Bentley's Corner...

There is a little corner in our house that fits Bentley's crate as if it were uniquely created for that sole purpose. It has a perfect view of the family room so he can still see us when he has to be in his crate, and he can still see the front door so he can warn us of any intruders! :) Anyway, until today Bentley's corner has been kinda drab. Crate only. Well today is the day it has officially become "dog central." I have decided it will be the perfect place to display photos of our growing pup, and of course to remember Copper. It will kind of be a growing project, so as we get more pictures we will put them up in a sort of collage of frames. The pictures on the wall already make Bentley's corner seem more "homey" and flow well into the family room.

 Yes, that is Bentley's personal fan.... spoiled? Yes, but we do have a AC unit of questionable efficiency. New AC unit coming... a blog for another day...

That is all....


Oh and if you need some additional reading and some corny laughs follow my dad's new blog
 entitled Life & Adventures in America

around the house...

A few updates since the last post...

A few days ago I was able to go with one of my friends to her 23 week ultrasound. This is something I have never seen before and let me tell you it was pretty cool. You can see the baby's heart so well that you can see all the chambers of the heart. It is crazy. Then of course we got to see the little feet and hands and a 3D image of little Lexi's face! So cute! The appointment was in Annapolis, so after we took the opportunity to go get lunch downtown. So pretty near and on the water! We both got fish and chips. :)

The shock collar we purchased as an investment in Bentley's education has turned out to be a good one. He is already learning from his mistakes and is just generally more calm. He still likes to jump up on us when we first get home and such, but he is of course still a Labrador!








Up in our part of the world, and probably a few others, there has been quite a heat wave! Temperatures for the past few days here have hit over a hundred, and with the heat index areas have gotten up near the 120s!! Yikes, it has just been so hot!! Well, our air conditioning unit is as old as the house is, which is about 13yrs. It has been running in overdrive the past month, and the past few days have pretty much done it in. It is still kind of working at this point, but in the heat of the afternoon it can't keep up. It gets to about 80 degrees in the house. We have gotten someone to come look at it and they think we pretty much need a whole new unit/system. Hopefully our home warranty will cover the cost, or at least the majority. Once the technician makes his recommendation to the warranty company, they will have to decide if they will cover a new unit or if that just want to replace parts. We of course are hoping for a new unit!!

In the mean time the ceiling fan in our bedroom died and we have been sleeping in the guest bedroom. Well today that is no more!!! We got a new ceiling fan, installed it,  and it looks great! I'm ready to be back in my own bed for sure!!

until next time....

house

Of course while my family was here we worked on the house.... I say we like I had a major part of the work, however, my dad did quite a bit of the majority! THANKS DAD! Among the improvements are blinds and curtains for the living room along with a large framed piece of art. Paint on the stairwell trim and walls, cleaned carpet on the stairs and upstairs hallway, paint on the upstairs hallway and trim, AND a complete transformation of the guest bathroom upstairs.

This will be mainly a photo update... there are some more pictures of our Maryland blue crab experience! Also a better family photo of the McNeillies

master SWEET...

Since moving into our house, our bedroom has been last on the list of things to fix up. Although the master bedroom should be a retreat, a relaxing place after a long day's work, ours has been mostly dingy. We wanted to fix up the main living areas in the house before working on bedrooms and lesser used areas. Now that the living room and kitchen are mostly {yes only mostly} complete, we have decided to begin the work on our bedroom! WHY DID WE NOT DO THIS EARLIER? As soon as the first splash of paint hit the walls I knew I loved my bedroom way more! Although there is no furniture except for our bed, the room automatically felt complete {I'm aware in reality it is not}. Our bedspread is a bright yellow, my favorite, and to complement it we painted the walls a perfect shade of blue, "shark loop" from Valspar! A shade that is serene, relaxing, and soothing for the overworked brain. We also painted the trim work and the doors a bright white, dove white to be exact. Dove white is a color that has been passed down in my family for generations, alright maybe my mom got it from my aunt and that is it, but still, maybe I've started a tradition?

Pictures of course: these pictures were taken on my phone late in the day, so the perfectness of the color isn't really showing through. I will try to post better ones soon. And the pictures make the color look similar to the one we just painted in the guest bedroom, but I promise they are not alike at all!

guest bedroom...

Hello,

Gary and I did not paint our bedroom this weekend. We did however, paint out guest bedroom. As indecisive as we are we have still not chosen a specific color for our own room. We are getting closer though. Since we already had some paint for this guest bedroom we went ahead with that.

