Tuesday, October 19, 2010

We won!!

Roxie and I won first place in the Howl-O-Ween Costume Contest. Yep. The judges were quite impressed that we wore matching costumes, and who doesn't love the 80s?


(in case you're wondering, I made her legwarmers out of the fingers of gloves!)

The event went really well - and there is still time to bid on a dog house, the auction ends at 5pm this Saturday (the 23rd). You can check out photos and current bids here.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

It's been awhile!

But instead of telling you what's been going on for the past few months, I'm gonna tell you about what's happening tonight!

Camp Barkeley HOWL-O-WEEN tonight from 6-8pm at the Mall of Abilene. We'll have photos from 6-8pm and a costume contest at 7pm. Roxie and I are SUPER pumped. All proceeds go to Camp Barkeley. I haven't talked much about the dog park here on the 'ol blog, but it's been a long hard year of fundraising. We started this project in August of last year, and I just can't believe how far we've come in such a short time!! Our Grand Opening will be November 20th at 10am. Can.Not.WAIT.

I decided that I'd dress up in Flashdance style, but I wasn't sure what Roxie was going to go as - and then I thought, surely it wouldn't be too hard to dress her in 80s stripper/welder attire as well, so....

I made her a little grey sweatshirt out of a pair of girl's sweatpants, and (since she's super tiny after her trip to the salon yesterday) her legwarmers are made from the fingers of gloves! I cannot wait to show you how she looks!! But for now, a photo of the outfit will have to suffice:

And here's mine - and imagine big curly hair - and yes that's an IKEA mirror that I have still yet to put up on the wall, seriously. I will one of these days, OK?

If you aren't busy tonight, bring your pups and come out and support Camp Barkeley Dog Park!

Monday, August 23, 2010

Polyvore Mini-Editor

Saw this on The City Sage blog and it's like window shopping from your desk, LOVE! Check out the styles she's loving for fall right here: Polyvore Contest! Win $1000 with the Perfect Fall Outfit!

So start shopping and create the ultimate fall ensemble, and you are eligible to win $1000 from Polyvore! Here are the styles I'm loving, and I want to go shopping. Like, now.


Powered by Polyvore

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

A Much Needed Vacation, Part 2

So...part 2 is a bit late. Haha. Thursday took Roxie and I to Galveston, we of course had to stop a few times to ooh and aah at the tallness of the trees - they just don't grow 'em like that out here!


After fighting the insanity that is Houston traffic, we finally arrived! Seriously, how do you Houstonians put up with that every day?





Our hotel was right across from the water, but sadly there was no beach where we were staying (pretty rocks though!). Stayed in on Thursday night and watched the basketball game, and then Friday morning we got up and made our way to the beach.

I entered this photo in Shutterfly's Summer Freedom Contest. Vote here!

It was a bit quiet mid-morning, which was nice. Roxie really seemed to like the beach (especially barking at and chasing the seagulls). She wasn't entirely fond of the water, but didn't really mind it either. I rented an umbrella and a couple of chairs and settled in with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. After slathering on 30spf and sitting under the umbrella for the better part of 3 hours, I was burnt. Crazy burnt. Lobster burnt. Back to the hotel, cold shower, and then a very painful trip to Wal-Mart for Aloe Vera. And yes, I was one of those people. You know the ones. You look at them with pity because they were stupid enough to get crazy-lobster-burnt. *hangs head in shame*

Saturday I was planning to head down the coast and go to the Shrimp Festival in Port Aransas, but due to my very red skin, even 2 minutes out in the sun was painful. So instead, I decided that I'd just drive, head north and west towards home.

This sign seriously cracked me up. So much so that I had to take the exit, turn around, and go back in order to get a photo of the sign. Apparently it's a street name. Too funny!

We meandered our way to College Station and stopped in at the George Bush Presidential Library. I didn't get to spend much time there (no pets allowed, and it was pretty hot outside).

And a brief photo op for Kyle Field. It does look rather intimidating. :) BOOMER!


But back to vacation. I directed the TomTom to point us toward Temple and we headed that way, via some windy roads - and one rather creepy abandoned house. I actually stopped to photograph the tree (there's just something about those trees that draw me in) and I noticed the house. A little Stephen King-esque. Good thing it was in the middle of the day.



Finally made it to Temple and Roxie was VERY excited to try out their dog park, but sadly there was not a soul in sight. Which was rather strange for a Saturday day afternoon.

We made a brief stop in Lampasas for some dinner at the oh-so-delicious Storms and then headed for home.
It was a lovely vacation, just the two of us. No schedules, no plans, just wherever the wind blew us. We'll have to do it again soon.

