Cinderella Moment

Cleaning, sealing, grouting, and cleaning (again!) even a few square feet of new tile is rough on the knees. Whether a squat or a kneel, bare-kneed or knee-pads, not so much fun. Sooo, by the time I finished doing this for a few hundred square feet in our kitchen, living room and master bathroom last night, grout dust all over my body and clothes - and possibly a bit loopy from the sealer fumes - I felt a little like Cinderella in her not-so-glamorous days. Minus the evil step mother/sisters, of course. I was and AM ready to be done with this project, get dressed up and go to the ball! A classy bar would work too :) The only things keeping me going are a) I'm sick of living without LIVING room furniture, and b) it's starting to really look great!

Greg gets home late tonight from his second trip to Wisconsin in two weeks, so I will be relieved to have help for the home stretch.

Another fun little project I did on Monday was cleaning up the gas fire place. We got some heat-resistant spray paint and freshened up the black, and changed the brassy gold to matte silver. It was amazing what a difference even just cleaning the glass made.

This weekend we decided instead of surrounding the fireplace with more travertine, which was our original plan, we would use some beautiful glass tile we found. Might use it for the kitchen backsplash as well. I didn't buy enough the first go-round, so the first picture below is what it looks like now, and (courtesy of photoshop) the second picture is similar to what it will look like when we finish. We may add a mantel shelf, but that is still to be determined.

I missed garbage day today because this week has all blended together for me...drive to work, come home and work, shower, crash, drive to work, come home and work, etc.......I thought it was only Tuesday! Oops :) By the time I post again, I really hope you'll see some furniture in the pictures :).

Welcome to Mississippi, Ma'am

Not having ever spent time in the deep south, Mississippi is an interesting place. I do love the accents, I do not love the food (there is apparently nothing you can't deep fry), the weather is hot and humid, and it seems like a beautiful area in general. I saw my first cotton fields on the way to our site visit, which along with corn and soybeans, is one of the main production crops.

The Value Engineering study I am assisting on this week is for a project on the Red River lock and dam in eastern Louisiana. We had to drive 3 and a half hours to get there from Vicksburg and 3 and a half hours back. The time we spent on the river - actually going through the lock! - during our site visit was almost enough to make the trip worth it :)

Here are some pictures:

This is the wall that needs replacement:

Fun Stuff. Both Greg and I fly home on Friday, and we anticipate a full weekend, our last hopefully, of tiling before we move back in to our home. I can't wait!!

Busy Time

Last week in Oregon we attended two beautiful weddings -- Congratulations Hailey and Chelsie!! I don't have any wedding photos yet, but below are pictures of the floral adventure we went on before Chelsie's wedding on August 6th. I put together all of the arrangements, bouquets, and bouttoniers for the wedding using daliahs we purchased from a beautiful farm in Canby.

After a nice time in Oregon with family and friends, we arrived home with most of a Sunday left, and got to work immediately! Twelve hours of tiling made us sore, but we accomplished quite a bit.

Yesterday I decided, "I'm cutting my hair today". This is a strong urge I get every 3-5 years after spending time growing out the cut I got the last time the urge came around. It just felt like time. The cut I got is much shorter, and more layered than I'm used to, but hey, why not? I'm not feeling any of the I-wish-I-still-had-long-hair regret that sometimes accompanies drastic hairstyle changes like this one, which is very satisfying.

Next week I will be traveling to Vicksburg, Mississippi for work and Greg is flying to a project in Wisconsin so we will be busy! I'm targeting next weekend (since we have some awesome guests this weekend - Thanks for coming to visit us, Sierra and Taylor!!) to finish the tile and at least get a start on the sealing/grouting process. Then we can have FURNITURE again!! I'm so excited to decorate our new home, have houseplants again, and a comfy place to relax with the cats :).