A Sweet Blog Reader.

Yesterday I flew to Cincinnati to meet the movers to pack the house up.

The first thing I did was get on the scale. I walked right in, put my bags down, and went upstairs and got on the scale. :) If you know me, you know that I weigh every.single.day!

I just do.

It helps me keep my weight in check. But since we went on vacation back in July, I haven't been weighing. I knew that I had gained since we moved up here but I topped it off with a few extra LB's since we moved to SC.

Anyhoo, where was I?

Oh yeah.

The second thing I did was get a bubble bath in MY bathtub. It was so nice. I just soaked all my troubles away. (that's what Gary tells me when I have had a bad day...go take a bath, you'll feel better) And I did:)

So after my weigh in and my bubble bath, I settled in to watch some TV and catch up on my emails. This is what I found when I turned on my computer.

Hi!

Just wanted to tell you THANK YOU for your great blog! I am so very addicted to it. I enjoy reading it everyday and I am truly inspired by your ideas! I used your idea in the laundry room and I am so happy with that extra shelf...YOU DONT EVEN KNOW!

Anyway, good luck on getting your new home, the move and I really look forward to seeing your new place on your blog.

Sincerely,

Kama Carranza

Along with this picture:

How sweet was that? It made my evening. You never know who is reading your blog and I always feel like other people inspire me so it was really a nice surprise to see that I have inspired someone else.

I just wanted to give a little blog love to Kama and tell her that she did a great job with her laundry room.

Now I am off to see how far the movers have gotten.

Melanie

Leaving on a Jet plane.

The time has come to meet the movers at our home in Kentucky. I feel like I am dreaming since I just did this LESS than 8 months ago. It has just been a very rough move. I thought that this one would be a breeze since we knew what to expect. There have been a whole host of problems right from the get go. I won't go into all the details but it had to do with finding a house, having issues about the house at the last minute a week from closing, and then having the movers scheduled but being told two days before that they were NOT scheduled.

Was that a run on sentence? Anyhoo....

I could go on and on but that would just bring you all down and that is not what I want to do. I will say that I am happy to be going home. Caden told me the other day that it wasn't home anymore but I told him as long as our stuff was there, it was:) I will be glad to be home but it is not a vacation for sure. Male movers will show up bright and early Wednesday morning and will pack for 3 days.

It.Will.Be.A.Mess!

That's all I'm sayin.

But I will be home and surrounded by my things;-)

The latest on the house is that we should know by Friday if they accept our offer. I am okay with a yes or a no answer but we do need an answer. We were suppose to close on the house today but that did not happen. I want a final and definite answer. No more waiting.

That's what I say.

To rest my mind at night, I have been playing Words With Friends. If any of you play and you want to play me, my name is ladynole35. I am not very good at it but I do love it. So start a game with me if you want to play.

So, today I be boarding a small commuter plane and flying home.

I don't like small enclosed spaces, so I am praying that we don't get stuck on the runway sitting. That would NOT be good . I could have a slight panic attack:)

So off I go today and I am so looking forward to my bed tonight and a quite house.

Tootleoo for now,

Melanie

Stalking houses in San Francisco:)

Yes, I stalk houses! I love houses. I love front doors. I am a nester by nature and I just like looking at houses. In San Francisco while we were riding around on the Segways, I was trying to snap pictures. Here are some of the houses we rode by.

Look at the beautiful Bougainvillea! Everything, and I mean everything, grows better in California.

I would love to be able to grow it like this.

Almost every house has some type of flower growing on it and they had wrought iron on it somewhere.

I love this garage door. Beautiful!

Look at the tile on the steps! Absolutely stunning.

Beautiful door with some more wrought iron.

Another beautiful front door.

More amazing flowers. I could have taken more pictures of the houses but it is hard to do while you are trying to stear a Segway. The houses in San Francisco are just as charming as they can be. The only other place that I think is just as good, or slightly better, is Carmel. My oh my, are those houses great. Sadly I didn't take pictures of them when we were there five years ago.

I hope that y'all don't get sick of my post on our vacation that we took this past summer. Right now I don't have decorating things to talk about but I think that y'all will forgive me under my current circumstances;-)

Have a great week,

Melanie

I was featured!

So I get up this morning, get my cup of coffee and turn on my laptop. The first place I go is my email. I was reading my emails and Houzz always sends their weekly ideas on Sunday and so I clicked on the link.

I confess, I don't always read each section but for some reason I clicked on this link. To my surprise, I saw this...

Thank you Susan from Between Naps on the Porch for using my laundry room as one of the vignettes you featured.

It made my day!

Happy Sunday everyone,

Melanie

Crown & Crumpet Tea Salon

How cute is this place! While the boys were eating ice cream in San Francisco, I was finding this little treasure.

The Crown & Crumpet Tea Salon.

Let's take a tour, shall we?

This beautiful sign is what greets you at the door.

The sign about the cup:)

The jars filled with candy and the whimsical cake just made me smile.

Check out the polka dotted lamp.

A little nook for reading.

A pretty table waiting on some girls to sit and have their tea and finger sandwiches.

A yummy piece of red velvet cake.

Alice in Wonderland.

And lastly, the left over remnants of a fine time had by some little girls. The owner of this shop was kind enough to let me take pictures but really didn't want me to take one of the table messed up. LOL! She wanted to clean it up but I asked her not to.

It was a very cute store that a little girl would love to have a tea party in.

It made me smile and I hope it did you too.

