Some Before Pics--Living Room/Dining Room

Since I've already posted the after pictures from our renovation projects, I thought I'd post some of the befores. Honestly, it doesn't even look like the same house!

Here's a picture of the front door and part of the dining room. Notice the lovely bamboo placemats they used to separate the dining room and living room paint color. It looked so stupid. Also notice the shelves that are directly above the couch (i.e. head trauma in waiting) and a shelf so low that you can't walk behind the couch to get to the closet. Oh, and the nekkid woman painting on the top shelf. Don't even get me started on the canary yellow paint.

The nasty yellow wall--what were they thinking??

Why put a couch in front of a huge bay window like that??

Hmm...let's just stop at the entry wall and not paint the rest of the room. That won't look stupid.

Next up, the bathroom of death.

It's Dead!!!

...my Dyson, that is. The power button won't stay depressed. I currently have it jury-rigged with duct tape and that seems to be working, but isn't a dyson supposed to last forever??

$200+ for a vacuum that broke in a year and a half and the crappy one that we bought at Target for $20 lasted 5 and still worked when we tossed it into the dumpster. Hopefully Dyson will do something about it. Now I have to fish out the warranty info (I think I sent it in---crap!) and figure out what to do next.

I honestly love my Dyson because it picks up so much crap! It feels like a new carpet after you've vacuumed with it. I joke that it picks up dirt from my downstairs neighbors because I have no clue where it's getting all of the crap it picks up.

Weekend at the Shore

Mr. B and I so needed this past weekend at the shore. Unfortunately, his work outing on Thursday got rained out and, as predicted, our presence at the Phils game Wednesday brought on a loss. Friday and Saturday we had some glorious sun :) Friday we visited The Shamrock for happy hour and got to witness a grandmom, or possibly great grandmom, pole-dancing, a woman-man thing dancing with her boy toy and a mullet-sporting, Miami Vice cast off with white linen pants and no undies. Woo-hoo white trash bars are the best!

Afterwards, Mr. B and I took a little ride over to the No.1 Tavern and imbibed in a Tully Nut and some Summer Ales. The local drunkard struck up a conversation with us and bought us a few beers. Needless to say, my mom had to drive us home...but we made a quick detour to McDonalds (gross) and got lots of food that we didn't pay for (cha-ching!). My mom sped away faster than those guys on Cops.

Saturday night we busted out my mom's Wii that she got for her birthday. I'm absolutely horrible at Wii. Yesterday we had a birthday breakfast for my mom and then headed to the beach. We narrowly missed the thunderstorm and torrential rain :)

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend. Could have used another day or two, but, really, who can't?!

July/August's To Do List

I finished most of July's List:
1. Go out for Spanish food in the city
2. Get my ring cleaned at the jeweller's
3. Get some sun--I'm super pale!!!
4. Have one day where nothing gets done--just pure laziness
5. Fix trim--so driving me crazy right now
6. Finish the blanket I'm working on
7. Learn how to make infant baby booties
8. Get to a Phils game

I'm going to carry over some of the things from last month. The trim definitely needs to get done because I'm finally hosting Bunco. Can't have my house looking amess.

1. Fix trim!
2. Master infant booties
3. Get rings cleaned/inspected
4. Finish half of new blanket
5. Spend more time on the beach
6. Plant flowers in flower boxes
7. Make another hat

My Mom's Party

My grandparents and I did the planning for my mom's 50th birthday party. We got her there by inviting her to my SFIL's retirement party. She was reluctant and confused at first, but several other lies cleared up her doubts.

We had the party at Barone's Tuscan Grill in Moorestown, NJ and the manager, Michael, was extremely helpful all through the planning process. He let us pick the start time and said the end time could be up in the air. We were able to bring in our own alcohol and cake without charge and they did a really great job setting everything up. The food was amazing and the service was flawless. I can't say enough great things about Barone's.

We got the cake at DiBartolo's in Collingswood, NJ. I basically gave them the invitation asked them to match it. Everyone raved about the look and the taste of the cake. They totally blew me away with how closely they were able to match the flourishes and colors.

I'm sure I'll add more to the post as I think of it, but here are a few pictures of the party:

Cute Baby Hat

I started this about an hour ago and had no clue what I was doing. It ended up being really cute and I'll be giving it to little Miss Lauren Rose to match the blanket I gave her.

New Baby Blanket

I absolutely love the way this blanket turned out. The yarn is really pretty and I love the pattern, especially the edging :)

Baby Lauren Rose

Mr. B's friend and GF welcomed little Lauren Rose into the world at 8:59pm on July 17th. She weighed 7lbs, 3 oz and was 20.75" long. I already love her even though I've only seen a picture of her because she loves my blanket :) Smart little girl!

Pictures to come!

Surprise 50th Birthday Party

My mom's party was last night and, amazingly, everything went off without a hitch. She showed up on time and was completely surprised. The food and service at Barone's in Moorestown, NJ was above and beyond everything we expected. The cake was spectacular and looked just like the invitation. Everyone raved about the party, the cookies, the invites and kept saying how I should do this for a living. Ha ha ha...I would love to, but would it really pay the bills??

