Olive Me

I got this insane idea in my head that we could finish the whole living room by the next Saturday (this was last Saturday). We got a lot of work done last weekend but didn’t come close to finishing. Doug and my dad both took the day off on Monday to finish and I took off at lunch to help sand and do finish work. Even then we thought we’d be up until 2AM trying to finish but here the guys are around 6:30PM putting up the last “box”. What a good feeling! I was still at it for several hours sanding/caulking and cleaning up but we somehow finished.

The painters started on Tuesday so we were banned to the basement with the cats and watched a movie after work.

Doug took the day off Wednesday to join his parents and some friends on a Harley ride. This was taken up on the Jackson pass. Sounded like they had an awesome ride and they all lived to tell the tale.

When I meet a new person the question often arises: “Do you have any kids?” or “How many kids do you have?” When I respond with “No.” there ‘s usually a little pause that I feel like I need to fill so I’ll unwisely interject “But we have two cats!” Then it’s almost like I can see the secretary in their brain re-categorizing my file to the mental filing cabinet labeled “Weird Cat Girl”. When I see this happening I try to quickly recover by saying something else like “We have a bird too! We wouldn’t mind having a dog. I like all animals…not just cats.” (This is my feeble attempt to deflect the “cat lover” stigma). This doesn’t move my file out of that filing cabinet, it just puts it in a sub-category of  “Crazy Animal Lover.” At this point I tell myself to shut up because it’s not helping so I just leave it at that and that’s typically how it ends.
On that note, here’s a really cute picture of the cats cuddling during a nap. I’m pretty sure there’s approximately 28 of these pictures already up here but this is the only picture we took Thursday so enjoy it.

Friday night sunset.

Saturday was an eventful day. My brother and his family were up visiting from Boise so my whole came to our house for brunch.”My whole family”  includes Vanessa and Lexie too, obviously :)  I didn’t get any pictures of brunch but we had yummy crepes. That afternoon I went to my friend Alyssa’s bridal shower. You guys, this girl is the coolest. She starred in an opera back east while getting her Masters of Operatic Performance. An opera. I am so excited to see where she goes; she’s very talented, driven and will blow your socks off with her voice.

So happy I got to chat with these lovely ladies. Somehow time keeps moving along and we get older every day and it’s so nice to reconnect and catch up with friends I’ve known forever.  Below: This is Brittney, Me, Alyssa, Meeai’Lisa and Vanessa. Now Meeai’Lisa, did I spell your name right? Because I was going to get a hymn book engraved and send it to you so please let me know.

Then we went to dinner at my parents’ house. Olives were involved.

Someone dug this gem out of storage and we were getting a big kick out of all the things we could do with it. I’m trying to think of the best event to whip this bad boy out to record (straight to a VHS).  Beats my iPhone to pieces.

We had an impromptu timer-tripod photo shoot in the living room. Those never end well but this one wasn’t a total failure.

To conclude, we did finish in time for the painters and the painters finished their work Friday night. Just in time for Saturday brunch. Before and afters will be up soon.