My life, in a nutshell.

So here it is, almost Halloween.  Which is evident by what's galavanting around my front lawn this week:

Personally, I'd rather see Captain Jack Sparrow take on Han Solo than Luke.  But that's just me (Luke's a whiner.  He just wants to go get some power converters!)  

Since the last time I posted something... September?!... things have been busy with soccer, having work done on the house by a friend of ours (Brent rocks) as well as doing work ourselves (crappily caulked front doors with rotting wood do not, in fact, rock.)  

Family room, in progress.  Brent put in recessed lighting in the family room and kitchen.  And he put built-in bookcases in the family room on either side of the fireplace.  He also framed-out and dry-walled the top half of the fireplace so only some of the ugly brick is now showing.  FYI, the shelves are not yet in the bookcases in this photo because this photo is old.

Front door, before we scraped out all the bad caulk and chipped paint.  

Front door, after we sanded, painted and re-caulked.  The new kick-plate and door knocker still need to be added.

Unfortunately after Brent did the lights and built-in's, we painted the built-in bookcases but still hadn't decided on a color for the brown walls.  Until now.  We decided on... brown.  

So painting and touching up all the brown walls will be happening this week.  And hopefully all the family room furniture currently in the dining room will move back into the family room.  I'm aiming for Christmas at this point.

Right about the same time, while trying to decide what the heck color to paint, I made new curtains for the kitchen and family room, to tie the new blue color into the existing kitchen color scheme*:

I took apart one of the old curtains and used them as patterns for the new ones.

One completed curtain using the Waverly fabric and a set of Ikea LENDA curtains 

(the other curtain is now completed and actually matches and is even and everything.)

In other news, three dear friends of mine and I have been battling the bulge with Weight Watchers since the end of the summer. Thankfully it's working! And though I'm thrilled about being in smaller sizes, it's the fact that my insulin resistance issues could go away that's getting me really into this process.

This is me.  Two sizes smaller than I was in 2005 when I last wore this dress when my youngest sister got married.

Then last week my mom got sick and we took her to the ER on Saturday where she was admitted to the cardiac unit overnight.  Turns out her heart is good.  But her case of bronchitis had gotten the best of her and kicked her booty while we weren't looking.  Thankfully, as of Sunday she's home and ok and just tired now.

So that about sums up my last month or so.  

*I now have a set of 2 brick red curtains, 2 khaki and brick red vertical striped curtains - all full length - along with four red and off-white patterned Waverly valances if anyone can use them (free!)  I can send you photos if you'd like.