i guess there really are advantages to this real blog thing. since these rooms may never be the same after this weekend, i figured i’d go ahead and commemorate their current state of completion and tidiness.

full on top, full futon on bottom
tv, vcr (what’s that?), locker containing stereo, vhs tapes (huh?), and games
this is the guest bath – isn’t that stripe perfect?
this is the queen guest room, it’s the only traditional styled room we have

so that’s the three rooms we’ve actually completed, aside from wall decor which probably won’t much happen until the whole place is painted and ready for it. i’m pretty pleased with things so far.

i just got to use all seven letters on my opening move in scrabulous! i’ve never done that. very exciting to get 74 points right off the bat. i am pleased to say that the house is thoroughly cleaned. as in sanitized and straightened. the guest beds are all made up, the guest bath is fully loaded with towels, toiletries, and sunblocks. our room is presentable and our bathroom is ready for guest overflow use. i need to do a load or two of laundry but that doesn’t really matter. we need to have company more often. seems to be the only time that we really, really clean everything. it’s so nice to have an immaculate house. and, yes, i am fully aware that it will be a wreck again within five minutes of company arriving. but those five minutes will be glorious. i’m really just so proud of what we’ve done with this place. i was proud of our house in ga because of the work that we put into building it (built a yard by laying sod and creating landscaped “islands”, built a bonus room over the garage from nothing but framing, built a bathroom off the bonus room from scratch by taking in some of the attic space). this place we won’t be able to “build” in, but we’ve decorated everything from scratch which is something neither of us has really done before. i can now say that i fully understand why interior designers get paid big bucks; it is a lot of work. i think that everything has come together quite nicely though. now if i could just get the time and energy to paint the rest of the walls. the bad thing is that it’s now down to the bigger areas. our bedroom/bathroom, the living/dining/kitchen, and the entrance/hallway. i’ll probably tackle the laundry room next since it’s the only small space left and we already have paint for it (leftover from house in ga). maybe i’ll do that next month. it certainly won’t be over the next few weeks as we are going to have two teenage girls here for two weeks after the rest of the family leaves. God help us!

i’m finally feeling not totally like crap today. it was a rough weekend with me being sick and so much needing to get done. we went shopping and erranding after work friday. i started out feeling not so bad but by the time we got home at 23:00 i felt awful. i did give blood, which may have been a bad thing but it makes me feel better about myself and i needed that. i got hubby to give blood too. i was pleased to set a new personal record for bloodletting of four minutes flat. beat that, cousin! we then went out to town where we bought groceries, window treatments, a home theatre system, a bookcase to house it, and new dinnerware. very exciting (and expensive) purchases. when we got home, hubby immediately started playing with his new toy. there were speakers all over the floor while he got it all hooked up to see how it all would work. i started loading the new dishes (they’re so pretty!) and flatware into the dishwasher but didn’t make it too far until i collapsed. saturday, i layed on the couch and supervised while hubby assembed the bookcase, put up the window treatments, and hooked up the theater system (on the bookcase). we then had more errands that had to be run. while waiting for the elevator, a little blue fly landed on my foot and i shooed him away. when we got back home, i resumed my couch position and took some more meds to kick the cold. sunday, i woke up to find my ankle swollen to roughly three times it’s natural size. yes, that stupid little blue fly! i spent the whole day coating it in hydrocortizone and downing antihistamines. it was swollen so badly i could hardly walk because i couldn’t put any weight on that foot. i really don’t understand why i’m having such severe bug reactions lately. it wouldn’t have anything to do with my thyroid, right? it’s so strange. as you’d guess, sunday turned out to be another watch the hubby work kind of day. yesterday, we had dental appointments in the morning and stopped to pick up the sheets which finally came in and get another bottle of antihistamines. the swelling was down to about twice normal size. last night i was able to get some stuff done – general straightening and preparing for company. today, i’m feeling mostly better, no more congestion and swelling is mostly gone (ankle still hurts though), but i’m exhausted. i guess it’s just from my body having so much to fight the last few days. it’s just worn down. nevertheless, i have to do some more cleaning tonight. i have to finish cleaning our bathroom and clean the floors throughout. if i could just get a bit of a nap first…

