New carpet

We hadn't planned on getting new carpet this year or even next, but when the guestroom flooded and there was no way I was going to try to save carpet I hated we decided to buy some.
We lived on bare floors for about a week and the night before the carpet was going to be put in we moved all the furniture out of the master bedroom and family room. The guestroom was still empty from the flooding. Almost everything got piled into the office.

The installer came about 8AM and finished about noon. Of course I had buyers remorse at first because that's just my nature. The lady at the carpet place said to always go darker than you think because A) the carpet will look lighter in bigger pieces and B) it'll last longer since it'll hide stains better.
I really wanted a lighter color, but took her advice and went with my second choice. I wasn't a fan when it was put into the family room, but it has grown on me and I finally like it now. It will be good with three dogs and a cat.

Here are the befores and afters pictures of the rooms...while i was trying to find before pictures, I realized you don't really ever take pictures of carpet...:

 A sampling of the new carpet

The guestroom with the cream carpet that came with the house

The speckled brown carpet now, my favorite room with the new carpet.

This is an old picture, but the before the the family room.

 The family room was so hard to get a good picture of so finally I turned to lights off and used the flash on phone. It's the most accurate of what the carpet looks like in the family room now. The picture above the couch is one we got from Tai Pan Trading. We just went there one day on a whim and that picture was on sale for $50. 

I bought those cute little canvases of the dogs from canvas discount, if you need canvas pictures I highly suggest them.

 Our master bedroom before. The carpet was cheap, matted, wasn't pulled tight enough, and Makoa chewed a couple holes through it so it was nice to have it replaced.

The new carpet is so nice, but we still have so much to do on the house still. The list just seems to get longer and longer.

Basement flooding

On Sunday morning, May 18th I headed downstairs to clean out Sophi's litter box, but was surprised to find water on the floor. I called John down while I racked my brain trying to think what was leaking. I first thought it was the central air, but since we hadn't turned it on yet that was pretty impossible. Then I hoped it was the water heater because that would mean I'd get to upgrade to a tankless, but by the time that thought had come into my head John had run into the guest room. He shut off the main water to the house and figured out it was the sprinkler main by the house.

We then spent the rest of our Sunday hauling out the furniture. Unfortunately, the guest room was storing a lot of holiday decor and odds and ends that needed to go back into the unfinished closet of the craft room. My house is now cluttered with furniture and it won't be getting better any time soon.
John called his brother over to help remove the carpet and padding since it was way too heavy for me to lift up the stairs. We then sucked up the remaining lake of water on the cement with the wet vac and my little carpet cleaner.

 Then came the part I was dreading, pulling down the pine paneling that was only put up a couple years ago.

 

My heart ached pulling that down so John could cut out the wet sheet rock. 

 It was late into the afternoon when we finished and set up a fan to help dry out the room. 

John started fixing the sprinkling system the next day, but even that was a chore. The hole was 5 feet deep and 3 feet wide when he found the broken pipe. 

 By Tuesday he had it fixed and the water was turned back on for good. We then left the guest room alone for the rest of the week so it could really dry out. 

Saturday we bought carpet to replace the guest room, family room and our bedroom. Only the guest room was ruined and we really could have saved the carpet, but I needed a silver lining! 

Sunday we ran to Lowe's more times than I'd care to remember and spent way too much money. We also seemed to run every other errand known to man so we didn't really get started on the room until Monday. 

We made pretty good time and the guestroom got put back together by the end of the day. We also replaced the white casings with pine, something that we had been meaning to do for some time. 

John has the rest of the week off work, he's going to use the time working on the house. Replacing the builder grade molding in our bedroom with what we've used everywhere else, tear out carpet and finish the craft room closet. I will have to find someplace to put all the furniture while the carpet is being installed on June 7th, but I'm really looking forward to having the house back in order.

 

Early May camping at Currant Creek

I know it has been a while since I've posted, but work has gotten me swamped. I was helping get ready for a system intro at work which required so much of my time that I think the lap top glued to my legs at home.
The system was going to be launched May 5th and I knew that I wouldn't have any time off for a while so I asked John if he wanted to get away to the wilderness for a couple days for his birthday. We decided to go to Currant Creek since the camp ground wasn't scheduled to be opened until the next weekend so we were hoping for peace and quiet "primitive camping".  

