Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

So it’s been awhile since I’ve last posted, and really, it’s because I’m lazy. Here’s the breakdown on what I haven’t accomplished since Jan. 1 due to this bout of laziness:
Laundry: I won’t tell you how long since I last did all my clothing instead of just one-offs of desperation
Indoor Christmas decorations: I did take down the outdoor lights and decorations on Jan. 2 – I don’t want to be THAT person in the neighborhood – cough – you know who you are on Othello Cove who not only has their lights up, but still has them on at night
Cleaning: I think those of you who know me well, know this is a constant battle for Justin and me.
Painting: I actually started painting our front bedroom and guest bathroom right after the New Year’s and quickly stopped after a regrettable incident that ended up with both Walter and me in the same bathtub rinsing blue paint off of ourselves. Neither of us was pleased. I also can’t figure out how to paint this corner of the bathroom without removing the toilet.
Working out: Actually, I remedied that on Sunday and have worked out every day since, so I think I’m un-lazy now in that category. And to make sure I stayed on track, I signed up for the Capitol 10K on March 30.

And then obviously blogging (Arnold, you probably think I’m dead and have stopped reading… *teardrop*).

So what better way to start back blogging then to discuss my joy and subsequent fear in attempting to killing a creature this morning.

The situation began last night. I had just gotten back from working out (i.e. ridding myself of the lazy bug I had been plagued with for the last three or four weeks), and I’m talking with Justin at the foot of the stairs inside the house. We heard this weird buzzing noise, but couldn’t find where it was coming from because it was dark, and well, we’re lazy so we didn’t try very hard.

Flash forward to this morning when I’m getting ready in my bathroom and Walter starts barking crazy-like. He’s not much of a barker, so I take his “I am dog and I will defend the JB-House honor” bark pretty seriously.

He’s over at the front door and so I check to see if anyone is at it – no one. In fact, not a single “person” was there.

What was there could only be described as the biggest flying roach I had ever seen perched on the window right above the front door.

After a slight shriek, I think quickly and grab the Raid under the sink, the three-step stair thingy from the bathroom where we are/were painting and make haste towards this evil flying demon of rodents.

I’ll admit it, I’m pretty sure Walter was weirded out by my odd laughter and profanity-filled threats towards this otherwise innocent rodent while I was spraying liquid death at it. But my laughter quickly ended and confusion and slight fear set in when I realized the thing wasn’t dying. Maybe it weakened him, but spraying a fourth can of the Raid didn’t kill him.

I didn’t know what to do. So I left the mess I had made (Raid dripping from the top window) and gathered my stuff to go to work. At one point, I went to check on it, thinking he had finally bit it. But as I approached it raised its head and looked right at me.

I quickly chalked it up to coincidence and continued gathering my stuff, but as I made my way to the coat closet that’s right next to the front door, the crazy roach lifted its head again from its deathbed and looked right at me. And then it telepathically informed me I’m next. (or at least, I fell like it was sending me some type of equally horrible death threat)

So I yelped and ran out of the house and haven’t gone back. I hope Walter is okay. If I don’t blog again, you’ll know why.

Decorating!

So I've been decorating the past two weekends... and I'm pretty sure I'll be keeping it up too.
Here's our yard a few months ago... it looks completely different now, but Justin needs to mow, so I'm not taking a picture yet... that and we have a horrible problem with poison ivy and oak! OMG! Horrible! We need to hire a professional, but the better half thinks he can do it himself...

It's been over a month. It's still there.

Anyways, here are a few more pictures of the progress on the house.

This is our breakfast room, in between the living room and the kitchen. There is this rug I bought before we moved in that has my official color purple in it, along with different shades of brown and beige, and my new fav color, turquoise. West Elm, a cheaper, and might I say cooler, subsidiary of Pottery Barn (they own everything!) had these adorable linen curtains on serious clearance. 96' length too, so it really adds to the high ceilings in the house. Clutch.



Here's the study! It's at the front of the house, so it has a nice view of some trees, and other people's houses.

The other wall of the study sucks right now, because in Phase 4 of the house, we are going to get built in cabinets and bookshelves, with a desk, but until then, it is just my old bookshelf from when I was little.

Until then, I show you this gorgeous wall. Also from West Elm, are these kickin' 108' length silk dupioni curtains. That is a matching pillow, and then a little shelf that I can't get to stand straight. Also, that is the most comfortable leather recliner ever. Seriously, it is the softest leather, and goes so far back that you could easily fall asleep. I call it the "Gramps Recliner" because my grandfather would have loved this thing. Hopefully, he's got one even better upstairs ;)

Here is the dining room! An excellent architectural feature of this room is the cross-support beams in the middle of the ceiling that lead up to the skylight, and that's what the chandelier hangs from.

