Surprises. Baseball.

Yolanda surprised me on Halloween with a little something she picked up for me while we were in Japan. I was ecstatic to say the least. The baseball game was one of my top Tokyo memories. It was nice to be reminded. Oh, Tokyo, I miss you.

Halloween Party (Take I)

Went to Tina's around 3pm and got put right to work. I think I cut hot dogs for about an hour. People started showing up and trickling in around 4 or 5. Most of the out-of-towners get there earlier to set up their stuff. Pre-drinking commenced and we sat around and hung out until around 7:30/8 when we all realized that nobody had their costumes on. Everyone went and did their separate things and pretty soon the party was really in full swing. I got a few pictures at the beginning of the night, but the more I drank, the less I remembered to carry my camera around with me. Here are the few pictures that I took, but I will hopefully add a few more in later.

Working On My Costume

Started working on my costume around 10am. Did not get finished until 1am. Had a little break to meet my family for dinner, but otherwise I worked on it all day long! I didn't want to have to do anything come party day!

 

 

I Can See the Garage Floor

Left work early (a slow-forming habit, I know) and cleaned out the disgusting garage. Destroyed a table, made a tabletop, got rid of vermin. Like gag me with a spoon. Afterwards, I was supposed to work on my halloween costume but Stacy came over and we started drinking and ended up playing wii until late in the night. Fun times.

man. that is a lot of CRAP.

Last Minute Saturday Ends in Bar Fight

Saturday was a very eventful day. I met Bryan around 10am to move some of his stuff and the rest of mine over to the house. We got everything packed up and into the truck and met Stacy over at the house to unload. After moving some things around in the house and in the barn, we unloaded all the new stuff. I finally got my furniture out of the storage unit. So glad to have my couches back!!

Stacy was nice enough to stop by the store to pick up some lunch stuff and beer for us. After we were finished (around 2pm) we finally sat down and had something to eat. Stacy left and Bryan and I finished up a few things here and there.

We decided to take a little break and Bryan ended up falling asleep for a few hours. He had been up since 4:30am and obviously needed the rest. While he was sleeping I worked a little more around the house, cleaning and such. He left around 6:30pm or so and I chilled out for a bit, then got ready for this last minute Halloween party that Stacy invited me to.

Got to the party around 9pm and had a really good time. The party was at Barb's house, who I'd only hung around with last year at New Year's Eve. She is awesome though. Stacy and Leslie we there as well. We had a blast listening to old music, making up some of our own, and dancing like idiots. Good times. At the end of the party, we had a hilarious little photo shoot in Barb's living room.

After the party Stacy, Leslie, and I decided to go to the Red Room to dance a little and have a drink. Boy, was that a bad idea! We were at the bar for only 45 minutes all together, but during that time there were two altercations. The first one was started by this jerk on the dance floor who would not leave us alone and started being really rude to me. We got up in each others faces and it turned into a bit of a shoving match. It was full on circle around us, cafeteria-style fight. Craziness. I went outside for some air and apparently while I was out there someone came up to Stacy being weird, calling her a Republican and making here mad in general. That's when we left. It was way past time.

It took me forever to fall asleep because my adrenaline was so pumped up from my shoving match. Oh good times for a Saturday. Thanks universe for sending that my way. Real fun (sarcasm). Anyway, a new day will come and I'll just chalk this up for meeting stupid. Ugh. The rest of the night was awesome though. Too bad it ended with such drama. It was pretty funny though. I think I scared everyone around me in the bar...

These FaceMasks are HAWT

Got the facemasks I ordered for the slumber party in the mail and decided that I'd try one out. They are 
Dermal Korea Collagen Essence Full Face Facial Mask Sheet from amazon.com and are very wet. I fit it onto my face they way the directions said and left it on for about 15-20 minutes. Afterwards, I rubbed all the extra "stuff" into my face. My face felt really soft and clean! I am a fan. These are going to be perfect for my party! And we are all going to look seriously funny wearing them around. I'm thinking photo op...

We Take Jacob to the Zoo

I took off the day and my sister and I took Jacob to the zoo (best nephew in the world btw). We had so much fun and Jacob did such a good job at the zoo. He imitated the monkeys and the elephants. He is so stinkin' cute. He took a ride on the carousel, had lunch, watched the dolphins!! It was fun times with my favorite nephew!

Crown Molding Might Be the Devil. Make a Pie.

Started working on finishing the crown molding in the living room on Saturday afternoon around 2:00 or 3:00. OMG. Philip came over to help out and we had about three new pieces up by 6:30 or so. It took us forever! We made models. Discussed. It was freaking hard! After those pieces, Philip had to go and I had to give up. I was done with the stupid molding for the day.

