Hi guys!

It's been awhile, I know.  I've been busy wrapping things up at work and contemplating my next professional move.  This is my last full week at work and potentially my last week, period.  If you ask me, they could have cut me on Monday but they're being nice enough to let me work one more week.  I suspect this is intentional and I am grateful to have a paycheck.

I've been researching becoming a Virtual Assistant (yes, it's a real thing).  Basically, people will (hopefully) hire me to do office work remotely.  I've also been dabbling with graphic design and having some fun with it.  See the graphic I made for my "brand".


I started designing my website too. Hoping to have it finished soon.  Email address is hollyhelpsu@gmail.com in case you want to email me for any reason.  Anyway, I'm excited and nervous to see what the future holds.  At any rate it won't be dull, I'm sure.  Wish me luck and I'll be sure to keep checking in with you all on the blog!

♥ Holly ♥ 

P.S. If you click on the ads I make money. *hint, hint* Go ahead, give em a click. Thanks! ♥

Good morning!

I feel so bad for my husband sometimes.  Our schedule is such that it's easier for us to get going in the morning; get the kids ready for school, coffee made, breakfast, dogs walked, etc. that I don't get "ready" until after Jack and Daniel have left.  They leave at 7:15am, while Dylan doesn't have to be to school till 7:30am, and it's right up the street.  I don't have to be to work till 8am and that's also a short drive.  So I drop Dylan off and come home to shower and do my hair, etc.  I don't often make time to do my makeup on a regular day, regardless of time.  I work in a very small office with about 2 people and I just don't care what they think. lol

The reason I feel bad for Daniel is because I didn't realize just how terrible I looked this morning till he was already gone. Dang it!

Here is the image of me I expect he left with:

I look like Beaker from The Muppets. (Mee, mee, mee!)

  I was so terrified by my own appearance that I took a little extra time to put on makeup after my hair was done.  I was so incredibly horrified, in fact, that I even shaved my legs. *GASP*

Not a total Betty, but a vast improvement.

I don't have a problem getting ready, per se... but I do have trouble making time to get ready.  I'd really rather sleep that extra 20-30 minutes, let's be honest.  I need to start waking up earlier and JUST DO IT.  (Sidebar: I'm getting my hair done in two weeks and going darker. It's just way too blonde now.)

I really blame my parents, come to think of it.  No offense, but my mom never really got dolled up a whole lot... she did childcare from our home so why would she?  (Not me!)  And we were always pretty lazy.  Some days we didn't even get out of our pajamas.  I come from a family of night owls so getting up early, something I now do every day, was never a necessity or priority.  When Daniel and I were first dating he'd call the house at noon and I'd still be in bed!  *Shudder*

So I think it's fair to say I'm much better than I used to be.  Now my internal alarm gets me up at 6am on the weekends!  So unfair.

Anyhoo, I just thought I'd share my real and give y'all a chuckle today.  I really am going to try harder to get up earlier and just get ready.  Maybe my trade-off can be laying down those few minutes before I have to get to work.  We'll see.

Yay, it's almost Friday! Have a great rest of your week and a wonderful weekend! 

♥ Holly ♥

Hi all!

So my wonderful mother in law made the cutest little curtain for my garden window in the kitchen.  She even climbed up onto the kitchen counter to help fluff!

She's the best ♥

The colors tie in perfectly and it covers up the gawd-awful top of the garden window.  It's double paned glass so moisture has gotten in between over the years.  Now you'd never know. 

Daniel's parents and my parents all came over yesterday for a (per Pat's request) steak lunch.  Which was expertly grilled by my hubby.

Look at those monsters!

In case you're curious, those are Rib-eye's from Costco, and that's garlic rubbed on the steaks with salt and coarse Kosher salt.

It's so much less stressful to have people over now that it's all finished.

However, the home-owner Gods have thrown us a little curve ball.  This morning we came down stairs to a leak somewhere in the wall by the window. *sigh*  So I'll be posting an update on that situation soon.  Thank God my husband is handy!

To be continued...
♥ Holly ♥

***UPDATE***

So my beautiful kitchen had to get ripped up a little to find the stupid wall leak.  *tear*  All this mess...


For THIS! Ugh, so annoying...


 A dang pinhole-sized leak. So lame.


Look at my handy-man.  Love that we save hundreds, if not thousands of dollars doing work ourselves.  But I know it's not for everyone.  My boss was just saying he knows better than doing the work himself after a few horrible attempts at DIY.

Daniel couldn't find the leak at first glance, until it sprayed him in the face. teehee  He had to turn off the water to the house, cut the pipe then slip a coupling on to cover the hole.  Then he soldered it into place.  We left everything open to dry out and I sprayed it with some white vinegar to prevent mold.  Tonight he's going to patch the drywall.  He used a razor blade to score the section of wall that bubbled up from the water and ripped it out.  Tonight he'll also re-texture everything so we can re-paint on Thursday.  Good times! Not.

Oh the joys of home ownership. Sigh 

♥ Holly ♥

OMG I can't believe I can finally say, after living in our home for almost 13 years, that our kitchen is done!  And we fixed it up by ourselves.  Of course, I say it's done but you know there's always going to be something.  We do have to re-do our floor tile someday but for now, we're happy enough to overlook it. LOL

Just to give you some perspective, here is what our kitchen looked like when we moved in back in 2005:

View from the dining area

OMG that light box was so ugly and that hanging lamp is a ceiling fan now. Wonder what my dad was talking about?? lol

And here is one more recent one just for reminder of the cabinets sake:

This was when we surprised the boys with an indoor tent camp out. :)

I took pictures of every room in the house when we moved in, but for some reason I guess I didn't feel the need to take a great picture of the kitchen. *sigh* Oh well, you get the gist.  It was all original stuff circa 1992.  Country blue carpet, white 12x12 floor tiles with country blue grout.  The kitchen and bathrooms all had linoleum that was rolling up at the edge.  Yuck.  

