Ladies and Gentlemen...may I present to you....a SHOWER!

So, let me tell you a story.  A tidbit really.  A well-known or lesser-known fact, depending on who you are.  Everyone loves getting calls.  Especially from people you like, or even, dare I say it, love.  But there are times when maybe those phone calls aren't at the best time, don't make you feel that great, or bear bad news.  This is a story about one of THOSE calls.

I am at work a few days ago (yes, be astounded and hateful for me) and I receive a lovely phone call from hubs.  It went like this:

Me:  Hey.
Hubs:  Hey.  So I'm, uh, at Home Depot.  And well, you know those tiles that we are putting all over our bathroom?
Me:  (slightly annoyed since I'm at work and he isn't) uh, yeah.
Hubs:  Well, they've been discontinued.  And Home Depot is out.  So I'm going to the one in Sterling (he may have said Reston, I don't remember) since they have some and am going to buy a whole bunch.
Me:  Oh.  Okay, do they have enough?  (this is where I started to panic a little).
Hubs:  I hope so.  Ok, love you bye.
Me:  Bye.

Yeah, not exactly what you want to hear when you are in the middle of a bathroom remodel.  But alas, we (he) thinks we have enough now.  And I was graced with the below picture:

Today (Friday) the shower door people are coming to take measurements and then in a week or so, we get shower doors!  Yay!  Also, you can't see it in the picture but last night I was greeted with crown molding (very chic) and a completed tub!  He's so handy.  I may just keep him around for a while.

UPDATE:  SEE CROWN MOLDING:

SEE TUB:

SEE EXCITED NICKY: 





It's beginning to look a lot like a bathroom...everywhere you look....

And so our bathroom takes another leap in the construction dimension and we have tile!  On the wall! And floor.  And there is a shelf.  It isn't quite finished, in fact there is a long, long way still to go.  But, I can actually see how it will look as opposed to a depressing, hole of destruction.  I know you have all been waiting to see and without further ado (ignore the paint color, it's not really that bright and hideous):

PAINT! PAINT!

I spent a good portion of some weekend, I believe last weekend, painting.  Those of you who know me know that I abhor painting.  I am too OCD to enjoy it.  I want to make it perfect.  And if it's not, I stress.  And frustrate.  Because of this, I'm actually a really good painter.  Not only do I work quickly, but it looks good.  So I painted the toilet room, two coats, all by myself.  Not a single paint drop was done by hubs.  Then I painted the majority of the main room.  I also shocked the hell out of hubs last Monday when after working extra at work, came home, made chili, and did the entire second coat on the main room.  He was very impressed.  My new mantra:  I'm a beast.

It's this really pretty sage-y color.  I took a picture but it doesn't do it justice.  I also thought about trying to find it on Home Depot, but well, lost interest.  Oops.  When the whole bathroom is said and done I'll take a nice pretty picture during the day and then you can see the paint color.  Just know that until that time, it is awesome.

Slow progress is better than no progress...

So we returned from our lovely trip to the UK and I was secretly (or maybe not so secretly) hoping that magically our bathroom would be finished upon our return, complete with bubble bath and candles waiting patiently for me.  Obviously, this was NOT the case.  So we got back to it and attacked it full force.  Well, hubs attacked in full force.  I kind of did it halfway.  But I did rip up all of the tile and wood in the throne room.  Hubs helped minimally.

So pretty.  I also had to rip out all the nails that had held the wood down.  This was very soothing.  And stress relieving.  Because if I couldn't get it out or it broke, I got to hammer it back in.  YAY for hammering.  And then, when I came home on Wednesday, I found this:

Almost a shower!  With insulation!  And a vapor barrier!  And a shelf!  Isn't hubs so great?  Now I just wonder what I will find when I get home today.

Lessons learned....

I'm always a fan of learning new things.  And there are definitely some things that I was planning on learning while demolishing our bathroom.  Like how to lay tile.  Or how to remove a toilet.  Or even how to rip out tile.  Things you don't want to learn (that I have now learned) are the following:

1.  That the shower was installed incorrectly and was secretly leaking under the tile.

2.  That there was no vapor barrier or backer board behind the tile in the shower.  So we had mold.

3.  That the pipes for the sink aren't under the floor, they are just sitting on top, hanging out for the whole world to see.

