Halloween Weekend and Getting Back on Track

Octobers are always very busy months with events, birthdays, Halloween, etc., etc., etc. This weekend will conclude the glorious month of my birth and I am planning to seriously get back on track with house projects and organization. Here is the pl-zan:

House Projects:

• First and foremost, get the remnants of fill dirt off the driveway. My brother has finished the landscape clean up (pictures to come) and now we just need to spray the driveway off.
  Finish my house-related goals that have rolled over for three or more months…so, all of them. Notice how I never recapped September? Totally intentional.
• Rethink the sitting room and guest bedroom but do NOT add this to the goal list or it will never get done.
• Get rugs for the master and guest bedroom. I have a special project that I’m working on for this…thanks to Kel’s sis, Devon!

Get Organized:

• I’ve contacted Closets by Design to come out for an in-home consultation on reorganizing and maximizing space in my closet. Based on price, we can look at doing Shane’s closets as well, but he actually has two closets so I don’t feel so bad. (I have the closet in our bedroom and Shane has the closet in the office and guest room.)
• Clean out the remainder of the closets in the house that have been packed with crap since we had our first party. (Rushing to get the place cleaned up and had crap stuck in EVERY closet and crevice.)
• Clean out the kitchen cabinets and get rid of non-matching or non-used dishes. Why do I need 13 flower vases?
• Go through clothes and donate what I won’t wear.
• Make Shane do the same thing.

While it isn’t a completely fleshed out plan, it is at least a starting point. We’ll see how it goes…

As far as this weekend, tonight Shane and I are having dinner with the fam and then going to see ‘Paranormal Activity.’ I’m not really sure about this movie as I’ve heard really mixed reviews…some said that it was overrated and others said they couldn’t sleep for days. I’ll let you know my thoughts.
Saturday is the big Georgia v. Florida football game, and Halloween!, and we are heading to a friends’ house to hang out and watch the game. And Sunday is housework day – fun.

Does anyone have any big Halloween plans? Have a great weekend!

Birthday Weekend, Landscaping Progress, A Trip to the Mountains, Loss of a Loved One

It’s been a while! Last Thursday was my 26th birthday so this past weekend was quite the whirlwind!

Thursday: You saw my new ‘do that I sported on Thursday. Everyone seemed to like it and I LOVE it. It is so much easier and I feel like it fits me a lot better than the long hair.

My ladies at work got me a fantastic birthday present that I was surprised with when I got in – a gift certificate to my fave boutique, Fabrik. Shane and I went to dinner that evening at a seafood place in Atlanta, Six Feet Under, and then came to a local bar by our house for cocktails and live music.

Friday: Friday morning I received some really sad news that my Uncle Gary had passed away. He was a great uncle and a great man and will be very sorely missed.

Moving to a more positive note, Shane took me shopping for some new shoes. I have a pair of gold flats that I wear with everything, so he insisted that I find a new pair of flats…

And some new boots…
And some new tights…
Friday evening, Shane had arranged a surprise dinner with friends. Thanks Dave, Jennie, Mike, Mandy, Mel, Jon, Lindsay and Tyler for being there! And thanks to my sweet Shane for putting it all together. :) After dinner, me, Shane, Lindsay and Tyler went out in the Highlands and met up with our friend, Patrick. We shut it down (per usual).

Saturday: Touch and go in the morning as we were a little sluggish. We laid around, watched TV, caught up on some shows and then got ready for a night in the Georgia mountains for our friend, Quint’s, birthday party. Another late night, but we had a good time! My brother was also over working on the landscape cleanup and made some really good progress! Gutters were cleaned out, fill dirt was moved and spread, most of the pine straw was spread, and a lot of the rock has been moved under the deck. He should be done in the next week and has done a FANTASTIC job!

Andrea and I with the birthday boy...

Sunday we got up and headed home for another birthday event – family lunch at P.F. Chang’s. I love that place! But sorry, no pics – we completely forgot to get the camera out!

Monday: We left early Monday morning for my uncle’s funeral in South Carolina. I don’t really know how to deal with death, so I’ll just say that I loved my uncle and will miss him greatly. My thoughts and prayers are with my aunt Cindy and my cousins, Jesse and Jonathan.

We are now half way through the week and Halloween is this weekend! Then November…this month is flying by!

New 'Do...

It's all gone...and I love it! (I also look a little sleepy in this pic, but don't mind that...focus on the hair.)

Landscaping Day 1 and Chopping

My brother made really good progress on the yard yesterday. He was able to:

• RoundUp under the deck
• Lay the landscaping fabric under the deck
• Lay the pinestraw around the deck and next to the house

He also got creative and created a landscaping border with the busted up rock. It isn't going to win 'Yard of the Month' or anything but it actually looks pretty good to be functional and FREE!

He's going to come back on Friday and Saturday to finish the rest of the work.

What's the chopping about? Well, I have chopped all of my hair off! What was once this...

