Red Kitchen, Meet White Primer

So to get myself out of my celebrating our first Christmas in an unfinished house funk, I decided that while Chris was out of town I'd wash away all the red in the kitchen.

Now, I'm sure there's a right way to paint and a wrong way. Clearly it looks like I'm so doing it the wrong way. Shouldn't I have at least covered the appliances!?

This is a prime example of what not to do. No tips coming from me folks! This is what you do when you are impatient and eager to end the anxiety that erupts each time you look at that crazy red paint!!

I hear it each time I watch HGTV. They say, if you want to sell your house get rid of the bright taste specific colors. Now, I wasn't selling but I was living in a taste that didn't belong to Chris and I.

All I knew is MUST COVER RED, anything less would be uncivilized he, he, he. I know that made zero sense but I felt a great need to quote the old commercial. As a matter of fact, I don't even remember what commercial it was I just remember the line. Anyways on to what I was talking about.

Chris was shocked to see the wall covered when he got home. It was kind of funny, he said "man it's brighter in here" not realizing exactly why it was so bright. Then BOOM it hit him. "You painted (primed) the walls!"

We have one tiny window in our kitchen so it really is the darkest room in the house. We were so happy to see the white primer. This is probably the only time that a white wall is a good thing.

We'd later learn, that we should have used a gray primer instead of a white primer to cover up such a bold color. After another coat of white, all red was finally gone. Ignore that red behind the stove, I really wasn't feeling moving appliances. Also ignore the red behind the refrigerator that you can't see.

Tatum

My Little Guys

On Friday evening Chris and I got to watch my two youngest nephews Camden (5) and Jamison (2) while my sister Vonetta and her husband went out for a night with friends.  We went out for pizza, and dairy queen that night.

Going out with the boys is always a ton of fun but it requires a bit of homework because our precious Cam has an allergy and can't eat everything. You'll occasionally find us reading the box or bag of ingredients which is what I had to do before we ordered a hamburger from dairy queen.

The next morning began at 6am for Chris when Camden apparently entered our room because he was itchy and snotty.  I woke up at 7 completely shocked to see a little 5 year old curly headed boy sleeping right next to me. Soon thereafter, he was whispering "auntie when are you going to wake up?" and like a good auntie I was up!

Jamison is completely opposite from Camden. When he wakes up, he pretty much does not want to be bothered. He will stay quiet in his room and when you come to get him he might either smile and bounce around a bit, or he will look at you with annoyance because you had the audacity to come into the room without his morning coffee.

Now normally, when the boys spend the weekend Chris is up bright and early with them. I am not much of a morning person at all so Chris will get up, get them fed and have my coffee brewing by the time that I roll out of bed. However, this particular morning I was already kind of awake, so up I went.

We went downstairs and had cookie crisp! My house isn't necessarily kid proof. My sofa is a suede material and my dining room chairs are fabric, a light cream fabric at that. Now I am not anal when it comes to feeding time and I always want to boys to feel comfortable. Normally I will drape the sofa with towel or something when they are eating pizza or spaghetti but other than that, I pretty much let them do their thing. Sooner or later the house will be to a point where they will have their special little spot for messy meals.

About an hour or so later, Chris was up and at em, and the monster came out to attack them!

After baths and getting dressed...several hours later off to the park we went.

That tiny kid was awakened from a deep slumber in the car. Can't you just see the lack of interested on his face? He was in a fog for quite a while completely disinterested in the park:

Cammy on the other hand jumped right in:

So after climbing:

Sliding:

Swinging:

And watching the ducks

It was time to take the little guys home. They hate this part, and always want to stay longer, but I'll spare you the sad faces filled with tears. To make matters easier on all 4 of us, we hung out with them for a lot longer once we got them home. By the time we left they were headed to bed and happy to see their parents again.

It was a great weekend!

Tatum

Lets Get Cooking!