Monday, June 21, 2010

A Much Needed Vacation, Part 1

After the craziness of the last few months, I decided that a road trip was in order. I bought tickets to see Imogen Heap a few months ago, and so last Wednesday afternoon I packed up the car (along with Roxie) and we headed to DFW. No schedules (other than Immi of course), no appointments, nobody to see...we were just gonna make a beeline towards the Galveston coast and spend a few lazy days.

Imogen was purely amazing. I was not prepared for how incredible she was! If you haven't heard of her, look her up. Now. Drop everything. NOW, I said! Insanely talented.

She plays the keytar for Pete's sake. Tell me what's cooler than that! She also does an improv song - she polls the audience for time signature, key, etc and then makes up a song on the spot. She's donating all proceeds from the live improv songs to a local charity, for the Dallas show it was Dallas Habitat for Humanity. Absolutely awesome.

Thursday - en route to Galveston.

Friday, May 21, 2010

The Floors, Part Two!

As Dad finished one room, Mom and I would get to work cleaning. Sweep, shop-vac, vacuum, big dust mop, and then microfiber dust mop. I decided not to stain the floors, because I really loved the tone of the white oak (it antiques as it ages). I went with a water-based poly, as it dries much quicker than oil and doesn't smell nearly as bad.

Start in the corner farthest from the door so you poly yourself out of the room. Mom cut in the edges with a brush and I followed with the synthetic applicator. Go with the grain of the wood, and always keep a wet edge (this helps avoid lift marks). They recommend 3 coats of poly to make the floor durable, and you'll want to scuff sand with 220 grit sandpaper between the final two coats.

After several hours of sanding and cleaning and sealing, two weekends of hard work, here's the final product:



I'm SO happy I decided to do this instead of hiring someone to do it (though I'm not sure my parents would agree, haha). But I saved a TON of money and I have the satisfaction of all of our hard work resulting in beautiful floors.

The living room is the only room not done, but that's on the to-do list for this week.

A big thank you to my folks for spending so many hours helping me.

If you are thinking about doing this, I recommend visiting Russet Street Reno and looking through her instructions. I used those as a guideline for doing my floors. Very helpful! Thanks Sara!

The Floors, Part 1

Do you remember what the floors looked like when I moved in? Carpet. Old carpet. Old carpet that appeared OK upon closing, but after a few weeks the newly shampooed smell wore off. No matter, the plan was always to yank it out and reveal the gorgeous (hopefully) wood floors underneath.

Roxie dog. She's ready for the carpet to go.

This lovely carpet was in the living room and all three bedrooms.

With the help of my amazing parents, we spent a few solid weekends pulling carpet, staples, nails, tack strips, sanding, sweeping, sanding, sweeping, cleaning, sealing....well, you get the idea.

Good riddance carpet!

Close-up of the LR floor.

The floors were in OK shape, but there were a lot of stains, scratches, stickers, paint, glitter...all of that needed to disappear.

Scraping at a stubborn sticker/paint in the pink room.

I rented a drum sander (we ended up needing it 2 separate weekends) and we got to work. Though not a difficult task, it definitely was dirty, dusty, and very time consuming. We sanded each room multiple times, starting with the lowest grit (30) and moving up (100). It is a very good idea to tape off the room as you're sanding, otherwise there will be dust EVERYWHERE. Oh, and turn off the a/c and tape off the air vents too.


You also have to sand the edges with a hand-sander where the drum sander won't reach. After the rooms have been sanded with all grits (finishing with the 100), and the edges have been sanded, it's time to clean, clean, clean!

Stay tuned for Part Two and the reveal!!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

I Heart Faces

I heart them. Go check em out.


And I just entered the 'Celebrating Mom' photo challenge with this photo. There's so much happiness there! Love it!


Cornerstone sings the National Anthem (take 2)

Here's a better video of us singing the National Anthem at the Ruff Rider's game. Even though you can't see me (you can hear me!). :)

Friday, April 23, 2010

Cornerstone sings the National Anthem

Here's the video on YouTube. Forgive the grainy-ness, Mom was pretty far away. Also, forgive my uncle singing in the background (boooo!) ;-)

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

…still painting, and the floors

My parents came in again this weekend to help out, and here's what we got done:
  1. Painted the upper half of my bedroom (above the paneling) a gorgeous dark teal color (semi-gloss). It's Ralph Lauren's Vermeer, VM130.
  2. Painted my dressing room a pale shade of pink, Behr's 150E-1, Delicate Blush.
  3. Dad pulled the carpet and tack strips in all 3 bedrooms, HOORAY!! The floors are in pretty good shape, there are a few boards that'll need to be replaced on the wall where the laundry area is (must've leaked at some point), but I'm confident that I can sand 'em and stain 'em myself, with the help of this lovely lady.
  4. We loaded all of the carpet and pad into the truck and dumped it, it was GROSS.
  5. Put up a shelf in the laundry room and moved my washer and dryer from storage in there (sooooo good to have clean clothes!) I'll post photos of that when it's all finished.
  6. The DIRECTV guy came and installed my satellite. And again, HOORAY! I've got more than 6 channels! However, they don't offer local channels in my area, so I had to file a waiver or something in order to get NY or LA stations. Weird. But yay, I have TV again!

