I love trailers.

Of movies, duh. I am having one of those nights where I MISS our wedding.

We got our whole wedding video this week and I keep watching the mini trailer, the 1onger "signature" film, and the entire thing. Our MOH and Best Man speeches were fantastic and I laugh and cry every time I hear J's best man, Tom rhyme with his poem, Jess talk about our duck pajama pants, and Sarah say "mazel tov" at our church wedding. Perfect.

Here's the trailer by Aubert Films.

Can we go back? And can we go back to when I looked that tan and pretty?! Ohhh maybe we can, this weekend I will hopefully get some sun.

Oh, PS bridal party- all of you- I miss you.

Happy Wedding Video Stalking! xo

Shortest Post Ever. Welcome to the Jungle... I mean Garage

Our garage is a hell hole. It looked like this on Sunday before we got to work:

This gives me panic symptoms. There is no way to properly get rid of this crap, so I just say clean and throw out anything you don't need. Then maybe, just maybe, your car will fit in your garage.

Oh then I got to power wash the floors and spray all the dirtiness out of the garage. That was fun. But then I went to meet Liz and Rachel for dinner and forgot to take pictures. More to come.

Moral of the story: less is more. Don't be a hoarder.

This thing can vacuum up a HORSE.

Fine, not a horse. But close.

Meet Keane. He is A BABY PUPPY and he weighs one hundred and forty freaking pounds. Yes, 140! And he is not even close to full grown. This pup (no pun intended) will weigh around 170 in a few more months. Holy crap. This horse of a dog also comes up to chest. He is HUGE.

Meet Liz. Liz owns Keane. Though I think she's silly to think she owns that dog, he owns her clearly. He weighs more than her, can get her to talk in a silly voice, and makes her do crazy things like wake up at 6am on a Saturday before she owns small children. See? He owns her.

Meet Liz's house.  Okay fine, I don't have a picture. But it is immaculately clean. I thought for sure she either walked around with this all day:

Or that she hired one of these to clean SEVEN times a DAY:

But, no, Liz's secret is this (or something similar. I don't know what model she has)

Dyson Pet Vacuum. If this thing can somehow hide the fact that Liz owns a pet pony, it can MOST CERTAINLY scoop up the cat hair I despite that is all over my house. I also sort of love to vacuum but get so pissed when the little hairs and kitty litter don't come up off the floor.

I NEED THIS.

Do you think I need this? I bet you do.

Tell my husband. (J- that is a not so subtle hint).

I have now been told by 3 people on facebook and 1,819 people on the interwebs that it is worth the $600.  This review with the pictures included has sold me completely. Like 150%. I am saving every penny so I can buy this. Ugh, no I'm not. I just bought $37 beige heels because I really wanted them. Now I have to save $637 so I can pay off those shoes first. I'm so impulsive. Oh hey, I just re-read that review. Someone got it with their Citi credit card points. Do we have credit card points? Maybe we do. Maybe I can get this vacuum but I don't think I can transfer plane flight credits to vacuum credits.

Which leads me ONE MORE THING. Don't have your kids in February. It's too close to Christmas. Then when it's June AND THEY WANT A NEW VACUUM, they have SIX WHOLE MONTHS to wait until they have a holiday to ask for it, and then they will be sad. Thanks mom and dad, way to go, now I can't have my vacuum because you conceived me in the wrong month. Maybe as a make up present for this misdemeanor you want to buy me a new vacuum??

Dreaming of Clean Floors and Anti Cat Hair,

xo

Just like my mom?!

Yep, I am sometimes just like my mom. I think that one day the kids will want to come play at my house. Why you ask? Because every day is a holiday at our house. Some mornings, I wake up in a good mood and decide to make breakfast more fun than usual. I make nametags for our plates and whip up a batch of banana bread just because. I'm no super-woman, and sometimes I find it hard to balance my job, my life, and eating all the delicious food I want. But a 3 day weekend? Umm yes, sign me up for cooking breakfast and setting a cute table while I'm at it. And if you asked my mom if this is right up her alley, she will say yes. Then she will show you her extensive collection of decor for holidays (even minor ones) and tell you that you should send your kids Cheryl's cookies for every holiday (even minor ones) to make them smile.