Well after dwindling away all of our hard earned money on restaurant after restaurant we figured after a couple of weeks from our refrigerator purchase that it was time to get cooking!! We went back to our trusty appliance store and purchased a friend for the fridge, Enter Stove:

Now we thought we'd try something a little different here. We have cooked with a gas stove before and an electric stove before, but we've never owned a glass top. Our first thoughts when we saw the glass top was, perfect! This is electric but different and it will be easy to clean.

Fast forward about a couple months...though it still works great I'm no longer a fan. The oh so easy cleaning glass top does not stay flawless. No matter how many times I clean it I still see evidence of wear and tear on the glass.

 Now, in defense of the stove manufacturer, though I did some research before we made this purchase we didn't go out and buy specific cookware better suited for this type of cook-top. We just used what we already owned.

In the future we will definitely go for something that looks flawless when you clean it and not scratched up. We will also heed any advice that says, unless you want to buy an entire new collection of pots and pans, stick with what works and not necessarily with what looks new and shiny.

Tatum

Appliance Smart!

Remember when I said that the house came with zero appliances except for a broken dishwasher? Well we decided that since we needed every single appliance a home could need, we would be smart about it. Smart as in Appliance Smart!

That's right folks, a friend of ours made us aware that this place existed and on our way we went. After having spent tons of money eating out, we realized we'd do much better if we didn't have to throw our leftovers away... Enter Refrigerator!!

When we entered the store it was almost like opening the gates to appliance heaven. We decided to transport the fridge on our own, so off we went to get a Uhaul. When we got it home it was like admiring a brand new car with the new car smell and everything! It was the one thing new and fresh in the house. So now that we had this stainless beauty, we could keep our to go food cold and eat it again because we already had a microwave so we were doing good.

I know we only purchased the fridge but the oven and dishwasher, would soon be well on their way!

So even though we were still eating out, it's like we got twice the amount for the price of one because we were able to store leftovers in the fridge and just like that...dinner for 2 days lol! Not to mention all of the other yummy refrigerated store bought goodies that you take for granted when you don't have a fridge... goodies like ice cream!

Tatum

Playing Catch Up!!

So remember that little issue I have of not enjoying shopping? Well I was supposed to be on a mission to learn how to shop by starting with simply $30 a week, since I am a woman and that is apparently what I am "supposed" to enjoy doing. Needless to say I fell off of that mission a bit due to being distracted with other things that are important to me.

Well, I'm back now and trying to play catch up so here are a few purchases that I made after Chris forced me out of the house with the debit card:

In this photo I am wearing a new black tank from Target, a really comfy sweater-ma-giggy from Target and a silver necklace from Kohls that sounds like the bells from santa's sleigh when I walk...I love that!!

In the next photo I am wearing a gray sweater from Marshalls. Well, actually it just might be a dress because I can pull it down to my mid thigh. I guess if I want to wear leggings I could do the dress thing, but I'm thinking not. Though leggings may look okay on some people, I firmly believe that when they were in style in the 90's, thats where they should have stayed. So, take a look at my sexy, sexy sweater!!

So there you have it, I'm back on the move. Stay tuned for more updates because I am several weeks behind!!

Tatum

The Kitchen, Very RED Kitchen

You've seen how the living and dining rooms looked when we moved in but now it's time to introduce you to the kitchen:

Thoughts? Anyone? Anyone? Well, our thoughts were...WOW this is really red, and an ugly red at that, and the color scheme was so not us. Something about the red walls with the gray counter-tops and the wood grain cabinets just didn't quite work for us.  Our neighbors said the prior homeowners were obsessed with Ohio State and one day just painted the kitchen red. From the looks of the area on the far wall, it looks like before it was red it was gray. I think you call that, obsession to a fault.

Our second thought when we entered the kitchen was, hmm, this is a pretty decent size! That was definitely a plus. 

That go-go-gadget box on the island is the home inspectors toolkit, feel free to ignore.