Is now MUCH shorter! I'll post a pic tomorrow!

Landscaping By Toph

Well, it's not really landscaping, but my brother (Christopher - who often goes by Topher) has agreed to come over and do our dirty work...literally.

SUCKA!!!! (And I swear he isn't as ghetto as he looks in this pic...:)Love you, brother!) This week, he will take on the following tasks:

• Move the rest of the fill dirt to the back yard and fill in against the house and under the deck
• RoundUp under the deck and lay landscaping fabric
• Move rock (from the concrete pad that we busted up) underneath deck
• Lay pinestraw on top of all fill dirt in the backyard, including where the old concrete pad was and against the house
• Lay pinestraw under azaleas by property line
• Clean gutters
• Pressure wash driveway and back of the house
• Mow, weedeat, edge entire yard

Our hopes are to at least have everything squared away before it gets cold outside because, CLEARLY, Shane and I aren't going to do it. Once these things are taken care of, we can start a new landscaping plan (with a professional) in the spring and there won't be any clean up needed. I'm so excited! Excited to finally have my driveway back without sharing it with a six-month old pile of fill dirt, to stop making excuses for the 40 bales of pinestraw in my side yard, and to stop cleaning the red mud off Beau and Brother's paws when they run straight to the mud after a rain storm.

I'll post pics this week!

It’s Always Something: Tires Edition

It’s always something, right? Shane and I were getting ready last night to go meet a friend that is town for the weekend. Before we hit the interstate, we had to stop by the QT to put air in my tires. My tires are low profile and when the weather changes drastically my tire pressure fluctuates and releases air. It so nicely tells me this by screaming “LOW TIRE” on my screen, dinging every time I get in the car and displaying a hazard symbol. You’d think that it was trying to tell me there was a bomb under my seat, but no…just alerting me that additional air pressure is needed.

We stop to fill up the tire, take the cap off of the valve stem and air just starts shooting out. We try to keep putting air in (not sure why) but it was forcibly shooting out of the valve. Naturally, my first instinct is to assign blame, and let’s just say that I wasn’t putting air in the tires. J We are already running late, but now have to go back home, get Shane’s car, go to Kauffman tire and then head to our destination. So frustrating! I indicate on the form that I am going to call for my car first thing the next morning because I obviously have to go to work. I start freaking out a little, but Shane took me to work this morning, so that all worked out.

Kauffman called me first thing this morning:

Me: Hello?
Kauffman: Hey, this is Wesley at Kauffman.
Me: Hello.
Kauffman: So, we looked at your tires and you need to go ahead and replace the front two. They are almost bald on the inside and that means that more than likely the alignment is off.
Me: Okay, how much is that?
Kauffman: No dialogue needed here…he names off two ridiculously expensive prices.
Me: Uhhhh….okay, well I wasn’t really expecting that. What about the back left tire that had the valve stem issue? (YOU KNOW, THE THING I BROUGHT IT IN FOR!!!!!)
Kauffman: Oh, that’s fine. It’s covered under your warranty, so they’ll replace that stem and if they can’t they’ll just go ahead and replace the tire. You wanna go ahead and do the front two?
Me: I’m going to need to think about that for a bit. I’ll talk to my boyfriend and will call you back.

I was trying to get a valve stem fixed as a warranty item and pretty much got sucked into said ridiculously expensive price for two front tires. Was I looking to spend that money? Nope. Am I looking forward to getting my car fixed and spending money to ensure my safety? Nope. Did God make that valve stem break so that I would know my tires and alignment needed to be addressed? I’m not 100 percent sure, so I’ll say Nope.

On the real, can you convert low profile tires to normal tires?

The Hardware is ON!

The new door hardware was finally installed yesterday! Woo! The doors, besides painting, are finally complete. However, we got off to a shaky start when the installers first arrived…

They knock on the door and before they enter I stop them to ask what they brought with them – I need to ensure that you aren’t coming in here with some brass or another set of silver. They had the bronze and were thus allowed entrance to begin their work.

Everything is smooth sailing until they go to change the hinges and the guys says ‘Um, ma’am? These hinges are the wrong size.’ I just laugh and say, ‘I’m not surprised. They can’t seem to do anything right the first time…’ I believe that the installer had already gotten the scoop on what a pain in the ass my project was because he immediately apologized and volunteered to go to Home Depot. Long story short, he went, they had them, he came back an hour later and installed them. Completion.

Wedding Weekend, Fall Front Stoop, Landscaping Decisions...

Busy weekend this past weekend! Friday night I had dinner with Gretch while Shane had a few drinks with our friend, the groom-to-be, Alan. I came home right as it was starting to pour down rain and attempted to watch a movie, but fell asleep in like 10 minutes.

