Let's all go to the bathroom, shall we?

Let's take our next stop on the house tour somewhere a liitle more personal.

The master bathroom.

We have done quite a bit in here, update wise. Let's she how she rolled on our first walk through, eh?





Thar she blows

We went bold with our color choice in this room since it is small and only we use it, so if it looks bad we didn't really care.

But I totally love it. Whenever someone comes over I take them in there to look at the color.

Here's a dirty little secret though- the paint job SUUUUUUUCCKKKS. This was the first room we painted in the house, it's semi gloss paint and we didn't prime. It looks horrible when you really look close. But it would take priming over it and then re-coating to fix so it's not going anywhere for awhile.

Live and Learn!

Anywho, lets look around more.

This second picture is taken from standing inside the little toilet-alcove room, which is why none of the pictures show a toilet in the bathroom. We have one in there, I swear.


So let's do the checklist of what we have done, shall we?

1. Painted the room peacock blue
2. Painted the builder orangey-oak vanity in light gray and added hardware
3. Installed the curved shower rod (loooooove)
4. Added the stainess shelves/towel racks
5. Installed a new toilet in the secret room (its right inside the entrance to the right, you can see the door frame in the picture above)
6. Added a full length mirror behind the door (which you can see me in in the picture about the color)

There is more to do of course, but this is on the back burner for awhile. Sorry for the terrible pics, my camera did not agree with the light fixture in there and I don't know how to change the white balance-ISO-aperature-blah blah stuff on it.

Can we all just agree how awesome this poster is?



It's level, I swear. My camera just isin't.


It's big (20x30). I totally, totally love it. So much so I couldn't wait to get a frame and pinned it up on the wall naked as soon as I got it :)


So, you have any ideas for me on doing more with the space?

Stats

Dude:

 To all my fellow bloggers out there- are you totally obsessed with your stats like I am? I go on there all the time and see where people are from, how many views I have, what time they are....I find it fascinating.

Granted, my blog is tiny and getting 10 views a day is big for me. But this morning seeing that Italy had turned green just made me giddy. Someone in Italy is reading my nonsense?

I love it. Thank you. Please come back. Click lots.

Clint's Birthday

For Clint's 27th birthday, I planned a most excellent adventure (much better than Bill and Ted's)

Unbeknownst to me, we have been living in the vicinity of an unbelievable place.

The Barry R. Kirshner Wildlife Foundation is an exotic animal sanctuary that rescues and rehabilitates injured or sick exotic animals that would otherwise be put down.

So, I made an appointment for a private tour and surprised Clint for his birthday. (However, he knew where we were going as soon as we turned off the main road- turns out he had installed the alarm in their offices and knew where it was. Bummer)

But never the less, we had the most amazing time. Our guide was a really nice guy with a ridiculously awesome British accent who took us around telling us all about each animal. It was practically magical.

Unfortunately all we had was cell phones so the pictures aren't of the best quality and it was hard to get a good picture through 2 chain link fences, but it is what it is.

A bengal tiger, I believe he was partially blind. But so sweet!

Hard to see, but this is a lion laying out on his back. He was rolling around playing.

Chuffy the white tiger

A lioness

Gabby the ocelot. She was sticking her paw out and whacking the
 guide in the shoulder to get his attention, lol. So cute!

These bears were adorable! They were running around playing tag and jumping in and out of the water.

There were so many more animals, but we were to enamored with them and their story to take pictures.

When we finished the tour, out guide took us over to the house/office area where the owner lives and they keep more animals. We were in store for a special treat. 



They let us hold a snake and some lizards. It was fun! But we were in store for something even more....

It was a slow day and their wasn't many people there. Since we were just 2 responsible adults-they let us in on something that very few people will ever get to experience.....

We held.a.baby.lion.cub.

Did you hear me?

We got to HOLD A BABY LION CUB!!

It was crazy awesome. The little chubster was heavy and kept rubbing on my neck wanting loves. It was so cute!!

So let's get back to seriousness now. That day was actually and entirely life-changing. All the people there are 100% volunteers and they do such good things. They operate completely on donations.

When we walked out of this place I honest to god had the thought of wanting to go rob a bank just to give them money.

As soon as we get out of debt I plan to send them money every month. Someday we want to sponsor an animal.

I guess this post got off track (it could be because I am watching HIMYM while writing....) but the point is the same.

Clint had a fun birthday.

We had a great experience. I can't wait to go back.

The little things.....

Lately I have been enamored and amazed and overjoyed by one thing in particular.

