The Bathroom: Part 2

So a while back we redid our master bathroom. Well, we replaced the vanity and redid the flooring. Over my break I had the opportunity to paint the bathroom to finish our work. I have spent countless hours brainstorming wall-towel color combinations that compliment the vanity and the floor. After finally settling on a color, I set to work! Here is the final result:

I am in love with the blue walls (which pick up some of the blue in the flooring) with the cream towels! I feel like I'm stepping out of a Better Homes and Gardens bathroom when I come out of the shower! Now, any suggestions for a shower curtain color?

Home Improvement

I am quite impressed by the home improvement projects Tyler and I have taken on in our only 4 months of living in this house. I will confess however, that because of these home improvement projects, our home is a mess and I have not been able to take pictures because it is embarrassingly messy in pretty much every room. But these are a few of the projects we have taken on.

The TV Shelf
Father's Day weekend we saw some amazing deals on TVs and we ended up getting this huge honker + Blu Ray/DVD player + surround sound system all for less than the price of the TV. We had a hard time passing up such a great deal. However, we don't have room for an entertainment center in our living room, so Tyler came up with this lovely shelf. He did all of the work, I can't take any credit for it. I just helped hold the shelf while he mounted it to the wall. Tyler built a little tray that falls under the shelf that holds all of the cords so they aren't sticking out all over the place.

The Ceiling Fan

We bought this over the weekend because it was on a fabulous sale and we have discussed buying a ceiling fan for quite a while. I opened the box and removed the packaging, and Tyler assembled it/did the electrical work. It is in our bedroom upstairs which is very nice because we do not have AC and it gets pretty hot at night. Oh, and it worked on the first try! Way to go Tyler.


Backyard Draining System
So our backyard has a bit of a downgrade that causes water to collect near the base of the house. That isn't good, especially in Oregon where it rains pretty much everyday for 10 months of the year. We just started this project over the weekend. Eventually we'll pour more concrete where the grass has been removed and we'll dig draining tile under the lawn where the water will dump out onto the street. Honestly, I don't really know the details of this project. This is Tyler's big thing and I'm just going along with it.

Oh, and this picture proves that the sun does occasionally come out in Oregon. There's shadows and everything.

Bathroom Conversion to a Pantry
We are fed up with the lack of a pantry in our kitchen. So we are converting the downstairs bathroom into a pantry to help with the lack of storage in our kitchen. So far we have removed the sink (shown outside being cleaned) and the mirror/towel rack. All we have left is the toilet to remove, which hopefully shouldn't be too hard. We've got shelves ready to put in the bathroom, and voila! Instant pantry.

Note: Chloe is quite the helper with the renovations. Maybe too much of a helper.

Peaches and Blueberries, oh my!

Tyler and I went to a pick your own farm a couple of weeks ago. We went to one that specifically only has blueberries and peaches. Oh my goodness, it was so much fun! We were one of the first people there and had first pick at the peaches! There were just so many that looked so good! We ended up picking 19lbs of peaches and 4.5 lbs of blueberries! And let me tell you, I'm not much of a blueberry fan, but these blueberries were so sweet, not tart, we had a hard time not eating them all on the way home! We also discovered that Chloe loves blueberries. She would try to knock them out of our hand every time we went to snack on them.

First off, we made this with the peaches that needed to be used immediately.
Then we made peach ice cream. It is all gone, so no pictures of that deliciousness.

I originally wanted to can the rest of the peaches, but since I don't have canning equipment and didn't want to borrow from someone, I set out to learn how to freeze peaches. Turns out, the process is almost exactly the same, just without the mason jars! Freezing is like the poor man's canning, but I'm ok with it! I think they turned out beautifully and I am rather proud of my accomplishments.
P.S. Freezing blueberries is quite possibly one of the easiest things I have ever done. You don't even wash them! Just stick them on a cookie sheet and freeze them until they are rock solid, essentially until they become marbles. Then, just transfer them to whatever container you plan on keeping them in (for me it was a ziploc bag) and freeze them! It's important that you freeze the blueberries out of the bag first though so they don't clump together and then freeze. I used them to make muffins later, and sure enough they were not clumped together and came out easily!

New insulin pump!

Over my break, I have upgraded my pump from a plain old regular insulin pump to a pump that has continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) capabilities. I have only been using it for less than a week, but so far it's pretty cool! The CGM is a device that is sort of like a wick that is inserted in my skin and soaks up the fluid between cells and measures that fluid level of glucose. Every five minutes, it measures my glucose levels giving me a better idea of what my levels are between regular blood glucose testing. I really like it so far! It is helpful to see how I trend during the day, not just at meals and bedtime. It also has the capability to predict if I am going to have high or low glucose levels, and alerts me in advance so I can try to fix it. The major setback though is that the glucose readings aren't entirely accurate. If I measure my blood glucose levels and compare it to what the CGM says, they are usually off. The CGM has a delayed response to my blood, so it is not entirely accurate. Overall though, I am really pleased with it and hope that I can have better control of my diabetes with such cool new technology.

Summer Break: Day 2

I'm officially done with the summer semester and enjoying the lack of homework/clinical/papers/sleep. For now at least. Yesterday I baked these: and got the recipe here from my best friend's cooking blog. They're like cinnamon rolls, only with an unexpected twist. Very tasty. Highly recommend.

