Currently

So yeah, its been way too long since I have given everyone an update on what C and I are up to these days!

As you all know I am currently growing a little tiny human being….so that has taken up my life!

House

So we moved in at the very end of August last year.  We had a wedding, a honeymoon and then found out we were expecting.  The house and the decorating became a low priority to me because it was just too exhausting.

That is, until last week!  I went a little nuts with my “nesting” and spent the weekend shopping and decorating not one, not two, not three, but FOUR rooms in our house! Our master bath is completely done, the master bedroom is almost there, one of the guest bedrooms is fully decorated and the guest bathroom (and main bathroom in our home) is almost done too.  Craziness!  Hopefully soon I can get some pics up for you all!

Last I wrote we were working on re-doing our kitchen cabinets.  They were this awkward orangey brown color and we just didn’t love them.  We started this work in September and then boom, hello baby!  I had to quit working on them due to dangerous fumes and C was on his own.  I am happy to say, these are FINALLY almost done!  All the visible spots are complete, we just have to do the side of the cabinet that faces the fridge. I am so excited! We finally have all of our stuff in the cabinets and a real, live working kitchen!

Next up is baby Noah’s nursery.  I’ve got lots of ideas in my head, I just have to now execute!  We just sold the queen bed that is currently in the room, so once that is gone we can set up his furniture and I can get started.  His crib still being in the box is driving me nuts. I want to set it up sooooo bad!

As for our break in, we are finally almost back to normal.  It was such a bummer to deal with and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but there was a little good that came from it.  New stuff is sometimes exciting J  The police haven’t found any suspects and I don’t think they ever will.  We’ve since beefed up our security big time and are trying to move on.

C

C is still working full time in the off-season at Crate and Barrel. That time is coming to an end though, he reports for training camp at the beginning of March!  I can’t believe the season is almost here again.

I think he has gotten a tiny bit of the nesting bug as well, he has been excited to help decorate, working really hard to finish our cabinets and even completely organized our garage the other day!

Books 

Oh man, I have read a lot of books since this last update!  

First off, for book club I read and posted on both Wonder and Z. You can find those reviews here and here.

Next up, I read several books on my own.  My favorite of these was the Racketeer byJohn Grisham.  Oh man, this book was soooo good!  I know Grisham writes a lot of lawyer type books, but I have never really read them because of that. A friend suggested this book and I am so glad she did.  It had great suspense, I was totally engaged the whole time. It has lots of twists and turns too and keeps you guessing until the end, which I love!

Other books I read were Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy, Dad is Fatby Jim Gaffigan, Uganda Be Kidding Me by Chelsea Handler and the Tao of Marthaby Jen Lancaster, who is my favorite author.  Belly Laughs is a “truth about pregnancy” book that took me about a day and a half to read.  I’m not sure I read anything I didn’t already know though. Dad is Fat and Uganda Be Kidding me were mildly funny, but nothing to write home about.  The Tao of Martha wasn’t really my favorite either.  I used to really love Jen Lancaster books, but I think that is starting to change.  I think she needs to switch up how she does things, many of her books are quite similar.

I also read My Story by Elizabeth Smart for Bon’s Book Club, but that got pushed out until February of this year, so you will see my review then. Finally, I am currently reading Where’d You Go Bernadette by MariaSemple.  I’m over 60% through with it and its finally starting to get a little better, but I don’t have high hopes for it.

Clearly I need help choosing my next few books. I have not done good recently!  Any suggestions?

TV

Oh man, C and I are sooooo behind on our TV watching!  We got caught up during the “fall break” most TV series take, but the day after we did that all the shows got started back up again. So now we have multiple episodes of all the shows we watch piling up again. 

The only show I ever watch religiously on the day that it airs…..is the Bachelor. Yes, so lame I know, but I just can’t help it.  My co-workers and I even have a bet going this season haha. We all picked our top three girls based on only the contestants pictures before the season started.  Whoever picks the girl that goes the farthest wins the pot!  I have high hopes for the two girls I have left (Jade and Kaitlyn if you are wondering) but I’m not sure either will become Mrs. Chris Soules.  I guess we will see!  (Please no spoliers if you already know).