Pictures to come!

Party Invitation

I didn't have the funds to order fabulous invitations for my mom's surprise 50th birthday party, so I decided to make them. I bought stock wedding invitations at Target (the white cardstock with the black flourish) and also bought some metallic fuchsia cardstock at mygatsby.com.

I trimmed the Target invitation 1/2" on each side so the invitation would still fit in the stock envelope and used double sided tape to attach the carstock and stock invite. I printed the invite on my own printer and I think they came out pretty well and it was pretty easy overall.

Baby News!!!

Mr. B's best friend's girlfriend is on her way to the hospital to have their little girl! Lots of prayers and well wishes their way for an easy delivery and a healthy and happy baby girl :)

Thank God for tapas and sangria

Mr. B and I went out to dinner at Bar Ferdinand last night and it was amazing! They put some new items on the menu and we got a pitcher of sangria 1/2 price for happy hour.

One of the new things on the menu that we absolutely loved was Octopus Medallions. They were grilled and they had a spicy BBQ sauce on them. The dish came with a really good spring mix salad with some fried potatoes and crispy chorizo...yum!

Friends

There's really nothing like spending some time with good friends to make you feel good. I'm really lucky to have found a group of friends that can make me laugh so hard I have tears coming out of my eyes (thanks Nat!). They're the type of girls you can talk to about anything --from what happens to your body when you have a baby (WOW. and Oh, God., that's all I have to say)to TV shows that you love.

Being with such a great group of girls reminds me that people really like me for the way I am--negative, sarcastic, sometimes inappropriate and lewd, but I think that's what makes me, me. I spent just about all of high school trying to blend in and not attract attention, and while I don't really like to be the center of attention all the time, every once in awhile I think it's good to be. I've realized in the past year or so that I have a great witty, dry humor and that I'm a very creative, compassionate person. People want to spend time with me, just because I'm me :D

Mr. B has been in San Antonio all week and I missed him like crazy, but last night, after being with those girls for a few hours, I wasn't so lonely. I'm really thankful to have found such great friends later on in life, which gets harder as you get older. Love you girls!

My instant sex-change courtesty of Shoshanna

So I wrote before about being disappointed by how my Shoshanna dress from Rue La La looked. Here is evidence that it definitely did not flatter me. Cute pattern and a good fit everywhere but the crotch region...

(Double click to see up close)

So that is why I had to send back the dress. I think just about anyone would agree that a dress making you look like a tranny is not a good thing...unless you're going for that, and in this case I wasn't.

Look how amazing the cookies turned out!

My mom's surprise 50th party is coming up and we wanted to do a cute little favor for the guests. After seeing how cute Brown Eyed Baker's sugar cookies turned out, I thought I'd give them a try. Friday I made the dough and she wasn't kidding when she said that it was a sticky dough. I had to put the dough and the trays in the freezer every 5 minutes to keep it from sticking to the wax paper permanently.

I made a double batch and split it into 4 balls of dough and it only made 37 cookies...WTF? I had to make a third batch and that gave me another 17 cookies. All day Saturday, sis and I outlined and then flooded the cookies. We literally worked from 9am to 5pm. I was going stir crazy!! Thank God Mr. B helped out too or we would have never finished...

I think they turned out amazing though, and I don't think I'd ever do it again unless I was getting paid for it. LOL

Here are some pictures of us slaving over the cookies and some of the results...please ignore my bedhead.

Just call me Smokey The Bear

So Saturday, we're walking home from the beach and we all smelled something burning. I look across the street and there are flames, FLAMES, shooting out from a pile of mulch. Being the diligent Girl Scout I was trained to be, I ran over and tried to kick some dirt/mulch on the smoldering/burning pile. It went out for about a second and then re-lit because the mulch was so dry. Now a crowd has gathered and people from the hotel pool across the street are all standing there staring. A nice bystander with sneakers, I had on flipflops, stomped out the flames, but the mulch continued to smolder. My mom, also a Girl Scout, got an empty thermos bottle from our beach stuff and had the pool people fill it up. We doused the flames and were assisted by some retired firemen.

I felt like my good deed for the day had been done :) I was pissed though because it was started by a cigarette butt. WTF is wrong with people? Hmmm...flame, hot, dry day and some wood...lets mix it all together and see what happens, shall we??

Today, Mr. B and I are leaving the gym. I get in the car and smell something burning--again. I look over and don't you know that there are flames, FLAMES!, and smoke coming from a pile of mulch. I found the culprit, one of those stupid skinny-mini cigars, still smoking next to the pile. Thank God I had some water left over from my work out. After I poured on the water, I stomped out the smoke to make sure it didn't start up again. Now I have mud and mulch stuck in the bottom of my shoe, but at least the parking lot didn't catch on fire.

Ok, so that's 2 cigarette butt-started fires within 3 days. Kinda scary if you ask me. Really, WTF are people thinking??

I just realized...

that the last couple letters in my last name spell out the acronym (SAHW) if you type them wrong. I think somebody is trying to tell me something ;-)