1st Day of School

Boys are back to school and back in the same school together this year, which hopefully will be a good thing.

Wall Vinyl=Probable Fail

Well, the wall vinyl I had ordered arrived today and I was so excited to get it on the wall. After J precisely measured everything, which took forever....we finally put it up on the wall. We rubbed and rubbed and rubbed. Damn vinyl wasn't sticking to the wall. Yes, I know. It is supposed to be on a smooth surface. Our walls don't have any type of fancy texture, so I figured our walls were fine. I'm guessing they aren't fine. Here is a pic of part of it up. The scroll work for the top and bottom is two separate pieces and probably won't make it on the wall, as Jason predicts that what is up there now will be falling down completely by morning. I'm soooo bummed!

Edited to add: Jason thinks it *might* stick for a little while, but not for long. I got a rather large version and so it wasn't cheap. I'm going to be pissed if it doesn't stick. :-(

Master Bedroom - Paint Project

We've been in the house now since May 2008. From the day we looked at the house, we knew the MB paint would have to change. Surprisingly, this was the only room, well along with the boys' bathroom, that we knew we would paint immediately, or so we thought. We've endured the coral pink walls for the past 14 months and we've talked about it off and on throughout the past 14 months on when we were going to paint. First, I had to buy new bedding, which I continued putting off. I finally bought it about 6 months ago and it sat in a box. Finally, Jason decided we needed to put it on the bed, and it did somewhat coordinate with the wall.

You can see a slight shade of pink in the bedding. Well, that was pretty much the color of our wall, but a little deeper/brighter. So, you see the vibrant red. Pottery Barn showed this in their catalog with a red wall (Million Dollar Red to be exact) and was also shown with a light green wall. Well, the light green wouldn't work b/c the main areas of home are light green. While, I wasn't going for Fire Engine red, I wanted a nice muted red color for our walls.

So off to Home Depot we go with Pillow Sham in hand, just in case I need it for them to color match if they didn't have Benjamin Moore's formula for Million Dollar Red, as suggested by PB. They had the formula for the ever hated Million Dollar Red. So they mix it and we buy 2 gallons of the new Behr's Primer & Paint. Sweet....get home and J preps everything. Open the can of paint and WOW.....it appears to almost be Home Depot orange. J puts a coat on the wall and SHIT.....it is ORANGE-RED. OMG...........it was terrible. He tells me to chill out and let it dry and he'll do a 2nd coat. I've already got my mind made up that this isn't going to work. A few more choice words come flying out of my mouth since we have 2 gallons of custom paint. I don't even let him get the 2nd coat on before I head back out the door to HD. Thankfully, HD is 1/2 mile from our house. Back up to the paint counter.....and of course they look at me like I'm crazy since I was JUST there 45 minutes ago. So.....all they could do was add black to the paint. Dorky paint dude told the Old paint lady to add a 1/2 oz of black to both gallons. Well, Old paint lady decided she would add a whole ounce. I didn't know this until AFTER both pails were sitting on the counter ready for me to leave. So...............I get back and J starts painting. It is looking better and it is closer to what I was wanting. I tried to help, but my roller was taken away. I was the beer retriever and supervisor. Soooooo.........3 coats are now on 2 walls and the trim is done. While the walls are now more of a rust color(brownish/reddish), and not as red as I would've liked, they look great. I think that if the Old paint lady had only put in 1/2 oz of black as she was told, it would be closer to what I wanted. While it isn't exactly what I wanted.......they look fabulous and I don't know that we'll ever be painting our MB walls again. Lesson learned....just color match and not follow a suggested paint color.

Oh....and I had to go back for a 3rd gallon of paint yesterday. We've gone through 2 gallons of paint/primer and we have 2 walls left for 2nd and 3rd coats. Jason said that him painting our bedroom was my birthday present! HA!

Here is a very, very, very crappy picture. You can see (but only kind of due to the craptastic lighting) the fabulous coral pink, Million Dollar Red, and the new color. I have other pictures on my camera, I just haven't downloaded them yet. Due to the flourescent lighting and the sunlight coming in.....it really wasn't great for taking pictures. I was getting cursed at since I was taking pictures and not helping, so I didn't take the time to adjust the lighting. I might've gotten completely fired from my job had I taken any more pictures or tried to adjust the lighting.

