So I Married a Triathlete...

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Goals for the Rest of 2011


Okay, so this whole no goals for 2011.... well.... It just isn't working for me!  I like goals.  And it's nice to feel like I accomplish things by going back to the statement of the goals.  And really, I just like making lists.  So I have about three months left this year and these are a few things I want to finish.... (and Brian, shh.  Not a word! :) lol)

1.  Finish Amy's Quilt
It just needs the rest of the binding fabric pieced together and stitched on.  It's the small things. :)

2.  Finish the Craft Room/Office
I need to iron & hem the curtains, then hang them.  Apply the glass blocking stuff to the middle cabinet doors, paint the sign Brian made me and hang it up!  I'd also like to repurpose and hang something to store the mists in a better location :)

3.  Learn to Make Marshmallows
I need to face the reality that this has been on my list of things to try out for I don't know... like three years.  I bought a book and the necessary items.  Just never made them.  Time to cross this one off the list!

4.  Christmas Cards
I've been good about making them, I have not been good about distributing them.  They will go in the mail by December 10th this year.  If you didn't get one last year or the year before, it's because I didn't get them in the mail.  Would it be bad to stuff the envelopes with three years worth of cards this year?! ;)

5.  Finish Reorganizing Paperwork
For someone who's pretty well organized, my paperwork always seems to come last or next to never.  I need to finish cleaning this out and I don't want to continue carrying this bad habit forward any further!

6.  Finish & Hang Artwork in Laundryroom
Since the rest of that to-do list is really Brian's list.... I want to make sure I finish my part this year! :)  I have it all planned out in my head... now just to do it!

Brian also wants me to finish this item, so I'm adding it to my list:

7.  Clean Out Our Loft
It's become my junk room.  Problem is it doesn't have a door.... :)  I need to sell a few items on eBay or Craigslist, purge some stuff and generally clean it up.  It's not a small endeavor, but now that the living room is clean, I know I can finish this! :)

Did you have any 2011 goals?  How are you doing with them?

Friday, December 09, 2011

December To-Do List


Seesh... I better hurry up and post this before the month is half over! LOL :)

1. Watch favorite holiday movies:  Home Alone, Home Alone 2, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Love Actually, Elf
2. Bake cookies.
3. Host a Cookie Exchange Party.
4. Send Christmas cards.
5. Decorate our house.
6. Finish knitting Gabriel's Santa hat.
7. Repair Abby's quilt.
8. Shop for, wrap and (in some cases) ship gifts.
9. Celebrate Abby's first birthday.
10. Spend time with my family.
11. Spend time with my friends.
12. Listen to holiday music.
13. Build a gingerbread house.
14. Make Christmas ornaments with Abby and Creighton.
15. Make some craft with my sister.
16. Celebrate Mom & Dad's 40th wedding anniversary.
17. Christmas Eve with my Mom's family.
18. Make Christmas morning breakfast.
19. Photo shoot with Creighton and Abby.
20. Control my urge to eat a Cranberry Bliss Bar every day at Starbucks (so far, I've only had one!)
21. Make at least 5 cards and 1 scrapbook layout with my new stuff.
22. Make a December Daily album and blog it.
23. Blog six times on this blog (2 down, 4 to go!).
24. Read one book on my Nook. :)
25. Spend quality time with Brian at least 4 times this month (not watching TV!) - one down, three to go!

Sunday, December 04, 2011

A Plan for Our Loft

So I got a little distracted today by cleaning out in the closet.  Which led to planning the master closet which led me to the other problem child of storage in our house, the loft:

Sigh.  It's a mess.  And Brian wants me to clean it up.  And trust me, so do I.


So I need a game plan.  All we've got in there are three bookshelves, no blinds, nothing on the walls (including color) and a bunch of junk. Purpose of the room?  Storage of books.  Use of the sewing machine.  And the rest is a blank slate.

So.... I figured it out.  Defined it.  A place to sew, read a book and play games.  I think. :)  Here's my sketch:

I prefer the old school method.  10 inches equals one side of the graph paper square. :)

I want this rug in red:

This sofa from Ikea in gray:
Source: ikea.com via Amanda on Pinterest

This desk from Ikea:
Source: ikea.com via Amanda on Pinterest

And this color scheme:


I think once I get these pieces in place, I'll figure out the rest... the photos on the wall, the curtains, the pillows, the accessories.

