New pictures

It has taken me quite a while to post these pictures for a couple reasons...one, we just finished making most of these changes at our house (see previous posts), and two, Blogger has been not-so-good about letting me post pictures. So, it is 9:45 on Thursday night, I just finished getting our guest room together, and thought I'd try posting again. It worked!

You've seen the above picture before, but it didn't have the couch in it. We moved the khaki couch to the front living room and you can see the furniture in the back living room that dad brought us. I've posted a closer up picture of that further down the post. Here is the "before" picture of the guest bedroom. It took me two weekends to strip that wallpaper border. What a pain. I will be perfectly happy if I never see another piece of wallpaper again. And here is the after. I just finished painting this room yesterday, and just took the tape off today. Obviously there is nothing up on the walls yet and no window coverings, because I took down the miniblinds so we can put something else there.

Here's the living room with the leather furniture in it. We now have a couch, a chair and an ottoman, a papasan chair, two rocking chairs, plus the furniture in the blue room. I love getting hand-me-down furniture. Maybe someday I'll feel the urge to buy furniture, but I haven't done that yet. Here is the "before" of the hideous guest bathroom. I just noticed that ivy birdhouse thing.

This is what we did on Labor Day. I think this was the most time-consuming room that we did.

Here is the finished product. I took off all the cabinets and painted them pure white. Obviously, we painted the walls the same color as our living room. We put in a new light fixture above the mirror (the one there was gold), and we will be putting in molding along the ceiling because we got paint on the ceiling. Here's our bathroom before. This one took Chad a long time. Post-wallpaper stripping. He also took off all of that blue tile that lined the wall and the shower. About this time we're thinking, uh, what have we gotten ourselves into?
Here is a picture of Chad in action. I was playing with the levels on my camera so this one looks kind of funny to me. As you can see Chad textured the walls and we painted them. I love how the color turned out. For some reason I guess I associate blue with bathrooms.

We put white trim around where the blue tile was, to match the trim that was already in the vanity area. And here's the vanity area. The top part was the same yellow and blue wallpaper and the bottom was a yellow. That's the part we painted brown. I don't like the way these pictures turned out but I really like the way the bathroom turned out. We replaced this light fixture as well. Here is the before of our room. It had a yellowish tinge to it.
And the after. I haven't done much to this room either, but I wanted to show it painted and with our new bedding. The color I picked out is just a much lighter shade of the dark brown from the bathroom, and it's called Indian Painting or something like that. It's the same color that is in the first bedroom.

And here's an upclose of our new bedding, which I matched the colors from for our bathroom.

This picture doesn't have anything to do with our house, but I just thought y'all would like to know what Chad is learning about in school. I need to go buy the bigger box of Crayons for all the many organisms he will be coloring.

I think that's about it for the home improvements. We have one last bedroom to paint and I'm thinking I may wait a few days. We are both really tired of painting, but at the same time I like it when everything is done. Enjoy the pictures.

Tired and busy

Those are the two words that would best describe Chad and me over the last couple weeks. Chad's new job is in full swing, and who can blame the guy for coming home and settling in for a nice nap after a 24-hour shift. This week I only had one training for work in the evening (whereas last week I had two, and open house...and this training was to get my district-issued laptop so it was kind of fun), but it still seems like we are pretty busy when we're not at work. We were really gung-ho about all the home improvements when we first moved in, but if you have ever bought a house before you know that that can get really old when there is something you need to do in pretty much every room. I soon discovered that the actual time it takes to complete a task is much longer than the time I think it's going to take me to complete the task. In other words, "Oh, all we need to do in this room is strip the wallpaper, take down and paint the cabinets, texture the walls and repaint, and replace the hardware on the cabinets" sounds pretty simple, but it has taken us the good part of 3 weeks off and on to do all that stuff. We've been trying to do all the little odds and ends to get our house put back together, and we are down to 2 1/2 rooms left to paint. I say 1/2 because I painted our bedroom last night but it needs another coat, which will probably get done tomorrow. It's amazing that our bedroom even got painted because the other day Chad had the audacity to tell me that I am not good at painting. Duh, because I secretly act like I'm no good at it so he'll say, "Here, I'll just do it myself." Anyway, our bedroom looks good so far if I do say so myself. Chad has been retiling/grouting our shower and bathroom so I'll be sure to get pictures of all that soon. This weekend dad is coming up to bring us some more furniture...a couch, chair and ottoman, so I think our furniture collection will finally be complete. Because of the generosity of our family (or eagerness to get rid of all their extra stuff?) we haven't had to buy a single new piece of furniture to fill the rooms of our house. What a blessing! Anyway, speaking of dad coming, I had this idea that I wanted to get his room painted before he came to stay. Well, that didn't happen, and now I'm enacting a new rule at the Montandon household: if you'd like to stay in a room at our house, you have to paint it first. Not really, but seriously dad, bring your paint clothes this weekend. It'll be a blast!