Today I got to do laundry (not so fun, but now I have options when I get dressed) and watch this:
Seriously, the best movie ever. And it's instantly streaming on Netflix! Double awesomeness. Chloe and I just chilled watching it together. Ok, she sat on the laundry I was trying to fold, but it was still cute.

I also got to do this: (except my person is not a black man, but a white female who somewhat resembles me)I played Tyler yesterday and beat him in basketball. Rematch to follow tonight, but don't worry, I've been practicing. He's going down!

Yep. Summer vacation is treating me well. Life without school is good. :)

P.S. My camera battery is charging now so that I can take pictures of our house and (finally) put them up.

Bathroom Overhaul

During my summer break, Tyler and I redid our master bathroom while his parents were visiting from Illinois. (I know, right? In-laws come to visit and we put them to work. . .) They've redone bathrooms many times before and hence have more experience than either of us combined. We decided that with their expertise guiding us, we'd get this done a lot faster than we could alone. We did it all in less than a week! And I must say that I think it looks fabulous!

Before pictures:
Our main issue with this set up were the faucets. They were so close to the back of the sink that we couldn't wash our hands! We were going to just replace the faucets, but decided that when we redid the bathroom we'd just do it then. We didn't love the countertop either. The tile was already chipped in a few places and the grout was already discoloring.


The cabinets were a huge issue. Those may look like drawers on top, but they weren't. They are just there for looks. So when it came time to unpack, we didn't have any drawers, just the under the sink cabinets. Storage was very cluttered under the sink.

Demolition:First we had to take out the toilet. This is where having a father-in-law who has redone bathrooms many times before can in very handy. What better place to put it than in the bathtub?

Next we had to remove the existing vanity. A couple of whacks with the sledgehammer and that was history.


Then we had to get rid of the tile that was on the wall. Look at me go with the crowbar! We also had to putty the areas of the wall that would still be visible with the new vanity. That is what my mother-in-law is doing. She's the putty queen!

We ran into a little setback here, when we realized that the wood underneath the floor had some water damage. We had to rip it out and replace it before continuing. Here I am sanding down the new wood floor with the existing stuff so our floor would be flat. We also had to sand down the putty that was put up the day before before we could put in the new floor.

Construction:

Next came putting down the new floor. I was surprised at how easy it was! Just put it down over the existing floor. Here we are, halfway done. It may have been simple, but I think putting down the floor was the longest part of the process. And lining up all the pieces was an exhausting task for a perfectionist like me.

After dusting/fixing minor repairs on the vanity (we got a discount because it was the display vanity!), we could put it in. The boys took over here and carried it in and had to connect the plumbing back up. I love this picture of them! Like father like son. . .


The Final Product:

Sorry this picture is so dark, the wood isn't that dark but for some reason looks that way. But here you can see our new faucets; plenty of room for us to wash our hands. :)

Before:

After:
Overall I'm really pleased with how it turned out! Too bad I can't show this off to anyone, it's not like people come over to see your master bathroom. Our next project will be the kitchen; we need more shelving/storage space. The current design isn't meant for someone with any tiny bit of food storage. :)

How Much is that Doggie in the Window?

So, Tyler and I rather impulsively adopted a dog. We had been discussing it for quite a while, but we realized that we had better act now or wait until I was finished with nursing school because this was the longest break from school I'd get to train a dog. And there is no way I was going to try to train a dog while juggling nursing school responsibilities.

We looked online and at different animal shelters to see what was out there. I originally fell in love with Charlie, a poodle-bichon frise mix. He was so gently, sweet, and cute! Unfortunately, when I visited Charlie, Tyler wasn't with me, so I didn't know how he felt about owning a poodle. (Frankly, I'm not much of a poodle fan myself, but Charlie was just plain cute!). When we went back for Tyler to meet Charlie, he had already been adopted. I was pretty sad, but we still looked at what other dogs were available for adoption. This is when we met Chloe.

We played with Chloe and found her to be a bit larger than we were looking for, our yard isn't that big and we wanted a small dog so that he/she would have ample room in our home. But we decided to get Chloe and not a moment too soon! As Tyler walked up to the counter to say that we wanted her, a lady from behind said, "Not with my permission!" As it turns out, she wanted to adopt Chloe, but she still needed to get approval from her landlord. Since we didn't need approval and we were already there and wanted her first, we got to take her home.

It's been almost a month since we've owned her, and Chloe fits in perfectly with our family! She loves to snuggle (which is what I have wanted in a pet since I was a little girl) and is quite the energetic one too! We've also found out that Chloe is a chewer, and bit through my laptop cord, hence the lack of blogging since only yesterday I got a replacement power cord. But all in all, she's our little girl! She's nearly housetrained now, rarely barks, doesn't drool, and is my shadow all day long. We love her so much!Stats:
Age - 1 year 6 months
Gender - female
Breed - the shelter says she's a soft coated Wheaten Terrier mix. I do not agree. Whatever she is, it's cute to me!
How she ended up at the animal shelter - stray dog, found on the streets
Rate of Bone Consumption - eats a 10-inch rawhide bone in one afternoon