Moving

No, not into the house. I’m actually moving from WordPress to Blogger. Gasp.

I know, I know. I really hate it when bloggers are all “change your bookmarks! I’m moving!” but it had to be done. Becauser seriously every time I try to comment on someone else’s blog, the stupid word thing comes up and I struggle with it two or three times and then it denies me. And I’ve realized that it has something to do with WordPress or WordPress + work’s firewalls.

Plus, let’s be honest. I’d like to have more than 3.5* readers. And they can’t come if I don’t build it, right?

So switch up your bookmark, son, so you can read my ramblings at a new url:

www.milkmoneyshop.blogspot.com

*Don’t worry, you’re not the .5. J is the .5 because he reads approximately 3% of the time. And I don’t need to worry about him feeling bad about being the .5 for this exact reason.

Bookin It

I am reallllllllly feeling this book table that was first featured on Design*Sponge.

I saw it a few weeks ago, when it posted, but I forgot where I saw it. Today during lunch I went to the local Goodwill store to check out their furniture, and upon discovering a perfect chair for our new master bedroom, a lightning bolt flashed to this table idea for some reason. Unexplainable how my brain works.

Anyway, I was thinking how awesome it’d be to reupholster my new old chair (if it’s still there when I go back!) to put in the corner of our master bedroom, right next to one of these tables (attempted by me, of course!) and constructed out of books in the color palette of the room.

I’m literally drooling over my own idea right now. So lame.

What’s even more badass about this idea is that I don’t even have to scour the thrift stores for the books! And then PAY for them! Nope. Good ol’ Balmer has this community project called The Book Thing where you can donate and take as many books as you’d like – for free. For FREE, people! So I can scour there, instead. And they have way more books than even the biggest thrift store, so hopefully I wouldn’t have trouble finding the size and color of books that I’d need.

I’ve asked Angie to come along since I still need to give her their wedding present since I missed her sweet sweet wedding, and I’ll be right in her neighborhood (ahem, will I, Angie? ah, Baltimore’s Baltimore).

What would be even more badass would be if I added one of these – in a coordinating color, of course – on top:

This etsy seller, pommesfrites, takes vintage books and turns them into safes – for flasks (with a cutout in the shape of a flask!), money, ipods, jewelry, whatev – by precision-cutting the pages after gluing them together. She also sells little magnets made from vintage maps, and she’s extremely accommodating. She’ll take special requests for cities and everything. Great gift.

I actually bought one of her book safes a few months ago as a Christmas gift for… well, I can’t say who since it’s not Christmas yet! Anyway, one of these would be a great topper for my little side table because then I could store my reading glasses or whatever I wanted. Awesome.

Sometimes being this much of a genius is painful.

Painting Blows

People love to paint.

You tell them you’re moving or just thinking of redoing a room, and they’re all, “Can I help?!”

And, to be honest, I’ve always been that way, too. An eager beaver craving a paint roller.

…

I don’t know why.

Painting is hell. Now instead of wanting actually paint with the paint roller, I want to do some demo work with it.

I also think it’s a bit more complicated than people make it seem. J’s dad officially confused me when he described the order in which you should paint. “Oh, but it’s different if there’s no crown molding”, “And it’s different if it’s a small space”.

Is he kidding me with this? How about I just slap some on and call it a finished project? Jesus. Like the order matters thaaaaaat much.

Okay. So maybe it does.

Yesterday I went around hastily putting up my favorite painter’s tape – Frog Tape – to get the office ready for my roller’s attack this afternoon. Only after finishing the taping-off project and rolling around to priming some other parts of the house did I realize, oh, I didn’t prime the trim. Whoops.

My solution? Just prime OVER the frog tape. I know, it’ll come out great. The tape’s going to pull off the edge of the primer I laid down. What can I say. When I get disgruntled, I take it out on the paint.

Okay, painting may be fun when you’re doing a room or a “cute piece of Goodwill furniture” that I read about all over the blogs. But when you’re faced with painting a whole house? Granted, a 960 square foot house, but a house none-the-less? Eh. Call me when it’s done.

Gag Me

I witnessed the most disgusting display the other day.

Let me tell you about it.