I'm nearly done painting, just a few things here and there that I need to finish.

  1. Paint paneling with white semi-gloss (hopefully this will only take 1 good coat) and fill in the cracks between the panels.
  2. Stencil the upper walls in my bedroom (and find a stencil) in Ralph Lauren's Impressionist, VM129.
  3. Touch up ceiling and trim, everywhere.
  4. Paint neighboring west wall in the living room green.

And on a non-house related note, the singing group I'm in (Cornerstone) got to sing the national anthem on Saturday at the Ruff Riders game. It was SO FUN, and one of the 30 before 30 things I got to check off my list (which I'll be sharing in a post soon). A busy weekend, but a productive one (with some fun stuff thrown in).

Now back to painting…

Friday, April 02, 2010

And now for something completely different…

Yesterday I received a small package in the mail at work. Now, this is nothing new and different (since I'm the one that opens all the mail), but this was addressed to me, and as I've ordered several things for my new house in the last week or so (wallpaper samples, etc.), I was excited to open it.

Lo and behold, however, it was this lovely box:

Hooray!! My film is here! The Impossible Project has been hard at work for several months, and last week they unveiled their first line of film to replace the no longer available Polaroid film, and I cannot WAIT to use it! I've been scavenging for old Polaroid cameras recently, and hopefully out of the 4 or 5 that I've acquired, at least one of them will work.

Stay tuned!

Monday, March 29, 2010

SOLD!

As of 3pm on Friday, I am officially a HOMEOWNER!! Hooray!!! I tried to keep this one as quiet as possible, after what happened with the first two (see this post).

But now, it's official! And isn't it just adorably cute? I think so. I wasn't all that thrilled with the yellow exterior, but it really has grown on me over the last few weeks, and now I love it!

Mom (God bless her, she's amazing!) came to town and went to the closing with me, and then worked tirelessly all weekend helping me make decisions and paint the kitchen and living room. Speaking of which, I really had refrained from making any sort of design decisions, I didn't want to jinx anything this time. So when it finally came time to pick out paint, I just couldn't decide. And then we went to Target. Thank you Liberty of London, for making adorable things! I bought two of these lampshades and decided on a sage green for the living room and a buttery yellow for the kitchen.

Where did I get the lamp base, you ask? Why, it was a $4 find from Goodwill with a few coats of glossy pink spray paint. And I LOVE it.

I'm really pleased so far, and I can't wait to tackle the rest of the house. Painting first, and then I'll move on to the carpet and the gorgeous (*hopefully*) wood floors underneath.


Stay tuned for lots of before and afters, rants, raves, and overall crazy excitement over my very first house. Woohoo!


Next project: the bathroom.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Happenings

108 days. That's how long I've been on the hunt. There have been several possibilities along the way, but really only 3 viable contenders.

The first.
1400 square feet
Lovely wood floors in several of the rooms
Den with a fireplace
Workshop in the back
A giant yard

This house had so much potential. It was the ultimate DIY/Renovation. Too much to take on for my first house? Perhaps. But I was excited. But then there was the inspection, and the flooded laundry room, and the electrical problems. Sigh. Money pit.



The second.
840 square feet
Fresh carpet and paint
1 car garage
Lovely backyard full of mesquite trees
Great neighborhood with no immediate neighbors

Significantly smaller, but the neighborhood was great, it had a garage, lots of updates, AND they had yet to paint the outside so I got to choose the colors! And the backyard was just begging for a deck to host parties and bbq's. 2 weeks prior to closing she decided she was too attached to the house and pulled it. She was certifiable. And if I ever see her in public...


The third.
1100 square feet
1 car garage
3 bedrooms
Hardwood floors under the carpet
Big kitchen

Could this be THE house? The floors will need to be refinished, hopefully they're in good shape. It's bigger, has new kitchen counters, a recently redone bathroom, and the neighborhood is good, and right in the middle of town. This house could definitely be IT.

