Friday, July 26, 2013

Life and Love Lately... a picture story

I'm foregoing any long diatribes about what I have been doing over the past few weeks and submitting, instead, a photo summary so that you can rest assured that I am still alive despite a 10 day boxing match with a certain cyclospora parasite which finally ended with me kicking that parasite in its parasitic testicles and emerging victorious!

Behold...my life over the past few weeks.

I celebrated my 39th birthday and ate yummy cupcakes!  My fave was a salted caramel chocolate cheesecake.  But I managed to choke down most of the others, too.
Me on my birthday.

We have been visiting colleges with my oldest daughter who will graduate this year.  This school is ranked #1 for cute boys. It's also #1 for being a school you will pay loans on for the rest of yours, your children's and your grandchildren's lives!
Us at the Horned Frog statue at TCU.  Students supposedly rub his head for good luck on exams, although I never did that once when I went there.  Maybe that's why I never did so well on tests...hmmm

I finally got around to polishing the brass hardware on several pieces of vintage furniture I inherited more than 15 years ago.  If I had known the difference a little polish would make, I probably still would have procrastinated for 15 years.  Because that's what I do, sadly.

I painted our entryway/foyer that I have been pondering and thinking about for several months.  You can see some of my ponderings on the wall here.

Yes, it's black.

And I am totally in love with the end result!  My favorite part is the enlarged photo of my grandparents during their early years of marriage - more on that in a later post.  I still need a new rug, of course, but that will have to wait until I find something perfect.  Which, if you know me, translates to 'cheap.'

I also painted my bathroom black which has been my plan for a long time.  The bathroom is going to be a big, costly project but having new paint for now makes me feel less 'I-live-in-a-crack-house' -y.

A rare moment of relaxation with the love of my life.  And my husband.  Bahahahaha!  I love that man more every day!  I love my dog, too but she poops on the floor too often.  My husband almost never does that so I love him more than her.

My favorite summer dinner.  Because sometimes it's just too damn hot to eat a big meal.  And sometimes I'm too lazy to cook a real meal.  And sometimes eating a light meal means you can drink less wine and still have a lovely intoxicated evening.  Which means I'm saving money and conserving resources.  Man, I am so green and frugal it's not even funny!

I've also been spending lots of time with 3 of my favorite people in the whole world.  They're total swaggy gangstas as you can see by this picture.

After chiseling off the layer of dust that had accumulated since the last time I cleaned these shelves, I styled them up all pretty and properly.  Which took me about 2 hours because shelf styling is something at which I am completely inept.  I used these pictures as my inspiration because there was no way I was attempting this on my own!

I also got around to staining my bar shelves that I installed several months ago.  I styled these, too, but obviously am not quite done - updated photos for that gold frame are hopefully getting done today.  Unless I can find something else to do to put that off for a while. 

I know - a pile of ribbon is probably not the most exciting thing you ever imagined.  But, I just bought a huge bag of remnant ribbon for a little over $1 and it's my inspiration for my next project which is this...



It's my really ugly sunroom which currently serves as a steam sauna/mosquito sanctuary.  I've got some good stuff planned for this room but it's definitely not going to happen overnight so you should come back soon to see how things are going.


 
Okay, so that's what's I've been up to in a nutshell.

If you're already following me on Instagram then you've probably seen several of these photos so I apologize for the redundancy.
If you're not following me on Instagram but want to see some of my daily 'Life and Love' then feel free to follow/stalk me.

See you soon, peeps!

À la vie et à l'amour
-Cortney
 
 
 

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Get Yo' Freedom On!

Happy July 4th, everyone!

Last night while I was attempting to fall asleep I started thinking,
"Why do Americans not have British accents?"

Maybe changing our dialect and accents was just another way we rebelled against Britain when we settled in this fine country of ours. 

I've actually tried speaking with a British accent.
For some reason I always revert to Robin Williams', "Hellllooooooo" scene in Mrs Doubtfire:



It's always the first thing that pops into my head when I need to pull out a British accent at the spur of the moment.

Which totally happens all the time.

My mom thinks Brits sound like they're speaking with marbles in their mouths.
I don't recommend trying to perfect your British accent that way because if you swallow one, it's probably going to be unpleasant on it's way out.

Clink!

But, I do recommend celebrating your freedom from those marble eating Brits by gettin' your inner hippie on and cruisin' the good 'ol USA in style in one of these babies.



Nothing says 'FREEDOM' to me like driving a long stretch of highway in a vintage Volkswagon van!



(Ironically, many of the above photos are from British blogs - you can get the original sources by checking out my VW Van board on Pinterest.)

I plan to own one someday and fix it up like a cute little vintage hippie house and maybe I'll even use my afghan collection in it.

Then, Sean and I will drive all over the country visiting antique shops and apple orchards and we'll eat at crappy diners and then and go hiking to make ourselves feel healthier and then we'll watch sunsets and drink wine every evening and talk about how much freedom we have.

Ahhhh...it's good to have dreams.

Isn't that what freedom and Independence Day is all about, really?

Keep dreamin' my friends, and have a great July 4th!

À la vie et à l'amour
-Cortney