... And then I met Nora Roberts

I <3 Nora Roberts. Last weekend was my best friends birthday, and she requested a day spent in Boonsboro at a Nora Roberts book signing. Which is obviously Reason #423 that we're friends.

So we went. And I set an alarm on a Saturday morning and Metro'ed into DC in the early morning to wait in the freezing cold for my best friend to pick me up and take me to the middle-of-nowhere Maryland where we stood in the cold even longer to buy our books and then stood in line in the cold AGAIN to get them signed.

And then it was all worth it because I met Nora Roberts.

Doctoring It

I'm weirdly straight-laced, just ask my sister who has been picking on me because of it for... oh... 25 years. I blame my parents, though "blame" probably isn't the right term. And "thank" doesn't necessarily seem appropriate here either. Whatevs. I am who I am. Thanks to high school I learned to accept that early on. Ha!

ANYWAY this bit of evidence even had me shaking my head at myself afterward.

BACKGROUND: I had a routine check-up today with a new doctor.

EVIDENCE: Excerpt from conversation with my new doctor.

Doc: Do you smoke?
Me: No.
Doc: Do you drink?
Me: Occasionally. I have a glass of wine here and there.
Doc: Do you take drugs?
Me: Only when I have a headache or something. Then I usually take Tylenol or ibuprofen.
Doc: (after a half beat) I meant cocaine, meth, heroin... that sort of thing.
Me: (horrified) Oh! No! No. God no. Definitely not.
(insert nervous laugh)
Me: (5 seconds later while rubbing my sweaty palms on my paper gown) NO.

Oh. And here's a picture of a baby walrus to make your visit worthwhile.

IKEA Rast Hack - Sofa Table Style

I can't get Gangnam Style out of my head (hence the post title) - and all I know is the chorus.

Oppa Gangnam Style.

What? It's catchy!

Anyway - back to my sofa table. I have a love/hate relationship with IKEA. I mean, I L.O.V.E. their stuff. We have IKEA bookshelves that we use as our entertainment center (seen here), Jason's dresser is IKEA, we have IKEA lamps in our living room, and we're planning a kitchen renovation using their kitchen planner and will probably use their cabinets!

...BUT - I hate going to IKEA. Maybe it's because I'm an introvert, or maybe it's because our IKEA is the one that all of DC heads to - but I hate it. I hate having to park a mile away, I hate having to search the parking lot for a cart since the ones inside are usually all taken, I hate that the wait to return something is usually around an hour, and I hate that the whole store is like a massive parking lot of people wandering around and leaving their carts strewn about and in the way of the flow of traffic... Whew. That felt good to get off my chest!

Moving on... my latest project was an IKEA hack. Have you heard of IKEA hacking? There is a whole website devoted to it (http://www.ikeahackers.net/). Basically it involves taking a piece of IKEA furniture and personalizing it for your space. (UPDATE: This project totally got featured on the site too! See it here.)

Roses are Red...

...and so is my door!

What? I never claimed to be a poet.

Regardless of my poetry skills - the door is DONE! (And so is this post finally - thanks to Sandy/Frankenstorm giving the time to sit down and finish it!)

Red Door, Blue Door, Front Door, Screen Door

It's been mentioned in past posts (here and here) that I have major problems making a decision on paint colors. Let's call it paint paralysis. Well I'm suffering from it yet again. Thanks to Kat over at Maple Leaves & Sycamore Trees, I've got the front door painting bug. BUT, yet again, I'm struggling to pick a paint color. And instead of the normal problem of trying to decide between 8 different shades of green, this time I'm having trouble narrowing it down from... um... every color.

Mostly I blame the current problem on the previous owners and their paint choice. Truthfully I've always drooled over those pictures of cute cape cod houses with grey cedar shingle siding - and I got halfway there with our first house... kind of.  It's a cute little cape cod and it has grey-blue siding... let's stop there. 

That grey-blue siding is my current hold-up. I wish it were more grey. Or more blue. Or darker. Or... just something... more.  Instead it's caught between grey and blue and it's restricting the creative side of my brain from choosing a color for our completely bland front door. 

So - that's why I'm here. Begging for your opinion.  Please.Help.Me.  

Maybe Bigger Really is Better...

... in the case of pictures.

So last weekend I finally gave into the fact that my cute arrangement of white picture frames above the buffet just weren't working.  You may remember from this post that the picture frames were actually just an assortment of random frames that I spray painted white and hung prior to getting the buffet.

Different sizes, different textures, and I couldn't even keep them straight long enough to take this picture.

They were... fine. Just... fine. However, slowly, the fact that they were never straight started to grate on me. The stairs are right behind that wall, and it seemed the the frames were never, ever, EVER straight - no matter how often I painstakingly straightened them. And yes - I know I could have used some sticky stuff to keep them straight, but I really just wasn't sold on the overall look anyway, so I didn't really feel like taking the time for that!  I also think I was still hating that the one anchoring spot on that wall continued to be that damn thermostat.

So. What to do?

Project: Backyard Beautification, Part 2

Whoa - I wrote most of this right after I finished Part 1, but other things got in the way (such as wedding and an unplanned trip to Canada and stuff...) so I'm just getting around to posting this! Pardon the tardiness - is it too soon to start blaming stuff on my husband?  :)

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As soon as our new fence was finished, we stepped back to look at the completed product... and became newly aware of how awful the concrete thing in the backyard was. I call it a 'thing' because we actually don't know what it is... though we're pretty sure it's a war memorial. We were told that the previous owner (the one who loved paneling and hanging swords on fences) was a WWII vet - so we're guessing he built this structure as a memorial to all of his fallen comrades, which is honorable and awesome. And we appreciate the sacrifice of his fallen comrades as well as his service. BUT - we really didn't want a war memorial taking up a good chunk of our already pretty small backyard. Not only was it a space hog, but it was also just really OLD looking. The top of it was painted white at some point, but that was all chipping away and the brick mortar was starting to fall apart... so against the new fence, it really just looked awful.