Fall Is Here!

I cannot say enough how much I love autumn. The weather is perfect, I can wear sweaters and boots, the nice little chill in the air, the smells, the brilliant colors of nature, cozy-ing up with my sweetheart on the couch (as if I don't do that already, lol), the anticipation of the holidays just around the corner, I could go on, but I just love fall!

Recently along with the changes we made to our living room, Stephen and I have also been busy outside "remodeling" our yard as well. It is a ton of work to keep up with our garden, the flowerbeds, and mowing the lawn and keeping it green, especially for only two people with a big yard like we have. Since we bought an older home that means we have to deal with juniper bushes and lots of them because they were very popular to plant back in the day. I cannot stand juniper bushes! I will never ever design a yard using them. Ever. There are tons of other options for an evergreen shrub that not only looks better, but they won't collect spiders and trash either. So, Stephen and I had all our junipers pulled out along with a gigantic vine growing on our wall in the back yard a few weeks ago. My yard now looks bleak and barren, but it's also a blank canvas for me to work my magic.

BEFORE

AFTER

So far we have taken out 12 shrubs and we have four more to go, but we'll wait for spring to finish the job and finally fill in our large dirt patch with grass. I can't wait, it's going to look like a whole new yard come this time next year!

This past Saturday we worked in the yard pulling out two more large shrubs in our front yard to get ready for us to plant some new trees and shrubs. It was strenuous work, and although Stephen hates doing yard work, he did a nice job pulling out the shrubs and raking and shoveling the hideous red lava rock in the back of the truck to take to the dump. We didn't get everything done we wanted to last week so we have to continue again this week getting rid of railroad ties, pruned branches and more lava rock. I have several new shrubs, trees, and somewhere around 200 spring bulbs to plant before it starts to snow this year, so its a race against nature's clock to get everything in the ground so they don't freeze and die during the winter.

One day while I was outside deadheading my zinnias I found this little big guy!

Speaking of bugs, when Stephen and I were scooping out the lava rock out of the back of the truck at the dump last weekend he spotted a giant black spider crawling around and told me to come take a look. I looked at it and saw the distinct shape of its abdomen and tried to turn it on its back to find a red marking. It was a really aggressive spider and it took me a few tries to flip it, but sure enough it was the famed black widow spider! I have seen my fair share of black widows on the farm, but I have never seen one that big. I wish I could've take a picture of it because it was HUGE! Now it creeps me out knowing we have those spiders around our house. We had all the rolls of carpet that we took out of the living room that had been sitting outside for weeks sitting the truck, so I think it crawled inside one of the carpet rolls, eeeewe!

I also had a friend from high school come over and make a cute Halloween craft with me. It's cute and inexpensive, and we had a great time. I even made a pumpkin jelly roll cake for the first time, and I wasn't sure how or even if it was going to turn out, but it was beautiful and yummy!

Making Our House a Home

Here are some before and after shots of the work Stephen and I have done to our living room this summer. Going through the pictures I realized I didn't do a very good job taking pictures before we started to get a good idea of how ugly the living room really was, but what's important is that it's not ugly anymore! This is my favorite room in our house right now because we gave it  a major facelift.

BEFORE

We were initially going to go with a green room......good thing we didn't! The 2nd photo on the right I took through the plastic that was blocking all the doorways so the popcorn ceiling dust didn't go anywhere except the living room. Taking the ceiling off was the worst part of this whole project because it was a thousand degrees outside in late June and we had to wear hazmat suites, masks, gloves, and a hat to protect ourselves with all the doors, windows, and AC shut off. That took us a few hours to complete and by the time we finished taking the ceiling off we were completely drenched in sweat.

  I thought this picture was funny. the paint got stuck to the carpet over night and I couldn't get the lid off the paint.

  We had to tape up brown paper to protect our walls when we sprayed on our new ceiling texture.

 We ended up painting the living room blue instead of that hideous green and here we are taking the ugly brown carpet out to reveal our wood floor! I was really surprised how great of shape the wood floor was under the carpet. That carpet was so old the padding underneath just disintegrated when you touched it, so I ended up having to actually sweep up the padding instead of rolling it up like the carpet.

 Next we took up the ply board and linoleum in our entryway. It wasn't in as good as shape as the living room, so unfortunately we now have to refinish the whole floor.

 AFTER

 And voila!! Our new living room. I don't have all our pictures and stuff up on the walls yet, and I put out my Halloween decorations in these photos too so there are fake spider webs everywhere, but it turned out SO nice I can't even believe it is the same space we moved into three months prior. We still have a little more to do to the living room like add curtains, a few side tables and coffee table, lamps and another chair, but those things will come with time.....as soon as we afford them that is. Seeing this gets me all excited to redo our kitchen and bathroom and they both desperately need a make over.

Utah State Fair

Stephen and I went to the state fair last night; we bought tickets to go see Frank Caliendo the comedian. I'm surprised at how many people haven't ever heard of him since he's had a show on TV and made TV appearances on talk shows and such, but anywho we had a great time full of lots of laughs. We walked around before the show to look at all the other booths and stuff. We, of course ate fair food including deep fried cheese cake. Fun date night for us!

