My project of the week

Last Monday I woke up, went out to the kitchen, looked at the gross yellow walls and decided I'd had enough! No longer would I be subjecting myself to someone else's bad taste in paint color. And I don't care if we haven't started remodeling, I am painting over these awful, dirty mustard walls!

And what's most surprising is... I actually did it! It's not often in my life that I decide to do something and actually follow through, so this is a very proud moment for me. :) You can pat me on the back next time you see me.

Here's a picture I took right after we bought the place, but before we moved in. This picture doesn't do the walls justice, because in reality they were smudged in various places with a gross, black dirt/grime/who-knows-what.

The yellow paint also extended behind the countertop on the left to a large dining room area (which I use as my office and dog jail). So although what you see here might make it look like a simple job, it actually took about 3 days of cleaning, painting, and touch ups before all the yellow was covered up.

And here's the outcome -- a much nicer, more mellow, calming blue (which I matched to our dishes). I realize all my stuff on the counters probably makes the kitchen look more dirty than when it was yellow, but trust me, in person this is a much better look. Yay me!

Hello Summer!

Mike and I are knee-deep right now in a couple of projects - me in painting the kitchen (no more mustard yellow, hooray!), and Mike with refinishing the front of the shed. So although I don't have time to fill you in on our exciting trip to the dog park last weekend, or our first adventure with getting the dogs groomed, just thought you'd like to know that we are busy, happy, and looking forward to a great summer! (with many blogs, hopefully :p)

Seabrook

We were able to spend a few days this weekend with my family at Seabrook, a newer vacation town on the coast just north of Ocean Shores. It was great! My brother, Eric, brought his fiance, Erica, (yes, that's right) from South Carolina so we could all get to know her better before their big day July 19th. It was a fabulous time, and I highly recommend Seabrook to anyone looking to vacation on the Washington coast.

Unfortunately, my camera ran out of battery power within the first hour of being there, so I didn't get many pictures. Hopefully, my wonderful sister-in-law, Nancy, and her wonderful camera will be able to lend me some. :)

Here's cute Kelly in her gangsta hat (which I think was my dad's), getting ready for a ride to the beach!

All around the neighborhood of houses were these old, yellow bikes, which you could pick up and ride anytime. It was pretty fun the first day, when the weather was nice enough to actually ride them!

Here's a pic of some of the gorgeous houses in the neighborhood (with Eric and Erica walking on the street). They are all new houses, but built to look old-fashioned. It's very pretty!

And here's a pic of us... the Shipsters. Hopefully I can post more pics of us with Eric, Erica, Scott and Nancy soon!

Life's little pick-me-ups

Last week, I had to deal with an incredibly annoying and time-consuming problem with the property taxes on our new house (in which the previous owner's mortgage company really messed things up... again!). This wasn't the first paperwork problem to pop up with this house, and sometimes all these issues made me regret ever buying this house. Add all these administrative issues to the long list of improvements that this house needs, and it can really make me start to feel hopeless.

But thankfully, God puts little pick-me-ups in our lives when the minor details start to frustrate us. For me, this was the arrival of some gorgeous roses in front of our house. I was told these were in fact rose bushes a few months ago, but at the time I was so bitter towards the condition of our place, I was sure they were dead and would just have to be ripped out. But God is good and gave me roses, and they make me smile every time I walk up to the front door.

This is the rose bush growing right outside our front door.

And here are the pink roses growing outside our guest bedroom window. I just hope I don't accidentally kill them off, like I do with every other plant I've tried to care for!