These lessons are the things that make you wonder...what the heck else is wrong with the house???  So now we need a plumber to come and see if they can work their magic on the pipes.  And we are just going to have to take a wait and see approach for whatever else lays ahead with our perfect, amazing, house.  (Can you hear the sarcasm?)

But anyway, everything in the bathroom (except for the throne room) has been demo'ed.  And here are some pictures to show you how it looks!

You're so vain you probably think this post is about you....

So, every bathroom needs a vanity.  And I don't know why but for the longest time I was against calling it that.  It just didn't sound right.  It wasn't a vanity.  It was our sinks and cabinets.  But finally, I bit the bullet and accepted what I should  have from the beginning.  It's a vanity.  And we have a beautiful vanity.  It's very lovely.  All dark wood and granite.  And fancy little feet.  But there is a problem.  A rather large problem.  Sitting in my Christmas Tree Room (our extra living room, but it gets confusing calling it that so I call it the X-Mas Tree Room, it's perfect for it, with this window....but I'm getting off topic).  And that problem is 300 lbs.  No joke.  Jenn read it off of the side of the box.  Our vanity is sitting in our living room.  And has been since we bought it.  Almost 3 weeks ago.  The Simpsons were lovely enough to help us bring it home from Costco.  But it was rather heavy and after one dropping already, they weren't willing to move it upstairs.  So it's been sitting in the living room.  Keeping the cats company.  Eventually it will make it's way upstairs to our lovely new bathroom.  But, until then, it's chilling in the X-Mas Tree Room.

And let there be TILE!

It's getting more and more official.  Last night all I wanted to do was come home, get some wine, and maybe run a bubble bath.  Then read.  (If you couldn't tell already, I love to read and get sucked into whatever book I'm reading.)  But hubs, bless his heart, had a different idea.  Now before you go getting all these weird, dirty ideas in your head, that's not what I meant.  So we piled into the car and headed to Home Depot.  I thought we were just finalizing the tile choice.  But, no.  We were BUYING tile.  Yes, folks, we decided on a tile and then bought TONS of it.  I'm not joking.  We have over 250 6x6 tiles, about 80 12x12, then we have 44 3x12 bullnose, then some accent ones.  Oh and 14 2x2s for the shower floor.  My gosh, our house has tile.  Hopefully, we won't need it all and can return some later.  But that remains to be seen.  But here is what we chose:

 

Golden Sand tiles for the floor, shower, surrounding tub.

 

And I'm pretty sure this

is the accent strip we are going to use!

Long story short...we have a lot of tile.  Go us.

"Did you eat a lot of paint chips when you were a kid?"

The answer is of course, no.  But it does paint a nice picture of a child eating paint chips.  Are they actual chips of paint or chips that look like paint.  Ha. Ha. Get it?  We're talking about paint now.  Hubs decided it would be good to paint the bathroom after we demo it.   Now don't go and get all excited, we haven't started demo, but he likes to be prepared.  And I agree.  So he went to Home Depot and brought home some paint samples.  He tells me this while I'm reading on the couch.  He says, "I'm going to go put these up so we can start pulling down the ones we don't like."  I nod and mumble OK.  I'm reading, don't disturb.  Well, a little while later, I head upstairs to do something like laundry or some silly task.  And get assaulted with this (well, it had a few more options up there but I didn't think to take a picture until after we had already started taking some down, but you get the general idea):

The current bathroom color is what someone might call lavender.  We call it gross.  It's just subtle enough to annoy you but not subtle enough for you to not notice.  We think we are leaning toward a brown/beige or green color.  Whatever we choose, it of course will have to go with the tile and the vanity.  Get excited, the vanity is awesome, but that is for a later post.  But as with everything else, hopefully we will decide soon or we will have paint and tile in our bathroom just hanging out until the New Year.  Not something I particularly want.

Tile, tile, and more, well, tile....