Here's another angle for your viewing pleasure:

Oh yea...there was a third thought. Where are the appliances? The home came with one broken dishwasher. Beautiful right? In the midst of everything else we were going to have to break out the checkbook! Ahh the joys of buying large appliances in bulk... Not happening. Needless to say, we ate out quite a few times when we first moved in. It may have been pricey, but it was fun.

The floors were equally quite tragic:

I can't even explain this. We hear they had a little dog or two, but it looks to me that they had Wolverine...literally Wolverine from X-Men. This theory was further explored when we noticed the same scratches on the kitchen wall about 7ft. high! Yes we had our work cut out for us but we were ready to jump in.

Tatum

Oh The Holidays...

As previously mentioned, it was a bit of a challenge to go full throttle during the holidays given the state of our home. However, I try to do something during the holidays that make me giggle and either tickle or frighten my family. I like to google fancy cake creations and then put my amateur cake design skills to work. The problem with this is that their isn't any skill involved which is why my version leaves much to be desired, but it tastes good! Here is the Thanksgiving creation:

Theirs:

Mine:

Lol!! What do you think? I couldn't find those silly little turkey socks anywhere. Chris helped me carve the legs. He's always so helpful when it comes to my crazy ideas. Though my sister hosted that year, my parents decided to bring the turkey and were shocked and tickled when they got there and realized that there was already a turkey on the center of the table!!

And then there was Christmas. This was more of a challenge for me because as much as I wanted to feel festive I was surrounded by incompleteness! You can see here how I had random Christmas items mixed in with CRAZINESS:

And how about this pic? Me in a room with 2 old sofas, 2 new sofas, a bunch of miscellaneous stuff that you can't see and a meager attempt at Christmas joy. Did I mention that Chris was soon to be heading out of town to be with his family? I'm sure that had something to do with the gloom.

Chris and I did our best to at least make our house feel Christmasy (yea, I made that word up) from the outside. We hung a wreath and put lights in the windows! I'd love to show you but we can't locate that picture. However, amidst the craziness of preparing for Christmas I made myself giggle again with this little ditty!

Yep, that's right folks, my skills in action again. If you're curious about how the original looks here you go:

Now I'm sure you think that the original is much better, but I needed REAL icing. If that meant that pretty goes out the window then so be it!! I even garnished mine with miniature candy bars, broken iced garland and topped it with an uneven star. I bet the original creator of this beautiful, much better than mine cake couldn't even begin to think of something as clever and creative as that, he he he! 

Christmas got even better when I got to my parents to be with ALL of my family. They again looked a bit leery yet tickled when I showed up with my funny looking super yummy tower Christmas tree cake. I had a ton of fun making it. However, I did make something else quite pretty with the help of my dad and my nephew Camden:

This was a fun crafty little project. What a great way to spend quality time with the ones you love!


Tatum

I'm linking to Tea Rose Home



and I'm also linking to Get Your Craft On by Today's Creative Blog

Speed It Up

For those of you who read my maybe baby post...sorry for the anxiety, anticipation or whatever it was that I might have caused you. Didn't mean to make you think that I was with child, in the family way, going to be a mummy etc. I just wanted to capture the moment....so moving on...

So really, how long can you talk about ripping up carpets right? So lets finish this up. Once the dining room was finished we began to pull up the carpet in the living room:

 And just like that we were done!

So now that the living room floors are all sub-floor, we were pretty much confined to the family room which was kind of a hodge podge of everything unfinished. Stay tuned to see how Christmas prep was a bit rough.

Tatum

Maybe Baby?

This post is pretty much coming out of nowhere and unfortunately has nothing to do with renovation...sorry.

There was a point in my life when I thought I'd have a rather large family. This was mainly because in my adult life having four siblings has been such a blessing and a ton of fun. My fiance on the other hand only has one sibling. This helped to solidify my thoughts because our families are so very different; how much we hang out together, the way we celebrate holidays etc. In my family occasions have always been a big deal and a time to celebrate! In his, though a big deal, not much of a celebration, or should I say a much different type. Being with him has really exposed me to the differences within families.