I'm sure those of you who read the blog were not really interested in the minutiae of our home redecorating, except for maybe my mom and sister. But, that's what we've been up to, so that's the update you're getting.

Happy birthday to Kellen who turns three in a couple days...

And Ava who turned one a week ago.

Weekend update

Well, let me first start off by saying we wish we were in Georgetown right now to see Shawn & Emma's house and celebrate Ava's first birthday, but that just ain't happening this weekend. Chad has his first official 24-hour shift today (good news: he's done with the training classes), so our schedule of being able to go out of town now officially revolves around the 24-48 schedule.

I had a good week at school. I am feeling more settled in and got to order my first batch of cameras...yippee! They are much nicer than the camera I own and I think the kids will be excited to get to be the first to use these brand new cameras. I also have a yearbook adviser's workshop on Monday at LCU so that should be a fun break from my routine.

Today will be busy. Since Chad started back to work (and I have been slacking for about a month now), our house is pretty much chaos. We are still in the "moving-in" mode which means we don't really put anything up, so I am devoting today to cleaning the house, putting stuff up in its proper place, finishing stripping the wallpaper in the front guest bedroom (it's just a border, so you'd think it would be easy, but it's not which is why I only did half of it last week), buying new hardware for all the bathroom and kitchen cabinets (I'm tired of looking at all that "bling"), and maybe starting on painting our bedroom. Now that I look at all this it sounds like a lot, so I probably won't do it all. After all, it is the weekend.

Yesterday Chad and I switched cars so he could go get my car inspected and registered. I love paying the state of Texas $400 for the privilege of driving two cars here. But seriously, I am excited to get Texas license plates back on my car, except for the fact that when you buy a car in Arizona there is no easy way to get a front license plate on when you move to another state because you don't have a front license plate in Arizona. So another thing I need to add to my list today is trying to figure out how to attach a license plate without having to completely drill holes through my front bumper. I think that's a job for the guys at Autozone or whatever they have here. I still remember when we put Arizona license plates on our car over two years ago. It felt so permanent. We had to go in two separate shifts because it took so long to get one car registered (seriously, like 4 hours) so I went back a different day and registered the Civic, and I kid you not, when I took off my old Texas license plates, I seriously cried. I felt like I was leaving Texas and never coming back. I guess that's what two years feels like at the head end of it. But in my defense, at the time we thought it was going to take Chad three years to finish school, and we also thought we'd be staying out west. That was before we looked at the price of a normal house. Anyway, all this to say it all worked out for the best and I'm glad to have Texas plates again.

Well, I better go. At 10 I have to go take an Excel Intermediate computer-based test for a competency I have to pass in order to write the grant for the rest of my cameras. There are all these classes I have to take and tests I have to pass, and the Excel test is the only one I haven't passed. I've taken it already, I just failed it the first time. You have to get an 80 and I got a 60, which by the way is passing in Arizona. Ugh! Stupid high standards!

This blog post has no main idea

This is a sneak preview of our bathroom and why you will be so impressed when Chad finishes with it, which will be this weekend. It already looks really good!






This is proof that I actually have a job. I always thought it would be cool to have a sign on my door with my name on it...like I would finally be a legit teacher, and that's what they did for me. I guess they figure they'll keep me around for a while.




One thing I like about teaching in Texas is that I have lots of students that say "Yes ma'am" and they're not being sarcastic. I've also discovered that I like teaching journalism because I don't really have to teach students how to be creative, which I'm not sure can be taught. I was always a little scared that I would be assigned to teach a creative writing class. I've also discovered in the two weeks I've been teaching Journalism full-time that I have been out of college long enough that I've forgotten a lot of things about the subject that I majored in, and I am having to study pretty much every day. That's okay though, because that keeps it from getting boring. Well, that's enough ramblings about my new teaching job. I'll be getting my brand-new laptop in a little over a week! Yippee!

Another thing I think about a lot lately is Sonic. I drive by two Sonics twice a day, so that's four Sonic drive-bys. The reason I have thought about Sonice lately is because they claim to be the ultimate drink stop. Here is something that is going to blow your mind: why is Sonic the ultimate drink stop? It's because they have good little ice chunks, styrofoam cups and flavored syrup. It seems no other fast food places have shown a desire to infiltrate Sonic's cornered market up to this point. I think I have an idea here. Buy some syrup and change your ice machine, and people will soon be driving through to get their drink from you instead of having to wait at a drive-in.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for pictures of the newly remodeled bathrooms.

