Bathroom DIY and a cowboy

FIRST OF ALL.... J FIXED MY COMPUTER AGAIN!! I seriously hit the jackpot with this kid. He told me I should start saving for a new one though, he's not sure how much longer and can limp this one along. But yay! Computer! Blog post!

Here we go...

Our bathroom needed a pick me up. I mean, look.

The only thing we had done to dress it up was put in the cowboy we got when we were in Auburn, CA. He still didn't have a proper home, and he's my favorite.

I did some searching around on Pinterest and found this wonderful tutorial. I'm not going to go into all the details here, you can head over to the original post for step-by-step instructions, but here's how it went at our place. 

We had an extra board lying around from when we redid our coffee table (alas, it was done before this here blog, so we have no pictures of it) and some stain I had bought to jazz up some plain Ikea mirrors. The board a 24" piece of 2x7.

I bought a package of wide mouth medium mason jars and decided how many I wanted to fit on the board.

Math is hard, even when done on pretty paper.

We tested the hose clamp on one jar so we could know exactly where they would land vertically.

This is the stage when I had to call in J. I wasn't strong enough to drill through the hose clamps. The tutorial made it sound like a breeze. I probably had the wrong drill bit.

After that was done, I drilled pilot holes in the board.

Listen, I know that picture is terrible. It turns out I do not have drill-while-taking-a-picture skills. It's FINE. I'm good at other things. One the holes where drilled, I screw in the hose clamps.

There is no excuse for how terrible that picture is. My apologies. Once all the clamps were attached, I popped in my jars and tightened them up.

Nice, right?! Here's how they look installed and filled...

While we were on a roll, I had J put up our buddy.

I'm super pleased with the way they came out. It only took us one trip to the store and maybe an hour and a half after the wood was ready (sanding and staining where literally the most labor intensive part of this). It's amazing how much of a difference it makes not having all of that in jars on the counter. It feels so much cleaner! Go forth and DIY.

This is a sad story.

I posted that I was going to blog more, and dammit, I WAS going to blog more. I uploaded a crap ton of pictures, edited a bunch of them, put them into folders to help myself out and was all ready to post away and... my computer died. Cue taps. My beloved Mac failed me. I brought it to the Genius Bar with low expectations. I even asked the guy helping me if he couldn't fix it, would he think it it would be weird if I cried. He laughed but I was SERIOUS. After spending an hour there I was told my hard drive was donezo. I am very proud, I didn't shed a tear. I wrote J sad, dramatic text messages. I kept trying to turn it on even though I knew nothing was going to happen. It was a low point in my computer owning life. J came home from travelling for business, pulled a hard drive out of a different Mac (we have far too many computers in our house) and low and behold, IT WORKED. He was even able to crack into my old, broken one and pulled all of my pictures, documents (including one of my best friend's wedding invitations I am working on) off it and put it on the new one. Just when I thought I couldn't love him anymore.

But.

This is a sad story, remember?

Last night I was working on the wedding invite, got up to eat dinner and came back to a black screen. No big deal, my settings are such that my computer goes to sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity. Only it wouldn't turn back on. It's doing the exact same thing as before. J is convinced it's something in the computer hardware itself, not the hard drive. I cried quietly in the corner for a bit (not really, but almost) and asked if he could fix it. I got a maybe, which I'm hanging onto for dear life.

So I'm back to where I was last week, with no pictures and no computer. I'm writing this from my work computer, which I'm not a big fan of doing. Hopefully he can get something to limp along until I can save up the billions of dollars I need to get a new one.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go talk to some food about this.

Missing of the Woods

I'm sure that there are loads of you out there wondering where I went. At least a million. Maybe more. I have been Busy, which is a terrible reason because we're all Busy, we live in a Busy world, and why did you start a blog if you can't even find the time to post? I'm going to be better, I promise. I have a bunch of stuff to share: horse pulling and wine tasting and dinner parties and pumpkin carving. Recipes and DIY and pretty pictures. I even took a Photoshop class so they won't look so terrible anymore! If you're still around and have been dying for posts- I love all 5 of you and I'll be back soon!

