Before and After: the Bedroom

I'm back! And it's time for another edition of "Before and After"!

Here is the before shot of our bedroom. In case you can't tell by the photo, it is rather small. Just enough space for our bed and two dressers. The dressers in the first picture are against the wall that you can't see, opposite the side of the bed. Now, as I think I said before, when we first moved in, our room was quite zen, and I actually liked it that way. No clutter, no distractions. Just sleep space.

But I'm pretty sure I like it better now:

It doesn't even look like the same room, does it? I had to move the bed and dressers while I was painting, and I decided I like them better on opposite sides of the room. (Also, I didn't feel like swapping them again. They're heavy, and the room is tiny.) All of the walls are that light brown color, except for the purple one. I was a little concerned it might be too dark, but really, it just feels very cozy. And I think I like cozy better than zen.

So I'm done painting for a while. I finally used up all my paint, and with classes in full swing, I should probably be doing other things besides painting anyway. Our big conference is this weekend, and I cannot wait for it to be over. Well... I can't wait for like, a week after it's over, when I will have organized and filed all the receipts so we can get reimbursed from our various sponsors! It will be so so nice to not have that hanging over my head!

In other me news, I signed up for the Oakland Half Marathon at the end of March, and I am very very excited. I did 14.5 miles today, to make sure I could, and I can. :) It definitely wiped me out a little bit more than it used to, but that makes sense, since I haven't done over 10 in one go since my last marathon, and that was a full 6 months ago now. (Crazy!) I think I'll try to do San Francisco again this summer; it was a great race, and I don't think that course will ever get old.

In Roger news, his office is moving to San Francisco in less than two weeks! I am so excited for him! No more leaving home at 7:30 am and getting home at 9:00 pm! (Well, that should no longer be the norm, anyway...)

I want to tell you about my new foam roller, but really, I should finish folding laundry and actually use my foam roller instead of telling you about it. So I'll have to save that for next time! Adieu, bonne nuit, et tout.

Before and After: the Entryway

Here it is, the piece de resistance:

Do you love it? Do you hate it? I feel like it will be one of the two. I also feel like this room kind of grabs you by the hair and screams "CHEERFUL, DAMMIT, CHEERFUL". But I love it, and that's almost all that matters. Do you see the red kitchen wall peeking through the doorway?

Roger is pretty indifferent. He said he thought it would be too orangey with all the woodwork, and he might be right. But I like the contrast with the white baseboards and other white walls, and I'm going to do the rest of the room (decorations, slip covers for chairs) in cooler, non-orange colors.

And please excuse the ladder and other painting supplies. I just finished and I wanted to hurry up and put up pictures.

Trust me, the first few swipes of paint were kind of scary. But then it's too late, so you might as well keep going! I loved the color on paper, especially next to the red of the kitchen. They're both very saturated and kind of like, grown-up kindergarten colors. Then when I started on the wall behind the coat rack, I thought, "Uh-oh, this is too much." But I kept going, and I'm glad I did. It's not too too much when there's stuff on the wall. And when the initial shock wears off. ;)

Rye really liked the plastic drop cloth, for some reason.

Several times I heard lots of grunting and rustling sounds, and he was just jumping and playing around in the plastic, balling it up, rolling around in it, etc. I guess he's easy to please if you don't mind him destroying things once in a while.

And Huck, well, he just loves his dog-dad.

That's all for now! I have enough paint for one more room, and I have lots of ideas but no more money for the other two, so it might be a while before I finish any of them. And painting takes forever! And I'm kind of tired of it!

I got a bunch of books and posters for Christmas, so I might move on to other endeavors for a few days. Plenty of stuff to read, pictures to hang, and cleaning to do before classes start back up again!

Before and After: the Kitchen

As promised, kitchen pictures! Unfortunately I don't have any "before" shots for you because my computer is off in Apple never-never land, where computers go to wrack up ridiculous and obscene repair charges that their owners can't afford.

Anyway. The upshot of sending my computer out for repairs is that I have very very little to do. Except paint! Here is my beautiful new kitchen:


Well, beautiful except for all the crap on the counter, but let's be realistic, that's just part of my kitchen. Look at the pretty red!