Our friends from Gary's work came over last night to help us, Aaron and Emily! These are the same friends who helped us to move into the house. We promised them eventually we would have them over and they wouldn't have to work on the house, haha. Anyway, with four people working we got that thing knocked out in no time. Gary wet sanded the spackling (trick courtesy of Randy Spatharos), Aaron trimmed out the top of the walls with paint, and Emily and I painted the baseboards and rolled the walls! It was so fast, Gary and I would have taken over twice as long to get it done ourselves, so we are very grateful to them! While the boys finished up some detail work, Emily and I went downstairs to make dinner.

This morning, Gary and I went to finish up a little more detail painting and then we put everything back in the room. I say "everything" like there was a lot in there. This is not true, basically we put the bed back in. Haha, but while my sisters were here over Christmas break we did pick out some bedding, side tables (or plant holders), lamp shades for some old lamps, and some picture frames. So I was able to put all that out to "finish" the room. Of course, it still needs blinds/curtains and I haven't bought pillows for the shams or cases yet, but I must say it is looking pretty good.

Some of the pictures turned out pretty dark, but the green is actually a light light green called "Belle Grove Valley Fog" by Valspar. It is part of their National trust for Historic Preservation collection. The paint used in the kitchen was from the same collection. Anyway, that is neither here nor their. Hope you enjoy the pictures!


Sorry, no light bulb in the other lamp yet, haha. Lamps courtesy of Brandy McNeillie. Also, in hopes of saving money I bought "plant stands" as bedside tables. $15 vs. $50 (at least)




Gary would like to call this his "mint chocolate chip" room. ^

sew, what's new you say?

I GOT MY SEWING MACHINE FOR CHRISTMAS!!

Sew, Gary got me a sewing machine for Christmas, which happened to be at the top of my list this year. Besides the fact that it is way cooler to make things than to buy them, having this machine will make it sew much easier and faster to make curtains, pillows, and many other things for our home. Although, I really haven't ever made a whole lot with a sewing machine, my mom has taught me a few things on occasion.

Sew, I thought the best way to start out would be to alter the length of some curtains I already have. You know, sticking to the straight lines. Over the holidays my family came up to visit and helped us to decorate our half bathroom. They put up some cute curtains over the window, but they were slightly too long. Today, I shortened them!! A few easy steps, and a call to my mom, my sewing machine was up and running. And before I knew it, the curtain was complete. It looks great. Sew, I wasn't really paying attention and didn't get a "before" picture, but here is the "after."





That's it for tonight, tomorrow I may tackle some pillows.... you know, four straight lines connected together!

still missing Copper,




until next time....

picture update...

I haven't blogged in quite a while, so I figured the best way to update everyone would be just a picture update. Otherwise this would be a very VERY long blog. So here is what the pictures indicate: our visit from David, our finished stockings, our first kinda big snow (4inches), new carpet installation, baking with my new stand mixer! (buckeyes of course), visit from Amanda and Christina, and baking Gary's birthday cake (late).

david... for christmas....

I made stockings!! Of course since Gary and I are now on our own, we didn't have any stockings. Our stockings from childhood remain at our parents' houses. This would just not do for me, so in traditional fashion I decided to make us some. I thought about knit, but in the end I decided to go for a sewn fabric version. I found some red velvet on sale and some goldish rope. Of course, still sewn all by hand.... still waiting for that sewing machine! The two on the left are the finished versions. The terrible one on the right was the trial version. They still aren't completely finished, I'm going to sew a "G" and an "M" on them, you know... to make them official. :)

This weekend we have been visited by a great and long time friend, David, Dave, Gustav... one in the same! Mostly while he has been here we have done some Christmas decorating. He has helped us put lights up outside our house and also inside and removed the piles of leaves from our backyard. We worked on sanding and painting the kitchen cabinets too. Now, before you feel like we just worked him to death, there was also a surprise early birthday gift for Gary that was also a gift for David!! Playstation 3 with Gran Tourismo 5. Talk about faces of little kids in a candy shop... when they saw what it was I could have sworn one of them was going to pass out! Needless to say, playing the game was a major part of the weekend. Oh and Gary already wore down the battery on the wireless controller, that is why he is sitting so close to the TV... so it can charge back up.


Hope you enjoyed the update! We are sad David's trip has to be so short, but so glad he was able to come! Congratulations on your Graduation Dave, Mechanical Engineer.

until next time....