-a

Weekend Escape

We live a hectic life, J and I. Beyond the fact that both of us commute over an hour to work (in opposite directions), we have a great group of friends, lots of various interests and hobbies that have events we love to attend, and are both lucky enough to be close to our families. This can lead to Social Burnout. Symptoms include sniping at each other over nothing, the feeling that you are never pleasing anybody, and general exhaustion. We had that. It's hard to be a grown up and as popular as we are.

We needed a recharge. We are both fortunate to have family houses on lakes (in New England we call these 'camps'). Last weekend we went to my family's camp. I gave my parents and brother lectures about how we would like to be left alone, that drop-ins where NOT ALLOWED (rude? probably. desperate times and all that) and we headed up Friday night.

It was glorious. It was exactly what we needed. After an aborted attempt at sleeping in (any one want two dogs?), we got up and had a leisurely breakfast and coffee, played cards and talked about everything and nothing. It's weird when you have to catch up with some one that you live with. Since it was rainy and gloomy we headed out and ran a couple errands. By the time we were done the sun was shining. J set up a makeshift brewing line and I dragged an extension cord outside so I could catch up on creating a friend's wedding invitations. We tied up the dogs and worked in companionable silence for hours. I have to admit it took until about noon for me to finally let go and relax completely.

The temperature was perfectly New England fall- warm in the sun but chilled in the shade. I took a break and walked the dogs to the water to play. Guffy was not having it, but Tucker played with me and the waves for a bit. When he was spent, we went back and I curled up with my latest book (The Paris Wife- loooooving it). Dinner was slow cooked ribs, grilled corn, and potato salad. I started to document the making of potato salad to share with you all, but I got distracted halfway through and stopped taking pictures. Sorry! After dinner we played cards again and were in bed by 9:30. Glorious.

Sunday was much the same, but halfway through the day we went to a very special two year old's birthday party.

It was a sleepy ride home.

Now we are back to reality, but I'm still hanging on to that calm relaxed feeling that comes from a weekend escape.

Sunday

I'm tuckered out. I feel like I have been running since Thursday morning. All good things- birthday rafting trip with J, luau party with friends, and today a horse jumping show with Sarah. Here's a few unedited pictures from the weekend to wet your whistle for the week's blog posts...

"I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person."

Audrey Hepburn

Two

Sunday is 2 years with my dude. It simultaneously doesn't feel like that long and feels like forever. I realized the other day when I was dancing around like an idiot for him with no care about how foolish I looked that this is it, this guy and I are forever. Anyone who can still hang out with me after watching me dance like a gorilla pirouetting isn't going anywhere. 

Last night we went to John Harvard's Brewery in Harvard Square, site of our second date. We laughed about how nervous we both were, he remembered exactly what we ate, I remembered exactly what I wore. He said he was most nervous about running out of things to talk about. Still hasn't happened.

It's fun to go back to the beginning sometimes, to rehash where you started. It's possibly more fun to talk about where you're going, to make plans for the future and play the "what if..." game. Mostly we play "what if we won 1 million dollars...". We start at a million and work our way up to whatever the current jackpot is (something like 196 million).

Calamari

Those who know me in real life know I'm not much of a red meat person. I'm not big on the flavor. Since dating J I eat 100% more that I used to (meaning I actually eat it). I've always enjoyed a good burger though...

 Guess which is mine?

Bacon wings!

The big one. I didn't finish it, but I felt kind of bad ass for a minute. After leaving John Harvard's we went across the street to Finale for dessert.

I almost ate them before snapping a picture.

Chocolate dream

Cheesecake

Terrible picture quality courtesy of a few too many beers at John Harvard's and impatience.

Here's to two year, and many, many more.

Please allow me introduce myself....

Welcome! I'm Aimee.

I don't normally have a mustache.
I date this guy...

He's pretty great. He does have a mustache.
I own these two rascals...

 Guffy

Tucker

They'll introduce themselves at some point.

I'm a born and raised small town girl who works in the big city. I have the best of both worlds. I eat at amazing restaurants, get a dose of history walking down the street and hear great live music any night of the week. My life is pretty fun. I hoping to share with a little slice of it here and there- restaurant reviews, recipes, fun stories, and tips for traveling around New England (and more?). Hope you stick around!