after taking some nyquil as soon as work was over yesterday, i decided to finish off my paint projects. i am pleased to report that not only did i not pass out while painting, but everything looks great as well. that is it for painting right now. can i get a woooohoooo! and, once i get in there and clean the bathroom so that it can be reassembled, we’ll have three rooms completed. YIPPEEE! as for me, i’m very close to calling it a day and going back to bed.

i AM NOT getting sick, thankyouverymuch. it was a tiringly productive weekend. we did go out and have some fun friday night and had a little down time saturday, but mostly the weekend was about getting things done. copious quantities of family coming in t-minus-ten days. saturday we did some shopping. i don’t know why the economy is in such poor shape these days, i think we’ve been spending more than we ever have. when we got back from errands and purchasing, we took a bit of time to check out the upcoming neighbor. there is a 53 acre planned community that is slowly coming in next door. yesterday was the first time that we really got the chance to go over there and get information about the overall plan and progress. we were really impressed and i will be thrilled when the get the next phase done, which should get started late this summer. that phase will be the “main street” area. it should be a great shopping/dining area within a five minute walk of home. after we were through with that, we walked down to the waterford-like plaza a mile away and grabbed some dinner and then walked back home along the beach. when we got back home, we could not actually get home because they had a wedding set up in such a way that they completely blocked off the beach access to the building. i was ticked. i have no problem with people getting married in my back yard but it is unacceptable for them to block public walkways. while i quietly fumed, we took a seat on a beach lounger and watched a wedding. i love weddings. when the ceremony was finally over, the entire wedding moved down to the water’s edge where they all lined up with the new mr & mrs to throw pebbles into the surf. that was our chance to use the walkway and head home. i was happy to get back to my air conditioning since it was insanely hot out running errands all day. it’s bearable at home because there’s usually a gulf-breeze, but if you’re not directly on the beach, it’s awful. i provided minimal assistance to the hubby as he finished installing the cabinet hardware in the kitchen and bathrooms and we got to bed at a decent hour. yesterday, we lounged around a bit in the morning and then got into full swing just afternoon. i masked and painted the stripe in the bathroom. it was appalling that it took ALL AFTERNOON to get that one little stripe painted but i am very pleased and proud at how it came out. a little touchup around the ceiling in there and the bathroom will be ready to be reassembled. i’m looking forward to getting another room crossed off the list. while i was working on the bathroom, hubby added some shelves to a closet in our room and installed a new light fixture in the kitchen (the old one got fried a couple weeks ago when we had constant power flickers all day long). it looks better than the old one (which just looked like a big hospital light) but i still just don’t really care for the look of the big fluorescent ceiling lights. i would have preferred a nice looking fixture or track lights or something but that would have required drilling new holes in the concrete ceiling which would have just been too much work. at least this light has some aesthetic design to it and some satin nickel elements that help it to match with everything else. anyhow, all of the projects kept it from being a very restful weekend and my body thinks that’s its queue to get all lousy feeling. it’ll be lots of oranges and cranberry juice for me today.

i’ve actually been busier this week, off the phones, than i was on them. not complaining though because i will take busy over answering phones any day! i’m still having to make a good bit of customer contact but that will change over time as the people answering the phones learn the type of information to gather before escalating issues to me. i’m so excited to be phoneless. i swore i would never be on the phones. i BEGGED not to be on the phones. my job is once again tolerable. around the home, we did a bunch of shopping over the weekend. bought the futon mattress, ordered the sheets (remember that thing about nothing being easy in this place? the sheets i wanted that i have seen countless times in the store are no longer being carried in the store. we bought the one set they had, went to the other store to get another set and were denied. so i’ve returned the one we bought and ordered both sets online), and bought a storage box for the balcony which is very helpful. sunday, i painted the bathroom. it looks fabulous. i’m letting it dry a few days and this weekend i’ll tape it up and add the stripe i want and it should be complete and ready to reassemble. we also bought some cabinet hardware which hubby has started installing. it’s amazing how a little knob and drawer pull can make the plain, ugly, white cabinets look so much nicer.

