Downhill my great week went

So my great week turned out not so great...turns out I have kidney stones, the license plate got stolen off the front of our truck, and our insurance companies computers were down today when I went to pick up another prescription. They wanted $200 for the prescription without my insurance so I am waiting until tomorrow. I wish the pain killers I am on would make me happy about all this. And since I called to report the plate stolen we can't drive the truck until I go get new plates which is very hard to do when you can't drive due to medications and you have no license plates.

Thankfully yesterday my Mamo took me to urgent care and  my other grandma came into town and got my room ready for the new furniture which was delivered. Today my husband took off the afternoon and took me in for another appointment and a CT scan. My grandma and Jerry took care of dinner tonight and I am so glad they are here. Tomorrow I will see what they say from the scan.

I know I was grateful that 2010 was such a wonderful year but this last week has sucked. I am ready for 2011. I do have to say that I LOVE our new furniture and when I am functioning I will share pictures.

Sorry for the downer of a post, I guess when it rains it pours.

Best Week Ever :)

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! I sure did. :)

We got to share Christmas Eve with most of my cousins and family on my dad's side. I haven't had Christmas with them in 5 years so it was lots of fun, my immediate family minus one sister and her fiance stayed at our house that night. Colin and I have almost been married for 4 years and this is the first Christmas we have spent at home not alone. It was so nice, "Santa" put Nerf guns in our stockings and we had a war among the 5 of us. Much better than our last few Christmas'.

To top it off my husband got promoted last Wednesday and was brimming from ear to ear, we could have given him only coal and he still would be smiling. Because he was so happy he told me I could finally get new furniture! I am still doing the happy dance thinking it actually happened. One-I hate our current couch, Two-We don't ever have enough seating, Three-Since we have been married we have bought a new mattress/frame and our dining room table. Everything else (lots of it) I either inherited, was a gift from family, or I bought it at the thrift store and revamped it. As much as I love to revamp old items I REALLY wanted new family room furniture, I was not up for recovering a sofa.

So I wanted to share what I picked out.


We got this sofa with a sleeper, we tested the mattress that came with it and decided to upgrade it, sleepers are NEVER comfortable but ours will have no springs and a memory foam mattress instead. I actually would sleep on it. Now we wont feel bad about putting guests on it. We already had a full and twin guest bed but we wanted to have enough beds if Colin's family comes out. Close up the fabric is a hounds tooth weave for those obsessed with fabrics like me.

We also picked a matching love seat that looks the same as the sofa. I needed my own seat, no more competing for the couch with Colin and 2 dogs. :)

In addition we got one side chair, I kind of want another but want to wait until Colin gets the TV hung above the fireplace and I can rearrange.

In addition to this I am planning on recovering our coffee table ottoman with a coordinating cream/gray striped fabric and a smaller side chair. I am still debating on curtains and solid colored pillows to add color.

Either way this wasn't even my Christmas present! 2010 has been a wonderful year, one that has brought so many things I never expected. I can't express how grateful I am that we are not moving, we finally bought a house and my husband (who squeaks, since he hates spending money) bought me new furniture. I need to think of a really good idea for our anniversary. I think I need to pick his mothers brain because she has the BEST creative ideas, by the way Jenifer my sister Cheryl wants to "steal" you as she told me your "Walnut" present was the coolest idea.

I hope your Christmas was FANTASTIC and the end of 2010 has been as wonderful for you as it has been for us. I am looking forward to 2011 and the new things that await us in life.

Christmas Schedule

I am sitting here thinking about cleaning....deep cleaning. I may or may not have my immediate family stay here Christmas Eve. My extended family celebrates Christmas Eve in Denver at my Dad's brothers house and since we are going to my parents the 23rd to go Christmas caroling we are not driving back up there after driving back to Denver. As we decided not to do gifts as a family this year we are doing an activity and that activity will also be in Denver.....too much driving if we drive up there 2-3 times.

So here is our tentative plan for the holidays:

-Tomorrow (Dec. 22nd) my sister Cheryl is driving home from Kansas. She is taking a layover at our house and we are making Christmas cookies.

