{Not} Living Vicariously

Tuesday Tours 4 - Master Bathroom

As promised last week, here is the master bathroom. Much of the detail on this one has already been discussed here and here. And once again, there are no before pictures. However, it had identical wall color and has an identical vanity and flooring. So, you sort of get the picture. Our after results though are very restful.

 
I love the shower curtain and the bath mat. I don't remember where we bought the shower curtain as we looked many places for one that fit this color scheme. However, the bath mat is from Bed, Bath, & Beyond and is the cushionyist (that is a word, right?) ever! The only thing that would make it better would be if it were larger.

 
Notice my sage green washcloth over Aaron's chocolate brown hand towel? Yes, I'm goofy like that. It is reversed on my side of the mirror. We both have these great towel rings for our hand towels. And while you can't see it in these pictures, there is a beautiful matching hook for our bath towel next to the shower. Because of course there is no easy place to put your towel in hand's reach from the shower.

 
I realized I forgot to mention the countertops in my last bathroom post also. You remember the dark blue, black, and grey ones we had? Well this is just a simple formica upgrade. However it is a textured formica which makes all the difference in the world to me. For some reason, adding in the texture makes it look and feel much more expensive. And this color is called Mocha Travertine. If I were ever to put in real stone, I would not go with marble or granite. I find them cold. But travertine on the other hand is warm and alive to me.

I first discovered travertine when I did a kitchen remodel back in 2005 or so. I'm so glad the advice lady at Home Depot showed it to me. I fell in love with its qualities and am happy to once again introduce it to my house.

Trek Sport Shoes

I have suffered foot and leg cramps most of my life. There have been times in which both my shin and my calf cramp at the same time, allowing neither of them to stretch without aggravating the other. Same with my feet - I'll have a cramp in the top and the bottom fighting with each other. I've tried the "eat more bananas" approach to adding potassium to my diet. I've tried taking magnesium tablets knowing that stress can leach magnesium from your body leading to more cramps. I've tried every trick someone has suggested over the years (and I'm still listening to new ideas - got any?). Today I finally convinced myself to splurge on something new. I've done a lot of research on the Vivram FiveFinger shoes and how they are supposed to help with . . . I'll call them presnickety muscles for lack of a better term. I even almost bought a pair several months back, but they didn't have my size in the store and I wasn't confident enough to buy them online. After all, these shoes are just weird! And my toes are somewhat particular about how they fit in shoes, plus I have a wide toe box and a narrow heel. So I waited. And today, when we went in to REI, they had my size. Ten minutes later we walked out the door with them.

The packaging clearly states that "If you are wearing FiveFingers for the first itme, we encourage a very gradual transition, as you will be using new muscles in the feet and lower legs. We recommend wearing FiveFingers for 1-2 hour intervals the first few weeks. Gradually increase usage as your body strengths and adapts." Well, I have just returned from my first walking the dog while wearing them. I made it 30 minutes before my feet started to protest, plus the heel is a little tender where I'm getting used to it hitting in a different spot than my normal walking shoes. And yes, I feel my muscles. But I haven't cramped so my fingers are crossed (well, not literally as I am typing right now) that this will help and I will have fewer issues on long distance days. If you haven't seen these shoes on anyone yet, keep your eyes open. They are definitely becoming more popular!

 

PS - I did finally get a new pair of Mary Jane Crocs and they are what my feet are in now. Still love these as well!

Scream Creek Makeup Practice

A friend of mine has been hired to do makeup effects for the Haunted Woods at Scream Creek this year. When she said she needed practice, I immediately volunteered. She and two others came over last night after work and Becky worked on her skills before and after dinner - which was King Ranch Chicken Casserole by the way. One of these pictures shows me as if I've been attacked by some madman with a shovel and the other shows the abrasion I received when I fell while running away. In both cases, I'm amazed and impressed at her skills. Especially as she has had no formal training, she just does this for fun!

 
She says she needs more practice on these . . . I'm willing to be a test victim again.

 
Is this not amazing work? Anyway, it was a fun evening and I look forward to seeing more of her effects next month in the Haunted Woods at Scream Creek.

Words of Wisdom - unknown

"Even if you do nothing else God, you have done enough."

Some while back my parents and I went with my Aunt Vicki to a church in Fresno where she lives and where we used to live. I don't know the name of the church, although I could find out, nor do I know who said this, although it was important enough to me I wrote it down and know that I wrote it down that day. Whenever I get frustrated with life - with God not answering my immediate prayer - with life throwing me a curve ball and things not going the way I want them to - I pull this tiny slip of paper out of my calendar and read it again.

"Even if you do nothing else God, you have done enough."

How utterly true this is. Because whatever else is going on here in my life on Earth, that is here and here is not my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal is to be with God in heaven and even if He does nothing else ever for me He has made that happen by coming to Earth and dying for me. How can I require any more from him?

"Even if you do nothing else God, you have done enough."

Tuesday Tours 3 - Master Bedroom

Apparently we did not take any before photos of the Master Bedroom. At least I can't find any. However, let me state: the walls had been painted peach and this huge molding was erected at both ceiling and base of the walls. And that was before the grafitti was scratched into the walls and primer slapped over it. Did I mention that the house had been broken in to and grafitti had been painted or scratched into the walls? It had.

Well, we removed all the molding . . . even around the doors . . . and repaired the walls. Then everything was primered and we were ready to start. We painted the walls Behr brand Antique White which came from the same "idea" card that I used for our guest bathroom. My thought behind this was I am painting both bathrooms the same brown color and I know this color will blend well with the brown so as each room is visible from the other I should have an easy flow to the eye. It works.

