The Den

So I told you the other day that we did some painting in the den (office) but I couldn't share it with you quite yet.  Today, thanks to my sub-par cell phone camera, I'm finally ready to post.

Our den, which was a nursery before, is a small little room upstairs with no closet - so it can't be an official bedroom.  Fine by us, the room is too small for a bedroom anyhow and we could use a room for out desktop computer.

So the room isn't finished being set up yet, but we did get all the walls painted - which helps A TON!

Here are some before shots - this green color, after a few days, became nauseating to me (sorry for the lack of camera skill when taking these).

Ok - so we decided to pain the room gray - which is fine with me.  Then I thought maybe we should paint one of the walls an accent color, just to give the room some life.

That remaining green wall was to be our accent wall - somehow we came to the conclusion that the accent wall would be white, but not just boring white paint.  (sorry for the shitty cell phone pictures below)

That's right bitches... it's a mutha-fuckin' white board!  Be jealous.  Be very very jealous.

I do plan to post pictures of rooms as they are put together, which this is obviously not... but at least it's painted and ready to be put together.

Exciting times are a-comin'

So - first and foremost - thank you to everyone who told me yesterday that the things I'm going through are normal.  Now just trying to focus on that and move ahead.

To honor my positive way of thinking, I'm going to list off all the exciting things I have coming up in the coming months (from now until the end of summer):

March -
Tomorrow night (Thursday) I'm having dinner with my bestie (YAY!)
30th - dinner out with a great group of people for my newly engaged cousin's birthday

April -
8th-10th - in Duluth for a wedding
10th - Target Field for Twins Home opening weekend
11th - I start Zumba classes, every Monday for 7 weeks
16th - Grilled Steak and Lobster at my dad's
19th - Having some friends over for dinner to show off the new house :)
24th - EASTER!
29th-May 1- Girls weekend (Myself, my mom, my 3 aunts and my 3 female cousins)

May -
19th - The Wizard of Oz Ballet

June -
1 - Mine and Steve's 2 year (official) anniversary
1 - Going to see GLEE LIVE!!!

July -
4th - My Gma's 87th Birthday
28th-31st -3rd annual Madeline Island Camping trip

August -
14th - Boudoir Photo Shoot with Sara and Krysten

I'm also planning a trip to Six Flags in the Chicago area, which a date has not yet been set for.  I also plan to make it to more Twins games and a St. Paul Saints game this summer!

YAYY!

So this blizzard that hit Minnesota last night and continues into this fine Wednesday morning... it's pretty well making me crazy and I would just like to tell mother nature to suck my ass.  Thank you.

Argh - I feel funky

Not sure what's going on with me but I'm feeling... funky.  You'd think with a move and all that things would be new, fresh, and exciting - to me those things usually equal happiness.  I'm not feeling it right now.

Lots of potential things could be causing my funky mood -
1. Maybe I'm home sick?  I feel like this can't be though.  In my opinion, if you have all your stuff with you (furniture, cat, etc.) and the only thing missing is a person (my mom)... I can't really be home sick; can I?  I've seen my mom at least once a week since moving and on Friday we were together all day.

2. Lack of routine?  For some stupid fucking reason, I need a routine - I dislike this about myself.  Why can't I just fucking go about my day and go with the flow?  I don't feel like Steve and I have a routine yet and, in all honesty, I don't know if we ever will.  I haven't mentioned it to him, so I'm just not sure how he lives.  We don't have a system for who empties the dishwasher when it's done, we don't have a plan for cooking and cleaning, we are still learning how each other is before we need to sit down and hash out how it's going to be.  I don't like that its because of my stupid need for structure.
On that same sort of topic - living with my mother for so long has had some obviously negative impact on me and the person I've become - which is exactly what I didn't want to happen.  I don't like shit laying around - during the move I tried to not care as much about this and I feel like I did a good job; obviously there was going to be shit everywhere until we got it put away.  So that's okay - I finally feel like we have space to live in.  However, there is still little things that I need to get over - it's driving me nuts to have mail/newspaper sitting all over the place; we need something for our mail.  Things sitting around, whether it's something Steve or myself have left; stuff is going to sit around and I need to figure out how to deal with that as it's not the end of the world.  I just don't know how to get there... not yet anyhow.  I like things clean and neat looking - I think to a fault.  I don't want to get to the point where I'm always cleaning things up just because I want things to look clean - but I have to figure out how to not let it bother me as well.

3. Alone time?  Obviously I love Steve and I love him enough to live with him.  I don't necessarily feel the desire to have time away from him, but I have lost my alone time and I need to figure out how to deal with that.  It used to be that Steve and I would go our separate ways at the end of the night and I'd still have my time to do ... whatever I wanted.  Again, and I cannot stress enough that I don't feel like I need to get away from him, I think I'm struggling with how best to deal with things being different than I'm used to - which I think is the entire point of this post.

