2009 Christmas Letter - Part Three

We really closed this year out with a bang. These past couple months have been busy busy. Let's jump right in, shall we?

September - We celebrated my 26th birthday, nothing fancy, just a dinner out and then a night out with friends. I took Tony to his first NASCAR race. We drove down to Richmond for the day to see the last race before the Chase started. I met Brian for the first time and had a blast.

October - We went to yet another wedding. This one was friends we had made in our condo building. These two are hilarious and good times ALWAYS ensue with them. A couple weeks later we went out with them and a few more couples for a wine tour for the bride's bithday the next weekend would be a surprise dinner out for her new husband's b-day. Those newly weds, so cute. We also welcomed a new nephew into the family. He was born on the 13th and so far is a pretty easy baby. I was in the room for the birth and added Labor to the reasons why we do NOT want any children. My sister did great, I was the one that almost passed out.

November - We started the month celebrating Wilbur's 3rd birthday, I can't even remember life before him. We made a trip to Pittsburgh for a weedend with our favorite Manhattan couple. He got her Steelers tickets for a Christmas present and asked if we would like to join them. We jumped at the chance and bought tickets to see the Penguins play the Bruins on Saturday night and Steelers play the Bengels on Sunday. The Pens won, Steelers lost, but the whole weekend was a blast. We also bucked our Holiday routine from year's past where we would split Thanksgiving and Christmas half and half with our respective families. We spent all day with Husband's parents on Thanksgiving and had a relaxing day and a great meal!

December - We picked the only weekend of football season where neither the Steelers or Cardinals played on Sunday. Penn State football was over, so this gave us the whole weekend to PAINT! We repainted the whole place (minus the bedroom) and it looks AH. MAH. ZING. The next weekend was a girls' night out on the town. We went out on Friday night and the Blizzard of 2009 started while we were out. It snowed Friday night and ALL day on Saturday. We got 2 solid feet of snow, which made for a couple interesting days of walking the dogs. We then had a White Christmas at my Mom's house and enjoyed relaxing with her and my sister's family.

Tonight we ring in the year with some friends. It'll be a low key night at the October Newlyweds' house, wearing our pajamas and taking the dogs for a sleepover. I hope you all have had as great of a 2009 as we did and are celebrating the New Year with your loved ones. Have a safe and happy New Year!!!!

The One Where He Gave Me a New House (#s 64 & 66)

I basically got a new house this weekend. We painted the entire place except for the bedroom (which we repainted this summer). I finally like the house I live in. Finally, after living there for almost 4 years, I like it.

When I moved in I painted the living room orange. Like Home Depot orange. I was trying to be bold. It was fun to have a bold room like that for a little while, but somewhere in the past two years it started grating on me. Everytime I walked into the house, I was disappointed. The original bedroom was a bluish grey, it was supposed to be relaxing, it reminded me of a cave. The original bathroom? PINK, bubble gum pink. Painful for Husband to even exist in. The kitchen and foyer were unpainted with the thought I would get to them one day. One day, four years later.

The painting projects began last Thanksgiving. The bathroom was challenging Husband's manhood. So we went from pink to blue. BLUE BLUE. We couldn't tell where the painter's tape ended and the walls began. It was BRIGHT. After painting that room I was so sick of the blue paint it took me FIVE months to finally pull it out again to do touchups. It was a mess for FIVE months and I still was not happy.

The bedroom was next to go. The bluish grey was depressing. I needed something more classic. We (I) chose to have a chocolate brown accent wall and ivory on the other three. I love love love it. I was finally happy with one room in the house. I created a little corner where I had pulled together a couple of online finds and was happy with the decor. There was hope that I could exist in this one bedroom condo for a bit longer.

I started daydreaming about painting the rest of the house. I knew we would have to bring in backup. We could not accomplish this alone and make it look good. With Husband's cousin being a contractor and professional painter, we offered him some money to oversee the project. We recruited some friends, picked a weekend with no football, and picked out colors. I had painted samples all over the house. I tried about a dozen colors until I settled on the palate.

We started with a DARK olive in the kitchen (Cosmopolitan Olive to be exact), went two shades lighter for the entry way, and then tried a couple of more neutrals for the living room. We ended up picking a greenish khaki color that complimented the olive tones nicely.

We prepped Friday night by moving EVERYTHING out of the rooms to be painted into our bedroom and decided all of our stuff could be smashed into 250 sq feet. Saturday everyone showed up ready to work! We took direction from the pro and jumped right in. By lunch time on Sunday we were cleaning up, amazed that we finished before the Redskin's kickoff at four. We were so excited about the new look that we went out to buy curtains to replace the awful blinds that were (accidentally) a casualty of the project. We hung the curtains, shampooed the carpets and were ready to "move" back in!

I took Monday off to help put everything back together. With all of the furniture back in and most everything rehung on the walls, it really feels like a new place. Everything is in it's place and I'm determined to keep it that way, for a little while at least. I love my new house and am so excited to go home now!!! This also crossed two things off of my 101 in 1001 list!!!!