hail to the victors valiant....

the big game...michigan (6-0) vs. michigan state (4-1).  

on tap for noon today.  

my boys are undefeated. i am picking the wolverines to win.

i will be in my great room with my son watching the most legendary game in college football in michigan. my husband will be at the grocery store, the home depot, in the backyard or standing out in the wind and rain (which is our weather today).  he will be gnashing his teeth and developing a stomach ulcer.  because not only is the game legendary, so is don's reputation as a university of michigan alumni who

cannot watch a university of michigan football game.  he just can't.  his brain just won't let him watch a game without 

screaming at the tv, 

stomping off after a bad play, 

hollering at me to turn the tv off so he doesn't have to be tortured anymore 

or ripping his hair out at the roots. 

yeah, we call him "superfan"!!

and since i love to watch the game without him torturing me too, he has to leave. 

so i've written out the grocery list, i'm having him check out the oops paint at the home depot and i've pointed out all of the things in the yard that need to be attended to.

i just hope it is three hours worth......

GO BLUE

i'm a hottie.....

as i'm sure, is everyone else in the country this past week....

the temps have been dreadful for about 10 days.

high 90's and last thursday we hit 99 degrees.  the heat index was 110 degrees...

it hasn't gotten much better in the last few days.  it is almost too hot to do anything.  i have been taking my morning walk between 6:30 and 7:00 am and i come home in a dripping sweat.  and the dog starts tugging at the leash to go home after the first lap around the subdivision,

even though he knows we always go 3-4 laps....

he plops down on the kitchen floor when we get into the house and tries to flatten himself to get every square inch of his body onto the cool floor.

I have been very grateful this past week for: 

central air-conditioning

the neighbor's pool

air conditioning in my car

electricity to run the air conditioning

shade

air conditioning

the chance to see this

and this

during austen's baseball tournament in grand haven, michigan....an adorable little lakeside town on the west side of the state where we had the opportunity to spend last weekend.  

poor austen baked in the sun during his games

which were played in a school yard surrounded by a parking lot, a street and fortunately for me,

some trees right next to the field which kept us nicely shaded and cooled.  

they (the team) didn't do too well, only winning one game out of four but we had a really fun weekend with breakfast out at a great little restaurant in town, a great hotel with a pool, a team picnic with food that we all brought and great company with the other baseball moms and dads. 

the night before we came home, we headed to the beach and pier for some sightseeing and an ice cream cone....

i only got a few pictures of the pier but i loved this one of austen who is getting tall enough to block dad's face.  

and this one of both of my guys

and austen got this one of us

as we were leaving the pier to go back to the hotel.   

it has been too hot to do any painting lately, i just don't have the motivation or desire to fight the heat. 

i did finish up this cute little table before i left though...

painted in a striped beachy style.....

and i am getting ready to let this one go.....

a sweet little craigslist find for $20,
repainted and dressed with a paint drop cloth.

 it started out looking like this

and i will be sad to see her go......

uh-oh......

it all started out so innocently....

i wanted to lighten things up in my kitchen.  

it's a little dark even though we get a nice southern light in this space all year long.  

lots and lots of natural light made us not afraid to paint our kitchen cupboards black about 5 years ago. 

it kinda scared my dad though, because when he first saw them he asked me if we were 

"going goth"..... 

the cupboards started out your typical builders grade oak....

boring.....

so during my pottery barn phase of house decor, we painted them black.  we also painted our kitchen table and chairs. they used to be a dark oak which wasn't bad, but i thought they looked much better in black.  which they did...except that dust shows up on every black surface 3.7 seconds after you dust them....so i used tablecloths a lot.

but now i am in my light and bright phase of decorating and i wanted to change things up a bit.  

so i painted that table and chair set....

it's not finished yet because i haven't sanded or waxed them yet but i am 

already loving how they lighten the space up.  

and we were both amazed at how the detail in the chair backs showed up with the new lighter paint.

