All The Things!

We've done a few things over the past week that are worth mentioning. Like I said before, we aren't tackling any huge projects for a bit, but are continuing to do a few small things. Most of what we've been doing lately is decoration, but it's amazing what a few things hung on the walls does to a space. We've done a few more home improvement-ish things too.

I'm really dumb and forgot to mention that we finally got our furniture a few weeks ago (so much for mid June). The first floor looks so much more complete now. We got a sofa, big ole chair, and two end tables. They're big, comfy, and Jeremy-nap certified.

Ellie Approved

Perfectly Positioned for Jeopardy! Watching

It's an End Table

Another thing that we've done is remedy a problem that apparently comes when a cat discovers how fun box springs can be. Yep... Ellie decided she likes to rip holes in the underside of our beds' box springs and climb around in them. So, since we don't think that's a great place for a kitty to hang out (and it's annoying to hear a cat messing around under you while you try to sleep), we put a stop to it. My original thought was to put a layer of cardboard between the box springs and the bed frame, but then a stroke of brilliance lead me to fitted sheets. We bought some cheap fitted sheets from Target and put them on the bottom side of the springs. We haven't had a problem since.

Destroyed by Cat

Fixed by Man

We've also started putting up some pretty things in the house. We've added some decor to the fireplace mantel, but haven't finished yet (getting some artwork for up there in the next few weeks). And the little wooden bird is from our honeymoon in Gatlinburg / Pigeon Forge, TN.

The walls are no longer bare as we've hung a few canvases - one is a print of a picture I took of the Grand Canyon in 2010 and the other is one of two pieces that I brought back from Brazil when I was there in 2009. I took the paintings off their frames so they'd fit in my suitcase (along with other souvenirs including, I think, four hammocks), so we had to get them re-stretched onto frames. Leslie found a place in town that did the work for a pretty reasonable price and we finally got around to taking them in. It's nice to have at least one of these hanging up after bringing it back so long ago. We also hung up something that Leslie brought back from Ireland in 2009. It means "One hundred thousand welcomes" in Gaelic. We put it above the bank of light switches just inside the front door.

We also got the bookcase in our bedroom all put together. Well, it was assembled awhile ago, but didn't have books and things arranged all nicely on it like it does now. It's nothing too fancy, but it works well and it's nice to have some (ok, lots) of reading material close at hand.

And yay for summer food! We got some blueberries from Leslie's mom and put them to good use. We made brinner with blueberry pancakes, spicy sausage patties, and hash browns a few days ago. I didn't take pictures of that one because I was too busy eating the delicious brinner! (Hashtag "Murica" maybe?) We also made a bunch of blueberry orange muffins. We made more than enough to fill up our two larger muffin tins, so we decided to use what was left of the batter to fill some mini-muffin tins. Bite sized baked goods - it doesn't get much better than that.

Since it's summer, we decided to try out a recipe that sounded summer-ish and fun (seems logical). We recently got our first issue of the All Recipes magazine and found something in there that sounded perfect - zucchini pie. I'm not usually much of a zucchini person, but this was goooood. We made this along with some tomato soup and wow, I think I want to grow zucchini once we have a garden just so we can make this dish. Now, I'm probably building this recipe up too much, but it really hit the spot for us and we really enjoyed it. If you try it and hate it, well... I guess that's too bad. But you should try it. Fo real.

And last but not least, we've added a member to the family! Ellie now has a little brother named Bernard. We got him from the same place we got Ellie. He's a little over two months old and is just a little bundle of energy. I'm sure you'll be seeing more of this little guy in the future. Well, you know... unless Ellie decides to eat him.

Thanks for reading!

We'll Return After These Messages...

So yeah, we haven't posted anything in some time. We've clearly dropped the ball, since I'm sure everyone checks this blog out daily with great excitement and anticipation, just hoping for an update! But for those of you reading this (with any regularity or not), please accept our apologies for our absenteeism.

We haven't done a lot with the house recently and don't plan on doing anything major for a bit. We've added curtains to the den, though. So, with the exception of the small window above the kitchen sink that we probably won't do anything with anyway, we're done with window treatments on the first floor. Actually, I take that back - we still need to adjust the wood blinds we installed. Then we will be done with windows. And that's really all we've done around the house, with the exception of putting up some smoke detectors and whatnot, but those aren't cool enough to get pictures. Cuz really... smoke detectors? Not exactly the glamorous side of home improvement.

