Friday Favorites!

Happy Friday y'all!!! Woohoo! This week was a good one, but I'm always happy for another weekend.

1) Jon's Birthday - One of our friends, Jon had his birthday party Friday night. It was hard to get motivated to go because the weather was horrible and it was all the way in Bethesda. That's not close and it sucks driving in the rain here. There were tornado watches throughout the night as well. It turned out to be just a bunch of rain, so it wasn't a huge deal. Anyway, once I got over my desire to sit at home on a Friday night (seriously, how old am I?), I was really excited. It was a club themed party and we were told to dress in our finest club attire. For guys, this is easy. Ladies, not so much. Do I wear nice jeans and a cute shirt or a dress? If I wear a dress, how fancy should it be? So, I decided to wear what I wore to the last bachelorette party I went to. 

 All dolled up.

The hubby and I.

So...when we finally got to the party, I was WAY overdressed. There was another girl wearing a dress...but it was an r2-d2 dress. It was fine though. I took off the heels and had a great time either way. I got lots of compliments. Haha. It was nice to act like a college kid again for the night.

2) Girl Date - Saturday afternoon, I met a friend to get a mani/pedi. It was LONG overdue. My hands and feet both looked pretty bad. I decided to get a gel manicure since they're supposed to last 2 weeks. I'm 6 days in and it still looks perfect! Totally worth the extra money. A regular manicure only lasts me 4 days or so max. It was great being pampered for a while and catching up with a friend.

3) Brewing - We finally brewed again! For our last batch, Josh brewed at our friend's house and I ran errands. This is the first time I've brewed in a long time. It was tough to get motivated to brew this batch, but we had a great time once we got started. We made great time too! We brewed a Belgian Pale Ale, so I'm excited to see how it turns out!

4) Running - I'm officially half way through my 5K training. I'm a bit intimidated by week 5 though! In week 4, I run 5 intervals - 4 minutes running an 1 minute walking. Next week, I go up to 8 minutes running, but only for 3 intervals. I know I can do it, but it's intimidating knowing I'm doubling my running time. Running has actually become very enjoyable for me (I used to hate it). 

I always take Bailey with me, which I love and hate at the same time. I love knowing that she's getting the exercise she needs SO much. She's still crazy and wants to sprint afterward, but I know she enjoys it and it helps get her tired. We're working with her heel. She's just so headstrong, if she's just a little bit ahead, she wants to be a little bit more ahead until she's pulling. If she's not doing that, she wants to sniff everything. So, we're trying to be very adamant and consistent with her training. We give her sniffing time before and after exercise, but during, we want her to stick with us and do what she's told. It is very difficult to work on my breathing and stay at my pace when I'm constantly telling Bailey to "WAIT". I like it better when Josh runs with me and he handles Bailey. Then I can run and he can focus on her. It's better if we can actually stop when she starts to pull ahead. This way she knows that pulling ahead isn't going to get her anywhere. We can also treat her when she's doing well. She can't chew a treat and chew at the same time, so she doesn't get rewarded as much when she's running with just me. 

I really didn't mean for that to be so long!

5) Administrative Professionals Day - I had a great hump day this week! I came in and my desk was decorated. I got a gift certificate to a nail salon (I'll use it to get a mani before vacation!), breakfast from Panera and a huge Edible Arrangement! So yummy! Especially the chocolate covered bananas!

6) Ice Cream Cake - We also had an office birthday on Wednesday. We always do lunch and dessert for the birthdays. For Mindy's birthday, I made an ice cream cake. Mine was a little higher calorie than the original recipe, because I added Special K brownie bites and I used regular chocolate fudge sauce. It was delicious and I got lots of compliments! I'll definitely make it again. I think the next one will be Reese's! 

Bailey says Hi!

Friday Favorites!

TGIF! This week has been a long and stressful one. I'm so glad to see Friday here finally!

1) Planning - Josh and I sat down on Saturday and had a major planning/budgeting session. We wanted to make sure our goals and timelines were realistic. It was time consuming, but we made it enjoyable and we both felt very accomplished afterward.

2) Flowers - After spending Saturday morning planning, I planted flowers in our flower bed while Josh fertilized the grass and fixed our storm door. It was SO nice outside, so it didn't even feel like we were doing work. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on the flowers since I plan to plant bulbs in the Fall. I decided on Marigolds and Celosia.

