Archives for June 2008

It’ll Be Just Like HGTV. Except For The TV Part.

Edited with new date and graphic.

Our first house was an old house. A really old house. A house so old that, when we first walked through it, we were able to look at the kitchen floor that had a slope of approximately thirty degrees and say, “Oh! Isn’t that charming?!”

And we meant it.

Clearly we weren’t thinking about that fact that if you dropped an apple in that kitchen, you were gonna be walking about six feet to pick it up.

We were undeterred by the kitchen’s hilly terrain.

And because the house wasn’t in pristine condition, I never worried too much about messing it up. The smallest cosmetic changes did a world of good, and I loved the whole process of transforming that house into our first real home.

And yes, that even includes the time that I ripped the carpet out of one of the bedrooms and gagged for about six hours as a result of all the exceedingly displeasing smells that seared themselves onto my temporal lobe, thus ensuring that I can never forget the foulness, EVER, and sometimes still catch a whiff of that carpet at the oddest moments, like when I’m walking through a parking lot or putting a puzzle together or unloading the dishwasher.

It was, in a word, horrific.

Thankfully our next house was in much better shape and didn’t require nearly as much work. The same goes for our current one. But this house was built in the early 70s, and there are parts of it that, while in fine condition, are a little dated. And after a year and a half here, it’s time for me to start tackling some of those things. Our master bedroom and bathroom are at the top of my list.

But here’s the thing.

If left to my own procrastination-oriented devices, I’ll make lots of plans for the master bedroom and bath, and I’ll make lots of lists related to the master bedroom and bath, but I won’t actually do a dadgum thing because I’ll get overwhelmed that I won’t be able to get everything like I want it.

Have I ever told y’all about my passive-aggressive perfectionism? It is loads of fun.

Anyway, I figured that since interweb accountability helped when I did this and this, it might also help when I’m working on our bedroom and bath.

And thus, a Before and After bloggy extravaganza was born.

Before&After

Brings a tear to the eye, doesn’t it?

So here’s what to do if you’d like to join the fun.

Grab the button by using this code:

Then write a post that tells us what your goals are. Maybe you want to paint your kitchen cabinets, or maybe you want to rearrange your den, or maybe you want to weed the area around your mailbox and then plant some flowers there. Whatever suits your fancy.

And your post doesn’t have to be long. A list-o-goals would be perfectly fine. Here are my goals, by the way:

1) paint our bedroom
2) paint our bathroom
3) paint the storage cabinet in our bathroom
4) tile our bathroom floor because there is CARPET in there right now but I can’t talk about the carpet anymore or I’ll start to itch

And if you only have one goal, that is perfectly fine. Not to mention reasonable. I just have a lot of goals because I’m ready to get this stuff done, and I figure that if I work on these projects a couple of days a week for the next four or five weeks, I should be able to get ‘er done.

On September 26th I’ll put up a Mr. Linky here, and you can add your post so that we can all see your fab Before and After pictures. You can tell us all about your project(s) – what worked, what didn’t, and maybe even share some helpful hints for people who might want to do something similar.

And then we will all gather ’round for a group hug.

Oh, I’m totally kidding.

Kinda.

Have fun, y’all!

I’m Still Taking A Break From Giveaways…

…but Carolina Mama isn’t.

And if you hurry over to her blog, you can sign up to win The JJ, an adorable jewelry travel case that my sister-in-law Janie designs.

Now I know that I’m a little bit biased, but I think these jewelry cases are a near-perfect travel product. They’re great-looking, practical and functional – I use mine ALL THE TIME.

And you can win one of your own by clicking right here.

The deadline to register is Wednesday night at midnight.

So get after it, girls!

Oh, They Rocked It, All Right

A couple of months ago, when David and I went to Los Angeles for his best friend Todd’s wedding, we were a little worried.

Or maybe “worried” is too strong of a word. “Concerned” is probably more accurate. Because for the two weeks leading up to the wedding, Todd was super-stressed out.

I’m not talking about pre-wedding jitters. That’s to be expected.

I’m talking about some full-on, full-out stress. Stress that was causing our mild-mannered, utterly kind, godfather-to-our-child friend Todd to use adjectives that were far more colorful and forceful than usual.

David kept trying to put his finger on what was going on, but ultimately we just decided that maybe the pre-wedding stuff was weighing a little heavier on Todd than it does most people. After all, he has been known to obsess over minutiae a time or sixty in the eighteen years that we’ve known him, and the details surrounding a wedding can make even the most laid-back person slap-dab crazy.

But still. We were concerned.

So we got to LA, and everything seemed fine except for the fact that Todd kept apologizing that he wasn’t getting to spend time with us. David assured him that while a wedding is good for many things, hammering out some quality time with your nearest and dearest is not one of them, and then Todd apologized and twitched some more.

We could not, for the life of us, figure out what was going on.

The day of the wedding we drove up to Palos Verdes, which has to be one of the most stunningly beautiful places I have ever visited. The scenery is so staggering that if you were to accidentally drive off the road and plunge straight into the Pacific Ocean, you might not even care because OH MY WORD AT LEAST YOU GOT TO SEE SO MUCH PRETTY.

The ceremony was at Wayfarers Chapel, a place that will absolutely take your breath away. After we arrived there, as we were walking up to the chapel, we noticed that there were a lot of cameras and microphones and clipboards with forms, but we just figured that wedding videographers out there are a little fayn-ci-er than what we’re used to here in the South. And based on our assumption, we bypassed all the people wearing headphones and walked inside.

The ceremony was absolutely lovely. Picture-perfect, in fact. And if I could, I would write an ode to Marti’s dress and then I would set the ode to music and sing it for you.

But, you know, I can’t.

I do apologize.

