The Grand Canyon: Bush Style

Bush Meets Bush

Brad and I are going to visit the Arizona Bushes, Eric and Angie for a whole week! To illustrate my excitement, I played around on Polyvore for an hour.


We're going to the Grand Canyon, a spring training game, shopping at Fashion Square, record shopping in Phoenix and we're going to eat some succulent (that's for you, Brad) Mexican food. It's all going to be fabulous. The best part is, we'll be spending all our time with our best friends!

Hallelujah, holla back!

OK OK, One last thing!

I was ill this week and when I stayed home from work I watched all 3 seasons of Arrested Development.



TV on DVD is great for when you're stuck on the couch AND Arrested Development is great for any and everything.

I saw an "I Miss the Bluth's" bumper sticker a couple weeks ago and it made me want to tongue kiss the person driving the car. But we were at a red light and I didn't want to risk the light turning green mid-frenching. Oh well, maybe next time.

Overwhelmed

1. Spread Scott's Turf Builder w/Moss Control™ on the:

Side Yard

Back Yard

Front Yard

2. Dig up the daffodils that are in what used to be a flower bed and move them to a spot that makes more sense for us.

From here
and here
to here

3. I also need to dig up those rocks that are in our front yard and do...something with them. They don't belong there anymore.

4. Finish power washing our multiple walkways.

I washed all the moss off them last weekend and you can totally see where I sprayed. Tacky.

5. The ubiquitous laundry situation.

My hamper always seems to look like this.

6. Organize my craft area.

I don't even know where to begin.

11. Give sweet Bosley a bath.

I can see the stink lines swirling off his head.

7. I need to dye my roots.

Shockingly, I'm not a natural platinum blonde. Oh my!

You can also see the stink lines coming off my head. Though, I think I should do the yard work before I bathe myself...but am I really going to do yardwork? Eh. It's possible. I better just stay stinky all day in case I decide to do something. Good plan.

I got tired of taking pictures, but I also need to:

8. Finish spray painting some brackets for a shelf we're going to hang under a kitchen window. The shelf is for the cats as all are window sills are so narrow they aren't able to enjoy the sunshine like they used to in our apartment.

9. Sweep and vaccum. Much like laundry, this is always on my list of things to do.

10. The bathroom smells like an old folks home, so I'm thinking I need to clean it.

Can I do all this in one day? Probably, if I start now and don't stop until night time. But we have guests coming over for dinner so I should probably focus on the inside stuff. Plus, I have no supplies for the turf builder project and I kind of feel like I should make Brad do that anyway. I get stuck with all the inside chores so he should have to do all the outside chores. Now, just to clarify, when I say "I get stuck with" I mean that I don't think Brad does a good enough job, so I have made myself in charge of them. It's a blessing and a curse to be such a thorough cleaner.

I love being a homeowner, I really really do. But wow oh wow. I definitely understand why my dad was so grouchy on the weekends in the spring. There's so much and it never ends. I have no idea how he did it all and had 3 kids to deal with.

Now, enough blogging! The time for action is upon us!

Extreme (or not) Home Makeover!

Hey everybody! It's been a long time since I've posted here so I thought I'd drop all you kids a line.

I've got some pretty cool, I think, home projects planned for the very near future and I thought I'd share them with you. First of all, since Rob has moved all of his office stuff out of the office and into his Man Den, I get a craft room. That's right. A room all to myself and my crafts and my brand new sewing machine! I'm going to paint three of the walls pink and the fourth a mint green. The mint green will also be put on the kitchen walls. The pink is called Garden Glory, and the green is called Turquoise Tower.

It'll be the two where my finger is pointing. Yes, I know it's probably pretty obvious. But there might be someone out there who wouldn't get it.

Anyhoo, I'll be painting the bathroom and bedroom as well. They will both be a light gray called Snowglory.

Now, I know these colors probably don't look right to you, all computer monitors are calibrated differently. But you get the idea. All the rooms will have white trim as well.

