Christmas is over, and I finally have a second to update here. Yes, we finished the ugly room, yes, Chris' family made it here from Denver despite the airport shutting down (they drove), and yes, I pulled off Christmas Eve dinner for 9. In fact, I could have fed 20. Oy.
The most exciting part of the weekend was the fact that Chris' sister brought their dog! Hee! I thought the cats would shit, but they handled it well! It's definately encouraging, because we really want to get a dog in a few years.
We opened our presents on Christmas Eve, and I got cool stuff. I got a subscription to Martha Stewart Living, the new Old Crow Medicine Show cd, makeup, a gift card to my favorite plant store, and gift cards to REI (and cash) to put towards our backpacks for our honeymoon. Good stuff. The present that I got for Chris that I mentioned last time was shoes. He loves them, and I am pleased.
We slept in our own bed on Christmas Eve, and it was a great feeling. We snuggled down and kept giggling and rubbing our feet together to fight off the cold. We got up early on Christmas morning, and saw the family off. Chris' parents were originally going to stay until the 26th, but they left early to miss a big storm. So we were home alone by 10:30am on Christmas morning.
I used the rest of the morning to call my family and shower, and then we went to the Christmas Day Brunch at the Grand America Hotel. I have wanted to eat at the restaurant there (Garden Cafe at the Grand) for so long, and Christmas was the perfect day to do it. It is a
really nice hotel, and it was all dressed up for the holiday. The restaurant had a live 3-piece band playing Christmas music, and the food was superb. And expensive, but so worth it. :)
After brunch, we scouted out a couple of places that we were thinking of taking our engagement pictures, and then headed to our friend John's house for wine and chatting with Joanna and John's friend Lloyd. We left at a decent time and went home and played games. It was a wonderful day.
We are still pretty busy until after the new year. We are taking down the tree and cleaning tonight, going to Jesse and Sharon's tomorrow night to finally finish our Save the Date cards, and having Joanna and her (eternal) flame over for dinner on Thursday night. We're not making dinner, she is. Score!
On Friday, at the crack of dawn, we are leaving for Seattle/Vancouver, where we will be for New Year's. Chris and I had our first date on New Year's Eve FOUR years ago. It's going to be weird to have a wedding anniversary. I will always think of New Year's Eve as our anniversary.
We come back to Salt Lake on January 2nd, and while I feel like our lives will calm down after that, I know I'm full of shit. Mwah, and toodles.
Pretty Room
Wooooooooohooooooo. We're actually ahead of schedule on the ugly room! Tonight we start the beginning of the final step: priming the trim and the floors. We don't even have to tape; I did that last night, even though it wasn't on the schedule until today. Hey, Chris is out of town for work, I'm allowed to stay up late. (He'll be home tonight.) The rest of this process should be fairly easy. I read somewhere that you're supposed to coat a painted floor with polyurethane when you're done, but we're not going to. It'll get weather and be all shabby chic if we don't. And also, we're lazy and tired to working in this damn room.
Last night (before the over-achieving in the ugly room) I spoke at a city council meeting. They are thinking of turning 5 blocks (including the one we live on) into a historic district, which would be a really good think for our neighborhood. I spoke as a resident and as a chair of our community council. It was fun. I've never been to a city council meeting before. They voted unanimously to approve the funding for the research that has to happen before it can actually happen. That's really exciting!
Other things I did last night include getting and wrapping Chris' Christmas present. I'm almost certain that he doesn't read this site, but I won't tell you what I go him, just in case. We got some really cool ribbon a couple of weeks ago, and it looks so great under our tree. I'm getting so excited for Christmas! This will be the first Christmas that I haven't had to travel anywhere since I was in high school. I can't wait for guests to get here and to cook and entertain!
Lilac
So I didn't actually drink any wine last night. I wasn't feeling well. I didn't go to the gym because of it, so I painted instead. By the time we were done I felt like crap, so we chilled and watched the episode of Survivor we had taped, and no wine was consumed. I went to bed at a decent time, and I'm feeling much better.
So we got the first coat of lilac on the 3 walls that we're painting lilac in the ugly room. It's WAY brighter than I thought it was going to be, but it looks very cool. Chris called it very "old South", which was exactly what I was going for. I think I will like it much better once the trim, floors, and the door are painted white.
So, tonight I'm going to the gym (for real this time) while Chris puts a second coat of the lilac on, and then we're heading up to Scott and Jessica's after I take a shower. I better get on it! Adios!
Wine Night
Okay, so you're in for a lot of boring posts while I use this website to track our progress in the Ugly Room. Last night we primed the walls, ceiling, and closet. It was
almost without incident, if you don't count the 10pm run to Smith's for more primer and the part where the wall started PEELING, to reveal a spot of cement in the brick where it appears they plugged up a hole in the chimney. Super.
But we got it done, and that's what counts. Tonight we have to tape accordingly, and paint the 3 walls that we are painting lavender. Shut up, it's going to look good! Really! Chris alledeges that he will do that while I'm at the gym, so score for me! When I return, I'll help him finish it he isn't done, and then we'll eat dinner and watch the episode of Survivor that he will have taped for me. And drink wine. Thursday night is wine night.
(Isn't that cute, how implied there's only one?)
Ugly Room
Thanksgiving was great. Our new niece is such a sweetheart, and our "old" niece is a full-on little girl now. The big disappointment is that no one stole our furnace while we were gone. We are looking at getting a new one anyway, which, while costly, wouldn't be that bad. No, the bad part is that we have no heat in 2 of the bedrooms in the house, and we'd really like to fix that. Fixing it will be about $2000 in extra duct work, so we're looking at about $4500 in total. Ouch. I don't really want to spend that much, but last winter was SO cold in the house (unless we totally crank the heat, but our environmental consciences won't let us do that), and as Chris pointed out, it's not even technically winter here yet. It's gonna get colder. So we're going to be poor, but warm, it seems.
The week after Thanksgiving was kind of a blur, but the weekend after (last weekend) was fun. We went to a Modern Dance show with John and Joanna on Friday night, and went out for a lavish meal afterwards. Saturday night, Chris and I saw a play. On Sunday we went out to watch football with Jesse and Sharon. On Sunday night we realized that we hadn't done a lick of work on our second guest bedroom over the weekend, and mapped out a schedule for getting it done. It's NUTS. We basically have something to do on it every day between now and Dec 22nd to get it all done. And I'm taking before and after pictures for you, baby. It's gonna be awesome.
So the rest of this month is going to be crazy busy, between the Ugly Room (as it's fondly known) and finishing our Christmas shopping, getting Christmas cards out, doing gift exchanges with our friends, and doing Christmas baking. But that's okay. It feels so Christmasy in our house it's hard to be stressed. We got a real tree (an 8 footer!) that's making our whole dining room smell good, and a live wreath on the door, and a poinsetta in the center of the dining room. Chris' whole family is coming out for Christmas (hence the rush on finishing the guest bedroom) and we're definately in the spirit!
But right now I have to go to the gym so that I can come home and prime the walls and ceiling in the ugly room. Yesterday the TVs at the gym were showing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" from 1970. I thought that was weird. The employees at the gym must be in the Christmas spirit, too.
