7.19.2014

Nasty House: Bathrooms

 Ready for some pretty serious before and afters?
Just a heads up, you will probably feel itchy, sad, and a little violated while looking at the "before" photos.




In 2008 we bought our house from the Catholic church, see the cross above what used to be a garage? They had actually converted the garage into a Chapel.... complete with an Alter.
A bunch of old sweet nuns were living here, but ready to go to assisted living.

Nothing gets Jared more excited than a super gross house that needs to be remodeled.
Look at the glee in his face:





My face is obviously not as joyful as Jared's. I am not a fan of living in gross houses, living through messy remodels, and spending all our savings on said remodel. 
Not to mention we had just moved from Ohio where Jared spent 1 1/2 years remodeling another nasty house he bought for us.

 Look at this elegant use of the color pink in an upstairs bathroom:



The crunchy blue tye-dyed looking carpet adds a touch of glamor. 
The master bath was even better.Who knew you could buy an avocado colored toilet???


 


When we moved in we replaced the floors but the colorful tile remained for the next 5 years while we saved up enough to remodel our house. Ugh. 

Here's the final product - main bathroom:


 


Master bathroom:





It took Jared over 1 1/2 years to redo them. Any money we saved by having Jared do all the labor was quickly spent on materials.

At least now I don't feel like I'm infected every time I get out of the shower. Win.


7.08.2014

Sin City with Babies


 Continuing on my life's pattern of stupid ideas, Jared and I took the kids to Las Vegas.

Las Vegas with a behaviorally challenged 3 year old and a newborn-ish baby....... what could go wrong!!??!



First of all, a 4 hour car ride with a 3 year old turns into a 6 1\2 hour ride. Ugh. I had to spend the whole time entertaining him with a bag of tricks I bought at Michaels. I like to sleep on road trips, not frantically entertain Pee-Preschooler with animal magnets and play-dough.

We finally reached Vegas and checked into our room at Planet Hollywood. We had to make two trips back to the car to get all our luggage in our room. The amount of stuff needed for a two night trip is unbelievable. Kids are more high maintenance than I am. 

We booked our room online and knew that if we included the kids, we would have to pay an extra $60, so we just said there were 2 adults.
The problem is, when we checked in at the front desk we had to hide our over-packed stroller and our children.  I casually walked everything over to a nearby column and hid behind it. Ryan was confused why I was crouching down looking side to side. 
I've done much sketchier things to save $60.



We were smart enough to stay at a hotel in the middle of the strip so we didn't have to drive anywhere the whole time. That was pretty much our only good idea the entire three days. 


 


That night we walked the strip and were immediately assaulted by a dude in a sloppy DIY Transformers costume. Ryan ran up to see the crappy "robot". Jared took a picture. And immediately, Robo-crap was two inches from Jared's face trying to intimidate him for money since he took a pic.

Of course we didn't pay. I don't give out dollars bills to anyone with clothes on.

 


Breastfeeding in Vegas is especially creepy. Way too many guys tried to sneak a peak, and they didn't even offer tips. rude.

 


I looked stupid in almost every picture we took.



We went swimming and totally spoiled Ryan the whole time.




Surprisingly, it was soooo fun.

7.05.2014

Dirty Mom


Let's talk about my blog's name for a minute.

It's dumb.

I titled my blog "Dear Person Reading This" simply because I'm lazy and it was the least offensive thing that popped into my head.

I have been thinking about changing the name to something a little less ambiguous. I wanted the title to reflect the content.

After a little brainstorming, I thought of the PERFECT name......

"Dirty Mom"

Brilliant, right?

I write a lot about being a mom. And I am dirty. I haven't showered for 2 days!!! Plus, I doubt anyone who has read my blog would classify it as clean.

I was excited. I checked to see if dirtymom.blogspot.com was available, it wasn't. Neither were any variations of the words.

I was bummed. I thought I had come up with a clever title, and someone had already claimed it.

I was a little pissed off too. I went straight to google and typed in "dirty mom", so I could see who stole my title.

Ummmmmmmmm..............





Do yourself a favor, and never, ever, ever, search the internet for "dirty mom". Never, ever, ever.

I never thought so much porn would assault my eyes when I typed anything associated with the word "mom" into a search engine.

I obviously misinterpreted the context of the word "dirty".

Truth is, I felt so dirty from all the mom porn that I had to scrub my entire house clean. I think Ryan could sense my disgust because he actually helped.
After that, I had to brush my teeth 3 times before the bad taste was out of my mouth.





 I still didn't shower though.

"Dear Person Reading This" doesn't seem so lame anymore.