Little Touches

Posted in House and Home by teamtradermom

We have officially lived in our house for 9 months.

9 MONTHS!

I can hardly believe it. Some moments it feels like 9 days; others like 9 years.

We love it. I pinch myself sometimes to think about how perfectly everything came together. This house literally had everything we were looking for (the only house that did) and we got such a good deal on it.

Are we totally settled in? Mostly. I say that because while all the rooms have the essentials in them – furniture and items to live on – there are still some finishing touches to be done.

At this point, I’m not pushing myself to have the house “Better Homes and Gardens” ready by any certain date. I find it goes better if I tackle a little bit here and there. Sometimes I need to have a moment of inspiration before I decide how to fill a space. Also, as I unpack boxes from the basement (yes, there are still quite a few) I find new homes for things (possibly different than where I had those same things in our old house).

All that to say, I’ve made some more progress in the last few weeks that I wanted to share.

Let’s start with the dining room. The last time we saw this tray, that I made using leftover fabric, it looked like this:

Since then, I’ve changed it up a bit by adding a vase of fresh flowers and a candle that my sister gave me for Mother’s Day (it’s actually yellow inside so sometimes I leave the lid off for an added punch of color and extra fragrance).

I like the grouping of 3 MUCH better and love the touch of organic and color added by having the flowers (also ties in nicely with the plant next to it).

Moving on to the kitchen….

So one of the things I found when digging through boxes was a bag full of magnets. See, we have a tradition that we buy a magnet from every new place we visit. However, our refrigerator is stainless steel so the front is not magnetized but the sides are. I decided to make a “wall of magnets” on the side with our travel ones.

I think it looks pretty cool and it’s a fun thing to see when you walk in from the garage! Isabella likes checking out all the different places and finding them on the map we have downstairs.

The kitchen in our old house was done in a coffee theme so I have a lot of wall hangings and decorations related to coffee. The new kitchen doesn’t have much room for that kind of stuff as we have a ton of cabinets and no real ‘free’ wall space.

I was able to find a sliver of wall wide enough for these little guys though.

They add that little extra something that the kitchen needed in that corner.

I also put some stuff up on top of the cabinets (pretend the counters are perfectly clean and that you don’t see the pile of dirty dishes).

Here’s the close-up.

I’d like to keep adding to the top of the cabinets as I think it provides additional interest and color without being too obvious, but I want to be careful not to overcrowd them.

While I was sorting through kitchen boxes, I came across my stack of cookbooks. I don’t use all of them (a couple I’ve never used), but they’re a natural item to display in the kitchen so I put them on the bottom of this accent table.

If you look back here, you’ll notice that originally I had some coffee trinkets on that bottom shelf. Those got put up on top of the cabinets to make room for the books!

Now let’s wander in to the living room, shall we?

So let’s start with my FABULOUS clearance find. I was shopping at Kohl’s and wandered over to the clearance bin in the home goods section. Nothing caught my eye until I glanced down at the bottom shelf and saw a beautiful orange/grey/tan/white rug. I noticed it because those are the colors in our living room, along with turquoise and the occasional splash of green. I picked it up and didn’t see any tags on it so I put it back and walked away. But I didn’t get far. I turned around and looked at it again, unsure. Do we really need a rug in there? What if it was a lot of money?

Then I remembered the Goodwill Incident of last week. See, I had spotted a really nice standalone full length mirror in one of the stores that would have been perfect in our bedroom. I didn’t get it because I didn’t feel like messing with hauling it to the car, blah blah. Well after a few days it was nagging at me so I went back and the mirror was gone.

Lesson learned: trust your gut!

So I took that rug up front and it was marked down 80% to $15!! Plus I had a 20% off coupon! Done and done!

And it looks awesome…

While we’re here, I’ll show you the rest of the living room, which is the one room in the house that is the most done.