here is a chair in paint progress....note the cool dragon thingys in the corners of the chair backs....

even thought i have had this table and chair set for almost 30 years

(10yrs really, cuz i'm not that old)

i never noticed the detail in the backs of the chairs.  when i bought the set, i bought one of each of the styles of chairs that they had so each has a different design.

 because i'm weird like that....

i will be distressing the table and chairs lightly.  and yes that is paint on the floor under the table leg but we already have this

 new flooring for our kitchen waiting to be installed.

so we also decided that we are going to lighten up the cupboards too.  my plan was to paint the upper cabinets white (or off white) and the bottom cupboards a medium gray.  

i think that if i paint both the uppers and the lowers white, the countertop will make it look 

like just too much white. and i am sure that we don't have plans to change the countertops out

in the very near future.  not that i don't want new ones because i do and i have even 

plotted setting a hot pan on them and burning them to get new ones...

but i am don is much more practical than that.....

so......

since we decided to paint the top cabinets white, don decided to get started on them....

while i wasn't home to supervise....

and i came home to this...

painted with this.....

(insert long, loud scream here)

i had been extolling the benefits of this paint (which i used on the table and chairs) to don 

and excitedly told him how you can paint over any type of finish

without having to prime, sand or prep your surface first.  

in his mr. oblivious  mind, 

this was the perfect medium for the cupboards....

i had to do a lot of double talking to get him to understand that this was not the best medium to use unless he wanted to pay way more coughcoughthirtyfivedollarsaquartcoughcough than he intended to for this little project without actually telling him how much more!!!

so, it's back to regular paint and primer for this job....

phew!!! that was close.

spring bounty...

don brought these in from our garden yesterday.

i don't think we have ever gotten such a big harvest from our strawberry plants.  we usually get a few of these

 but the rabbits and birds and sometimes the dog would get to them before we could.

 they taste so much better than the ones we have been getting from the grocery store lately.  

there is not really enough to make a pie or any other dessert but they have been wonderful in my yogurt for lunch!!

we got another small bowlful today too!!!!

sigh!!!

 i love summer.

here is a sneak peek of my latest project....

you won't believe the transformation!

mr. oblivious, how do you not notice?????

when i ordered the annie sloan chalk paint last wednesday i figured it would take at least 

five days to get here.  so i felt safe that it would come either today or tomorrow.

what i didn't remember is that don only works a half day on mondays because of his 

golf league....

oops....

he doesn't leave for golf until 4:00 pm.

the ups truck arrived at my house at 3:40 pm.  

mr. oblivious was in the backyard watering the garden,

 in full view of the driveway ->>>

and totally oblivious to the sound of the ups truck stopping at the end of the driveway 

 and of me walking to the end of the driveway.  so i took the box from the driver 

 and walked it right back up to the garage.  

in full view of mr. oblivious.

was he so involved with his impending golf game that he didn't see me?

or did he see me and roll his eyes into the back of his head and figured it wasn't worth 

the inquiry?

i actually think it was for former.  but who cares?

IT'S HERE!!!

 was shipped the same day that i ordered it because i got an email stating so.  i ordered from virginia at the southern institute of faux finishing here.  

 there is nothing like personalized customer service. nothing!!

in the box was this envelope and inside the envelope was this cute little triangle folded note.

 i love it when something is handwritten

addressed to me and signed.  in pen!! it may seem like an insignificant thing, but that is the 

kind of service that keeps me coming back.  thank YOU, virginia!!!

 austen had a baseball game tonight and i didn't get home until 10:00 pm. 

so the fun will have to wait until tomorrow!!!

i can't wait!

