Sunday, March 22, 2009

Painting the Kitchen

We painted our kitchen last weekend. There was definitely a debate over the color choice but we ended up compromising on Coriander by Martha Stewart, a lovely shade of yellow. Jamie's original choice was lime green which I initially thought I would like as well but then we realized when we went to the paint store that we actually had differing opinions of what "lime green" actually is. I ended up going back later and picked up about 50 paint samples in various shades of yellow, orange, and green. We finally decided on yellow and bought a few mini sample cans at Lowe's to test on our walls. We painted the 4 we had chosen in 3 different places on our kitchen walls (to see what they would look like in the various lights) and then numbered the cans and the wall samples to decide which we liked the best. It's amazing what a coat of paint can do to freshen things up and just make everything look cleaner. We also repainted the trim in the kitchen to touch it up as well.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

American Idol 2

Our predictions this week for who will go home on American Idol:

1. Alexis Grace OR

2. Scott MacIntyre

Home Improvement Projects

We've been making a list of home improvement projects over the last couple months and I finally wrote them all down the other day so we make sure we get them all done. These are projects to get done in the next couple months as well as in the longer term (since who knows how long we'll be living here with my house not selling...)

1. Paint kitchen and nook
2. Replace and hang light fixture by back door
3. Replace fans in living and dining rooms
4. Replace fan in nook with light fixture and fan in guest bedroom with new fan
5. Get new outside doors and install
6. Fix quarter round on wood floors
7. Replace outside deck/patio
8. Rebuild outside stone wall holding back flower bed
9. Paint downstairs bedroom
10. Replace light fixture in both bathrooms
11. Fix upstairs shower
12. Landscape outside

Rogue

We finally decided to break down and get a new car. My Altima was struggling as of late and I've been wanting a Nissan Murano or Rogue for some time, so two weeks ago we went to the Nissan dealer in Des Moines and decided to lease a Rogue. It was a much better experience than the last time we went to a car dealer. Two years ago, I considered getting a Murano but the car salesman was awful and put SOOO much pressure on us to buy. We left upset with him and the dealer which is unfortunate since we've bought a lot of Nissan cars over the years. Our new Rogue is a 4 cylinder, all wheel drive, crossover SUV. Color=Gotham Gray, it's like the batmobile. :)

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

American Idol

So Jamie and I have been pretty faithful about watching American Idol this season. From the very beginning, our favorite has been Danny Gokey! We think he's pretty awesome and would probably buy any cd he came out with. A couple of our other most recent favorites have been Megan Corkrey, Anoop Desai, and Casey Carlson (but only because Jamie (along with apparently many other people) thinks she's cute). Our votes for who's going home tonight: Jasmine Murray (cousin Jasmine) and Michael Sarver.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Day 35


Day 35
Originally uploaded by Pierpont Photography
Perhaps the most beautiful picture I've taken...my schmoopy. :)

Day 34


Day 34
Originally uploaded by Pierpont Photography
Here are some Bella foot prints.

Day 33


Day 33
Originally uploaded by Pierpont Photography
I'll catch up eventually...I'm only like 30 days behind!

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Mom's Birthday

I went home a few weeks ago to celebrate my mom's birthday. We spent the day shopping and then went out to dinner at the DOC wine bar in Lombard. We came back home afterward and opened presents and she finally got her Wii Fit (boy was that hard to find)! Here are some pictures from the weekend.