Um, I think this room still needs some more color, in the form of a table runner or something, but for now, I just have some flowers hanging on the wall vase.

Okay, actually, in describing this room, I just fell asleep, so it needs some more work ;)

Next up on the decorating block -- main guest bedroom (I need to finish re-staining some furniture, but that's it!), find a twin bed for the middle bedroom, (I want a day bed in there that will eventually match a crib because it will become the nursery... and before anyone freaks out, I used the term eventually, which means not for another year-and-a-half or two years), and my bedroom/bathroom (I just got some of my sister's prints framed, so I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate it... in fact, here's a picture of that... just ignore the hideous flash in the middle.)

Barf… literally

Some people are light sleepers, others sleep really hard, and carry conversations with people while sleeping and don’t remember. Others become apathetic during their sleep and only recall their idiocy when they wake up… or are reminded of it.

In high school, I carried on a conversation with a friend at about 10 p.m. – however, I was asleep. The following morning my dad wakes me up to listen to the answering machine. Apparently the conversation was recorded on the answering machine, which was hilarious, because I had no idea I was even on the phone. Much like when I’m awake, my discussions make no sense when I’m asleep.

Fast forward to 10 years later. I’m asleep by 10 p.m. (not much has changed since high school apparently…) and I vaguely remember Walter trying to wake me up between 10-11:15 p.m., but I didn’t care.

Then Justin comes in around 11:15, and wakes me up with this proclamation: “Oh my God! It smells like shit in here.” Then my memory of Walter trying to wake me up flashes through my mind, followed by an, “Aw, crud.”

Walter pooped, peed, barfed, and then left puddles of poop (I know gross… sorry). Justin ran off to the bathroom at one point while we were cleaning because he felt sick, and then I was jumpy the rest of the night thinking it was going to happen again… plus the smell was HORRIBLE all night long.

So, glad I was paranoid because he barfed and peed again at 4:45… I rushed him outside and he did his DIRRRRRTY business again out there. WOOO. Thank goodness. I don’t know how much more my carpet can take.

I went to check on him during the midday, and he seems a lot better, and he ate some food. So, he’s in the clear for now! I will talk to the vet on Friday about what causes this and how I can prevent it from happening twice in one night!

YUCK!

My weekend.

This past weekend, my parents came in (I'm still not ready to discuss why my parents drive me crazy) and they dropped off all of my memories from childhood and high school.

Fun stuffed animals, a fisher price record player (still in pristine functioning order... that's totally worth some money), some photos (dang, I need to get back down to my anorexic size... haha... kidding). and the best part was getting my grandmother's china.

It's really cute -- nothing too expensive -- Gran was cool enough to keep the original documentation of the set (Style House "Duchess" is the exact name), and nothing says class like Montgomery Ward :) Regardless, I adore it. It's a simple white plate, lined with silver pine on the outer rim.

So I had almost gotten the house the way I wanted it, and now our study is once again the crap room. BOOO.
Anyways, so yesterday, Justin and I spent a relaxing afternoon playing golf at the country club and then had a nice dinner at the clubhouse. I'm actually getting pretty decent at golf, and Justin and I figured out that if I were to play every whole and start at the spot I should, I would only have a handicap of 70. HA! But seriously, huge strides in my game. I can actually make contact with the ball now ;) Plus, let's just cut to the chase, I like wearing the cute short skirts.

Announcement!

I’m really excited to announce a new member of the Balthrop Austin clan. The new member came a little sooner than we expected, but Justin and I are stoked nonetheless.

Welcome Kristy to our humble home! JB’s sister will be residing with us for a few months while she tackles an internship in Austin. YAY! Someone to shop with!

Ikea and the Bed…

Some of you (well, maybe just one person) might remember a trip to Houston and Ikea back in April. Well, I’m happy to report that we were finally able to assemble the canopy bed we bought.

Yes, you read right: it took us a month and a half to finally put the bloody bed together. The funniest part is 99 percent of the bed was put together the afternoon we bought it (by myself I might add… muscles flinching as she types). But, there were these funky cross bars that wouldn’t attach to the bed because the holes were too small to fit the screws in.

After much arguing, analysis, and consultations of experts (i.e. Justin’s cousin and a co-worker), we decided that these cross bars provided no additional structural support to the bed frame. This analysis period took well over a month to complete.