-Thursday (Dec. 23rd) my dad flies back to Denver and should arrive at about 11am. Colin gets off work at ? time and we will head to my parents to go Christmas caroling on a horse drawn wagon, I am excited because I haven't been in 4 years and I had been every year for 24 years before that. We are staying the night at my parents.

-Friday (Dec. 24th) Colin and my dad have a project involving welding, they are both excited about it because my dad has called Colin a few times from Illinois about it. That night we will be driving back to Denver to spend the holiday with my dad's family. I am also excited about this because the last Christmas I spent with them was FIVE years ago. Not sure if my immediate family is staying or not but my guest beds will all be ready.

-Monday (Dec. 27th) My Grandma and Jerry and possibly my Aunt Robin are coming to spend a few days with us. :) Yeah! We haven't seen them since Jerry had surgery which went well.

I am not sure when we are doing our family activity (aka our family Christmas gift) but we are going to go to the King Tut exhibit and one of those Japanese steak houses where they throw your food and cook it in front of you etc. We wanted an interactive activity and my dad will even like both of those. We are still debating about going to see the lights at the Denver Botanical Gardens.

Friday December 31st we are having a New Years Party! So far I have bought all the mixers and noise makers. I still need to get food but I haven't made up my mind on all my appetizer choices yet. I also still need to make the trophies for our contests.

First I better get to cleaning.....Hope you are having a FANTASTIC holiday week!

I need Cheesy Trophy Ideas Pretty Please!!!!

I need some ideas stat! Some ideas for cheesy trophy items!

(Ignore the metal rod on the bar/ apparently we are making a foot rail...)

We have a bar stuck in the 80's club scene in our basement mixed with the 50's....it comes complete with black carpet accented with pink, purple, and teal marks....a bar with records encased in the top with a hot pink bumper edging....mirrors all over....and now misc. junk hanging on the walls. My so generous father keeps gifting my husband new "crap" to hang down there. Classy I tell you! :)

Anyways we are having a New Years party and my husband wants to have trophies for the dart board, Foosball table, and giant Jenga game (giant Jenga made out of 2x4's). I got put in charge of this and have NO ideas other than it needs to say something like: Ratliff's Pink Hoopdy 2010 Dart Winner/Foosball Champion/Jenga Master. I am seriously contemplating painting a chunk of wood pink and painting this in black letters. I have ZERO ideas.

(The new items for the wall light up but I haven't hung on the wall yet)

I should give a background on why we are calling our "classy" bar the Pink Hoopdy. I personally have never heard that term used for a bar until this year. When we were closing on our house the nice guy we bought from honestly was convinced we bought it because as he put it the "pink hoopdy" was so cool. Since then it has just became a joke. I really would like to make the room not "cheesy" but it definitely gets people talking. Unfortunately my husband would like to make it even cheesier by adding booths and more junk...I think I am stuck. :(

Any ideas for trophys? Please help me!

Breathing at Last :)

I haven't been on much since I have been sick. :( I still am stuffed up but nothing else. Yeah!!! By the way they make Dayquil with Musinex DM....check it out if you are stuffed up and sickly. I still think it was mostly due to my allergies but this helped.

So this week once I felt better I made sugar cookies for my mom's entire class. I ate enough cookie dough to last the entire holiday season. Yummy! I also made snack mix while I was waiting on the dough to sit in the fridge. Yesterday I drove up to my parents to drop off the stove that has been living in our dining room for almost 2 months! And had lunch with my dad as he wont be back home until December 23rd due to work.

Today I am getting my eyes checked to use up what is left of our flex spending and taking my Mamo to Costco. We are going before lunch because last time we went after and ate too many samples. Hope you have had a wonderful week!

Cheers to Good Health!

At least I have a laptop.....

