I currently have snowman sheets on my bed. They are flannel and I keep them freshly washed in Lavender Vanilla soap and dryer sheets. They smell amazing, but they never compare to the sheets at the Bruner’s house or the Miller’s or my mom’s house. Those sheets always seem to smell like an angel washed them with a fragance you can’t buy at a store - love.

Recently I stayed at the McWhinney’s home in Holly Lake Ranch and even though there house was relatively new to them, it had all the elements of a home. There is something about the combined efforts of a man and a woman that seem to make a place special. There’s normally a balance of masculine and feminine and even if it borders on the feminine side I think that most men find that welcoming.

My house is a bachelor pad. I have minimal furniture, no family photos grace my walls, the countertops are barren in the kitchen. It’s exactly like I want it.

Right now my bedroom walls are painted with multiple swatches of color. I’ve got multiple projects going all at once and I’m finally getting the need to do things exactly my way out of my system. I love my home, but now I’m willing to give someone else a shot at picking the wall colors of my bedroom. I could use some help in narrowing down what type of flooring I want in the living room and what color of cabinets to put in the kitchen.

All of this is not saying that I’m ready to be married, but if I do get married, I’d now be ready to let someone come in and have their way with my space and that was something I wasn’t ready to let go of a few months ago. I needed this time to explore my ideas and to let loose with my creativity. Now I’m exhausted by the options and the futility of my efforts and I’m willing to admit that I’m not as good at this as I always thought I was.

So one day, I hope that this home and all the houses I have after this one, will have that “Lived-In” feeling where when people walk in the door they realize that this is where people live.  People who fight and cook and clean and love. Where people have friends stay over on clean sheets and when we say goodnight after a party our friends won’t want to leave.

I’m putting up curtains and since there is only one room in the house with curtains it is an expensive and timely endeavor. Do I go with a warm chocolate brown curtain or something in a cool crisp white? How about red or something in a pattern? What about a new rug and that vintage style clock that I saw at Target? And what about Christmas decorations, do I want to hang snowflakes from the ceiling or large silver ornaments? I’ll be ideating about all of things things endlessly and to further frustrate my creative flow I have to decide what color to paint my bedroom. 

 I recently picked up a nice shade of gray called “Winter Oak” and it turned out to look like light purple on my wall. Then I opted for a color called “Sand” but I’m afraid it looks too much like the gold/yellow color that is in my living room already.

What to do? What to do?

I am excited that right now I can afford to do a few small projects and get some nice things done to my house to make it feel more like a home. Like most things in life working on your home is a non-stop effort, but it’s worth it, because there really is no place like home.

I’m also having a big Christmas Party at my house on the 13th that I’ve got to plan. On top of that I’m trying to get my bedroom painted and I just purchased curtain rods for the living room, dining room and my bedroom and so I’ve got to install all of those.

So what should I call my party this year for New Years? Any ideas? Courthouse Gold? Babes and Bandits, Courthouse Roundup? Any thoughts you send my way will be appreciated!

At the end of the day my shoulders and body ached from the repetitive motion of rolling paint and using a brush. However, I enjoyed myself immensely.  It was so nice to be doing manual labor and seeing immediate results for my hard work. My full-time job doesn’t always work out that way. I work hard and sometimes the work I do just gets scrapped or when it is approved, it isn’t very rewarding. I find that painting is quite rewarding and I think that if I keep practicing then this might be what I do full time one day. I could hire a few people, purchase a big sprayer or two and then we’d be in business. The best part is that i can use my own house right now to continue trying out new things. Faux finishes, various textures, etc. I have some friends that paid a fortune to have their ceilings re-textured. It looked great, but it cost $4000. If people are paying that kind of money and getting the job done in a week then i may need to rethink my career goals.

So that is why you didn’t get a real post the last 4 days. I was working up a storm, getting things painted and then getting things done at my house. Cutting down tree limbs, painting some more in the garage and cleaning up the house.

Hope your weekend was great!

Doesn’t that just make your mouth water? Don’t you almost just spasm with pleasure when you look at all that stuff just hanging on the wall ready to be plucked and used? Did you take it all in?