After everything was painted, my father came in and installed all the trim. He framed out the windows (every window in the house actually - teaching Aaron how to make those cuts on the miter and how to install them), plus both door frames, baseboards, and crown molding. The room looks 200% better than it did, even after we painted.

It is still not completely done. There are a lot of blank walls and we are using our old comforter, one I'm embarrassed to admit how long I've owned, because we haven't found the right new one. I've scoped one out, but it was more than we were willing to pay considering the dog and the cat both like to sleep on the bed and the dog actually likes to nest down into it. So, down the road, imagine this room to actually be accented with red tones - not green - and you'll have a better idea of what we are hoping to achieve. However, in the meantime, here is our results and boy are we happy with them!

See the molding around the ceiling and windows?

 
And another angle, check out the molding around the door, yes done by father and husband!

 
And the necessary bookshelves, because we can't live without our books!

 
Next week, the Master Bathroom.

Yippee!

Guess what this is?

 
Yes, that would be a garage door opener. Not only that, it is a working one! I have not lived in a place with a garage since moving to TN in 2002. Our new house came with a 2 car garage, however there were no openers. We bought one that was supposed to work with our model - same make - but it didn't. And while it is still hot now, there will come a day when it is cold and it will be nice to enter/exit the house via the garage. (I've already felt that on rainy days!)

So my husband, my wonderful husband, spent his afternoon off on Friday installing a new garage door opener and I came home from work to my very own push button magic. I haven't used the front door since. Now . . . if there were only enough room for me to park in it. Not yet. Maybe by the time winter comes.

Things I Love - a full freezer

I love knowing I have dinners prepped and/or prepared for the coming weeks. Trying to keep two houses clean and two lawns mowed . . . plus going through some extra trainings at work in preparation for a workflow change . . . and knowing I want to walk the dog most nights even though it is getting dark earlier . . . means the fact that dinner is in the freezer is one less duty I need to think about each day.

We recently inherited a chest freezer that is living in our garage and while it is not yet full - I'm a lot closer now than I was this time last week. Last Friday we purchased ground beef in bulk and have made 30 or so meals that are now happily hanging out just waiting to be used.

 
Yes I do admit that several of those plastic containers are just holding ice as a way for us to not be paying to chill air. But there is a lot of food in there and over the next few weeks I will continue to stock it.

Over on Two Happy Bellies Aaron and I are sharing the recipes that are filling our freezer. And while, yes, I have done most of the planning and cooking in this endeavor - because I have more experience at it than he does - his "mad knife skills" have been absolutely invaluable when it came to the prep work.

Next big cooking weekend will focus on chicken!

Tuesday Tours 2 - guest bathroom

Shortly before we got married, we did all the normal stuff such as registering for gifts. We registered for these beautiful sage green and chocolate brown towels and I envisioned a restful retreat for our bathroom. Then, out of the blue (ha!), Aaron tells me he has always wanted a blue bathroom. Um? If you wanted a blue bathroom, why did we register for green and brown?

Now that we have two bathrooms, we have achieved both. Our master bath, to be shown later in this virtual tour, has my restful retreat. Our guest bathroom, still a bit of a work in progress, has enough blue to make Aaron happy. He had originally envisioned an almost nautical theme of blue and white but until we can change out the floors, he is happy with what I created.

Some shots of where we started: grey walls; black, blue, & grey countertop; blue & beige floor. And can we just say "dark & dingy" . . . you should have seen how many photos I deleted due to bad lighting!

 
 
Now to talk about the after shots: I took my color scheme from a Kilz bedroom suggestion swatch. However, because I like Behr brand paint and it was on a sale when I was buying all of my paint . . . I took advantage of their color matching service and the walls are painted Behr brand Brown Teepee (original color name was Mochatini - how tasty does that sound?!?) The blue of the towels is the closest match I could get to "Winding River" and the shower curtain is from Target. We have a rounded shower curtain bar up and have already received thanks from our guests for the extra space.

First a shot of the floor so you can see why I couldn't do blue with white . . .

 
Next, what you see as you walk in the door . . .

 
And last, the shot facing towards the door . . .

 

It isn't completely done. I'd rather have a blue candle than a cream one. The box of tissues is not attractive, however they are useful. And there is nothing on the walls yet so they look bland. But it does look much lighter now than before.

Stinky Dog!

We inherited a burn pile on our property. Some of the things we've discovered there are quite interesting. Not all of them were burnable. A sizeable amount was hauled off after we bought the house. However, as we have started working on the landscaping (now that the heat broke) we have been utilizing the burn pile ourselves. Aaron created a lovely conflageration the other night.

 
And I'm looking forward to bonfires and s'mores later this year. However, there are apparently some critters who are enjoying our burn pile. Lindy was out investigating it recently and started rolling around off to one side. This is never a good sign - it means she has discovered some lovely perfume that I'm going to regret. So, I got off the phone with my father (hi daddy!) to deal with the situation.

 
You are so lucky we don't have "smellovision" yet! Oohwee . . . she promptly got a bath. The worst part is we realized there was a reddish tinge to the stuff as it was washing off. I believe we have a dead critter out by the burn pile. I think we are actually becoming a little bit country in that I didn't freak out. Although I still let Aaron deal with it.

Returning library books . . .

at a bank?!?!? Yes, in West Memphis, Arkansas you can return your library books as you go through the drive thru ATM. Hmmm. Does this really save the customer time? Because it sure must make more work on the library staff . . .