The first afters

So I really am quite close to being all finished with my main level. Here are a few of the afters from the front living room and dining room.
Before: One wall was a huge mirror. It was a little over the top, plus the corner of it was pulling away from the wall, so we either needed to take it down, or re-secure it. I decided we'd take it down. It came off in one piece, but then it had to be broken to get it out of the room. No idea how they got it in there unless it was installed by the builders.

 But here is what we have done with it. This is my room that is going to be clean all of the time. No toys go in here, it's a place where, if I have an unexpected guest, I'll have a place that I can sit with them. (you know, as long as they don't look over and see the dining room, which may or may not be clean at any given moment.)

We even got new furniture for this room. It's the first time that we've ever bought new furniture (unless you count mattresses.)
And here is the dining room. I love that these two rooms both have crown molding, and the dining room has the chair rail. I didn't love the wall paper in the dining room. The day that we signed the papers, we headed over here, and Jesse and his dad worked on that mirror, and I started peeling wall paper. It was a beast!!! But, by the end, I figured things out, and had a pretty good system going on with the steamer, scraper and sprayer. Good to keep in mind as I need to strip the wall paper in the rest of the house. (powder room, and one bedroom.)
After I got the wall paper off, the wall was in bad shape, so my friend Colleen came over and helped me to basically Spackle the walls. It worked, and after some primer, they were ready to paint. I can't thank enough the friends that I have who came and helped me paint one day.

 And the after:

My friend Cindy came and helped me to hang the shelves, and many of the other pictures in the house. That is always a scary thing to do in my opinion.
So there you have it, a little bit of what I have done with my new house. I need to get up from the computer and start working on putting books on she bookshelves in the family room, and we have the mini-blinds to replace the ones that are kind of broken out there, and then that room will be finished too. Then maybe I can focus on some of the bedrooms and the powder room. :)

today

Today I unpacked my sewing boxes. Let the procrastination of unpacking begin!

Back in the habit

So running..... Sometimes I talk about it over here. Not so much lately. It's been a rough past 6 months when it comes to running for me. Ironically enough, it was running the marathon last October that started things off. I had spent the previous year running non-stop, and also doing Weight Watchers, and I was just burned out. So I thought, I just ran a marathon, I deserve a break. So I took a few weeks off. Then I was ready to get back into it, and the great stomach bug of '11 hit our house. 2 weeks of non-stop fun. Then I thought, OK, now let's get back to work. But then I got this chest cough that just would not go away. About 6 weeks with that one. We finally got to January, and I think I ran a few times then, and in early February I found out I was pregnant. I was determined to run through this pregnancy, even though it was difficult for me to run in my previous ones. But then I started spotting, and I didn't want to run then. By the beginnning of March I had a miscarriage, and by the time that was over, we were in full on packing mode.
So yeah, it's not been a great running time for me, and add to that the insane amount of hormone and stress eating I've been doing, and I'm a mess! But now things are settling down. I went for a run around the neighborhood last week, and on Saturday I even went out and got a new pair of running shoes. I even have a goal in mind. After running the marathon last year, I thought it would be kind of fun to run all of the races in the Baltimore Running Festival. I already have the 2 hardest out of the way- the marathon and half marathon, so now all that is left is the relay and 5K. The two annoying races to run. The problem with the relay is that you train with your friends, and then you have to run it alone. And the problem with the 5K is that it's a lot of money, and a long way away to travel for a little 5K. But I thought that we'd try to get around the problem with the relay by putting 2 teams together. I certainly have enough running friends, so we'll just pair up according to pace, and we can do the relay without running alone! Yea! So that is the plan this fall. Pregnant or not! I have a friend who would like to be pregnant this fall as well, so our plan is to run/walk it together.
So we have this new house, and it's really close to the C&O Canal, which is a runners dream! I thought since I don't have to worry about hills, I'll be able to take Graham and Olivia out in the jogging stroller 3 days a week and run on the canal. Today I tried that. I think I'd rather die. Maybe I'll get used to it. Maybe it was a bad plan to take my 70lbs of stroller and kids out on only my 2nd run in 4 months. Either way, yuk! I remember why I ran in the evenings.
Anyway, so now I have a goal again, and I'm going to get back into it. It's time to get a little bit more discipline in my life!

