Playing Catch Up with Photos

Instead of trying to remember what has happen in our lives since my last post, I typically look through the photos on my phone as they are a good indication of what we have been up to.  So instead of a lengthy post of blah, blah blah, I thought I'd just post a bunch of pictures I've had since October and you can peruse our life at leisure :)

Allow me to begin with too much cuteness for one blog! Ever since we moved into the house, Portland makes it a habit of waiting at the top of the stairs for us when we go up for bed.  Precious...

Replacement Ref and his Penalty Flag

Penalty Flag, Walking Dead, Red Riding Hood and 50's Wife :)

Elvira & Cat Women join the mix! They were the hostest with the mostest 

Not sad....

Sad that not many trick-or-treaters came this year

Turkey Day 10K

High School Football Playoffs! Our school is going to State!!!

First year in Fantasy Football and I was #1... for a week :)

Festive decorations for Holidays 2012! My mom would be so proud of our door :)

Got to visit Tampa for a conference and see Mariana while I was there! While I was gone a shiny new stove arrived! Merry Christmas to us!!! Thank you Manzer Parents!







3rd Annual Ugly Sweater Party!!! Italian Feast Style :)

know that Meg loves children ;) she and Abby were simply discussing how unfair life is when you're 4 months old...

"You don't say Shug!" -Meg

Happy Holidays for Jarrod, Amy, Portland & Athena!!!! 

Every House Should Have a Bar

Every house should have a bar, correct? I'm pretty sure I saw that in the massive amount of paperwork Jarrod and I signed in April.  With all of the other projects in the house this requirement continued to get pushed back but I am here to announce (slightly later then when it really happened) that our house now has a real life bar!

The colors were absolutely perfect... and it was on
sale!

Rufferee Portland clearly approves

Before we get to the details allow me to show off the new rug we go a month ago...

Wide Retriever Athena agrees!

Ok back to the bar...
I did take photos during most of the steps so I will outline our process for you.  Know that we originally thought we could do this in one weekend. Know that we were very wrong. Know that we argued through a lot of this process, but the end result was so worth the toils.

Here's how we did it:
Materials-
20 Cinder blocks
1 sheet of MDF cut to size
1 sheet of plywood cut to size
1 huge board
1 not so huge board
6 pieces of felt
About 20 pieces of strapping (I think that's what the strips of wood are called)
1 can of grey wood stain
5-6 tubes of construction adhesive
1 very patient husband :)(I'm not sure about the availability of this item... it's not required, but sure does help)

Step One: Get the wood for the bar top and front stained so it has plenty of time to dry.  We only did one coat  so you could still see the grains of the wood.  We wanted it to look old, like we used pallets.  Oddly making new wood look old was easier than using old wood.

Step Two: Cover the bottom cinder blocks with felt so that they do not scratch the floors.  Technically this is not a permanent bar because it's not nailed into anything.  However we can't move it and it won't leave in 1 piece so I guess it's a bonus for whoever gets our house next!

 Step Three: Pile cinder blocks on top of each other with adhesive in between.  You can see we did 3 blocks high before the first shelf. We did this so a wine rack we had would fit under the shelf. Very important feature.

 Step Four: Add 2 more rows of blocks with a lot more adhesive and pretend that this ugly thing makes you happy.

Step Four and a 1/2: Pretend to be a bartender in order to be sure that this so far ugly thing will work.  Panic slightly when you realize you've gone too far to turn back.

 Step Five: Put back out trying to squeeze enough adhesive to attach wood to concrete.  Woah this is tough!
Then attach 2 huge boards that were stained to the top. 1 will hang over some to give it that authentic bar feel.

 Step Six: Attach plywood to the front of the cinder blocks so it's easier to attach strapping later on.  Don't forget to convince your dog that construction adhesive is not candy and though she means well, she really is no help at all.

Step Seven: Begin gluing and screwing (get your minds out of the gutter...) stained strapping boards to the front and side of the bar.  This will prove to be very difficult on the side because you will try to do it with out a piece of plywood at first only to have them all fall off.  Hence multi-weekend project....

 Step Eight: Attach L brackets under the hang over for security and to the corners for good looks.  Looks old right?

Step Nine: Desire glass for the top like every good bar has only to realize the cost would defeat the point of making the bar yourself.  Settle with plexiglass and put cool bar coasters underneath.














Step Ten: Fill the back side with glasses, liquor and other things you'd like to hind from guests.  Use bar for a catch all of mail, bags and junk and be happy you made it yourself :)

We Interrupt the Regularly Scheduled Blog Post on the House for a Family Update...

NO I AM NOT PREGNANT!!!! I understand that this blog title lends itself to that notion, but it is not the case at this point.  While Jarrod and I do want children some day, I do not think the process of creating said child will be documented on our blog.  Now... once the eventual said child arrives.... HA that will be a different story.  They will be a blog sensation.... obvs.

