Good times.

I spent Friday night and all day Saturday at our GS camp in Knoxville teaching girls about the Gold Award. It is always gratifying to be able to answer their questions, challenge them to dream a little bigger, and encourage them to achieve the highest award possible in our organization. This group was a little challenging - not very talkative and looking intimidated by the process - but I think we made some progress. And, they know how to find us when they are ready to ask questions - they can put a name with an email address or phone number so maybe WE will be less intimidating!

Chad is working today so we just had lunch with J and he headed to the hospital for work. It is raining and nasty outside so my plans include lit candles for a good smelling house, working a little more on cleaning out the craft/spare room, starting some Christmas craft projects, cleaning up the kitchen, and maybe a little movie watching. It is going to be a good afternoon.

Then, I have tomorrow off work too! We will do a little bathroom tiling - its coming along slowly but surely - and then a trip to the animal shelter to look at dogs. Someone we know (NOT THIS HOUSE) might be getting a dog for Christmas! I'm excited! Of course, it takes everything in my power to not come home with another cat - I just remind myself how much food costs and how much the annual vet bills are and then I remember why we have cats and dogs instead of kids and I think, why not one more? :)

A productive day.

One of the things that I wanted to do for Chad for our anniversary was to deep clean the house. I know, it sounds really 1950's housewife and not at all the independent woman that I believe I am. But, in my defense, since I work so much, sometimes my share of our house duties falls by the way side. We share most things evenly - or just take turns doing them - but admittedly, it had been a while since I had done THIS much cleaning. (Don't think we live in messy house - unless you count Gwendolen hair - we do clean!). Bottom line, I knew that a deep clean would probably bless him more than anything I could purchase him so it is one of the reason I took 2 days off this week.

So, here was my TO DO list for yesterday - updated with what I actually got done:
- sand mud on walls in bathroom
- wipe down walls and dump drop cloth
- paint ceiling and walls in bathroom
- paint bathroom cabinet
- vacuum all floors
- do all laundry and put it away (this ended up being 5 loads...my dryer was exhausted)
- clean up hiking stuff in guest room from Leconte trip
- clean up kitchen and put away dishes
- clean up craft stuff in spare room
- clean out/wash/wax car (this one is totally for me!)
- clean up dining room table
- clean up the other guest room that has been holding bathroom renovation stuff
- hang Chad's 3D map that he got for Christmas (this is almost embarrassing)
- deep clean hall bathroom
- clean off front porch (the number of spider webs is unreal!)

Obviously, I didn't get everything done in the bathroom that I wanted to get done but my arms were tired from nearly 2 hours of sanding! I need a little help/advice from Chad on the next step (ceiling) anyway so I was sort of in a holding pattern until today anyway.

My house is so clean that I feel like we should leave so we don't mess it up! p.s. he also noticed, which only slightly surprised me. I was still awake when he came home last night and he was like, whoa, thanks for cleaning! and THAT rocked my world.

Today's plans include catching up on our favorite TV shows, hopefully lunch with his parents to celebrate his mom's birthday (which, by the way, is the same day as our anniversary. Another story for another day), a trip to Lowe's (because what romantic day doesn't include a trip to Lowe's?) then a matinee movie and dinner down by the river. Le sigh. I love days like this.

 (Edited to add: I DID actually buy him things but they aren't here yet. I'll show them off when they arrive.)

Bunnies.

So, my dearest Chad and his friend T got this hare-brained (hardeeharhar) idea that they were going to get rabbits. You see, T is a fairly strict Paleo dieter and thinks that he needs more lean protein in his diet. (So, yes, stop reading now if the idea of eating rabbits that grew up in your backyard grosses you out.)

 

Chad and T made a deal. T doesn't know much about raising animals, pets, building things, power tools, etc. Chad told him that he would pay for the supplies to make the rabbit hutch if T would purchase and feed the rabbits. They worked on this hutch for a couple of weeks when they would both happen to have time off at the same time of day until it was finally finished last week. After a trip down to a rabbit breeder in GA, 3 little bunnies now live in my backyard under my favorite tree. 2 girls and one boy will be the "breeders" so these won't actually be eaten - which is fine by me. (Let me be clear on one point - this gal has absolutely NO INTENTION of making dinner - or any other meal for that matter - out of these cuties. I don't know what Chad's intentions are but I believe they align with mine. I made him promise, pinky swear, cross his heart and hope to die or stick a needle in his eye that no rabbits would come to their demise in MY backyard. If I ever, ever, ever find a tuft of fur or any remnants of any idea that a bunny died on my property, this whole thing is bust. This way, I can basically pretend that it isn't happening.)

 

And that is the story of how 3 bunnies - and their future offspring - came to live in my backyard. They are basically identical so I keep threatening to get a washable marker out and put dots on their backs or something so we can tell them apart. As it turns out, one of them doesn't like celery - at all - always leaves it behind so I want to name "it" (because, let's be real - bunny parts are hard to figure out) Celery and give it a green dot. Any name suggestions for the other two?

 

Sorry for the super blurry bunny on the right.

Do you know that they don't hold still for photos, no matter how hard you try to bribe them with fresh clover plants?

Master Bathroom Renovation - Day 1

If I haven't mentioned it before, we are beginning the process of renovating our master bathroom. Not sure why it is called a master because it is super teenie - same size as our hall bathroom - but it is the only one in a bedroom so I guess that makes it the master. We will eventually renovate both bathrooms and the kitchen because the people who "flipped" our house (a realtor and her brother) did an absolutely terrible job on most things. Mainly, they made cosmetic fixes instead of actually fixing the problem leaving us with a leaking roof (who's stains they painted over), and 3 layers of tile on the bathroom walls, among other things. I guess it means that we get to a bathroom that we love so it will eventually be OK. We've saved for this for a while so we are attempting to do it with no debt and then we will save again for the next bathroom and kitchen, etc.

Anyway, today was Day #1. I am not sure why we decided it was a good idea to demo a bathroom after inviting my entire family up for Christmas but it's fine. In all honesty, the "dirty work" will hopefully be done the end of this weekend (meaning most of the demo in the shower area). We won't be finished by the time they come up because it is going to probably take us a couple of months of weekends to finish our weekend warrior project. Today we tore down 2 layers of tile with drywall between each layer. I guess I can't blame the cruddy job on the flippers because someone before them obviously did the same thing. Either way, the bottom layer is a plastic tile, very thin, so it will just come off with the last layer of drywall. The walls have been patched so many times that we are just going to take it down to the studs on 3 walls. The 4th wall is the outside wall of the house and has a window so we should just be able to sand and make that one look nice. 8 bags of trash later and we are on our way. I've taken before and during pictures so far so one day I will show you the ewwwww that is the inside of the wall. :)

Thankful.

Quick report: We had a wonderful, low-key Thanksgiving with family today here in C-town. It was nice to not have to go far and to just enjoy the company of people we love. Came home and took a nap so I'm not quite tired but the nap was totally worth it! Got our Christmas tree put up and decorated today so we can finisht the rest of the house tomorrow. I LOVE our house when it is decorated for Christmas because everything looks so festive and happy - and I am always willing to keep it cleaner so hello holidays!