Thursday, February 24, 2011

Give me a house already.

Rule #1:  When cute little girls look up at you with arms outstretched and a "comfort me" look on their face, pick them up and cuddle them.

Rule #2:  Always aim her away from your body in case she throws up on you.

Addendum to Rule #2:  If you fail to do this, go home from work early because you smell like puke.


(I'm blogging about this because I have nothing else to talk about.)

Unless you want to see some pictures of our Happy Anniversary sushi date?



Perhaps my New Year's resolution should have been to try and get Tony to smile in pictures.

Anyway; 1 year down, at least 5 more to go.

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P.S.  Suzy asked if I drew the header in my picture.  I did, in fact.  There's a link around here somewhere to my DeviantArt account if anyone's interested, though I don't claim to be amazing at the arts.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

World's Worst Home Tour

DISCLAIMER:
So, as I was transferring these pictures from the camera to the computer, I thought to myself "Kayla...really?  Do you really want to do this?"  Because, you see, these are not pictures of the classy, inspiring, decorated home.  These are pictures of the home that has been almost completely neglected for about 2 weeks.  You see, I've had a bunch of weeknight classes for my job so I've been getting home late, and what with all this homebuying business (it's c-r-a-z-y!), our little house has been merely the place we come to at the end of the day to sleep in.  Laundry's barely gotten done (and certainly not put away), dishes forgotten, clutter ignored.

But maybe a little brazen honesty is a good thing?  I'll admit our house has never been what I wanted it to be, because a) it's a rental, and b) this has been a nutty year anyway.  All our furniture is mismatched, I haven't hung curtains anywhere, and we're still trying to figure out how we want everything anyway.  However, our place usually does look better than it does in these photos.  Alright, not much.  At least try and picture it cleaner, okay?

So here goes.  My mom would kill me if she saw this.

As you pull into our tiny cul-de-sac of duplexes and walk to our front door, this is what you see.


Ah, another dreary rainy day in Salt Lake City, Utah.  This next shot is just because I like my car so much.


The front door opens into our living room, so this setup is the first thing you see.


See what I mean about mismatched furniture?  Does this scream college dorm to anyone else?  Couch, entertainment center: thrifted.  Coffee table: free.  I guess this is what being a poor newlywed's all about.  Maya is wondering what the heck I'm doing.

Turning left, you see this:


Clutter, clutter, clutter.  That half wall which my pride and joy (piano) is sitting against is probably my favorite thing about this house, and I'm sad to leave it.  On the left wall is my computer desk, where I'm sitting right now.


You can barely see it, right?  I know.  Excuse the flash in the picture.  If you turn around from here, you see our little reading nook, encumbered by boxes and a gigantic teddy bear.


The chair we found on Craigslist for $25.  And I know you can't really see it in this picture, but it's not awful and it's friggin comfy.

Alright, let's move on to the kitchen.  Left-face and you see our very spacious, very 70s kitchen, complete with yellow laminate flooring and dark, dark, depressing cabinets.


It's bigger than this picture makes it look.  I had plans to soften it up with a nice big rug, but rugs are expensive, yo.  There's last night's penne pasta dinner still on the stove.  Stay classy, Wades!


This little movable counter thingy we got for free as an extra when we bought our kitchen table (Craigslist.)  That's where we put our garbage can.  You can see one of the many examples of our random poster collection: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, from the thrift store.  You can also see the bowl of cereal milk I accidentally dipped my hair in this morning.  Moving on.

This is the view from the kitchen back towards the living room, and our kitchen table which mostly doubles as a place-to-put-everything.


To the left is the washing machine (the bi-fold doors are open) and the sliding doors on the right house the water heater and such other necessities.  Here's another view back into the living room.


If you turn right from here, you enter a mini-hallway, and directly across from the kitchen is our bathroom.  I am so in love with our shower curtain.


I know this bathroom doesn't look like much, but guys, you will see the bathroom we are inheriting and then you'll think this one looks like a palace.


If you turn left in the mini-hallway, you come to our  bedroom.  This is the room we spend the least amount of time in, and thusly have spent the least amount of effort on.  Also, there's clothes on the floor.


Notice how Maya's bed on the floor is kindof almost as big as ours?  Yeah.


Our bed and dresser are a matching (!) set from Ikea.  Bringing them home and then putting them together just after we got married is a happy memory. 


This room is so bare it's painful.  Can you believe I didn't even make the bed before taking this picture?  Honesty, folks!  And more random wall posters.  (Not pictured: Star Wars poster in the hallway.)

Okay, and if you had turned right in the hall rather than left, you would have entered the craft/extra room.


(This picture was taken a while ago, hence the pretty green outside instead of cold, grey rain.)  But it still looks the same.  In fact, I've had the same half-finished painting on my easel for months.


And that's the whole house.  Here's the yard to round things out.


And in case you, like me, can't get past the sad, end-of-winter state of things, you can go back to this post of when we put in the chain link fence to remember what grass is supposed to look like.


Wow.  Was that too much real life for you?  It kind of was for me.  Now at least I have motivation to really put in the effort to making our new house polished and put together so I can prove to you we're not actually a bunch of slobs with no sense of interior design.  I have a bazillion ideas floating around in my head, and I guess bazillion is a real word because spell check didn't underline it.

We haven't closed on the new house yet, but it's pretty much a sure thing.  I'll photograph the whole house before we move in while it's still empty and untouched by us, and then I plan to keep you updated on all our changes.  We're very excited, and I at least am insanely intimidated.  Homeowners?  That's, like, what adults are called.

Quickie?

In the midst of packing procrastinating, I thought I'd drop in and show off a tiny drawing I did for Holly's 365 Holly Holidays thing she's got going on.  I signed up for two days, and the first one falls on Sunday, which is National Love Your Pet Day.  So there's that.  The first version is what is in my sketchbook, the second is what i submitted to Holly.


Really truly nothing special, but then I haven't been drawing much these days.

Sunday also happens to be Tony's and my 1 year anniversary.  Need more exclamation points?  I thought so.

!!!!!!!!!!!

I got us tickets to see our favorite comedian, Brian Regan, tonight.


Can it get any better than that?  I submit that it cannot!


Also also wik, it looks like we're buying a house.  This also deserves exclamation points!!!  Today,  before everything starts getting shoved into boxes, I snapped a few pictures of our current home, exactly as it looks right now (read: completely messy) not only to share on the blog and to keep as before/after references, but for my own sentimental uses.  This was our first home, after all!  Silly little duplex as it is.  I opened the door to my craft room to start packing and almost burst into tears.

"all changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another"
anatole frances

But I am quickly cheered up by thinking of all the awesome new things I'll get to do to our new home, which will be ours and only ours, and the first thing will be to PAINT THE CABINETS.  You'll see what I mean.

Yay for change?  I'll be back with those pictures.  Hold your breath!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

How many types are there?

So, life has been several types of crazy lately.  And my fingers just ain't been up to the plate when it comes to blogging, which is okay.  You know, cause it is. 

I'll probably tell you all about the craziness once it chills a little bit, but lemme say it's along the lines of HOMEOWNERSHIP.  We haven't bought a house yet, but it seems like we're looking.

Hanyways, Cat Power has been keeping me a bit relaxed.  She's probably one of my favorites.  I've had this song on repeat in my car for several days now, cause I just like it so much.  I know she's not for everyone, but I think she's rad,  and cool.



P.S. I'm sick today.  Anyone wanna cook me some oatmeal?