Here is what the kitchen looks like today:

Coffee/Tea Bar

I get a little choked up looking at it.

You guys, I can't even.  I am so totally in love with my "new" kitchen.  My hubby did all the tiling by himself.  They were 12x12 mosaic sheets.  He had to use a tile saw for a bunch of little cuts too.  So lucky we didn't end up in the ER. *phew!* ;)

We have been through so much with this kitchen, as you may be aware.  From painting the cabinets, adding hardware, trying out different countertops to finally tiling them... From painting the walls to finally installing our back splash.  What a looooong and arduous journey.  I am so relieved to be done.  Like I said, the floor tile can just wait a hot minute. haha

I also stumbled upon a great living room "before" shot so here is a before and after just because it makes me feel so good to see how far we've come!

Our first walk through as owners. ♥

I need to figure something else out for mantel decor... lol

I love what we ended up with in this room. It was our first major room makeover and we both love how it came out.  It's cozy and colorful at the same time. I apologize for not getting the wrinkles out of our worn couch. Hey, we live here people! ;)
 
That's all for now, folks!
♥ Holly ♥

Hi there!

So I recently got Amazon Prime and it includes a bunch of free Kindle books, which is super cool for a nerd like me who loves to read.  Yesterday I got a notification on my phone that The Princess Bride by William Goldman was available for free.  Fun!  I love the movie so I was excited to read the book, which I thought was originally by S. Morganstern (as it states in the movie).

Come to find out that it is all a lie. LOL  S. Morganstern is actually a pseudonym used by Goldman.  In his book he even goes so far as to claim that the estate of S. Morganstern is fighting him in his quest to pen the sequel, Buttercup's Baby.  Lies, lies, lies.  There is no estate because he does not in fact exist.  He details a trip with his grandson to the Morganstern Museum in Florin, none of which exist. And so on and so forth.

It's really quite brilliant, albeit a trifle disappointing, what he's achieved here.  I totally bought that Florin was a real city and that all the details from The Princess Bride were historical fact.  His "forwards" at the beginning of the book and its subsequent anniversary releases are all a part of the fantasy.

I never would have known any of this had I not begun to read the book and get engrossed in his tales.  It led me to research all of this and discover the truth.  Kind of fun in the end.  Anyway, I just wanted to share because it was so fascinating to me and I thought some of my friends would find it interesting as well.

The End.
♥ Holly ♥

Deep title, am I right?  ;)

Sitting here at the office, trying to focus but it's so hard anymore.  Business has been pretty tough at my job for the last year or so (I've been here for 11 years this October).  The boss just told us that the building is now in escrow.  We knew it had been up for sale for about a year so it wasn't a huge surprise.  And the way things have been going we, the tiny crew of 2 left in the office, have been thinking the owner should just call it quits.  After all, they are in their 70's and with no one to pass it on to, there doesn't seem to be much of a point anymore.  Especially if they're losing money.  So, he finally told us he's leaning that way if escrow closes in October.  Which means I'll probably be out of work by January. 

It's a little scary, I've been here since I was 23 years old and am now 34.  I've never had to really work to find a job either.  I knew someone with an "in" for my first two office jobs then after I got laid off from the second I walked in to my current workplace and just asked if they were hiring.  I was on the payroll 2 days later.  The timing was perfect.  And although I haven't been too shy about my dislike of this job, there are definite benefits which I'll be sad to let go of.  For instance the fact that I live less than 10 minutes from work and with it being family owned/operated I have a ton of flexibility schedule-wise.  If my kid gets sick I can leave at a moments notice, for example.  The thought of commuting is like a nightmare.

On the flip-side, I'm also excited at the prospect of change.  Eleven years is a long time to be doing the same thing day-in and day-out.  For me at least.  I liken my experience here to the movie, Groundhog Day.  Same routine, same arguments (OMG like a broken record!), same walls, same drama. LOL  I know that it's the same for most people but then I see those rare lucky SOBs people that actually love what they do and I'm like, "Why can't that be me?!"

Ideally I would love to go back to school and finish the cheesy romance novel I started 3 years ago.  Buuuut that won't pay the bills (yet).  It will be interesting to see what the future holds, that's for sure.  Does anyone have a crystal ball I can borrow?? 

In the meantime, have a great day y'all.

♥ Holly ♥

Hi everyone!

Sorry to say it's been 7 months since my last entry.  I've been so busy at the office and with house projects/yard work that I haven't had time to blog.  If we're friends on Facebook then you know how much yard work we've done recently.  After taking the grass out everywhere over a year ago, we finally have a small area of grass in the back yard that we sodded ourselves and we've gone water-wise in the front.  After years of taking an unreasonable stance against them, I've finally seen the light and have accepted roses into my garden-scape. For some reason I had the idea that they were too much work but they've actually been some of the most successful and low-maintenance plants I've had.  So I'm adding them in everywhere.  Also, our puppy digs these out the least because of the thorns.  Dumb dog.  She's ruined more plants, I tell you.  And dug holes! Ugh.  But she's getting better. Here's some pics:

Heaviest rolls of sod EVER

Digging trenches for sprinklers

After/Before (Not sure why I did it that way lol) Candy approves of the grass :)

Our new seating area out back LOVE

Front yard under construction.

Finished!

Close up near the porch

Front side yard

Toxic