Saturday, Shane and I got up early to go back out to the Farmers Market for some mums as no fall decor is complete without some mums! I dropped Shane off at home so that he could watch the Georgia v. Tennessee game (and OUCH! is all I have to say...what a tough game) and I went shopping for a while. For me, for clothes and stuff - nothing house-related. I got home, ate a late lunch and started getting ready for Alan and Lindsey's wedding! It was a very intimate wedding, but very sweet. AND - I caught the bouquet...however, I was told before it was thrown that it would be aimed right at me. Nothing like reinforcement from your friends! :) Very pretty bouquet too:

The wedding was over at 10:30, so Shane and I headed back down our way and met up with some friends at a local spot. We had a fun time and were home around 2, which isn't too bad!

Sunday we got up and ate brunch at our fave spot, J. Christopher's. We then went home and started to set up our fall front stoop. First, we had to clean this black junk off of our front steps...not sure what it was but it smelled like mildew. So, it was probably mildew. We then set up our punkins and mums:

We also set some Georgia pumpkins and another mum over by the side door:

After this 1.5 hour project, we got ready to head to a friend's parents anniversary soiree and then over to see our friend's, Mike and Mandy's new house. It was very nice and we are super proud of them!

And on to landscaping decisions...I've decided that we are not going to continue to DIY the landscaping. It's impossible. And we have some things that HAVE to be done before it gets cold outside. Stay tuned for more information on this one...

Pumpkins and Guns

That’s right. That’s how I like to spend my Wednesday nights.

This week has been crazy at work. Like seriously, I have so much to do that it’s hard for me to even figure out what needs to be done first because they all need to be done right now. Ugh. Oh well, at least I have a job.

So, back to pumpkins and guns…Shane and I went to the State Farmers Market last night to get some punkins. Those at the grocery store are just sad and they are SO expensive, so we went straight to the source. Did I mention that I love October? And Halloween? And Fall?

Love the lumpy one!

Don’t you LOVE the white ones too?!? I’m going to do a little front door step arrangement with all of these. And then I plan to spray paint the little ones silver or something…I don’t know – it was Martha’s idea. Maybe I should stay true to the orange…

The location of the Farmers Market was a bit off-putting…being that it was even further south than Riverdale! I seriously thought that it was going to be at the airport, but Shane kept driving and driving and driving. It felt like we were probably 10 minutes from the Florida/Georgia border.

After we got back from the south side, I went to meet some friends from work at the shooting range. Yep, the shooting range. Sue, one of my co-workers, owns her own gun (jealous) and so she posed the idea of going to shoot and then get some drinks. However, we showed up at the shooting range and they informed us that we were too late to shoot. They are open until eight, but stop taking people at seven…but we are going back on a Saturday in the next couple of weeks.

Just to preface this somewhat weird event, I must share a story. I really like guns. Not like a crazy, hillbilly love for guns, but I think that, unfortunately, they are a necessary evil in today’s world and provide safety against the whack jobs that think they can just bust up in your house like they own it…or cut you off in traffic…or steal your buggy at the grocery story. Nuu-uh! Once they see you’re packin,’ they tend to back off.

About six years ago, dang – six years, me and my friend Andrea went to a shooting range for her birthday. We shot a Glock and had someone from the store in the range with us to show us how to operate it and explain the dangers, etc. It was so liberating. Not as liberating as getting a tattoo, but its right up there…I mean, think about it. You are holding something in your hand that could kill someone/something…not that I plan on doing either of those, but it sends me on a power trip for a few seconds until I have to give it back because I don’t own it. I plan to buy my own in 2010 – chock that up as one of my personal goals.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Last Friday, Oct. 2, was Wan-dog (my mom, Wanda's) birthday! I'm a little late in recognizing it on the blog, but we went over to her house last night to grill out and spend some time together.

We got her a half hour massage, half hour facial and pedicure at Spa Sydell:

Me, my bros and mom:

Me, Shane and my mom:

Hope that you had a great birthday (and it was the 39th, right? :)) and weekend, Mom! We love you and appreciate all you do for us!

I Love October

I love fall. I love October (partially because it's the month of my birth, but still). And I LOVE Halloween. And now that the calendar has flipped to October 1, it is perfectly ligit for me to get out my orange and black Rubbermaid bins (yes, there are several) and start spookin' up the joint! Woo Hoo! Or shall I say, Boo Boo!


And as with every year, I like to add something new to my Halloween repertoire. Check out what I'm eyeing (that's kind of spooky, right? Eyeballs...Eyeing...hmmm.):


Cute little apron - Crate and Barrel:


Glitter Skull - Big Lots:

Spider Filler - Pottery Barn:While I was perusing Target.com, I found the rooster below. This sits on my counter in my kitchen - throughout the year - so is it a Halloween decoration and I've been confused all this time? I'm going to guess not, but nice try Target...putting the old lawn and garden stuff in with the Halloween items to move your product.

Here are some ideas from Martha (Stewart, that is) - very cute!

Only 30 days until Halloween...Mark your calendars!