Let me know if you can help…
#139Five Things I Can’t Figure Out How To Do On My Android:
The last major unresolved project (thing we hadn’t even started) just happens to be our entire basement. Other than the wine cellar, guest room, and bathroom, there is a giant open empty room on the lower level of my house. MK has taken the reins on this one.
(Sidenote: If I didn’t mention it before, we picked rooms the way you pick a basketball team, I got living room, he picked basement, I picked guest room, he got his office, etc. It is hilarious, but so far a totally effective way of solving debates, until we start finishing out the basement, when it’s going to get ugly.)
He sealed the trim and the windows and air vents and we cleaned the walls and the laundry room. We had to shut off the crappy fireplace and will have to get a new one. He FINALLY let me paint over the nasty maroon walls – since we couldn’t really agree on a final color we used three… One wall that is actually IN the basement living room is white now to match the rest of the basement, no idea why it WAS ever red. The hallway we used leftover grey, it may be temporary, but I like it. I made the upper half of the hallway match the kitchen since we had the paint, why not? We pulled down some wood that might have hung doors at one point and I painted the entryway to the basement living room and the hand rails, which were just plain wood before:
Better than Maroon!
Then I drew the short straw or whatever and while he was working on the master bath I had to paint the ceiling. Twice. And that’s only primer, I’ll have to do another coat of paint. The fireplace had made the ceiling really dingy, and with snow covering the windows we need to brighten the basement up!
It was super painful, my neck still aches, and yesterday I skied with bruised shins, seeing as I kept knocking my legs in to the stupid ladder. I’m a hot mess right now, totally. But I did it, so I rule.
Beats sooty brown!
That’s the ceiling. What is that brick? The fireplace! Gross, right? Have you seen the WHOLE thing? Super gross!
Painting = cheaper than tearing down.
Today, while he’s out skiing in awesome snow, I’ve been put to another nasty task:
washing the brick to prime and paint it.
In case you never knew, DIRTY BRICK IS GROSS. The only thing grosser is THE SMELL OF WET BRICK. Today is not making the top of my why I love living here list.
Why isn’t anyone talking about this? I had to look it up when I got home after hearing it on the radio – I honestly thought this was an SNL skit/spoof or something. But no, it’s a REAL song with lyrics like “super size” and “drive thru” worked in. Pop music scares me sometimes. Especially pre SXSW – I have to ban the radio. Thank goodness Shoutcast has a tuner playing SXSW bands up!
There have been quite a few occasions here that I’ve told you about my love for my Blackberry. It was a super fun phone and I was addicted to it. I may have not mentioned that I also had many problems with them. The latest Curve that I had crashed and shut off recently, and wiped my address book.
I fortunately had most numbers written down so I didn’t have to get on FB and whine to everyone asking for numbers. But I didn’t really feel like redoing the address book. We discovered that we were eligible for new phones and went to the Verizon store. It was busy but we were taken care of quickly which was great. Droids were buy one get one free so we both upgraded for almost nothing.
At first trying to figure out the phone was fairly amusing. It’s the first phone I had to read the user manual for. The lady at the store told us these things had a two week learning curve and the store even held classes to teach you how to use them. It took me about 4 hours, but I’m in business. All the things I had on my Blackberry are there, and so much more. The app store for the Droid is like crack.
I thought the Blackberry was fun, this thing is killer. Even MK is using the apps and things more than he did on his Blackberry. We’re hooked.
We’ve only had three all winter. This bed and breakfast needs to advertise!
#137Five Reasons I Loved JC’s Visit:
Just last week I was in a panic, I told you about it here.
So what do KD, JC, LC, and JA decide to do? We are going to kick it up a notch.
We got wristbands.
That’s right. KD called and made it happen! I’m so excited that hopefully the wristband, which is a step under a badge, will help us increase our chances to see some new music and try some new venues. No matter what, we’ll have a few more options to make this experience the best yet.
It’s so fun for me to look back over the posts I’ve written you about our time each year. It’s always a hectic time and my writing is weak, but especially for me it serves as a reminder why I think I have the greatest friends. It’s not easy to run around for a week straight! And the best husband, he’s awful lonely without me for a week each year but always lets me go. Going this year will be fun since both JC and LC have moved away from Austin and are visiting non locals like me this time around – good since they won’t be working, so hopefully we’ll get to see a lot!
Never sucks when you get to party.
#136Five Holidays It’d Be Great To Have Your Birthday On:
Wanna lose ten pounds? Watch Food, Inc. We’re going to go broke shopping at Whole Foods but at least it won’t kill us. We watched the movie about a month ago and can’t look at food the same way. We haven’t really been out to eat. We haven’t been able to buy anything that has too many strange unpronounceable ingredients. There is more fruit in this house than ever before. It was hard to break up with Pop Tarts so quickly but a healthy breakfast is so much more filling.
The meat has to say grass fed. The eggs have to tell me that the chickens aren’t all sad and gross like the movie showed. Ugh. I watched the movie again with JB and she taught me a lot about food and healthy eating, and the better choices that we’re making have already gone a long way. We’ve noticed that we feel better, and I have lost a ton of weight. Seriously.
It probably mostly has to do with the skiing and the shoveling and the snow blowing, but my mindset has also permanently changed. It was a hard movie to sit through, and I agree to some extent with TB that there are some things we’re better off not knowing. But there are other things I’m happy to know, and to try and help, trust me, we’ll be shopping at the Farmer’s Market more and more!
Dude, I love my blog. I can share my life, thoughts, typos and photos with ease in one place. I love my Twitter account. I am mainlining everything there is on the internet about the Olympics. I’m learning things about technology for free. I follow npr and cnn news to feel smarter. I love mental floss. I love knowing what my friends in San Diego and Austin are up to.
As I prepare for another annual trip to Austin for my favorite week of the year, I am getting a little nervous about SXSW. When I first went with KD and LC, I thought I was getting in a secret club. The emails that went around had a small number of names at the top. You didn’t forward to someone who wasn’t deserving. I had to pass a test (kidding). There were free parties for people who loved music and SXSW but were in the cool kids club that weren’t going to pay for it.
Today, as I look through the 20 people I’m following on Twitter that have tags like ‘freesxswparties’ and ‘sxswforfree’ I’m seeing they have thousands of followers. There aren’t that many parties. Or venues that fit that many people. At least not that I know of. Last year there were parties we couldn’t get into, we’d just sigh and move on. We’d show up earlier and earlier to ensure we got in to see who we wanted. And there weren’t that many Twitter/facebook invites.
This year everything is on facebook. There are a dozen blogs and sites with links to the rsvps we used to have to hunt down. Anyone can see it. Should I be nervous? I am. I haven’t even booked my flight because I’m thinking about going early for the interactive parties I usually miss just to make sure that I can get in and around.
It’s official: We have one room 100% completed to the point we have no plans for it, it’s finished. We painted and hung a curtain to hide the water softener, and transformed our under-stairs storage in to a wine cellar. It was a large project that involved hanging drywall and sealing leaks that were letting cold air in from under the house.
MB and JB gave us a lovely wine cooler as a house warming gift, and it fits perfectly. I’d show you a picture, but can’t on the grounds I may incriminate myself…
Yay!
