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 ♥