Private

My blog will be set to private in two weeks, please email me at nvoshell@nelsonlabs.com or leave your email address in the comments below if you want to still be able to read it.

Sorry I have to do this, but I feel like I need added security in my life now. Once my blog is set to private I'll post about the fiasco that made me change my life around.

It has come no further...or is it farther...

I would love to be telling you right now that the guest bedroom is in the final stages, but that would be a lie. We haven't done a dang thing since Sunday.

Monday we had really grad plans about hard working and being covered in red paint, but alas we were bitten by the lazy bug and watched too much TV instead. We did at least make it into the room after dinner to check out the second coat on our sample pine piece, but all the work that was mustered up was me saying, "We really should work on this tonight." as I closed the bedroom door behind me.
Yesterday John sanded the sheetrock ceiling mud and I really didn't feel like cooking so we ate at Iggy's. After dinner we headed next door to Yogurtland (Hi Sister!) that ended up being devoured while we relaxed on a park bench. This adventure didn't drop us back home until 8:30 PM and Good Eats with Alton Brown was calling our names.

I'd like to tell you that we'll be working on it tonight, but I don't know what the future holds. John may or may not be sanding sheetrock mud so that might mean I may or may not be second coating the pine. Who knows? I do know that I have some laundry that needs to be put away, dishes to wash and pet hair to be vacuumed up, maybe that's what I'll be working on tonight.

Weekend Lowdown

Friday night I did something to my back, not sure what but I couldn't move without throbbing pain. I slept on the couch (for the 3 hours I could actually sleep) since it molded to my back better than our mattress.
Saturday John and I were suppose to go to a Pirate Party but because of my back I couldn't finish my costume :( and my back was hurting too bad to  enjoy myself. So instead John worked on the guest bedroom and I helped a smidgen.

John had to tear out the moldy sheetrock so he set to work doing that. For a 6 foot section it sure was kicking his butt, we soon found out that they doubled the sheetrock so it was an inch thick! I thought maybe they did it for a sound barrier, no they did it because the first layer had wallpaper and they were too lazy to take it off.
Once he got the sheetrock off, it took him no time to get another piece up. While he did that, I first coated the pine paneling pieces with a clear glaze. The pine paneling is a kit, you buy sections of just the paneling and they're unfinished. You also have to buy the trim kit for the base molding, chair rail and door trim.

That evening Makoa found his bed. :)
We bought Makoa a bed a few weeks ago when we decided he was over the worst of his chewing phase. He thought it was an awesome big toy and couldn't understand why we kept getting mad at him when he started to chew it. He finally figured out that you sleep in it! I was so happy and kept saying, "look how cute! he loves his bed!"

Sunday John finished first coating the rest of the pine paneling and second coated the ones we did Saturday while I was at a friend's house.
It's coming along nicely. Tonight (if John gets home at a decent time) we'll 3rd coat the red walls and finish second coating the pine. Hopefully by tomorrow we can start installing the pine!

A nice surprise

The guest room got it's first coat of paint in Sunday but because John hasn't got home from work until 10 at night the past 4 days that's as far as it got.
Last night I went into the guest room to think about the color some more, but when I opened the door I was surprised not to feel the resistance of the drop cloth we had left laying on the floor.
I flipped on the light switch and to my surprise I realized that the room had gotten another coat of paint, the drop cloth was neatly folded on the bed and all the paint supplies set against the wall.

It was John's dad who did such a nice deed. John had asked him to come over and mud the family room ceiling since John just didn't have time and he went above and beyond what we had asked. It was a really great surprise.

I really like the color now, having it painted by a professional really helps :) It still needs one more coat since it is a red, but hopefully we can do that this weekend.

Thanks dad-in-law for all the hard work you've done the last couple of days!

P.S. I love you

Let me tell you about the first time I saw P.S. I Love You. It was 3 days after I got home from my honeymoon. The 26th of December is my grandma's birthday and we try really hard to have a girls day so all us girls (my mom, sister, aunt, cousin and grandma) go to a movie. I was told that P.S. I Love You was the movie she picked to go see that fine day.
I bawled from start to finish, I have NEVER cried so hard in a movie.  When the movie was done and all us girls, minus my grandma, were red eyed and snot nosed and my out spoken grandma hollers at us, "Why are you all blubbering?" She's never that touched by movies.

Once I found my car (stupid District, I think they make you get lost so that the security guards can laugh at you in the surveillance tapes) I started crying all over again and not that kinda cute little tears dripping down the cheeks, no full one wailing. I called John to tell him how much I loved him and all I could say was, "whaaaaa!!! John, I WHAAAA!" Poor boy, I probably terrified him.

Needless to say, I love that movie. No matter how many times I've seen it, I cry.
So why in the Hell did I put that movie in for background noise when I was sewing tonight? Because I'm an idiot, that's why. John wasn't home, I had pulled all my sewing stuff into the family room even though I have a room dedicated for such a task (I couldn't sew in that room right now even if I wanted, it's full of family room furniture) and popped in P.S. I Love You . Let me tell you how hard it is to sew seams and straight lines when you can't see through the tears and you're sobbing so hard the pedal gets pushed in spurts. I also had to go blow my nose often.

Well the movie is done and I at least finished the blouse part of my pirate costume (more to come on that later), but I've learned my lesson. No sad movies when I sew unless I want everything tear stained.

P.S. John is forbidden to die. I'll be just like Holly in the movie and stay cooped up in my house for days, if not months.

