Hooray for four day weekends!

The first of these pictures is of the new blinds in our bedroom.  We put white plantation blinds in the rest of the house, but we didn't feel like they went in our room, since our bedding involves a lot of off-white.  Please disregard everything else in this picture, our room still needs a lot of work.  Next is my absolute favorite picture in the entryway.  It's from The Black Apple, and it's called "Wonders Never Cease".  Jason said it looks like something from a Wes Anderson movie, which is great, since I've always wanted to live in a Wes Anderson movie.  Then there is the vintage Maio print I picked up at the antique store after eying it for several months.  I'm so glad I did, I'm so in love with it that I'm looking for a friend for her.  That one is in the mud room, which we're hoping to turn into a laundry room/pantry sometime next year.  And last but not least, my mom brought some plant stand with her, which I used to display some things we already had in overflow boxes upstairs.  The tiny rabbit picture is from Elle Moss, and I adore it.  There are still some other things I've hung up that I'm excited about, but I need new batteries for my camera.  My first week of school went fairly well, although I did spend two and a half hours today waiting for my parking permit today.  I'm taking two seminars, one in modern art, and one called Theories and Methods, which basically looks at the way the discipline of Art History works.  I'm also taking an Islamic art class and one on architectural texts since 1960.  I'm excited about that since that's where my other architecture classes have tended to end.  We went to the mall earlier.  Jason got a wii game and I went to Bath and Body Works.  I'm such a sucker for their coupons that they constantly send me haha.  I have this weird habit of organizing scents completely by season, be they hand soap, dish soap, lotion or bubble bath.  I refuse to use anything coconut scented in the winter, nor apple scented in the spring haha.  So I store off-season stuff in the closet, since my bathroom's tiny.  When I went to get out the fall/winter stuff, I realized I was so low I was down to Sensual Amber from B&BW, and Amber Romance from Victoria's Secret.  So much variety haha.  So I bought Irresistible Apple and Black Currant Vanilla lotions, along with Leaves room oil.  Now I just need more Velvet Tuberose and the new scent, Black Amethyst, and I'll be all set haha.  Tomorrow I'm going to do some cleaning, and when Jason gets home we're finally going to buy our new entertainment center.  I was going to put a link to it, but they don't seem to have it online.  This weekend I'm hoping we can relax and spend some time alone for the first time in a long time.  We might be going to Bloomsburg on Sunday, but we haven't finalized anything yet.  I'd like to finish my pillow embroidery and continue re-reading The Fall.  I haven't read it in a few years, but I loved it and am excited to read it again.  It's part of a Camus anthology that I borrowed from Jason's collection, because I hadn't read The Plague, even though that's probably one of his best-known works.  I finished that last week, and really liked it.  It seemed to have a slightly more hopeful message that his other works, aside from the whole plague thing haha.  I love Camus, in all of his life is meaningless glory haha.

Renovation goodness

Alright.  I'll confess, I'm not very skilled at this whole thing, so when I tried to put a bunch of the pics of our home improvements on here, I had numerous problems.  So I've decided to put a few up at a time and talk about them.  The first one is of the initials I got from Anthropologie.  Cory thinks they're "hideous" and Jason hates them, but I love them haha.  Then we have the before and after pics of the library upstairs.  All we've really done is rip up the carpet, but hopefully we'll paint in the not too distant future.  We're also going to buy a reading chair soon.  The last picture is of the entryway.  It shows both the paint colors and the new bamboo floor haha.  More on all of that later.  I started school yesterday.  Honestly, my classes seem interesting so far, but I'm just so burnt out already, I think this semester is going to be a struggle.  But, I'm sure I'll survive.  I ran a lot of errands today, and picked up the last of the frames for the entryway, and the new Entourage DVD, among other things.  I made Harlock an appointment for her yearly physical.  We've also decided to get her microchipped.  It would make me feel better, even though she got out of the backyard on my birthday and Jason found her wandering around the driveway, sniffing my car, looking confused haha.  It may not seem likely that she'll take off, but you never know.  As for the whole Netflix adventure, I've been watching way more movies than I ever have.  Jason, on the other hand, still has the first movie he picked out, a month ago haha.  I watched Eagle Vs. Shark, which was a pretty dark, interesting movie with Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords in it.  We rented Kill Bill Vol. 1 for Cory and Jason to watch, and, for the second time in a month, Anchorman for Cory and I haha.  Cory and I also rented Be Kind Rewind, which I really enjoyed, like all of Michel Gondry's movies.  That's all for now, no matter how many movies I watch, the queue just keeps getting longer haha.

I love playing dj

The main reason I haven't posted in a while is that I was going to wait until I was in the mood to post pictures of the changes we've made to the house.  But I'll make an exception, since I still don't have time to post them.  Tomorrow we're driving to Philadelphia to take Cory to the airport and go clothes shopping at King of Prussia.  We've had a lot of fun with Cory.  I'll write more about it later.  I also decided that my schedule this semester allowed for me to sit for the people I was sitting for again.  It's only 3 days a week, for an hour and a half a day, but it'll be a little extra money.  Also, I love the kids, they're great and pretty easy to take care of.  I also figured this would be a good thing once I graduate, since I have no plans other than trying for a baby, so this will be something to keep me occupied.  Right now Cory and Jason are practicing guitar, and I'm making a playlist for Cory's iPod.  It has Autolux, Bat for Lashes, Chin Up Chin Up, Film School, Ladytron, Hot Chip, Crystal Castles, the Dodos, Figurines, Fleet Foxes, Joanna Newsom, The Magic Numbers, MGMT, The Notwist, Portishead, Roxy Music, Vetiver, 13 & God, Boards of Canada, Chester French and Television on it.  I love making mixes, especially for Cory since he's open to new music and still has so much to learn about the classics as well haha.  But clearly I have a problem with editing haha.  

