Sadness

My house is officially on the market and up on the realtor sites.  Pass the word along..

The final paint down

Remember this?

Now it looks like this:

Not a perfect job, but much more buyer friendly (and sarah friendly).

Stop on by

And visit for a spell. You only have a few weeks, but you can stay in my newly painted guest room.

Remember when I moved in, it looked like this:
Then I painted it purple. Apparently no pictures exist from that phase. How exactly that happened, I don't really know.

Now it is beautiful 'mushroom'. Which sadly looks an awful lot like the original color. However, it is far less pink-y and more builders beige-y now. Plus, the walls no longer have grease or smudge marks where the A's pictures were hanging AND we've got the HOT new floor now!!

Regardless of color you are ALWAYS welcome to come and stay in the guest room :)

Work in Progresss

It has been a weekend of 'fun' around here -- lots of painting. The living room still isn't back to normal -- furniture is still all 4 ft from the walls and there is still a little tape to lose. However, it is looking good!

Stone Gray City

I'm painting this weekend. It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL outside, so Daisy assumed 'the position' in the window while I worked.

Here is a glimpse at the finished product. More product pics to come as the overall final product becomes finalized. :) I think it looks A-ma-zing! With the new floors it really has a put together look.

NOT bathroom humor

Remember this?

Now it looks like this.

Wallpaper down, painted walls, painted cabinets, new doorknobs. check.

snow... SnOw... SNOW...

It took until my seventh winter in Mississippi, but I finally saw snow in the south. I have been told many a story of snowfalls in the history of Vicksburg, and there have been flurries during my tenure -- but I always seem to be out of town when they happen. this time was different! unofficially I've heard we had 5.5-6 in. of snow. It doesn't look it in some of my pictures. The trees that leave my yard nice and shady also prevented too much accumulation. Unfortunately said trees also led to some limb cracking which damaged my shed and came pretty close to the house. I've still got one that needs to be trimmed off of the tree before it does some nice damage to the roof over my bedroom. If anyone has suggestions of who to call please let me know!!

Due to the crazy-ness of the weather and the poor road conditions I took the day off. We stayed warm, played in the snow, and took a long walk around the neighborhood. Here are some of our pictures from today!

First thing this morning Madison peered around the door and gave me the look "mom, i remember this snow sh*t from Christmas and I'm not having any of it". She wouldn't go out -- left the back yard to Daisy.

Once I pulled out her sweater and put it on Madison was much happier. Eventually we went on a walk around the neighborhood and she had a great time romping in the snow. I heart having a garage. How did I spend upwards of 20 years without one? For once, I can totally appreciate it for winter purposes! No snow on my car :)

What a good puppy. In her pretty girly sweater. And playing in the snow...

A scenic shot from the back yard first thing this morning. The magnolia was covered in snow.

Another view for more perspective. By the time the snow stopped falling the magnolia branches were reaching over the fence and on the ground.

There just shouldn't be snow on magnolia leaves... its so un-mississippi

Pretty snow covered branches. :)

Damaged Shed from stupid pine tree pieces

The limb next to my bedroom... and my poor gardenias were all knocked over by the weight of the snow.

I went and played with the dogs in my winter gear that i keep in stock for trips up north

In parting, here is a shot of Daisy playing in the snow... I sound odd and gravely when I am calling her... but she was having soo sooo soooo much fun!

ETA: After this day of fun I have some tired out puppies. They aren't nearly as interested in watching the olympics opening ceremonies as I am.

Pantry Painting

Not to much to report on from the Ladies of the House. We were quite excited by the lost premiere last week, in case you hadn't gathered. It was great, but introduced many new questions and didn't help me to come to any sort of closure. I'm going to be very very very sad when it ends. I might have to do something drastic and turn off cable or something. I just don't watch that much anymore, nothing meets my expectations after L~O~S~T.

In household news, I'm back on the improvement bandwagon. You might have been wondering what all I had been doing lately. The answer was nothing much. Two weeks ago I took everything out of the pantry. I threw out anything past date (which was scarily more than I want to admit)and gathered things that were in date that I have no real intent to eat to donate to the food pantry. Turns out I have a LOT of grains. I could have told you that though. Everything that was left after the purge made it's way into the cabinets with rolling drawers while the pots and pans eventually made it into the pantry. It seemed like a better way to organize things and not waste so much food. Before re-filling the pantry I repainted it. I don't think it had been painted since 1979!! It was all yellowed and gross and full of scratches and whatnot. After painting, it turned out nice and clean and white and crisp :) Next task, painting the hall closets.