Behr's Paint & Primer review: While it was suggested that we would probably only need 2 coats of Paint/Primer, we had to do a 3rd coat. If you get about 12 inches away from the wall...you can still see specks of pink paint through the new color, but we are not doing a 4th coat. The Paint & Primer in one is $8 more/gallon. I guess I'd recommend it, but still slightly disappointed that it didn't provide better coverage. Although, on the display at HD they show that it takes 7 coats of regular paint to do what Behr's Paint/Primer does in 2 coats. So there ya go.....

Weekend Wrap-Up

Worst part of the weekend: It ending. Edited to add: Figuring out the Benjamin Moore's Million Dollar Red is more of an ORANGE than a red. (See next post)

Best part of the weekend: going to eat at Rosa's on Friday night, and painting out Master Bedroom....finally after we've been there for over a year. We no longer have a coral pink colored MB! THANK GOODNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

People I saw this weekend: Amy, Kim, Molly, and the paint people at Home Depot.

Something I wished I did this weekend that I didn't get around to doing: NAP. Jason was golfing with his dad and the boys were at the waterpark with their friends, so I should've napped then, but didn't. (Yep...we finally did it. We dropped them off at the waterpark by themselves. They did great and were waiting for me to pick them up.)

Things that I am not looking forward to this week: working Monday - Wednesday.

Things that I am looking forward to this weeek: VACATION....we leave Thursday morning for Beaver's Bend....with NO KIDS! I aboslutely cannot wait. This is our first true vacation since our honeymoon 2 years ago.

Busy day.......

I took the day off of work b/c the boys had their middle school orientations today, and to add to that, I had a Dr appt for Tristen this morning and then he had a social event for band this evening. This is what my hectic schedule consisted of:

7am-wake up
8am- call dr to make appt for T (got it made for 930)
915-leave for dr appt and HOPE that they can see us quickly (which isn't normal). YAY...we made it out of there in record time....30 minutes.....which will NEVER happen again!
945-leave dr office with prescription and run by wal-mart to drop off prescription.
1030-Tristen's 7th grade orientation which was scheduled to only be in an hour, but we were there until 1150. It wasn't tooo terrible. We picked up our pre-orders for the School Supply Wrap Pack, PE clothes for Colby and Tristen's athletic workout gear. He got his schedule, athletic gear and his athletic locker. OMG....I can't believe I have a 7th grader in athletics! This is a whole new ball game now. We will now be juggling Colby's baseball and Tristen's football.
1150-head home (3 minutes from the school), grab a quick bite to eat, and get Colby
1220- leave the house with both boys and take Tristen BACK up to the school for band. (At this point, I'm crossing my fingers, toes, and anything else that can be crossed that I don't run out of gas, as I NEVER get gas until after my light comes on. Mind you, my light had been on since the day before!) Drop Tristen off....and run to get gas since Colby's orientation doesn't start until 1.
1245-file back into the gym, where i've already sat for an hour and 10 minutes earlier today....only to listen to the same speech, rules, policies, blah blah blah blah that I heard in Tristen's orientation. PTA this, PTA that, band playing, kids whispering, Principal talking, cheerleaders dancing and cheering, Principal telling kids to stop talking, parents whispering behind me about nothing important, tween boys snickering b/c the principal said 'crotch' (in reference to saggy pants in the dress code...'I don't want to see the crotch of your pants hanging down by your knees'). Oh my......oh my. At this point, I'm really ready to get the hell out of there. Oh no, but wait...we still have to get Colby's schedule. We get Colby's schedule and it is WRONG. They had him enrolled in band and he isn't doing band. With the 6th graders they do a mock day and go through the entire bell schedule, to assist them with finding their classes. This worked beautifully last year with Tristen. This year...BIG.FAT.JOKE.CHAOS.CLUSTER^&(*K! The bells weren't working, new teachers to the school weren't in their classrooms....it was just utter chaos. By this point...............I'm ready to get out of there as fast as I can. Before we left, Colby joined the Husky Howlers.....the boys spirit group for basketball games. (Since Colby can't play school sports until 7th grade.)
300-get home and take a breather.
355-take Tristen to band social
530-pick Tristen up from band social

Now it is 630......J still hasn't made it home from work yet, and I'm ready to call it a day and hit the hay.

