Traveling with the Hubs

So if it's a long weekend, chances are Josh and I are on a flight to Florida come Friday afternoon.  It's our chance to see our family, friends and if we're lucky a football game.  Labor Day weekend was no different.  We squeezed in every friend, family member and moment in The Swamp we could.

Sometimes I meet Josh at our destination (he travels a lot and has way more vacation time than I do, so we are strategic in our flight plans more times than not).  Since travel is his middle name, he know how to do it and do it well.  I love to travel with him.  Except his policy of if you pack it you carry it, and under very limited circumstances can you check a bag.  But I'm adjusting... 

The benefits far outweigh these guidelines.

When I'm with him, I get two things-airline clubs and first class, both of which I am fond of because it means free and unlimited wine.

Although he always gets the window seat. Sometimes he lets me lean over him to see the sights-especially when it's sunset over the gulf coast!

TGIF

Well, I do declare, today just may be more beautiful than yesterday.  Mother Nature has been on her A game these last few days here in Northern Virginia.  Pretty good, because we have a wedding to go to tonight.  I just love it when everything works out perfectly for weddings!  Beautiful people, beautiful day...can't get much better!

Speaking of perfect, one of Josh's team members prepared an itinerary for this evenings events.  Shhh don't tell Josh, but I think I've met my soul mate...a man who makes detailed itinerary's for an evening's events-I swoon.  Although now that I think of it, Josh was very helpful making our four-page wedding weekend itinerary, it was tres impressive.  Everyone who saw it LOVED it.  But then again, when you get two type A's together this kind of thing happens.  That, and having your bank account balanced out to the penny each month, I digress.

Saturday, we are off to select our custom cabinets (still a soar subject), and attend a corporate event with Josh's company.  We are both hoping there will be TV's so we can catch our Gators whoop it up on the Bulls.  Just realized that we can't watch the replay since hotel cable doesn't have the Sunshine Network, no Breakfast with the Gators until we move back in our house=total sadness.

I also have this crazy desire to deep clean and detail my car, so if my desire turns into motivation I may have one clean car come Monday.  I'm spending more time than I care in there since school started this week, which for some strange reason multiplies traffic by 100. 

Hope y'all have a great weekend, too!

Thank Goodness for Sunshine

Today couldn't be a more gorgeous 65 degree sunshiny day!  Thank you mother nature. 

Via

After barely surviving the sauna that is the state of Florida this past weekend, I am loving these early September days in Virginia.  This was actually my facebook post after getting home from the airport on Monday night (much to the dismay of my fb friends), "I have to say after a wonderful trip to Florida, I am happy to be back in the much cooler state of Virginia-never thought I would say those words..."

Sadly though, I am not enjoying these days on the back porch of my house.  Even though yesterday was "move-in day" we are still going to be out for at least another week and up to a month.  I am so frustrated with the horrendous contractors that our homeowners association selected to "manage" our renovation.  When checking in on the progress on Tuesday evening (because to know if anything happened I have to go physically see it-God forbid someone give me a schedule, plan, or communicate what is happening) I noticed that the flooring under the carpet in the living room is uneven and actually trip worthy. 

Yes I did say carpet, what happened to the hardwoods?  Well, these crazy subcontractors are only out to make a buck and wanted to charge us 3x more than what any other flooring company would to install (on top of what the insurance company was already paying them to put in a hardwood foyer and carpet on the rest of the first floor). 

So after the initial outrage, we decided these people are hacks anyway (ie put all the wrong tile in all the wrong bathrooms) and we would be better off just having them put carpet in and getting it replaced with hardwoods a year or two down the road with better contractors and a lower price.

Little did we know at the time that they wouldn't level the sub floor before laying carpet, don't know if they put any padding down first, but from the feel of it they may have decided to scatter rocks around before laying the carpet.  Oh yes and the TV cables that we wanted layed under the carpet piled in a corner, that was a nice sight to see.

This isn't event the reason that we are going to be delayed moving in.  We have these HUGE mounted mirrors in all of our bathrooms.  Well, the mirror hits the wall 29.5" from the floor.  The cabinets I selected hit at 31-35.5".  Not a problem I thought since the contractors are billing $100 in each bathroom to take down and rehang the mirrors.  Our project manager called to say on Tuesday morning that the cabinets I picked wouldn't work and that we were going to have to have custom cabinets made because the mirror hangs too low.  Hello-I told you what cabinets I wanted and the specs a few weeks ago-could you have done the math then and not the day before we have the movers scheduled to bring our furniture back in?  Plus you are supposed to take the mirrors down anyway.  He said he didn't want to do that because they are glued to the wall. 

Well, I came up with the brilliant plan that it would be much faster to knock down the wall with the mirror, rehang drywall, paint and put up a new mirror than to wait 3-4 weeks for custom cabinets to be made.  My project manager didn't agree, but my homeowners association rep did think that would work and is trying to figure that out with the insurance company today.