White paint.

Never in my life did I imagine that I would be married, own a home, and spend a fair amount of time smiling like a fool at my baseboards.

We have finally been painting the main areas of the house. Its a long slow process but it looks SO GOOD!

It's a hard thing to translate to pictures.

This is a good indication of the three colors in our main great room area right now.

          Far left is the beigey off white that was on every single surface of the house when we got it. We are painting all the doors and trim bright white.

          The middle trim color is the bright white (Glidden off-the-shelf base 2, I believe).

          The far right color is Olympic's Thin Ice. It is a super-duper light gray-blue. Very neutral and just enough to make the white really pop.


So as of now the house is kind of mis-matched.
All the baseboards and door trim (less a small area behind the turtle tank) are bright white.
Half of the walls in the room are Thin Ice.
3 out of 6 doors are bright white.

The mis-match drive me nuts, but hey, what can I do? Gotta work all day to pay for paint, ya know.





Just ridiculous.



Prreeetttty Colors. (Clint programmed our alarm to say "Griffith Res". So Cute.



That's how we roll around these parts, we break down a giant project into annoying half-done little bits. How about you?

Lets hope downstairs is done by Spring!

Kitchen Update

So, we are making progress galore on the house these last few months and its about time to start sharing. I will try and go room by room as they get to a (for now) finished point.

Lets start with the kitchen, shall we? (No, of course it's not because it was the cleanest room in the house when I happen to grab the camera.....)

Here is what our kitchen looked like on the day we first toured the house:

Ya. For reals.

The previous owners were forclosed on and evicted by the sheriffs, so there was STUFF everywhere all over the house. *Fun Fact: if you look close at the header pic of the house, the eviction notice is taped in the window*

Can we just take a minute here to take note of the dishwasher? This was the original dishwasher that came with the house, which was built 5 years before. for 5 YEARS these people didn't take the blue plastic covering off the front of their dishwasher. .........really?......REALLY? Maybe I'm just OCD but that about drove me batty. So much so that  I actually ripped it off during our first tour, lol. The realtor was not pleased.

Another lovely feature that this picture doesn't capture is GREASE. An inch thick on all the surfaces of the room. GROSS. It took me 2 days and a lot of chemicals to make that place even close to usable.

Anyway, not the point. We're here to see the changes we I have made.



Different angle, my bad. It was 5:30am.


1. You can't see it in the before, but that gargantuan light fixture was the same color as the cabinets. Clint took it down and I painted that sucker with the paint match to the ceiling. Blend, big girl, blend.

2. The nasty, gross, sticky, disgusting vent hood was taken down ripped apart, scrubbed, steam stripped and painted black. So much better.

3. We got a new dishwasher for Christmas 2010. I prefer all black appliances over stainless.

4 The back splash wall and window wall were painted with a dark gray can of oops paint from Home Depot. Holla for $7 gallon of Semi-Gloss!

5. I have to point out that plant in the window I nurtured from a bulb to grow so beautifully. I have no green thumb so this is a big deal. (Don't mind the dirty dishes next to the sink).

6. All the carnival glass on top of the cabinets was Clint's grandmas. Love. Too bad its filled with lead and is only for looking not using.

7. Fun fact? The white spots all over the floor mat are flour from my first ever time making Christmas cookies. I made 13 dozen. It was a mess. Plus I burnt my hand pretty bad.


So....there it is for now! The still-to-do-someday list stands at:

• Paint the cabinets crisp white and add brushed nickel hardware
• Replace the awful horrible tile counter tops with solid surface
• Get a new stove when this one dies
• Soooooomeday put in continuous hardwoods through the entire bottom floor

So that's that for now. Anyone else do super cheap but super awesome upgrades after moving in? Tell me all about it!

Updates to come!

Well, I know I suck at blogging, but I promise to work on it!

We have done tons of work on the house and I just need to take pictures and I will start posting soon. I swear!

Heartbreak

I got dumped recently.

No, not by my new husband but by my best friend. I was friend-dumped. Guess what? It hurts too. A lot.

There was no major fight, no epic blowout, not even a slow drifting away. After 2 weeks of silence I got am email that said we were no longer going to be friends.

I guess that sounds a little bitter and snarky and I don't mean it to be. There was a third party that loomed ever-present in our friendship and finally became too much work to handle keeping the third party appeased. That's what the email said.

And I totally understand. It WAS a lot of work to constantly keep the balance just right so that we could do things together without starting 'drama'. It's exhausting, and silly for adults. But it was the way it was and there was no way around it.

