Chillin' Out

(Photo sent from camera phone)

I have found myself living a quiet and restful life the last week and a half since we got back from our road trip. Taking time to breathe, relax, and re-acquaint myself with being home and back at work.

As relaxing as it was to be on vacation, it was not relaxing to be back home. I had to go back to the whirlwind of activity that includes work, tons of housework, laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, and the other random activities that have occurred this week (Shopping and getting things ready for mothers day, having friends over for dinner, attending a Birthday party for a friend, working on my finances, reading the piles of books and magazines that are new and waiting, and spending time with family).

All of them good things, but I have found myself tired from it all, both emotinally and physically, and so I have been taking a break from anything that doesn't "demand" my attention.

I have not really set a toe in the craft room since we got back, other than to drop off things, (stash things) and grabbing random items that are kept in there. It is also a ROYAL mess in there again, and I have not had the time or energy to try and tackle it, so there the room sits, a wreck and all alone.

I have however, cleaned and started the "remodel" of the guest room which included changing the curtains, buying and setting up a (super heavy) bookshelf, and I will be working on changing around the whole look of the room. I am not positive what I want it to look like, but hopefully less like it did before (which was a random hodge-podge of left over furniture and extra bedroom stuff) and more like a real "guest room".

I also tackled most of the mess that is my half of the bedroom. Everything looks clean and tidy, and my closet is not a mountain of mess ready to knock over the first unsuspecting person that dares open the door, but a mostly respectable looking area, that looks even more so when I keep the closet doors close. Still- I would still not want my mother to see inside- but that is one of the benefits of being a adult- I can tell my mom to not look in my closet anymore to see if it is tidy or not.

Also- have you seen the new cover of Martha Stewart Living? I scanned it, but the colors are a bit off. But I am in LOVE with the colors on the cover. Bright Blue, Orange and White have been my addiction now for about 3 months, and when I saw this at Borders I had to buy it :) The Blue walls are much more "robins egg blue" when you see it in person, but the scanner doesn't like it I guess.

And as a update, What I am working on:

~ Gathering items and ideas for a Art Journal

~ Trying out some new recipes for the cooking blog- I have had 2 mishaps (tasty but not quite right), and so I need to tweak the recipes until I get it right.

~ Cleaning and purging junk around the house (how DID i get all this stuff!?!)

~ collecting visual ideas for some more paintings

~ Brainstorming some guest room and guest bathroom ideas (they both need some help)

~ Eyeballing a Elliptical for the house (no more drives to the gym and having to wait while "chatty cathy" and her 4 workout buddies get off all the machines!!)

~ Exploring the massive depths of Photoshop- it is SOOOOOO slow, but fun to learn!

Anyway- that is what is new in that area, and I will hopefully have something to post in the next few days--- at the least, maybe a successful version of one of the recipes I am working on.

Have a great day!

Back Home Safe & Sound

Well we are back from our road trip.

We had a blast- it was a LOT of driving, but it was mostly a good drive (on the way back there was a 600 or 700 mile driving day and the whole time it was into a strong headwind) but having a hybrid this time was nice. We got about 46 MPG the whole trip, which beats out the 13 MPG that we got with the Porche last time, and when you are driving 4000 Miles, it make a HUGE difference.

Between the destinations of Georgetown, Texas and back home, we were able to see some dear friends. We met up with our friend Jamie in Tempe AZ for lunch one day. And on the way back we were able to spend the night with our awesome friend John-John. We LOVE to visit him, and as usual we had a great, but short visit. And also as usual, we have lots of tasty food, a "few" margaritas, and some great coffee- all in 24 hours :)

I do not have all of my pictures at my disposal yet to post, (they are at home on a CD) but the one of the train above was taken in New Mexico on the way home.

I will update this again soon, but for now I am still getting back into the swing of being home. It is Weird, for 2 weeks I didn't have to drive, cook a meal, wake up anytime earlier than I wanted to, could stay up as late as I wanted, and my only really chore was to do laundry once..... and getting back to "real life" seems kinda harsh on my relaxed attitude.

But on Sunday I did get up early and went to the local swap-meet and I found some cool things. I also FINALLY ordered the bookshelf for the guest room and in the next few days I will be setting it up and re-doing the look of the guest room- so stay tuned :)

Lauren