All I have to say is I HATE being sick. Yesterday to top off me being sick Gunther threw up all over me, the couch, and the floor. Not my best day by far. I am going back to bed. :( Yesterday all I accomplished was putting my bay window back together and unloading the dishwasher. My awesome husband went and got me some sprite. :) Today I have accomplished nothing and that alone is making me sick, I have things to do! I hope this blows over fast....I still feel like my allergies are causing part of the problem though. :( At least both dogs are in agreement with sleeping, both of them are in my lap snoring away.

Hope you had a better Wednesday and a better Thursday!

Sick :(

I am on here because I feel awful! It's difficult to get anything done when you are gaging and sneezing. I am not sure if I am sick or my terrible allergies are kicking back in.....the wood in our family room is definitely one of the things bothering me. :( I really, really, really, hope it is not just that because I LOVE our fireplace.

Today I wanted to:

-Get my windowsill back together (its all painted) and show you a photo.
-Show you a photo of the garland my mom had left over and gave to me for the fireplace. :)
-Re-paint in the 1/2 bath because I took the cabinet off the wall that Colin didn't like.
-Vacuum the whole house.
-Mop all the non-carpeted areas of the house.
-Clean all bathrooms.
And most importantly make Peppermint Bark, this is the recipe I will be using.

Instead I am sitting on the couch thinking about how much I still don't like our Christmas stockings. What a waste of a Wednesday. :(

House Updating Photos

I thought I would share some photos like I promised several weeks ago. :( Here is our master bedroom with the furniture all moved. The bruise on my leg from the old arrangement is finally gone!

 The other corner with the chair I still haven't recovered....maybe someday I will find a fabric I like.

 The pantry door in the kitchen. It looked funny not updated with the cabinets. What I am not giving you a close up on is the flooring in this closet. The past owners didn't remove the baseboard before putting the floor down....someday we can fix the almost 1/2" crack.

 My new door. :) We talked about painting the damaged old doors and updating the hardware but decided we wanted paneled doors. We both like this much better, its worth the few extra dollars.

 The new door knob, we both like the old handles but the nice little dog in the photos above knows how to open them so no handles.

Here is a photo of the old hardware and door color. I like the wood but this door is in better shape than a lot of the others. It doesn't have scratches across the front or nail holes. Hence painting all the trim white, paint covers up mistakes that we can't fix without replacing almost everything to make it match. I wish I wasn't so OCD about the contractor and past homeowners choices.

We looked at several houses I wouldn't need to do any of this (they already had) but we liked this house for the floor plan and the lot. At least this way it will slowly become what we want. Everyone thinks we will be moving (bigger house) in at least 5 years, after moving constantly for the last 5 years as long as Colin's work lets us stay I do NOT want to move.  We bought a large enough first house I don't think we need to, besides it is going to take me way longer to get things the way I would like them. Currently this house is too big for us, a small part of me misses our cracker box house we lived in before (1000sq ft) and then I remember I have my own room to make things and Colin has a huge garage. :)

I am off to finish the bay window in the kitchen. After finishing today my list for the kitchen/dining room updates gets much smaller. :)

Photo Break from Chaos

I thought I would share some exceptionally bad photos since I need a break from working in my craft room. Usually I make ornaments at night while watching TV, this week I have been painting on commercial breaks. Just window frames as I decided I have to start somewhere with painting my woodwork. So here is one window in the kitchen now painted to match my cabinets, no more water stains from the previous owners never sealing the wood. :) And then here is one in the dining room.

 And I have just primed the edges of the kitchen bay window, the rest will have to wait until next week.

 Chaos is our house! Here is a very small chunk of items going to Windsor, CO for a jewelry party tomorrow. The rest is laying all over the floor so I can organize it for display.

Part of the mess on the floor in my workroom. I am really glad I trained the dogs not to pick things up that aren't theirs. Every once in awhile the puppy still does in the rest of the house but not in this room, he finally knows better. :) Colin says he is going to build me a ledge for my tables so things can stay on it instead of the floor, obviously I have been keeping him too busy to get it done.

Wish us luck that we have a really good show tomorrow so I can pay myself this month and have the new computer paid off. November left my finally full business bank account very poor, not good before Christmas.