P.P.S. For those who think I'm really tough skinned because that's how I act. Well I'm not, I'm a big softy and cry all the time, even during really touching commercials. But lets pretend I'm still a real hard ass, I wouldn't want my reputation ruined.

call me crazy but....

So Enna's new collar came in today...guess I should start from the beginning...
While we were on our cruise, John's brother house/dog sat for us. I'm not really sure how but Enna or Makoa ate Enna's perfectly adorable collar.When Ben went to replace it, Petsmart didn't carry it anymore so he bought her a dark blue one that matches her leash.
I've never loved this blue collar (I only bought a dark leash because light ones kept getting dirty really fast), but didn't want to hurt Ben's feelings since he did use his money to buy her a new one. Well I finally just got over it and bought her a cute, baby blue one that matches her ID tag from reddingo.com (well truthfully I bought it from Amazon.com because Red Dingo doesn't let you buy from their site, so stupid). I liked Red Dingo collars because they have a bone instead of just a clip, I know, dumb reason to buy something, don't care!

Back to my main point, her collar came in today and while I was transferring over her ID and rabies tags I remembered how I didn't like them touching because the rabies was rubbing on the wording side of the ID and making it hard to read. I paid a pretty penny for the ID tags and I don't want them ruined, but I want to follow the law and have the rabies on their collars. So because I'm a super genius I came up with a brilliant plan.

I put the ID tag (isn't it freaking adorable!) on the metal ring and hooked the rabies tag (see how bad the back has rubbed on the ID tag) to the doubled up part of the collar. You can now applaud my smarts. No more rubbing and I'm still following the law!!!

Oh and why I didn't like her dark blue collar, it made her look like a boy. Yeah, I know her leash is dark blue. I'm a crazy, psycho path, I know that too.

P.S. If you want one of these wicked cute ID tags you can go here. This is the medium sized one which is 1 1/4 " in diameter. They come in 3 sizes so if you want a smaller (cat ID sized) or bigger scroll through the "customers who viewed this item also viewed" section until you come across the size you want. Once you place your order, you'll get emailed by the vendor to pick the style, color and your engraving (Makoa's is the black dog house).
If you want the collar you can search under Red Dingo in amazon and all their sizes and colors will come up.
I bought Sophi this collar since I liked the fish clip. I haven't broke down and bought her an enameled ID tag because her plain ID tag still looks brand new, but Red Dingo does have a cute cat selection too.

it's decided...maybe...possibly...probably not

The bed spread for the guest room was delivered yesterday. I'm not sure if I love it, but John does (okay he probably doesn't love it because he's a guy, but he likes it) and says it goes good with the Sweet Spiceberry paint (second from left on the paint post). I'm not totally sold on this. I think it will take more starring at the wall with bedspread touching paint color for me to decide and maybe I'll never love it, but if I can at least stand it I guess that's good enough.

Ignore the red on the wall, none of them are the color we might paint. The tiny sample on the bed might be the winner. (also remember that we're doing pine paneling so the red really will only touch a tiny bit of the bed. p.s. now that I looked at the set with the pine I don't think I like it even more)

The set came with two more Euro shams and a bed skirt, I just didn't have enough pillows and didn't want to put on the skirt. 

The only issue I have with the set is that in some light it looks like the champagne color I wanted but in shadowed areas in the room it looks very gold and dull. To fix this we might have to change the light fixture/light bulbs...or maybe I'm the only one whose seeing it...

I only have 30 days to decide if I actually like the bed set before I can't return it, guess I better get deciding and get my butt in gear to get the room done.

If in the end I hate how it looks and it's past the 30 days, does anyone want an 8 piece champagne/sometimes gold bed set for a killer deal?  Just shoot me now and put me out of my misery (decorating dilemmas call for over emotionalism) 

not on the walls yet

well I guess the samples are on the wall, but the room isn't fully painted. I haven't made a final decision yet since I HATE all the reds on the wall. I even tried putting one darker color on the wall and a lighter red over it to get a "more red, but not so brown" color. I liked how it turned out, but John popped my bubble saying that there wasn't a way to get it exact when painting the whole room.

I'd sit on the bed for hours just starring at the wall, wanting one of them to scream, "It's me! You want to paint me!" but alas I couldn't fall in love with any of them. I'd leave the room angry and not pleased with my decorating skills (even though most of the time I'm fabulous at decorating ;) ).
I guess it's back to the drawing board AKA the paint store. I'm running out of room to paint my sample colors, we may have to paint it all white again so I can paint samples over it.
I'm pouting now.

I really want red but if I cant settle on a color then the room will go chocolate brown...even though I'm trying really hard to not have it be brown, I want to bathroom to be brown...okay now I'm just rambling.

So they say red is hard to paint

Yeah, no kidding.This is the first coat of our sample colors and most of them are far from the swatches. The guy at Lowe's told us that we'll probably have to do 3 - 4 coats to get the right color.

Let me start by saying I HATE red and never thought I'd have red in my house, but it'll be perfect in our guest bedroom. We're at a stand still in the family room (not for long, we've saved the money and will be buying cabinet doors and the fridge soon) and with Dana maybe coming to visit in October I begged John to let me paint the guest room.

How I picked red. Well we're putting pine wainscot on the walls and with that golden color red would just look fantastic. There's no way I'm going with a red red, it had to be a rust or brownish red. Hopefully one of these samples will win a place in my heart.

I've already bought the champagne colored bed set online since it was a great deal and hopefully a perfect match with the red walls. I'm not going to post pictures of it until it on the bed. I'm also a smidgen worried that it won't be what I want and I'll have to return it.