Goings On

Stephen and I have been working on our living room for the past three months now. We are not quite finished yet as we still need to put the molding on and polish up the floors, but because we have been working so hard we're kinda pooped out and want a break from working on the house. The living room looks awesome and we are starting to fill it with furniture and making if feel like home again. I come home from work, now and can actually think about what I'm going to cook for dinner for Stephen when he gets home or I clean the house. It feels really good to be getting back into my normal routine. We have been haggling with a landscaper to come rip out all my shrubs so I can start designing and buying shrubs and trees to beauitfy my yard. Picture are soon to come for the living room and yard. 

I am pretty sure my cat suffers from pika disorder. He licks, chews, and eats anything that is metal. He's like a racoon who sees something shiny and has to investigate. He first ate my earring, now he has been going after my wedding ring. I take it off at night and put it back on the in the mornings. The past two days it has mysteriously disappeared from off my nightstand. I did find it, thankfully, but that darn cat has been carrying it off to play with it! 

We are taking a week long vacation to California next month that I am SUPER excited about; we've been planning it all out and saving for a whole year. I am not anything like Stephen's family. I am a big list maker, planner--has to know everything that's going to be happening before hand, and prepper. I like surprises every once in a while, but usually I have to know whats going be happening before someone comes over or an event takes place so I can be prepared. I'm not OCD or anything but I need at least an outline. The Washburns don't like having things planned out too far ahead of time, but I am excited nontheless, and I'll get to see Stephen's brother in Oregon and his family whom I've only met once.

The Blue Nile

Stephen and I went on a date last Friday night that was quite different than our past dates. Since we like to try new things, especially food, we went to a little Ethiopian restaurant called the Blue Nile down town on State street. I had no idea what to expect, but it was really different than anything I've ever had.

In Ethiopia the whole family eats off of one giant plate with this spongy bread called injera. They used it to pick up the food to eat with because they don't use any utensils. The bread has a bitter taste to it because it is fermented for three days which somehow helps create the sponginess. Then they feed each other instead of themselves. Some of the food reminds me of Indian food but only in texture. Its really spicy and mushy which makes it hard to scoop anything in your bread to eat it. I probably would never go back there because I only liked, maybe, half of what was on our plate, but it was a really fun experience. If I had known the bread was fermented beforehand I would never had eaten it, so sometimes it best not to know what you are eating until afterwards.

After dinner Stephen took me to the Jordan River just past our house so I could catch a bullfrog! I couldn't believe Stephen would actually take me to catch frogs, but to catch my own bullfrog is on my bucket list, so we went a hunting, but didn't see anything except a bunch of crawdads. I think we may have gone at the wrong time of the season. Stephen said he told one of his buddies at work what we were going to be doing that night, and his friend totally thought Stephen was joking.
 Friend: "No really what are you guys doing tonight?"
Stephen: "Really, my wife actually wants to go catch frogs."
Friend: "Dude, you married one of the biggest Idaho girls I've ever heard of!"

Haha, I do have to admit I took that as a huge compliment. I am proud of being a little ol' farm girl from Idaho. Sometimes its hard being in a big city where most people don't really understand where you come from, but I am proud of my roots and will always go back to them. I can't wait to have kids so I can teach them things about the great outdoors and take them camping and fishing and frog hunting.

Tidbits

I haven't had a lot of time to update this thing so here it goes in a nutshell.

• A few weeks ago I went to Twin for a weekend visit while the boys went on a boys trip rafting the Salmon river. I couldn't wait to go home and see my mom and sisters--I had, had two bad weeks at work and needed a break. We decided to do a girls weekend while our husbands were gone, and I think that was one of the best girls nights I've been to if I don't say so myself. We had a day with all the kids playing in yard in the sprinklers and day with just us girls crafting and decorating cakes. I didn't have a lot of time to show the girls how to decorate very well, but they all did an awesome job on their cakes. Mine looked really bad a: because I didn't feel like frosting a cake, b: the icing I made was too stiff, and c: I made mine look horrible on purpose so the girls would feel better about how their cakes looked............ok that last one was only a half truth, I just really didn't care about my cake but the next time we do this we will take a whole day and I will teach them all some  sweet decorating skills, and our cakes will look awesome!

 You gotta love baby bums!

 ...and Becky bums!

 Becky was so proud of how well she iced her cake so smooth.

  I was showing Becky how to do a rose, but her plastic tips don't work too well for this.

 My cute mom!

 We didn't have time to decorate the cakes before everyone had to leave, but they sure looked good.

