Commute Photo

A while back a friend said to me, "Do you drive by the circus all the time??!!" She was reading our blog and thought all the pictures from my commute were funny. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I drove by the circus!! Too funny!

Home Improvement is Expensive!

Why is Lowes always so expensive? (We use a Lowes business card that saves us 5%, but it sure doesn't seem like a discount when it's only 5%) Here is our latest adventure: I'm determined to keep working on our existing projects so we can finish all the things we started. We bought security doors for the front and side doors and painted them. We were planning on painting them with Rustoleum to make them last longer and I noticed one door said "bad paint" on the box. I asked the guy if we could get a discount on a "damaged" door and he said yes. So we chose 2 "damaged" doors. Saved us money and we were planning on painting anyways ;)

Doug spraying our front door green:Finished product:This door didn't change colors too much; it was off white when we bought it and we sprayed it with off white paint:

We paid for installation and when the guy came out on Thursday to put the door up he said we have to remove the foam stucco around the house and build a wood frame. Bummer!!! So, that's been added to our projects. We also bought paint for both bedrooms to finish up those projects too.

Fun Pictures

This picture is too funny - Doug on Halloween. He has some nasty denture teeth in and he said he wore sunglasses too. He went to a dance and said no one recognized him.The boys!Doug said this is how they used to watch fireworks. They didn't just settle for lawn chairs; they would load couches into the truck :)
The back of these photos are dated 2004. I don't think any of them live in the same state anymore! Kinda sad, but they still keep in contact. We need to see them more often though!

Fruit Trees

I really really hate these green weeds! We have the weed cloth and wood chips down and I can't get rid of these stupid things!Our lemon and orange trees are doing very well. We don't have any fruit on our orange tree this year, but it seems to be going through quite a growth spurt. We have a few lemons hiding in this tree:

We have tiny little limes growing too:
I'm still holding out hope that our mandarin tree will make it. It's growing new leaves and branches and there is one mandarin fruit growing still. Hang in there little tree!! I hope it will be strong enough to get through the winter.

I couldn't figure out why the plants we bought to attract bees and humming birds died so quickly, but I figured it out today. It was the dirt we used. I was going to say the dirt was crappy, but crap might have actually helped! LOL
I pulled the plans out of the pot and they didn't even release from the dirt; it all came out in a big square. That'll teach me to use low quality dirt again!

Poor Azalea isn't doing too great either. Her leaves and flowers are all burned from the heat and sun. We have another week of temperatures in the upper 90's and low 100's and then it will be much cooler next week. My poor plants. As much as I wanted a garden this year, I'm kind of glad we didn't plant one. I've struggled to keep what we already have alive. It's been a busy summer and I didn't pay close attention to our plants and trees like I should have.

Primer. Check.

Here we go! Say goodbye to the pink room!Closer pictures of the detail: Getting plastic taped to the walls and on the floor:Away we go!

I got a little sentimental over this bird. I didn't want to paint over it, it's too cute. But in the end the bird was painted over with primer.The pink is gone. We still have to primer the bases of the palm trees and the post of the sign the bird was sitting on. Such a pain that they painted the wainscoting!

I've walked into the room a few times and it's SO boring now. It took quite a while to get used to the orange room (click to see the orange room) not being orange anymore too. We've picked out a light blue and light green to paint the "orange room". I have no idea what color I want to paint the "pink room". I better figure it out quickly because we're going to get the colors this afternoon. I'm staying focused on getting our existing projects finished and this one has been in the works for over a year. It will be so nice to get it done!

Paint Colors

I've finally got the motivation to finish painting the pink and orange rooms. I'm thinking of painting one room a light blue or green. The picture above is the comforter set we have in that room.

What do you think??

Valspar has a cute idea that uses both blue and green:

I just don't know what I want do to. Speaking of painting... I need to get my butt up and out of this chair and go primer the pink room.

Waxing Story

"How long has it been since you've had a shearing?"

This story is just to make you laugh because it makes me laugh. I saw a coupon for a free waxing service for first time guests, so of course I was going to take advantage of it - I LOVE waxing, plucking, laser, epilating, or whatever else will remove hair! I scheduled an eyebrow and bikini wax. First, I must preface this story with the fact that I started spotting about an hour before my appointment and I'm a very self conscious person, but if I'm having a procedure done I can usually get through it with a little dignity in tact.

When I arrived at the salon I excused myself to the restroom to make sure I wasn't having more of an issue with spotting and could get through the appointment. I was called back for my waxing service and I was taken to a VERY brightly lit room and I was asked to remove everything from the waist down while she prepared the items she would need. I waited for a half second before I realized she wasn't going to leave the room for me to undress. Oh well, we're about to get up close and personal during the wax anyways. I asked if I should remove my panties as well. Yep. Ok.

I climb onto the table and she says she's going to start with my eyebrows - now I'm laying there half naked to work on my eyebrows? Oh well. I cross my legs and make a few jokes to ease the awkward feelings I was having. Not only am I self conscious, but this room is freaking BRIGHT! lol She's finishing with my eyebrows and says she'll begin the bikini. She said I can take off as much or as little as I want. I describe what I want done and she says, "Ok, put your heels together and butterfly...just like it sounds." OH MY HECK??!!!! I follow her instructions and now I'm completely embarrassed! She says, "Pull your heels higher up and relax your legs. Yep, we're worse than the gyno." UHHHH, YEAY YOU ARE!. LOL I'm still trying to hold a little dignity and chat with her to keep my mind off of the craziness that I'm putting myself through. She puts the warm stripless wax on and RIIIIPSSS it off. Ok, not too bad - I've been through a lot of waxing of legs, underarms and I've tried the bikini myself and it's hard to do! She puts more wax going the opposite direction....RIIIIPPPPP. Whew! I can do this. By now my legs are shaking and she says, "Just relax, I can feel your legs shaking." Heck yeah they are!

