Mini Project

With my birthday money, I had bought these old vintage ski's from Pottery Barn and 4 handmade frames from Etsy (thanks Sheila Mom, Grandma Miller, and Oma!). I really wanted to hang the ski's so that they crossed over each other and then put a frame in all 4 cross sections.

The problem is that the ski's didn't come with mounting hardware. They're not really made to be hung across each other. Obviously, that didn't really matter much to me.

Chris kept putting off helping me with it, saying some smörgåsbord (time out, cool spell check fix, huh?!) about needing to go to Home Depot or Lowes to get mounting hardware and blah blah blah.

We had a volleyball game at 9 last night, relatively close to Chris's work, so he stayed until 730 and then met me at Chick Fil A before heading to play. I decided I was tired of waiting for some stupid mounting hardware, and started hanging the ski's by myself before I left.

I did sort of okay with it, but the top ski was barely hanging on, and I could only get it to latch on one side, and my picture frames were off center. When we got home, Chris rolled his eyes and helped me re-hang the top ski and center up the picture frames. He has no problem helping me finish something once I've started it...he'd just never start it if it was left up to him!

Here's the final product:

Hope everyone has a great weekend!! It's Friday--yay! I'll post pictures of last weekends project after we finish the cleanup this weekend.

The more serious side of me

I try to stay chipper on here...when I'm having a down day or am just feeling off, I don't generally blog. But, there's a serious issue that I'll either have to tell everyone about individually or blog about. I also think it's important, and not something to be embarrassed by...and probably something we should all discuss more openly than we do.

So what is it already?

Boobs.

I had my yearly checkup last week with my lady doctor. She asked, like she does every year, if I've been good about doing monthly self breast exams. After I said yes, she asked if I've felt any lumps. The problem here is that I have lumpy boobs (sounds attractive, huh?), so I always feel lumps. I had told Chris that I was a little nervous about my yearly this time though because I thought I felt 2 odd lumps, although I didn't mention that to her.

After the exam, she asked if our baby plan was to start trying within the next year (perhaps) and then said that she wanted to get an ultra sound to look at two areas that concerned her. Apparently having babies ruins your boobs for quite a few years, and she didn't want to miss anything.

Good deal...she's being overly cautious. I do have breast cancer on both sides (Gma on Dad's side, Great gma on Mom's side), so it's good to be cautious.

The ultra sound was today. I was pretty good at keeping the mind set of 'wait to worry until there's something to worry about' up until I got there. The place I went to is the Susan Cheek Needler Breast Center. It's a warm and cozy place, and I think most women are there for their annual mammograms. Which means they're 40's, 50's, 60's, etc...

I stuck out like a sore thumb. I felt like a little kid. I think I was scared like a little kid because of all of the sad looks I got before I even got back to the exam room. I'm 28...it's obvious I'm not there for a mammogram. They won't even do one on me (thank god) because I'm too young. I've actually been through all of this a few years back and everything came back a.ok (and no one looked at me with those puppy dog sad eyes in the waiting rooms either).

So anyways, when the tech came in to do the ultra sound, I think she could tell I was nervous. She took some pics of the spots my lady doc had written down, and sent in the radiologist. I told the radiologist the same song and dance that I had told my lady doctor and she did an exam too. As she put her ice cold hands on my boobs, she says "oh my goodness, you DO have lumpy boobs!!". Gee thanks doc.

She had the tech come back in and ultrasound a few more areas of concern.

Diagnostic: Gray. Not good, not bad. There's a few lumps that don't feel like cysts (those move) and are new growths (bad - they have my ultrasounds from a few years back to compare to) but are small (good) and are most likely benign tumors (also good).

So what now? I had a lump removed when I was 18 that was a benign tumor. The reason they removed it was because I was going to college, and they knew monitoring it would be difficult. I'm now on the monitoring plan with these new lumps. I go back in 6 months to see if they've grown any (they measured them) and if they haven't, I think I do it once or twice more and then I'm good to go. If they have...well, we take that road then.

I am very blessed to have so many friends and family that will want to be updated on this, and while it might seem like a personal matter, it really isn't. It's real, and it's something I really really hope all of you gals get checked out. Do I feel like repeating this same story to all of you? Not really :-), although I have no problem whatsoever discussing any of it with anyone! I'm not going to lie and say that I'm not a little scared and nervous about it, but that's just today. I'll go back to the mindset of not worrying until there's something to worry about soon enough and then repeat the cycle in 6 months. Fun times!

If you haven't yet, get your boobs checked! I'm 28...if I'm not too young for there to be 6 month checkups, then none of you guys are either!!! And for those of you that are old enough to get mammograms instead of ultra sounds, do me a favor and don't scare us 'kids' by giving us the sad puppy dog eyes. It makes us nervous!

I'll get off my podium now...time to go running with Chris and Kodi (and the neighborhood dogs...that's another blog) anyways! Have a great night!

Life in the Fast Lane

Oh where oh where do I begin?

Chris and I took off Thursday - Monday to work on a few things around the house and supposedly to catch up on a little R&R. HA! I don't really think I know how to rest and relax...I'm only capable of doing it if I'm AT a spa. My house, not so much...

In 2 1/2 weeks we will have lived in our 'new' house for a year already. Which made me come to the conclusion that we needed to get some of the projects we've been talking about doing for the past year DONE already!! I think the year mark is pretty much the longest you can go with blaming the previous owners for things that are wrong. We inherited AWFUL landscaping when we moved in, and a lot of it, so it's been a balancing act between the inside, the outside, Chris's schooling, work, and maintaining our sanity. I think the last item might be the first to go!

On Thursday we drove around and got all of the materials we needed to redo the landscaping around the back pool deck area. We also had a volleyball game and spent some time that night with our tenant who re-signed for another year (wahoo!!) and told us how amazing our old house was and all of the work we put into it. Although being landlords is not what we had in mind when redoing everything, she is absolutely amazing, and it is nice and rewarding to hear someone compliment our blood, sweat, and tears that we put into redoing that house.

I'm running out of time to blog about our weekends adventures, so I'm going to leave you with some before and after pics of our old house that we redid. Looking through here brings back so many memories...

Our first project, re-doing this bathroom:
Before:


We redid the lights, vanity top, toilet, sink, and painted the walls a lighter color of gray and texturized and painted the ceiling white. We were so proud...
After:


Our next big project was the kitchen. I'm not quite sure why we thought going from that little bathroom remodel to redoing an entire kitchen was a good idea...but it all worked out!

Before:


After:



Next was the fireplace. Chris came inside to find me beating the tile out with a hammer and just rolled his eyes and joined in helping. He's a good sport!
Before:

After:


The project we ended on was the worst one. We redid the guest bathroom. Chris found out we were redoing THAT while he was sitting on the couch watching TV. I came walking across the living room with the old vanity top and sink that I had just ripped out. He pretty much goes with the flow though...thankfully! I start all the craziness...I am definitely the instigator in this family!!

Before:


After:


We did redo all of the landscaping there too, but that yard was tiny compared to our current yard!! I'll post later on the adventures of this weekend. Hope everyone is having a great week!