Even though our DVR is pretty full, are there any must-watch shows I could be missing?!

Now that I finally have another laptop I am hoping to start back up with the wedding photos.  I just have to find the time (and energy) to set up all the posts for you all!  Hopefully soon!

Break In

So.....our home was broken into this week.  The thieves stole almost everything that was worth any value at all. They ransacked our home, emptying every box, turning over every mattress, emptying every drawer....as you can imagine it was quite the mess. It seems they probably spent a long time in our home or there were several of them at they were very thorough.

I am very, very thankful that is was on a day that C worked in the morning and that he came home first. I'm not sure I would have been able to handle it.  I am not sure if they had been armed, but they did take our butcher knife out of our kitchen and we found it on a dresser in the master bedroom. So scary. I'm also thankful they didn't harm October (our cat), because they easily could have.

The police came and took fingerprints, but I am not hopeful they will find the crooks.  In the meantime, we are cleaning up their mess, changing the locks in our home (they got in by prying out the deadbolts with a screw driver), adding security alarms (which we were planning on but hadn't done yet) and filing police and insurance reports.  I've heard this process could take up to 3 months, which is very disheartening.  I just want my life back to normal, I miss my nice TV!

I'm hopeful the paranoia and fear in our own home will go away soon, but again, I am very thankful that no one was harmed.  It can ALWAYS be worse.

That being said, things will probably be a little light around here for awhile (as if they weren't already).  So sorry!

Jacuzzi Tub Love

One thing C and I always dreamed about having in our future home was a a jacuzzi tub.   I love taking baths and C would too...if he could fit.

One of our first decisions when we bought our new house was to of course, put in a jacuzzi tub! We honestly weren't sure of the costs at all, so I called a friend who does some interior design work. her brother actually does remodeling, so I pretty much hit the jackpot there.

To start the process, we searched through tons on tile options, tons of tub options and tons of faucet and accessory options. I mean seriously, there are so many choices out this.  It's quite a scary process too, because its really hard to get a good idea of what the final will look like with just a small piece of tile in front of you. After making our fnal choices, the cost was totally under what we were expecting, so we went for it. They started the work as soon as we left for our Honeymoon.

Previously in our master bathroom (which is pretty small, womp womp) there was a stand up, enclosed shower.  It looked about 20 years old, full of grime, mold and rust.  Not pretty.  Plus, the water faucet was to low for C, he had to bend his knees for it to get water to the top of his head. He also had a tough time moving around in such a small enclosed space. Heck, I did too, I can't imagine how bad it was for him!

I wish I would have taken better "before" pictures but this is all I have:

You can see where the shower was, all that is missing is the glass (plastic?) enclosure. Also, you'll notice that there is a cabinet to the right of the shower. Unfortunately that had to go to. With the disappearance of that cabinet (really the only storage in the room besides the small sink area) I choose to move my "getting ready" place to our guest bathroom.

From there it moved on to this:

And then this:

Which, holy cow.  That a little tough to see while you are halfway on the other side of the world!  I guess its probably better that we weren't home though.

The good news though, is when we got home, it looked like this:

I love it! I'm not sure it could have looked any better in my mind.  The colors of the tile bring in all of the browns on the wall and cabinets, but the greys easily match the grey theme we have going on in our adjoining bathroom.  Not to mention, the shower head is super high.  C won't have a problem at all! We also chose to update the accesories in the bathroom like the towel bars and the sink faucet, so the whole room flows nicely.  I am so so happy with it!

Anybody have a jacuzzi tub?  Any tips or recommendations for me?  I've already learned the hard way that bubble bath (no matter how little you use) is not a good idea.  Yeah, I did that. Whoops!

