yesterday.

(it's been a week since i posted. woops.)

Event: monday funday. (the usual.)
Mood: indifferent.

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-Stepped out of bed.: 10ish. i went to bed feeling really yucky. but the sleep helped. a lot.
-Breakfast/Lunch: good ole waffles win again.
-Motivated act: none. whatsoever. at all.
-Got out of the house by: heading to atlantic station. we brought our friend molly along with us. we were giggly. and i liked it. we hit up the H&M, i found nothing. molly found three t-shirts, and joel got a trendy cardigan.(we are trying to be hipsters.)(we also ran into the taylor's there. three mondays in a row we have seen them. and i have not one complaint about it.) i (ok...joel) finally made a purchase at old navy. i found a fun little ruffly cardigan in a light light gray. i like it. in person it seems very jcrew.

although, i do like the jcrew chiffon ruffle cardigan ($88.00) better...

and, while i'm on the topic of old navy/jcrew cardigan comparisions, here is another:


the difference here is the old navy cardigan has a satin trim along the edges and the jcrew cardigan has the "peek-a-boo" sequin trim. again the jcrew is quite a bit more fabulous. but to save that much money, i could deal.

-Dinner: chick-fil-a. i got a chicken sandwich with bacon and cheese. man oh man, i'm loving some bacon right now. it's kinda weird.
-Ended the day by: watching the the hulk. i figured joel was sick of all the romantic comedies we've been watching lately. we needed some action in the netflix line up. it did indeed supply the action we needed. although joel did get a bit angry because i kept yelling "huuulllkkk! annnnngrryyy!" in my best hulk man voice almost every time he morphed. therefore my favorite part of the movie was when the hulk really did yell "huuulkkk smmmasssshhh". oh. and all the mushy love parts.

yesterday.

Event: monday funday.
Mood: dread (see motivated act.) & excitement (see dinner.)

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-Stepped out of bed.: after 10 am. yup. true true.
-Breakfast/Lunch: pizza. i'm just seeming classier and classier huh?
-Motivated act: cleaned. cleaned. cleaned. oh, with a side of cleaned. {i'm talking, washing light fixtures, wiping down walls, having sore knees from scrubbing the floor, your hands smell like bleach, type of cleaning.}
-Got out of the house by: walking outside to do a load of laundry. (the laundry room is off of the carport.) stayed home the whole day. the mister, on the other hand, went a did some grocery shopping for us.
-Dinner: had the taylor's over as repayment for their kindness last monday. we had tacos, keeping in line with the mexican theme. they brought some YUMMY YUMMY homemade salsa. (a secret recipe, given to them as a gift. a spy version of martha stewart would be very jealous. actually, just the real life version would be. i mean, i'm pretty sure martha stewart is jealous of the taylor's salsa recipe.)
-Ended the day by: watching the proposal. (see a movie watching monday funday trend evolving here?) it was cutsey. i felt like they didn't show the process of the two falling in love well. the hated each other then, WHAM, they loved each other. it was fun and made me giggly at points, but it won't be winning an oscar. (not that winning an oscar was their goal.)

rugtastic.

I've been searching for a rug for the living room for quite some time now. Man oh man, rugs can get expensive. Whew. I've walked away from a few that were in my price range because they weren't quite what I was looking for. In most cases I would rather save a little longer, than settle for something that I will just be disappointed with a short time later. Ya know?

On a whim, I decided to check out the rug department at Lowes. Guess what? I found exactly what I wanted right away and it was on clearance for only 80 bones. Not too shabby compared to other prices I've seen. Just for kicks I started browsing the other rugs available. Then suddenly, a light shone down from heaven, and I heard a children's choir start sing. There it was. A rug that looked almost exactly the same as the "perfect" one for a mere $20. Ohhh snap. So, I drug the $20 rug over to compare it side by side to the $80 rug. Nope. It wasn't a dream. They were very simliar. The main difference was that the $80 rug was a bit softer. But to save $60 I could just wear socks if I wanted the same feel.



I wanted a neutral colored rug. That way, if I wanted pops of color, I could just change out the couch pillows and curtains and such, without having to hunt for another rug. I also wanted it to have a texture. Originally I was on the hunt for a jute rug, but this one works just fine.

note: It's a good thing I only paid $20 for it. Lula (our youngest pup) decided to "christen" it the day after we got it. Phooey, Lula, phooey.

(the day before) yesterday.

Event: monday funday.
Mood: slightly motivated.

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-Stepped out of bed.: late. :)
-Breakfast/Lunch: bean dip and santitos. (santitos are our tortilla chip of choice)
-Motivated act: started replacing the old light switches and receptacles in the living room. i have the pictures to prove it.