This could be heavan

Being in my own home, sleeping on my own bed, with flooring!
Seriously!! I was happy, as were the JG's.

Surprisingly they were able to start installing the floor last Tuesday. We had checked the slab moisture in 10 distinct locations Friday afternoon. By Tuesday morning those locations had all dried up more despie (1) a weekend full of pouring rain, and (2) no equipment from serv pro. That made me wonder if they actually did any good with any of their efforts over the previous week or two -- it seemed like they didn't actually do anything despite all the money insurance was paying them -- and i was able to dry it on my own... hmmm.... So the floor guys worked the floor thing Tuesday, Wednesday, all day Saturday, and up until an hour before I left Sunday. They look really good. More pictures to follow once I'm back home and able to get settled back in some more.

I definitely wasn't the only happy camper. Or non-camper now that we aren't in air matress city.

Lumberjack Sarah

I spent the afternoon working on the yard (again). The lawn finally got mowed after two weeks of work travel and a week of rain. I also took the tree limbs to the side of the road to get some use of my county tax dollars. Then I got motivated to tear down the tree that is overgrowing on the side of the house. I also pulled out a bunch of dead growth from around the AC and in the canna lillies. The side of the house looks amazing compared to the before (which i didn't take a picture of). For proof, look at the pile of limb-age at the side of the road!!! I hope to finish this chore so I can put a butterfly bush and some other goodies over on the side of the house. That is the area that gets full afternoon sun. Might as well use it!!

Aren't you jealous of my afternoon, not! Actually it as a great afternoon -- if the inside of the house can't look pretty at least the outside can be non-hideous.

A pile o' floor

Yup, we got a pile o' floor at home.

This morning the flooring people called to see if I was home so they could bring it by -- the minute I walked out of the elevator! So I did an email/phone check, entered data for 30 minutes and went home to let them in. It goes in next week. More updates to follow.

Hot Time Summer in the City...

Or rather, summer in the country! We have hit our Mississippi summer stride - with humidity and heat everything else that it entails (including Smith Co. Watermelons). I had started working on a project around the house and was trying to keep up wtih the massive re-bedding of the house when I noticed that it just seemed really really hot. I blamed it on my status as a damn yankee and not being able to adjust well. After a few really cantankerous days I had a revelation -- it was cooler outside the house than in -- AC problem!!! Duh Sarah. Well, we had a few more duh Sarah moments, however the AC is up and running without major financial loss and only a few moments of 'wow am i clueless'.

During the times of heat we spent some time with friends -- turns out that Chin Master Chin the Chinchilla had the same effect on the JGs as Smokey the fat cat -- The fear factor. It was fun to watch them F-reak out over him.

Cha-Cha-Changes

This afternoon, circa 3 PM

This evening, circa 6 PM

Notice anything different? I have disliked that shrubbery since i bought the house. It has been pruned down. Next step, removing that huge nasty clump of roots. I am happy to say that I've dealt with these shrubs and the holly out front before hitting my two year anniversary -- both of them were lowlights of the landscaping from day 1. Yay!!!

Flowers, but not in the attic

Have I mentioned how I love flowers? Check out the Gardenias I stole from my back yard. The JGs will never know they disappeared, and they look awfuly pretty and smell awfully nice in the house.

In other garden related news, it looks like most of the hosta survived the splitting and transplantting to the front yard. I see new growth on most of them! Yay!! Next year they are going to look great!! Next on the transplant list is day lillies or maybe some stolen hydrangeas. I just need to figure out where to put them.

Worker Bee

I've been a busy bee around the house. Last Sunday was a work day - mostly because I was procrastinating doing other, job related things. Amazing how much you can do around the house when you are avoiding doing things in the workplace! It was a day to get little things done around the house. Including

• Mowing the leaves in the yard in an attempt to avoid a repeat of last year,
• Putting another coat of paint on the door to the sunroom in my bedroom so that it matches the trim,
• Hanging blinds on said sunroom door,
• Putting a new doorknob and deadbolt on said sunroom door,
• Painting the other side of my bathroom and closet doors,
• Rehaning said doors with new hardware,
• Painting the interior of my vanty doors, and
• Rehanging said vanity doors with new hardware

It was a lot of little stuff that should have done forever ago. I got a new drill about three weeks ago, and I'm enjoying using it on all o the stuff I said I was going to do forever ago. Here are some pics. I hung new blinds in the window earlier in the week. It finally is looking put together in my room!

The Room looks so much better with doors on the closets!

The Door is awesome. I love having blinds that darken the room - and so does Madison

Look at the pretty vanity.