Drool

I'm bored, sitting at work an hour after one of the last precious Summer Fridays was supposed to end, waiting on a file to release... for the third time. Everyone knows what I do when I get bored, right? I browse through beautiful images, drop my jaw over amazing photography, and drool over only half-necessary things for the house. Case in point... the below pieces, which I am currently lusting over.

A funky hanging pendant for the dining room. Either of these would look amazing and just the right amount of funky over our big dining room table. (From here and here)

Little details to polish off the living room and dining room area. These vases would work in either space, as well as the sconces... although I am picturing them in the entryway of the house with a crisp neutral wall color.

I'm pretty certain this rug would be the absolute perfect touch in our bedroom, warming up the room as a whole by softening the large space between the bed and the dresser. BUT, our white down comforter is in pretty dire need of a duvet cover (so it can remain white underneath), and this set seems like a great way to play up the brown accent wall the bed sits against. 

Decisions, decisions!

Not planning to purchase anything just yet, since I'm hitting up the Schaumburg Ikea tomorrow morning for a few needed staples and to finally get my hands on the right living room curtains... but seeing as I'm paying off my car (woot!) with my September 15th payment and feel like I deserve a reward for doing so six months early, a few of these little gems just may be in the near future of 9-oh-6!

"Oh honey, I love pork" - Gramma

One of my wonderful aunts had a pretty major surgery yesterday - what was supposed to be 4-6 hours in the OR turned into just shy of 12. She has quite a bit of recovery time ahead of her but I have no doubt that she will bounce back and be her old bubbly self in no time!

Whenever bad things happen, I always spend a considerable amount of time being thankful about how surrounded I am by people who band together in the face of a crappy situation. Call it trying to look on the bright side, but I have been blessed with an amazing family and I truly think that everything my aunt has been going through has brought some our tight-knit family even closer and will continue to do so in the coming months.

Last night, I headed to the hospital after work to spend time with my mom, 2 other aunts, and gramma while we waited for the long surgery to end... and we got to talking about my blog, among other things. So, since I hear they all read along (and my mom finally learned how to leave comments - hint hint) this post is a nice big "HI!!!!" to them, and the picture below will hopefully bring a smile to their faces.


P.S. I have had several requests (um, Mr. Lawler) to add the picture of the dead cat my dad dragged out of the basement for me... so, I'm adding it to the end of the original post for those who want to see it. Thankfully, you have to zoom in for it to be REALLY gross, so hopefully it won't cause anyone to toss their cookies.

Consider yourself warned - direct link back to "Dead Garfield" HERE

And the green grass grows all around, all around...

Our hard work is beginning to pay off - grass is growing!

Dan just cleared all of the dirt and weed piles off the sidewalk yesterday, so unfortunately up until then we were forced to walk over the seed, which I'm sure is why the foot or so of space right next to the sidewalk isn't really growing. With a little more TLC, though, it looks like we'll have a full yard of grass before winter, which was the goal!

Here's all of the firewood that used to be stacked in the back corner of this picture. Lauren - those big bottom logs are calling your name! ;)

And one more picture to round out the weekend... the Pottery Barn rug in all it's glory in the living room. Doesn't it work perfectly with the color scheme? I love the pop of pattern among the darker toned ottoman and wood pieces.

You can sort of see the mismatched curtains still on the window behind the couch - I went against my gut and bought different white curtains at Ikea and didn't like them, so I still need to go back and exchange them for the ones I originally set out for. Until then, the patterned curtains I bought before I got the rug will stay, because I have major issues with huge open windows and insist on something covering them.

Still trying to make more progress on the Summer Projects List, we're thinking about finally tackling the hutch this coming Sunday. I'd also like to get bushes out in front of the house, seeing as the end of August is perfect timing according to my dad!

Macro Yard

I spend a good amount of time getting mad at the lack of contrast balance in our camera, and whining about how it often ruins what would otherwise be perfectly good pictures. But, in the middle of our yardwork I decided to play around with the macro setting for some closeups of little things that are otherwise ugly in the grand scheme of our messy yard. Turns out, with a little patience and a fancy setting, our camera isn't half bad!

Below, a marble Dan found while running through with the tiller, sitting with a nickel (also found) and a beer cap (courtesy of Dan); a patch of clovers that survived two rounds of "The Beast" tearing through the yard; one of the only little flowers still alive after a summer of nowhere to plant them; a few of the large pile of rocks dug out of the ground throughout the yard.

Taming the Beast

As luck would have it, the absolute hottest day of the year - today - also happened to be the day Dan and I had set aside to finally work on the backyard. So, with water and gatorade in hand we started out bright and early this morning with Dan tearing up the yard with the rented roto-tiller from Home Depot. In his words "the thing is a beast"... which pretty clearly illustrates how little help I was with it. Thankfully, after awhile I was able to help out by going through the yard with the rake to try and even everything out. Two full rounds of tilling and several hours of raking later, Dan put grass seed down and we're on our way to having a yard before there's snow on the ground!

Here's a great picture to show the uneven and weed-covered yard before:


Here's Dan taming the "beast":


And our beautiful raked and seeded after picture!:


Of course as soon as we finished all of the hard work today the garage company called to schedule the electrical work for tomorrow morning, so we'll have to do a bit more work after they come through to redo the areas that will inevitably get messed up. And, with the sudden heat wave through Chicago (finally! It feels like summer!) we'll have to water twice a day to get our fresh new grass to grow.

We decided against a patio for this year - we may decide to put one in next year if we're feeling bold - and I'm also going to save the major gardening for the spring, but for now I'm excited to have grass and hopefully we'll still be able to grab a nap in the hammock before it's too late!

Rome wasn't built in a day... But our garage was

I love Dan's clever title to this posting - perfectly fitting since the garage WAS actually built in one day, and also oddly contradictory since (just like Rome, ha) the overall garage project has taken quite a bit of time.

I guess part of me didn't believe my dad when he told me I was going to be shocked at how quickly the physical building of the garage would get done, but as usual, he was right. When I left for work this morning (late, because I was waiting around hoping to at least get a glimpse of the framing) all we had was a concrete slab... When I got home this evening we had an entire garage! I recall my dad joking that when they had their garage done years ago (by the same company we ended up using) he asked the guys if they air lifted the thing in there already built because he was so surprised it was done so quickly. Today, I felt a little like that.

Here's a couple pictures Dan got throughout the day when he stopped home to document all of this on camera for me :) -



And here's the "Cadillac of a garage" that was waiting for me when I got home!



Just looking at the pictures, I'm already glad we opted to pay the extra $200 for the 18' door (rather than the standard 16'). The overhead door and electrical work will be done tomorrow, along with the clearing of the mess currently residing in Dan's future parking spot... and with that we'll be able to park the cars and begin enjoying the latest addition to 906! Not ones to rest for long, we're already discussing yardwork and the possible beginnings of a patio for this coming weekend.

More pictures to come tomorrow, after I get the hang of backing my car in and get over the presumed thrill of pushing a button to open and shut the door. :) For now, I'll leave you with the best part (in my opinion) of the entire project -