Hiatus

Warning:  This blogpost will be sporadic.....and LONG.

Wow.....I've only posted 4 times in April.  This month has flown by!  It has also been a very busy month.  Things at work have been steady to crazy at times.  Life in a new house has been rather chaotic....still haven't found a place for everything....and still can't seem to decide on paint colors....and still have furniture to move to my house....and furniture to put together....and even a couple boxes still to unpack.  As a result, I've had a brief hiatus from the blogging world.

Anywho, here's what I've been up to the last few weeks:
Click on any picture to enlarge

This is what most of the rooms in my house looked like about 3-4 weeks ago....boxes piled high, picture frames leaned against the wall, home decor and furniture thrown into one room.  I don't have any "after" pictures yet, but I can tell you that the stack of boxes is no longer there.

This is a to-scale drawing of my "great room" with to-scale cut-outs to represent furniture (I work in Architecture, give me a break!).  My mom and I went to IKEA last weekend and I got some new bookcases and other furniture to start really making this room more useable (right now there is stuff EVERYWHERE in there).  This will be my hobby/hang out room. 

This is a picture of my walk-in closet.  When I moved in, there was one rod across the top and that's it...so I added another lower rod and shelves over each (also, not pictured just to the right are more built-in shelves that were already there too - I LOVE my new closet!)

My new deck furniture!  YAY!

Since moving into my new place, I've had two sets of flowers brought to me as House-Warming Gifts.  The Daffodils are from my Granny "From her garden to my house" she told me. 

The Tulips are from a sweet friend, Jess.  Her sister is Jenn - my friend that just moved to Sunny Florida. Check out Jenn's blog here.  Jess and I went Polka Dancing (yes, you read that right) this past Friday.  It was a blast!

Yup, I participated in the 2010 Census - did you?

During their Spring Break, my Sister-in-Law and the Kiddos came in for a visit.  They came over to see my house for the first time (with McDonald's in tow).  Since I don't have a Dining Room table set up yet, they all squeezed around the coffee table to eat with my parents.  They were all sitting on random items that were coffee table height (such as Rubbermaid containers).  But hey, it worked.  After they ate, we played Duck, Duck, Goose in my yard and then went to the local playground until it got dark.

Back at my parent's house, "Tank" and "Goose" (my coded nicknames for the kids, pictured here, respectively) put on an Easter Play complete with bunny rabbits and a very cute rendition of the Peter Cotton Tail Song.

While the boys were inside (the boys being Tank and my Dad), the girls went out on the deck for a little spa action.  I painted Goose's Fingernails and Toenails (and my mom gave her hand & foot massages).

And of course, we couldn't leave out little "Boo" (also a nickname) - so I painted her fingernails and toenails as well, all the while pleading with her to not touch anything.  Deb did great and was holding her hands very daintily the rest of the night so as to not damage the fresh paint job.

My Dad and Tank (otherwise known as Pete and Re-Pete) were inside, fully content to watch baseball all night long (and eat "Chips & Cheese" - a favorite snack at Pawpaw and Nana's).  They are two peas in a pod!  The Tank has a heart of gold and gets very upset when his teams lose.  Considering that two of his favorite teams are the Reds and the Red Sox, I'd say we should stock up on tissues for him this season. 

It seems I don't go very long without a road trip of some sort, so April is no exception.  This particular road trip was to Owensboro to pick up some furniture and to see Alisha and Scott, one of my "besties" (and college roomie) and her hubby (and of course her growing baby-bump!)  This picture was while going across the bridge back into KY (I go to O-boro by way of Indiana).

Here they are - the proud mom-and-pop-to-be (this picture was actually from my visit to them a few weeks earlier, but alas I didn't take any of the bump on this more recent trip - what was I thinking?)  But isn't Lish oh-so-cute?

The drive home was rather eventful - I had a piece of beadboard strapped overtop of the love seat that I picked up from Scott and Lish....and somewhere on I-64.......the beadboard flew out of the truck!  It came out from under the bungees (and there were several rows of bungees) and took flight for a few second before landing in the grass median off the road.  I honestly didn't know what to do - I knew I wouldn't be able to get it back on the truck by myself, so I just stepped back on the gas pedal and kept on trucking.  (If it had landed on the road I would have at least dragged it off, but the Good Lord saw fit to have it land out of the driving lane).

Here's a palette of colors I'm considering for my house.  I don't have any particular color picked for any particular room yet, but I am really really into bright fun colors right now, so I'll probably pick from these.  The fabric is from a couch at IKEA that I might get for my Hobby Room.  Any thoughts?