Getting Manly

After a walk and a game of fetch with the pups, I am done being Debbie Downer for the day. Life ain't always sunshine and puppies, even in our sweet little neck of the woods 'burbs.

I'm sooo excited to reveal the manroom to you finally! It has become my favorite room in the house. I'm trying to rename the room to make it a little more female friendly, but Hubs is insistent that it's his "manroom." Fortunately for me, he let's me in even though I'm not a man. It's one of his favorite things about me, actually.

But, before we get to the good stuff, there is always a before. Warning...it's not pretty as most befores usually aren't. For the record, every room in our house had the gorgeous blue trim and dirty white walls when we moved in. It's been a blast covering it all...I type this with the most sarcastic tone I can conjure up.

  

How was that? Painful right? It looked even worse in person than in photos.

And now...the after. Far less painful and way prettier manlier:

 The hubs loves vintage Navy posters and had bought of these when we lived in Florida. They work perfectly in the room and we both love them!

 The TV entertainment unit was well worth the two trips to IKEA in subsequent weekends.

A manroom is not complete without a beer fridge.

 A view from sitting on the sectional.

 My favorite little man modeling the new digs.

 You can see the new car through the window :)

We made this sign together at our local pottery shop.

And there you have it, Paul's our manroom! I gotta be honest, I can't wait for the hubs to have a guys night so I can watch him enjoy the room they way it's really meant to spent...with the boys. He deserves a room all to himself (but I love that he likes to share it with me).

Save me from myself

Well friends, it's approaching 2pm on a Monday afternoon and I am in my pj's on the couch. That's right, I have extended my Sunday into Monday by calling out of work using a sick day. I am not one to call out of work, but I had a hard night with 1-2 hours of sleep. I don't do well with minimal sleep, so taming 25 five- year olds today was not on my menu.

Sick days are usually a blessing, but today has not gone according to plan. Allow me to share with you the mess I've been dealing with today, some self-inflicted, other, not so much.

First things first, I woke up feeling I had cut the inside of my throat. How did I manage to swallow the hubs Leatherman? When I came to examine the damage in the mirror, I found that my right tonsil was the size of a pea.

To shrink the mass growing in my throat, I did what anyone would do and made a cup of tea. I put the water in the kettle, and started watching tv until it was ready. Well...time had passed and the kettle was still silent, so I went to investigate. What I found was a kitchen full of smoke and the smell of plastic fumes. I had left the lid to my crockpot on another burner and had turned that one on instead.

Good Grief!!!

With visions of the dogs and I dropping dead from inhalation of plastic fumes, I rushed my pups out of the house and proceeded to clean up the plastic sludge all over my cook top. Did I mention I did it while holding my breath and also shattered the glass lid? Yep...one point for life, zero for Trish.

To add insult to injury, as I was rushing to open the kitchen window, I shattered petals off my gorgeous ceramic flower tea light holder. Bummer! Macie is also running around the house today with an issue in her Nether regions even though there is nothing noticeably wrong with her. Poor girl. She keeps shaking her booty over to me to help her but I'm no doggy gyno. I'm hoping this issue clears itself up. Also, my car is in the shop and hubs is manual so I'm not comfortable driving it.

To sum it up, I'm stranded in a fume filled house, with a lump in my throat, and a dog who has private issues, and no way to escape. If you don't hear from me with a more positive post later on, please send help!

Better late than never

Today marks one month since the hubs and I returned from our week long trip down the California coast. We have traveled a fair amount, mostly outside of the United States, but this trip was, hands down, the best vacation we've ever taken.

So often, when Americans vacation, we try to travel outside of the country. Cruises, the Carribean, Europe, Mexico- we're all trying to get out! The truth is, there's so much to see in our own backyard.

The hubs was gone all summer so I planned our 7 day trip down the "golden coast." Our adventure began in Sonoma, and continued down (via convertible woohoo!) to San Francisco, then Monterrey and Carmel. We spent 2-3 days in each place and saw the best of what they had to offer. Our trip was a perfect marriage of meticulously  planned activities, spontaneity and exploring the beaten path.

I could ramble on and on about all we did, but I will allow our photos to tell the story. Enjoy!

                          

                            

                           

 

There you have it, in 31 photos, our California adventure.

Keep it in the closet

One thing I love about our house is the abundance of storage. Our 1936 sq ft 3 bedroom/2bathroom abode boasts: two walk in closets, four 8ft dormers, a large downstairs closet, a coat closet, a linen closet, a pantry, and two additional standard closets. Did I mention my 10ft x 10ft "nursery" off of our bedroom that is my dressing room? Remind me to show it to you someday! To sum it up, we have a lot of space to put stuff, and not enough stuff to fill it all!

We are in the process of finishing up the man room and starting the guestroom (the projects never end in this life of ours). The problem we encountered was that we had no place for our office supplies. We're not the type of people who need an office, but we do need a designated spot for my craft things, typical office supplies, and our printer. So the criteria for our office was that we didn't want it to take up a lot of space, but we wanted it to be functional and attractive.

After debating how to solve our dilemma, that brilliant hubs of mine suggested we turn one of the closets in the man room into our office!

And that's just what we did- allow me to show you:

Here is the before: Once we removed the double sliding doors, we had a blank slate. It had not been painted and still contained the clothes rod and shelving.

We knew we didn't want to spend a lot on this project and as luck would have it, we stumbled upon this bad boy on the side of the road. I knew it had to be ours. Have I told you how much I love rescuing furniture from the curb?

 

All the closet needed was a little bit paint, some cute shelving and accessories to become the perfect office for people who don't really need a full - fledged office. Here is the after:

Aren't those blue baskets cute? Two for a dollar at Dollar Tree!

As for the desk...a coat of white paint makes anything look good!

All in all, we spent approximately $70 on this project (this was the shelving, paint for desk, and hardware). We are so happy with the result and love that our office is functional, full of storage, and out of the way. Stay tuned for the rest of the man room reveal.