I had some extra Celosia, so I planted them in a pot to put near our front door. I love these flowers, they're so unique! They were only $1.25 for a six pack...even better!

3) Tax Day - Since our taxes were already done, we didn't have to worry about that. We did get to go out for $1 drafts at DuClaw though! Their beers aren't my favorite, but they're good and we had a great time hanging out for a little bit after work. It was a good way to start the work week.

4) Happy Hour - Our company had a Happy Hour yesterday. It started at 3:00, so I got to leave work early. I had to work a small amount of the event, but it was still tons of fun. The food was great and it tastes even better when I don't have to pay for it. Haha.

5) Grass Progress - It has rained a couple times this week and I'm so glad! Our grass has started to establish roots and it's turning so green! The picture below was taken today. If you look at the picture of the flower bed above, that was taken last Saturday. See how much greener the grass is since then? I LOVE our new grass. We have been putting this off since we moved in. I'm so glad we finally decided to go for it!

Friday Favorites!!!

I have been a major slacker lately. This is about 2 weeks worth of favorites. April is just flying by! It has been a busy but very good month so far.

1) Family - My family came to visit for Easter. This was the first time they had been to visit since October, so they got to see what all we had done to the house since then. 

2) Easter - We do our Easter dinner on Saturday evening so my family can make it home at a decent time on Sunday. We had so much food! I'm used to cooking for 2, so it's hard for me to judge how much to make for 8. We had ham, a roasted chicken, mac n cheese, potato salad, mashed potatoes, asparagus, carrots, yeast rolls and peas and snaps for dinner. For dessert, I made German Chocolate cake, banana pudding, lemon blackberry mousse bars and strawberry pretzel salad. My mom and her boyfriend also brought carrot cake and cheesecake. Clearly, we had no shortage of desserts! Dinner was great. I was so busy all weekend, I didn't even take any pictures. 

3) Dogfish Dash - I've never run a 5K before, but Josh and I have signed up to run a 10K! Luckily, it's in September, so I have plenty of time to train!

4) 5K 101 - See above. I need to start running! I started Todd Lange's 5K 101, which works just like Couch to 5K, a couple weeks ago. I did the week 1 run once and decided I was ready to move on to week 2. It is not recommended to skip weeks, and I won't in the future, but I had been doing some cardio already and week 1 wasn't challenging. Stepping up to week 2 was definitely a challenge, but Josh ran it with me the fist time and he kept me going! I just started week 3 on Saturday and it went really well! It's funny, because I pep talk Bailey when we're running, when I'm the one that needs the pep talk. Haha.

5) Running Gear - Since I started running, I picked up a little bit of running gear. I love getting new clothes, even if it's just clothes I wear to work out in!

6) Calphalon - We got Calphalon pots and pans when we got married. I LOVE them. Well, a couple of them have become pretty hard to clean, like the non-stick surface has started to wear off a little. I was a bit disappointed. Calphalon definitely isn't the most expensive brand out there, but they're not cheap either! Luckily, they have an amazing warranty. I was able to send them in and get replacements very easily! Now I have a few brand new pans!

7) Sod - Since we moved in our house, we have had mostly weeds in our yard. It has been so ugly. Most of our row looks like this. One of our neighbors had grass seed planted a year or so ago, and her yard looked like this again before too long. The front of our yard gets a ton of sun, so I guess her seeds burned and the weeds took over again. I didn't want to deal with that. We had Capital Landscaping, a local company, come in to give us a quote. I thought it was a bit pricey at first, but once I factored in the tools we would have to rent to do this ourselves, it was only $100 more for them to do it. I know we wouldn't have done as good a job, and we would have likely spent the entire weekend doing what it took them less than a day to do. I'm so happy with the results!

Before 

 After

8) Natalia - After my family left on Easter, Natalia stayed with us for the week. I took the whole week off, and Josh took off Wednesday-Friday. We had lots of fun with her! After church on Sunday, we took her bowling.

 Monday morning, we made M&M pancakes, then we went to the park.

Tuesday, we did crafts at home then we went in to my office for a little while.

Then Josh played Mario with Natalia while I cooked dinner.

Wednesday, Josh was off and we went to the aquarium.

 We went to the dolphin presentation. I love the dolphins!

 We even got Natalia to check out the shark tank. She was cool with the tiny sharks, but she wanted nothing to do with the large ones.

Thursday, we got on the road to take Natalia home. She had a good time, but she missed her mommy.

They were both still a little tired.