Based on budget and time, I want to plan on doing this sometime next year.  I'm not sure what color paint to put on the walls.  What do you think?!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Week in the Life: Wednesday

Note:  This week I will be running journaling I wrote down each day during the week of July 25th + pics of stuff I took on those days. 

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

listening: to the tv
eating: tacos
drinking: 2% milk
wearing: jammies
feeling: exhausted
weather: gorgeous summer evening
wanting: to catch up on everything
needing: sleep
thinking: about this weekend
enjoying: having Brian home (instead of working in Felton!)
wondering: if I can get everything done

Woke up this morning to Phil Collins, Another Day in Paradise.  Love that song.  Scar with her head just outside of the covers snoring.

Breakfast:  Odwalla Chocolate Protein Monster shake
Lunch:  tuna sandwich on toasted whole wheat, goldfish crackers, raspberries, glass of 2% milk
Afternoon: cap'n crunch frapp from Starbucks
Dinner: tacos, glass of 2% milk


Just another day in the grind.  Phone calls with friends, Mom and Dad.  Text messages with friends and family.  Tossing a tennis ball on the front lawn for Scarlet.  Tuckin' Brian into bed early.  This week is flying by!

Great quote today that hit my e-mail:
♥ it.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Week in the Life: Tuesday

Note:  This week I will be running journaling I wrote down each day during the week of July 25th + pics of stuff I took on those days. 

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Brian had a later start time this morning, which was nice.  He left an hour before I got up instead of three.  I usually wake up to my ipod going off at 6:30 am.  I really like waking up to music better than a blaring beeping tone.  Much better way to start the day!  I also usually wake up to this one:


And a wagging tail, with lots of kisses!

Shower, dress, makeup, grab my stuff and go -- I'm not super fast the first few hours of the day.  But I'm getting better at moving myself in the morning.

Another long day at work....

The lunch routine these days is nice.  I come home, grab the mail, get greeted by the doggie, sort the mail, make lunch and either read my nook or watch something on the dvr.  Today it was watch Design Star on my dvr.  Love that show - even more now that David Bromstad is the mentor.

After a long day of purchase orders, budget corrections, paying invoices, answering questions, issuing park permits and getting more assignments from my retiring boss.

After work, I met up with a good friend, Leti, for dinner at Frankie's Grill.
My favorite at Frankie's Grill - the Grilled Romaine salad with blue cheese, bacon, grilled chicken and a balsamic dressing!

We had a good meal, a glass of wine and a great conversation.  It also reminded me of what I do like of living in a small town -- you run into people you know and it's nice when they pull up a chair and join the conversation for a while. :)

I got home from dinner, Brian and Scarlet ate the leftovers within 10 minutes, we had a good conversation and Brian went to bed.  I stayed up and watched Flipping Out.  Then promptly fell asleep in the middle of the episode.... and woke up on the couch at 2:30 am!  I was more tired than I thought!

Monday, August 22, 2011

Week in the Life: Monday

Note:  This week I will be running journaling that I wrote down each day during the week of July 25th + pics of stuff I took on those days. 

Monday, July 25, 2011

Many are familiar with Ali Edward's projects, including A Week in the Life, which started again today. I participated last year, but only on my blog.  This is an eventful week in my life, so I definitely wanted to play again this year.  So here goes....

Blah.  That's how today felt.  I was not feeling it.  It probably has to do with my bad sunburn I got yesterday washing the cars + weeding the front yard + forgetting sunblock.  Ouch.  The weekend was a lot of fun though.  Friday night, Brian and I went to the movies to see this:


Yep, Harry Potter the very last one.  It was so good, but at the same time, I'm sad to see it end again (it was a bummer when I finished the books and there were no more to read!)  Such a great story.  Uncharacteristic of us, we ate dinner at the movies... Brian had a hot dog, I had nachos and we shared a popcorn.  As we were leaving, I unintentionally dunked my right hand in the leftover nacho cheese as I went to pick it up in the dark and, naturally, I wanted to wash that off ASAP.  There was a family bathroom right across from our theater and I opened the door to find some guy in there who forgot to lock the door!  Hilarious!  I think he learned a lesson.... :)

Saturday, I got to hang out with Erin. 
hehe - we laughed so hard at this ridiculously long candle!!