I know I need to change the way I am to a certain degree - not only do I not know how to do that, but I'm struggling with what I need to change and what is okay to expect when living with another person.  Living with my mom my whole life, I've done what I wanted and how I wanted - if she didn't like something she'd change it or do it however she wanted.  I guess I've come to expect things a certain way.

4. There is also the fact that I need my eyebrows waxed and I always feel funky when they look funky.

5. OR this could all be a complete overreaction on my part and it could be one of the couple times a year I'm just in a funk...

boo.

Sorry for this woe is me post... all things considered - I have a roof over my head and I should just shut up and be happy with that.  It could be a lot worse.

Wallpaper, down!

So - have you given up on me yet for Hawaii trip posts?  You probably should... at this pace, I feel like I'll never get around to it.  Too much to do at work and when I'm home I either don't think of it or have too much to do (from emptying the dishwasher to changing a load of laundry to taking down wallpaper).  I'll get there, sooner or later, I'll get there.

In the mean time I have plenty more to share with you fine folks.  If you're on facebook and lucky enough to be my friend you can find all the picture of my new home - today I'm going to share a few pictures and a bit of story about taking down wallpaper.

You see, in this beautiful home, we moved in with wallpaper in the upstairs hallway (as well as going up the staircase) and wallpaper in the master bedroom.  Both of which we decided we could live with - it wasn't the best situation, but it could have been a lot worse.  Well... after a few short weeks living there, we about had it.  Steve wanted to stab the hallway wallpaper and I wanted to vomit every time I walked into our bedroom (because of the wallpaper).

I've taken down wallpaper before and, while it isn't the prettiest job, it had to come down.  I knew just the person to help me too... you see, growing up my mother always changed the looks in our houses - repainting, wallpapering, rearranging furniture, etc.  So I called my mom on Thursday and asked if she wanted to come over and help me take down wallpaper and do some painting on Friday - she agreed without even thinking about it.  Actually my mom has offered to come over while we're at work during the week and do all the painting and shit for us.  Nice offer, but there is a certain joy that comes in doing this stuff on your own - plus Steve doesn't have a lot of experience in painting, so it's good for him to get that under his belt.  I grew up painting rooms every other season, so I'd consider myself pretty fucking good at it.

Here are some before pictures:

Anyhow - so my mom came over on Friday and we got started around 11:30am taking down wall paper.  It was hard to tell at first if it was going to be easy or hard to get off.  I sprayed the wall with hot water and then started trying to peel it off right away and it wasn't coming off very easy.  Then my mom suggested scoring the wallpaper with our putty knives to try and get the water behind the paper.  We did that and after awhile it seemed to work a bit better.  The method I found to work was - score the wallpaper, spray with hot water and then wait for about 15 minutes, spraying many more times before you get to it.  So I ended up scoring and spraying the entire wall while I worked on the section I started and just made my way down the wall.  It ended up being pretty not bad.

This is the only picture I took during the process (it was too messy to keep whipping out my camera for pictures):

So anyhow - we did that entire wall behind our bed and then took a break to paint the den (which will be a different post as I need to take one or two more pictures of the finished room).  It took us roughly 5 hours to remove the wallpaper form that one wall - though it is a huge wall.  After painting I asked my mom how long she would stay for and she said she was in it for the long haul, so we took a break for dinner.  By the time, Steve was home from work and ate with us then we all went upstairs and started the soaking process on the rest of the walls.  

We got the ENTIRE room done, in less than a full day!  I think my mom ended up leaving around 10pm or so and we got a ton done.  One room completely free of wallpaper, one room painted (on 3 of the 4 walls), plus a dinner break.  Talk about kicking ass!

And now, even though we have a LOT to do to make our bedroom finished, I can actually walk into the room and not want to vomit!

So we now have to wash the walls with a chemical to remove any leftover glue - which there is plenty of, then we have to fill any holes - which there are plenty of, and then we have to sand the walls where we filled holes - which is going to be so fricken messy, THEN we can paint.  So, it's still a WIP, but at least the wallpaper is down - and that is a HUGE thing in my book!

A Special Congrats

I just wanted to extend a very special congratulations to my beautiful cousin and her now Finance, Joe!

Shannon and Joe got engaged to be married over this past weekend and I'm so happy for them! 

Not only do I get to be in the wedding (YAY!) but I've been asked to take engagement photos of the two of them (YAY!).

So, bunches of yay and super happy times, yo!

I've got a pimple!

ewww!!!

So - I need to know what YOU use to take care of yours.