Melanie

Maybe we don't have a house!

Whomever said that moving was an adventure, they would be correct!

Yesterday I got the mail and I sat down to go through it and our appraisal on the house in SC came in.

Good news for us, bad news for the seller. It appraised at $14,000.00 less than we agreed upon. This comes one week before closing, one week for the builder to finish the house up, and one week before I fly to Cincy to meet the movers! Meet the movers to move our furniture to.....wait, I might not have a house. I don't know where the movers will be taking the furniture.

This could not happen at a worse time. Gary has had to work the night shift since Saturday and to top that off, he only slept 4 hours yesterday when he had to get up to get on a conference call. Then it was off to the realtor's office.

We now wait to see if the builder can come down to the appraisal price. If he can't, we are back to square one. Not somewhere that we want to be.

All in all, I am taking it surprisingly well. I am like "whatever." There is another house somewhere. Gary is not happy at all. He is ready to be in a house. I am usually the one that is saying that but this time the roles are reversed.

So I will let you know when and if we have a house to move to:)

Melanie

Fall TV is finally here.

Let's talk TV.

We love TV at our house. It is our entertainment at night. It is never on during the day but as soon as evening comes, it is full steam ahead.

We have Directv along with DVR's & HD. There is nothing like watching The Deadliest Catch in HD on a 55 inch LED big screen:) We watch TV as a family too. When football season rolls around, we also get the NFL Ticket each year.

I told y'all we loved our TV.

So that brings me to this.

The Good Wife. Love this show!

The Biggest Loser. I always fall in love with all the contestants. They work so hard and make me want to get up off the couch.

This year I am not as excited about DWTS because I don't think that they have a very good lineup but I will enjoy it anyway. I am pulling for Kurt Warner although I don't know if he can even dance. I have a feeling that Brandy will win this season.

And there is Survivor. I am so happy to see Jimmy Johnson on there. He didn't quit smiling during the whole show last week. He just loves the game and I sure hope that he hangs around for a while.

Then we have Parenthood. That was a new show last year and I am so glad that it stuck around. I even have Gary watching it with me.

And my favorite reality show is The Amazing Race! It is a fast paced show and you can never predict who is going to win because of the traveling that is involved. Planes late, cancelled flights, or cars that break down...you just never know.

There are a lot of other shows that I could list but you would get tired of reading through it:)

So as you can see, I am excited for the new season to start. I will miss my DVR but it won't be long before we move and we have all of our stuff in one place.

What are y'all looking forward to watching?

Melanie

Not feeling very confident....

This has been a looonnnggg week! We sold the house last Sunday (yeah!) and it has been nonstop paperwork. We have the relocation company actually buying our house from us to sell to the new owners, so we had to get a ton of papers signed and notarized. Then we have the house that we are buying here. We had to get a lot of stuff done with that house too and I also had to pick out paint.

Not feeling so great about having to do it all in a day. I mostly went with the same colors that were in the dining room, great room, and Caden's room at the house in Kentucky. I changed up the guest room and the master bedroom. I was going to go black in the dining room. Yes I was!

I was really thinking about it.

I have always wanted a black dining room. I saw one in a house in Georgia about 9 years ago and I knew that I would have one someday. It just won't be this day;-) I was under the gun to get all the colors picked out and I only had 4 black swatches, so I decided that I wouldn't do it this time.

That is a color that you have to get right and not be rushed while picking it out. We have heavy molding in the new house and there wouldn't have been a lot of area painted black, so it would have looked great. Not having my furniture to match up to was also a problem.

So no black this time. But you never know when I will get a wild hair up my bum and paint it.

But for now, it will be green.

I will leave you with a sneak peek of the new house. I hope to get some photos next week while they are over there finishing things up.

Things are moving along. It won't be long now.

Have a great weekend and see y'all next week.

Melanie

Segways!

Have you ever ridden a Segway? Well, I hadn't either before we went to San Francisco. We always try and have fun things to do with Caden and not just sightseeing so I thought this would be a really fun thing to do.

Turns out, it was. We rode the cable car down to Fisherman's Wharf to go to the Segway place.

When we got to the Segway place, we had to watch a video and get our equipment. At this point, I was really nervous. See, I am not very adventurous. I like to do things but when it comes to something that I know can hurt me, I am a scared-ie cat:) I was also working with a broken toe so I did not want to hurt myself any further. But we quickly learned that after you get the hang of it, it is a blast.

Off Caden goes to the parking lot where we had to practice.

This was our tour guide giving Caden instructions on what to do. The Segways do not have a stop and start button or a brake. They are cut on and your body movement is what makes them go, stop, or turn. There is definitely a learning curve and when Caden got on his and was wobbly, I thought that I wouldn't be able to do it.

Here is everyone practicing.

As we were riding around, I was snapping picture. A dangerous combo for a klutz:) We drove by the cable cars.

We got to ride down by the bay.

You can see the Golden Gate Bridge in the background with all the fog. So, so beautiful.

Alcatraz is behind me and Caden.

View from the pier.

We went by Ghirardelli Square and later walked back and the boys got some ice cream.

A view of the city from the pier.

It was a great way to see the city. We went through the marina district and I took a lot of pictures of the houses as we went by. I was chatting up the tour guide and he knew that I loved all the houses so he took us down some extra streets. We also went by the Palace of Fine Arts. They were working on it so we didn't walk to it.

It was a fun tour and we had a great tour guide. It is a 'must' do in a 'must see' city.

Melanie