On Monday, I let J sleep in because well, he was sleeping... and that never happens. His usual bright and early wake up time is 7am. At 8:30 he was still in bed and I got to work. I decided that since we had no plans to go to a parade, or a BBQ, or even do anything patriotic, I'd set the table in a fun Memorial Day decor. Little did I know that my hubby would be dressed in red, white, and blue fashion to match (he claims this was not purposeful).

I set the table with a few standby materials I had. I grabbed the blue & white striped pillows from the couches, whipped out my fiesta ware blue plates from my shower gifts, and some chargers from pottery barn. I also took some red craft paper and wrapped a cutting board in it to add some red- then the red candles are actually citronella candles from the deck, and the blue & white striped vase was my good old target buy that usually sits on a shelf in the kitchen. Oh and I put little red flags (just craft paper & toothpicks) in our banana bread (this time I actually used EGGS to bake-brilliant).  Oh, PS, if you have rotten bananas (seen below) use them in your bread instead of oil. So much healthier and just as good, if not better.

So good. J gave this one a 10/10. Then again, he gave the no eggs dry as hell bread 7/10, so I'm not sure how much we can put into his rating. Back to my table.

I love this vase from target, it is so versatile. I just keep throwing it in different places in the house. Memorial day is easy. Halloween would be harder. But I've got blue and white all over my house and red accents are not hard to create.

Yum mimosas and coffee to go with the table settings and the meal. And the sunlight was streaming in. And J is wearing a red and white shirt and blue shorts, though you can't tell with that not so good lighting.

Delicious Memorial Day breakfast (oh btw those are Morning star farm sausage- aka veggie sausages- and I tried to eat regular sausage about a month ago and almost puked. I hightly prefer these).

After a fantastic day of work & relaxing with the hubs, we opted to leave the house and head out to dinner near the riverfront. The upside of living in this town is that everyone heads to the beach on the weekends and it's empty at the restaurants. In keeping with the spirit of Memorial Day, we ended the day with some more red, white, and blue.

Okay, mostly red. But I had white wine, that counts right? And we ate on the riverfront, with (murky greyish) blue water, so that ALSO counts. Maybe. What says start of summer more than a seafood platter with a bright red lobster and some amazing shrimp with cocktail sauce? Oh yes, a glass of Sauv Blanc. PERFECTION.


Happy Summer Days!

I'm moving into the guest room.

No, there are no marital disputes. J can come to the guest room too. I just finished the headboard project that I started months ago. And I LOVE IT. By started, I mean I got the idea probably at YHL and also I think Bower Power. They told me it was a "1-2 hour project". That is assuming you have all your supplies, and that you use canvas. Neither of those were true in my case. So a few months ago, with a coupon to JoAnn fabrics, I bought the fabric for my headboard. I think it was $24/yd or something like that... but I had 40% off. And I needed padding too. But that was also 40% off. I spent more than that in the store because I bought other things I loved. But I spent around $35-$40 on all of my supplies. Pretty good if you ask me, considering I'd been eying a few headboards online that ran nearly $400.

Those supplies got sidelined while the kitchen got finished. But with a long weekend, I decided to get this project done. We took a trip to home Depot and found some plywood that would be perfect. We had them cut it there, too, which does not cost extra. My plywood was $12. I also decided to splurge for some good sturdy hanging devices, which were about $20. The price of my project, as per usual, was increasing. Maybe. I found a bunch of HD gift cards before we left... and actually spent at total of $0 on this stuff. Here's my plywood, cut down to fit into the Jeep. On days like this, I miss J's old truck. Oh also sorry for the crap quality, these are cell phone pics.

Oh yeah, so we bought a new microwave too.... our old one looked really ugly in our brand new kitchen. That was a surprise purchase, but I was happy with it. Also, #1 giveaway you are DIY-er? You have a tape measure on your belt at the depot.

Sooo here's a big day!! I actually am IN PICTURES DOING SOMETHING! This was totally my project, and J let me lead the way (until we had to hang it up- then I heard "measure twice cut once" EIGHTY TIMES).

I had to clear our some space on the floor... and then I went to work. I just needed a staple gun and the supplies I already had. Surprise, surprise, we own TWO staple guns (which is one of MANY events that led to us cleaning out the garage and our tools yesterday- we buy things we already have).

