Day 2

Thanks to my friend Heather, also known as Feef, we were able to check out the Legends Classic at Fenway. We were thrilled at the opportunity to see our favorite ballpark in a whole different way, and to watch some great hockey legends play alongside celebrities like Keifer Sutherland, aka Jack Bauer! It was so much fun seeing a hockey rink set up in the infield, and to watch while the snow fell.

I took a few more pictures there, and thought I'd share them even though I already got my one for the day:

Jack Bauer is in the beanie :)

Day 1

It seems fitting to start off Project 365 with Leif, who has grown quite a bit since I last posted, the week we got him! He will definitely be the subject of most of my pics, since he is my little buddy and I love taking pictures of him! This is his spot, on the window ledge in the living room. He spends hours just looking outside at the trees, and barking at whoever he sees! He is now 9 months old, and my guess is around 110 pounds. We haven't weighed him in months. If anyone has ideas about how to do that without a trip to the vet, let me know!

Project 365

With the start of the new year, I figured now was a good time to *remember* I had a blog and actually use it! As a way to get back into it, I am joining a group of my friends who are participating in Project 365. The idea is simple: commit to take one picture a day, no matter what. Pictures can be of any subject, location, or item. It is a way to keep tabs on the year, and also to get photographers to stretch their imagination about things to capture and ways to represent that day. I think it will be pretty cool to go back and look at the different days, and remember specifics about every day of the year.

I will most likely update every few days, but will be taking a picture each day. Let me know if you decide to join on too- I'd love to watch your year in pictures too!

Meet Leif!

Introducing the newest member of our little family!

This is Leif (pronouced [Lay-f]), and he is a Newfoundland! We have been searching for the perfect puppy for a while, and Rob surprised me on my birthday with this little guy, complete with a bow on his collar and everything! We have been planning to get a Newfoundland (my dog), and most likely a Cheaspeake Bay Retriever (for Rob), but Newfies are not easy to find, especially when you are looking for a black male this adorable! Rob drove to Virginia to get him, and he is perfect.

In case you are not familiar with Newfs, he should get to around 150 lbs and tall as a person's hip! But for now, he still fits in my arms :)


He loves sleeping outside in the rain, so here's hoping he will be a typical newfie and live for the water!

Finally, a semi finished bathroom!

You never realize how precious having a working full bathroom is until, well, it is not a working full bathroom. Luckily we have a half bath off our bedroom, and since we didn't have it in the budget to replace the shower/tub right now, that was able to remain working most of the time during the renovation of the bathroom. :) But now the bones of the bathroom are complete, and I can finally relax knowing I won't encounter sketchy carpeting or scary faux marble paneling when I take a shower!

To refresh your memory:

The strip next to the shower shows the glue used to hold the paneling up, on top of a crumbling layer of drywall. I got ahead of myself the weekend I tore the paneling down in the rest of my house, and as a result we had to live with this for the next year, until it was time for the bathroom to have its turn at a face lift!

I'm convinced that the person who built this house was a a little person. Not only are the ceilings low, but the counter was so low I had to bend over to wash my hands. After pricing things out, we decided to raise the cabinet ourselves, and utilize the space to put in double sinks. My father-in-law was a huge help with this, since we have limited plumbing experience.

Work in progress:

I painted the cabinets "Tree Bark" by Olympic from Lowes. Its a true chocolate brown, and I love it!Since we opted for double everything, lights, mirrors, sinks, we still wanted a storage space without having to do a medicine cabinet. Once we had stripped the walls to the studs, we left a space to build a shelf box inside the wall, to keep must have things at hand.

Here's how it looks now:

I have to give credit to the hubs for suggesting the dark moulding. It really makes the room different from the rest of the house and makes the colors pop. What good taste he has!

This picture above is probably the best indication of the color. It is a very VERY light cloudy blue. In fact, I thought there was a mistake and it was really white when I painted it. Adding the countertop and dark moulding help bring out the blue.Don't mind the half wall, it still needs moulding on the top to cap it off. Also look past the lack of shutters on the window, I'm painting the plantation like shutters white and still need to distress them so they are a little rustic looking.


Here's a close-up of the granite tile countertop we did, it is called Bainbrook Brown. We found it on clearance at Lowe's!

I am very happy with how everything turn out. It may not be everyone's style, but I like the airy, clean and simple feel it has.I was so excited to tackle this room, so I would be able to tile, and I got to do plenty of it with the floor and counter. I wanted a spa like feel, until we are able to one day build a master suite. Still need to add finishing touches like art (plan on doing some photography down at the beach soon) but it will do for now!

I would really encourage everyone to attempt renovation DIY style. It feels like such an accomplishment to see the room transform like that. The only thing better is knowing we did it all for less than $500 I think. The mold resistant drywall and a new toilet were the most expensive purchases, and the rest we put my bargain shopping to the test and came out with mirrors for $10 each, granite tiles for less than $3 a square foot, and got the light fixtures for about half of what we saw most starting prices at, ending up with them for only about $30 each.

I'm not trying to flaunt it or show how much we spent, but it drives me crazy all of these renovation or decorating blogs that talk about how cheap they can makeover a room for when they spend thousands and shop at places the average person really wouldn't be able to splurge on. Renovating or updating a house can be expensive, but you can save a ton by shopping smart and knowing what you are looking for when you hit cheaper stores, because you never know when something will pop up!

At least now I am not embarrassed to have guests use my bathroom!

All moved in and ready to go!

Definitely disappeared there for a while, but I promise I'm back and will be here on a more consistent basis! Last weekend I packed up my clothes and "moved" into my house. Having spent the past year getting the house ready to be moved into, the only things missing were my clothes for the most part!

I started my new job this week, and survived the orientation week. I spent a lot of time learning the policies and procedures for the company (there are tons!), and observed the other classroom lessons many times over the week. By Friday I was leading my regular class, with the other teacher observing from the doorway. We have this week off for spring break (pretty nice setup for a week after starting my job!), and I will be beginning teaching on my own the Monday we return. I am really excited about the job, it will be challenging to be sure, but a good challenge that will give me the experience I am seeking. Being in a psychiatric and behavioral health hospital, it definitely won't have all of the same teaching experiences as a public school, but will give me the same core preparation. I'm really glad I'll be teaching middle school and high school boys- we seemed to really click this week, and although the student population will constantly be changing, I'm hopeful that will remain the case most of the time. I think getting on the job schedule is my biggest challenge right now. I'm having to both get up and start work an hour and a half earlier than when I was last working, but at least I get home at a much more reasonable time!

Because I have all of this "new found time" after work, Rob has been putting me to work on the "Honey Do" list for our house. Basically I get to complete all of the projects we have left on the house, which as you know, is a never ending list and therefore I will never be finished! I did make good progress this week though, as I sealed and grouted the granite tile countertop in the bathroom, to get it ready for plumbing and lighting this weekend. Hopefully in the next few days I will have an after picture to show the transformation, I really love how it is coming along! I also did some shopping, and found some great artwork for the kitchen. Now if I could just find stuff for the rest of the rooms!

Baseball and Packing up

Sorry I didn't post all weekend- time just slipped away! Happy Opening Day everyone! Friday we went to the Mets/Red Sox spring training game, as it was the first game in the new Citi Field. We wanted to check it out, and were mildly disappointed. From our seats in the Left Field corner, we couldn't see the left fielder or center fielder, and had to rely on fans in other sections to cheer if a ball was caught or not. Seat Fail! The main thing we didn't like was how it had no personality at all. Apparently it is just like every other stadium built in the past few years. Blank walls with zero character just doesn't do it for me. Give me Fenway any day. Give me stadiums with cramped seats and places that sells hot dogs and beer rather than "Chile Marinated Skirt Steak" or Shrimp Cocktail Salad" at the stands. Seriously. They had both. Despite the freezing weather, we had a great time. The hubs and I love going to baseball games, with groups, or just together, and I especially love the down time we get commenting about players, bad calls, and idiotic fans who know nothing about the sports. So glad baseball season is here! There is nothing better than spending a summer night on the edge of your seat waiting for your relief pitcher to come through during the 9th. Can't wait for the next game!

On a different note, I finally found out I start my new job on Monday, so I'm packing up my clothes and heading up to the house on Wed. Even though the house is completely stocked with our stuff, it seems to be a never ending pile of more stuff to take up. I have no idea how I'm going to fit the first set of clothes I'm taking, much less the other stuff I need to bring up! I'm really excited about the job, and just to be able to feel I have accomplished something during the day!
Once I get up there I'll post more often!