The unfinished office... finished?

There is an ongoing project here at the Freeman-Giles estate. It's the whole house! Carrie and I have been working off and on trying to finish each room one by one, but so far we haven't been able to check a single one completely off the list. Thus the office project. It arguably needs the least amount of work and we should be able to knock it out with a small money budget and a medium time budget.
Our first issue in the office is storage and to solve this easily we are headed to IKEA to outfit our walls with Billy Bookcases in the black/brown color. Five hundred dollars later (and the majority of our budget), we have the storage we need to make our office work, giving us seven whole bookcases for all the books I can't seem to part with. With a wall wrapping style and desk in the middle we're going to have quite the little setup for all the crazy amounts of work we both take home (which is all of nothing right now). Though I have to assemble and place those, almost all the work on shelving is super simple.
The next step in this project is getting the painting done, which is no small task. We have previously painted the walls a light lavender color so the main color is on the wall and ready for quiet enjoyment. But the trim work remains, including the door casings and the doors themselves! And believe me, this is the tough part to deal with. Each evening there is going to be a taping party around the trim to get it ready for the paint, but those pesky doors have to be removed to be painted. This includes the windows in the room, so the fun never has to stop! The existing trim we have is a beautiful pine with a light stain on it, but unfortunately, it doesn't work with our house. So the next step is to rough up the finish with some sand paper so the trim accepts the paint. Quick tip, always sand with the grain, otherwise the sanding will show even through the paint. We already have the paint for the trim, so we'll be able to get it painted in the time of a few evenings.
The last piece of all this is the finishing work. We have to go back on the trim, fill any holes with wood filler, lightly sand that and do a little touch up paint in those areas. Then simply place the furniture, hang the many diplomas we have in the house sitting on the floor and the room is ready for work! When it's done, I will be back to post pictures and maybe a quick video tour to give the feeling of being there. Till then!

What a rousing weekend!

So, to give a quick update from the last post, I was inspired after my last post and have applied for 20+ more jobs! Over ten of which happened that very night! The results of this boom in applications has yet to be seen, but I'm still waiting to hear from the majority of places anyway, so no news is good news in this case.

So now on to the weekend! Friday night was a rough adventure to be sure, as it was my dad's birthday. Which means seeing the parents and all baggage that goes along with it. I had spoken to both my parents earlier in the week and asked if anything would be happening in way of celebration with my brother out of town and my parents going out of town starting Tuesday. I was assured I would be kept posted on events, but of course I get a text saying to call my dad as I'm driving home that evening from work. Short notice dinner in Dallas. Oh what fun the driving would be (especially for my fiance after her solid one hour drive home from that same area). But dinner was fine, the company was nicer than usual (less reminding me about the obligations I have to them and more asking about our lives).

After Friday night and the Saturday Carrie had planned, we decided to take it easy on Saturday night. I must say, I'm not sad that didn't happen. Our friends Ashely and Scott ended up joining us for dinner and being inspired by our favorite place, Joe T Garcia's, fajitas were in the making. I will post a simple way to make these happen later, giving my first "how to" a try on such simple fair. So many beers later (for myself and Scott) and much good food, another evening wrapped up with satisfying flair. My only wish in the future is being able to enjoy the outdoors as well, even though our backyard looks like an abandoned field at the moment.

Sunday rolled around in typical fashion, with waking up and realizing it was the last day of the weekend for Carrie (and as mentioned in another post, every day off is like Sunday to me). This is always bitter sweet as we all know, because there is little else more satisfying on Sunday than to just lay about the house and do nothing! But Grapefest was calling and I didn't want to miss my first one, so we cleaned up the house a bit and prepared for the first members of our group to arrive. A little wine and cheese was waiting to inspire an afternoon of tasting at the festival. We headed out, met up with our friends already there and headed to the People's Choice tent to enjoy too many varieties of wine. After attending this event, I have to say that you have even a passing interest in wine then this is something you need to try at least once. An eight dollar entry fee to the festival (which in itself is like any other city event with crafts and fair food) we headed over to the tent and paid the $20 entry fee for the tasting. And there before us laid 300 to 400 yards of wine booths! All with at least a couple wines for us to sample. We made it just over half way with an hour and a half of walking, chatting and tasting. We were able to enjoy so many wines and yet so many were left, time was as typical our worst enemy here.

And that was a rousing good weekend, giving me the opportunity to see not just friends but family too! And as a foodie, I got to enjoy some great treats as well. Till next time...

The eternal struggle (for me) Job search v. enjoying my day off

Well, as I post on here I'm sure more will be revealed about myself to my avid fans (of which I think there might be two). I work in retail as a manager and for those who have not worked retail before, it is a strange and unyielding beast to deal with. The schedule provided to the management staff is sporadic at best. I'm usually unsure of what my schedule will be from week to week and more often than not I only get one day off at a time (none of the swanky two days in a row many might be familiar with). So when I get a day off, there is a struggle. To be productive around the house or to sit around and enjoy the day as if it were a "Sunday" before the next day of work. And right now being productive means one of two things: working on the ongoing house project (more on this subject later) and trying to find a new job that will provide a better work/life balance. And today, sadly, doing nothing won out. Sure I cooked a tasty meal for dinner (not worthy of being on here) and moved re-piled some debris for trash pick up tomorrow, but no job hunting was done today. I will just have to work harder on that tomorrow evening after work.

On another note, my fiancee and I started a workout routine and new diet today (which the evening meal was part of). Not too shabby on that end, as we made it to the gym and didn't push ourselves too hard. We want to be able to workout tomorrow as well after all. That about sums up the day, so till next time, wish me luck in my job search (and encouragement to actually look). Adios.

This is a potentially great or horrible idea

Like so many people before me, I have decided to blog a bit about my everyday life. It's not going to be exciting or captivating, but I'm hoping it will give those reading a little light hearted moment in their day. I'm going to include day to day ramblings, tutorials on how to do basic things around the house, and even a few easy recipes I have tried over the years. I promise to include plenty of pictures and make it as fun as possible, taking a bit of inspiration from my friends who offer up their own words for the pleasure of others. Till later.