who doesn't love yellow

I've never painted a room before, I know, insane.  I've been on multiple mission trips, and I did paint the outside of a house, but I always opted out of being confined in a room with paint, I hate the smell.  But Greg and I decided to do it anyway.  Yellow is my favorite color, and our house is filled with lovely fall colors, so it seemed to fit as a new color for one of our guest rooms.  

Unfortunately the room in question was the go to room for ALL of our junk, so we've spent the last 2 weeks finding homes for everything (and stuffing some of those things in other small spaces).  There are always bumps in the road, and ours was taking down shelves in the bedroom, the old owners painted the hardware onto the wall, which in turn pulled off some drywall, etc.  But after applying some spackle we had a nice smooth finish to paint.  

I'd read about a new type of painters tape, called Frogger Tape, that when painted on, the water from the latex paint creates a barrier with the tape, getting rid of the leakage found with regular painters tape for nice crisp lines... so we were hopeful that it would work.  

The rest of the cast of characters... paint roller, 2 brushes, rolling pan (made from all recycled materials, and recyclable) and small paint trays ( made from 100% biodegradable plastic).  And we found a roller made with Teflon, so in support of Greg's job at DuPont, we of course had to buy it!  

I taped the room while Greg was at work, which was super easy.  And when we got home we got to painting.  And within 2 hours we were terrified that we'd made a big mistake.  It didn't look even and I was worried we turned our room into a taxi cab.  But after a few hours of drying, the room is beautiful!  It leaves you feeling cheery, and I'm super excited to say that the frogger tape was a success, no leaking and our trim is still beautifully white.  

Little changes

One of the things we love about our house are the french doors leading into the master bedroom.  They help make the house feel open.  And they're a great accountability for making the bed, if you asked my mom I bet she'd say I never made my bed growing up, she should have given me a door with windows!  Because now, I do it everyday because I hate seeing it up there all messy.  Except on Saturdays as you can tell from the picture...

But, the drawback-no privacy.  When my best friend and her husband came to visit, it was quite comical to say hello through our door while one of them would go to the bathroom to brush their teeth.
We wanted to add curtains, and found them quite easily at Bed, Bath and Beyond.  But I had the hardest time trying to find curtain rods that were only 16-25 inches.  I spent a ridiculous amount of time searching online to only find magnetic ones.  Well, on my next trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond to return something, I figured that I bought the curtains there why don't I just check (even though online they did not have anything).  And to my luck, I found them!  Nice and plain curtain rods, and the best part, they were only $4.99 a piece!  You can't beat that my friends... And isn't my husband so handsome with his bed head (i love him).

This past weekend we added the opaque curtains to the doors, to maintain the airiness but to give a little mystery.  I think it looks great, and it only took a few minutes.

Serious Comfort Food

As I mentioned before, it's very cold here in Normal, IL.  I never even know the temperature, but I can always count on my dad to have looked it up and let me know just how freezing the windchill is all the way from Delaware.  He seems to know what's going on here long before I have any clue, it's like my own personal weather man (thanks Dad!).
Maybe it's the cold, or maybe it's because we're Americans, but I just can't get away from pizza.  We both love it.  While we were living in Spain, I would try to make homemade pizza whenever we had Spanish class, so we could come home to some awesome food after having our brains picked by our Spanish teacher.  But to be honest, I hate dough!  Any kind, pie dough, sugar cookie dough, scones, pizza, bread... it is all sticky!  And I have definitely not perfected the art of rolling out dough.
So this time around I decided to use my kitchen-aid, there is a recipe in the little instruction manuel, and it even said that the machine would knead the dough for me... amazing? yes.  I love being in control of the ingredients, which is why I tend not to go the easy route and buy dough from the store (plus, we did not have that luxury in Spain, so now I'm just used to it).  In an attempt to better our diet, I used whole wheat flour for half of the flour content in the dough, and then I let the machine do all the work =)

After 2 hours, I was really disappointed by how little the dough had risen, but I made the pizza anyway....

it was FANTASTIC!  Seriously the best pizza I've ever had, the dough had the perfect amount of crispness and fluffiness, and you can't beat pepperoni and green peppers!  Greg and I loved it, and the second day it was even better!  No more ordering out for us!

Seriously?

Wallpaper?  It's ridiculous... I mean I guess if you're into ridiculous flower prints and intricate pictures, it's the only option.  But who designed it so it would be SO incredibly difficult to remove?  A friend of mine wanted to take down the wallpaper that the builder put up in the bathroom, so I asked my father-in-law about how to do it when we went to St. Louis, and I asked my mom... both warned me that it's harder than it looks.. but I was sure it couldn't be so bad.  I was wrong.

We went to the home improvement store to buy the right materials (Diff, a scraper, and a little wall scourer thing that puts little holes in the wallpaper).  Well our first mistake was forgetting to buy the little scourer thing.  So, Chelsey had to run back out (and I got to play with her super adorable baby, Mady).

But eventually we got to work, and my arm is still tired!  Just kidding, but seriously, it was really hard, and one of the walls was so stubborn, it was insane, like it was part of the structural integrity of the house or something.  We finished 3 of the 4 walls in a couple of hours, and had to leave the fourth wall (they were going to have to remove the mirror, etc).  I guess we're just lucky we didn't put any gouges in the wall.

this wall was my arch enemy...

Overall, it was fun to spend the afternoon with a friend, but it was slimier and harder than I thought it would be, I can't imagine having to do a whole room.  But I do know that I will NEVER put up wall paper.

the almost finished product, i was so proud

It's freezing here...

I guess I knew what I was getting in to (is that right?  I need to go back to school.. I think it's right).
But man on man, every morning it gets me again, IL is so cold!  We went to St. Louis for New Years Day, which also happens to be my mother-in-law's birthday, and it was almost 10 degrees warmer there than it is here, stupid wind.  But anyway, I'm slowly adding warmer clothes to my wardrobe, and I bundle up when I take the dogs out, they're definitely missing their 2ish mile walks though, they run around the house like crazy people.
Greg's been really into making sure our house is well insulated and we're not wasting any heat, we keep the house at a nice 63 degrees and wear lots of clothes, but I'm not complaining, I prefer to save our money than pay more bills.

Cool thing was, our gas company sent us a little package full of gizmos to use around the house to lower our energy costs.  I'm not willing to give up our nice shower head, so the low flow shower head landed WAY back in the closet.  But we have made a conscious effort to use fluorescent bulbs and Greg insulated all of our outlets/phone jacks that are on an outside wall.  I took a few pictures, unfortunately I don't have a picture of the cool foam insert they gave us, but Greg just filled the insides with an insulating foam.                                     Here's my super cute hubby at work

Greg got a little foam happy...

ta-da, we're saving money!

Happy New Year!

I can't help but be cliche, I can't believe how much has happened this year!  We've lived on a different continent, visited 5 countries, bought a house, and moved to the midwest. 

But, we're both really excited for 2010.  After a year of living quite isolated, we're finally in a place we can call home.  I never thought I'd love the midwest, but it's fantastic!  We have found a great church, and are making such great friends.  It's shocking how quickly you get used to isolation, and we both found ourselves not so willing to reach out to make friends, it's difficult to be so vulnerable.  But through God's grace we've landed amongst some of the coolest people we've met in a long time.  Although we definitely miss all of our Delaware friends!

Last night we spent New Year's Eve with 2 other couples, and it was so much fun to just be together and forge new friendships.  Plus, they both have kids and 2 cute babies make the deal way better!  And I'm not going to lie, I made some really good guacamole (I love you Pioneer Woman).

And today, we woke up early and drove to St. Louis and are hanging out for a 2nd Christmas and my mother-in-laws birthday, I love going for walks here.  It's such an "old school" feeling in a big city, and the houses are beautiful where Greg grew up. 

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great 2009, and good luck with all those resolutions, I'm not even setting a goal this year, I always seem to give up by.... January 2.