That's not the point here. I'm here because I need to vent my heartbreak. It's been a long time since I have been dumped.

I haven't felt that gut wrenching pain in your chest that rises up when something reminds you of that person.

I haven't had the sadness fill your mind when you see happy pictures of times past.

It hurts, and I don't know what to about it. I don't have an excess of girlfriends so my poor husband has had to pick up the slack of losing her.

I feel very alone and without closure I guess.

After it happened, I acted out a bit and handled some situations in ways I probably shouldn't have. But its worse because I can't explain it to her. I felt I didn't have another option, but from the other point of view it seems worse I suppose.

I hate not knowing how she feels. I hate not being able to call, text or email when something funny or interesting happens.

I hate that I can't say anything about things I find out that happened to her.

It's all a mess. I just needed to get these feelings out, you know?

I guess now I just need to move forward and try to make new friends. Which I have no idea how to do anymore. I don't know.

I worry that I have nothing to give someone else. I am insecure and I wonder if I was doing terrible things in our friendship and didn't realize. That really she was just sick of ME but didn't want to say that.

I would rather know. I would always, always rather people tell me the truth so I can recognize what I did that was wrong and try to fix it.

Anyone have any advise for me?

An Identity Shift

Well, I have been married for 20 days now. But it really sunk in for me today. I got my new license and bank card in the mail. They were the last to arrive after my social security card and credit cards, but the are truly the most important.

Now its for real.

I had a very odd feeling taking the old license out and going to put the new one into my wallet.

I have always known I would change my name and wanted to when I got married. I diligently practiced signing my new name and ordered knick knacks with our joined names emblazoned upon them. But man ohh man have I had a bit of a struggle with it now that its real.

The first was when I was at the DMV and the man at the counter handed me back my old license with the dreaded hole punch through it. The one that basically means "Hey there, I'm a useless piece of plastic now!" All of a sudden I felt like I was losing a little piece of myself.

Over the last 2 weeks at work I have had a hard time remembering to use my new name when signing for a package or leaving a voicemail. It just doesn't sound right yet. But then again, saying my old name doesn't sound right anymore either. I'm just stuck in limbo.

But boy howdy, when I took my old license out I almost had a shortness of breath. I was really, really this new name now? I'm a wife, with my husband's name, and the old me is just going to slowly fade away?

It was a sobering experience. Now my wallet is all full of my new name, and there are no cards left with my old. I know I will adjust quickly, but today I just needed a moment to reflect. I am SO happy to be the new me and share a last name with my husband. I'm a grown up wife now with a new name (and a hideous new picture)

Seriously, why the eff is it zoomed in so much farther?
You can't even see the necklace I purposely wore, man.
Goodbye, beautiful, skinny, tan 15-year-old me.

Anyone else out there have this feeling when they changed their name?

Confession Time

Here's my embarassing confession for the day.

Before I will put a piece of paper in the shredder under my desk, I practice signing my new name on the back, because I want to to feel natural by the time I'm using it for real.

Ohh ya.

Why I feel old today

I have been beginning to see tiny little signs of things that make me feel/realize that I am no longer of the youngest generation. Yep, its true. I say "those damn kids" far to often and haven't been trendy in years.

Now, I am sure that all some of you reading will roll your eyes and scoff at me for feeling old at the ripe age of 25, but I'm just saying-its gotta start somewhere.

The first one to really hit me was when I was channel surfing and saw Full House pop up on the guide. I look over and realize- its on Nick at Nite. Jesus Christ. Full House? On Nick at Nite? Why don't you just put me in a home now. I watched Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie on Nick at Nite. Full House was prime-time viewing, my friend.

But today I had another that spurred my need to share. I am starting to go through the wedding music and sort out what I want where. In one of the Greatest Hits of whenever CD's I was looking through, I saw the Macarena.

And I couldn't remember how it went.

Seriously. I saw the title, I know what it was and I couldn't find the sector of my brain that had that damn song burned into it for years. Is that amazing? I felt old.

That was so totally me in grade school. We did the Macarena in PE for god sakes. Now I have replaced it in my brain with mortgage interest rates or something.

Thank the lord I'm not some famous blogger who had to pay royalties to these guys for this post:

Ohh, and You're Welcome for getting the Macarena stuck in your head all day. :)

Our adventure date.

I love a good adventure. Who doesn't?

