Small projects and missing hubby big time

Since Bobby has been gone since Friday on a boys band trip, I've been trying to keep myself as busy as possible.  Tonight I put the 2nd and 3rd coats of white on my kitchen table and chairs.  The set originally looked like this:

At Ikea in Minneapolis I bought a fabric to make pillows, and I realized that it would be the perfect fabric to cover my chairs with.  So after I go back to Canadian Tire to return the staples I bought that don't fit my staple gun (don't get me started), I will be recovering the chairs.  This is a sneak peek at the fabric:

I think the green will go really well with some of my kitchen art, and it really compliments both the blue in the fabric and the blue on the walls.  

I've got one or two coats left on the table and chairs, so they're hanging out downstairs right now (with a pile of laundry on the red chair in the background that I haven't folded yet, sorry hubbs!).

 

I've also been focusing the past week or so on trying to make our back yard nicer.  Since our back yard is actually kind of our front yard (since you don't see our "front yard" when you drive up), I have been trying to think of creative (and cheap) ways of making it more attractive (for now, since we can't afford to do all of the non-cheap things I want to do, such as a fence, big patio, etc).  

I wasn't going to do any flower planting this summer, but I caved and got 3 planters spray painted 2 of them, and planted some flowers.  I also spray painted the 2 patio chairs a really pretty blue colour (pictures pending) to add a pop of colour to the patio.  I don't have a picture to post yet, but here is a pic of my feet after the fact:

Ew.

On the boring but highly functional side of things, I also bought a hose reel and had Bobby attach it to the side of the house before he left.  It looks a lot more organized back there when there isn't a whole you-know-what-load of stuff lying around on the ground.

Here is a before pic of the patio/deck, and I will soon post an after:

On the more personal side of things, it's been kinda tough so far without Bobby around.  He went on a 13 day trip two years ago with the band, and that was REALLY tough for me too.  Since we've been married, I don't think we had spent one night apart up until Friday, so it's been a pretty lonely home these past few days.  He will have been gone a total of 10 days, which in my opinion is a pretty long time, and I cannot wait until he's back.  

Don't get me wrong, I am very happy he's having a blast out in Toronto with the boys, and it was my idea in the first place that he went on this trip, however I've been trying to do as much stuff possible to keep busy so that the days go by quickly.  I honestly don't know how some people can stand it when their spouses/partners go away for long periods of time.  I have a lot of respect for military wives and husbands who go months and months without seeing their loved ones.  This is also probably why I cry my eyes out at any show related to "military spouse reunions".    

On a lighter note, I've also been doing a lot of silly stuff, like this:

Yup, I'm a total stalker wife and screen-shotted a pic of us facetiming and made it look like I was kissing him...

This one is much cuter, and less creepy pathetic:

So cute.

I also found myself listening to The Feugh (Bobby's band) at work today.  I thought it was totally appropriate since at that exact time they were playing music in real life.

  

I have been looking at our wedding pics over and over again, and even wearing his shirts a lot this week, too.  But no need for those pictures.  Just admitting it is funny enough! :)

I will keep up with the painting this week and then I'm off to my in-laws cabin for the long weekend.  I can't wait to spend time with my niece, nephew and everyone else.  Bobby gets home on Monday (yay!) and I can hardly wait to see him.

That's all for now.  I'm going to go facetime with my long lost husband and hope I sleep okay tonight.

Lots of laughs and lots of love,

 M.J.

   

Brrr, it's cold in here! ...not.

When springtime rolled around a few months ago, we finally took the tarp off of our A/C to reveal this beast of a machine:

In case one picture isn't enough, here's a sweet view from the side of this beaut:

At that moment, we A) realized why the former owners had sold their house in the winter and B) knew that it might not even turn on when the time came that we needed AC.  So when it actually did turn on and work quite well (although I'm sure it wasn't very energy efficient and it sure as heck wasn't quiet) we were pleasantly surprised...