My boss took our whole team out for a lunch to boost morale and introduce some new staff (me, included) to some of the older staff. My boss is a director, so I guess to the organization he’s pretty important. He also invited his boss, the VP. I sat right next to both of them.

On the other side of the VP sat a coworker of mine I’ll call The Creep.** Before anyone had arrived, he argued with my boss about ordering a beer, since we were at a brewery. At 11:30 in the morning. For work. Of course, my boss said no.

Then everyone (about 22 people) placed their orders, and we waited. The servers then started to bring out some appetizers, which we all thought was a mistake since none of us ordered them. Turns out The Creep did. Despite our organization faltering financially and pretty much struggling. Granted, I know that $50 in appetizers during a lunch for 20+ people won’t make our company go under. But it’s the principle of it. This is disgusting display #1. But it gets better.

Since he ordered the appetizers, they’re all coming to him. The soup he kept, which I understand because that’s not an appetizer. But the calamari, he took a huge handful and placed it directly on his plate. Literally half. And he kept the entirety of the sauce that came with it on his plate before sending down the basket for others to share.

The nachos he kept on his end of the table to share with a few people. Fine. The tower of onion rings, he enjoyed as well but then passed along for sharing, too.

We ended up waiting a while for our entrees. Every few minutes, I’d look over at him and he was still shoveling it in. In fact, toward the end of the nachos, he actually took his PERSONAL fork and proceeded to eat directly from the nachos plate. That other people were sharing. Or had been sharing, at least. Disgusting display #2.

But here’s the big whammy. Once the entrees finally come, he plays with his food for a bit before asking for…. a to-go box! He packaged up his ENTIRE lunch to take home. So not only was he looking for one free meal, he was looking for two. I seriously could not believe it. Disgusting display #3.

All of this while sitting directly next to the VP and across from the Director. And he’s an actual adult – like mid-40s with a family.

If I had been sitting next to him, I would have let. him. know.

—–

In possibly more disgusting news, last night I was removing my bra and sliced one of my ragged-ass nails* across my other finger. When I inspected both fingers, I found the skin of the one finger UNDER the nail of the other. That’s foul. Foul, I tell you. Then said finger promptly started bleeding, so I put some Neosporin on it and a bandaid, and the blood came through the bandaid too. So gross.

*Manicures (self-given, but maniures none the less) and home renovation do not go together. Ohhhhh how I wait for the day that I can get a pedicure without worrying about paint smears ruining the job.
**I’ve actually called him this since Day 1, about six weeks ago, when we both started. It fits him perfectly. He’s talked to me about his au-pair***’s “well-developed” body and how he was shopping around for $1.4 million homes to buy – in cash.
***Yes, he has an au-pair. And a stay-at-home wife. Ridiculous.

Shnikes

Holy shnikes.*

You are seriously never going to believe this.

I got caught today at work. Looking for a new job.**

Yeah. I know.

I can’t believe it either.

And not even caught-red-handed-at-my-desk-posting-my-resume caught. My boss somehow found out that I’d placed my resume back in “the marketplace”. Like, as in, he saw it with his own eyes or one of the company’s recruiters alerted him.

I can’t even imagine how red I turned during our meeting.

Thank goodness he’s super understanding. He’s been feeling my discomfort in this new position (with a new to-me company) for the past five weeks as, during our weekly meeting, he asks me to rate my feelings when I come into work on a scale of one to ten, and I’ve been consistently responding “3″.***

So, surprisingly, the vibe I got off him was that he was trying to convince me to stay! No punishment, no you’re-outta-here’s. Though he did ask me to explain why I’ve been looking for a new job. Despite its obviousness.

We talked it out, and I feel a bit better about my job. Though, then again, we meet every week and after every weekly meeting I “feel a bit better”. Then when I return to my desk, the dread sets in again and I go into panic mode.

Let’s just hope I can keep it calm until I settle in some more. Whew.

—–

In more exciting news, it’s our black pug’s third birthday today. Happy birthday, V!

*That’s right. I’m bringing it back.
** !!!!!!!!
***During our first meeting, it was a 2. At least I’m honest!

Smile City

… A follow-up to Gripe City, yesterday’s post.