By the way, those orange tub chairs were a garage sale find by CJ. He got both for $30. We had them in the basement of the old house, just to stage it, figuring we might get rid of them once we moved. The movers plopped them in the living room and we loved how it looked and ended up building the rest of the room around them!

I really like the unexpectedness of the round ottoman/coffee table. Ties in the curves of the tub chairs with the leather of the couch.

We bought that rocker when Isabella was born, to use for nursing at night and such. Since we’re way past all that, it got placed in here for extra seating. That’s pretty much where you’ll find CJ any night of the week that we’re home.

And of course the fireplace.

By the way, that back wall with the black and white pics is where we want to put built-in shelves. I think it would look awesome to have white built-ins with a space in the middle for a TV and picture. We will hopefully get going on that project soon…

All in all, I love how the room has come together. It’s very eclectic and unique (you won’t really find anything in our house that’s too matchy-matchy).

Couple more little things to point out.

This tray was born out of necessity.

See, I was painting my nails one night and put a polish remover soaked cotton ball on the table without thinking….and it ate away at the finish. Oops. What’s a girl to do but cover it up?

I made this tray using a picture we got in Ireland and a frame with the stand torn off (and some felt ‘feet’ tacked to it so as not to scratch up the table). Works like a charm!

I found this tray at Goodwill for $3.

That little ottoman was getting stained up from CJ putting his drinks on it so now he has a tray to put them in!

Finally, some additions to the gallery wall.

Here’s the before:

And the after:

Can you spot the additoins?

Yep, this collage I did of all the photo booth pics we’ve taken over the years.

We sort of have a thing about photo booths. If we see one while out on a date or traveling or something, we stop and get some pics taken. What can I say, it’s cheap fun!

I also added these 2 little prints that I found in the basement. Both of them are original prints I did in college.

So that’s the latest on the house! I have a lot of fun digging up new stuff and finding “homes” for them all. More updates to come as we continue to progress!

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26Jun2012

It’s a Mystery

Posted in CJ by teamtradermom

Have you ever played the game Clue? We played it all the time as a family growing up and I loved it!

Colonel Mustard, in the Ballroom with the lead pipe!

I’ve always had a fascination with mysteries – books, movies, TV shows, games, you name it. As a kid I read all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. As an adult I’ve loved anything by John Grisham, Alex Kava, James Patterson, and the like. CJ and I spend many nights watching Bones, Castle and Rizzoli and Isles too.

At one point I even wanted to be a detective when I grew up. Not sure when or why that changed. Heck, part of me STILL to be one.

So it should come as no surprise that when an opportunity to partake in the Fremont Dinner Train Murder Mystery with a group of co-workers came up, I was all over it.

In a nutshell, the Murder Mystery dinner train is a dining experience that gets the audience involved in solving a murder that took place on the train. Actors in full costume walk amongst you and provide clues while you enjoy a 5 course meal.

We boarded the train at 7:15pm on Saturday night.

We ate crudités and crackers while waiting for all to board and the train to start up. Once we got going, a funny little old man gave us a history of the train, along with rules (no smoking) and details about the evening’s agenda.

As the train moved along, we were treated to beautiful scenery.

I was glad we were able to do an evening in the summer, when it’s light out later in the day, so that we could see the landscape outside our windows. Had it been in the winter we would have missed it all.

The actors were walking around, in character, engaging in conversation with the tables. One of the gals started referring to CJ as “Dairy Queen”* because she said his hair looked like the swoosh on top of the cones.

What do you think?

Then this actress asked the 2 ladies sitting at the table with us if they would like to be part of the show! They would be playing the part of sisters who were models. One of the ‘sisters’ jumped right in (*cough* Kelly *cough*) while the other grudgingly agreed.

Don’t they look smashing?

Pretty soon the first course came out, which was a beef and barley soup.

I am a picky eater and was immediately suspicious of the soup – I mean beef and BARLEY?!? Really??? Plus, it looks kinda gross….but I gave it a go – and surprisingly liked it! I inhaled it as a matter of fact!