I'll keep y'all posted.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Oh, football, how I miss you...


*check out more hilarity here*

Friday, January 08, 2010

My take on the Big Game

I know this will come as a shock to many of you, but I wore a burnt orange Texas shirt yesterday. Before you freak out, let me explain.

My Mom and Grandpa are both very fiesty UT fans, and somehow I managed to be a die-hard OU fan (even through the bad years). There were many OU/TX weekends endured, and most of those (while in the Turner household) were spent apart. This was best for both of us. However, in recent years both my Mom and I have begun to root for each other. This is rather unheard of when it comes to the OU/TX rivalry. Maybe it's because my hatred has been geared toward another team, or maybe it's because I've lived in Texas so long, or perhaps it's because I've garnered a great respect for Mack Brown and the way he coaches his team.

I don't own anything burnt orange. In fact, I don't think I have anything even close to that shade in my closet. But all of that changed on Wednesday evening. I guess the cashier could see my inner conflict, because she gave me 20% off of that burnt orange Texas shirt.

Last night I went to my coworker's house to watch the game, where the mood quickly took a nosedive when Colt got hurt. There were almost immediate mumblings and grumblings about many things on the UT side, and all I could think was how quickly they turn on their own. Now granted, I was an outsider. I may have looked like a UT fan, and I am in many respects, but at this point, I don't have the emotional attachment.

I constantly reminded the Debby Downers that yes, it sucks when you lose your starting QB early in the game (take it from someone who completely understands), but you have to move on. You can't wallow. Wallowing = losing. But wallow they did. And don't get me started on that shovel pass. Seriously? Knee the sucker and take it to the locker room.

The second half proved to be much better for the Horns, after what I'm sure was a emotional and heartfelt halftime peptalk from Mack. Gilbert even got the Horns within 3 points. I thought they just might pull out a spectacular come-from-behind miracle, but then Gilbert was blindsided deep in Texas territory and that sealed their fate. He did a phenomenal job, and I'm sure will be a fantastic QB next season.

Yes, had McCoy been in the game it may have had a different ending. But we'll never know. Give credit to Alabama, they managed the win (though they didn't do it with National Champion swagger). There should be no asterisk. No more what-ifs.

Let's put 2009 behind us, and hope that 2010 is bigger and better, especially for the Big 12.

Oh, and I wore my OU turtleneck underneath the Texas shirt. Boomer Sooner.

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

The Holidays...

I was robbed this year. Not literally, well, kind of. Let me splain...

The great OK/TX blizzard of 09 ruined my Christmas plans. I stayed in town on the 23rd to have dinner with some friends, and when I woke up on Christmas Eve there was a lovely blanket of snow covering the ground. It worked out perfectly for a photoshoot I had that morning, but it ruined any chances of being home for Christmas. In Abilene, we had lots of rain and then snow, but further north they had a few hours of sleet before the snow hit. So...Roxie and I spent the afternoon wrapping presents and watching Christmas movies on TV. It was my first Christmas sans family!

I was determined to get home, so I packed the car and left town just after lunch on Christmas Day. It was smooth sailing once I passed the Abilene city limits, the roads were clear and dry for the first 70 miles or so. But as I neared Olney, the roads got a little icier, and about 10 miles or so from Wichita Falls they were absolutely awful. It took me almost an hour to go 10 miles. Yeah. And I was even driving behind a truck that was scraping the roads, and it was still horrible. Now, granted, I do NOT drive a very weather-friendly vehicle. Hey, it's made for it's stunning good looks and speed, OK?

I got stuck twice, but luckily there were lots of people out on the roads and a few were kind enough to stop and help push me out of the ice and snow. I managed to make it to my Aunt's house, completely exhausted and stressed out. I was SO thankful to have a place to stop and get out of the craziness. The next morning Roxie and I took off for Oklahoma, and after a slow-going 20 miles or so, the roads cleared and all was well. I made it home Saturday afternoon, we had a fast and furious Christmas celebration, and I got back in the car and headed back to Abilene on the 27th.

Last week was spent packing and moving. My parents (God bless them) came down on Tuesday and were a tremendous help. I would not have been able to do it without them. Heck, they mostly did it all without me (I only had Friday off of work). If you look closely, I'm back there in the middle...I'm looking happy because we were nearing the end. I have WAY too much stuff.


I'm staying with a friend for now (while most of my stuff is in storage). I'm not sure where I'll be going next, which is exciting and scary at the same time. Do I stay in Abilene, do I move somewhere entirely new and different? The possibilities!

So a blizzard robbed me of Christmas, and packing/moving robbed me of New Year's. Fun, right?