-Got out of the house by: going to starbucks to visit my little brother.
-Dinner: taco soup. some yummy yummy taco soup. served by our friends, the taylor's, at their house. they kindly invited us over after i posted this status update on facebook: joel just said "i wonder if anybody would feed us if we went to their house." Yup. It's officially grocery time." i'm not gonna lie, i posted with the hopes of getting an invite from somebody. (thanks joe & maria!!)
-Ended the day by: watching the holiday. which we both liked. (spoiler alert...kinda) i like a movie with a good happy ending. made me sleep better that night.

latester.

Man,I am nothing but a big latester. Try as I might, I just can't post regularly. It's not so much a lack of time, but a lack of discipline. My lovely friend Lanie Beth just did an "update" post, and by golly, I liked the idea. So here I go stealing her idea. Here's a run down of what's been going on in my life.

a) A good chunk of my time has been spent on the set of The Vampire Diaries. My "job" is acting natural as an extra. Sounds pretty easy, but pantomiming with a stranger can prove to be awkward. Extremely awkward. The pay is only so-so, but it's pretty interesting seeing how the show is made. Seriously, the time and effort that goes into a 30 second clip is astounding. Well, it's interesting when the extras actually get used. Patience is undoubtedly a virtue, because there is a whole. lot. of. waiting. Yesterday my call time was at 4pm, and we didn't leave till 3am. Out of the 11 hours we were there we were actually working maybe 4 or 5 of them. Oh, and then there's the egos. The GIANT egos. Sweet mother of pearl. But, that's a whole different post.

b) I joined the Henry County Special Olympics tennis team. I've only been to one practice, but I can tell it'll be fantastic. I've been wanting to do some volunteer work for a while, so when this opportunity came up I jumped at. The first weekend in November is the first tournament. I'm sure there will be some fun pictures to follow.

c) The living room "redo" project is still in progress. Since, I'll have a little cash flow from (a), it should move things along a little bit. And that makes me excited.

d) I've made one necklace since my last batch. Sad, huh? I just haven't had any creative juice in my blood lately. I really feel leery about making stuff "just because". Because then I won't be excited about putting them in the shop. Then if somebody buys one, I'll feel like I've gypped them. Maybe heading to the antique market will "inspire" me.

e) I didn't post about this weeks Monday Funday. But, I've got to be honest, not much happened. We ate waffles in bed and watched Macgyver. It was pretty magical and the highlight of the day. Then we went shopping, without buying anything. Then dinner at the misters favorite Mexican restaurant. (See...Macgyver and waffles was the high point.)

So there you have it. A "catch up" post.

finally.

Welp. Here it is. (finally.) The before and after pictures of our fireplace. And let me tell you, I am loving it. While I am no professional photographer you can really tell it wakes the place up.




To me, painting the fireplace was less work than getting the trim and walls painted.
Here are the steps I took:

1) Clean the brick. (I used a simple soap and water mixture.)
2) Clean and sand the mantle.
3) Prime everything. (A roller did the trick, along with a small paint brush for nooks.)
4) Paint. (I chose a semi-gloss for the brick, Muslin White by Glidden to be exact. Then I used a sightly brighter white for the mantle to make it pop a bit.)
5) Step back and revel in all your new fireplace glory. (A happy dance is optional but recommended.)

If you are on the fence about painting the brick in your house, I say go for it. I'm super happy I did.

As for the rest of the living room, it is finally painted. The trim was a beast, but I prevailed. I plan on posting pictures of the rest of the room as I get it together. It has a long way to go yet. We still need tons of stuff to finish it up. Ex: a club chair, bookcases, a tv stand, side table, "pretties", etc. Yard sales and thrift shops will be seeing a lot of me, that's for sure. I hope they like me.

Yesterday.

I know living in the past can be bad, awful even, but I am going to start doing so on Tuesdays. (if you don't mind.) I thought I might let you guys in on what goes down on Monday Funday each Tueaday. Some weeks it may not be much, but humor me.

Most Monday Fundays begin with Joel waking up before me and making breakfast. It's my favorite part of the day really and I'm of so thankful for it. I hope he doesn't mind it too much. Yesterday, on top of his regular fantastic breakfast, he did the dishes AND reorganized a cabinet. Nice! Such a sweet man. And on a dreary day too. Double nice.

After a slow start (which all Monday Fundays have) we decided to go check out The Invention of Lying. Insert wacky picture of us here:



We decided we would give it 6.5 out of 10 stars. It was what some would call "cute". The story line was great with a interesting spin on things. The bluntness involved in a world where lying isn't invented takes you a bit off guard at first, but it certainly is realistic. Ricky Gervais is a favorite of ours and once again he did great. He has a serious turn in this movie that brought me to tears. (yes, I cry at most anything, but that is neither here nor there.) The humor was right up our alley. (Side note: Tina Fey has a cameo.)

But! I know this isn't a movie review blog. Go see it. I think you might like it.

After the movie we headed home and did brain teasers, then watched iCarly. Wild, I know. But, I feel like my mind is more agile and I can relate to pre-teens better. Worth it.