So yesterday we made the bed, tested it out (take that for what you will), and felt accomplished.

Politics and Roaches... one in the same?

So I was in the Big D this past weekend for a couple of reasons: one, it was Mother’s Day, and I had to surprise my mom with an iPod Nano my sister and I went in on (although, the younger sibling has yet reimburse me for my troubles). Second, Saturday also marked the culmination of a very hard fought battle for my dad to get on the town council.

I think I got my dad into trouble with his campaign manager, because he neglected to inform her of my work background. She about murdered him on the spot actually when I told her I do PR, but since he won, she forgave him. She said she’ll use me when they find a candidate for mayor… I’m thinking it might be her.

See, Dad thinks I’m still seven, so of course he wouldn’t recommend that they funnel their messages, Web site copy, and news releases through me. Oh well, I don’t think I would have had time for it anyway.

Apparently, Sunday also marked the time when Mom decided to force all of my old belongings back on me. No big deal, except we had minimal space in the vehicle and she tells me this as we still have guests (Justin’s family) at the house. So instead of visiting with people, I’m forced to go through crap. Booo…

Also what I didn’t realize is that there would be tons of roaches in the boxes when I opened them at my house. Luckily, I had Raid on hand to prevent any rapid escape by these disgusting creatures, but it was so gross.

So I’m unpacking my old items (trophies from middle school and high school… in Speech and Debate, and orchestra) and two years ago I couldn’t throw away any of this stuff. I don’t know if it was Desperate Housewives calling my name or the thought of roaches crawling through all of my stuff, but I no longer felt the need to keep all of this crap.

So no more of the “Lead Me On” album by Amy Grant, and no more of that repulsive turquoise ceramic medallion I made when I was 10… they are now in the trash.

Because the trash pickup in Austin is funky, I decided to run to one of the huge trash bins in the housing development that the construction workers use, and dump my boxes filled with roaches there.

AND I TOTALLY THOUGHT I GOT BUSTED!!

As I was attempting to throw these boxes up 11 feet into the air (which 75 percent of the time I missed on the first attempt), I saw this car going into reverse. So I freaked out and got in my car to speed off. Except I’m a retard and went to a dead-in street.

So I tried to pass off my stupidity by getting out of my car (while it's still running) and trying to hide in a house. Well problem one: the car totally saw where I was and parked near me and two: the house I tried to hide in was locked.
Oddly enough, the guy that was driving car that was following me went into a house across the street. I don’t know if they were calling the cops or what, but I SPED the hell out of there, parked in my garage and shut the garage door, breathing a sigh of relief.

While no one came knocking on my door, I still think the guy wrote down my license plate number. I bet we’ll get a citation in the mail or something. Good thing the car is in Justin’s name. HAH!

XX-XY (Maybe even an XXH?)

What a boring day. I have a lot to do, and I’m doing it, but geez, I just want to go home and nap. I’m having a really bad headache, stemming from lack of water and annoying florescent lighting, and we are getting a new mattress delivered this evening for a bed we haven’t finished putting together. Lovely.

Yesterday was a busy day. We had to finish cleaning the apartment and turn in our keys (about an hour in we both said “Fuck It” – to cleaning) and left. Haha. Ashley stopped by to see the house before she left for Houston. While she was in town she got a sweet new car – fully loaded Toyota Four Runner… gorgeous – and so Justin christens it with “JB was Here” on the back window. I’m pretty sure Ashley was a little miffed, but her car was dirty, and it attracts immature boys to write stupid sayings.

Ivette and Lissette stopped by to scope out the house too, which was fun. I got to see Ivette’s new sweet ride (which I’m thinking, if you want to get a new car, just plan to stop by our house). They got Walter a ball, and it was hilarious. He destroyed it in literally 15 minutes. Walter is crazy.

Then we went to a 2 year-old birthday party. Colin is cute, and I’m fairly sure he is going to take after his dad and cousins (that being Justin) and be a sarcastic terror. He’ll do something, give you an evil glare, and then crack up. It’s just a sign. Then someone told me that my baby will look like Colin. Colin’s cute, and I hope that my kid gets red hair, but I would prefer a freak of recessive genes and the kid have dark hair and dark skin, like the rest of my family. Haha.

Which, speaking of, remember those blocks that you would do in middle school to track recessive genes and dominant genes. They actually stopped teaching that in schools because kids were figuring out their mom or dad wasn’t really their mom or dad. Crazy stuff.

Okay, back to word. My seven minute break was long over due, and subsequently, now over.