Can you believe how good Bailey is being with chicken nuggets within reach?!? I was so proud of her!

Nap time. So adorable!

And for a random story from Natalia's visit...remember Kid Cuisines? I used to love them. As an adult, I think they look disgusting. I'm convinced that I only liked them because there was a penguin on the box.

Anyway, Natalia had one while she was with us. As I was opening the box, I told Josh that I didn't think it looked remotely appealing. Natalia looked at me with the most confused look. She said "Why are you using a remote to peel it?" Haha. Kids are just hilarious!

9) Raleigh - After dropping Natalia off and visiting with my parents a little, we went to Raleigh. We spent the weekend with Anna and John. We visited a couple local breweries while we were in town. We visited Roth and Lonerider on Friday. Roth is a cool place to hang out, but I wasn't impressed by any of their beers. Lonerider's beers are pretty good and they had a good tour. It was packed though!

Friday evening, Hutch came over to visit. We hadn't seen him since Thanksgiving, so he gave us our Christmas gift. He bought Cards Against Humanity for us. It's hilarious! It's kind of like Apples to Apples, but a lot of the cards are inappropriate.

Saturday, we visited another brewery, but it gets its own number :-). After the brewery tour, we headed back to the Martins. On the way back, I accidentally spilled the beans that we were having a surprise birthday party for John. Oops! I had been really good about it all weekend, but I accidentally let it slip. We still had an amazing time Saturday night and we got to catch up with almost all of our friends in Raleigh!

10) Aviator - Saturday afternoon, the 4 of us met Brittany and Lee at Aviator's Smokehouse for lunch. We were starving and it smelled amazing when we walked it. I love this place! The prices are reasonable, the food is great, the beer is great and I love the atmosphere. I would definitely go back. Josh and I enjoyed seeing a little bit of downtown Fuquay-Varina since it's an area we are interested in moving to when we go back to NC.


My 2 favorite ladies!

 Funny face pic

After we had lunch, we went to the brewery for a tour. The tour was really good. It was interesting and informative for someone with experience brewing, but it was also not too advanced for someone who knows nothing about beer. It was also well balanced as far as information about the history, beers and processes. Most tours we have been on are too heavy in one of those areas. The fact that the tour guide was Australian had absolutely nothing to do with my enjoyment ;-). Aviator is officially my favorite NC brewery for sure. It's neck and neck with my favorite MD brewery, Flying Dog. I did discover my new favorite beer though. Devils Tramping Ground Tripel. It's delicous! I absolutely love Belgians, they're my favorite. This one tops my list. It will sneak up on you though. It's 9.2% and it doesn't taste like it at all!

Friday Favorites!!!

This is a little late, but Friday was super busy for me!

1) Spontaneous lunch date - We didn't have any plans for last Sunday after church, but we decided to go out for lunch afterward. We decided to go for Chinese. It was really good and we enjoyed spending time together outside the house. We talked about our next couple vacations and narrowed down where we would like to go. Vacation planning is always exciting for us both! 

2) Master Bathroom - We are FINALLY finished with our master bathroom project. It took a while for us to finish it completely, but we're both really happy with the results. 

3) Basketball - Last Friday, we had a couple friends over to watch our game. I got off work early so I could watch the majority of the game. We didn't win, but we still enjoyed having people over to watch the game and to hang out at our bar!

4) Snow Day -We got somewhere between 3 and 4 inches of snow last Monday. That was the snow I was looking forward to all Winter! We got all whimpy snows during the Winter. This was actually a decent snow and it packed well. I decided to stay home and take a snow day. Bailey and I went out to play for a little bit and I got a lot done around the house.

5) Natalia - My niece is such a sweetheart. She is staying with me during her Spring Break and she's been calling me to tell me what types of things she would like to do while she's here. I think she's most excited about spending the week with Bailey. She's so much like I was when I was her age. Haha. 

6) Taxes - They're done. We owed this year, but at least it's over. 

7) Wedding Day Weight - I got back down to my wedding day weight! I have since changed my goal weight, but that was my original goal, and I reached it a week early! Hopefully, I'll be bikini shopping in a few weeks!

Bathroom Reveal - FINALLY!

Our bathroom has been mentioned in my Friday Favorites posts a couple times, but I haven't posted any pictures yet. It has come a long way. It looks SO much better than when we moved in though! All of the before pictures are from the day we moved in, or even before, so nevermind everything being so bare.

