The Dining Room

When we moved into the house, one of the first things we tackled was painting the dining room. Adam and I also got a new dining room table and chairs made out of reclaimed barn wood. Then, we changed the light fixture and had hardwood floors installed.

My amazing mother-in-law designs window treatments. We spent a ton of time in August discussing different fabric choices for the huge window in the dining room and finally decided on a pattern and a fabric. Today, they came to install it! I could have never predicted how amazing it would look in the room.

For Christmas of 2009, Adam's Dad promised that he and Adam would build me a hutch for the china that I inherited. I don't know how much work Adam really put into it, but today, they brought it down to our house. It was the first time I had seen the whole thing together with the glass in it. He even ordered special wavy glass for the doors.

So, now I feel like the dining room is complete! We are very happy with the way it turned out and hopefully it's ready for many holiday dinners in the future.

Before:



And After:

The Canned Food Drive

Each year before Thanksgiving and Christmas, every office I have worked in collects cans for homeless veterans. One year, I was in charge of wrapping the box and making sure everyone was contributing.

Today at lunch, a couple of my co-workers were looking in the box while they were waiting for their turn at the microwave. Out of the box came a can of low sodium collard greens that has been sitting in the break room since I started in June, as well as five cans of expired canned mackerel and an expired can of sardines. First of all, I didn’t even know that one could buy canned mackerel, and thinking about opening an expired can of it almost made me lose my lunch.

I know that a lot of people use canned food drives to clean out their cabinets, or they buy the cheapest possible thing at the store to contribute. Sometimes, I’ve heard people say, “beggars can’t be choosers” or, “I’ll never use this and it’s been sitting in my cabinet forever, so I brought it in for the food drive”.

When I hear people say things like that, I think to myself, “a good can of soup or vegetables, or a box of macaroni costs what, $2.00?”. I just don’t see why there’s any reason to put expired things in the box for the people we are trying to help.

Weekend Recap

Unfortunately I was feeling extremely under the weather this weekend, so we hung around the house and watched football for the most part. Thanks to a couple of gift cards from Lowes, we were able to buy a new light to hang over our kitchen table. The new light replaced what we referred to as "the flying saucer" and I think it looks much better.

Before:



After:



A couple of people have asked how the furry member of our family has adjusted to the new house. It's been a rough few months for Griffin, but I think we might (fingers crossed) be seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. When we first got Griffin, he was extremely shy and anxious and hardly ever played and ran around. Since moving into the house we have conquered the anxiety when left alone and recently he has started to play ball inside the house. We did have one fence jumping incident and many house training accidents, but we are hoping that he is coming around.

Most days you can find him situated in front of his "HD TV", otherwise known as the storm door.

26

Today is Adam's 26th Birthday! We celebrated with family and friends over the weekend with cake and singing and tonight we are having a nice dinner at home. On Wednesday we are going out to dinner to officially celebrate!

After celebrating six birthdays with Adam, here are some of the things I most admire about him:

- He's one of the most laid-back people I've ever met...it takes alot to make him really angry, in fact, I can count on one hand the number of times he's been really mad in front of me.

- He's quick to forgive and forget. Every time we fight, he is the one who gets over it and is ready to move on.

- He's smart...I'm talking really, incredibly smart. Whenever he talks about work, I try to pay attention, but hardly ever understand what he's talking about.

- He's a problem-solver, I have grown to love this trait even more since we've had a house. When I want to give up on a project or take the easy way out, he's willing to work through it until it's finished.

- He's a wonderful cheerleader and supporter. There have been so many times that I have broken down over things from wedding plans to graduate school and from buying a house to starting my job in Wilmington. He is always there to listen and talk me through things and he rarely loses his patience.

- He's a tried and true husband, friend, brother, son and coworker. I love that he has never given up on me or on our relationship and I've never doubted that he loves me just the way I am.

Thanks for letting me spend the last six birthdays with you...

from 21



to 26




Happy Birthday to my #1 Guy, I don't know what I would do without you.

Goings on

Another long period of time has flown by without a blog entry. We have been really busy, which leaves little time for blogging. We have been working hard on the house and at our jobs, and my summer classes for school took up the rest of the time. We took a nice vacation to Rehoboth Beach a few weeks ago, even though it seems like forever ago, and we lived through Hurricane Irene last weekend without a power outage or water in the basement.

Labor Day weekend has been nice, although I can't believe it's already almost over. On Saturday we did some work around the house before going over to a party thrown by one of our neighbors. Yesterday we spent the entire day in the front yard trimming bushes, pulling out old and planting new flowers, raking and mowing. Hopefully that is the last full day of working out there before fall. Today has been spent cleaning, washing cars and doing laundry. I was thinking last night that it certainly has been a momentous and extremely busy summer for us. It is hard to believe that we have been living in the house for 2 1/2 months already and have done so many things since we've been here. We're so proud of our home and have had a wonderful time putting our stamp on it.

Since it's been awhile since I've shown one of the rooms, here is the powder room, which has made a huge transformation from the cracked tile floor and lime green walls.

Before:



And After: