Kitchen

I frantically run out the door each morning - I'm late! Why am I always late?!. I get to the end of Sheridan and no one seems to want to let me turn onto Central. I finally get on and the light turns red. Four red lights later and I merge onto Independence, except it's not independence - I'm trapped in bumper to bumper traffic. Five deadly merges later and I get onto Wilkinson. Things slow down a bit. Camp Greene approaches and I see Kitchen.

I hope for the red light

For a brief moment I stop hearing about the atrocities in Syria and I stop seeing the brake lights around me and I stop thinking about the meeting I'm 10 minutes late for and I stop. I like the calm, faded mint green paint. The way it looks against the bright blue or soft gray or eerily white or still dark sky. The way it suddenly comes to a halt when the corner turns to bright orange inexpensive brick. I like the steps up, up, up - where's it going, where's it been?

That sort of explains how I feel about our kitchen. It has potential but getting to it will be a chaotic journey.

Our kitchen is far from my dreams but it's better than where we started.

We made five significant improvements that may end up being all we get to before moving.

1. Doors closing it off to the rest of the house were removed
2. Wallpaper was removed and replaced with cheery blue and white walls 
3. Fridge was moved to achieve the desirable kitchen work triangle
4. Old, low-quality desk and sideboard left by previous owners were merged to create additional (tall person!) counter space
5. Pot rack was added over the sink

Some additional photographic evidence is below. There are no photos of the whole kitchen yet because it's never clean enough long enough for a photo shoot - but maybe our new cleaning lady (woot!) will help change that.

Also - the garbage disposal was replaced by our home warranty after Alex tried dutifully to fix it using YouTube videos, Tim (our summer roommate) installed our ice-maker, and Alex had a mustache. Each of these were scheduled for their own blog post but considering they all happened in 2013 I thought it was time to spill the beans.

Bling! Bling!

There's a whole lot of bling happening around here.

First, the big news:

Ahhhhhhh! It's been over a week and I'm still grinning stupidly.

Now for news that is significantly less exciting, but still pretty blingy:

We finally got a chandelier in the bedroom. We love it. Yes, we. Alex is totally digging it. It makes a significant difference in the feel of the the room. The best part - it was only $100 because it's acrylic. Fooled ya, didn't it?

Here is what the bedroom looked like on Saturday:

And what it looked like on Sunday: 

Magic! Not really, I just have a really awesome fiancé that makes things happen. <----fiancé!!!

Living

As mentioned in our Christmas tree post, we love our living room and spend a lot of time living in it. We made early progress with a simple paint change but then the room sat for months with free mismatched furniture. The rearranging we did to accommodate the Christmas tree brought renewed energy to getting the room done. Here is our progress:

The always fun before and after shots:

And here's what we're still hoping to accomplish:

I mentioned the idea of a new couch to Alex today (the one we currently have is technically a friend's)...he responded with a groan. It took me a year to find the right rug and chairs, so he's probably got a year to warm up to the idea.

26 Years of Alex

Our $200 electric bill from January would suggest it's been cold here. True, it has. But, there have been many warm days mixed in. On one of these warm days we celebrated Alex's birthday. A keg of beer, corn hole, football, Settler's of Catan, cake, pizza, and friends. Alex was a happy man.

A squared T squared

Notice anything different about the two photos below?

T-squared (Talla's Turtle) and A-squared (Alex's Aligator) took a nod from their Uncle Cam (Colleen's Alligator Mascot) and dressed up for the holidays*.

A little background on Cam. Last year at Christmas we arrived at Alex's mom's house and found a lit up alligator in the front yard. I'll let Alex tell you the story about his pet alligators (that's right - plural!) another time. Over the course of the year Colleen dressed the alligator up for each holiday. 

Colleen learned I like turtles (I was known as Talla Turtle growing up) so that same Christmas we received alligator and turtle yard ornaments for Sheridan. They lived a boring life in our front yard for most of the year. 

They were screaming for a more exciting life so I decided to paint them shiny gold. A quick cleaning and a few coats of high-gloss gold later and we had ourselves fancy yard ornaments.

I don't think these guys will dress up for every holiday, but they seem to be enjoying their Santa hats for now.

*For those of you that noticed the abundant leaves instead of the snazzy Santa hats, here is photographic evidence that the yard was clean for at least an hour. Take a look at all those leaves about to take assault on the yard!

We Have Fun.

Sometimes we forget we're grown ups.

Charleston, SC, November 23

Blue Ridge Parkway, NC, November 9

Our Tree

On the morning of Sunday, December 1st our living room looked like this:

We spend a lot of time in our living room. We love the energy of it. We both agreed our big window was screaming "put the Christmas tree here!" We were nervous about rearranging the room since we loved it the way it was, but a few hours later it looked like this:

The love seat was moved down to the living room and the room was opened up. We like the new arrangement significantly more that we thought we would. We can't quite decide if we just like it because it's a change or if we like it enough to keep it. We do know the new arrangement increases our need for an area rug and some behind-the-couch art. The room is looking too naked. But - we created the perfect spot for the tree!

You'll notice I painted a little "happy holidays" banner on the window in front of the tree. I immediately wanted to re-do the banner and add additional stuff to the tree - it's now a week and a half later (an only a week and a half until Christmas) so I've accepted both as done. It's funny how much more I can enjoy our Christmas decorations once I just accepted their imperfections.

When Alex helped me decorate my tree last year he shared that he didn't really like my ornaments because they weren't personalized. We've now started the popular ornament-a-year tradition. Last year Alex started things off by getting me a mistletoe ornament. This year's ornament is a miniature sweetgrass basket we picked up in Charleston a few weeks ago.

I'm hosting two different holiday gatherings this week. I'm looking forward to sharing our tree with some friends.