So I bought 2 shelving units that are 48 inches long, two rods that hold them in place on the wall and 4 thngs that stick out that you put the wire shelves on. Add to that one of those black rails that you can hook things on and I’ve spent 70+ bucks. In total I think it will be about $300 dollars to organize my garage, but when I am done, I may want to just move out there!

All of this organization has made me want to organize my closets. I have two, a his and a hers, but hers is full of winter clothes right now.

Then what about the laundry room? It would need to be done as well. Check it:

And if all of that has you chomping at the bit, then here is the link so you can check out some more storage solutions.

I poured a cup of Spunky Monkey Coffee and drank it in silence. The house was still and clean. There were no crumbs on my coffee table, the trash was empty. There was no one snoring on my couch.

There are times when I think about what happened with Josh that I still feel a bit of anxiety and emotion about that entire situation. I probably didn’t handle it as best as I could, but I knew I couldn’t live with him any longer. I can only take so much of something until I eventually explode. 

I told Josh to leave last Tuesday. I cut him out of my life, because I was ready to cut him, literally.

I’m 32 now and a good portion of my life was lived with a weight of anxiety, fear and dread. I don’t plan to live like that ever again. I never want my home to be a place that I dread coming home to. It is my refuge, my place of restoration. It’s nice that after a week it’s home again.

This was my living room when I bought it. I’ve since changed out the ceiling fan with the help of my buddy Joe who also helped with the fixtures in the dining room and breakfast area.

This is my living room now with a very zany rug that I found. Normally I have more of it hidden under the couch, but I did some spring cleaning yesterday and just now realized that I didn’t place it back where I had it before. In person it looks better than it does here at this angle. Also, I only have 3 Pottery Barn pillows on my couch because those things are about 50 bucks each.

The paint color is Laura Ashely Gold 3 - you can get it at Lowes. I tried multiple other colors from blue to red to mustard yellow to even a sage green. This one worked the best and I love it.

The coffee table is from World Market and that rooster was a gift from the Cribbies back when everyone thought I was into roosters. I’ve never been into roosters, they just seem to keep showing up in my life.

It looks very sunny and nice from this picture. Just look at it, it’s so fierce, it’s a fierce hot mess… haha. SNL did a great sketch on Christian Siriano, this year’s winner of Project Runway, he is funny.

I took this picture on the day that they did the funeral service for Officer Lozada. I was driving and I took it with my BlackBerry and I am really pleased with how it turned out.

If you aren’t from Texas then you might not know what those poles are on the left… those are insane plastic HOV barriers.

And a picture of my dinner which I submitted to facesinplaces.blogpost.com

And the title of this post is from one of the greatest shows on the planet - SCRUBS. Dr. Kelsoe stares down a brownie and at last gives in, “You bested me again you chocolate bitch.” I think we can all understand this phrase.

There are so many things to consider when purchasing a new home, for me price and location were the two most important factors followed by big living room, nice kitchen and no demons or poltergeists. A haunted house just isn’t as much fun as it use to be when we were kids.

So many friends showed up and feasted on my Chipotle Peach Glazed Pork Loin, Spinach Chicken Alfredo Lasgna and my Traditional Fresh Basil Italian Sausage Lasagna.  We had karaoke in the living room and Dance Dance Revolution setup with a projector in my bedroom so people could have a dance off. My sister who runs a karaoke business www.americanpridekaraoke.com setup her extensive DJ and Karaoke equipment and my best friend Joe brought down his PlayStation 2 and it really helped make the party a big success.

So now my entire house is painted expect for the bedrooms and bathrooms, my lawn is mowed and looking good. I put up new Faux Wood white 2 inch blinds in the living room and they look amazing and I got this new green rug that has a huge red rooster on it that really works with all my living room decor.  I’ll try to shoot some pictures of it soon so I can show it to you.

My sister and her son are also living with me now and I am delighted to have them! It’s nice getting to see Aiden and having someone to eat dinner with and help with house-hold chores rocks too! So things are still very busy in my life right now.

I’ve got more to talk about, but that will come soon and needs to be separated into a different post.

Later taters!