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

The title is my absolute favorite Jean Paul Sartre quote.  Some might find it depressing, but I feel like it sums up my feelings about life, and why Existentialism is a philosophy I've always connected with.  I guess since I've been reading Camus, I've been on an existential kick.  I remember the first time I read No Exit was my first semester in college.  I was completely amazed by it.  On a completely unrelated note, Mom and Bob left today.  Even though they stayed longer than anybody, it felt like it flew by.  Unfortunately the guy we hired to do the drywall was an unreliable ass, so the living room walls are started, but not finished.  We did manage to get almost all of the entryway done.  Mom and Bob painted, and I could not be happier with the color.  I like it so much, it's going to go in the living room too.  I bought a beautiful print from the Black Apple on Etsy, I'll post a picture of it later.  I hung one of Jason's Ralph Stedman prints, and framed 6 small animal prints from Etsy that I haven't put up yet.  I also got ten postcards from the Black Apple that I'm going to frame and put in there.  The bamboo floor is in too, and it's beautiful.  I'm so excited that the house is starting to really feel like ours.  My mom worked miracles in the yard, the front has red Mums, along with a squirrel and the cutest fat bear with a bee hive haha.  They bought us a fire pit for the back yard.  We also got all new blinds for the downstairs.  They're all white plantation blinds except in our bedroom, which has cherry wood ones.  It's amazing how much they change the look of the house.  We also got new curtains, and curtains for upstairs, since blinds aren't necessary.  We went to the flea market and an antique store on Sunday, and I got a vase, some owls, a print I've been eyeing at the antique store for a while, and three metal trays with flowers on them.  I think I'm going to buy brackets and make them into shelves.  The only problem right now is there never seems to be enough wall space for all of the ideas I have haha.  Today Cory and I wandered around town.  I bought $40 worth of beads that I shouldn't have haha.  I couldn't resist, they're pink stone beads that look like bubble gum.  I also got some pink vintage beads, and made a pretty flower out of the plastic flower parts I bought on Etsy a few months ago.  Anyway, this post has gotten way too long, tomorrow I'll take some pictures around the house to put on here.

Stress, stress and more stress

Our home is a disaster.  Since Dad and Megan were only here for a few days we assumed we wouldn't be doing any home projects, but we were wrong haha.  We found bamboo floors at Sams for way cheap, and my Dad spent most of the weekend putting them in our entryway and up the stairs.  We also ripped the carpet out upstairs, and my Dad put in a new toilet to replace the old, broken, very pink one haha.  He didn't finish the stairs, so Bob's going to help us when he gets here.  My dad bought us every tool known to man, once you get him into Lowe's, it's several hours before you get him out haha.  We also found a guy in our neighborhood who's willing to smooth the plaster in our entryway and living room, so we can paint them next week.  The problem is that he said we had to remove the drop ceiling in the living room.  We got most of it down, but one side of the wall is threatening to come off with the track.  And then the problem got worse, because Jason dropped the putty knife he was using to prevent the crowbar from denting the wall, and managed to cut himself pretty badly on his ribs, and now he can't raise his left arm.  I hope the guy isn't too irritated, we got most of it down, and hopefully Jason can finish it tonight.  Plaster sucks.  I'll post the before pics of the living room today and the after once we've finished.  I bought some prints on etsy to put in the entryway.  Hopefully, budget permitting, we'll be able to buy new blinds and curtains for the living room when my mom is here.  We also found a new entertainment center, at Wal mart of all places, and we're planning on getting that before the end of the month.  Once we have that, we'll be done with the living room.  Other than that, we had a fun time with Dad and Megan, even though Megan and I spent most of our time hauling things back from Lowe's and Wal mart for my dad haha.  We went to the beach on Saturday.  It rained, nearly all day.  We drove through the Poconos going 35 with our hazards on, because the rain was so bad.  But, we still had fun at the boardwalk, we played games and bought funnel cake and candy cigarettes.  We did discover that next time we'll go overnight so we can go to the open Atlantic.  The bay water is very brown, kind of like lake water.  I'm pretty frightened of water in general, and brown water for some reason really freaks me out, so I would prefer going somewhere where the water is blue, or at the very least greenish, like Clearwater Beach haha.  On my birthday I spent most of the day ripping up carpet.  Pretty exciting haha.  It was really fun, I got something in the mail every day last week.  Mainly I got money, but Joeli bought me a beautiful soap dish from Anthropologie with pretty soaps, and a pretty stained glass box.  Megan got me two vases from Anthropologie, but unfortunately one broke on the plane, so I rebought it with my dad's money haha.  I got some new jeans, and some grey cords, also from Anthro (are you sensing a pattern here? haha).  With my dad's money, I bought a shrug and a t-shirt, guess where from?  Haha.  With Jason and his parents' gifts, I picked up all of Mortimer's start up items.  I feel bad for him, since we cleared out the living room, he has to stay by himself in the guest room, since the ac in our room is broken and it's too hot for him.  With the rest of the money, I think I'm going to pick up the bird mirror I talked about in an earlier post, for our bedroom.  I love ordering birthday gifts online, because it stretches out the birthday excitement since I have to wait for them to come in the mail!  All in all, it was a great birthday, complete with ice cream cake!