As we were eating, the actors got up and started the show. They had each table of 4 appoint a secretary (me, naturally) who would take notes and write down clues. Then they introduced the characters and started in on the story (which I won’t give the details of so as not to spoil it for anyone). Our job was to figure out who the killer was, how they did it and their motive.

We chomped on some salad (very good but I forgot to get a picture of it) while putting our heads together to decipher all the clues we got.

We continued our detective work over the main course.

I had the Pasta Primavera, which came with peas and fruit. CJ and the rest of our table ordered the Prime Rib. My pasta was decent and the peas and fruit were good. CJ said the Prime Rib was good too, though not anything to write home about.

At one point it was starting to get overwhelming with all the information from the actors. We had a lot of clues but none of them seemed to help narrow down the list of suspects.

Finally they served dessert, which was carrot cake.

As we pulled back in to the station, we were asked to write down our guess for the murderer, their means and motive and turn it in. Our table was split 50/50 as to who we thought it was. One of the actors came over and gave us a final clue, which was the last piece of the puzzle we needed. We turned in our answers and crossed our fingers.

They then announced that of all the tables (maybe 30 in total), only 5 got it right. And guess who was one of the 5?

That’s right – us!

And we got certificates to prove it!

All in all it was a really fun experience. It’s kind of pricey ($86 per person) but worth it for a date night splurge. We got dinner and a unique entertainment experience all in one! I would definitely recommend trying it at least once. They also do other kinds of shows besides mysteries, so those would be neat to check out too.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I feel like having some ice cream.

*Update: in no way am I trying to endorse or malign a certain ice cream restaurant chain’s image.

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23Jun2012

Damage

Posted in Family by teamtradermom

We had a storm in Omaha last night. A pretty big one. At least you’d think so by looking at our backyard.

Let’s rewind a bit.

We went to bed last night without a care in the world and no clue a storm was coming (at least I didn’t know). I woke up at 4:30 to winds pounding the house and rain pelting down on the windows. Shortly after I awoke, Isabella did too. She started crying and was scared. I got her and we looked out the front windows. The trees were taking a beating. I seriously thought I was going to see one snap in half before my eyes.

I put her back to bed but she didn’t want to be alone so I let her come in and sleep with us.

I use the term “sleep” very loosely.

She and CJ slept (because he moved to the guest room). I however dozed in and out. It’s hard to get good sleep with a 2 year old nearly on top of you who won’t allow any covers.

We all eventually got up at 7:15 and this is what we found.

A backyard ravaged.

It appears that the our backyard took the brunt of the storm for the neighborhood because looking around it appeared that no one else had any damage. Even our front yard looked totally fine.

You wouldn’t even know it rained in the front had the driveway not been wet.

But I guess because we’re on a corner and at the bottom of a hill, our backyard becomes a wind tunnel during storms.

Here’s what we found upon closer look at the back.

All of Isabella’s outdoor toys were knocked over and thrown.

Her big playhouse, which had been anchored in to the ground, was blown apart and wrapped around the trees in the birch grove.

(That big brown patch is where the house had been rooted.)

Isabella’s swimming pool was tossed to the back corner of the yard, along with some chairs and her sand table.

The patio chairs were whipped around and my pot that I made on an outing with co-workers was broken.

There was also another plant casualty as the one basket on my shepherd’s hook was carried across the patio…

…and my grandma’s birdbath was knocked over (but thank goodness not broken).

All in all, it was quite a mess.

However, I feel very lucky that it wasn’t worse. We could have had roof damage, windows broken, siding ripped off, or any number of other casualties to the house. The fact that it was limited to “stuff” in the backyard was a blessing – and all of it was repairable except the broken pot and a few ground lights.

So, once the rain cleared and the sun came out, we headed outside to clean up!

I was a bit worried about how Isabella would react to her playhouse being thrown asunder, but she handled it very well.

Here she’s inspecting things and trying to figure it all out.

She actually ended up liking it broken and started crying when CJ pulled it out of the trees.

He had to fully pull it apart so that the various pieces could dry out (they were all water logged).

Isabella helped with the clean up too.

She lifted her Cozy Coupe upright.

And pulled the sand table out of the birch grove.

She also made sure to go around and close the shutters on the windows of her playhouse, you know, to keep any more rain out.

I can’t say that Samson helped all that much.

He was more interested in sunning himself.

I was able to save the Begonias and Bat-faced Cupea that I had planted in my white strawberry pot (the one that was broken). I replanted them all in a hanging basket and hung them up in the newly open crook.

We pretty much have everything cleaned up now. We (ok CJ) still has to put Isabella’s playhouse back together but that shouldn’t take too long. Otherwise things are as good as new.

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22Jun2012

Gym Rats, part 2

Posted in Uncategorized by teamtradermom

I like to people watch. Whether I’m shopping, driving, waiting for a movie to start or walking around my neighborhood, I love to observe people and make up stories about them in my head.

The gym is no exception.

I posted a few months ago about the various people and personality types I’ve encountered at the gym. I’ve now been going regularly for 6 months and thought it would be fun to provide an update.

In my original post, I defined some categories that I thought the majority of gym-goers could be grouped in to. They still hold true, although I’ve learned more about some of the specific folks over the months.

Muscle heads. This is the group of (mostly) men whose sole purpose at the gym is to get big. I originally cited Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum as examples of this type. They are still there at the gym every morning, doing their exact same routine, with no variation. In my mind they are brothers who work for their father’s construction company, which probably has a name like “Polochek and Sons”.

A new addition to this group is Mr. Clean.

(source)

As the name would suggest, he’s a big dude – tall and built – with a shaved head. I was originally intimidated by him but then one day he smiled and held a door open for me so I saw a crack in the exterior. And then I started noticing his OCD. He sanitizes his hands after every machine he goes to. Now, I’ll give you that the gym is teeming with germs. But to sanitize every minute or so is a bit of overkill. My guess is that he’s a fire fighter. Not sure why, he just seems like the type. And though I’ve never heard him talk, I imagine him having a voice that is higher pitched than you’d expect for his size.

Geriatrics. The old people. The elders who walk at level 2.0 on the treadmill or spend their time sitting in the hot tub.

The Godfather is still there holding court. I noticed him watching me one day while he was on the bike and I was using a nearby weight machine. I think if I had made eye contact he would have said something to me. He seemed to be waiting for the right moment. I probably owe him back payments for my 6 months of time there.

(source)

Aerobics-aholics. These are the folks who only join the gym for the classes. Ironically enough, that’s the reason I joined in the first place. But I’ve ended up doing it on my own. Haven’t felt like going to a class yet, other than spinning.

In my first post, I mentioned “The Jans”. I’ve since met the Jans and know their real names (which I won’t reveal here, for the sake of their anonymity). I also know people who know the Jans. Small world, eh? They are both very nice ladies and I’ll be the first to admit they work way harder than I do. Tall Jan was sweating up a storm on the elliptical today (there are no classes on Monday mornings) and I was like, damn, I need to kick it up a notch!

Iron (Wo)men. These people live for the next race/event. They have a closet full of t-shirts and medals to prove it too!

An interesting update here. The Marathoners that I mentioned back in January seem to have broken up. He still comes but she does not. In my mind, I imagine that he cheated on her with someone else from the gym (he’s always flirting with the ladies) and so she broke it off and now goes to another location. To further back up my theory, I saw this Marathoner Man running with another chick this morning. Aha!

(source)

Routine Warriors. They’re in and out, doing the same thing every single day. The Scowler is still there though surprisingly enough, she’s started mixing it up in the last week or so. I like to think that she’s a teacher and since school’s out, has decided to add some variety. She even brought her daughter a couple times and…wait for it…I actually saw her crack a smile!

It kind of freaked me out.