So we looked at tile.  And tile.  And some more tile.  We bought samples.  And then more samples.  We did research and went to two different stores.  There may have to be a third.  Because now, we are at a standstill because hubs likes one tile, and I like another.  And normally, I would say that I would end up winning but I'm not so sure about this one.  We may have to convince each other and come to, dare I say it, a compromise.  I meant to have pictures to go with this nice discussion so I could get all, well three of you that read this, to way in, but I don't.  They are on the other one's phone.  But I will post some from the web.  I'm not sure if they are exactly the same but close (the third one is definitely one of the options).

(1)(2)(3)  (4)

And the upgrades begin....

Hubs and I decided to redo our bathroom.  There is nothing wrong with it now, we just thought it could use some changes.  I think it all stemmed from the lavender walls and weirdly placed pink tiles.  So you will be able to see step-by-step the changes we make.  From the paint selections to the tile selections to even what to do about the cabinets.  It will be fun.  You will enjoy.  There will be pictures, and sweat, and probably a lot of cursing.  We are hopeful though that it will be accomplished by Christmas.  Which is giving us a month after the real date we want it done, Thanksgiving.  I will whine and complain, and probably yell and bargain.  I don't like remodeling.  I like the final product and deciding what gets done.  Not the in between.  Especially painting.  I make hubs buy me Chinese food when he makes me paint.  I'm pretty cheap labor so he shouldn't complain.  So please enjoy this journey we are embarking on.  And keep any negativity to yourself.  Here is the before picture (this is from before we even bought the place):

Wedding Dress: Do's, Don't's, Definitely Don't Even Think About It's

So I recently had a coworker ask about wedding dress shopping.  She asked if I had any suggestions. Man oh man, I have tons of suggestions, mostly not about wedding dress shopping, but I thought I would provide her with my three cents.  (Everyone says two, why can't I have more than two cents?)  After getting some information from her (more like prying, but it was done painlessly and over Thai food - who can complain?), I gave her some tips off the top of my head.  Later in the day, I thought of more.  And just like when you are in a fight, you can never think of something witty to say, and then BAM as soon as the fights over, you think of the most clever comeback that would have left them whimpering in their shoes.  This happened to me.  Luckily, she sits right down the hall, and I was able to send her a little message with my new glorious words of wisdom.


And here they were (in no particular order):


1.  If you need to go with family, do it to please them, not to find the dream dress.  Remember they are family, which means they are the meanest group of people you know and have no problem telling you your butt looks huge.  But they are also the ones who will fawn all over you and tell you look gorgeous when you do.  Take everything they say with a grain of salt, or if they are like my family, a shot of something.  Plan a trip with the necessary female parties from your family but then also plan a trip with your best friend.  The one who will also tell you if your butt looks big, but will not make you try on antique looking dresses because she wants you to have the kind of wedding she had.
2.  Have an open mind.  If you are set on the fact that you do not want a princess dress (ya know, big, pouffy, think Cinderella), you won't try anyone and you will never know if one of those dresses was THE dress.  I went in thinking I wanted a very slim, straight line, gentle hug type of dress (think sheath).  And the first trip (though I don't really count it as a trip), I refused to try one anything but those.  Not only was I disappointed but I was also hateful of all things white.  Once I had a saleslady pick out a dress for me (fitted on top, flair out/pouf at the bottom) I knew it was the one.  And so did everyone else.  So just go in there the same way you would a new restaurant.  Try a little of everything and ignore all the nasty comments.
3.  If when you do go into the salon, store, whatever, and you aren't getting the service you want...LEAVE.  That may sound a little snarky but they are there to help you.  This is the one time (well maybe not the only time) in your life you get to feel absolutely special.  Live it up.  Don't be a total b about it, but also don't accept being treated like doggy doo.
4.  Everyone's favorite word -- Budget.  Have a budget.  Whether it is set by your or your parents, or whoever.  Have one.  And have it be realistic.  Don't think oh well, I could be ok with $X amount and then try and change it later.  Have a set budget.  Make sure you tell your saleslady/bridal consultant, whoever, what your budget is.  You do not want to try on a dress $3,000 over your budget and fall in love.  It will make for a very unhappy special day thinking that you either a. spent $3,000 over budget or b. settled for a dress that didn't make you feel stunning.  Trust me, everyone will be happier in the end.
5.  Be honest with yourself.  You will be wearing this dress for 6, 7 hours of your LIFE tops.  Yes you want to look amazing.  But it's one dress.  That you will never wear again.  Hopefully.  Have a little sense with you.