We found a nice spot that I'm sure will be even more beautiful once the leaves come in. We did have to do some cleanup of deer pelts and legs so the dogs would leave it alone....they still didn't. The spot was also littered with broken bottles, beer cans, dirty diapers, ceramic plates, and carpet. I was very unhappy with my fellow man and the mess. The first rule of primitive camping is to pack out what you pack in. We had to use a whole trash bag to clean up someone else's mess, but we didn't want to leave the spot.

After setting up our spot (thanks for letting us borrow your tent, Parents!) we walked around with the dogs to let them blow off some steam. Luckily John saw the deer before I did, so we could keep the dogs far enough away to not chase them. They probably couldn't figure out why we weren't moving for so long.

Once back at our spot, John took a nap and I read my book and enjoyed the idea of not having to do anything.
Around dusk the deer starting coming out in droves, they were all over the side of the hill we were camped by. John stopped counting one group when he hit 50. A little while after that we started hearing howling in the distance, we figured they were out hunting all the deer we had been seeing.
We started a fire and roasted hot dogs and s'mores for dinner, but didn't last long. I was cold and wanted to hit the hay so we climbed into the tent around 10PM.

Enna decided to steal my seat while I was up making s'mores.

It was about 11PM when we started hearing the growling, whining and barking of a single animal and it was close to our tent. It would hang out for about 5 minutes and then we'd hear it a little further away. This went on for about an hour and we were starting to get tense. The forth go around, the animal actually pushed on the tent. I chirped our car alarm to see if we'd scare it away and by for 3 chirp it was gone and didn't come back. We weren't sure if it was a wolf, coyote or just someone's dog, but we weren't going out of the tent to find out. Luckily our dogs didn't make a peep during the whole thing, who knows if that would have helped scare the animal away or make it worse. When we got home, I did some research and I'm fairly certain that it was a coyote.

We slept soundly after that and since we had never had a positive camping trip just the two of us, we decided to stay.
The next morning we took our time making breakfast and cleaning up. After we took a little walk so the dogs could stretch their legs. I think Makoa brought us every deer leg in a 5 mile radius and Enna hunted every bird in the grass.
It was such a beautiful day in the mid 60's and I was soaking up the sunshine while we strolled.
Once back to our spot, the dogs finally settled down.

 John and I read, took naps, played mancala until we started our stew in the dutch oven for dinner. It was delicious, thanks Derek and Jonessa for the antelope meat!
We started a fire early and didn't have any coyote sightings or hearings, but the dogs did keep freaking us out by barking into the shadows.
We had no problems during the night and in the morning we used the fire to make breakfast and brew our coffee. We were in no hurry to get home so we took another stroll with the dogs before we cleaned up.

The puppies were so quiet while we cleaned up and we headed home around noon. It was such a nice camping trip for once and we're hoping to go once a month the rest of the year until the snow comes in.

Camping in Goblin Valley

The vacation idea and planning started with John telling me that he had PTO that he need to use it or lose it by May. I said that I could take a Friday off and we could hit the road for some little R&R.
Camping down in Southern Utah would save us some money and keep us from freezing to death so we hit the road bright and early at 6AM.

We decided to take the longer, scenic way to Goblin Valley and stop at some rest stops because the world wide web said the views were worth it. Oh they were! Even though it meant driving down a dirt road for about an hour.

I can't remember what this rest stop was called, but it was a pretty spectacular sight. I do recommend stopping at the sights if you're not in a hurry.

The dirt road looked like this for like 30 minutes, but then opened up to some glorious sites.

We found our camp site and had it all set up around one.  I had been to Goblin Valley when I was a kid, but John never had, so after lunch we took the dogs to see it. Because it's a state park, the dogs had to stay on leash the whole time and they weren't very pleased, but we were a little naughty and dropped the leashes a few times while climbing up and down the steeper hills.

We stayed in the park for about two hours and then decided to go back to camp to relax.

Since we were on Bureau of Land Management land it meant that the dogs didn't have to stay locked up and they enjoyed to freedom. We also didn't have to pay any fees or deal with check in/check out times. It did mean no bathrooms, but that doesn't bother me. I decided to take a walk with them to 'splore our campsite.

 Those tracks are from either cows, big horn sheep or another type of large hoofed animal. There were lots of "pies" around that the dogs were interested in, but never decided to eat. Thank God!

We had a great time wandering, but picking out the prickles in their feet wasn't too great. Next time I'll be bringing tweezers to help.