Though my cranky pants are merely dirty, getting washed and will probably be available for wear here again soon, I’m trying to look through all the this-paint-color-is-ugly-and-let’s-tear-down-that-wall-no-that-one bs and really discover the things that I love so far about being a homeowner (!). Here goes:

{} I love that J calls me the “Money Manager”. All those years honing my Excel skills (and money-counting) have really paid off.
{} I love that in a few weeks, I’ll be sleeping in MY house.
{} I love that the yard is OUR yard to do with what we want.
{} I love that if the paint colors are in fact ugly or if we tear down the wrong wall, no one will really care except us.
{} I love that I have a “project” that will keep me occupied for the unforseeable future (though I still want one of those baby things, too!)
{} I love that J and I were able to save such a hefty amount of money and still live our lives happily. I don’t and won’t look back on the past year and think of it as the year “we saved”. Because, let’s be honest, I’ll ALWAYS be on a budget and I’ll ALWAYS be a saver.

And hopefully this weekend I’ll FINALLY be able to get some photographs off of J’s camera to share with you, but projects are moving so quickly that I might have a bit of a backlog to get through. I’ll catch you up, though!

Gripe City

I have my cranky pants on today.  Not that you’re here to read my gripes, but here they are:

{1} Our inspector guy should learn to, well, inspect.  J says that if he did his job correctly, we wouldn’t actually have been able to get a mortgage for our house because of all the electrical problems it has.  J spent the entirety of the weekend rewiring the house – and paying an electrician to help with the rest.  Still not done.

{2} Sinks suck.  Our kitchen sink decided to pour its pipey contents all over our newly installed electrical box (see #1 above).  And the sink is still leaky with no evident reason.  Add it to the list.

{3} Blue painter’s tape sucks.  Frog tape – a bit better.  The blue painter’s tape ripped off my white trim paint as well as the primer on the wall in the bathroom.  My attempt at avoiding the dreaded cutting-in has resulted in more work in the end.  Note to self: don’t take shortcuts.

{4} The Home Depot paint people are not always the friendliest.  And sometimes they can’t hear or spell.  This weekend I came home with Ice Flower when I wanted Ice Floe – and even painted some of it on the wall.  Fantastic when you have to return paint in the middle of… painting.

{5} Our backyard is bug city.  But my brain must be going buggy because yesterday I decided to sit in the grass without bug spray to paint something.  Not smart.  It looks like I have chicken pox, round 3.  And I’m scratching like a fiend.  Not cute.

{6} Painting when electricity is off is not fun.  This weekend I could see literal beads of sweat lined up with each leg pore.  Gross.

And I think I’ll leave it at six for now because that’s all you or I can take.

In better news, Dexter should be returning this September and I. cannot. wait.

Blow by Blow

Whew!  It has been a long week, but we did it.  J and I are officially homeowners!  I never thought the day would actually come.

Tuesday right after settlement we raced over to the new house we’ll call home.  We took some cheesy “enter” shots and a few of us holding the first set of keys together.  Unfortunately they are all on J’s camera, so once I’m able to snag them from him, I’ll post them.

We got right down to business on Tuesday.  I took off all the registers and face plates with my trusty new tool set (thanks, mom, for the well-timed birthday gift!) as well as alllll the doors.  Might sound kind of strange, but they were all those old-fashioned hollow wood doors that were wood-colored.  We plan to introduce our 1958 rancher to the 21st century by bringing in all four (or is it six?) panel WHITE doors shortly.

We also removed the extremely greasy stove (to be replaced with our new stove, which we ordered yesterday {!}) and pulled out the fridge to try to repair it.  Unfortunately it looks like someone messed with it because we could a cord in the back that had been ripped.  Oh well.  We had planned on buying all new appliances, anyway, but it would have been nice to have an overflow fridge in the basement for all our Zazz*.

J installed our new deadbolt (so don’t try anything funny!), and then we cleaned up.  And that was just Day 1.

——

Let me tell you the torture I experience alllllll day sitting at my desk, waiting for the day to end so we can do more.  Sucks.

——

Day 2:

J invited some family over to help, and boy, did they!  I can’t believe how helpful everyone’s been.  It’s really amazing.  We all got right to work.