Woke up on Sunday with some fresh eyes. I knew it had to be easier. So, I decided to start at an outside corner and work in from there instead of the other way around. After I did that, I made every cut a 45 degree angle. It was much easier, like I knew it should be. That's when I figured out that, not only are the ceilings not level, but the wall boards are warped like nine different ways. I said "Screw you walls!" and just made them work for me. I had all the crown molding up and secured by 10:30am. Amazing.

I'll have to go back and fill in the nail holes and few gaps here and there, but it is up!! Now, for the kitchen. We didn't have enough trim for that, so I'll have to wait until Sally or Wendy decide to buy it.

Spent the rest of my Sunday morning just hanging out. Made some sausage, gravy and biscuits for a brunch type meal and then I made THE apple pie later on. So good. I make a mean apple pie.

uncooked

cooked

Sitting Room is FINISHED!

I finally finished the sitting room. So happy with it!

I took Friday off from work and was making the cushion covers at 6am. Yes, I am crazy. But, I love the fabric I chose and the covers came out really nicely:

Got all the trim put up later in the day and painted the hallway. Then, I spray painted the little stool orange and decided to use it for a lamp stand. Looks pretty good! I'll probably have to go back over the trim with one more coat of white later on, but for now, I am calling the room complete!

Here's my new before and after:

Sneak Peak for Halloween

Finally! I've chosen my Halloween costume for this year. I chose a completely different direction. I'm really hoping it doesn't take me long to construct. Here is a small sneak peek of what is to be...

Plastic the Porch

The dogs have been staying outside due to all the renovations in the house. I think for the most part they like it and we've finally gotten a system down. But, unfortunately, it's starting to get colder. So last night I decided on a temporary solution: plastic the porch. Using drop cloth plastic and Wendy's old shower curtain, I enclosed the back porch. Hopefully, that will keep the wind off them and the area a little warmer. Emma seems to approve.

Poetry Competition

So.. I entered this poetry competition in Indianapolis. I went back through my poems and, using "an osmotic realization" for this basis, came up with a somewhat new poem to represent the word passion. I'm not really sure if I used the word how they were expecting it to be used, but it is what it is. The competition is based on competition, but I don't really write much in the spirit of that. Most of my words come from somewhere else. Anyway, minus long explanations, here's the new poem:

Final Coat of Polyurethane

No new pictures for this one (it looks exactly the same), but let it be noted that the second and final coat of poly is finished and was much harder than the first coat. Why? Because, if you use a high gloss poly, it is literally impossible to see where you lay the second coat. I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope I got it even and the floor fully covered. All the glare from the first coat makes it impossible to see your strokes. Oh my goodness. But, it is done. Tomorrow or the next day I can put back all the trim and by Friday I can put the furniture in there! Yay. A room is almost completed!

Here is a before and after of the room so far (I'll do another once the trim and everything is back on):

First Coat of Poly

Applied my first coat of poly to the floor. Pretty happy with the outcome:

It is cold inside the house though! Had to turn the heat off because of the floor vents in there. Don't want them blowing crap onto my floor!! All that is left to do is to lightly sand the floors, cut in some poly around the edges and lay down a final top coat. Then paint and place the baseboards and the trim on one of the doors. There were no baseboards for the hallway so I'll have to cut those as well. Where the flooring meets the french doors I think I'll have to put some small amount of trim onto the floor. Just to transition and hold down the flooring a little bit. Otherwise I'm afraid the flooring will pull up over time. It already has a slight curl.

A Visit to Emily and Claire

I left work early today and went over to Emily and Nick's house to discuss a project Emily is wanting to start. She wants to write a few children's board books and have me do the illustrations. The main character will of course be little Claire! Emily and I hung out for a little while, caught up and discussed the project. I waited and waited and waited for Claire to wake up from her morning nap! Finally she did! She was definitely more interested in my phone than in me, but I used that to take a few pictures of her. Hopefully they will be good enough to allow me to cartoon her later on.

Philip Leaves a Message

Philip came over so that I could sew one of his 'peels' for him. I'm not going to go into great detail on what that means. When he becomes famous for his artistic peels, you will know what it means. The point is... he came over to the house and discovered the blackboard wall and left me a sweet little message. I wanted to make sure and photograph and blog it just in case it were to get erased. It's bound to at some point. This way, I won't lose it. :)

Zoe Gets on That Pillow

Anyway he possibly can. Even if he's hanging over the edge. When did he get so cute..

Floor Paper Mache'd

Finished putting the floor paper down in the back room and hallway. The coloring is a little uneven and I believe it's due to the spread of the dye in the glue. So, I'm trying to think of good ways to fix that... My first thought is to make another darker glue mixture and spread it evenly over the whole floor. Not sure if that will help. In other blogs they have used a wood stain over the whole floor. The only thing I dislike about that is that the wood stain never truly dries and is sticky even when the polyurethane is spread over the top. In the house I'm in that could be a large problem. I'm afraid dirt and dog hair will stick to the flooring and then be pressed in to the floor and preserved there. I really don't like that idea!