The wind started to pick up a little when we were trying to start a fire so the smoke was out of control. Enna jumped up into my lap and buried her head in my arms to keep the smoke out of her face and wasn't happy when I put her down so I could roast hot dogs. I leashed her and tied her to my chair because I didn't want her to take off to get away from the smoke and next thing I know she's dragging the chair away from the fire! After that we decided to put the dogs to bed and tried to stay warm by the fire that had a hard time growing because of the wind. Once we headed to bed the wind didn't seem so bad.

About 2AM the wind picked up again and kept waking up with gusts every now and then, but when we got up it was out of control. We couldn't even make breakfast because the propane stove wouldn't stay lite. So we packed up the dogs and tried to find a better spot, but everywhere was just as windy and the rock formations seemed to be trapping it. We had full intentions of sticking it out, but when we got back to our site and our shade structure was all bent out of shape and sand whipping us in the face we decided it would be better to pack it up. 

The wind just seemed to be getting worse and there were times we just had to stand still with our eyes closed to make it through the gust. Nothing got put away nicely, since we knew everything would have to be set up again to get all the sand out and during the chaos John lost his keys. Looking for lost keys in the windy, sandy desert is probably the worst time to look for keys. We hoped that they were wrapped up in something and started our way home. 

By then it was 2 in the afternoon and we still hadn't eaten so we hoped to find a less windy rest stop to make some sandwiches. By 3 we gave up and just made and ate the sandwiches in the car and tried to make the best of it. 

Setting everything up to dust it out was just awful and then de-sanding the car wasn't any fun at all, but having the stew we planned to dutch oven for dinner made it a little better. We were sad we had to call it quits, but we seem to have bad luck while camping alone. 

It's a place we'll be going back to and hopefully soon. I loved how secluded and freeing it was. 

P.S. John's keys were rolled up in the tent :)

A BRAND NEW CAR!!!! all Price is Right style!

John and I bought my little blue 1998 ford Taurus in June of 2007 and it has been a good little car with some minor fixes from my dad and husband from time to time. We had plans to buy a new car to replace it after we had paid off John's truck in 2015, but Lil' Blue had other plans.

It all started when someone cut me off and I had to slam on my brakes early 2013. Right after I couldn't get my car to drive again and it took some finagling with the gear shift to get it to go. Then I'd have some weird problems every now and then, but nothing that slowed me down too much. Then finally the transmission really started to die in about August and I'd have to turn the car off and back on to get out of first gear if I didn't stop slow enough for the car to change gears like it wanted while stopping.

The Monday I went back to work after we got back from New York my car died in the neighborhood and I had to call John so I could get to work. He then drove the car for the next couple of days and learned that if he shifted the car to reverse and then back into drive after stopping it would go back into gear.
I then drove it this way for a couple more weeks. We then had that major snow storm and my car died at the entrance of the neighborhood. I called John and my dad to have him help us push the car out of the way, but with the snow storm it was taking time for them to come save me. Of course even with my hazards on, cars piled up behind me honking while I tried to get the car to start. After numerous tries, the engine finally turned over and I was able to get the car to a church parking lot and I was able to cancel the 911 call to my dad. After that John drove the car and I took the truck.

Why did we put up with this nonsense for 5 more months? Because we were trying to save up as much as we possibly could for a down payment and prolonging having two car payments. Every week we'd ask each other if we wanted to keep waiting and we kept saying yes.
We had the same conversation last Monday and even though John said he could still put up with the car, I was done. It's not that I don't like driving John's truck, I just hate backing up, parking and changing lanes. I was tired of parking in Timbuktu because of my inability to park and weekends were tough if we both needed to go somewhere at the same time. I felt like we both had suffered long enough and had a good down payment for a new car.

We bought this cute 2012 Ford Escape on the 27th of February.

We got a tremendous deal on the small SUV and I couldn't be more pleased. It has a lot of bells and whistles and compared to Lil' Blue it's the Taj Mahal! The dogs will not be allowed on the seats even though they are leather so it'll be a little squishy in the back if all dogs come with us. But being able to have passengers and not be embarrassed about dog hair and dirt will be a dream come true!
Now I'm always thinking of a reason why I need to go somewhere so I can drive my new car.

Maybe I'll post about the craft room...