The first thing on the walls

So yesterday we finally had our final walk through with our land lady in the old place, and we are out of there for good!!! It feels so good. Today I only left the house to go for a run along the canal. (More on that to come.) My children and I sat down to a lunch in the kitchen at home that was not fast food. It's like my life is finally beginning. We have now been living in our new house for about 2 weeks, and we are unpacked enough to get by. Most days I work on a box or two, but I've also been focusing on getting out of the old house, so things have not been going very fast. I don't have much in the way of after photos to share because most rooms have boxes in them still, and I have no curtains or pictures up. However, I did hang up my first thing yesterday. This quilt was at the DC LDS Temple Visitor's Center for the past month on display, and yesterday I got it back. So here it is in the dining room. I love it!

At Christmas time it will be replaced with a Christmas tree quilt that I have, but other than that, I spent so much time and money on this thing, it needs to be prominently displayed!

Later on this week I have a friend coming to help me hang pictures. I really get nervous about that. I may start working on curtains today as well. We'll see. I need to install all new curtain rods. We have the Bishop coming to visit tonight, and he will be the first non-friend to come and see us in our new house. When friends come, they know me, and my cleaning style, and are very understanding about the boxes abounding 5 weeks after buying the house. :) So anyway, I have work to do today while Olivia naps.

Buggies

So the road show was this past weekend. I know a lot of people have been saying that they no longer do road shows anymore, but at the opening of our evening, a member of the stake presidency read something that President Monson had said about don't deprive the youth of a road show, so I think that at least while this Stake Presidency is in, it will probably happen every 4 years or so. Anyway, it was a long evening, but all in all, it was fun to see all of the wards have fun and do a great job. I was still on "team Frederick" since I had worked with the costumes, and they did a great job. I have my own opinions on why they didn't make the top three, but well, I'll keep those to myself. The costumes turned out great, and our ward won the award for best visual creativity, which I'm pretty sure means costumes, sets, props, etc.
Here are the lady bugs. They were my pride and joy. They turned out so well, and the girls that were lady bugs were so cute. I didn't do the antennae, and the one little lady bug dies during the production, and comes back as an angel, and I didn't do that part either. the capes: All of the spots were different

Here are the bees. They all had yellow shirts on for the show. I did the skirts, and then I thought that the vests needed a little something extra, so I did the yellow flower pins.

On Tuesday night I have the chance to go and get what I want to keep. I'll tell you, I would like to have some of this stuff, but I know that the girls want some as well, and well, I do feel a bit bad about taking some away from them. But I really want at least one of those lady bug capes..... Of course, it's something that now that I have made it, I can easily make it again. Anyway. Maybe we'll see if there are any girls who don't show up on Tuesday night.

So there are my bug costumes.

Progress

Today I had 4 wonderful friends come to my new house and help me paint my main level. We got 4 rooms painted in 3 different colors. I still have to go back and do all of the trim, and then I need curtains, and furniture, etc, but here is what we have so far.
This if you recall was the dining room. That wall paper was thick textured stuff and was terrible to get off. In many places, it pulled the paint right off of the wall, and drywall was exposed. It left a very pocked, scarred surface. So my friend Colleen came over and helped me to get it all smooth, and then I primed it, and we painted it today. Here is the after.

This is the front living room. There was a large mirror that made up practically one whole wall. It was starting to come away from the wall, and we worried about the kids pulling on it, and well, it was just a little much, so we got that down. It left large spots where the glue pulled the paint off of the wall. So Colleen and I fixed that too.

You can see the lighter green contrasted with the darker color in the dining room.

We also got the family room painted in that same lighter green color. My mom came and helped me to do that the other day, and then today we just needed to do a quick second coat. The nice thing was that we had so much to do today, that we were able to go back and do second coats in the areas that needed them before we finished for the day. First priority is to get the trim in that room painted, (there is only baseboard) and then I can start moving furniture in there. We don't even have the furniture for the other living room yet, so that's not a huge rush, and the dining room is easy to get the trim done, even once we have our table in there. I'm excited to get things done and put together and show the full "afters."

Road Show

So I am dying to tell you all about these bug costumes that I am making for the road show, but just in case there are spies out there, who could be tipped off to just how adorable they are I'm going to wait until after the shows go on, which is in a few weeks. At which point I will be living in my new house. I haven't been doing much sewing lately, because I've been focusing on packing (you know, in the past 2 days I actually have started to pack!) And working on the new house, etc. etc. But when we get settled in I need to make a bed quilt for Graham's new big boy bed. He'll be moving into a twin bunk bed graduating from his toddler bed, and I have ideas from that. Since we just bought a house it will probably be largely a stash quilt though, but that's OK, it's actually perfect for what I have in mind. So long story short- check back here in about a month.