Riddle me this

The whole family worked on a project today. Here's a sneak peek.



Any guesses?

The briar patch

This morning started out as many of our Saturdays do. Unless our big girl has a soccer game, I wake up ready to tackle lawn maintenance. Every weekend, BG and I clock at least some time out there. Our routine is pretty tight with basic mowing, weed-eating, edging, and cleaning up taking us about two hours if we work together.


Today, though, between the mowing and the edging, I had to break for a hit of first aid. In my attempt at mowing as much as possible (to spare BG the horror of extra weed-eating, which is the most reviled yard task), I got into a tangle with a giant briar bush that grows along the back fence.



^See that red box? That is all briar bush. It's taking over a satsuma tree, two lime (or something) trees, and is allowing a ton of junk trees to grow near the fence because we are not able to get in there and chop them down. 

These things are built for violence. WARNING: The following photo may be too graphic for sensitive viewers.



I know, right? Horrible.


Oh, you don't see the.... Jeez, embarrassing. Here.



The briar bush thorns engaged with my thigh (no jokes about providing ample surface area, por favor) and clung steadfastly as I attempted to pull away from their grip. The four little holes are now puckered and sensitive. Owie.

Anyway I asked BG if he was ready to go out there and kick some briar bush tail--to DEFEND HIS WIFE'S HONOR--and he totally was. And then our chainsaw crapped out. The briar bush isn't sparing any punches. I don't know what sort of voodoo it cast on our chainsaw, but we didn't see it coming.

Since we were outside anyway and motivated to work, we tackled a few old flower beds that have been overtaken by vines and weeds. BG dug out root systems, and I hauled limbs to the street. But don't worry about my leg--I only limped when BG was watching.

C'est la vie

We gave it a shot, right? The Gs didn't make it into Mandi's top 10 for the epic makeover contest, but there are some really great entries up right now.

Thank you for all the support and votes and blog traffic! Even though we won't be Mandi-fied, I feel my creative mojo creeping back in.  I'll of course keep you guys posted on our every move.

11:59PM Sept 14

^^That is when voting ends in Mandi's room makeover giveaway. Tomorrow! EEEE!!!

Thank you for your votes, support, messages, comments. It really means so much to us!

So that I can raise the bar on obnoxious plugging of one's own interests, here is the link for voting. Scroll all the way down to #78, "We really did buy a project," and click the "Vote" link. There will also likely be a wee star, but this appears to be based on browser and browser version. Give it a shot.  :) Unique IP addresses are allowed to vote once every 24 hours, so tomorrow is my last day for a good rally.

Again, thank you! Mwah!

I am really dumb, for real

I'll always appreciate one of my Internet heroes, Antoine Dodson, for the awesomeness that is his quote, "You are really dumb, for real."

That is how I feel right now, y'all.

WHY didn't I enter our ballroom for Mandi's giveaway? WHO CAN RESIST A BALLROOM when there are so few available for redecorating shenanigans?

It's true that our ballroom is at least repainted and we have some semblance of toy organization/storage going on. Plus there's the fantabulous gray rug and covered couches. But it could totes be made Mandilicious.

Oh well! Please remember to vote for our pathetic bedroom!

Without Mandi

Over the summer, while BG and I allowed ourselves to daydream about improvements in every room of our house, I put together several decor boards. Our master bedroom vision is more of a cheapy upgrade, as we had planned to spend the majority of  our imaginary dinero in the kitchen and bathrooms. The only splurge in here would be a king-sized bed, an upgrade from our queen. I wanted to make our orange chair pop (I know. Who has an orange chair? Me! Me!) and use a large wool rug we already have to cozy up the cavernous room.

Here are the products I envisioned integrating (inspiration pic on the left courtesy of Houzz):



I still have plenty of burlap, which might come in handy as a DIY headboard, not to mention the boon to my self esteem it would be to use up that junk in a productive way. And beyond that, a few coats of moody gray paint, a fresh pop of white on the crown molding, removal of the dastardly taffeta canopy, and furniture staging would be a huge improvement from what we've got.



If I don't end up in Mandi's top 10 for the epic makeover giveaway, there's hope for my room yet. But how much AWESOMER would it be all Mandi-fied? I can't even imagine what her creative brain would do with the space.

Please remember to vote! Details on voting are here. And here you can read my original plea.

If you love me at all...

You guys. As I mentioned in my last post, I entered Mandi's epic room makeover contest over at Vintage Revivals. The first round of voting is open! This is how 4 of the top 10 will be selected. Unique IP addresses are allowed to vote once per day until Sept 14.

If you love me at all feel so inclined, please get your sweet tush over here and click for me! I'm entry #78, "We really did buy a project."

Thankyouthankyouthankyou

Hellooooooooooooooooo + Dear Mandi

Hello, friends! It's been a long time--far too long, in fact.

I was hoping to come back here mid-summer and tell you all about our ridiculously fantabuloso planned renovation. Then we got our appraisal back and felt kicked in the gnads (important to note: only one of us homeowners has external gnads, but the kick was so hard, we both felt it). Let me keep it short: That appraiser is NOT my new bff, and I've been very... depressed. Dramatic, whatever, that's me. Anyway, the big renovation will have to wait--even longer--and I'm trying to get my fixer-upper mojo back. What is the cure for broken mojo? Mandi at Vintage Revivals.

Dear Mandi,
I follow your blog. I love you. I think you could love me too...

Whoa. That just got weird.

Let me keep it simple: Mandi is doing a room makeover contest, and I need her help, badly. This chick has singular vision and is a true DIY success story.




Let's give less weird a try!

Mandi,
I am going to mooch David Letterman's meme and give you the top 10 reasons you should fly your and Hailee's skillz down here and manage our room makeover:

(10) I am borderline inappropriate at all times, and I get a feeling you could both really dig that about me.
(9) I can cook! Have you ever had legit Cajun food? <--If you have never been to South Louisiana, the answer is no by default. Not only can I cook, but my grandmother and brother are willing to feed you. I haven't actually cleared this with them, but let's assume.
(8) I PROMISE YOU this will be the weirdest actual house you've ever seen, much less worked in [defining "actual house" as: not a fun house at a state fair, not a haunted house, and excepting that wacky Winchester house in Cali.]
(7) BG and I have four kids, so your epic makeover trip will be like a giveaway AND a circus in one.Think of the blog posts you could generate from all that material!
(6) It will never be too cold for spray paint here.
(5) We have lots of crap you could Mandi-up and make awesome. Seriously--an entire storage room of hoarded junk awaits.
(4) In addition to our current crap, there are architectural salvage stores, antique districts, and an active Craig's List community within a quick drive or click.
(3) I could teach you how to speak snark as a second language.
(2) I will out myself and all of my anonymous MBG-ness for YOU. I have never shown pics of myself on this blog but would happily publish pics with you in them! 
(1) Our master bedroom is peach with chalky blue trim, a taffeta canopy, 10-ft ceilings, four doorways, and no windows. If that isn't a Mandi-worthy challenge, I don't know what is!

Pics or it didn't happen? Well now:
Mix-matched bedding (unmade bed = husband home sick today); random lamps (because no overhead lighting!); crazy high ceilings give me nightmares that I'm falling; blue chair that I love but doesn't really belong anywhere in this house.



The canopy. Taffeta. Peach and blue. I'm crying. Are you crying?


I muse that the MBG master bedroom is meritorious of Mandi's magic. All in favor, say aye!