Ya know how I said that I wasn't going to post anything about the craft room until it was completely done? well I lied. It's just coming along so splendidly that I can't resist!
I've been sewing in there for a little over a month now, not very easily though since most of my stuff was jammed into the guest room and hard to find. But as of the first weekend in February I have a TV(!), an ironing station (!!), an actual desk (!!!) and more storage (!!!!) in the room now. It's been nice because while I sew John has been painting or installing drawer boxes so we were together in the sense that we were in the same room. I had that above mentioned TV on and I just can't be interrupted while watching my shows!

 95% of the furniture in the room John built, one of the perks of being married to a carpenter. I would think of something I wanted, but my searching only turned up expensive things and then I'd pout because I thought I couldn't have it. Then John would say he could just build it because he's awesome and the world's greatest husband (John made me write that).
 To start off the list I told him that I wanted a pocket door with a mirror built in so I wouldn't have to take up valuable wall real estate and this is what he came up with. It is so unbelievably beautiful and could be my favorite feature in the room. The only thing we had to buy was the pocket door kit and the mirror, around $130 total I think. A little side note, one place wanted over $200 for the mirror! That's just outrageous! If you're in the market for mirror or glass let me know so you don't get ripped off.
Anywho, I think that's a pretty good cost since I couldn't even find a seller for the door and ours would have been a custom size anyway. For even cheaper you could build the pocket door kit, but since John had never tackled that before we decided to buy one.

Directly across from the pocket door is the drawer cabinet. The cabinet and drawer fronts are the ones that John brought home forever ago. We had to buy 3 of the drawer slides and the pulls, but the drawer boxes and counter top were just scraps from John work. The top is solid bamboo that John glazed white, there was more to the finish that involved sanding and distressing with a wire brush, but I don't know the details. Again he's just amazing! I absolutely love how it turned out.
So we paid about $40 for this cabinet. I'm using these drawers to replace the old, plastic drawer storage. Those are NOT welcome back into the room!

This is the cabinet without the top or drawer fronts, I was just so excited for it to actually be close to being finished!

And here's the finished cabinet! I'll be setting my table top ironing board on it when sewing, but it's too beautiful to coverup all the time.

The dog bed in the photo is temporary, I have plans to make a custom one for the Littles, but they needed somewhere to lay while hanging out with me.

Next is the pièce de résistance, the very custom desk John built for me. The room is small so I didn't want a big desk taking up tons of space, but sewing quilts requires a lot of surface to work on. The top is that white glazed bamboo and the legs are white. In it's normal state it's almost 2 feet wide by 4 feet long with a built in shelf along the side. The very custom part is that the desk morphs like a transformer into a bigger, better desk. It doubles in width and extends to 6 feet long, perfect for quilting and finishing large quilts. The desk was completely free since everything was scraps and John got the hinges from a co-worker.
That lamp is also new and not what I was thinking about getting, but it called to me at Target one day. It's LED so it doesn't get hot which is perfect since I spend a lot of time sewing.

There is one more thing on John's "to build" list, a cutting table, but I think he's getting burned out so I'm not going to beg him. 
I also have found the perfect sewing chair, but it's over $200 and I'd feel bad if I added it to John's list so I'm going to try to antique it when I have the time and money.

So really now, I think the next post about the room will be when it's all done!

2012 movies added to the 1001 Movies To See Before You Die list

The list is usually a couple years behind since we have to wait for the info to be published into the book. Every year they have to take movies out to add movies so the list stays at 1001, but John and I just add the new movies to the end of our list. It probably means we'll never ever finish the list, but we'll always have something to watch.
Whoever is working on the listology list updated with everything that had been taken out in previous years so our list grew 49 movies some dating clear back to 1924.
This list is just the added 2012 movies. The one's in red are the ones we saw, but since we don't go to the movies as much anymore it's not too many. We also never seem to rent from Redbox so most of the time we just wait for it to come on Netflix.

Amour
Argo
The Cabin in the Woods (John will probably be watching this one alone)
Django Unchained (we actually own this one, we're both huge Quentin Tarantino fans)
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall 

In case you happen to be curious about my side bar movie watched thingy, I don't always add what we recently watched. Sometimes it's because we watched three movies from the list that day or because it just takes time and I'm being lazy. I have decided that I might add a little blurp about the movie since I no longer update the blog I started for all of this. If you click on the picture it'll take you to the IMDB's page on the movie.
We have really enjoyed the list for the most part, some of the movies off of it have become our favorites and we would have never watched them without it.