- I’m seriously thinking about buying a foreclosure home. Not now (maybe in a few years) but I’m researching FHA loans and the entire process. It’s a serious long-term goal I’m setting for myself. It’s too far off for the bf to panic but my parents are being super supportive. Considering my mom was a real estate agent & FHA inspector and my father owns a construction company, I have access to tools, discounted supplies, advice and help. We’re a land investment type of family. I’ve stepped up my game on saving up for a down payment. I’m getting my ducks in a row all Suze Orman style over here! Whether we’d like to live in the home or flip it after some fixing up, this will all be based on situation, location and the state of the property (and the economy) upon purchase. At this point, it’s all about patience, saving up and research. Scary exciting stuff!
- I finally went to the South of the James Farmer’s Market. I am in love with that place and so glad it’s going on until December 4th! I bought grass-fed beef from a local farmer for cheaper than at the grocery store. (It comes frozen and sealed so you can make it back home safely.) We bought beautiful heirloom cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, blackberries, and had tacos and breakfast burritos. I’m getting flowers, bread and more next time! Perfect way to throw together a special weekend dinner and get yourself out of the house on a Saturday morning. Here’s a Flickr pool of Richmond farmer’s market photos.
- This particular comic is wonderful! It compares Orwell and Huxley’s fears for our future. Yeah, we’re screwed.
- For all you suckers out there (I’m one of them), aren’t these lipsticks adorable? Of course, after a few uses, they’ve lost their charm but good grief! So cute! $25 each here. (via and all over the web now because us suckers for cute… we are legion)
- Oh hey! Did you notice I changed the look of my + & – posts? No big deal but I think it’s simple and cute!
- This post from DI$COUNT about what luxury is to them… yes.
- This entry from Postcards from Yo Mamma. Seriously, why? It happens to me all the time.
- The bf went out of town two weekends ago. While he was gone, I picked up a box of his favorite chocolates. He brought me back French tarts from a bakery we love in Maryland. This is why I have my next entry in the minuses…
- I don’t own a scale and judge my weight by my jeans. There’s no denying they’ve been a bit snug lately but the cold hard truth hurts. I went to the doctor 2 weeks ago and got weighed. I’m back to the most I ever weighed, about 2 years ago- 128lbs. Two years ago it was sitting on my ass drinking beer. This time, I barely drink, and it’s from sitting on my ass and bad food choices. This may not be a big deal to some of you but it’s kind of a big deal to me. I like the way I feel and look when I’m around 120. My body does not like this extra weight. My skin changes. I physically feel like yuck. I’m only 5’1″ and it means that if I don’t reign it in, I have to buy new clothes and I am NOT buying a new wardrobe because of laziness and shoving cheese in my face. Things have gotten real around here in the food department. It’s salad time but, I hate the gym. Hate it. I would rather all that sweat and effort have some instant results so, hard labor is more my style. Yard work, psychotic cleaning, etc. It’s on.
- We had a big rainstorm on Thursday and on the sofa, while I was being a dork on my laptop and the bf was being a dork on his Xbox, we heard a loud pop. The bf saw a flash of light and the TV cut off then back on. We sat stunned for a second wtf-ing a lot and then ran to check it out. Water. From the ceiling. Leaking. On the 50″ plasma TV the bf bought himself after his tax refund. His baby. Fuck. It’s still working but of course something has been fried. How crucial? No clue. Thank god for renter’s insurance. I’m gonna make a call on Monday and see what we need to do. Oh, and the landlord needs to fix that leak.
This is my mom at the Virginia State Fair, some time in the mid 1950s WITH A MONKEY!
Have a great weekend! It’s going to be hot!
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- One of the coolest handmade gifts I’ve ever seen: Anabela from the blog Feildguided is starting a new feature of people’s homes called “Homebodies” and was allowed to take pics of Melinda Josie’s adorable home. Josie is the creator of this great kitty buds fabric (in addition to many other wonderful things). Anyhow, her fiance carved this as a Christmas present for her. It’s Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird in her ham costume. Amazing.