The first major change we made was the lighting. When we moved in, we had this hideous strip of lights. Very 90s. I was not a fan at all. Not only were they ugly, but when we turned them on, it was WAY too bright! We replaced the light fixture around a year ago. I may or may not have posted pictures of the new lights.

Bathroom lighting - Before


Bathroom lighting - After

Next, we painted and replaced that huge, ugly mirror. We painted the bathroom a shade between Sherwin Williams Hearts of Palm and Sassy Green, using their HGTV Home paint. The color was a compromise. We're both happy with the results.

Mirror - Before

Mirrors - After

Our next update was to upgrade the faucets. We still had the original faucets that were put in the house when it was build in '96. I have hated them since we've moved in. I shopped for faucets for quite a while before I decided on the Delta Windemere. I found them on sale at Lowe's. The faucet itself was super easy to install. Getting the old one off is another story! We did have some trouble with the drain. It was kind of hard to get the old one out. It was really hard to get the new one it. It's all one long piece. There's just not that much room under the bathroom sink. In order to get it installed, we had to twist the pvc pipes below the sink, which resulted in a series of slow leaks below each sink that took us approximately a week and a half to fix completely. We are learning to be pretty handy people, but plumbing is NOT our strong point! Anyhow, in the end, it was worth it all. The new faucets look SO much better!

Faucets - Before

Faucets - After

The next thing we did is paint the cabinets. This project was my baby, and I'm very happy with how it all turned out! We are considering doing this in our kitchen, so this was my test run. We have one other option (staining) that I will test in the guest bathroom. 

First, I removed all of the cabinets from the frame. Then, I sanded them down to the bare wood. I put one coat of primer on everything, followed by 2 coats of Sherwin Williams ProClassic in Peppercorn (I just bought a quart since this was a small project, and it was plenty). This project really wasn't bad at all. The worse part was all the sanding (which will be a bigger deal in the kitchen since cleanup will be harder and there are LOTS more cabinets to sand) and waiting for the coats of paint to dry. 

The cabinets, after lots of sanding!

The primed cabinet frame

The painted cabinet frame

Cabinets - Before

Cabinets - After

 Here are our new cabinets! I love the color. MUCH better than the outdated oak cabinets for not a ton of money! 

For the hinges, we had originally bought these. This required drilling a hole into the cabinet for the hinge.They were a pain to install. I did one door and I hated it. I had some metallic spray paint in the garage, so I decided to try spray painting the existing hinges. When we update the kitchen, we will probably replace the hinges with the same style in brushed nickel.Spray painting 8 hinges wasn't so bad, but I'm not sure if I want to spray paint 34! I'll wait to see how these hold up and price shop before we decide for sure.

We also installed the hinge adapter that you can also see in this picture. They just allow the doors to shut quietly and more slow...so no slamming! I love them! We installed the hinges a little too high on the door to install them into the side of the frame (which is recommended), but we tried installing them to the top of the frame, and it worked out just fine! These are about $6 each at Lowe's, so we saved a lot of money by buying them on Amazon. We bought a 10 pack to test them out in the bathrooms. We will definitely be putting these in the kitchen as well.

Cost of the entire bathroom project:
New mirrors: $120
New faucets: $120
Soap Dispensers: $14
Paint (Walls and cabinets): $40.95
Cabinet knobs: $4.12
Cabinet door/drawer template: $6.39
Quiet shut hinge adapters: $11.50

Total cost: $316.96

So...a year and a little over $300 later, we have a new bathroom! It's not 100% finished, but it's finished for now. I still need to find a shower curtain (I can't seem to decide on one. We've had a plain white one in here for going on 2 years!) and bath mats. That's no big deal, I just have to find the ones I like. In the future, I would like to replace the outdated white tile with something a little more modern. I'm not sure if that will happen or not. It's not that high on our priority list. I would also like to update the fixtures in the bath tub. We are waiting to see if we actually update the tile so that we can do this all at one time. We have 3 other major projects that we want to tackle before we do more work to this bathroom, so we'll see if it ever happens.

* From previous projects, we already had the primer and metallic paint I used for the hinges. I also used 30% off coupons on the paint at Sherwin Williams. They run sales pretty frequently, so I try to wait around for them.

For the knobs and hinge adapters, we bought larger packs, because we knew we would be using them  in our kitchen and guest bathroom in the near future. We saved a bit of money by buying them in bulk.