This is what you look like if you try to use the wrong side of the staple gun. I'm lucky I didn't staple my hand.

Jamie  told me to "peek over it", so I did. Hence this cheesey photo. But I do have to say, this entire process of MAKING the board was super quick. Maybe a half hour. Just lay, flatten, staple. It's nice to have an extra pair of hands if you are using material that has stripes on it (note to self and others: use either plain fabric or something with a design that does not have to be exceptionally level). Oh, and while I said nonchalantly that we bought brackets to secure this before... we didn't buy them the FIRST trip to Home Depot. Nope, we went back a second time. Giveaway #2 that you are a DIY-er? Two separate employees at HD said "oh are you guys still here or did you come back? you're here as much as us!" But with another quick swipe of the gift card, and a few stakes for our tomato plants, we were back at it.

These brackets mounted both on the wall and on the board. But we were so busy trying to make the ones on the wall level I forgot to take pics. But these are cool because they come with levels inside the brackets... so you can just put the bracket up and it says "yes, you are level. proceeed". Juuust kidding, but it does have a little level of its own in the metal. Very helpful.

Here's the bed before:

Totally fine and useable, but also totally boring. I also bought new sheets for this bed awhile back on Overstock during a bedding sale. I've been saving them for this point until the headboard was complete. So I whipped them out... and I am obsessed. Here's our after:

Obsessed. I also did the hotel tuck of the sheets and comforted. And flipped those blue pillows over because as much as I love some design, that was just a bit much.

So I'm moving in. It is sooo cute in there. I love how the stripes and the hexagons don't match but accent each other. And I love the tray table on the left of the bed. It was J's grandmothers she used for glasses. We put flowers and always some clean white towels on it for when guests come to stay.

So overall, huge success of a project. And I'm seriously wanting to move into the guest room.

Total Cost of this Project:
Material & Stuffing: $40
PlyWood: ($12) but used HD gift card= 0.
Brackets: ($20) also HD gift card.
Sheets from Overstock: $30
 $70.

Wayyyy better than the $200 I would have spent minimally if I had shopped around for one. But also something that looks good and I'm proud we made. I love long weekends. Can we have them every week?? I'm off to nap in in the guest room enjoy the afternoon! Have a good rest of Memorial Day weekend!

Reunited and it Feels so Gooooood.

While I scored almost negative points in taking care of the cats and their crazytownness last week, this weekend has showed a major improvement. We are on day 8 of prozac (Umm... what do we do if we go to the beach one weekend? Do we leave a prozac mashed up applesauce mix and hope they just eat it?). I know that it should take 4 weeks to really set in, but I think it is working. That, combined with no more construction going on in the kitchen, and Feliway. We kept hearing and reading that Feliway was fantastic, so I ordered the diffusers online. We have 6 in our house now. Are you surprised? Do I ever manage to not go overboard? Nooope. Oh did I mention I also paid $72 for a whole big box of refills so we never run out because god forbid we run out of something that I DON'T EVEN KNOW ACTUALLY WORKS. Oh, this post is not sponsored by Feliway. Or anyone else. But, i will say that if you want to sponsor me, Feliway, I would greatly appreciate it. You are expensive. Big time expensive.

Hiding in all sorts of corners. And I can tell they are emitting something because when I get close, they are warm and I can very vaguely smell something (maybe). But, really they don't make it smell any different in the house. What they doooo change is cat behavior. Maybe. This could alllll be placebo, ya know? But this was my lovely sight today after a trip to the home depot (I was verrrrry nervous leaving these two alone for an hour or so).

Cuddle. Love. Relaxy faces. What more could I ask for? They purred. Next to each other. Purring cats next to each other. Especially when last time they interacted for more than 2 seconds they looked like this:

No, of course I am not exaggerating. Our cats turned into siberian tigers in the snow and almost ripped each others skin off of their faces. Okay, maybe a little. And after I saw them all cute laying there, I offered to pet them to be nice.

They were so happy. Then Dex decided to be a model and he posed like this.

When they are being nice, they really are pretty. I still say if you are doing to take your pick, it should be a dog, because cats are just ridiculous. They make you feed them prozac, and then they make you put pheromones pumping through your house. So basically now my house is a cat breeding ground for peace, or something like that.

Xoxo,
The Cat Whisperer.