Ten on Tuesday

{1}

Justin finally caved and has agreed to run "with" me.
We're doing our very first run as a family in two weeks.

{2}

My 31st birthday came and went.

There was ice cream cake.

There was a birthday dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant.

There was a very cranky toddler at said Mexican restaurant.

(Guess who he belonged to?)

There was a trip to the playground after said birthday dinner, not to reward the cranky toddler but rather to give his exasperated parents a few minutes to regain their sanity while the kiddo played.
And sanity was found, together with a little fun:

And a beautiful birthday sunset:

{3}

The icing on the (ice cream) cake:
My awesome hubby got me a paint sprayer for my birthday!!

Does that fella know me well or what?
I haven't tried it out yet, but you can bet I'll let you know when I do.

{4}

And the award for best a capella rendition of 'Happy Birthday' sang on my voicemail goes to my brother-in-law Mike who, incidentally, was also my very first birthday caller.
Love ya, Mike!

{5}

I am only on my second day of my half-marathon training and I am already rethinking my decision to use the intermediate training program instead of the novice one I used last year.
I would laugh at my stupidity if my abs didn't hurt so much from yesterday's workout.

{6}

Just a reminder to those of you in the Eastern Washington area:
tomorrow is Positive Life Radio's Christmas in July Food Drive.
Click here to find your nearest drop-off location.

{7}
And speaking of Christmas, exactly five months from today I expect to be enjoying some peppermint mocha coffee with my sisters in sunny super dark Fairbanks, Alaska.
(mark your calendars, sisters)

{8}
Kendry's once noble motto of "Its nice to share" has been extended to "Its nice to share with Kendry".
How's that for typical toddler mentality?

{9}
 My current motto:
"The terrible 2's will not defeat me!"

{10}

This Week's Blessing:
Becoming another year wiser.

Adventures in Chalk Paint, Chapter 1

In case you didn't see my declaration on Facebook last week, my wonderful family bought me two cans of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and one can of Annie Sloan wax for my birthday - and with this gift the knowledge that Artworks Spokane (a mere 2 hours from Clarkston) stocks/sells Annie Sloan Chalk Paint! Yeah, baby!

My first two colors: Louis Blue and Cream.

I tried Cream on a quick project this weekend:

yard sale framed photo for $4

(you should know that I'm a horrible haggler)

What is that they say about imitation being the most sincere form of flattery?

I saw this done over at Thrifty and Chic not long ago and was dying to give it a try for myself.

Hers:

Mine:

I did just one coat of Cream chalk paint. After it dried (in no time at all, mind you) I distressed it lightly with find grit sandpaper and then gave it one coat of spray-on poly. I didn't use my AS wax because I want to do it right with a wax brush, which I still need to purchase.

I found the beautiful yellow and white floral fabric in my stash and cut it to fit the glass. I sprayed the underside of the glass with spray adhesive and attached the fabric to the glass. Then I re-attached the original backing of the frame to its underside to hold the glass in place.

Finally, I found the cool vintage hardware at my Habitat store for cheap. I drilled holes in each side of the frame and attached the hardware.

My beautiful new tray:

Cost breakdown:

Paint: free (gift)

Fabric: already had

Frame: $4

Hardware:  $3

TOTAL: $7

I need to get me some more chalk paint!

Knock Knock

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Orange.

Orange who?

Orange you glad we have decided this isn't quite the shade we were going for on our front door?

YOWSA!!

The color is Orange Slice - a pretty accurate name since it makes our door look like a tangerine, no?

Am I the only one who struggles with matching a swatch with the color I have in my mind?

Although orange was our color of choice, we were after more of a squash shade of orange. 

Short of taking an actual squash with me to Home Depot I'm not sure how to remedy my personal swatch shortcoming.

And yes, when I say the color 'we' were after I mean both me and Justin.

Much to my surprise (and yours too, no doubt) he was on board with this splash of color from the moment I introduced the idea.

Here are some of my inspiration pics:

Google

source

source

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Now if you will excuse me, I am off to buy a squash and head over to the paint store.

Wish me luck!

Blogolution Update: Let's Talk In My Office

For the first two years of Kendry's life his bedroom also served as our office area, with a large desk taking up an entire wall of the bedroom. A beautiful and very functional desk, to be sure. We purchased it from Fred Meyer when we were just newlyweds and it has worked great for us. But a large desk isn't all that convenient in the bedroom of a busy toddler who is ever accumulating toys. Alas, our old Dell laptop was not wi-fi compatible so that wall of Kendry's bedroom was about the only place to keep the modem, computer and Vonage hookup. We live in an old house with weird wiring - thats as far as I'm going to dive into that subject.

