Is it fall yet?

I love summer. I love love love summer. I do. I love to wear sundresses, go swimming in the river, go swimming period and I love getting at tan and toasty.  BUT this summer has been hellacious.  I know we don't have it as bad as some people and I know we are truly truly blessed to have what we do have, but has anyone besides me been keeping a record of all the horrible things that have happened this summer?  It seems like everyday in the news this summer someone has died, killed themselves, been raped, been on trial for being a horrible person, shot up a summer camp- I mean it's been an icky icky no good summer all around.  So when compared to all of that my summer stuff doesn't seem nearly as bad, but it sure as hell is enough to make me wish it was fall already.

Top Five Reasons Why Tyler's Summer Was Crappy
5- Summer started out with my mother in a coma for 6 days and in a hospital for a month
4- Bruce and I had to cancel our honeymoon and may not get the money back for the cruise
3- The day after my mom got out of the hospital my Grandma fell and broke her hip
2- The week after Bruce stopped being able to see out of one eye one day and had to get eye surgery to fix that 1- In July my Grandfather (mom's dad) died

While the first four have all been taken care of.  My mom is doing amazingly (even though the doctors don't know what the hell happened).  My grandma recovered like a pro and was in the hospital and therapy less than a week.  Bruce's eye healed up and he can see as well as he could before.  We rescheduled our honeymoon for next week, it's no cruise, but it is Vegas and we love the place.

The only one that isn't really fixed or taken care of is my Grandfather dying.  There really never is any fixing it when someone dies, but all you can do is take comfort in the fact that if they were in pain or suffering then they aren't anymore.

Maybe it would be more appropriate to say that I have had an emotional summer or a emotionally crappy summer, because all of this on it's own would normally of course not be okay, but it wouldn't constantly feel like the hits keep coming.  Small things have gone wrong, small things that seem so inconsequential to anyone else but when piled together with the frustration the rest of the summer has been are enough to make me constantly tired and drained.  Small things missing my graduation cause my mom was in the hospital.  I still graduated so I can be happy about that, but it feels like it just passed and was very unnoticed because we were all doing something else vastly more important.  Another think like the pretty flowers my cousin and I planted dying- even though I watered them everyday and they sure got plenty of sunlight.  My art exhibit not getting the supplies needed till the day before the exhibit opened.  My washing machine deciding to stop spin drying clothes forcing me to hand wring them before throwing them in the dryer.

Small very petty things I know, but it's been a long, hot, emotional summer and I'm just ready for it to be over with.  We go to Vegas next week and when we get back it'll be a sprint for school to start and hopefully then things will get back to normal and less stressful and way less emotional.

On the opposite side some very good things have happened this summer to counteract all the bad.
#2 Haley found out she's having a boy! Which is the best news ever
and
#1 Mama woke up even when the stupid doctors told us to pull the plug- and as long as I keep thinking of that number one thing then everything else totally seems doable.

The Problem With My Kitchen

OMG I love my kitchen.  I really really do, it's open and has a huge window (currently concealed behind Bruce's tapestry thing) and it's just big enough for two people.  But...once I got all my stuff in there I realized it's definitely too small to have what I would normally like to have out on the counters out on the counters, if I ever want to do any serious cooking.  Which as of today I have still yet to cook anything on my stove top...I know, I'm a bad wife.

Here's the problem...

Here's a better view of the problem...

I have very little counter space to begin with.  Currently the microwave has to live on the counter because there is no where else to put it.  In a perfect world I'd be able to mount it above the range but the headroom above the range is already too shallow.  The kitchen aide can really only go on top of the counter- and it's way too pretty to hide away anyways.  The blender usually lives on top of the counter as well because I use it like everyday.  All my cookbooks currently live on the counter because I don't have my super awesome wall spice racks turned into bookshelves yet.  The waffle iron shouldn't be on the counter I don't know why it's there but I'll move it immediately when I get home.  The dish drying rack I guess can move into the left sink but really what else am I supposed to use the counters space above the dishwasher for.

BUT even if I move all those things and organize a little better- I still have very little cabinet room.  The bottom cabinets are TINY.  I only have two drawers.  The cabinet to the right of the sink is really narrow.  And my pantry well I'll deal with the pantry later, I really really dislike the pantry but I'll make it work.  But like I said I still love my kitchen.  More than two people can stand in it- which is a vast improvement from the narrow, narrow, narrow kitchen we had at the apartment.  I like to be able to turn around in my kitchen and take a step back and all those little things.

This I do not see as a problem, except for the rug thing hung over the window.