...and then it happened.  Last Sunday morning, Bobby and I woke up and realized our air conditioner had turned off in the middle of the night.  No big deal, we'll just get it repaired, right?  Not when your air conditioner is as old as some of your aunts and uncles.  So anyway, it's been about 30 degrees celsius all week and in turn, our thermostat has looked like this (keep in mind that it was 82 fahrenheit at 11 pm, so you can imagine how hot our house was during the day):

So we did what anyone would do in our situation.  We set up camp downstairs where it is quite a bit cooler (albeit still not as cool as I am used to).  I hardly slept at all this week because I am one of those sleepers that needs the room to be very cool, so even in the basement I was hardly able to sleep.  I apologize to anyone I saw or talked to this week for seeming a tad "zombie-like".  

Here's a shot of the set up downstairs.  Bobby was sweet enough to bring the mattress downstairs and set up the bed for us.

Even though it was much cooler downstairs, we still had a very hard time sleeping.  I know, boohoo, poor me. 

Anyway, we found a company to come and install a brand new system.  Luckily, Hydro offers a month by month plan for payments, so we don't have to pay a big lump sum of money right now.  We'll work it into the budget which we think will be much easier in the long run.  

So, here is the new guy.  Much sleeker and less 1950's airplane engine:

Now that we have a new air conditioner, I found a fun pinterest idea to make the area around the AC unit look even nicer:

One thing at a time though, I suppose.

Bobby and I came home tonight from a night out at the ballgame to our very cool house and it was such a relief.  It was an incredibly hot day and night and coming home to a comfortable house was a great feeling.  (Here is a pic of us at the ballgame.  I got my hair coloured today, yay for no more roots!)

Finally, I just want to quickly say that I know some people go their whole lives without having air conditioning, and that we are very lucky to be able to have central air in our house.  Now that we have gone a very hot week without it, we will forever be grateful for it and we won't take for granted that our house is a cool and comfy retreat for us.

That's all for now!

Lots of laughs and lots of love,

M.J.

Home is where the heart is...

...and our hearts lay in pretty little St. Boniface.

Hubby and I bought our first house in November 2011.  We had looked at a few other houses before we found this one, but nothing had really quite caught our eyes.  When Bobby saw the listing on MLS he told me he NEEDED to see it, because it was on a street that he had always loved.

Well, we went to see the house.  Outside it was just a normal looking bungalow with a single garage and a big yard.  It was wintertime, so there wasn't much to see since the entire yard was covered in snow anyway.  When we went inside, we were really not that impressed with how it looked.  It was a solid house in need of some updates a la MJ.  It was about the fourth or fifth house that we had gone to see, and the first house we had put an offer on, so I really think it was meant to be.

We knew that with some paint, a little elbow grease and with the help of the Rona gift cards we had received for our wedding shower, that we could really turn this house into a great one.

Here are a few before and after pictures:

Kitchen (we painted the walls, cabinets and added new hardware to the cabinets) :

Some cute art I found on Etsy really made it look more bright and modern

A little paint and new hardware really brightens up the room (although the picture doesn't do it justice)

 The basement (we painted the paneling, had new carpet installed and changed out the weird interesting outdoor light fixtures for new pretty sconces):

We added some fun decor and storage to make the room more fresh and comfortable as well as useful

The now fully stocked bar really pops against the white walls.  We plan on painting the bar eventually but for now it does the trick!

...and finally the Living Room (only had one shot of one side of the room from before unfortunately, but you get the picture).  We decided to turn the living room into a living room/dining room combo:

This is looking at the same spot where the couch used to be.  It is definitely in need of some art or an accent wall.  Stay tuned.

This part of the room (opposite to the dining table whose corner you can see in the bottom right corner of the pic) is a bit out of sorts but I am going to be re-organizing it to get more balance in the room

We have 2 bedrooms upstairs that we are currently working on updating, so I will leave the big reveals for a later date.  But for now, here is a picture of our so-called office before our trip to Ikea, a picture of Bobby at Ikea, and the wonderful result of some of our purchases: 

Yuck

Poor Bobby didn't know what he was getting himself into

We got a new table turned desk , a book case/shelf and 2 new office chairs for just under $250. 

There is still a lot of work to do, but for now it is what it is, and we love it.  As I mentioned before, we are working on the 2 other bedrooms (new curtains in the master and a whole new look to the 2nd bedroom) so stay tuned for more pics!

That's all for now.

Lots of laughs and lots of love,

M.J.