Update: I stopped blogging when J walked in the door at 640. He obliged to my request to take me to Rosa's for dinner....even though he isn't CrAzY about Rosas. What a whirlwind day!

Wall Vinyl...

I cannot wait to get this wall vinyl decal in the mail! I just ordered it on Etsy! It is going to look fabulous in our living room!!!!

Weekend Wrap-Up

Worst part of the weekend: Having to replace our water heater on Friday and dealing with the drama involved with Colby's baseball team.

Best part of the weekend: all of us being at home for the whole weekend.....which I honestly cannot remember when that happened. We took the boys out with the adults on Saturday. The plan was to let them go watch GI Joe while the adults went and watched The Hangover, but our original plan didn't work out b/c dinner didn't take as long as we expected, so the timing for both movies got all screwed up. We all ended up watching GI Joe, well, I fell asleep during 1/2 of it.

People I saw this weekend: Lots of people at Bryan & Katie's wedding on Friday night, Saturday - Kim, Kate & Allen, Sunday - no one.

Something I wished I did this weekend that I didn't get around to doing: cleaning the house, although Jason did clean the shower.........which I despise doing! I'm pretty sure I'm going to give up on the house and call the maid next week. I also forgot to buy a baby shower gift that I meant to buy LAST WEEK!

Things that I am not looking forward to this week: ummmm..........can't really think of anything.

Life is good.....

Yeah, yeah...there haven't been any updates in almost a month, but nothing really has been going on. Jason recently changed jobs so he no longer works Saturdays, which is so nice! We are finally making headway on projects around the house. Speaking of house.....damn 12 year old house. Thank goodness for home warranties. This week....we thought the a/c was going out, but alas it isn't. Secretly we were hoping it was, so we could get a new one through our home warranty company. Much to our dismay, we were told that that will probably never happen due to the way home warranties work, but whatever. Last night the water heater decided to start leaking. So now...I wait in anticipation for my call from the plumber. Ya know...the 4 hour window I was given. "11-4 ma'am is when we can schedule you, but we'll call you 30 minutes prior to our arrival." Mind you, I took off earlier this week to meet the a/c guy. (This where Jason not working a mile down the street anymore SUCKS!) So....I told the plumber...the later the better. The back patio is finally close to being put together and completed, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Jason is wanting to put a flat-panel TV out there so I guess it will be more closer to completed once that is done. I'm not sure how soon that will happen. We bought furniture, outdoor rug, plants and a few decor items. We have thoroughly been enjoying our covered patio this summer and it was well worth the investment.

The boys are good. They are enjoying their last 2 weeks of summer. Tristen starts band on Monday, so his summer is coming to a close quicker than Colby's. I think he'll enjoy summer band though, since he'll be with his friends that he hasn't seen all summer. Tristen wanted to play baseball in the Fall, but there isn't a division for his age group. He'll be in athletics and will hopefully be playing football. Colby's baseball for the Fall is in limbo. We'll know more on Sunday, but his select team that he was playing on is struggling to find players for the Fall. Of course, football is huge in the Fall, so many kids play football. Granted, Colby could play recreational baseball, but honestly, it wouldn't help him develop any further. We might end up going the Rec Ball route if things don't pan out with his current team and if he doesn't make any of the other teams he is trying out for. Some of the teams he is trying out for are only looking for 3-4 players (if even that). It is a dog eat dog world out there, and I didn't realize how much d.r.a.m.a there is involved with youth select sports. It is insane!

I was registered and ready to run a 5K over the new Lake Lewisville Toll Bridge back on August 1st. I was uber excited b/c I had been training hard for this race. We get out there on race day and my girlfriend and I were in the 2nd wave (there were 5 waves of 500 runners). We were on the bridge ready to get called to the starting line and then the race was called/postponed due to weather. Mind you, we parked a mile away, are on a bridge with 2500+ other people. Jason and the boys came out to watch me, so we had to sift through all of the people to find them. Long story short, they postponed the race for an hour. We went back and the cancelled the race, but were still having the family fun walk across the bridge. WTH? Odd, but whatever. I was really, really, really bummed that we didn't get to run. I'm scoping out other races and very possibly will race on the 29th - my bday.

So....school is about to start. Life is about to get hectic again, but those are the good times. Oh...and Jason and I leave for our mini-vacation with friends on August 20th! Cannot wait!