I don't get pimples all the time, usually one around my time of the month, if even.  However, when I was living with mommy, she had this super awesome creme that she got outside of the US (it's only available by Rx in the US) - it worked to dry that sucker out in like a day.  It was awesome.  It is awesome.  However, I can't go to her house each time I breakout... so... I need something I can by over the counter that works, quick.

Tell me about what you use - something affordable and reliable.  GO!

I've lost my Mojo but replaced it with Zumba

So, we finally got the internets at home last night.  Well, we got it on Saturday, but we got our wireless set up last night and I was finally able to use my precious lap top again.  I have no pictures of the house yet, but soon - I fucking promise (yeah, just like pictures of Hawaii, right!?)!
Anyhow - I signed up for Hulu Plus - so I can watch my favorite TV shows on our TV through the PlayStation 3 using the Hulu App... ya dig?

I also signed up for a Zumba class through community education - I'll be taking it with a couple of girlfriends once a week starting in roughly a month.  I'm super excited to do it - super scared too.  Zumba is a dance based workout.  I don't really dance, other than in the clubs (and that's more like dirty dancing than anything else) - but I'm excited to learn something new while I get my workout on.  Because of the move and trying to save money, I've cancelled my gym membership based on the acquisition of EA Sport Active for the Wii and a few other workout things I can do at home.  I figure it's better to do the stuff at home, even if I have to buy stuff once, over paying monthly for the gym.  Now I've just got to get the damn Wii hooked up and get my ass moving.  Spring being right around the corner, I hope to start taking advantage of walking outdoors.
Anyhow - the zumba class is going to be interesting...

So this weekend I went out for a friend birthday - Steve and I just met up for a cocktail or two (and by that I mean, I had none and Steve had many).  Not the point ... I was talking with someone I've known on a casual level for several years - we gots to talking and he said to me "Angela, you become more and more reserved every time I see you.  What happened to your craziness?"  This made me sad.  I don't even know what to say about it.
I immediately jumped on the defense and tried to come up with some excuse... oh, blame it on the fact that I have a boyfriend now - he didn't accept that reply.  So I toyed around with a few more and finally settled on the fact that maybe I'm just growing up... which he seemed to congratulate me on.  I wasn't looking for congratulations; I was looking for something I've apparently lost.  It left me feeling out of sorts and, while I know it's okay to grow up, I really hope I haven't lost my true self.
My weekend was spent shopping at Lowe's, comparing paint samples, and having lunch with some family... 5-6-7 years ago it would have been spent drinking and dancing the night away at the club or whichever bar had good music and a dance floor.

I know it's okay to grow up... it just kind of hits you like a ton of bricks when someone calls you out on being lame.

Laser Hair Removal

Let's get personal, shall we?

I know it's not a topic that women like to talk about out loud - but I'm typing it, so we're not talking.

When I went through puberty, I started to grow hair in places women don't want it - sideburns, face, chin, upper lip.  I have thick dark hair, so the hairs that did grow... they showed up A LOT.  Obviously, as a high schooler this was mortifying to me.  So I talked with my parents and we decided to go talk to someone about laser hair removal.  I've been doing some sort of hair removal ever since (11+ years).

I've also been poked and prodded and put on several types of birth control to try and figure out why laser hadn't stopped the hair from coming back.  I'm healthy and I test within normal ranges, but for some reason hair just wants to grow.  Everyone has an opinion; poly-cystic ovaries (which they still haven't completely ruled out but my blood doesn't point to it), thyroid issues (all test normal), etc.  To me, it's disgusting.

Several years ago I finally got to a point where the hairs were few enough to try electrolysis - which is where they insert a needle into the hair follicle, try to zap the root, and pull it out.  That is finally starting to diminish in how often I have to go.

My hormones are out of whack - that's the conclusion I've drawn.  So while I am having all these treatments on a schedule so that we can get the hair in it's proper growth stage, they aren't growing in their proper stages therefore not being hit by the laser.  I've know laser to work for many people, completely and after only a handful of treatments.  While I'd never compare myself to Kim Kardashian, her heritage is Armenian and she gets laser on her legs, I'm guessing it's an ongoing battle for her as well - those dark hairs are sons-a-bitches!

So, for me, it's taken years and thousands of dollars - but I do feel like it's finally working.  I'm only one person of many who have done it.

The one thing that was an absolute for me right off the bat was the appearance of the hairs growing - they were thinner and lighter pretty much right away.  So when I had the chance to buy one of those coupons and use it on my bikini line, I thought the very worse that could happen was that I'd have as much hair but it'd be finer and lighter - which in my book was good enough.