This area doesn't bother me.  It's the perfect size for the table and it'll work fine.  Once we pull the table out a little bit you'll even be able to walk behind it and I'll have plenty of room on the wall for my plates. The tapestry is concealing the sliding doors and a 1 1/2' space between the sliding door and the other wall.  It's a lot narrower than I thought.  So I'm either gonna have to get smaller spice racks, or just figure something else out, but I do still want my cookbooks there. And drapes, drapes, drapes, gonna have to figure out how to have them but not hide that little space on the wall otherwise my whole plan will fall apart and I'll cry.

Sookie likes it when I pull the tapestry up cause then she can see outside and sit in the sunbeams.  Not relevant to the post but Sookie's cute.

Anyways so yesterday I did work a little more on the decorating stuff and went to Hobby Lobby. I love Hobby Lobby, they always always have sales and coupons online.  Coupons + Sales = lots of savings.  Guess what I found?

PLATES! On sale for $2 down from $7 I only bought one but if I go back later this summer and they are marked down more I'll buy 'em. I got the Asparagus one cause it's yellow.

Then since wall hangars were already cheap $1.99 no matter the side I snatched up one of each size so I could test them with my plates to see which'll work.  And then because frames were 50% off I bought a couple large sized clip frames, cause I can't pick out real frames to save my life and everything looks nice in a clip frame.  All in all I spent very little at Hobby Lobby and will go back next week to check out what new sales they're having.  

Current plate collection is kinda sad- that big wedding plate though is HUGE 17" diameter luckily my plate hanger works up to 18", the blue one looks way cooler in person and the IHOP one looks loved.

Garden Ridge aka This Place is Huge

Day One of my "getting serious about decorating" plan and we went to Garden Ridge.  This first trip really should have been all about looking cause there is just so much there!  My awesome decorating friend Jenn said to tackle one room at a time and give yourself a budget.  I'm really bad at following directions.  I chose three rooms to complete before the Housewarming party- one in which I have absolutely no control of how it turns out- cause I'm crazy.  So my big goals are the kitchen and the living room, and I'm starting with the kitchen first because it only has two walls and one of those walls is tiny! Which means in my head there's less to decorate in there- yay!  But while I was at Garden Ridge I forgot that I was starting with my kitchen first and got lost in the football field of frames and mirrors.

Anyways- I've made a mental note to take before and after pictures of my kitchen and promise to eventually post them, but basically my kitchen is a rectangle with 2 and 3/4 of the walls taken up by counters, pantry, fridge and walkway.  So I have one full wall behind the kitchen table and to the right of the sliding glass doors that lead to the patio.  All the appliances in the kitchen are white, the cabinets are a very pale, pale weird wood color (pictures to come I promise), my dining table is not a pale wood color but a medium-light wood color with chairs that have Christmas trees on them and green seats.  I have two black and white checkerdy mats on the floor and under the table- cause they looked cool and I had yet to pick a theme for the kitchen.  Above the cabinets there is space and one day that space will have plants (fake ones) and pitchers- because someone told me that's what I should do and I turn down no free decorating advice.

In my head I see my kitchen as a warm cozy place that I'll be cooking in very frequently.  Cooking things like Chicken Sinegalese, Chicken Piccatta, Greek Gyros with homemade tzatziki sauce, Carrot Cake and hundreds of thousands of Green Smoothies (just because they're cold doesn't mean it doesn't involve cooking).  Currently most of my counter space is taken up by my microwave, 12 cookbooks, my kitchen aide stand mixer, dish rack and my Black & Decker blender/food processor that I'm in love with.  To solve the counter space problem the little sliver of a wall that's left between the sliding door and the other wall would be perfect for some spice rack book shelves.  Then the only piece of decorating that I'll actually be creating myself will be the plate wall! I love plate walls! They remind me of this next door neighbor we had growing up who had a wall that was covered in coffee mugs, none of them matched but it still always looked homey and fabulous- Right now my plate collection consists of 4 plates I've deemed wall worthy- one is the plate Haley gave me for the wedding that everyone signed it's HUGE and will be the center piece, another is this plate my ex-best friend Robynne stole for me from IHOP a hundred years ago when we worked there in high school, the 3rd plate is a plate that has a shoe on it- a cute dessert plate, and the 4th is an awesome blue eye shaped plate with sparkles that I found for $4 at Garden Ridge.  My rule for the plate wall is that all plates have to be under $5 and I'll just buy them as I find them- I'm gonna hit up thrift stores and goodwill to find more.  Other than that the kitchen will need curtains over the sliding door- right now Bruce has an old tapestry thing hung up over it and while nice it does not match my vision or allow for easy access- also it blocks out too much natural light- it's gotta go.  Then the pitchers and vines must be located for above the cabinets.  Hey I found vines at Garden Ridge-

Too many vines if you ask me.  In the first house I lived in my mom had REAL ivy that grew all over the tops of the cabinets and it was really nice, but I kill plants so I don't want to have dead plants on top of my cabinets.  But there are soooo many types of fake Ivy out there too and I don't wanna spend $15 on fake plants for on top of my cabinets- I'll wait for Hobby Lobby to have a sale.