Labor Day weekend

It has been a very eventful weekend. Friday when I got home from work, Barbara and Louise had already been in town for about an hour. Friday evening we went to eat at a yummy burger place here in town. Saturday Louise wanted to show me how to make her caramel pie recipe, only we didn't have all the ingredients needed, so I went to the grocery store. I guess Louise wanted to get started to make sure the pies had cooled in time for dinner so she had already started making the pies by the time I got back from the store. She was well into making the first pie, but I was there when she made the second one so now I'm a caramel pie expert, and Barbara I'll make one for you any time. :) Then, Saturday afternoon I got on this "I want my house to start looking like my house" kick, and I went shopping at all those places that you can only truly enjoy when you are by yourself and don't have a husband or kids with you. You know...Stein Mart, TJ Maxx, the fabric store, etc. I was on the lookout for bedding and bathroom linens because that way I could figure out a color scheme for each of the bedrooms...I've been holding off on painting and doing curtains because of that. Well, TJ Maxx was having a clearance and boy did I clear them out. Not really, but I bought bedding for two of the beds in our house and new towels for the guest bathroom, which will have the same blue on the walls as our piano room does and everything else will be white. I got so excited because I'm not a fan of most bedding I find, or it is way too expensive. So now all that's left to do in the bedrooms is paint, and completely change the floors but that's for another day and another paycheck. Anyway, I got off on a tangent...back to Saturday. I went to the fabric store to look at fabric for curtains for the kitchen and bathroom but realized it was time for me to come home and start working on dinner, because we were having Lynn, Celia and Margie over. Thanks for the dining table mom, we had room to spare! Anyway, I had this bright idea to try a new lasagna recipe while I had all this company at my house. I should know better than to do that, because Murphy's law dictates that if you don't do a trial run of a new recipe before serving it to guests, it's bound to be bad. But in this case, it worked out fine and the lasagna was good. In fact, I made two of them, so we've been eating lasagna leftovers for the past two days. Sunday we went to church and rested in the afternoon. This morning Barbara and Louise left pretty early, taking the dresser Chad has used for the past couple years with them. Chad's family plays musical dressers like my family plays musical beds. Today I have been in the guest bathroom stripping the totally sweet mauve wallpaper off the walls, which I still have not finished. It will take me all day. I'll spare you the "during" pictures and post when we are finished with our updates. Don't hold your breath though.

Whew! That was a lengthy update. Secretly I'm just avoiding stepping into that bathroom again, getting nasty wallpaper glue all over myself. Yuck. That's all for now I guess.

The raddest kids in camp

This picture was part of a collage of pics on a slide in the 50th reunion slide show at CBH.

When a tag falls in the middle of the woods and no one is around to hear it, is it still a tag?

Well, I read Lisa's blog today and realized she tagged me about a week ago to do this random things about myself thing. She did tag nine people though, and you're only supposed to tag eight, so I think she might have seen how I thanked Erin for not tagging me and then added me to her list later. I'm not tagging anyone because all the people whose blogs I read have already been tagged, except for people whose blogs I read that don't know I read their blog, and that might just be kind of creepy.

1. When I am eating a sandwich, the bread ratio must be just right. Otherwise, I tear off all the bread to fit.

2. I eat one thing at a time on my plate and then spin my plate to the next thing. I eat the second best thing first, then the last best thing, then the best thing last. You're probably asking, "Are all these things going to be about eating?" Maybe.

3. Once, my sister vacuumed my hair with a Dirt Devil. Kids will be kids, only she was 18 when that happened. If my mom still has that Dirt Devil, you can probably still see my hair wrapped around the brush.

4. I played Shelby in "Steel Magnolias" in high school, and was very ill the second day of the performance. My friend Brandi (see post below) was rehearsing my lines when I walked in two hours before the show was supposed to start. I don't know if she's ever been more happy to see me, because she wasn't my understudy, she was just going to take over if she had to. I'll spare you the story about going to Chili's afterwards with Erin, Josh, and Brian Tate...let's just say I still hadn't gotten over whatever was ailing me.

5. I don't understand what "I'm not good with names" means exactly...I've always thought "I can't remember things" made more sense. That being said, I can't remember things.

6. I, like my sister, have only had one speeding ticket and that was my junior year in high school, going 40 in a 30. I was going so slow the cop got out of his car and waved me over. I've never been in a car wreck.

7. I am literally obsessed with people's names and how they are spelled. I have no idea why this is, but I think it's because I like words a lot, and names are words that come with so many underlying connotations and meanings.

8. I realized that I could sing alto in 3rd grade when my LTC chorus coach asked me to "harmonize" to "Jesus Loves Me," and I've sang the harmony pretty much ever since.

We found out Friday that my smart, talented husband got the job he had interviewed for on Tuesday. Woo hoo! He starts on September 10th.