So again, I am not pregnant, nor will you find out here any time soon that I am.  However this blog post does still relate to children.  As long as Jarrod and I have been together we have agreed that we would like to have 2 children.  We have also always agreed that one child will (hopefully) be biological and one child will be adopted.  Adoption is something very important to both of us and is found on  both sides of our families.  There are many other reasons we feel strongly about adoption, many of which can be attributed to my Geography background, but at the end of the day it comes down to the fact we both feel it's the right thing to do for our family.

We have decided to share our adventure in adoption via our blog because it will be a less personal adventure in the sense that we will need outside help to make it happen.  At some point in the process we will have to ask friends and family for references and we would hate for this process to be a surprise to them.

Last night Jarrod and I took our first step in this process.  We attended an orientation with a local adoption agency to learn more about the process.  It was about 2 hours long (part of which was during Monday Night Football... aka my husband is a saint!) and it was definitely information overload.  Part of the issue we realized is that this particular agency focuses more on foster care and so most of the information we received last night pertained to that.  What was helpful was going through their application because it helped us realize just how much documentation we have to pull together to even apply.

We left the meeting feeling somewhat overwhelmed, a little bummed that that agency probably won't work for us, and still a little excited that this process will have to start soon.  We now have to get down to business with finding the agency for us and then begin collecting all the required information for their application. This alone could take 3 months or so before we can even move on to the next step.

As readers of this blog know, I am not very consistent with my posts, however I hope to keep a record of this adventure just as I have with others in the past so we can look back and see how far we have come.  Virtual reflection, I suppose, is better than no reflection at all.

DIY... with support from my sponsor aka Husband

Gone are the days of "It's been (insert large number of days) since my last blog post" because it feels like I am in trouble and since not many people read my blog why would I be in trouble?  I do feel guilty about not blogging as much as I would like, but not because of the time between posts, but because of the overwhelmed feeling I give myself by having so much to write about and not enough time to do it when I go this long between posts...

So while I have a good amount of catching up to do, I do want to share our first major project we complete in our new house!  We were smart and started small and so we were able to have a more "instant" gratifying moment than if we had started with say the kitchen or living room.  Our first project was to paint and decorate our half bath on the first floor.  I was inspired by my bud Shannon who has an all black bathroom (sounds creepy but is totally super chic and makes using the restroom at their house a luxurious experience!) but did not want to copy said bathroom and so we made it our own by introducing a color I like to call Merlot.

Here's the bathroom before we started...

 White walls... White toilet and sink... white trim and door. Oh and the mirror was this weird octogonal shape.

















As I mentioned above we decided to go bold in this bathroom.  For several reasons, but the main one was because it was a small space and could handle bold colors.  It's not as if people go in the bathroom all day, every day so if it was a bit of an assault on the senses we figured it would be ok for a few moments at a time.

First we taped out the bathroom so that the painting came out nice and neat.  When you have an anal precise husband this is sure to go smoothly.

 

You can see that the old mirror left 2 big spots on the wall, but I think we're lucky that's all it did seeing as it was glued to the wall!

First color we applied was the Merlot.  We went with a semi gloss because Im too wimpy to go with high gloss but I think in the future we wont even go with semi gloss because of our textured walls.  This sounds like a fancy feature of our new home but really is not and it's quite obnoxious if you ask me.  Not sure why anyone would want bumpy walls.... But back to the Merlot color... mmmm Merlot!

 

Next was onto the trim.  I will say with the black trim we made a happy mistake.  I bought flat paint by mistake, so the trim and door look almost like caulk boards...THEY'RE NOT FYI.... but we like the contrast, so all is well that ended well.

 

To finish up the room we put up faux roman shades.  I got this idea from Pinterest (which yes I am obsessed with...) and it was super easy.  I glued all the hems (yes I own a sewing machine but this was WAY easier) and then you arrange the fabric on 3 tension rods and TADA!

They don't move up or down, but with the bars on the windows (we live in a city and we're fine with them...now) and the fence right outside the window, we figured no one would have a desire for them to be up.  Also because the fabric is super thin, light still filters in when it's sunny out so win-win.

The next thing we did was decorate.  Originally I wanted to go with a fancy, heavy on the wooden frame look, but then I found Fleur-de-Lis accessories at Hobby Lobby (southern craft store) that I loved and so the wrought iron/ New Orleans theme was born...

Fleur-de-Lis towel hook and metal globe

Mirror with scroll work from Ikea. It covers the 2 boo-boos from the first mirror perfectly!

I am very excited that these two pieces of art have such a great
home now.  We got them on our Mini Moon in NOLA and they
are by an artist from NOLA!

Fleur-de-Lis toilet paper holder... obvs 

At this point we just need to find wrought iron light switch covers and new bulb covers for our light fixture.  Then our first major project will be complete! That is until we replace the sink for something more modern and maybe get a black toilet.... Jarrod's idea... I'm kinda weirded out by it. 

Next up is the upstairs guests bathroom (elements themed) and our master bedroom (NYC themed). I guess we like themes....