Back to Garden Ridge- so wandering through the HUGE Garden Ridge Pottery we found frames, mirrors and wall art.  Bruce got lost in the wall art for a while and I looked at mirrors.  The theme for my living room is kinda early my couches are moss green and I'm gonna have this beautiful picture of the trees at my mom's house from the wedding.  So with that minimal idea my living room needs a mirror-

   

Like this one!

Partially obstructed mirros are cool

Or this one- mind my legs

This one was neat too the metal was different hues of natural colors

I kinda liked this one too- the leaves might be too much though

The plain-est three different size mirrors might be nice.

We're getting a hutch from Bruce's mom the weekend of the housewarming party, so unfortunately I wont have it early enough to really play around with everything before the party, so I'm making due with a picture and my minds-eye (which is a horrible thing to trust).  I image the hutch to the left of the back wall of the living room and to the right of the hutch a mirror or mirrors.  Then on the wall opposite of the mirror the picture of the trees at my mom's house.  Another room with only two walls to decorate- it makes me happy.  Then I start thinking about curtains and want to hang myself... there are two windows in my living room...sigh

So at Garden Ridge we were really overcome by home much stuff they had- furniture, clothing, luggage, kitchen stuff and cheap suits of armor (Bruce wants one).  I ended up getting a big beverage dispenser for the party for my Sangria I'm making, a big bowl for ice and that cool eye shaped blue plate for the plate wall.  Not a very good first shopping trip, I'm hoping tonight's excursion to Hobby Lobby goes better.  But I still feel like there's lots of time so no worries yet.

I don't have the decorating gene...

I bought a house!  Well back in April I bought a house, before the wedding, before mama went to the hospital, before my lease was up and before I graduated.  The house was a part of the wedding deal we made with the 'rents.  Instead of having a big big wedding both my parents generously donated towards the down payment of the house.  So with their contributions, my own, help from my grandma and my not too horrible then credit I was able to get a nice little house on the North East side of town.

In May 2010 Bruce and I officially moved in together in a new apartment in the same complex I was already living in, we moved into a 2 bedroom, 2 bath pretty good sized apartment.  7 things went on the walls of that apartment in the year we lived there.  2 posters Bruce wanted, 2 pictures I've had since High School, 2 cork/message boards and one big kissing poster Haley gave me for my old apartment.  That was it!  Nothing else.  To say we never really decorated is a huge understatement, we did nothing to that apartment except live there for a year and make a mess of the living room.  So when we bought the house I knew I was in trouble cause if you're living somewhere for more than a year you really should decorate.  Crap.

We officially moved in on May 21st, we were delayed because mama decided to take a three week vacation in the hospital- she's doing fine now and we were happy to delay our move  for her...really we were happy to cause we hadn't packed a thing as of May 3rd anyway. We took another month to finally get every out of the apartment and on June 19th I turned in our apartment keys!

My step-mom helped us find and get the house and she kept asking me about a housewarming party- I said we'd do it eventually once things settled down.    On June 24th I realized we hadn't unpacked a thing in our house (except our 300 DVDs and part of the kitchen) yet and it was starting to annoy me.  So I made Bruce and I pick a date for our housewarming party.  Since July is also his birthday month (the big 30) and I graduated during mom's vacay in the hospital, I made the executive decision to combine the three in hopes of getting more people to come celebrate.  We picked July 30th because it was still in his b-day month and cause Haley said we had to do it that weekend- she's pregnant and scary and if you don't do what she says she may sit on you.

So with a deadline in mind I started trying to get serious about unpacking.  Then I realized that I'd have to decorate this house as well BEFORE that deadline- or at least start.  I can't have a bunch of people coming over for a party and have absolutely nothing on the walls- cause right now even today with 17ish days to go there is still NOTHING on those walls.  My good friend Jenn has a nack for decorating (apparently she has the decorating gene- B) and has volunteered to help me figure out what the hell I'm doing.  She told me to pick just a couple of rooms to try to get done before the party.  I chose the kitchen, living room and guest bathroom because they're the main rooms that will be seen during the house warming party.

Will I reach my goal? Will my house be unpacked and decorated by the 30th?  I sure hope so, we have more furniture coming in the 24th and then the weekend of the housewarming so hopefully it'll all fit!!!