We will see who wins this battle-later today.

You Know What's Awesome?

When you walk in your house to see that the tile you selected for each of your three bathrooms has been installed into the wrong bathroom.  Not to mention the patterns that they were to be laid in completely ignored, but the tile for the guest bath in the powder room, guest bath tile in the master bath, master bath tile in the guest bath.

It usually results in a warm fuzzy feeling all over your body.

It's also awesome when after you fall asleep during the South Carolina, Southern Miss game, your husband decides to pack for himself for the weekend.

And packs his favorite Gator polo that is developing a nice size hole in the middle of the chest, that you were meaning to hide so he couldn't pack it/wear it.  When asked nicely to pack a different polo, he tells you he is a tailgator, and only cares how the burgers get to the grill, how long the fries are in the hot oil and if the grits get enough cheese.  Not what he wears to the game.

Words Cannot Express

How insane my life has been in the past few days!

Living in a hotel for the past month and a half has gotten to the best of me.  I am so excited, yet terrified of football season starting this weekend.  I love it, our lives revolve around it, BUT to survive football season (as an adult, living out of state) your life needs to be in 100% order come kick off.  Well, my life is in 100% disarray right now-ha!

We interrupt this life to bring you football season!

Miss Molly my beagle baby had an incident last week.  On Thursday evening as we were walking to our hotel room she had a stroke/seizure/cardiac event.  It was so hard for me to pick up her limp shaking body and rush her to the emergency vet.  I had no idea what happened and couldn't get her help fast enough.  The worst feeling was being all alone as Josh was sitting in the Boston airport when this all took place.  Luckily, Miss Molly is on the mend, but my new bedroom furniture will have to be put on hold for a few months as we spent a few unexpected G's on her the past few days.

I'm also ramping up my volunteer work with my two (hope this wasn't a mistake) placements with Junior League this year, an advisor to the Phi Mu Chapter at American University (YAY-LOVE IT), and continuing to work with my sororities alumnae group in the area.  Mix all this with three upcoming weddings and I don't have a free weekend until December 11th.

Hoping to move back into our house sometime next week-the movers are tentatively set to bring everything back in starting the 9th.  Ya know, moving in the middle of the week, while working full time and a totally booked weekend looming-it's what all the cool kids do really.

I'm doing my best to keep my sanity as I figure out how to see all my friends and family, host a baby shower and have one of the worlds greatest morning tailgates this weekend-oh yes and cheering my Gators onto Victory!

Decisions Decisions

So the facebook and blog verdict is in, and the email request has been sent to our contractor.  I present our new bathroom vanities.  I will be picking up the light fixtures and faucets this weekend, and putting Josh's finely honed electrician skills to use.  Plumbing, we aren't taking our chances on and will leave up to the professionals-ha!

Other than trips to both Home Depot and Lowes, we will also be visiting some furniture stores.  I conceded hardwood floors downstairs for new bedroom furniture upstairs.  I will also be making a trip to JoAnn's and Calico Corners as I plan out curtains and a bed skirt for our bedroom. 

Humm, I just realized that my sewing machine is in storage with the rest of our household belongings.  Never fear, I have my trusty friend iron hem tape.  It won't be the first time I made curtains with it either-ha!  It will however be my first attempt at a pelmet box, but I plan to follow Jenny's tutorial from the Little Green Notebook.

As I searched for a picture of our bedding, I saw that I could buy a king bed skirt (our pattern is discontinued).  Now I have to decide if I want to make something on my own or jimmy rig a king skirt to fit our queen bed-why does life have to be this hard?

And yes, we have a dozen pillows for our bed. 

That's two more than are even displayed in these pictures. 

Yes, I know this is ridiculous-thanks.

Vanities oh Vanities

So life has been a whirl wind, what else is new...

With so much going on, I am having a hard time focusing, and selecting my bathroom vanities. 

I have picked the master bath paint, tile and light fixtures. Now just which vanity and then faucets-oh me.

So let me know what you think...

In the master bath, I have narrowed it down to two vanities, both have excellent reviews.  Of course I would like to maximize on storage space, the one I was leaning towards is only 31" and the other that I really like is 36".  Have I mentioned before that I am the most indecisive person on the face of the planet?  I would hate to give up drawers and five extra inches of storage, oh I know I'm loosing it.

This is the paint color as well as the lighting I selected-now which vanity...

So onto bigger and better things or smaller and just as good things since I am referring to our half bath. Below is the paint color as well as the vanities I've narrowed it down to.  All are similar size and price range, which some how makes the decision more difficult.  As noted, I'm totally at a loss-what to do, what to do?

Let me know which ones you like the best!  I would love to hear...

Thanks!!