Den Curtains... and Ellie!

There was a fun event in Avon a few weekends ago - the Hendricks County Rib-Fest! Luckily for us this lovely event took place at Kingsway Christian Church, which is very close to our house. We walked over with some friends to enjoy some good food (can't beat ribs and elephant ears) and fireworks.

'Murica

Leslie and I have also been having some fun. We made margaritas the other day, which is always a good time. We also made chicken salad (with walnuts and grapes and other fun things). I even made mayonnaise from scratch for it, which was something I'd never tried before. The chicken salad recipe (which I modified only slightly) is definitely a keeper, but we didn't have any sour cream this time and will make sure we have it next time.

Boiler Up!

Mayo Making

In other news, we're still without internet. Supposedly, according to Leslie's latest phone conversation with AT&T, the work in our area should be finished on the 15th. So, if that actually happens, we will hopefully be able to schedule them to come out and hook us up shortly after. It would be very nice to start living in the modern world again. And to be able to play BF3 and Portal 2 online (and check out the oh-so-dangerous Steam summer sale).

That's about all that's going on around here. I'm also working nights right now, so that makes it pretty tough to get much done around the house. Hopefully once we get into August we'll have more time to work on projects again. Now, to reward you all for sticking with this post (or skipping to the bottom), here's a picture of our cat, the real star of the blog.

Upside Down Ellie

Oh, and one more thing - we haven't named the bonus room anything yet. It's not that we didn't love your suggestions... it's just that we didn't love your suggestions. We'll get back to this at some point, so we'll let you know more then. Thanks for reading!

A Few Finishing Things

We have really been taking it easy lately and focusing more on relaxing and spending some time together since a) we've done a lot of work and would like to enjoy it now, and b) because things are getting very busy at work for both of us and we won't have a lot of time together in July because I'll be working weird hours. So we've done a few things, but not a lot.

Leslie mentioned that we got "presents" from Menards and Lowe's on her birthday. While I don't think we can call them presents, since we did pay for them, the timing was nice and we were glad to have our purchases show up at last (now if only the furniture would get here...). We got the light fixture for the kitchen we ordered a few weeks ago along with the window blinds for our room. Both were installed fairly easily and make quite a difference in finishing up the rooms.

New Light Over the Table

We also finished painting the den a wonderful green colour. We moved a bookcase in and Leslie filled it up like it was at the apartment, but Leslie's dad will be making us two new bookcases to replace that one so we'll eventually be able to have our massive book collection spread out a bit more. We also added a bookcase to our room, which I'll show here once we get it a bit more organized. We're also going to have a different desk, but the old one is in place for now.

I don't know why we even buy her cat toys...

Ellie Helping Us Paint

Paint Paint Paint!

Walls Completed and Some Furniture Moved In

Our Nice, Green Den

Another finishing touch we've made is to buy window blinds for downstairs. They're on the two windows in the great room that face the street and on the large window in the kitchen facing the backyard. These are just the white faux wood blinds from Lowe's, but they look great and really make the rooms look more finished. Ellie also really like to play with the strings... so we'll have to work something out for that.

Faux Wood Blinds

The last little improvement we've done recently was to replace the shower head in the guest bathroom on the second floor. The shower head that was in there was less than great. It felt like a group of miniature fire hoses all hitting you at full blast. Not exactly pleasant. The new shower head is much nicer, though. I also changed out the shower arm to bring the head up higher (tall people like me really appreciate this). So you can all rest assured that if you come stay with us you will have a pleasant showering experience, even if you're over 5'10".

Before

After

And that about does it for what we've been up to on the house recently. These are all just little things, but it really makes me feel good knowing that we did these things ourselves when I know there are people out there who wouldn't have a clue when it comes to installing lights or shower heads. I'm looking forward to learning even more in the future as we attempt other projects.

July will probably be a slow month for house things, but we'll do our best to keep updating as we get work done here and there. In the meantime, thanks for reading and have a happy July 4th! Also, ten points to all everyone who got the "relaxing" joke right away.