There’s another routine warrior guy who I like to call The All American. He’s your typical “dumb jock” looking dude. I’d bet money that we was an all-star High School quarterback. He has that vibe about him.

(source)

(oh come on, I had to include the top 2 pretty but perhaps one yard short of a touchdown jocks in the NFL)

He does weights every day and then adds cardio on Tuesday and Wednesdays. He always wears a hat too, so it’s hard to get a good look at his face. He seemed to be a handsome dude and is most likely married to a cheerleader. Definitely fit, and with hair like Jon Bon Jovi (his current ‘do, not the 80’s mane). Then one day he came in sans hat and with a haircut! Suddenly I could see his face and was disappointed. I caught myself hoping he would start wearing the hat again. He wasn’t ugly by any means but the hat sure helped.

There are a couple of new characters too.

One of them is Kung Fu Guy. When I first saw this guy I internally rolled my eyes and thought “oh Lord.” This is a dude who truly does his own thing. He walks around the gym doing punching moves to the beat of his music and every once in a while he’ll throw in a kick or a shuffle. He’s the exact OPPOSITE of the routine warriors. Every day he does something different. I’ve seen him use the machines, run sprints in the gym, roll massive tires around, do calisthenics with basketballs, jump up on benches, and more. Always while rocking to his iPod and intermixing his Kung Fu moves. I initially thought he was just plain weird. Then I realized he was the same guy who works at the front desk who is really nice to me! I didn’t recognize him because when he’s working, he wears glasses.

You know how Superman is totally unrecognizable as Clark Kent simply because of the glasses? I always thought this was pretty ludicrous. I mean really, like glasses make that big of a difference.

(source)

I guess they do! It literally took me 3 months to figure out that front desk guy and Kung Fu guy were one in the same. Now I have a healthy respect for him. Kudos to him for doing his own thing and not giving a damn about what anyone else thinks!

Maybe he fights crime too which would be super cool.

The other new character is Flirty Girl. This gal does her workout solely according to which hot guy she wants to talk to or flirt with. If she sees a promising dude on the elliptical, she goes over there. If there is a cluster of hotness using the weights, she’ll move toward them. She’s cute and fit so they always flirt back. She’s never given me the time of day – not even a smile – since, you know, I have breasts and so would be of no use to her. Now that I think about it, I’ve never seen her chatting it up with any other women either. It’s always men.

As for me, I am probably still a combo of a Routine Warrior and Iron Woman. If I’m not training for a specific event, like the Warrior Dash, then I have a fairly set formula that I follow. Cardio every day + arms on Mondays, legs on Tuesdays, full body on Thursdays. I haven’t really taken the time to get to know anyone at my gym. I usually have my iPod strapped to my arm and that tends to signal to people to leave me be. Which is fine. I’m not there for the social aspect, I’m there to sweat.

And to people watch.

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19Jun2012

From the Mouths of Babes: Rhyme Time

Posted in From the Mouths of Babes by teamtradermom

Isabella and I have been practicing rhyming lately. You know, for when we start our own hip hop group, “Izzie and Momzy.”

I was telling Grandma how well Isabella is doing and wanted to demonstrate so I said, “Munchkin, what rhymes with ‘sit’?”

She looked at me and replied, “SHIT!”

I immediately flashed back to when I was 10 and called my sister a bitch. I had soap in my mouth so fast, even Superman couldn’t save me. In horror, I turned to see what my parents reaction would be.

They both burst out laughing.

I then started to wonder where in the world Isabella got that word from since we’re careful not to swear around her (sure, we slip up now and again but overall we’re pretty darn good about it). My question was answered when she went on to say, “And cake rhymes with SHAKE! And dirt rhymes with SHIRT! And park rhymes with SHARK!”

She was simply rhyming everything with ‘sh-‘ words.

Phew!

Just in case, I’ll steer clear of asking her to rhyme words with ‘duck’ or ‘witch’ or ‘class’.