- Today, I had a lady day with my dear bff Jen (have you checked out her new food blog yet?). I had a half day at work and met her in Carytown after she got her wig smoked. We ate a great lunch at Can Can, talked and talked, and then wandered around checking out a ton of shops we had never been to. We went to Roan. Holy hell! I didn’t know those brands were sold in Carytown! I pawed Lanvin, Chloe, Jason Wu, Alexander Wang (still not impressed), Oscar de la Renta, Givenchy, Jil Sander… all in all, we were dying in there.
sigh, Louboutin
At Need, Jen did her own version of Man Repeller in this sweet union suit.
I also spotted this Miu Miu knockoff. No bueno.
At Pink, I was sooo tempted to get this bag. I’m still thinking about it. A cross-body bag would be nice. We finished up with margaritas at Nacho Mama’s and called it a day. Phew! I’m worn out!
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- I get the whole #firstworldproblem hashtag on twitter. Really I do. People like to complain so it’s a way of acknowledging that your bitching is really whining when there are so many bigger problems out there, but you’re going to whine anyways. (Example: “Why do I always manage to get the shopping cart with the bum wheel? #firstworldproblem”) These tweets get on my nerves like no other. Really? Are we starting to feel that damn guilty for the lives we lead? Feeling guilt for the only life we’ve ever known? No matter how many sad things you see in the news, you will never truly know how people in third world countries feel. Do all of them want to be like us? No. Get over yourself, and if you really want to make a difference, donate to a charity and move on.
- I am half Serbian and I am so ashamed and disgusted with a new movie that has come out called Srpski Film (A Serbian Film). Here is a review by one of my most adored bloggers. I am so incredibly sick and tired of “art” being an excuse for depravity. Political statements can be made in so many ways other than this.
- Everything I’ve added to wish lists or bookmarked for further contemplation ends up being sold out before I decide to purchase. Either it’s a sign that I need to quit shopping or I need to make up my mind faster.
- No way in hell.
My mom has kept a ton of old pictures of herself and her side of the family. I’ll be sharing them with you!
Here she is at Richmond’s Byrd Park on May 30, 1948, dirty and grubby and chugging a soda. She’s almost 2 years old. Look at those cheeks!!!
Stay cool and have a great weekend!
No idea who nominated me, and it was most likely a joke but, being in the list of contenders for RVANews’ Class of 2010 as “most artistic”, is hilarious to me. Last year, my blog was nominated as “best kept secret”. I of course didn’t win that and I won’t win this.
If you want to check out what makes me so gosh darn artistic (other than my general love for amazing works by others), check out these posts of copy-cat art I’ve done on the cheap for my apartment. post 1, post 2.
This post will help you make your own.
I took a walk around my neighborhood today to play with the new camera and take some pictures of the old architecture that makes this area so distinct. I played with the pinhole effect on the camera a few times. The neat thing about the Fan District is that each walk you take brings you new discoveries. I could walk around a thousand times and it would always be exciting. I love this place. (Click on the Flickr link to the right to see all the pics!)
Each block has its own characteristic architecture that seems to run in groups.
Good ole Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue. This is the South.
The way people take care of their tiny yards and porches makes me smile. As the seasons change, so does the entire feel of the neighborhood. There are a lot of hidden gardens tucked around that I would love to climb over fences to see!
There are some of the cutest little houses ever here… and so many strange varieties of trees. My favorite is the ginkgo, one of the oldest trees in the world. You can see the distinctive branches peeking in the 2nd picture.
Even the alleys are inviting and magical to me but the bf is convinced that they are full of stranglers.
When we moved into our first place together almost a year ago, a lot of cosmetic work needed to be done but I was up to the task because the price was right. Paint is cheap and my free time is well, free. So, we painted and painted and fixed a few things here and there. Everything was looking pretty spectacular but the last hold out was our gross kitchen floors. The landlord is a bit of a tightwad. Why bother fixing stuff if some careless dirty college kids are going to move in regardless and not take care of it? Well, we are not careless, dirty or in college anymore and we want our home to feel bright and clean.
So, we measured the square footage of the kitchen and were shocked to see how much new flooring was going to cost. Our best bet was to search high and low for a remnant of sheet vinyl, cut it EXACTLY and mess with glue and all that fun stuff. I admit, I was a bit intimidated by that task but I still looked… and looked. Our kitchen is almost 200 sq. feet and I couldn’t find anything under $100, let alone $200, (plus all the glue, tools and cutting supplies) that was in a decent looking pattern, or large enough. I mean, we’re renting. The landlord wasn’t going to help us out so, I wasn’t going to spend much. So, we lived with it for almost a year and hated every second of it. This whole big room that we barely wanted to spend any time in. That one thing in our place we kept feeling the need to apologize to guests for. “Yeah, about the floor… we’re going to fix that… one day.”