So when it came time for the Mr and I to go see Transformers 3 I decided an adventure was in store. About an hour and a half away from us is an XD theater. The screen is about twice the size of a normal one and the seats all recline so you are really into it.

We drove up there to see the movie and had a grand old time. The movie was good and it was nice to just be doing something different. We then had an ammmmmazing dinner at Cattleman's and topped off the evening with a walk on the sundial bridge.

  

I am a terrible photographer but that bridge really is amazing. If you are in the area, I highly suggest a walk-across. Even though the floor is made of glass and it scared to crap out of me to walk across.



Here is a real picture.

We had a great time. It's amazing what a quick little trip out of your usual neighborhood can do.

An Epic party.

So as you all know, I got my braces off last week. Also, my birthday is next week.

I have been telling Clint for over a year he needed to throw me a braces freedom party after they came off filled with caramel and taffy and corn on the cob.

So (as far as I knew) it was all set up for the weekend of April 2nd. But little did I know Clint wanted to surprise me. He planned the whole thing and pulled off without a hitch, an epic surprise party on March 25th, the day after my braces came off.

If you haven't already realized this- I'm an over thinker. Do you ever consider all the variables that can go wrong with a surprise party? Clint had Boe ask me to go shopping after work. Now, I almost never say no to Boe. I'm always down to go hang out and do whatever with her. She rocks my socks. But what if I had said no? It was a bad day at work anyway, what if I didn't feel like it and came home during planning? What if I had driven past Clint while he was shopping when he should have been at work? What if I had logged into the online banking to check the balance and seen him buying stuff for the party?

It boggles my mind. But it all went perfect. After a nice little shopping trip (where we found the bridesmaids dress-score!) Boe suddenly tells me she is feeling a little pukey and needs to get home ASAP. I was of course concerned for her and so we cut short the trip. She drives me home and I walk in the front door to this:

I got a big Surprise! and all my friends jumped out of the hallway. It was awesome. It was the first surprise party I have ever had that was actually a surprise. (My 16th birthday was supposed to be but a frenemy told me it was happening the day before)

We got down to the parting and it was a grand ol time. I got another surprise about a half hour later when my friend Danielle showed up from Grass Valley. She was a sneaky one too. I was texting her trying to convince her to come down and she told me she was snowed in when in reality she was on her way here.

Beer pong was played, drinks were had, lots of candy was eaten, and Clint BBQ'd some mean tri tip.



Every picture I have of me and Danielle she is touching my boobs.



Now, he also got me a cake. A few weeks ago I showed him this and said how awesomely awesome it was-

Candy buttons! Isn't that awesome?!?

So, my dearest painstakingly did this for me-

He added real candy buttons to a cake for me. LOVE. That is no easy task kiddos.

Here is the fun I had with it:



I'm scary with a knife.

  

Note the giant pile of candy.





Haha, Jayson's face behind me is awesome.



More fun was had:



I LOVE this picture. I don't know why, but I do.

He put blinking St Paddy's pins on his boobies.

Shake it Becca!

Now I'm sure this highly-self centered post was terribly boring to those of you who don't actually know me an my friends-I don't care. It was a spectacular birthday and I wanted to document it.

Word.

Ooshy Gooshey Love Fest

Today I am especially appreciative of my ohh-so wonderful fiance, Clinton. He is SO good to me 150% of the time and I am so lucky to have him.
This past Friday he threw me a surprise braces freedom/birthday party. It was EPIC. I was completely surprised and it was wonderful.

But what spurred this post is not just that. So we occasionally will send each other text messages with "I love your  ____" (nose, ears, toes, butt cheeks) Anyway.

Today out of nowhere I get a text that says "I love your teeth".
I could DIE. Made me smile so huge. Then we went on an ooey gooey love fest of text messages back and forth that I will not share.

But I just had to put out there how much I love this boy. He is my favorite.

My all-time favorite picture of him (which he of course hates)

Theeeeeeeeyyy'rrre OFF!

My braces are off.

MY BRACES ARE OFF.


My. Braces. Are. Off.



The first look

 It was the most amazing event of my life thus far. It took 1 year, 6 months and 25 days to give me a movie star smile.

Here's a run down of the day.

We arrive at the orthodontist office.

We sit in the waiting room for 5 minutes 200 years.

Pop, crack, snap.

Here they go!



We have teeth!



On to grinding off the glue, and permasmile is engaged.

It's done!

Off to breakfast. Mmmmmm Coda......

That's all I got for now. I'm giddy. I'll give you more words later :)