Those are the goods ones for now.  I may add more later.  Hopefully they are helpful and will keep someone from screaming at their mother that they "aren't wearing lace from head to toe, even if it kills them".

The Inaugural Recipe

The Inaugural Recipe...I don't mean it was made for the Inauguration, I mean that it is the first one to be posted to the new, hip, blog of mine.  [stop laughing, I can be hip...]

A little rule of thumb I like to follow (and I believe all chefs should follow):  If you use someone else recipe, give them credit.  I don't care if you alter it in some way, you should still give them some credit.  For example, see below.  Unless all you did was see a recipe and think that's looks good, I'm going to make my own, then fine.  If you didn't look at their recipe or follow any part of it, then it's yours and kudos to you for being awesome.  So, if you happen to use one of these recipes...and everyone loves, maybe you could be like "yeah it is great, I found it on this blog...insert blog name...."  Maybe?

This is a simple recipe.  Part of which came from Hungry Girl's (http://www.hungry-girl.com/) 1-2-3 (http://www.hungry-girl.com/books/4) amazing recipe book.  I tweaked it a little, because well, we always tweak the recipes we use.  That's how they become our own. 

BBQ Shrimp and Grits
Ingredients:

• Shrimp (as much as you want, I think I used probably about 25 shrimp)...fresh works fine but I used the frozen kind that is already de-veined.  Works so much easier.  Make sure once you defrost the shrimp, you remove the skin, legs, and tails.
• BBQ sauce - whatever kind you want to use.  I used Sweet Baby Rays Sweet and Spicy.
• 1 cup of Quick Cooking Grits
• 2 cups of water
• 1 cup of fat-free cheddar cheese
• 2 laughing cow garlic and herb cheese wedges
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• salt and pepper
• bacon
• scallions
• skewers - I recommend metal.  They are fast and easy to use.

1.  First things first, defrost your shrimp, remove skin, legs, and tails.  Put on skewers, I like to put as many that can fit.  Once all the shrimp are on skewers, lightly coat the tops with BBQ sauce.  I put all the skewers on top of a 13 x 9 cake pan cover (works great to carry them too!).  Once the tops are coated, flip them over and coat the bottoms.  Then sprinkle lightly with pepper and salt (to taste).  Place in fridge.
2.  Cook how much bacon you want to have.  It goes on the top crumbled so it is really a personal preference.  We used maple bacon and cooked the entire package.  We didn't put the entire package on our meals but we like bacon.  And will eat it straight out of the fridge if it's cooked.  It's my favorite.
3.  Chop scallions.  Just like the bacon, how much is up to you.
4.  Boil the water and add the grits.  Lower to lowest setting, stirring often.  If you don't stir it, they will stick to the bottom and get clumpy.  Cook until all water is absorbed, about 5 minutes.
5.  When the grits are almost done, put the shrimp on the grill and cook for about 3 minutes, turning half way through.
6.  Remove the grits from heat once they are done cooking.  Add the cheddar cheese and butter.  Stir until melted.  Add the cheese wedges, but be sure to break them up well or you'll end up with lumps of cheese in your grits.  Cover until shrimp is done.
7.  Construct your plate!!! I prefer grits, shrimp, bacon, then scallions.  Enjoy!

If I had thought about adding this recipe, I might have taken pictures, but well, I didn't.  But if you're like me and you're not sure if things are going right if you don't have a picture to compare to, don't worry!  I'm sure you are doing it right, and if not, who cares.  Cooking is one big giant experiment.

Let's Do It Like a Martini....And Shake Things Up

Due to the overwhelming nagging, oops, meant to say support, of a coworker, I have decided to redo my blog.  I may still include things I'm reading, personal insights, and really whatever I want to babble on about.  But I am going to start including recipes, cooking tips, shopping finds, and other tips and tid bits I have captured in all of my 25 years.  I know those of you that are actually reading this, all 2 of you, are thinking to yourself "there is no way she has any good tips, she's only 25".  Well, despite my young age, I have managed to figure out how to do things, do them well, and of course do them poorly.  And I have learned from them.  So I am going to share these things and learn you as well.  Enjoy my musings.