She puts more wax down...the previous rippings were tolerable, but the next 4, not so much. Ladies, she did the top first and was now working down the sides...what in the world was I thinking??? She pulls and I just about slammed my legs shut! WHEWWWWW! Deep breath, just breathe...almost done! Holy cow. When you pull thicker hair from the roots it bleeds, so when she asked me to look and see if I was ok with it there were little blood spots all over. At that point I didn't care what it looked like, I was done. She cleaned me up and I got dressed and went to pay.

Just when you might be done laughing at me or cringing.... I arrived at my destination and used the restroom. Oh. Great. My panties were stuck to the hairs that still had wax on them. Fantastic. Oh well....like a band aide, just brace yourself and pull quickly. HAHAHAH.

I've told this story quite a few times over the last few days and every one's reactions are sooo funny. I get to laughing so hard and each gal has a different response: wide eyes, squished faces, jaws dropped, covered mouth, laughter, ooo'ing with thoughts of pain, etc. But they have all laughed because of the animation that comes with the live version of this story! HAHAH. One coworker/friend laughed the hardest when I said, "And I'd do it again!" It's true, I would. As soon as she was done there was no pain.

"Once the local chapter of PETA showed up, Henry knew he was overdue for his monthly waxing."

LOOOOOOK TILE!!

I can't believe our slab leak drama is finally over!! The company came and installed the tile we picked out from the 4 boxes they dropped off. It looks so much better! I felt justified when the tile guy came in and said to Doug, "Wow, this looks like crap." The color doesn't match perfectly, which I wasn't expecting, but it's a close match like it should have been in the first place!Doug putting our refrigerator back. It's so exciting! (he's behind it hooking the water line to the fridge)

We went to help Ben and Breanna move some furniture a couple days ago and we had a yummy spaghetti dinner with them. On our way home I was trying to get a picture of the sunset, but by the time we got to the freeway and the buildings weren't in the way, the sun was down :(. So I got a picture of the best thing around. AWWWE :)

My cute babe driving his truck.

Saturday Picnic and New Desk

Last Saturday was my company's annual summer picnic. It was a hot day, but the food was good and the people were fun to hang out with. Pictures of the lake we were at:

Doug and I were jealous we didn't have a kayak; one day we'll get our own - the woman in the background is standing and paddling. After the picnic, Doug and I stopped at the office supply store to pick up a desk. I saw the desk in a weekend ad but I kept looking around to see if I could find other options.

We decided to put the desk I have now into Doug's room because it has a large work surface he can use for his guns and we wanted a smaller desk to open up more room where that desk sits now. My current desk:

Taking the desk apart to get it into Doug's room was quite a headache. His doorway is about 30 inches and the desk is 32+. We had to get the desk into 4 parts to fit it through the doorway. You'll never believe the most important tool we used was dental floss! We couldn't get the hutch to separate from the desk. We tried every screw, then pulling, tugging, pushing...Doug was even standing on the desk trying to muscle it loose, but nothing would work! I grabbed some floss to put between the hutch and the desk to find out where it was stuck and the floss ended up cutting the double sided tape! We completely forgot that we put strong tape between the pieces to secure it. YAY FLOSS!The next project was putting the new desk together: I love that the backer board has shoe prints on it. I guess the guys packaging the product didn't really care. Sheesh. My new desk - it's much smaller and opens a lot of room:A week or so ago we decided to have a lazy day and lay around and watch movies; the air matress is still blown up and now there is a lot of room without a huge desk in the way:
Doug is setting up his "new" desk:

Catch Up Time

We had a healthy potluck at work to go with the Health and Wellness program we have going. We decided to have a salad bar - it's so easy and pretty cheap for everyone to do. You just need people to bring lettuce and then all the topping you can imagine making a salad out of. A coworker brought bread and croutons for the salad; you might remember the bread snowman and turtle from previous potlucks? Here is the latest - these are so fun! This picture doesn't show how big it is, it's probably 1 1/2 feet long:While were were shopping for a new desk earlier this week, we ran into Ben and Breanna and we went out for frozen yogurt. I got chocolate/vanilla swirl with peanut butter cups and it made a cool pattern:

This is the latest give away Becky and I put together for our Health and Wellness program at work. One of the carriers we represent is MetLife and their Snoopy dogs are so cute.

Becky spotted some Snoopy Kleenex at the Dollar Store and it matched perfectly with the baseball Snoopy. We put a box of trail mix around his neck and the quote says:

A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. - Paul Dudley White

Yesterday Melissa was out shopping and saw Smurf figurines, so she bought one for me! She said she was hoping it would be Smurfette, but it's in a box and a surprise until it's opened. I got Greedy Smurf!

It's been a busy week and I'm glad the weekend is here. We also had our annual reviews at work which is always nice since they come with a raise :) YAY for money!