As you can imagine, the very day that our vintage Dell laptop went bezerk last April I seized the opportunity to finally bring about some change and moved the desk down to the basement. And the rest, as they say, is history: we bought a new computer that is indeed wi-fi compatible and Kendry gained some quality square footage in his bedroom for storing more toys. Suddenly we were those people, toting our laptop to wherever we went in the house - the dining room table at breakfast, the living room couch while watching TV, the kitchen counter while following a new recipe found online, the side of the bathtub while sitting on the toilet...

Ha! Just kidding. Just checking to see if you're still reading this. And really, a laptop in the bathroom? That just invites disaster, as in me forgetting I now have a webcam and accidentally dialing up my mother-in-law on Skype...

...okay, moving on...

This nomadic laptop problem didn't sit too well with my 'gotta have a place for everything' attitude. Not having an official desk space for the computer to reside was driving me crazy!

Fortunately last winter, while I was already anticipating clearing that huge desk out of Kendry's room, I came across a simple desk and chair at Goodwill. I paid $20 for the pair.

 A good sanding of the top of the desk revealed beautiful wood just begging for a dark stain.

You get where this is going.

I refinished the desk in Sherwin Williams Jubilee, and the adorable chair was painted Rustoleum Heirloom White.

Before the desk and chair reveal, however, I will allow you to see the area that I am sorta tackling next in our house. We simply refer to it as the laundry area. It stems off the main area of our home, with the door on the right leading to our full bath and the door at the rear leading to our back yard.

Please disregard the ghetto a/c unit sticking in through the back of our house, especially since we had central air installed nearly two years ago and haven't used this a/c unit since. For now we'll simply pretend its holding up our back wall until we can get a window installed in its place.

Here is the spot I have designated for our new office and command center:

BEFORE

AFTER

I kept the original hardware, only I spraypainted it oil-rubbed bronze.

I also lined the drawers.

And here is my little farmhouse office chair.

NEXT UP:

The command center wall above the desk

 and a modified table taken from an Ana White plan.

Linking up at:

My Husband The Warrior

Saturday found us in North Bend, Washington for the big Warrior Dash.

I may have been more excited for this race than Justin was and I wasn't even competing.

In Justin's defense, he was more worried than excited because we cut our time a little short getting to North Bend and then catching the bus from the parking lot over to the race grounds.

But here he is with his game face on and fifteen minutes to spare before the starting gun (actually starting torches of fire which triggered panicked crying from Kendry, poor thing).

 Then in line to start,

intensely planning his race strategy perhaps?

 And they're off!

 

The course was just over 3.5 miles long and spectators could only view about the last 150 meters of the race.

Justin's parents accompanied us to the race so once Justin was out of sight the four of us set about people watching.

If there is one thing you should know about me its that I loovve to people watch,

and this event did not disappoint.

Check out some of these costumes:

 Is anyone else a wee bit suspicious about these tighty-whitey tan lines?

I had no idea the Tooth Fairy was competing!

Talk about a unique wedding.

 By the way, we saw this girl toward the end of the race and her dress was still totally white.

How is that possible?

This friendly contestant posed for me with her post-race turkey leg.

Not having napped properly for the second day in a row, Kendry was a bit moody.

We did our best to keep him occupied while we waited for Justin to round the last bend.

He did not want to cooperate for photos;

ironically, this one turned out to be one of my faves anyway:

I'm pretty sure Kendry and Grandpa are making the same face in this picture:

Finally Justin came back into view:

Yeeaahhh, then the stupid camera battery died just as Justin approached the fire jumps.

And I had just changed the batteries before the race!

(It seems someone put the used batteries back into the bag instead of throwing them away, not that I'm naming any names...)

While we love our camera, the thing eats up batteries like a fat kid eats twinkies.

Fortunately, this chica knows how to finesse our camera when she is being difficult.

By quickly turning her off and on, off and on, I was able to snap photos of Justin finishing the muddiest part of the race.

Upon finishing, Justin rinsed off a bit before he came to find us so I photographed this guy's legs instead, just so you can see how truly muddy this race was.

This photo was taken after this guy shook off his muddy hula skirt while standing behind us.

Silly us for thinking that as bystanders we wouldn't get dirty at this race.

And to think I almost wore white pants - eeek!

A small snack seemed to cheer up this grumpy viking for a few minutes anyway.

Justin and I are already talking about doing the race together next year.

Whatever shall we wear for our costumes?

{Justin's official race time: 38:13.75}

Ooo, I almost forgot to show you this crazy pile of muddy shoes donated by the runners after the race: