spanx you very much

The house really has taken up all of our free time and, now that it is finished, we have become reacquainted with an old friend called The Weekend! We have some other dear friends (Mr. & Mrs. St. John wedding from last summer) that live in Atlanta and we finally got to go check out their neck of the woods.

First stop, the original Taco Mac where we maxed out the corner booth.

The weather was terrible with severe storm warnings popping up all over the place. On our way back to their apartment to wait out the storms we ran into The King of Pops...The most delicious Popsicles in Atlanta and for sure my most favorite Popsicle ever!!

Later that night we headed out to Two Urban Licks for dinner. It's a really modern restaurant with open kitchens, a tower of wine in kegs, and snazzy food like you'd see on Top Chef. They also had a live jazz band with the biggest sax player I've ever seen in my life. The energy of this restaurant was just as wonderful as the food!

We had a lazy Sunday morning and after our coffee we headed to check out the workplace of Mrs St. John. She warned us that this was the most over stimulating office that she'd ever worked in, but we were not fully prepared for what was in store for us. Once we stepped off the elevator we strolled into a world of unexpected colors and funky patterns.

...and mirrored ceilings!

Ladies (cue the heavenly music) we were in the land of....

The reception area alone was over the top! Spanx in lights and rose colored windows! What more could their be...?!?!?

Then we saw the boardroom...full of light bulbs! Everyone around this funky red table is sure to have a bright idea!

Their offices had fabulous chandeliers and comfy furniture.

Conference rooms have inspirational quotes on the walls. I mean, who wouldn't want to have a meeting in here?

Oh, and need to make a conference call? Just pull up a chair in the Zen room!

Bamboo walls, fluffy white carpet, lounge chairs and this scene on the wall makes this the most relaxing conference call room I've ever seen. (sorry about the glare from the flash on the wall)

Welcome to Florida!

Not sure what they do here, but it's pretty festive. I'd like to sit in here and pretend to be Dorothy from The Golden Girls.

Everything is soo girly!!! I love it! Poor guys that work here...they've got to be good sports!

The quote in the associate kitchen cracked me up!!!

Enjoy what you eat...SPANX is your best friend!

Oh, and in case you were wondering...Their accounting department still looks like all other accounting departments (Full of boxes and paper. Yawners!). They just added a chandelier.

Their file room is way more interesting than the one in my office!

What other office has a closet full of unmentionables? :)

We also got to check out their sewing room.

They've got everything they need right there! Wonder if they're ever like, "Hmmm....think I'll whip up a pair of Skinny Britches and take them down to a meeting."

Then we played in the samples box! This office is like Santa's Workshop!

Our senses were so overloaded that we had to make a conference call in order to ground and center ourselves! 

I guess we'd been in there a really long time because we started getting texts from the boys that said: We like SPANX but we're hungry! So we collected our fellas and headed for lunch....followed by a little shoe shopping. The perfect ending to such a day as this, huh?!?!)

Sunflowers and Swimming

One of our favorite things from the old house happens to be our Giant Sunflowers in the garden. We planted them several years ago and they kept on coming back. These guys were huge...at least 7 feet tall with THE most beautiful sunflowers ever! G even sold some of the blooms at the farmers market. They were so much fun that we knew we had to plant some at the new house.

We bought a bunch of different sizes and colors of sunflowers this year and mixed them all up. We're just going to be surprised at what comes up and where! We also decided to toss in a few Zinnias too. Why not?! Flowers make people happy :)

Husband prepared the planting zones and G was in charge of seed placement.

Louie the cat, who is officially a member of the family, even joined in. As soon as the pine straw was raked back, he would run and dive in the midle of the pile and make a mess.

When all of our little seeds were in the ground, G asked to go swimming. Mind you, it was just a tad chilly that night AND the water is still freezing!!! We said sure, thinking that she wouldn't really do it.

She proudly marched to the top of the diving rocks and asked one last time, "Really? I can go swimming?"

To which I, in my snuggie, yelled back "go for it," thinking she was just testing me. I mean it was freezing! 

Then she jumped in! ...and stayed in for a while just to prove it wasn't cold. Clearly 11 year-olds have a different bodily thermostat than I do!!!

What happened at 4am?

I'm normally a very heavy sleeper. As soon as my head hits the pillow, I'm fast asleep and typically do not wake up until my alarm goes off...and even then sometimes it takes me a while to hear it. This morning, however, was a different story. I woke up around 4am and was completely confused as to why. Something told me there was a loud noise, but the house was completely silent. Hmmmm...I thought it must have been a dream. As I was about to doze off again I heard footsteps upstairs. I shook Husband to wake him up to listen. When I saw a light come on, I immediately jumped out of bed and ran upstairs.

Diva met me on the stairs saying that a column had fallen on G and she was crying. Column? What? Its 4am...does she have a column? When we got to her room it was pitch black (I can endorse the black out shades now) and we couldn't find the remote for the light. In the dark, G assures me that she is okay but Polkadot is missing!

(Remember Polkadot...the African Dwarf Frog....?)

We found the switch and when the light came on I saw complete chaos!

Pillows and blankets and water and rocks were everywhere!  Water? Rocks? This had to be a dream.

Now, this is when I wake up enough to start putting things together. G's headboard (an old mantel) had fallen off the wall while she was sleeping. Thankfully the bed stopped it from landing completely on her, but the tilt was enough to knock Polkadot's frog bowl off the mantel onto the bed where it bounced onto the floor (the loud noise that woke me up), spilling water and rocks everywhere.

G says that she's not hurt but that Polkadot cannot be found and she's looked everywhere. Unfortunately Polkadot's bowl-mate (that happens to be plastic and twice her size) didn't make things look hopeful for The Dot.

We searched the floor...nothing. Under the bed...nothing. On the comforter, under the comforter, in the sheets...nothing. By now, we're in frantic search mode. What if she splashed out onto G before the bowl bounced onto the floor?!?! We search G all over...even in her hair! Nothing turned up except for more blue rocks. Then we retraced her steps to Diva's room thinking that maybe, if she was on G, she had fallen off. Fifteen minutes of searching later...Nothing.

 Oh, side note...I failed to take pictures of Polkadot's new habitat--a small fishbowl wrapped in a hot pink feather boa. So keep in mind we also have hot pink feathers all over the place.

As a last ditch effort, G and I struggled to pull the entire bed frame out into the middle of the room. While we're sifting through the items-that-don't-belong-under-a-bed pile I noticed a feather blowing across the floor....but the fan was off.  A closer look revealed that it was Polkadot with a feather stuck to her!

**Cue the Hallelujah Chorus!**

She is alive and well! (Where was Husband during all this action, you might ask? Peacefully snoozing all cozy in bed. Who's the heavy sleeper now!?!?)

I will say that this drama has caused me to Google a little more about African Dwarf Frogs this morning (since I'm awake) and I have learned that we are over-feeding her....and most definitely that She is a HE!!!

Oh, and one small detail that last year's teacher forgot to put in the note home with the Adoption Papers. Life expectency. Which could be 10-20 YEARS!!!

The good news is that G is doing just fine and Polkadot is alive and well in her newly relocated bowl! ...where she promised to remain for the next 10-20 years!

Settled

I am truly thankful to actually be living in this house! What is one of the most fun parts of moving in?  Friends popping in to check things out! I love having people over and this gives everyone a great excuse to have to come see us! AND, even better,  they expect things to be messy because you just moved in! Love it! Now, just how long am I allowed to use this expectation?

Husband has put "raindrop glass" in all the upper cabinet doors. I know he loves my technical terms for his glass and will cringe if he ever reads this. (Sorry, Love!) He tells me this glass is temporary until he can make something else, but I really love the raindrops.  What do you think?

As you can see here, we still have a few cabinet doors that are being painted, but those should be finished and installed soon. I didn't let that stop me from unpacking and staring at open cabinets.

Books are out of boxes and onto shelves. Yes! Shelves! Something we didn't have in the old house.

I'm not really sure why we didn't have any shelves. I mean, I'm a fan of books...and shelves. One day I'd love to have a bookcase with our books grouped by color.

Until that happens, I'll just daydream about this:

Not my house. I repeat. Not my house.

The first pictures have been hung!!!  

I confess, we've had those frames for about 3 years. They were pewter-colored and had ugly water color prints in them. Husband brushed them with white paint so that, now, they're mostly white with just a hint of the metal color shining through. The prints were removed and I had these pictures of the girls enlarged to fit the matte. A level, ladder, and stud finder later...they were hung!

  

Our room is starting to come together. Once upon a time, the headboard was actually a door. I'm not sure how long it sat (abandoned) in the basement of the Glass Studio, but Husband re-discovered it and spruced it up a bit. I thought I was just marrying an accountant yawn but little did I realize all of his DIY talents.

The bedside tables are the same but we decided to paint them white to give them a fresh start in their new room. The boxes that I haven't unpacked yet are stashed in storage under the window seat.

We're getting used to life in the new bathroom. At 5am it is still a struggle to remember where I've put things. I will say that I am LOVING the his/her toothpaste drawers! One thing we can never seem to agree on is where to squeeze the toothpaste. I'm a start-from-the-bottom kind of girl and Husband just grabs it from where ever.

The closet is one piece of trim away from being from being complete, so we're still living out of suitcases. Our clothes will be the last thing to finally move from the old house. Above is the "His" side of the closet. Apparently I forgot to take a "Hers" picture, but it is basically the same...the only difference is that I have shelves going all the way up the middle instead of the chest of drawers. The bottom shelves slant downward so that I can use them as shoe racks.

The office furniture has been placed and I hope it never has to be moved again. Or, if it does need to be moved, I hope there is a strong guy taking my place in the moving process.

Any guesses as to which side of the desk is mine? :)

We painted one of our old tables and gave it a new home in the foyer.

I have been getting my workout keeping the dust off these floors!

Husband worked last week at the Glass Studio to wrap up the bathroom windows and I really love how they turned out.

Now, before you think that I've got my act completely together and that we're totally settled after just two weeks...What do you think about the dining room? :)

At least one of us is completely settled into his new home.

(shhh...don't tell Gertie!)