Other people’s places

After we dropped the kids off this morning, we did some grocery shopping, had a quick breakfast, and went to Lowes, JoAnn Fabrics, and Archivers. When we got home, Joe installed the new faucet in our master bathroom, and washed my poor dirty car in the driveway while I cleaned the bathrooms.

It was 60° today, so we got the chance to open the windows and get some fresh air in the house for the first time since we moved in. It felt so good! I’ve been feeling quite depressed lately, and the nice weather really improved my mood. I really do think I suffer from SAD.

After Joe finished cleaning my car, we walked down the street to an open house because the place for sale has an identical layout to ours and we were curious how they had decorated. We weren’t the only ones, either. There was couple from the sub-division poking around, as well as a lady from across the street. On top of that, the realtor who was showing the place lives across the street from us too. It’s a good thing we didn’t pretend like we were looking for a new place.
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Fun with fixtures

We had some fun buying new fixtures for our place at Lowes this weekend. We got new lights for our loft, a faucet for our kitchen sink, and a faucet for our master bathroom too. I like how the new kitchen faucet spout is curved higher than our old faucet. The old one was cracked at the base and generally dingy, so it needed replacing. I suspect most, if not all, of the fixtures in our place are the originals from 15 years ago. While that isn’t all that old, replacing them gives the place a more updated look.

I really want to get a new vanity light for the master bathroom in the near future too. Lowes has this cool silver one where you buy the base and you can pick out different styles of “shades” for each light-bulb. Plus you can turn the bulbs to face in any direction you want.

I don’t get why people don’t make little changes around their homes. You don’t have to spend thousands to make it look a little nicer. Once we get a house we’ll probably splurge more, but for now we view our place as a temporary 5-year stop on our way to our dream home (or whatever we can afford that is close enough). That’s not to say we don’t like our place, we just don’t want to dump a ton of money into it, get it just how we like it, then sell it. That doesn’t make any sense. I’ll tell you this, though – the people who buy this place from us are going to be very lucky, because we take very good care of our things and even though the newest appliances will be five years old by that point, they will still be in top condition.

Speaking of appliances, we decided that when Joe gets his bonus at the end of the month, we’re going to buy a new stove. Our current one is dated and ugly, not to mention the oven doesn’t heat evenly, so anything I bake comes out half burnt and half under-cooked. The new one isn’t very fancy, but like I said before, I don’t want to go all-out in this place. Plus as long as it works and looks nice (I like the white w/gray combo), I’m happy. In fact, I’m just happy that there won’t be a ledge where the controls are located like on our old stove, because that’s where all the crumbs and drips seem to congregate. Also, the burner covers on the new stove will make clean-up a snap.

Dining Room Lighting

Before After We got a new light for the dining room at The Home Depot today and Joe put it up just a bit ago. I really like it, even though the hole in the ceiling is not over our table. We can swag the light and hang it from a hook sometime in the future, which we’ll probably do, but I’m just happy to be rid of the horrible silver ceiling fan. I see no point in having a ceiling fan over the dining room table to begin with. I don’t particularly like a breeze blowing on me while I’m trying to eat. Also, with the bulbs facing upwards instead of straight down, the lighting is softer.

Today in review

Woke up this morning to a ton of snow, so I called my doctor’s office to reschedule my appointment. The receptionist, who is my doctor’s husband, told me to go play in the snow. He was in rare form, as while he is friendly, I wouldn’t call him cheery or talkative. After that, I slept til 10:30 am and then ended up taking a nap after lunch for a few hours.

The kids played games, had lunch, and made thank-you cards for their Christmas presents while I was sleeping. Joe is not your typical father, i.e. he isn’t helpless (or some would even say hopeless) like some men are where they need the woman to tell them what to do. He even had the sense to put a table cloth down on the table and have them draw on something hard so there wasn’t a chance of scratching the new table.

The kids just went to bed because we played Life and it’s actually a long game. I don’t remember it at all even though we had it when I was a kid. Now Joe is doing some shoveling outside.

We were both getting really pissed off earlier because in our association fees, we pay to have snow removal done, and for the second snowfall this year, it seems like everyone’s driveway BUT ours had been cleaned. What is that all about? I left a concerned voicemail with the property manager around 3pm and at 6:30 pm they came by and cleaned off the drive-way. It’s a good thing too, because I almost left another message, and this time I wasn’t going to be nice about it.

I just don’t get why they keep skipping us. It makes me wonder if everyone else is giving them extra money on the side or something. I know it can’t be because of the van in the drive-way as I saw them removing snow from the apron of the drive-way across the street that had two cars parked in it. They didn’t do ANY of our drive-way until after I left my message, even though they had been removing the snow across the street from us earlier in the day, and then left without doing ours. And we were told they start in different areas of the complex each time for fairness reasons, but the people across the street always seem to get taken care of first. It’s frustrating.

In other news, my camera is in Chicago, so I wonder if they are still delivering it on Tuesday, or if I will get it Monday instead. I’m having it shipped to work so it doesn’t end up sitting outside in the cold. I can’t wait to get my hands on it! It seems to take really nice portraits and I want some current photos of Joe and the kids. Joe is anxious for me to get the new camera too because that means he gets the 5700 which is much nicer than his 885. That will bring us to a total of 4 digital cameras – 3 Nikons and 1 Canon.

P.S. I upgraded to the free version of MT 3.14 last night and I’m really liking the new look and features.

Lime green lime green & tangerine

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We went to Target to get a loaf of bread yet somehow spent $90 between groceries and these vibrant dishes that were only $2.99 a piece. I couldn’t decide what color I liked best so we got one of each (although they didn’t have anything but bowls in the purple). I’ve noticed this before, but even more so since we’ve moved to our new place: I like color and lots of it. I’m tired of drab plain black and white. Before I’d want simple neutral-toned “sophisticated” dinnerware, and they all had to match, but not anymore! I never would have considered buying a purple couch five years ago either. I’m like this whole different person now. It’s weird but exhilarating.

Anyway, we’ve also been shopping online for shutters and vertical blinds. They are way too expensive at Home Depot and Lowes because of course all the windows in this place are not a standard size. We found a place online where we can get vertical blinds for the patio door and our bedroom, plus plantation faux wood shutters for the living room for a grand total of $500. Not bad, I’d say, especially since my coworker’s husband wanted to charge us $800+ just for the plantation shutters.

We finally picked out a paint color for the dining room too (Queen Anne’s Lace by Olympic) which Joe is currently working on. Next weekend we’ll be doing more work on our place since we’ve been a little lax lately with the holidays. We’ll probably be going to Home Depot for some molding for the dining room as well as a new chandelier. We saw a nice black iron one for under $100 which beats the ugly silver ceiling fan we’ve got now.

I think I’m addicted to decorating our place. I’m going to be sad once we’re done. I guess I should go clean the bathrooms now! I’ve been putting it off all day. :p