I started by scrubbing our one bathroom from top to bottom, including the floors.  It was then that I realized that the windows are disgustingly dirty, which is going to make for an ongoing project for me.  So then I moved on to the craft room windows to tackle those as well.  I think it’s one of those projects that doesn’t seem too important until you see the final results.

We got the water turned on Wednesday, which was exciting but also caused some leaks, so J, his dad, and his brother-in-law attended to those.   His dad also cut some pieces of wood to prep for our crown molding (so exciting!).

J and his brother-in-law, D, in the meantime ripped down all the wood paneling in the master bedroom.  It already looks way better.  Photos of that to come, too.

——

Day 3:

I continued to clean some windows and then moved on to spackling to prepare for paint.

J’s sister helped with spackling and cleaning as well.  J’s dad put up the crown molding in the craft room.

J, D, and J’s dad ripped out part of the wall to widen a hallway, also updating the look of the house to be more current, more open-space living, less 1960s.

They also ripped out half of a wall in the kitchen to open that up as well.  We plan to add a breakfast bar there, so that was a good start.

——

Though it must sound like we’ve done a lot, I feel like we still have a lot more to do.  Obviously.  But I mean, a LOT more.

The agenda for this weekend:

{} buy paint for all the rooms

{} rough up the wood paneling in the craft room and prime it

{} paint the craft room

{} put up the crown molding in the office and finish spackling

{} prime and paint the office

{} repair the drywall in the master bedroom and put up the crown molding

{} fix the leaky toilet

{} clean the remaining windows

{} prime, paint, and laquer the chandelier for my craft room

Okay, so this might be a bit ambitious.  Especially considering we have my stepdad’s engagement party to go to tomorrow night and J’s sister’s birthday party on Sunday.  Throw some catch-up sleep in there, and we may not be left with that much time to work on the house.  But with the help of some family and friends, we’re definitely going to try to get all of this accomplished, and more!

Hopefully I’ll have a “house tour” prepared for you by next week so that I can begin to document the transformation in real time.

Have a great weekend!

*We’re officially obsessed.  Zazz is Giant’s version of seltzer water, and it comes in a few flavors.  It’s FABULOUS.

Yule Aight Up Mile Eiff*

This weekend J and I did some shopping for our new house, though it was a bit early for it, I suppose.  The superstitious person in me (and in J) told us “nooooo, don’t do it!”  But the shopper in me said “bring it on!”.  Luckily after a few weeks of nagging, J was on board, too, so we spent all of Saturday hitting up the usuals.

First, we bought a lawn mower.  By Husqvarna.  That’s who makes my sewing machine.  J and his friend, S, who sold it to us at Sears, thought that was funny.  And it’s orange.  Double-score for J’s favorite color.

Then we bought a ceiling fan for the kitchen.  After craning my neck upward for 10 minutes checking out all the weird blades and swirly light covers, I’ve come to a conclusion: I don’t really like ceiling fans.  Sure, they’re great for circulating air, but my curiousity got the best of me and I googled “living room” and almost NONE of the photographs included a ceiling fan.  You know why?  Because they don’t usually add to a room like a big drum light might.  Perhaps the fans were cropped out of the photos (the ones that didn’t show the ceiling), but still, my research didn’t sit well with me.  I’ve tried to convince J to change our plans for a master bedroom** ceiling fan to a light, but with three dogs, it gets hot enough.  Oh well.  Now I’m just on the hunt for a nice looking one.  Good luck, right?

Next we hit up IKEA, where I got this chandelier for my craft room:

Which, by the way, IKEA calls a “ceiling lamp”.  I don’t like that.  And I’ll be painting it, just in case you forgot.

Of course my trek to the thrift store yesterday uncovered a few old, gold chandeliers for about a quarter of the price, which bums me out (1) because they’re cheaper, and I’m thrifty, and (2) I went to the thrift store last week JUST to look for chandeliers, but apparently I went right past where they were all hanging yesterday.  Bummer.  But then it occurred to me – how do I know that they work?  So I think my “choice” to buy from IKEA was well-founded.  At least that’s what I tell myself.