Oooooooh, ahhhhhhh.

I'm very pleased with it. It took way longer and way more coats than I expected, though. I kept doing one more coat, thinking, "well, surely this will do it". But no, 2 days and 4 1/2 coats later, I'm finally done. I think it was worth it, though!

All of my painting made me work up an appetite. And plus now I have this lovely background for food porn. So here is what I had for lunch just now:


(Are you reading this, George? That one's for you.)

I think my next painting project may be the entryway, but I don't quite feel like starting in on it yet. That's going to take the longest of all, and I kind of need a break from the painting for now.

So, this morning kind of sucked. Well, first, some background. I took my computer in to the Apple store on Monday to have it "diagnosed", because the screen recently started doing this weird flashy thing. Not a huge deal, but somewhat annoying. The guy there said he couldn't tell if it was the graphics card itself or the connector between the graphics card and the screen that was acting up, so he'd have it sent in and replaced and I should get it back within the week. And it would all be covered by my warranty!

So great, excellent news. No computer for a few days, but the flashing would be gone. Fast forward to this morning, when I check my email and get this little gem from Apple saying they found "evidence of liquid damage" on the inside of the computer, which is not covered by my warranty, and which will cost no less than $755 to fix.

Excellent.

I begged, I pleaded, I cried a little, all to no avail. I told him to send it back unrepaired because I don't have $755 to spend on a problem that's only moderately annoying.

But jeez! I was so mad!! Mostly because I KNOW there has NEVER been any liquid anywhere NEAR my computer, unless it is carefully and entirely stored within a container.

Except then I remembered that one day when I got caught in a light rain without an umbrella. :( I guess that's got to be it, right? Gah, I don't know. So I was already bummed about that, and then I moved on to our heating bill...

I will spare you the gory details, but let's just say I had to go for a long run this morning. I wasn't planning on it, either. I was planning on taking the day off from running, because my legs were feeling kind of tired. But I realized I had some stress issues to work out, and absolutely nothing to do today anyway.

And you know what? It ended up great. I went up into the hills, and the ground was wet from the rain last night, and the sun was peeking through the trees, and it just smelled fresh and new. I was looking down at the Bay, and I ran down this road I've never been on before, and there was this amazing canopy of twisting branches with a backdrop of clean winter light, and I just thought, "okay, life is good". I mean really? Life is pretty darn good. So I have to wait a little longer to get my computer back in tip-top shape, and our heating bill was higher this month. I still have a perfectly fine computer, and a roof over my head and a heater to keep me warm, even if our insulation is pretty worthless. No, I don't like spending money, but really, it's just money. Just. Money. And I have a family and friends who love me, and two crazy dogs that get me out the door every morning, and a month off of school, and a bright red kitchen. So what's not to like?

I also was reading this book yesterday that my friend Michelle got me for Christmas, called "Zen and the Art of Running". It talks a lot about how the only thing that is responsible for your emotions is your mind. There is nothing inherently frustrating about having to pay $755 to repair a computer. That is simply a fact, a state of affairs. And I can choose to act with frustration, or I can choose to be kinda bummed out and move on. My reaction to the situation does not in and of itself change anything; the only outcome of me being frustrated is... uh... me being frustrated. So why not stop being frustrated?

I know all of these things, but I think it's handy that I happened to read part of that book last night, before I got the Apple email. It can be hard to be zen-like in the moment, when you're getting yourself all worked up. I'm not saying there aren't things that are worth getting upset over. But most of the time they're not. Life is way too short.

On that note, I shall sign off. A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! Check back in a few days for more crazy paint colors!

Before and After: Bathroom Edition

I guess there are lots of things I could tell you, but the only thing I really want to say right now is, look at this! The Before and After Bathroom Edition!

Before:

After:

I love having bright colors around me, and I've been gathering painting ideas for our house since we moved in. I finally got the okay from our landlady this past week, and my mom got us a gift card to Home Depot, so I picked up some awesome paint yesterday and started in!

So far I've only done the bathroom. But I bought the colors I want for the kitchen and entryway, and I finally decided what I want for our bedroom. So, good thing I've still got some money on that gift card and another few weeks to burn. :)

Merry Christmas to all!