(no, this chair was not painted with the chalk paint) 

i will have a post about this chair soon!

it's on its way......

photo courtesy of kate @ centsational girl

i caved.....

and purchased this magic paint.  from what i have read and heard all over blogland lately, i will never use another paint again.  i am surely hoping that that isn't totally true.  if my husband finds out how much i paid for this paint

i am a goner!!!!   

i'm serious...

he will kill me.  so don't tell him. please.

so anyway, no sanding, no priming.  just slap it on and throw a coat of wax on top.  

i'll let you know what i think when i use it.

i think the first piece i will use it on will be this one

which i picked up a the goodwill a couple of months ago for a whopping $9.99.

followed by this one from craigslist for $40.00

 

and its mirror

 and then i shall try it on this one

found in the trash......

i will post a review on the paint when i get it.  i expect to get it monday or tuesday.  when don is safely at work.

good thing he doesn't read my blog.  and if he ever does, i will swear that my blog was hacked.

:D

busy, busy week

i can't believe that a week has already flown by... this has been a very busy week around here.  

the weather has actually warmed up a bit....in fact, it was in the mid 80's this past sunday..just two days after i whined like a baby about how cold its been lately.

however...

the following day it was back into the 50's and has stayed there since.  

and it was windy which makes it feel like the 40's...

i digress..

sunday's temps allowed us to finally spend some time outdoors.  

here is how our family spend the day...

don could not wait to get out into his garden

pruning the gardens and the rose bushes

did i tell you that our dog eats rose bushes???

it's true...when he was a puppy and before we had any control over him at all....he would yank the rose bushes out of the ground, roots and all, and drag them through the yard....

at least he doesn't eat his own poop....

austen spent most of the day golfing in the yard...

or as we like to call it

 fishing for balls in the pond..

doesn't the pond have a lovely green hue???  he could have teed off on the scum in there!!!

we went to home depot for some replacement parts to fix our 7 year old ( falling apart, burn everything you put on it, birds nest of a grill)

and came home with 

this

heaven, i tell ya!!!!  4 burners and a spit (that we still have to buy)

and the flames don't flare up and engulf our food and burn it to crispy ashes..ahhhh!!!

i scored an end table in someone's garbage pile...yup, totally slammed on the brakes,

pulled to the side of the road and hauled this baby into the back seat. because our cars were small and had no trunk space to be able to accommodate furniture....

so yesterday, we came home with this

an uplander with lots and lots of room

and seating for 7....people or pieces of furniture....

oops, how did that get in there???

i also worked on another piece of furniture for my friend lisa...

and when i uploaded this picture to send to her for a progress report yesterday, i noticed that there were some funky vertical lines on the picture....i googled it and learned that this is a major camera malfunction.  i was hoping that google was goggled in the head and bee-lined it to my beloved camera store where i bought my canon 7D.  they hadn't seen anything like that before and thought that it was an electronic problem and packed it off to the manufacturer......  :(

and i had a photo shoot to do this morning.....

so i got out my old canon xti and couldn't remember how to use it.  so i had to google that too.  but it worked and i was able to do the little mini easter shoot of these two lovelies.....

 so clear it almost looks like they are coming right out of the picture, doesn't it???

hey, how did that get in there???

it was actually warm enough to be outside in summer clothes....
i asked don to take a picture of me in my painting apron.  because it is a cute apron.

notice that he didn't get the apron....

hey, my eyes are up here.....(because i am so hugely endowed)

there we go.....

so i had to set it up so he could get the whole apron in the picture (i do wear it when i paint)

a bicycle, a couple of ladders, wading boots for the pond, the snow blower that hasn't been put away yet (i told don to get that dang thing into the shed before it jinks us again...crap..too late, they are calling for snow on saturday night, for reals!!!) a wooden sofa on its side, and numerous oil and paint stains on the garage floor. lovely isn't it?  hmmmmm...maybe the garage could use a little feminine touch, some pretty paint on the walls, and some curtains in the windows?????

nah, just a good power washing.....

i know your butt is cute, but can you keep it out of my post please???

i leave you today with an oxymoron of sorts

ruffles and skulls!!!

they are the same shoes as the raspberry ones in the photo above, only in mushroom.  

ok, i'm hungry now...

have a great weekend, friends!!!

seriously now!!!!