I’m dying to find a place for this one but can’t think of it now.  Maybe the down-the-road dining room?  I love the texture and of course the natural color:

Then I tried to convince J to get a few of these for over the kitchen sink (to go with our fabulous color palate!), but his color-blindness evaded him (damn) when he said they weren’t the right shade.  And they were on sale for $14.99 each in the store.  Oh well.

Then we bought a few of these really ugly ceiling lights for the hallway and the “office”.  I say “office” because it’ll be a place for J’s computer and allllllll of other crap as we renovate until the basement’s done.  I’m hoping to replace the ugly light in the hallway after we’ve painted, but in the meantime these will do.  And as for the “office”, more on that later:

I hope I don’t turn into one of those light fixture-crazed people, which I doubt I will because they kind of scare me.  They’re so critical to a room’s impact, yet I know nothing about them.

We also got some inexpensive rugs to get us through the first few weeks months of renovations as well as a flatscreen hangy thing, which J is very excited about.

But, in more exciting news: today’s THE day!  We’re going to settlement around 2:30, which means that we’ll pay eyeball-bulging amounts of money for a very special set of keys.  And then it’s alllllll ours.  Can’t wait!

 

*Sorry – only a few bests will get this one.  And as Shannanigans says, inside jokes aren’t fun for anyone when they’re explained, so you’ll have to let this one go.

**Master bedroom sounds so fancy, doesn’t it?  So adult?  Not sure I like that!

What’s Cookin

Friday afternoon I was able to leave work a bit early because of an early meeting that day, and I was feeling pretty creative.  I was pumped up because it was going to be our last weekend before becoming official homeowners, and I finally felt ready to celebrate.

Well, to be honest, I had felt like I wanted to celebrate before this weekend, but a lot of things were getting in the way of that.  A combination of my stressed attitude over the loose ends and paperwork and some family drama put me in a bad place.  But I was trying to let that go and just really live in the moment – something very difficult for me.  As is evidenced by my planning of my firstborn before even getting into our new house.

I decided to first tackle the very last step of a gift* I made for friends A + J for their upcoming wedding, a step I completely forgot when I was finishing up the gift a few weeks ago.  After some ironing and a few minutes, I was able to happily check that off my list.

Next I decided to begin sewing a dress I’d recently cut out but hadn’t gotten around to assembling.  It was going to be my first dress on my own (I took a class my mom gifted me, but we used a hideous pattern.  I used that class mostly for learning the skills, after all).  I modeled the pieces I cut after a dress that I had bought and absolutely loved.  Well, after a few minutes of pinning the pieces together, I realized that I hadn’t cut some of them big enough.  And because I had only a few scraps of fabric – a recycled sheet from the thrift store – left, I decided I’d have to make something else with my already-cut pieces.

Enter my obsession with aprons.  It really makes no sense.  I rarely cook, and when I do, it’s usually stuff from packages with little possibility of spilling them all over myself (though I am pretty clumsy!).  So why the obsession?  No idea.  Perhaps because aprons can be as feminine or utilitarian as you’d like for them to be, with prints to match.  And the fabric I’d cut out for the dress was a wonderful yellow with splashes of coral and green which I thought would be oh-so-feminine as a 50′s-cut apron.  So I got to work.

Because I had cut two large full skirt pieces for the front and the back, I thought it’d be a great opportunity to make the apron skirt fit almost all the way around my body, with a slight curve.  I also wanted to tackle my much-thought-about pleated neckline, so I got to it.  I’d like to say I “threw together” this apron, but it took about three hours – not including the cut-out time.

Since we’re getting ready to move and we’re already packed into my mom’s house like pickles, these pictures are HORRIBLE.  I’m warning you.  So just try to deal with them until I get a chance to set up a little photo shoot spot in my new craft room.  I also couldn’t get a good shot of me wearing the apron, but you can probably figure it out.

Because I was almost out of fabric, the top piece doesn’t cover nearly enough of my torso, but that’s okay.  I think the slender shape makes it almost more feminine.  Voila:

I think it’ll look so cute hanging up in my new kitchen.  And maybe it’ll encourage me to cook.  Doubtful.  But a girl can dream.

*I’ll show some pictures of these gifts after I give them, of course!