Goodbye sweet glorious vacation. Hello work.

Today marks the last day of winter break. Sighhhhhh (that was a really big sigh, in case you couldn't tell by the excess of Hs). Tomorrow I go back to work. I am so not ready for that to happen. Winter break goes by so quickly. I was envisioning that I would have a lot more down town this break, but notsomuch. These last two weeks have been jampacked with friends and family and doing stuff. It was lots of fun, but as per uze, I did not get done all the stuff I had hoped to get down around the house. Story of my life, I suppose.

To start break off there were a lot of trips to the mall. Our exchange student, Liza, flew home two days after xmas and needed to get gifts for everyone back home. I did my first dint of maternity clothes shopping while she searched the mall for gifts. I got a lot of good basics at Motherhood Maternity and one cute shirt at H&M.

On the first Monday of break we also took her to Zoolights at out local zoo. It was a nice night to go, no rain, but very chilly.

The next day was my first appointment with the midwives. It was a pretty short appointment, since it was just establishing care. I didn't even meet with a midwife, just a nurse and we went over all my intake information. Then that afternoon we took Liza into Seattle to see some of the sights. We went to the Market and poked around. After that we took the monorail to Seattle Center and looked around there. We ate dinner at the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. Of course, it was Liza's first time there, but it was also WM's. He had never been to the top before! So it was a real treat to eat up there and enjoy the beautiful views. After dinner we went up one floor to the observation deck.

The next morning, Liza and I took the train down to Oregon to spend time with family. Wm wasn't able to come down until Christmas eve because he had to work. It was nice to spend time with family and friends we don't get to see as often as we would like. We headed back north on Sunday, because Liza flew back home to the Netherlands on Monday, and Wm had to work Sunday night. Sunday was mostly spent trying to cram all of Liza's belongings into her one suitcase. Monday we got up early and took her to the airport. After we got back home we just lazed around. WM was pretty tired from working the night shift, and I was just worn out from all the go-go-going.

On Tuesday we decided the time had come... for us to get a new TV. We have had the same crappy hand me down tv for years. We have put up with its floating discoloration spots and super dark picture. WM and I had made a deal that when he finished building a new entertainment system we would buy a new TV. But, here we are with a new TV and an unfinished entertainment system down in the basement. Eventually (hopefully this month) we will have an entertainment system like this only in a different color (photo and plans from Knock Off Wood):

On Wednesday, WM went to work. I met up with him and a coworker for lunch, and then I headed out to the Super Mall for maternity shopping. There have a Motherhood Maternity outlet and the closest Old Navy that carries maternity. I got tons of stuff. My hope is that I am basically set for the next 6+ months.

On Thursday, I prepped the house for guests. I had to clean out the rest of the stuff in Liza's room and make it back into a guest room. I also got the second guest room ready and just kind of picked up the house in general. That evening some friends arrived from Oregon.

Of course the next day was NYE. We went out to our favorite bar and played our favorite game (Big Game Hunter) and everyone (except me) enjoyed delicious microbrews. That night we had two more visitors arrive from Oregon. We ate good food and they enjoyed good beers, which I would sample but not drink.

New Years Day everyone was pretty worn out, so we headed out to get yummy bfast food at Alfred's Cafe where one of our good friends is the head chef. It was jam packed, looks like we weren't the only ones who wanted good grub the morning after partying. The rest of the day was pretty low key. Two of guest headed back down to Oregon. WM and I took Ralph for a nice long walk. And other than that we vegged out in front of our new tv with our friends and just kind of took it easy.

Which brings us to today. Sunday. Our guests headed out this morning and now WM and I are enjoying the last few hours we have together before he has to go to work. We will talk the Ralphster out for another walk in a bit. I'm doing laundry and right now WM is playing videogames.

I have made a slight amount of progress on the nursery. I emptied out the closet in that room. That had been where I was storing all of my clothes (gotta love old houses and their postage stamp sized closets, right?). I packed up all my non-maternity clothing (at least the ones that I don't think will work) and moved the rest into a different closet. The plan is to get a free standing armoire to put in our bedroom and install an organizational system in the closet that is in there so that both WM and I can keep out wardrobes in our bedroom (how convenient would that be?).

There you have it. My winter break in a (pretty large) nutshell. I had hoped to empty out the nursery completely, paint it, rip up the carpet in there (and the other guest rooms) as well as paint the living room. But, none of those things even remotely happened. The good news is that soon WMs work schedule is changing and we will have a lot more time together on the weekends. I am very very very much looking forward to this. Perhaps we will be able to get some projects done together on our (ready for this?) weekends at home.

