Me casa su casa...

In case I've not mentioned it, I love to decorate.  Love.  It.  Seriously.  If I had unlimited funds, my house would be my own version of "da bomb".  As it is, we're on a single income, and we buy or fix up things in spurts and stages. 

Since we bought the house in October of '08 we've done a lot of work to fix it up.  Seriously.  And being cheap and being us, we did most everything ourselves (i.e., handy dandy husband).  So here is a list of what we've done:

* painted the shutters and doors
* replaced exterior light fixtures
* removed the gross old landscaping and replaced with new
* cleared out a TON of brush from the back/side yard (and had LOTS of poison ivy!)
* installed a split rail / black chain-length fence
* installed a new privacy fence across the front
* ripped out the old linoleum from the kitchen and replaced with travertine
* removed all the carpet and old wood flooring downstairs and replaced with exotic hardwood
* more travertine - in the guest bath this time
* painted the kitchen cabinets and added new hardware
* built a kitchen island
* installed counter tops and new sink and fixtures in the kitchen
* all new appliances
* added LED under/over cabinet lighting
* installed recessed lighting
* installed wood blinds on 14 windows
* installed 6 ceiling fans
* painted nearly every room
* new chandelier in dining room
* installed crown molding throughout the living room, kitchen, breakfast nook and foyer
* replaced the front porch rails
** had someone install gutters for us. 

Geesh, I'm tired just from the LIST!

Anyway, I finally found artwork for my living room, which I posted the other day.  Between getting that hung and some gorgeous silver candlesticks from Pottery Barn, I can officially call my living room DONE!

Here's a shot of it.  I totally had to black out the television screen.  I happened to snap my shot during a colon health commercial, and we so don't want a pic of that on the site now, do we?  As with all the pics here on Call Sign, you can click for a larger view!  :-)

Gone again... Final work-up before cruise.

So... fabulous husband left again last weekend for his final work-up before the big cruise, and life has been filled with kids parties, trips to the newly joined YMCA, and general yard work and house cleaning. 

I've gotten into the can't-sleep-at-night phase again.  On his one and only other deployment I did this - I get up at normal times in the mornings (such as for school mornings), but then lay in bed for hours wide awake.  Last night, er, this morning I didn't fall asleep until sometime after 4:30.  That's a.m. folks.  In good news, I did manage to complete about 90% of the sky in my nature puzzle.  Yeah, I'm weird and like puzzles.

I did work on the house some this week, and helped a friend out with painting her kitchen.  I even managed to find what I hope are the perfect pieces of artwork for above the couch.  Found them in the Exchange Home Decor catalog.  Page 3.  They look really nice both in the catalog and online, so we'll see how they look in real life soon.  Here's a sneak peek at the image, grabbed from online:

Also joined the local YMCA this past week.  I think some people have the wrong impression about the Y.  I grew up with the impression that it was more a place for underprivileged inner-city youth to hang out.  Turns out, many of the places are in excellent neighborhoods, and feature state-of-the-art facilities.  Ours is pretty incredible, complete with rock-climbing wall, giant pools with slides for the kids (and the kids at heart), and even digitized work-out equipment.  Yup, that's right - you enter your ID number into each machine, and it tells you on a digital display when you've completed the full range of motion, number of reps, and how much weight you're currently utilizing.  Even tells you what machine to do next.  I'm loving it, and really want to get some weight off before the end of this cruise, which happens to come around the same week as our 18th wedding anniversary.  Yes, I married young, but that's another post.  :-)

So I'm off for now.  I've got a squadron thing to go to this afternoon, and I need to get my fabulous lime squares made.  And try not to eat them.  This self control / willpower thing sucks!