Y'all probably hadn't heard, but Lubbock had a team that was playing in the LL World Series. They made it all the way to the US championship game yesterday and lost. Everybody here was really excited about them getting that far and doing so well, so we're all sad that they're not going to the international championship. Maybe some of those kids will be on my school's baseball team in a few years...

Time to get ready for church. Just thought I'd update everyone about the job stuff. I start school tomorrow, wish me luck!

New room

None of these pictures do justice to the final product, but this is the best I could get the cameral to do. Rest assured that it looks good.

SOLD

Here is our standard "standing in front of the sold sign" picture.




Our friends Brandi and Keith were literally overcome with excitement over our purchase, oh wait....they were only excited because Keith just learned how to spell SOLD.

Just kidding, they're the best.

Not much news

I just noticed that today marks Blogger's eighth birthday. What? Who's had a blog for eight years? I'd like to meet that person.

Well, I have one more day to get some work done and then it's ready or not, here they come. I keep reminding myself that I couldn't possibly be less prepared than I was my first year of teaching, but it always seems like there is more stuff to do than time to do it in when it comes to teaching. My student load is pretty light this first semester and I have almost all juniors and seniors (literally one freshman and about 5 sophomores) so I think that will be really fun, since I'm used to teaching mostly the younger ones.

This week I've written 2 weeks worth of lesson plans for each of my classes (three preps), because if I plan too far ahead I'll inevitably get off track or forget to factor in an assembly or a day off or something. I've totally redone my classroom. It looks so cute now. I am in the process of working through some competencies to write a mini-grant to buy lots of brand new camera equipment, which the journalism department is in dire need of. I bought a nice leather chair at Office Depot today for my desk, which I never got around to doing the last two years of teaching, but it will be totally worth it. I've gone to lots of meetings and written lots of emails.

Also this week Chad has been working his tail off at the house. He's been doing all those little things that I guess people neglect when they know they are selling their house, or they just don't care about to begin with. Yesterday he taped the front living area so we could paint it, and it was ready to go by the time I got home. We completed the paint job last night, and the walls are now a deep midnight blue that matches a really pretty area rug that I got from mom last weekend. It looks really pretty and is a good contrast from the khaki on all the other walls in the kitchen and living area. We actually did it right this time and got the small cans of paint to check the color on the wall first. We went through two samples before we got to the color we finally settled on. Next up: stripping the wallpaper in the big bathroom and painting it the same blue color.

I guess that's about it for now. Not much interesting stuff. We are looking forward to having our first houseguests next weekend...Barbara and Chad's grandma are coming to visit for a couple of days.

It's official...

We're homeowners. Right after we finished signing the papers we went to Home Depot and got all the necessities that you need when you become a first-time homeowner. I won't go into how much money we spent. As an homage to Shawn and Emma we made sure and posed like them during our closing. We tried our best...we just wanna be like Shawn and Emma!

Summer pictures overdue

I don't think I've posted any (or many) pictures of what we did this summer. Here are pictures from our two main events before moving...Blue Haven and mom, Erin, Kellen and Bonnie visiting Prescott right before we moved. We had a lot of fun.

Bonnie's feelings are hurt because Chad will not give her his popsicle.

Here we are at Goldwater Lake in Prescott.

Kellen loved feeding the ducks...But Bonnie would rather eat the stale bread.

Explanation of the next few pictures: I got shirts for Kellen and Bonnie at Blue Haven that say "Future Camper...Blue Haven." I wanted to take a picture of them in their matching shirts, and being the loving siblings that they are, this is what I got...



No, I didn't doctor this picture. Kellen has actually pinned Bonnie on the couch.

Thanks Bonnie. So cooperative. I had to get this one when they didn't know I was going to take a picture so they didn't have time to "pose."



Kellen thought Chad was the sticker book.

Here is Erin, mom, me, Bonnie and Kellen at the Grand Canyon. Kellen loved the "big rocks."
And here's Chad and me at the same spot.

Chad and Kellen are having a heart to heart on the way to the Grand Canyon from the visitors' center.
Chad and Ava...I love this picture.
Ava is giving herself a round of applause for the camera.
Here we are right before we left camp.
This is the only picture the four of us took together the entire two weeks.

Elle went with us to opening campfire. She was mesmerized by the fire.
This is Bonnie's "my feelings are hurt" sulk.
Kellen with another big rock. This was before we got to the actual Grand Canyon and Kellen was hard to pull away from this rock...little did he know that this one looked like a grain of sand compared to the rocks in the canyon.
I just thought these pictures of Bonnie were cute.
You guessed it...Kellen is jumping off a rock.

Erin and Emma, I have not forgotten that I promised you both a CD with the pictures I took on it. It'll get done eventually.