We don't get to see each other much and I really miss the days where we used to eat lunch together almost every day.  We met up in Carmel and went to Tommy's Wok.... it was soooo GOOD!
Hot and Sour Soup - delicious!

Vegetable Potstickers - these were fresh, lightly fried and to.die.for!

My absolute fav, the crabmeat rangoon.

Erin got the honey walnut prawns which were super tasty!

I got the combo plate - fried rice, chow mein and broccoli cashew chicken.  SOOOO good!

Isn't this place cute too?!

We wandered the streets of Carmel window shopping before heading over to Pacific Grove to check out this bakery:

And get some of these:


Seriously, I can't believe I went so many years without trying a French macaron - what was I thinking?!  I'm addicted to these now - the best cookie ever.  Light, a little crunchy and absolutely delicious.  Worth hunting for a bakery that makes these!

We headed over to Monterey to wrap up the day with a little shopping.  I'm sad that Borders is bankrupt and closing.  We won't have any bookstores anywhere near us anymore.  I'm glad I have my new nook color, but I really will miss wandering the little Borders at the mall in Monterey and the big Borders in Seaside.  We also hit up Ann Taylor where I got a new shirt, cardigan and necklace, and Macy's where we killed our noses smelling perfume and cologne samples!  I had a gift card to spend there (thanks to Annie!) and I restocked on one of my favorite perfumes, Ralph Lauren Romance.

I finished out Saturday catching up with Brian on our dvr recordings, laying around on the couch, staring at our new entertainment center!

Sunday was busy with cleaning...  I did maintenance on our washing machine (including cleaning it), washed both my car and Brian's truck, pulled weeds from our front sidewalk and gutter, walked the doggie with Brian, and enjoyed our lazy Sunday.  Well, enjoyed everything but the sunburn I got for forgetting sunblock!  The Tour de France finished up and Brian was excited that his favorites, the Schleck brothers both finished on the podium and it was nice to see Cadel Evans win.

So back to Monday.... work is hectic right now because my boss is retiring in September, last fiscal year is closing this month and the new fiscal year has started.  After a really long and frustrating day, I came home to relax with Brian.  He's been working some early morning shifts lately, starting at 3 am and finishing at noon.  Today was one of those days for him, so he was sleepy.  Every night now, he's watering his seed packet flowers and the few berry bushes and tomato plants he has this year.  They look great!


I spent a lot of time on the phone tonight, catching up with family and a friend.  Talked to my mom, my Aunt Sherri about decor for Saturday's party in Placerville and Zarogina, my upline for Stampin' Up.  We always have great conversations about our mutual love for crafting, so it's never a quick phone call!  I'm excited about the classes and events I have coming up, so the day ended on a good note.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Scrapbook Layouts!

Here are the ten layouts I finished in Michigan a few weeks months ago!  I was a teensy bit obsessed with my new We R Memory Keepers Sew Easy tool.  Just a smidge.... ;)

Hope you're ready for this onslaught of layouts....

Up first, this layout of my sister's family last Christmas:
 I made two, the first one for Abby's album and this one for Creighton's album:
 And a layout about our decision to say goodbye to Darby:
 This is my niece Abby's first Christmas photo... :)
 Of course, I couldn't do a batch of Christmas layouts without doing one about Brian and what he always wants for Christmas....

Still need to go back and add some journaling:

Another almost finished layout.... just need to add some journaling:


And another Scarlet layout for the books :)

Had to make sure all the furry inhabitants of our house got equal treatment of course!
 A summary layout about last Christmas:

And a summary layout for Christmas 2009 too!

So that wraps up the layouts I did back in May.... it only took me until August to photograph them and upload them.... yikes! :)

Monday, August 15, 2011

Have you seen this?

I revamped my crafty blog and I'm now blogging over there again:


Amanda Sevall Designs
 

Also, make sure you update your RSS reader if you used to follow it.  I've noticed that the redirect to a new website may cause the old RSS feeds to be lost! Happy Monday! :)

Friday, August 05, 2011

30-Day Photo Challenge // Day Four: Favorite Color

Image processed with ShakeIt for iPhone.

Today it's red.  Tomorrow it might be something else :)

Info on the 30 Day Photo Challenge here.

