran's Day then.  It was one of those days when I found myself all alone in my house.  Those occasions are rare with a family as big as ours.  But The Man still had work and The Circus still had school so it was just little ol' government employee me staying home for the day.

It was so nice.

I love my family.  Truly.  But sometimes it's nice to be given a day when I can pretend that my time is actually my own and I can eat a chocolate orange without sharing (or hiding while I eat it), I can listen to whatever music I want, I can watch whatever TV show on Netflix that I want, and I can go anywhere I want to whenever I want to.

I don't have to tell anyone where I'm going or go over a list of things that need to be done or not done by anyone while I'm gone.  I don't have to feel guilty if someone doesn't want to listen to my music or watch my show.

And I don't have to share or hide my chocolate.

Did you know that there is practically no one at the grocery store at 11:00 on a Monday morning?

I had a pretty decent list of things I wanted to accomplish on my day off, and I didn't get it all done.  I never feel like I have enough hours in my days off.

But what I did start doing is painting.  We're doing more remodeling in our house.  Our bathroom is pretty much done.  We just need mirrors and then I'll post the before and after pictures to shock and amaze you.  Our kitchen and dining room have been tweaked with paint and new light fixtures (here), leaving us with a Barbie kitchen.

Now it's time do redo the flooring on the main level of the house.  This is what The Man and I have chosen to give each other for Christmas.  Wood floors.  And since we're getting new floors, we may as well repaint the other rooms on that level while we have the old carpet in so we don't have to care about drips, right?

So I spent some time at Home Depot stocking up on paint, and getting some color swatches.

And then I went home and took some "before" pictures, even though we'd already moved the furniture.
By this time The Man was home to help out.
And home to debate with me on how we should decorate and what colors we should use.  Sometimes it's frustrating when we can't agree, but when we finally hit a plan that we both like, it's exciting and it looks so good.

So we're going to turn our office from this:

To something along these lines:

{Picture source here, idea found on pinterest here}

He's coming around to liking my idea of gray walls :)  Especially now that we're getting rid of the nasty horrible terrible navy blue carpet and getting wood floors.  He's even going to do giant white baseboards and white crown molding for me.

I can't wait!

We won't mention that we agreed on this plan of action after I'd painted two walls taupe. 

I don't mind repainting them, especially if it means repainting them gray.

And we're going to turn our TV room from this:

To giving it the same color scheme we used in the dining room:

This is not our dining room.  After pictures will come after we do our floor.  pic source here

With lighter tan walls and an accent chocolate brown wall.  Hopefully coupling that with new flooring will lighten up the feel of our TV room.  It feels so dark all of the time.

Merry Christmas to us!  Even if it is a month in advance, we want to get it done so we can enjoy it when Christmas really does roll around.

i live in a barbie house

or at least in this point of the kitchen painting that's what it feels like.

See what I mean?  That pink counter top is taunting me.  Especially now that we've lightened the cabinets.

I have pride issues.  I'm not going to stand for that pink counter bullying me for much longer.  I have back up.

Watch out pink counter top, I've discovered laminate paint especially made for changing the color of your counter tops.  We shall see who has the last laugh.

Bwahahahahahahaha.

To refresh your memory, here's some before pictures of the kitchen.

It first started when the bathroom above decided to sprout a waterfall, not a drip or even a leak, but a waterfall through the ceiling of the kitchen below it.  Strangely this only happened when Sean took showers. 

Note the drop down ceiling and lighting.

In the process we had to tear out the entire ceiling, thus getting rid of the fluorescent lighting and making the ceiling taller.

For a very long time our lights hung by wire on nails.  But we needed the exposed kitchen ceiling to have access to plumbing and wiring for the renovation of the bathroom above (which is D.O.N.E. and I'm thinking that should be tomorrow's post.  We are in love with it and so excited to not have to deal with it anymore).

Our kitchen felt dark.  We ended up removing the cabinets above the bar to open up the space.  The cabinets were a yucky brown and even though the walls were a pale yellow it was just sort of a gloomy space.

Looking at the pictures of the "now" stages at the beginning of this post, I love it.  I love how open and bright it's become.  We added a new chandelier over the table, and replaced the cabinets over the bar with pendulum lights.  We raised the ceiling and added can lights everywhere else.  We're not finished with the cabinets yet, they're actually an off white and we're going to sand the edges to create an antique look and then paint the counter top a darker tan.  We might even go so far as to make it faux marble.  The Man found a diy on how to do that with the laminate paint.  We'll also probably add another small chocolate wall somewhere so it doesn't feel like you need sunglasses on when you come into the room :).  And to round it all off we'll do wood flooring.

So even though we currently have a Barbie kitchen, it has come such a long way.  I couldn't be more pleased.  We've been working so hard over the past month to get the bathroom and the kitchen finished up so we can refinance and I'm proud of what we've accomplished together.  The Man is amazing.  Have I told you that before? He is.

{If you liked this please share it by using the buttons below in the comment section.  Thank you for reading!}

The Rock 'n Roll room

I took some "before" pictures of this room... but that memory card has long since disappeared. It was a plain white room with nothing in it but a long desk attached to the wall. And all of West's computer modems and the foosball table. We took the foose table out, with great effort I might add as the legs had previously been broken off and now where very strongly glued back on. The three girls (Cas, Jayme, and Brynn) went with me to Home Depot to pick out a color together. They decided on a mint green, and then decided on a music theme (which then, after a trip to Hobby Lobby for wall accessories, became a Rock n' Roll theme, but that wasn't until after all the painting). I figured it would be fun to take a spotlight and trace the shadows of the girls on the wall in singing poses, and add music notes around them. West built a triple bunk bed onto the wall, incorporating dressers and between the two of us... wa-la! Here's the older girls' rock n' roll bedroom: