Back to Work

My week off was wonderful. My co-worker dubbed it the Nestcation because I was spending it getting my house settled. And I am so glad I decided to take a week off just to devote to my house. I was able to get so much done. So a brief recap:

Saturday was supposed to be my first day of vacation, but since work offered some overtime, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get some extra cash, so I worked in the morning. It was work, nothing much more to say. Then I came home and got ready. My BFF turned 30 the week before and since February I had been planning to surprise her and take her to go see The Lion King, which she has been dying to go see for years, but never made it. So we drove down to the OC and had an awesome Sushi dinner, her first and she loved it, then I gave her the card with her ticket. Her face was priceless. The play was absolutely beautiful. Very well done. I think it has become one of my favorites. We had such a fun night together. She lived about an hour away and we both work full time so we don't get to see each other as much as we'd like to, so it was really nice visiting and catching up.

Sunday, Vanessa spent the night because we got back too late for her to drive back. Chris and I watched some TV while she slept in and I made everyone a yummy breakfast. Than Chris and I started on the house. We replaced the blinds in our middle bedroom because they broke. It sucked because they were really nice blinds and we just put up the cheap venetian blinds. I'm not in love, but they get the job done until I decide what I want to put up. I can't remember what else we did that day. I think just some house cleaning.

Monday I got started with the clean up. I got up had some breakfast and got to work. I made sure to stay away from the TV and computer. They can be great but also some major time suckers and I really wanted to make some progress this week. I threw away a ton of crap. I didn't even bother with a "yard sale" pile. I just wanted stuff gone. I was happy to fill up the recycle bin before the truck came so I could put more stuff in it. Since I wanted to switch the rooms, I put a lot of stuff in the garage to be brought back in when the furniture and painting were finished. I also finished painting in the middle bedroom. It was PINK!!!! when we bought the house. Bottles of Pepto Bismo look better than this room did. So it was the first to be painted when we moved in, but moving day came faster than finishing the paint job and it's had a pink corner for the last six months. So I made the PINK!!!! disappear. That night Chris and I moved the twin bed from the back room to the middle room.

Tuesday was a day I scheduled a break. My brother had given me a Spa Finder gift card years ago, but I was too lazy to find a place that took it. Finally I decided I needed a facial after faire to clean out all the dirt. So I found out that International Skin and Body Care accepted the gift card. I had never been, but I had heard good things. So I made an appointment for a facial and tub soak. And oh my, was it heavenly. The whole experience was wonderful. Everyone was so nice. I will definitely be going back. After that incredible morning, it was back to work. I went to Home Depot and got the paint I wanted to paint the back room. I then finished organized stuff in the garage, emptying out the back room and throwing stuff away. That night Chris and I taped off the back room.

Side note: If you decide to go and move dusty boxes and get all sweaty and gross immediately after a facial that opens up all your pores. Expect a few zits to show up. I think I was rather lucky, but I did have one pretty nasty one show up by the end of the week. Could have been much worse.

Wednesday I started painting. Nothing to interesting about that. Except my brother showed up to help and we were able to get all the walls done. Did you know you burn close to 200 calories and hour while painting? According to Spark People you do, so I didn't mind when A few days I went over my calorie limit a bit, I figured my body needed it.

Thursday was another break day. My mom made reservations for us to go and have tea and The Huntington. Chris took the day off of work so I left him home to tape up for painting the trim and gave him a few other projects and my mom and I went off to The Huntington. I just love that place. I had only been there once before, but couldn't stay long because it started pouring. Made it rather difficult to look at all the gardens. My mom and I only looked through about half of them, there are just so many. Tea was so much fun and so good. They had a little buffet of finger sandwiches and fruit. I was so full by the time we were done. Then of course we hit the gift shop up and spent way too much money. It was a lot of fun. Great birthday present from my mom. I came home to see the back room had all been taped off for me and Chris had done his tasks. I painted just a bit of trim to feel like I had accomplished something that day and called it a day.

Friday, Chris and I finished the back room. Painting the trim and doing the touchups. Then moved stuff back into the rooms in an organized fashion. Well as much as possible.

Saturday morning we brought the desk and hope chest that I had left at my parents house since I moved out over to our house finally. My mom was very thankful for this. And that was pretty much all we did on the house for the week. Chris Spent the rest of the day trimming the trees and bushes that were starting to get a little over grown with his new electric hand saw while I went to a birthday party. Then we went to dinner and had Sushi again. Sunday was half lazy and then we went to visit Chris's grandparents.

So that's pretty much it. There is still a lot to be done. Some of the stuff in the garage still needs to be moved back into the house. I didn't get a chance to clean out the closets to either room, so those need to be cleaned, organized and switched. We bought book shelves yesterday so I could put away a lot of stuff that was hanging in boxes. I feel so much better having those boxes gone. I didn't get as much as I wanted done, but I feel like it was still a successful week. Both rooms are so much more functional and look so much better. I'm no longer embarrassed to show them to people. I'll have pictures in the next post. I promise!

I also called Ashley Furniture yesterday to get an ETA on our couches. Right now they're saying June 25^th is the soonest. Which puts them at almost 4 weeks since we bought them. Sigh. I hope we still like them when they get here. They might be out of style by then!