•  That same day we did our cakes we found out that Aunt Kathy was in the hospital and it didn't look good. Mom was on the phone all night with her siblings and debating whether or not to wait until the morning to drive to Boise. You feel so helpless in moments like these especially when they are not anticipated. Later that night Mom left for Boise alone because they were going to take Kathy of off life support as soon as Michael flew in from Arizona. She past away early Sunday morning just a few days after her 60th birthday. I drove back to Twin a day and half later to pick up Trish and drive to Boise for Kathy's funeral; she had a really good turn out and the family did a wonderful job on the service. My favorite part was when Grandpa said he could imagine that Kathy's calling in heaven was to help the children who had prematurely left this earth. Aunt Kathy was a great mother and  grandmother to all her children. I will miss you Aunt Kathy.

• I've been working at my job just shy a year now and I have to say I didn't think I'd still be working by now. After all the drama with work a few weeks ago I decided that it was time for me to leave for good and find something else to do for a while. I decided I'd stay until the end of the month, but then something happened and it looks like I'm stuck here for a while longer. With work, if you lose a big account to another rival company you can get fired for losing the company money. I had a few "complaints" from a large account that I was half in charge of two weeks ago. The guy talked to me about a few things, but also talked to my boss about a few more things he didn't mention to me. I got a few phone calls and texts from my boss explaining the situation a day later telling me to shape up and make sure I was doing a good job at this particular account because he threatened to drop us. I didn't feel that anything I was doing was the cause of this decision, and told my boss what I was doing at the account and that I felt good about all my plants.

• I was called into the greenhouse last week so my boss could talk to me. I had no idea what it was about and showed up in the conference room along with another guy I work with who is in charge of the other half of that big account. When I saw him my first thought was, "oh, they're finally deciding to fire me; that guy must have dropped us and gone with another plant company". But much to my surprise I was told that the guy told my boss that he only wanted one person watering his plants and wanted me, in particular, to be in charge of all his buildings in the area. He told my boss, "I either get Christine for all my buildings or I drop you." I have to admit I was a little relieved, but at the same I was thinking, Crap! Now how am I supposed to quite? Haha, it felt good to finally receive a little recognition for the work I do for my customers, but I still want to be doing something else I enjoying doing more like landscape design. So I decided I'd stay with this job a while longer and see what it gets me.

• Lastly, I have to complain about my house. Stephen and I have been working on our living room for two months now from ceiling to floor. This project, I thought would only take a few weeks and here we are going on three months. So I told Stephen our goal is to finish the room by the end of the month. We have had a lot of set backs because of unforeseen damages, costs, and time loss. We have been out of town almost every weekend it seems so it feels like we get nothing done. We both hate having to come home from work every night to work on the living room. I can't hardly stand living in this mess. I don't cook, clean, or do laundry any more like I used to because all that comes last on the list of things to do. I am so sick of painting and sanding I don't care how the room looks anymore as long as  it just gets done so I can put up furniture and pictures and make my house feel like home again. I've even let my yard get out of control with weeds because we've been so engrossed in the living room!  There are so many flaws because a: this is our first house and first time having to fix things ourselves, and b: I refuse to paint the walls for a fourth time.....even though they need to be. I only ask you if you come to my house, not to point out any of the flaws with the painting on the walls, the textured ceiling, or the wood floor because I already know how horrible it looks! But I'm willing to live with it because its my house and I can, and I'm sick of painting. The end.  

Another Cat Story

Toby and I have a love-hate relationship. Seriously, I love him when he is nice and cuddly and when I hear the pitter patter of his little paws as he runs throughout the house, or when he crouches behind a corner of a room and does a sneak attack on my leg as I walk by and scares me to death. I love it when he touches his nose on my nose when I get home from work because he missed me. but I hate it when he jumps on my leg cutting gouges in it just to play with the string tie on my pants or when he farts in my face when he's laying on my lap (seriously, he is the stinkiest kitty I have ever seen in my life and they smell so  bad). He claws my couch and jumps on the dining room table when he knows he's not supposed to, or pees on the floor right next to his litter box, and meows at our bedroom door at 5:00 in the morning waking me up two hours before my alarm is supposed to go off.

But this story takes the cake. A few weeks ago Stephen was out of town for a few days for work. Toby is not allowed in our bedroom, but I thought since Stephen wasn't home I'd let him sleep with me this one time. Toby sleeps all day like any other cat would do, so when its time for me to go to bed he is wide awake and ready to play, in other words, very annoying. So I got ready for bed and tried to get him settled down. He laid down on the bed at my feet and soon fell asleep. He did pretty well, but, again, at 5:00 in the morning he gets up and pounces on top me meowing and cuddled up by my face and went back to sleep.....or so I thought. I started to fall back asleep when all of a sudden Toby pounces on my face and rips my earring out of my ear and SWALLOWED IT!!! I couldn't believe what just happened. I probably wouldn't care about the earring if wasn't the earring he swallowed. Not only was this pair of earrings one of the most expensive pair I owned, but they had sentimental value because they were given to me by my dad.

That cat ran for his life because he knew I would skin him alive if I ever caught him. I chased after him throughout the house for a few minutes seething with anger and tears. I let him go and went back to my room to calm down and try to get a little more sleep before work. I cleaned out his litter box so I could check the new stuff when I got home for my earring, but unfortunately I never found it.