Either way - I think laser is a positive thing for most people.  It's obviously not cheap, so if you're doing it for vanity reasons and you're broke, you may want to rethink it.  If you have out of control hair in places that it shouldn't be - go see a doctor first, THEN see about laser hair removal.

Update

The house is finally to a place where I don't feel rushed to get home and work... we've still got a lot to do and even more that we want to do but probably can't afford... BUT - it's beginning to look like a home.  It's super exciting.  I plan to take some crappy cell phone photos of it tonight for the facebook people in my life - I will try to post them here too, tomorrow... or maybe tonight.
We don't have internets at home yet and blogging from my phone is time consuming.  Soon enough my pretties... soon enough.  It's a lot better to see the house with our stuff in it - because it feels more like home.

Anywhos - I went to a bachelorette party on Saturday, in Duluth.  It was the most fun with a group of girls I've had in a long time!  I was pretty worried because ... well .. I don't really like girls and I find that I have a hard time getting along with girls I don't know, but Linnea (the bride-to-be) has some pretty fucking awesome friends.    I stole a few pictures to share with you:

The Bride-to-be (in Pink) and her Maid of Honor (in Black)

A couple of group shots:

Apparently I have a new favorite face to make when I'm drunk (and I was on a mission for world peace, maybe?)...

and I have no idea what is going on here, but this picture makes me laugh... so very hard...

All in all a great night, minimal drama (none too much to ruin the excellent time we were having), lots of cocktails, lots of laughs, and a couple douche canoes.  

Have there been any Random Acts of Kindness lately?!  Give me an update please!

I had lunch with Krysten on Friday, I'm really enjoying getting to know her.  We don't live that far from each other, but it's not really close either, so the few times I've hung out with here, I've always left wanting to do it again.  Her, Sara, and myself are signed up to do a boudoir photo shoot in August - I'm hoping to come away with some pretty amazing shots.  Don't worry I'll share some with you when I get them.

After lunch on Friday I had my final laser hair removal treatment on my bikini line.  Back in October, I purchased one of those half priced deals (I can't remember which of the many sites I got it from) for 4 laser treatments on one of many areas to chose from.  I picked the bikini line as my Hawaii trip was around the corner.  I'll talk more about my experience with laser hair removal another time, but it's been a pretty nice change down there... lol.  I'm not completely hair free (they say it can take from 4-6 treatments), but there is a big difference.  I'm just glad to be done driving to Hudson, WI just for a quick 10 minute appointment!

Sorry I'm so random here... have a good Tuesday!

I'm Versatile

Apparently, according to Harley, I'm Versatile.  If you haven't checked out her blog, now would be a good time - she's Irish, lives in Ireland - and is currently in the process of blogging about her recent vacation (or Holiday) to Florida.  She hits on some of the American stereo-types and voices her opinion of us.  She's way too cute to be pissed at, and.. well... she's mostly right, we do have a McDonald's on every corner.

Thanks for the award, Harley!

The Rules:
1. Thank and link back to the blogger who kindly gave you this award
2. Write 7 random facts about yourself
3. Pass this award along to a few other fellow bloggers

1. Done.
2. I like to have all my bathroom towels folded neatly the same way and then stacked nicely (boyfriend just learned this about me), I'm a lefty, My middle name is Hope, I'm in the process of setting up Google Voice on my phone - I've already created a new number, after reading a bit about couponing - I'm scared shitless to learn the 'art', I love my new home, I check my bank account online at least once a day - if not multiple times.
3. JerseySjov, Steve, Sara

Help me be cheap!

So - first of all, the moved went well.  Got everything over with the exception of a few odds and ends that, honestly, I don't need.  I'm starting to feel a little ... scattered.  I need routine, especially in the mornings.  So far I'm feeling out of sorts.  I know it'll get better, but... it's how I feel right now.
Everything else is coming along nicely though, so we've just gotta keep truckin'.  Last night we didn't get shit done because we went to the Wild game - I bought Steve tickets for Christmas to last nights game... little did I know we'd be freshly moved.

Anyhow - the point of this post?
In March of 2009 I posted a TFT (Thoughts for Thursday) about buying generic - read it here - but actually read it because there are things listed there that will aide in your reading of this blog.
Basically I was posting trying to make a list of things that are okay and still decent quality/taste to buy generic - to save some money.  Now more than ever do I need to apply this to my life.  I have some new readers since then and I'm curious what YOU buy generic.  What is okay to go cheap on and what is not okay to go cheap on...

Also, any tips for a beginner on coupons?  I don't need to go bat shit crazy on clipping them but I'd like to think about starting to use them more and try and save a few bucks.

So - 2 things
1. Advise for a beginner in the art of coupon clipping and using them to my advantage.
2. List the things that you DO buy generic and DO NOT buy generic

GO!