Finally. FINALLY!!

We have the curtains up in the master bedroom!

You may recall that they’ve been on backorder for 2 months! Well they arrived Friday and we hung them up on Monday!

I was worried at first that the dark color would be too much for the room. In our old house it would have made the bedroom look like a matchbox. But in this house, the room is big enough to handle it. And the cool pattern gives them some added interest.

Also, these are blackout curtains. Personally, light filtering into the room doesn’t bother me. But CJ is very sensitive to it and insisted we get light-blocking drapes. I actually bought 2 other sets and took them back before landing on these. The other ones were from Target and didn’t block the light at all. These are from JCPenney and do a great job.

Here’s what the room would look like at night if we didn’t have the curtains.

I kept the lamps on because otherwise I couldn’t get a good picture.

Here’s the room with the curtains closed.

I know from the photos they don’t look all that different, but trust me, they are.

We really love them both for how they finish off the room nicely and because they make sleeping that much easier. And really, anything that does that is a winner in my book!

In other news…

I mentioned a couple weeks ago about going on a flower potting expedition with some girls from work. I had left my pot at the garden center because the owner of the shop keeps them and fertilizes/waters/etc. to make sure the flowers get over the shock of being replanted.

Well I got it back yesterday and here it is!

I took a pretty little white strawberry pot and put Begonias around the side and a Batface Cuphea in the middle.

The Begonias are already starting to fill out and grow.

The Batface Cuphea is on its regeneration phase. In other words, most of the flowers fell off and a new batch is growing in!

They are called “batface” because some people think that the flowers look like little bat faces, with the top petals being the ears and the purple fuzzy inside being the face.

I put the pot outside near the back corner, so it can be seen from the back or side of the house. I put some hanging baskets next to it to create a pretty little grouping.

Ten bonus points if you can spot the sad faced Labrador who’s sick and tired of having to wear his leash every time he goes outside. Sorry buddy, 3 more weeks…

I think as the flowers grow and fill out, this will look really pretty.

I plan to do more planting this weekend, filling in the pots out front and adding some others to the back.

That’s all for now! Time to wrap it up for bed!

If you liked this, you might also like:

The Gallery | Spring Things | S & C

Happy May Day!

The start of a new month means it’s time to look back at the previous one and see how I’ve been doing with my New Year’s Resolutions.

Before we get to the specifics, let’s take a moment to look at how many I’ve crossed off completely – a whopping three (organize the front room, break Isabella of her “oobie” habit, and move Isabella to a toddler bed)! Doesn’t seem like a lot given that my original list had 15+ things on it but most of those items are ongoing, longer term habits, which is different than getting one thing forever done. 

In the spirit of honesty and transparency, I have to admit something. I removed 2 of my goals. Both were in the “Spiritual” category. One was to find a church that we would go to regularly and one was to pray every day. These are both very good goals to have and important for sure, but I just cannot seem to make them a priority. Does that make me a heathen of some sort? No, I don’t think so. We do pray and we talk about spiritual things to Isabella, and someday we’ll find a church that is “us” but just not today. 

Now, let’s get on to the rest of the list!

Family and Home:

1.  Do at least one family outing a month. We did all kinds of things this month! We went to a couple of new playgrounds (one of which Isabella fell off of…scary!),

out to dinner at a new restaurant, and wandered around the Gene Leahy Mall downtown (granted this was for family pictures but it totally counts). 

2.  Tackle the following home projects this year:

• Buy and hang curtains on all the windows.  Still waiting for the back-ordered drapes for the MBR to come in. They are due in on 5/3 so hopefully I’ll have a post dedicated to that finished project soon. Also need something for the LR and kitchen. 
• Unpack the remaining boxes in the basement.  Hurray! I’ve actually made progress on this one! I was mad at myself at the end of March for saying 3 months in a row that I didn’t have an update so I got off my lazy butt and started to do something about it. Basically, I told myself that every time I went to the basement to play with Isabella (she has a whole other toy room down there), I would go through at least one box and figure out what to do with the contents. I can happily report that 3 boxes are gone for good (with the stuff either donated or tossed) and several other boxes have been reduced and combined. In fact, it was this exercise that spurred me in to doing the gallery wall.

These 2 home accents also came about as a result of digging through boxes in the basement.

This is an antique end table that was gifted to CJ. I finally brought it up and put some stuff on it.

It’s sitting in the space between the kitchen and living room:

The flower print and wooden gazelle were both Goodwill finds. The rest I found while digging around in boxes.

This tray and these mugs were also dug up from the basement. The tray used to look like this:

I changed it by cutting some scrapbook paper to fit the bottom section and glued it down! An easy change that made a big difference.

I also brought up this plant stand that had been lurking downstairs and put it to good use!

The coffee décor were other basement finds.

I tucked this at the end of our kitchen island. I originally had a plant on the island itself but it was taking up valuable space.

Moving it off to this stand has really opened up the room and made a huge difference!

• Create a sitting room within the master bedroom.  No progress on this one. I keep looking for just the right chair during my Goodwill and thrift store shopping adventures. Nothing has jumped out at me yet though. 
• Add built in shelves to the living room by the end of the year.  I’m starting to get antsy about getting this one under way. Soon, my precious, soon. 

3.  Have Isabella potty trained by her 3rd birthday (September 30). No real progress here. I am feeling pressure like we should be doing more. Just not sure what. Ugh.  

4.  Research pre-schools and enroll Isabella in one to start in the fall of 2012. No progress on this one either. Need to start making appointments to visit them. 

Financial and career:

5. Attend one career professional event a month.  Done!

6.  Spend less money.  Doing  pretty well at this. Am figuring out more and more ways to save which is satisfying. Also got a good chunk of the credit card paid off but then we had to turn around and charge $1000 for Samson’s surgery. 1 step forward, 1 step back. 

Physical and health:

7. Adopt one new healthy habit each month:

• March – Do some type of physical activity IN ADDITION to regular workouts
• April – Drink at least 64 oz. each day (includes water, tea, or juice. Does NOT include pop or alcohol)
• May – Make a daily gratitude list
• June – Try to walk 10,000 steps every day
• July – limit sweets to once a day 

I’ve made a mess of this list. I switched March and April because March was too chilly for outdoor activity. So April was supposed to be about doing more physical activity in addition to daily workouts. It didn’t exactly happen. There were a few days where I went for an extra walk in the afternoon, but those were rare. I really wanted May to be about limiting sweets to once a day (which is supposed to be July’s habit). 

I just can’t make up my  mind. What it comes down to is this: I really think that if I drink more water and eat fewer sweets, by body will follow with more energy, fewer zits, and fewer  pounds. So that’s what I’m doing for May – essentially taking a redo on one habit and adding in the other. It won’t be easy as those are both big weaknesses of mine, but it’s now or never.

Social and cultural:

8. Attend at least 4 cultural events this year (e.g. Broadway shows, concerts, museum exhibitions).  I don’t think there were any this month. Though we did buy tickets to see Red Hot Chili Peppers when they come in October! 

9. Regularly participate in events put on by the social clubs I belong to (speakers events, parties, happy hours, etc).  I participated in a happy hour for work and in another social outing to plant flowers (wherein I bought this guy). 

10.  Go on a date night with CJ once a month. Ya know, I don’t think we had a date night in April. Epic fail!

All in all, I think I’m doing well. Could be better but could also be worse, so I’ll take it. Still plodding along and getting things done! 

If you liked this, you might also like:

March – How’d I do? | February Check In | January Check In