Bonus!

Got a really, really nice sized bonus from the church for Christmas. I guess they really must like me! I was thinking I'd use some of it to buy something nice on our anniversary trip (sans kid!) to W'msburg. Now I'm reconsidering, since it's enough to get a nice DSLR camera body that I'm dying to have. Not enough for a lens too, but I think I can manage to get a nice one within budget so I can just pull the $$ out of the rest of the pool of Christmas moolah I know we'll get from grandparents. We do have a nice point and shoot which is great for on-the-go photos, but I would really love a D40. It's not super fancy as far as DSLR cameras go, but then I am not even good enough to be called an amateur yet--but I really want to learn! (I read up all I can here--check out the archives.) I guess we'll have to see if there's anything I just can't live without in W'msburg.

What's done and what needs to be done

P did, in fact, get the living room painted. It looks very nice. We went with a color called Hopsack. Very fitting for my home brewing hubby, I think. Now if we can just get the master bedroom painted. Right now it is in a very bright shade of sky blue. Not so restful to the eyes. The attached bath is in a very bright sunshine yellow, that's gotta go too. I'm more of an earth tones gal. Not so much into the primary colors, at least not on my walls.
It's been pretty busy, and now with fall approaching, it's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better. We have Sunday school kick off and elder installation in Sept., World Communion, Fall Harvest and Halloween in Oct., Thanksgiving and gasp! then there's Advent in Nov. It's gonna get here faster than I realize, I'm sure. Lots of planning to do in the mean time.

The Painting and the Vacation

P has offered to do the painting while we're away. My job will be to get everything taped off before he leaves. A monumental task on its own, I might add. We've abandoned 'Desert Fortress' and gone with another P-appropriate color called 'Hopsack.' My beer brewing hubby thinks that's an equally acceptable name for a wall color. It's another neutral brown, but with the weird pale terra cotta tiles on the floor, our palette was limited. Still gotta get some blinds up too.
So, on top of the taping I'm also trying to get ready to leave for 10 days of vacation. This includes a plane trip and 2 days of driving on either end of the trip. I have to have 2 bulletins ready, all the laundry we need done, try really hard not to forget things like warm pjs for the cool Canadian nights, L's sun hat, my flip flops, etc., and it all has to fit in one suitcase and a backpack. Somehow, I have a feeling my sanity might have to be left behind to make room for L's stuffed giraffe.

My Collection

I've started rather a collection of blogs lately. I have different ones for some of my main interests. Yes, I could put them all in one place, but why? I feel more organized this way, and hey, since organization is not something oft found in my life, I take it where I can get it.

On the home front, we've finally gotten all of the professional repair work done on our house after the tornado back at the end of April. Now the rest is up to us. Mostly painting. Arg! Anyone out there like to paint? We've got plenty to go 'round. We decided that rather than just painting the same color over the places where there is new plaster, to go ahead and change the color of the room since it's a rather ugly pinkish-beige, "Sell My House Neutral" as it were. Not to mention it is high gloss on heavily textured plastering. Ick! Plus, we have these pale terra cotta colored tile floors that we have to try to find something to go with. So it will probably be another brownish neutral, but something a little bolder and less pink. We're leaning towards "Desert Fortress." You can see why that might appeal to Patrick, yes? We're hoping to get something picked out this weekend and get started soon. Now that they are done around the windows, we need to get some blinds up too. Our living room has been a fishbowl as of late.