remixology

it seems that blogs these days are for showcasing how you salvage & remix old furniture to be more hip, more your own. being the late-to-catch-the-boat person that i am, i finally got around to refinishing a side-table/night-stand that i was never too fond of. almost all of our furniture {except for our dining room table & bookshelf} have been hand-me-downs or gifted to us. we are grateful for the generosity of our friends & family, but most of our furniture just seems so random & not, well, us.

the side-table in its original state. boring & bleh to those handles.
it was functional though, as it fit our printer, housed our small dvd collection,
& hid our printer supplies, but was beat-up & ugly.

i trusted the advice of young house love & put some good ol' elbow
grease into making this table new to us.

i wish i would have gone with the blue on the lower half of the
paint chip, but i was being cautious since this was my first project.
the paint name: "totally scientific". who has the job of
naming paint colors anyway? they are so random!

there's that elbow grease i was talking about.
i did every step of this project, with no help from brandon.
{except for when he showed me that i was using the sander wrong.
it would have been a miserable project if he didn't correct me.}

then...
this is what this corner of the room used to look like.
we love the central oregon painting, but it didn't really fit there.
i'll admit, we just hung it on an existing nail when we moved in.
isn't that design laziness at its worst?

& now...
this is the corner with the new blue table, a candle from ross & jordyn,
an awesome fabric basket my mom made for us, photos of our
godson rowan & my sister hogan, & a cheap DYI
knock-off of {expensive!} crate & barrel prints.
we have two more prints on the other side of the room,
above a matching nook.

seriously, i love these prints! i also love this corner of
the living room so much more!
i'm not terribly fond of the tall{& ugly} lamp in the corner
that was left behind by the previous renter,
but it works for now. i foresee a future project for a hanging light...

to keep the light blue from looking too much like it belonged in a nursery,
i roughed up the edges. the scuffs & scratches make it look totally better!
 plus, it keeps me from worrying about it getting dinged or scratched...
it will only add to the character right?

so there you have it: my first furniture refinishing project. all the rest of my furniture better watch out, because i am on a mission!

happy valentine's day yo!

i have always loved valentine's day--not for the sweetheart sentiments and romantic expectations, but because this is a holiday based almost entirely on greeting cards and chocolate: two of my favorite things. some people balk that it is just a way to force us to buy things from hallmark. let's face it though, we don't do enough handwritten greeting card giving these days so if a couple days a year we celebrate our love through clever cards, i think we are all the better off for it. besides, in some relationships, this might be the only day a year when romantic acts are done. luckily this is far from the case in my marriage.

the other thing about this holiday that the social worker in me loves it that all school children (who are allowed to celebrate valentine's day) are required to give equal treatment to their classmates. sure, i always saved the best cards to give to my bestest friend or to the cute boy in class, but the mandate to distribute your superficial greeting-card-love across the board seems unique to this holiday.

also, pink and red look good together. that color combo soothes me in these grey winter days. so valentine's day, i am glad you come around in the dead of winter to brighten our moods, bearing delicious sweets, and forcing us to share the love.

letting go of another 366

i am certain we are not alone in feeling relief at saying "goodbye" to 2008, and more importantly, hope as we look forward to the new beginning we receive tomorrow.  there are few things that we know the dawn of 2009 will bring for us, other than a new year of taxes and another round of FAFSA filing.  (oh yeah, and the first african-american president--that's is an awesome change we can't take for granted!)  despite the unknown elements that come with a new year, it is always refreshing to have what feels like a new start. 

i am personally overjoyed to say "adios" to 2008.  for me it was the year of the head injury (similar, if you will, to the chinese year of the monkey) and i am glad to see it go.  this past year started, quite literally, with a bang: i woke up the morning of january 1 and whacked my head into the short ceiling of the guest bedroom at rob & becky's.  a month and a half later i slipped on the ice and received my first concussion.  post-concussion, it is apparently important to refrain from further head trauma; however, the world seems to have it out for my cranium so i have found myself sustaining many other injuries.  for instance, i slammed my head in the door of the car when kemi was visiting in moscow (at least i got a black eye for that one).  i have also managed to bash and bang up my head in some way nearly every week, whether it be in the attic-like storage space at mt. bachelor, on someone's bike racks, or in playing with harvey.  and then there was my nasty kayak carnage on granite creek this summer where my chin, nose, and kayak helmet drug along the rocky stream-bed.  

so my head especially looks forward to a new year, one in which it sustains fewer insults.  and now we have 2009, the year of the _____ injury.  guess we'll have to wait and see on that one.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

PEACE BE WITH YOU.

peace abounds

we found out the news while we were out in black butte with friends. it didn't seem real at the time, but then again there was that concession speech from mccain. we drove home in the snow and ice, still not quite willing to admit that this was real. that our america would forever be a different, albeit better, country because of this day and because of what these election results signify. it just seemed too scary to admit because surely it was too good to be true.

i have believed in obama, in his grassroots movement, and in the power of our democracy for over a year (prior to that i was pretty disgusted and embarrassed by what the u.s. had become). and yet, i didn't expect a freaking landslide! this tells me so much about my fellow americans and that the future we have in store for us as this country is revived and healed. as we work towards peace. oh, let it abound!

wow. i can't wait to wake up tomorrow morning and be a citizen of the united states of america--and to be damn proud of it too!

welcome to the white house mr. commander-in-chief!

getting snippy

what with us searching for jobs, a house, and having recently adopted a new puppy, it seems only suiting that i would plunge into another big change.

i've had long hair for a long time and thanks to an old friend and a brave hairstylist, i no longer do. out with the long, drab, hippy hair and in with the new, chic, bob. here is the photographic evidence of the big change. some of you may think, "who cares about a little haircut?" well, when it comes to big hair changes i have always been a little timid, so this is a big deal to me!

i really like it, although i haven't styled it yet, so that may change my feelings drastically. it should go well with my job at the hospital, don't you think? speaking of that, my interview went really well. they seemed to feel bad that they couldn't give me enough work, but hopefully that doesn't deter them from hiring.