OUR NEW(ly painted) FURNITURE!!

Okay, so, here's the deal. I could probably count up the hundreds of dollars that Dan and I have spent on furniture since we've been married on one hand, with a few fingers left over...

We have been very lucky that:
a) we have inherited a lot of furniture from our parents, and
b) that we have rather eclectic taste in furniture (okay, at least I do...).

Many of the pieces we have purchased have come from thrift shops and Craig's List. :)

Here's the only problem with that: sometimes when you put it all together it doesn't match. Yes, I do realize that's sort of the point when it comes to eclectic styling, but at some point it's got to come together a little bit, right?!

So, after I had the conversation with Dan that began with him laughing at me and ended in him saying "No, we are not buying new furniture." I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Over winter break (that's the only time I can accomplish anything is over breaks) I decided that our bedroom furniture--which consists of 2 matching night stands from Walmart, 1 bed we inherited from Dan's grandma, and 1 dresser we inherited from my grandma--needed to match.

I don't have a before picture, but imagine four different pieces of furniture, three different types of wood. What better way to make them match than with paint! So we painted our bedroom furniture white. Here's how it turned out:


It was a lot of work! More than I thought it would be, but it was fun!

So, I guess you could say that I caught the fever (maybe from the paint fumes)...

This break, I decided that our mismatch of living room furniture--which consists of a coffee table, a tv table, a sofa table, a small entry way table, and a bookshelf...again, all different woods and colors--should also match.

So here's what I did over this break:

The T.V. table:



The coffee table:


The sofa table:



The bookshelf:



The entryway table:


Here's what it looks like all together (I realize that in this picture you can actually only see the coffee table-the rest are too spread out-but at least it gives an idea of what they look like all together) :



In the end, even if I couldn't buy NEW furniture, I at least feel like we have new furniture, even if it's just a new color.


P.S. The only problem came when the fur children decided that they wanted to help paint too. Here's them looking sad and depressed when I told them they couldn't help. I didn't use words so much as imprisonment:



P. P. S. I also found out that I LOVE distressing things! You can't mess up! It's perfect for me (cause I mess up a lot!!!).

Ugh...itunes...

Okay, so it's...11:34 p.m. (which didn't used to be late, but now that I'm 29 going on 89 it seems really late, and I'm really tired!)

Something unexplainable and unacceptable happened to our itunes account! Half of our music disappeared! I don't know what happened. Dan says it's my fault, but I don't think it is!

One day our music was there, then the next, half of it is missing!

I located the elusive music, but now I am currently having to go through and find each individual song and re-save it in the correct place.

DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG THAT TAKES?!

At the bottom of our itunes page it says that we have, like 14 days worth of music. I'm pretty sure it's going to take me that long to re-find all of these stinkin' files and save them in the right place!

I am almost positive that there is a better and more effective way to do this. If you know what it is, keep it to yourself thank-you-very-much. Because by the time you tell me it will be too late. I will be done.

Never-the-less, I am sure there is a better way to do this, I just don't know it.

So for right now, I'm sitting here, blinking to attempt to clear my bleary eyes, half listening to some asinine news magazine show (cause I can't find the remote, and am too annoyed to look for it very hard), and waiting for my dinosaur of a computer to find these crazy music files.

**Grrr** Curse you ipod/itunes (whatever) for making us all so dependent upon you for our musical needs! Curse you!

P.S. I know where all of my CD's (which contain much of the same music that is on my ipod) are. They don't mysteriously move themselves to a new location and force me to locate them all individually. Neither do my even more archaic cassette tapes.... **grrr** again...

I AM A BAD PET PARENT!!!!

Okay, so I thought I was doing okay.

Since we adopted Daisy I've been bathing her once a week, I've been brushing and blow drying her after I bathe her...

I thought we were doing fine.

Until yesterday.

I decided that I would take her to the professional groomer for a special treat (hee hee...little did I know...)

It being my first official day of Spring Break, I was not, shall we say, up and/or dressed by her 11:00a.m. appointment time. So, I sent Dan and Daisy on their way with specific instructions for Dan to have them trim her all around, clip her nails, clean her ears, shave down her potty path (eww.), etc.

I will admit that I was particularly excited by the prospect of the groomer being able to get a bow into her fur (hair...whatever, Lisa) since whenever I try to put one in she suddenly turns herself into a doggie contortionist with opposable thumbs and yanks it out. *tear*

So, you can imagine my absolute shock when Dan called and said that "Chip" the groomer said that she had matts and he was going to have to shave her down.

My jaw hit the floor.

"Honey?" Dan asked hestitantly.