Framing Frenzy

On Saturday we made an epic journey to Ikea. We made it through with our sanity (mostly) intact. We also made it through with a cart full of Swedish designed, Chinese made goods. The bulk of our purchases were frames… thus, it has been a framing frenzy!Hopefully one evening this week we will have a hanging frenzy! Oh, and a handy tip: I used an old butter knife to flip up and down those pesky metal tabs that you find on the back of cheap frames. Worked like a charm and no sore fingertips.

I did all the framing this morning before Bill got up (I know, it is quite shocking that I woke up first!). I have more frames, but I need to sift through massive amount of my digital photos and pick out which ones I want to order and frame. I also now realize that I should have gotten some more larger frames because I want to print off some of the sweet images from here.

Anyway, once Bill got up we switched to working outside. Nothing really amazing, just all those normal maintenance things like mowing the lawn, weeding the flowers, and weed whacking (around the beds of our little neighborhood garden).

We bought some non-frame related things at Ikea as well. Like these cute little bud vases, that I filled with cute little red anemones from our garden.And a bunch of candles to put in our (non-working) fireplace. I’m not super pumped with the current arrangement, but it is a starting point. I would like to add more height to the back row. I also had the great idea to buy a whole stack of these pretty fabric boxes. That way I could totally organize the gigantic mess that is my hall cabinet.You see, since the cabinet door opens down and the cabinet is so deep I cannot reach all the way to the back. I can barely reach to the midpoint, so everything gets all jumbled and mashed whenever I am looking for something (like a matching sheet set). Now with these handy dandy fabric boxes I could put matching sheet sets into their own box according to size and then just pull out the box instead of trying to get anything from the back. Perfect plan, right? Wrong! The baskets were just a few inches too tall. Sigh. So now I have to find other uses for these boxes, which I’m sure won’t be a problem… I do have a lot of stuff that could be stashed away into cute boxes. But, still, I’m disappointed that I don’t get to use them for their intended purpose. Oh well, I guess I got what I deserved since I didn’t take measurements ahead of time.

Well, that is it for this weekend. What kind of fun things did you all do? And remember, just a few short weeks until you get to see the entire house (which means I only have a few short weeks to shove things in closets or under beds clean).

Rug-tastic!

I have just completed some major rug shopping. And I am jazzed. That’s right. Jazzed.

Here are the rugs that will soon be joining our home. Isn’t she gorgeous? We actually already have a smaller version. We bought it just a few months after we moved in and at that point weren’t ready to commit to a large scale area rug.  However, the little rug grew on us day in and day out. It has morphed into being the inspiration for the color flow of our house. We have been planning for quite some time to take the plunge and upgrade. And that is happening now. And, I am jazzed (Ha, there is it again!). Anywho, we will move the smaller one up to our bedroom, but it really could work in any room of the house.

That is not all. Are you ready for even more rug fantastic-ness? I have also just ordered modular carpeting from Flor. These pretty little puppies will line our upstairs hall. You probably noticed that the 1st and 3rd image are the same, just the rug color has been been swapped from Blue Heeler to Bury it Bone. The center image is Pale Blue (it really got the short end of the stick stupid name-wise). I plan on using all three carpet tiles to create a random(ish) pattern. Yay! Such fun.

Jazzed.

 

Our Vancouver Getaway

We have been back from Vancouver, BC for well over a week now, so I guess the time to blog about it is now or never.

It was a really nice little vacation. We had a lot of fun and were able to relax (even though we were perpetually on the go… It is funny how vacation works, eh?).

We stayed a the Nelson House B&B in West End Vancouver, just a few blocks from wonderful Stanley Park. We had the attic suite, which was surprisingly large. It had a little writing desk and twin bed in one dormer, a kitchen nook in another, and the queen bed in the what would have been the third (however, the dormer window had been converted into a little balcony). Plus, there was the living room area in the middle.Right outside the writing desk dormer was a Magnolia in full bloom.

We arrived on a Tuesday and lucky for us the Vancouver Art Gallery is free Tuesday evenings! Now, can someone please explain to me why it is called a ‘gallery’ and not a ‘museum’? It is most definitely the city’s art museum with permanent and rotating exhibits, not some gallery where you can buy works.  