Then one day, I decided that I wasn't sure that I wanted kids at all, Chris felt the same way. It's not quite that we didn't want kids, we were just indifferent. If we had them great, if we didn't that was fine too. I think we just really began to enjoy our lives so much that kids were just not on our priority list. This is so odd considering the fact that we both ABSOLUTELY adore kids!! Chris is like the kid magnet of the family, all of the kids literally flock to him. He's absolutely fabulous with them as well. When the adults are together hanging out Chris makes sure that the little ones are not neglected. He always takes time to play with them when others may not want to be "bothered", or in the mood to play "attacker" as Camden would say.

I have a beautiful niece Keirstin(17), she is the one and only girl. I have four nephews, Wesley (18), Xavier (7), Camden (5) and Jamison (2). They are my joy and the simple thoughts of them just make me melt. I am especially close to the youngest two boys, I am their second mommy and sometimes I try to convince them that I'm the first mommy! He he he! My nephew Camden is so precious and tries to keep everyone happy. He'll say to my sister and I, you can both be the mommy! My sister is like "yea right kid" and I'm like "of course we can!" I sometimes say that it will be impossible for me to love anyone more than I love those kids. Though everyone tells me, just wait until you have your own. I would just brush that statement off because nothing can trump my boys!! You can see more about them here. When Cam was 3 he once told me "Auntie, you're my favorite girlfriend" sigh...he just makes my heart flutter :-). Chris and I often hear that we'd be great parents, maybe one day who knows?

However, nothing in me felt the urge to have a child. My sister said when she was ready to have a baby her body told her she was ready. She truly felt it, an urge, a longing. She knew when it was time. She told me that when/if it is time, that feeling would come naturally. On the other hand I've heard from others that they didn't necessarily feel any urge or longing...maybe those people had kids sooner than they wanted?? Not sure, my guess is that each situation is different.

But today I began to feel...different. Today I had a strong feeling that I just might want a baby. I was in the hair salon drinking a Java Chip Frappaccino from Starbucks, reading a magazine and looking at a facebook notice that a coworker had just given birth to her 3rd child the day before. When this feeling came over me it lingered, and I promise it wasn't a caffeine high lol! Then the feeling would go away but it would come back. Now, there have been random times when I would see a baby and say to Chris "I want a baby" but that feeling would go away. In fact it wasn't quite a feeling at all as much as it was just a baby in my presence that made me smile. Chris would say "when you say that you want a baby 5 days in a row, then I'll think that you're serious." Yea, like there is some 5 day certainty rule lol! But I understood his point. We'd laugh my temporary moment of gushiness away and proceed with our happy lives.

The problem interesting thing is, today was different. I told Chris this evening that I really think I want a baby. I said, clearly I'll have time to think about it given the fact that we are not married yet. The time will let me know if I am just having a hormonal bout of insanity or absolute clarity. I asked him if he wants a baby and he said "Yep I do". Now we've had small moments similar to this before though fleeting, but he'd be sooo endearing about it and would comfort me. Could this time be different? Could we be fortunate enough to be in sync and actually coming to that realization that we want a child at the exact same time?

So, the reason that I am writing about this is to capture the joy and the thoughts that I experienced today. Whatever I felt was a great feeling and if in the near future it turns out to be a continuing feeling then my sister would have been right.

 I guess we'll see! After the yet to be planned wedding of course...hopefully after the yet to be planned wedding ;-).

Tatum

Be Inspired!!

Yesterday was really challenging for me. I started the day feeling great just to have it all taken from me out of the blue. Though the day became a challenge I shook it off as much as I could. After calling Chris I knew the day would only get better which it did when he decided that when we got home we'd celebrate Friday Eve. Friday Eve is obviously on Thursday and on that day we stay up late, watch movies and order take out to celebrate the coming of Friday! It's our little quirky thing but it makes us happy.

Given the challenge of my day he thought it was imperative that Friday Eve be celebrated on Tuesday, and it did make everything better :-) He's so good at fixing things! Especially me.