"How can she have matts? I bathe and brush her every week!" I demanded of my innocent don't-kill-the-messanger husband.

"I don't know, but he showed them to me, and they're pretty bad." He answered.

"But dogs who don't have owners who love them get mats!" I insisted. Not dogs who's human mothers chase them around all day trying to put bows in their hair! I added internally.

I was floored. How could this happen? Since September when she had to be shaved nearly bald because she'd been a stray I'd been working on growing her fur (hair...WHATEVER, Lisa!) out so that she didn't look like a cancer victim. Now here we were right back in the same position. How could this be?!

Two hours later when "Chip" called to say she was "ready" (a.k.a. satisfactorily butchered) and we could pick her up, I'm pretty sure I heard an underlying tone in his voice. The kind that says "I guess you can come get your dog back so you can abuse and neglect her some more. See you in another three months, you neglectful dog owner you. Don't forget to feed her once in a while."

When Dan brought her home (I couldn't bring myself to face "Chip's" condesending stare.), she actually doesn't look THAT bad. Just different than how I pictured.

I only cringed a little bit when Dan told me that "Chip" had given us the Adoption Package for people who rescue strays and bring them in to get groomed.

"Did he think that we just barely rescued her?" I asked. Maybe we could play it off that that's why she was in such bad shape.

"No, I told him the truth." Dan stated matter of factly. Why did he have to choose now to be honest? When my pride is on the line!?

Now when I look into her eyes (which I can see now, thanks to "Chip's" clipper skills, not his fur (hair...whatever, LISA) dressing and bow-putting-in skills) I think that I see her silently asking me "Why, mom? Why?!"

But maybe I'm overreacting...just a little bit. Maybe...

P.S. They did in fact give her a rather fetching striped bandana, which she is enjoying chewing up immensely.

8 Item Tag...

I'm joining the TagEd - You're it now! Here are the rules: 1) Post rules on your blog 2) Answer the six '8' items 3) Let each person know by leaving them a comment.

8 favorite TV shows:
1. Scrubs
2. Grey's Anatomy
3. The Office
4. The Soup
5. The Colbert Report
6. The Simpsons
7. Phineas and Ferb
8. America's Next Top Model (ashamed, ashamed, I am ashamed!!)
Since we got our DVR I am a TV junkie (even though I rationalize it by saying that we're just more SELECTIVE about our tv viewing now...)

8 Things I did yesterday:
1. Laundry (finally! Gotta love spring break!!)
2. Realized I am a bad pet parent (see future post)
3. Procrastinated grocery shopping another day
4. Ate dinner with friends (yummy! Her mom cooked it, and she used to be a home ec teacher!)
5. Dusted my house (achoo!)
6. Called a "landscape engineer" (named Pablo) to tackle the weeds in our front yard that already kicked my butt
7. Paid bills (BORING)
8. Watched The Golden Girls and missed my friend Mandi (sad!)

8 Things I'm looking forward to:
1. Spring Break: I'm still counting Spring Break (even though it's already here!) cause I am super-stoked to have a week off.
2. The Week of May 19th -24th: My friend Kim comes to visit from Ohio (yeah!!!)
3. My Dog's Fur (hair..whatever, Lisa) Growing Back (*tear*)
4. AIMS testing being over with (blech!)
5. My Birthday! (because I'll be in Utah for the 1st annual Rebekah/David/Teagan/Grandma Bullock/Patrick & Christy Anniversary/Birthday/Memorial Extravaganza. Hosted by the one and only Suzy-Q)
6. Switching health insurance to a company that actually provides...health...insurance...(stupid cigna)
7. Swimming weather (it's ALMOST here...as soon as it's here, I'll want it gone again...)
8. Multi-cultural Fair (I get to dress up like a Greek Goddess!)

8 Favorite restaurants:
1. Carrabas
2. Macarroni Grill
3. Chick-Fil-A
4. In and Out
5. Chipotle
6. Taco Bell (*cringe* I know, but it's true...)
7. PoPo's
8. Rubio's

8 Things on my wish list:
1. A Baby :)
2. A savings account that is...shall we say...larger...
3. Happiness for my Dad
4. More funding for education (I can't help it...it's true)
5. To move back to Utah
6. My husband to finish his education
7. For Dan's socks and various other dirty items to magically find their way to the hamper (it's really hard for him to find it, apparently...)
8. A new fridge (mine's ugly and doesn't match the rest of the appliances (*frown*)

People I tag:
Okay, everyone I know who blogs was already tagged by SueAnn, so...NO ONE. :) Thanks for reminding me how pathetic I am...