Anyway, the classical facade of the Gallery was covered in a hand painted mural by Michael Lin, which I loved. I was really hoping that they would have some prints of his in the museum, ahem, gallery store, alas, they did not. They did, however, have a framed Dutch still life print in their clearance section (a remnant from a previous exhibit from the Rijks, which I wish I could have seen). I think it will end up in our bedroom, but as of yet it is sitting on our kitchen table amidst a pile of mail.

The only other real souvenir we bought on our trip was this adorable mercury glass owl from Parliament, a furniture store in Gastown (which, sadly, does not have a website).  This little guy is living in our dining room on the plate railing that lines two walls.

I, of course, took a ton of photos while we walked or (tandem) biked around the city. Maybe some of the photos will actually be printed and framed. Particularly ones of the jellyfish at the aquarium or the birds at the conservatory. But, where would the jellyfish go? Hmmm….This little guy is adorable and would work well in our bedroom or in my imaginary art wall installation. I wish I knew how to use Photoshop better so I could play around with a bunch of fun effects. Right now I just use Picasa which is super duper basic. I love swans. I think this was only the second time I had seen them in real life (the other time being in Rome at Villa Borghese). I don’t think I will probably do anything with the swan photos, but who knows…

Now here are some to definitely print and frame:Just kidding! How disgusting are those seagulls choking down starfish? Blech.

Here is the pretty boy we came home to. He was super cuddly when we returned (even more than usual). We saw two saints while in Vancouver. Bill and I both stopped and just watched them go by. While (in our humble opinion) they were no where as cute as Ralph, they were far better behaved (being that they were able to be walked in a dense urban setting and did not jump or bark at anybody. Amazing, I know).

Well, that is it for our trip. This weekend we are not up to anything terribly exciting. While I am doing house stuff, it is just the boring things like laundry (which I am good about regularly doing) and dishes (which I am horrible at regularly doing). We recently bought some power tools (a jigsaw and miter saw) so expect some fun projects in the near future. Right now we are just making a pair of saw horses to get used to the tools and gear up for repairing the back steps. But, oh, my idea list of things to make with those tools grows daily as I find new plans and projects out there in blogland.

Shop, Shop, Shopping

Well, we are back. You probably didn’t even know were gone. Anyway, we headed up North to Vancouver, BC for a mini vacation this week. It was also our 2 year wedding anniversary. I must say, it was very convenient getting married over spring break, because now we always have the option to get away together to celebrate our anniversary. But, I’m not really writing about our travels today. Maybe I will get to that tomorrow. Maybe not. After all, I do have a big list of things I need to accomplish before, *gasp*, returning to work and the kiddos bright and early Monday morning.

You might be amazed to know this (your amazement level will vary greatly depending on how well you know me), but I actually got stuff done today and did not procrastinate by putting (it all) off until tomorrow. I (are you ready for this?) put away my clothes! I know, I know, it is quite unbelievable. It had really been way, way, way too long. I am happy to now report that you can see the floor in my room. I am also working on laundry and have been good about putting dishes right into the dishwasher (as opposed to just piling them in the sink). We will see how long this streak of cleanliness lasts.

Anyway, as the blog titles indicated I also did a bit of online shopping as reward for my job well done. I got some cute new candle holders at Luna Bazaar. Ah, cute, cute, cute! I had seen the Capiz lotus blossom candle holders at some stores before, but could never bring myself to buy one due to their inflated cost. However, at Luna Bazaar they are quite a steal, so I didn’t feel quite so torn about parting with my money.

I also bought some art prints off of Etsy. I had been eyeing a couple of sellers’ work for quite some time; today was they day I finally decided exactly which prints I wanted. They were tough choices to make, I assure you. I bought a couple of cityscape prints from Artquirk. I also got some animal prints from Matou En Peluche.

I can’t wait for it all to get here. Of course, I really need to be on the look out for frames (and possibly some mats) to go with all my new prints.

Oh, and I almost forgot (probably because this purchase is not quite so thrilling as the others)… But, I also bought some metal sectional framing kits from Utrecht. They are to frame my 2 wonderful Beautiful Angle posters. I will still need to go to a local framing store to get glass and the backing material for the posters though. Soon, so very soon, I will have many beautiful pieces of art to hang. Yay!

However, I still need to figure out framing for our gargantuan Nolli map (remember this?). I think we will just have to end up biting the bullet and paying an astronomical amount to get it professionally mounted and framed. That is, unless any of you out there have any helpful suggestions… Hmmm?