After the wedding we drove back to Redondo Beach for the reception (sidenote: on our way there, we passed a store that had a sign out front that said ALL SHOES: $20, and it took everything in me to stay firmly planted in my seat, because I totally wanted to pull a Bo Duke and roll down my window and hoist myself out of our moving vehicle so that I could check out ALL SHOES: $20. But I stayed in the car. It was a nuptial miracle). We finally found the reception site, where we were surprised to be greeted by even more people wearing headphones and holding forms.

Clearly something was afoot.

Then, when Marti showed up at the reception wearing a different dress than the aforementioned hypothetically-ode-inspiring dress that she wore in the wedding, I was Officially Suspicious.

Oh, I’m a quick one. Only took me THREE WHOLE HOURS to suspect anything at all.

As it turns out, Todd and Marti’s wedding was being filmed for a reality show on TLC called Rock the Reception (check out the video after the click), a show where three couples surprise their wedding guests by performing choreographed dance routines. And I’ve wanted to tell y’all all about it a thousand times, but I felt like I should watch the show before I posted about it in the event that some unfortunate editing caused me to be humiliated on national television.

Because on the way into the reception, as I was signing the release form for I-knew-not-what, I looked straight into the eyes of the assistant producer and said something along the lines of, “Gosh, we don’t have to sign forms like this at weddings in Alabama.”

And she said, “Really?”

And I said, “NAW.”

I SAID “NAW,” y’all.

ON CAMERA.

And y’all know that if they HAD used that bit of footage on the show (which they didn’t, thank the Lord), they would’ve turned it into some repetitive loop of me saying, “We don’t have to sign forms like this in ALA-BAMMER, NAW!” while the banjos from “Deliverance” played in the background.

And they would have used CGI to make it look like I was picking my teeth with hay.

But fortunately my fears were unfounded. The show actually perfectly captured the low-key sweetness that is the very essence of Todd and the high-energy enthusiasm that is the very essence of Marti. They are so fun to watch.

And, I would add, even better to know in person.

So now, thanks to the wonder that is YouTube, you can see Todd and Marti’s dance right here. You may want to watch it before you share it with your kids, not because there’s anything distasteful, mind you, but because it is a playful little dance number between married folks who are fully entitled to be playful with each other, oh thank you Lord and amen.

So all of Todd’s excessive pre-wedding jitters? They were the result of having to learn and practice a choreographed dance routine – and, besides that, NOT TELL A SOUL about it – in the midst of all the last-minute wedding stuff.

The stress, it is understandable.

And I have to say that besides seeing seeing Marti and Todd perform, do you know what my favorite part of their whole reality television experience was? It was reading a review for Rock the Reception in Entertainment Weekly. Because the critic referred to Todd as “an introvert with two left feet.”

And then I wanted to email the reviewer and say, “BUT SIR, HE ROCKED THOSE TWO LEFT FEET WITH EVERYTHING HE HAD.”

That’s our boy, internets.

That’s our boy.

With the girl of his dreams.

And we are ever-so-proud.

This Might Be Considered A Bloggy Milestone

I have a new post up over at the AllAccess blog.

And I seem to have written the whole thing without capitalizing words for effect.

I KNOW!

I Will Compensate You For Your Help With An Imaginary Platter Of Fried Chicken

SheSpeaks is coming up in a little less than a week, and I am going to spend a chunk of tomorrow working out the finer points of my part of the presentation that I’m doing with Melanie and Shannon.

Because I’m thinking that next week I won’t have much time to work on the presentation what with getting a haircut and looking for brown sandals and wondering why it’s become increasingly impossible to get my eyelashes to curl.

I’m not even kidding about that last thing. It’s driving me crazy. No matter what I do, my eyelashes look like they’ve been ironed.

Anyhoo.

At SheSpeaks one of the things I’m going to be talking about is finding your bloggy voice (tip #1: CRAZY HELPS) and making that voice consistent with the look and feel of your blog.

So. Three things.

1) Would y’all be so kind as to point me to some blogs where you feel like the look of the blog perfectly matches the voice of the person who writes there? And it doesn’t have to be a mama blog – it can be a political blog, a fashion blog, an entertainment news blog, whatever.

Next.

2) Does the look of a blog – the graphics, the fonts, the colors – have any bearing on whether or not you continue to visit? In other words, if someone has incredibly thought-provoking content but the look of the blog isn’t visually appealing, do you care?

Finally.

3) What’s your favorite blog out there in terms of design? What blog makes you sigh with contentment as soon as you click over? And what specifically do you like about it?

If you’re more comfortable emailing me all of this information instead of leaving it in the comments, that’s fine by me. Just please try not to say anything negative about a specific blog because OH, CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE THE AWKWARD?

And if you also feel led to offer some advice in regard to my impossibly straight eyelash fiasco, I’d be most appreciative.

Really, internets, you’re going to be helping me with a whole host of quandaries.

So if you’re feeling invaluable right about now, well, guess what, YOU TOTALLY SHOULD.

Giveaway Winners Galore

All righty. We have us some winners in not one but two (TWO!) giveaways.

First, the iPod giveaway winner:

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Comment 58 – Susan

Susan, check your email – there’s a message from me in there somewhere, and it tells you what you need to do next.

Second, the Ethel gloves giveaway winners:

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Comment 63 – Jeni – Jubliee
Comment 128 – Laurie – Gala
Comment 148 – Misi – Rendevouz
Comment 237 – Michelle (no blog) – Signature
Comment 371 – Kathleen W. – Jubilee

And remember, if you didn’t win but would like to order a pair of Ethel gloves, you can enter in the discount code “Boomama” and receive 10% off of your total order. Just click here to get started.

Congratulations, everybody!