When we decided that we were definitely going to renew the lease for at least another year, my heart was starting to ache about that damn floor. Then, this past Sunday a miracle happened. Our wonderful neighbor across the hall has been leaving his Sunday paper for us outside our door. So, after we ran a bunch of errands, we sat down on the sofa to relax. I always start with the ads. There is was. Some weird closeout store in Southside that I’d never even heard of before. Boxes of 30 heavy-duty vinyl floor tiles for $9! Holy hell! We could do our floors for $63!
First thing Monday morning, I ran to this crazy place and found the tiles. Why such a good deal? Because a few of the 7 boxes I bought had maybe 5 irregular tiles in them, where the black diamond was slightly askew. We picked them out of the boxes and they went under the fridge and stove. After 7 hours of working [great] together, prying the old yucky tiles off the hardwood floors with a putty knife, keeping everything clean, moving the fridge and stove, taking a lot of breaks, and measuring and cutting the new tile for the odd spaces and edges… it was all done. We were filthy, sweaty, sore and exhausted but damnit, we took our kitchen back and made it ours!
Look at that nastiness! It was some old funky tile that we could never get clean. We tried everything. EVERYTHING! You could scrub it for days and never get the grime out. It felt like some institution where mental patients get abused.
About 1/3 of the way through. They didn’t install the original tile on center so, we just worked our way up as well. It did just fine. The hardwood flooring underneath could’ve been beautiful if refinished but was completely out of our budget. The cabinets were simply slapped on top of the old tile so, we just had to cut them with a utility knife. The new tiles fit right under the toe moulding so we didn’t have to remove that. Some of the old tiles had been replaced and they used a glue that could’ve held elephants together. The bf was a champ with a blowdryer and pried those bastards off. That little bowl contained a washcloth soaked in rubbing alcohol because handling the new tiles was a sticky mess.
Finally done! Yesterday I painted the columns and trim around the vertical tile of the fireplace with black enamel like we have in the bedroom. I think it ties the black and white feel together.
For Christmas, my father made us a wood kitchen table. It was very sweet of him and I know he put a lot of work into it but it just wasn’t our style. We were going to live with it anyways and not be ungrateful jerks. Well, thank god the top of it warped (don’t I sound awful!?) and we’re bringing it back to him when we get a new table THIS WEEKEND! One of the old tennants of the building left a huge peice of thick glass in some cubby in the main hallway. We’re getting it cut to size to place on top of the new table to protect it because it’s from IKEA and you know what that means.
P.S. Please check out the comments below for a small tutorial on the process of laying peel and stick tiles.
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- Camelias are blooming and there are buds on some trees in Richmond!
- Warmer weather makes me want to eat like this every day.
- Like spirograph designs, I am really digging this string work for a wall. It would take a bit of time to map out a perfect circle and place all the nails neatly but it is so flippin neat and you could do any type of design in any color.
via
via – buy them here
get these here! I just got 2!
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- Alzheimer’s. It sucks beyond anything I thought that sucked could suck. My mom is experiencing the beginning stages of it now. The double-edged sword of her already struggling with MS, is that it’s better that she’s immobile because she would probably wander off or set the house on fire. Right now, she gets fixated on things. For the past six months it’s been her checking account, which I manage. She can’t remember her balance, I have to tell her every day, she doesn’t believe me, we have to call the bank, she thinks there are mystery checks from unknown sources tucked away in drawers that I have to dig through every day to keep her from having a fit… all while trying very hard not to have a fit myself. Before the money stuff, there were mysterious things in the bed with her under the covers that I had to constantly show her weren’t there. There was the broken mirror she said she had cut herself with, the strange plastic bits, the wire wrapped around her finger, her thinking she had pulled her catheter out – all this and she knows intellectually that she can’t move but reality separates itself from her brain every day. This went on for 2 years until we figured out what was really going on. Like I said, it sucks.
- Spring is coming! Can you feel it!? I have a few fashion requests for the general public. Can we all try to avoid wearing scarves when it’s hot outside and can everyone stay away from boat shoes? Oh, and dirty looking dudes in sleazy tank tops… stop the madness. Thanks guys.
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