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

30-Day Photo Challenge // Day Three: Clouds

Last picture for today and I'm caught up on the 30 Day Photo Challenge...

Photo proceed with ShakeIt for iPhone.

Not a single cloud in the sky today!

30-Day Photo Challenge // Day Two: What I Wore

Quick photo on lunchbreak for day two of the 30 Day Photo Challenge...

Photo processed with Instagram for iPhone.

Geez... my hair is messy, the house is messy... gotta get some cleaning done tonight! 

One more picture later today and I'll be caught up!

30-Day Photo Challenge // Day One: Self Portrait

I first saw this 30 Day Photo Challenge on Vee's blog and decided that I wanted to participate too!  I haven't done a photography challenge for awhile, so here's the list:


I'm catching up today, so here's my first picture and I'll be posting two more later today!

Taken with ShakeIt App for iPhone.

Self portrait taken while walking the dog.  I was hoping to catch her in the picture too, but no such luck.  She's quick when she's sniffin for treasures! ;)
Are you participating?  If so, let me know so I can see your pics and come leave you some love too!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Our Guest Bathroom

I wrote this post two years ago and never added pictures... better late than never?!  Here it is! :)

For months, I have been trying to figure out what paint color I want to pick. This process takes me forever! And Brian is usually quick to agree (no pink, red or purple and I get no complaint). Maybe that is why we have only painted two rooms in our entire house and the rest of it is white? Dunno. Probably part of the reason!  (Note... since I wrote this, we've now got four painted rooms inside the house, not two, and the outside of the house!)

So I figured, one bathroom at a time right now. Someday we will most definitely replace the light fixtures in all three of our bathrooms as we hate them and (I hope) we might tile all of the bathroom floors (in lieu of the linoleum from the builder).... but for now, this will have to do. Hoping to get the paint on the walls of all three bathrooms and done with the painting by the end of this year. We'll see how that goes! :)

So for the Upstairs Hallway Bathroom (we refer to it as the Guest Bathroom), Brian had the decor picked when I met him. I can recall a trip to Target back in our dating days where we acquired a shower curtain, trash can and bath mat. Since then, we have slowly collected the bits and pieces of the bathroom.... and that is how we wound up with a starting point of rubber ducks in our all white bathroom. Not my first choice, but six years of living with the ducks, so to speak, the little guys have grown on me.... I have debated the color to paint the wall for the last year and have finally arrived at Swan Sea (Behr). First time I've picked a color out of the color deck and Brian hasn't said a word.... I hope that's not a bad thing! :)

So here it is before.....
This is the view looking down the hallway into the bathroom.  See... lots of white! :) 

I didn't take pics until Brian had already pulled down the mirror above the sink, but this works :)  And I have to point out that I hate the light fixture.  It's in every one of our 2.5 bathrooms!  At least it's something Brian and I definitely agree on -- we need to get rid of them! :)

And this is the view from standing in the tub looking back to the doorway:
There is also normally a mirror above the sink, but I didn't take pictures until after we had taken it down... oops!

And getting ready to paint....


And here's the color I chose (and Brian agreed to!):

Side Note:  For months I tried to pick a color.  It took forever, but I finally found (of all things) a bath towel in Target that I loved the color of!  

 So I color matched it and it was "Swan Sea."  And yes, I took the actual towel into Home Depot and put it on the little color scanner! :)
See, perfect match! :)

Continuing along... here is the bathroom mid-paint job....
Sorry the pic is blurry, it's the best one I have!

And finally... what it looks like today...



This entire bathroom was inspired by rubber duckies.  Just for the record, this decor choice is compliments of my husband Brian, long before we met! :)

Our collection of rubber duckies!

 
Notice the "reading" material?!  It's hilarious!


I think this is my favorite thing - the handmade candles from this etsy seller!

And now for the remaining items on the "punch list" for this room:
The sink faucet fixture....

This light fixture, which let's just say is not my favorite!

And the linoleum floor... not my favorite either!

Yep, I still want to replace the floors, the lighting fixture and the sink + shower fixtures, but those are little fixes that can be done someday down the road. :) What a difference a can of paint can make! I'm in love with the color and ready to continue working on different other projects in the house.

So if you come visit and stay in our house, this is the guest bathroom!  What do you think? :)
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