The reason that I am mentioning my day yesterday is because today was a much better day. Once Chris and I got home and settled in for the evening I grabbed my computer and moseyed over to The Lettered Cottage. Just so happens, Layla was guest posting on the Live Inspired Blog today. I believe that I was meant to go there because her post, Living On Purpose was right what I needed to read. I was entirely inspired by her post and inspired by the video for The 5 book that she recommended...and that I am totally purchasing!

So for those of you who need inspiration check out Live-Inspired.com, it will make you smile.

Tatum

Rip It A Little Bit More, Then Shovel!

Apparently while ripping up the dining room carpet I got a bit distracted:

You see the polish remover? Clearly I must have had to remove chipped polish, Lord forbid I remove carpet with chipped polish! Seriously though, I have absolutely no clue why that is even there, but I do know why the paint fan is there. I flip through the paint fan like I flip through a book, OFTEN.

Finally after pulling up about a thousand staples out of the dining room floor, we were finished! Check out this beautiful STAINED sub-floor!

If you remember, we closed on our house on October 30th, which meant winter was upon us. So we decided that we better leave the living room carpet in tact a little while longer while we tackle this:

Working outside was a welcomed break from the inside, but we enjoy it!

Tatum

I'm Getting Married...If I Plan A Wedding.

Well today for some random reason the fact that it's coming up on a year (September 23) since I became engaged, I'm becoming more aware of the fact that we have yet to really plan anything. Yeah it's been quite a challenge for Chris and I because we cannot turn our attention from our home! We realize that the house will be a continued process but it's sooooo hard to switch gears!

Well I mention on my about me page that I am going to talk a bit about the wedding process but I've yet to really do that. So I'm going to move my Ducktales blurb from it's lonely page to the home page and hope to start a continued blog roll with at bare minimum an occasional update. So for those of you who haven't read it yet here is where Ducktales begins. For those of you who've already read it, future plans to come!

O.k. so you may be wondering what the heck Ductktales is.  If you’re thinking that it’s a tribute to a certain duck family of 4 from the late eighties that look something like this

Then you are quite mistaken. The Duck that Ducktales is actually referring to is way more real and quite the looker if I do say so myself. What do you think?

Oops! Sorry about that…wrong picture. In all seriousness my Duck is much cuter and not nearly as goofy looking. He’s below!

This is the Duck that Ducktales is derived from, he’s more commonly known as Chris Duckworth to most and hey Babe to me. The reason that Ducktales exists is because I too will one day be a duck. That’s right people Chris proposed!!! {create the visual of me jumping and cheering with joy} and I will soon become Tatum Duckworth. Has a ring to it doesn’t  it?! Well actually it doesn’t. As much as I want Duckworth to be my last name I’d want it to be even more if my first name was Daisy. Daisy Duckworth…ahh now that has a ring to it! But what’s in a name right? “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Juliet said that. I guess for me that will translate into something like “that which we call a man named Duckworth by any other name would still be as fantabulous!!! Or something like that. Either way I’m the lucky girl and he chose me!! I will wear that name as a badge of honor and love. I WILL BE A DUCK and NOTHING BUT DEATH WILL KEEP ME FROM IT!!!!  

I’m sure we will plan some super great beautiful platinum wedding! Well maybe not platinum…unless of course we win the Mega Millions which I am really optimistic about. And did I mention that he proposed on my Birthday in September? A story that I will share with you real soon (it’s a GREAT story). Anyway, we’ve barely begun planning anything because unlike most women, I have no interest in planning a wedding. As a matter of fact I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up in a Vegas drive through…if that’s not a clear indication of not wanting to plan I don’t know what is.

Yep, that would be our wedding photo if I don’t get on the ball. Fortunately he is interested in having a beautiful wedding and has taken steps to actively make it happen! I’m guessing I should get on board because that backdrop is not idyllic and though I don’t feel like planning I do love all things pretty!!