the bunk room looks great. there’s a minor paint correction i want to make. i say minor but since it involves painting back over the red on a small piece of wall, it won’t be fun. my wonderful hubby found a great way to overcome the shoe-molding so the bed and other furnishing is in place now. we have both climbed up to the top bunk and it seems stable. this weekend we’ll need to get sheets and a futon mattress. other than wall decor, the room will be done. woohooo! i need to get the guest bath painted this weekend too. the shame about that is that it is not spaced out long enough to have forgotten how not fun painting was the other night. in other news, i took some antihistamines last night and went to bed a little after 20:00. other than a bit of tossing and turning around midnight, i slept straight through this morning (and still would have liked several more snoozes before dragging my tired rear out of bed). while i did need the sleep, the antihistamines did not produce their desired results. see, last week i had a bite right below my left knee. it was a very different bite reaction (i won’t detail it because it was gross but it was very painful instead of itchy, very hot to the touch, and the pain spread into my knee joints) than i’ve ever had so i figured it must have been a spider or something that i don’t normally get bit by. at the same time, i was overcoming a multitude of mosquito bites on both legs and arms. there was one on my right leg that was remarkably swollen but i see that a lot with mosquito bites. anyhoo, the strange bite on my knee seemed to be healing after a few days so i had no further need for concern. well, after our paint marathon the other night, i noticed that i am biteful again. once again, i have a remarkably swollen mosquito bite on my right calf that is the full size of the calf but it has a really strange looking center. and once again, i have that really strange bite reaction on the side of my left knee. i don’t remember getting bit by anything this week but i guess i must have. i’ve been slathering both sites with antihistamine cream and took two doses of oral antihistamine last night. the one on my right calf is still itchy as all getout, the one on my left knee is still painful and ugly. it is the ones around my knee that concern me. hubby wants me to go to the dr because he thinks it’s some sort of infection in my knee causing these reactions, not bug bites. at two, i’m marking it up to coincidence but if i get another one, i’ll be getting it checked out.

what a night. on the bright side (and i do mean bright), we now have a red room (redrum?). the color is called rum runner – hee hee. i also like that hubby is the one who insisted on red so if he ends up not liking the way the room turns out, i’m not to blame. what i don’t like is that red is an extremely crappy color to paint. i painted for 7.5 hours last night; and, folks, this is a tiny, tiny room. the only break i took was 19 minutes to cook and eat dinner. my feet, back, shoulder, neck, and hands were killing me by 00:30 when we finally were able to get a shower. we put three coats on and it probably could have used one or two more to get rid of some of the streakiness but we were out of paint and time and patience. we have very little paint left for touch-ups which makes me a bit uncomfortable since it is a kid’s room and will get beat and banged up. such is life. i like the color a lot. i’m not sure if it’s too overpowering in such a small room. i think that will be decided after everything is in there and decorated. there are two strange men back there as i type assembling the bed. the bed which we measured several times to verify that it was going to just barely fit but apparently we did not measure the shoe-molding so it does not fit. they are assembling it in the middle of the room and we’ll have to figure out the best way to overcome the molding problem to get it in the right place. nothing in this new house has been easy. nothing.