I'm having a hard time getting ready for all of this, especially in the craft room. It's such a mess in there, and I have absolutely no desire to get in there and clean it, pack it up, take down the shelves, putty up the holes in the walls and actually get the paint. The painting is the exciting part to me.

Another thing I'm SUPER excited about is marmoleum. Marmoleum was pretty big in the 60's and 70's and is making a comeback today. Not only does this stuff look great, it's eco friendly. It's made with natural materials and is installed with solvent free adhesives. AND it's allergy and asthma friendly, which is great for me. If we didn't have original hardwood floors in all the rooms except the kitchen and bathroom, our house would be a marmoleum showroom. The only problem is that there's sooooo much to choose from.

This is kind of what I'm leaning towards. Something sort of neutral. I like scrabble and print. Not the papyrus white. But there are also colors like these (below) that I want too!

I could sit here all day and talk about how awesome marmoleum is but I'll stop here. I will say that if you have any thoughts on what color you think I should do in the kitchen and/or bathroom please feel free to let me know!

And with that, I'm out!

Happy Valentimes!

Well in the Bush Wifedom, it was a solid Valentine's Day. Brad isn't a sentimental guy, but he really did a good job this year of pandering to my wussy side.

In a romantic and very cute move on his part, he bought me begonias. The lady at the flower shop helped him pick these out. He told her he know I would want something I could plant in the yard of our new house. He really hit the nail on the head.

Next, he got me a piece of lemon cake from Starbuck's. I've included a picture I found using Google image search. I don't have a picture of the actual slice he got me because I inhaled it pretty much immediately after receiving it. Booyah.

Last, he got me this sweet Simpsons Valentine's card. It says: "To My Wife...Honey, I love you even more than TV..." He wrote real sweet things on the inside, but I'm not going to tell you what it said because that's private. Get outta here you vultures!

Now, what did I do for him? Well, I married him! Isn't that enough?! Just kidding. I got him a Wii Motion thingy for our second WiiMote. We have one already, but we needed a second one so we could play Wii Resort together...as a couple...aaaawwwww...

I also got him a manly pair of boxers from the Gap.

Last but not least, and my personal fave, I made him soft pretzels shaped like hearts.



I guess these were more for me than for him, because I love soft pretzels, but I thought it was a cute idea. I got the recipe here. They're really good, but I recommend the generous application of butter (as stated in the recipe) once they're out of the oven. I tried to use olive oil and it just wasn't the same.

Hope everyone had a good V-Day!

Cat Show!

On Saturday, the 6th my friend Katrina and I went to the Portland Classic Cat Show. Neither of us had any idea what to expect. I suspected it might be something like Best In Show, but maybe less regimented.




When we first pulled up, I mentioned that I had no idea that so many cat people drove Ford F-150’s and Dodge Rams. Turns out they don’t. There was a gun show right next door to the Cat Show; which made for some hilarious photo ops of big dudes walking past the Cat Show sign holding rifles. I tried to get my cell phone out in time to take pictures, but it was too late.

Speaking of the Cat Show sign, here’s Katrina posing next to it:

It doesn’t get much fancier than that. After seeing this sign, I worried that this might end up being a crapfest and that I’d be calling animal services by the end of the day. Then we walked in to the hall and I was proven wrong.


It just goes to show: never judge a cat show by it’s hastily spray painted sign. There were so many different kinds of cats that I'd only ever read about in my nerdy cat books. In fact, I finally got to see Sphynx kitties in real life!


There were a ton of Persians there as well, which made for some good cat ogling.




Then there was Ringo, my hands down favorite:

His owner was wearing a sweet Hawaiian shirt and had the shiniest mullet I’ve ever seen. I think it may have been a wig.

Overall, the Cat Show was a great success in that I was extremely happy and fascinated the entire time. I don’t really care about all the ribbons and the judging and the money that these people spend on their cats. If that’s how they want to fill their empty lives, that’s their deal. As long as their cats are healthy and happy, I can't really complain.

Brad and I were discussing how we should start a cat show for rescue cats only. Not really sure how that would work, or what the point would be, but it’s a nice idea.