Currently

You guys I am so tired these days. Wait, scratch that, I am exhausted. I have been working all day and then coming home to try and organize our new home.  Yes, we moved in over a month ago, but then we have a wedding and a honeymoon and everything is still just an utter mess!  There just aren’t enough hours in the day and so blogging has kind of taken a back seat.

That being said, I thought I’d let you know what we are currently up to!

House

While we are on the subject, I thought I’d show you what is really holding us up in the whole “settling in” process.  That would be our kitchen cabinets. We decided when we moved in we were going to stain or paint them before moving anything into the kitchen.

It was a terrible idea. 

We purchased the Rustoleum cabinet transformations kit from Lowes and got to work.  The kit itself is amazing….but it takes soooooo much work.  Like hours and hours. And hours. They were an ugly brown-ish orange color and we are turning them into a beautiful chocolate brown, which is the only thing that makes us push forward.

This gives you a good idea of the process.  Thankfully, that whole side is now almost complete.

Bad news is….now we have to do this whole side!

Here's a closer look at the two side by side:

I seriously can’t wait until these are done.  I think they look amazing and the color looks beautiful with our countertops, but time consuming would be a serious understatement!

C

Well now through February is considered “off-season” for C.  Good news is that while I am sad I don’t get to watch my hubby play football, there is still plenty of football to be viewing!  Football year round is a glorious thing.

C surprised me after the Arena Bowl in August by telling me he had signed for another year which is really exciting.  Next up are contract negotiations, which should hopefully happen in the next week or two.  It will be nice to know what to plan for next season.

Currently he is working at Crate and Barrel (hello discount!) while he studies to pass the insurance exam. I know right? Insurance?  Ew.  It just sounds terrible to me, but it’s something he really wants to do!  And it’s something he can definitely do during the season with flexible hours, which is awesome.

Books

As you’ve seen on the blog, since the last update I finished InCold Blood by Truman Capote, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Calahan and Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. You can click on the links to read my reviews.

Two other books I read while on my honeymoon were I Didn’t ComeHere to Make Friends: Confessions of a Reality Show Villain by Cortney Robertson (from the Bachelor) and Still Missing by Chevy Stevens.  Both were great books!

If you have ever watched the Bachelor or Bachelorette TV show I would highly recommend I Didn’t Come Here to Make Friends. It was absolutely fantastic.  It was a very easy read (I think I finished it in two days while on my honeymoon) but that didn’t make it any less exciting.  I had watched Cortney’s season and it was very interesting to hear about the show in general from someone’s point of view.  I have to say, even though she was portrayed as a villain, hearing it from her side almost makes me feel sympathetic towards her! There were tons of behind the scene details about the show which I really found interesting; I couldn’t put the book down.

Still Missing was very good as well; I would put it in the same category as Gone Girl.  A crazy story to start with and then lots of twists as you get deeper into it.  It was a bit uncomfortable when I was reading it because it is about a Real Estate Agent that gets abducted while showing a house.  If you have paid attention to the news at all lately….there was just a Real Estate Agent that was abducted while showing a house in real life.  Creepy! 

TV

Ok, I love fall!  Soooo many new TV shows!

I’m pretty sure we recorded 15-20 new shows.  Is that sad? I mean, that’s a lot of TV!  We decided though we will give each show that sounded slightly interesting a chance and weed the bad ones after after watching an episode or two.

One that I instantly connected to was How to Get Away With Murder.  I hope that this show is able to keep it up.  A lot of new shows have a few awesome episodes and then have nowhere to go.

Another show that I forgot to mention that’s almost over (sad face) is 4^th and Loud.  This show is on AMC and it follows the new Arena Football team the LA KISS in their first season.  The team is owned by Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons (of the rock band KISS) and the show is really interesting.  If you’ve ever been interested in what goes on behind the scenes in football, I recommend this show.   C and his team have made several appearances and I even had like a 10 second cameo. Woot!  I’m famous now guys!

Well that’s all for now.  I am really hoping to have some wedding pictures soon for you….why must photographers take so long?!?

Any book recommendations or awesome fall TV shows you think I should check out!?