last night was supposed to be a productive paint night. furniture to be delivered in forty-eight hours. unfortunately, after a long shopping endeavor that ended in me fighting with the people who mixed the paint that it was not the color on the card and then telling me that it would look right after two or three coats and drying… we got home and immediately (yes, before even putting up the milk and eggs) painted five coats on a small strip of wall and it was PINK. i, for one, was livid. i knew that it was not the right color in the store but even hubby said it would be fine after a couple coats. i called the store to ask about returning it because i know that paint is not an easy thing to return. they said i would be able to but, unfortunately, it was too late last night to return or go somewhere else for paint. long story not-so-short, i’ll be returning paint and buying new paint (from a better store) on my lunch break today. woohoo! and then we’ll be painting all night to make sure the room is painted and dry-as-possible before the furniture is delivered tomorrow. whooohoooo!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! to the one who denies me. we had a wonderfully relaxing long weekend at home. i cannot even tell you how nice it is to be back. sadly, it was also a very deadly weekend in our backyard. randal was out running last night when he ran up on the police pulling in the first guy mentioned. luckily, they already had him covered so my hubby did not have to see the body but he said it was a ghastly scene, just a ten minute walk down the beach. the second mentioned guy, found sunday, was an army paratrooper who went in to rescue another swimmer. that seems so tragic to me. here’s a military kid in presumably great shape who did manage to save another man’s life but lost his own in the process. i have not found anything that details how he managed to get the other guy to safety and still get himself pulled out to sea. we were out walking saturday night while the helicopters and boats were doing a grid search for them. very sad. one more reason i don’t like to swim in the gulf/ocean. there’s dead people out there. and we all know what happens to our bodies after death. yep, that’s all out in that water. ick! i’ll stick with my pool and hot tub, thankyouverymuch. anyhow, on the less gruesome side of things, we had a great weekend and got rested up. fortunately/unfortunately we did not get any painting done. we decided to wait for the bedding to come in so that we could really decide on color. since i was watching the tracking, i’m almost certain the bedding was there sunday since it was “in transit to store” from a town less than three hours away but i called the store sunday and yesterday and they insisted that the order number was not checked in. my guess is that it was there but they didn’t bother to scan the shipment until this morning. so we’ll be going to pick the bedding up this afternoon and buy paint. there will very likely be paint on the walls tonight but you can never tell these things for sure. although i would like for the walls to be dry when the furniture gets delivered and set up thursday. call me kooky like that. really, there was no excuse for me not masking and painting the bathroom over the weekend. it’s emptied out and the paint is sitting there. i guess i just didn’t want to ruin the quality time with my hubby who i have missed oh so much this past month.

yay, i get to see my hubby again today and he’s taking me home! i’ve missed him so much this month. this week he’s been at a conference at disney. it’s been very sad for me to know that he’s so close but not with me. i’ve gotten to do some extra visiting with my cousin, which has been very nice. and i finally got to see katie for the first time in the four weeks i’ve been here. but i’m ready for my hubby to take me home. it’s really just time to go home. and i really hope he’ll stay with me for a while.

i’ve got to say, as much as i enjoy visiting with friends and family and miss having people around to socialize with on a daily basis, i am so excited that we are going home tomorrow. i cannot wait to take a walk around my backyard! and sleep in my great, big, latex foam bed. it’s going to be a wonderful three-day weekend.

your gift is that my hubby comes home tonight so i won’t be calling you fifty times a day anymore. have i mentioned how awesome my bedroom looks? now if only i could decide on a walk color and get it all painted. sheesh, that’s going to be a job and a half. i really wish we had had the time to get that done before the furniture came.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIRANDA!!! well, i was wrong about sleep last night. qu’elle surprise. in other news, i learned a valuable lesson today. climbing a ladder and operating power tools after giving blood can be a less-than-good idea. fortunately for me, i’m an excellent bleeder (filled the bag in under six minutes, thankyouverymuch) and never suffer ill-effects of the blood-letting. however, each time i got up on that ladder, dizziness did ensue. i’m not sure why. luckily, it was not debilitating and no harm befell me or my home. it just took much longer to finish my tasks as i kept having to climb back down to lay down a minute between drillings. all in all, my curtains look great.