Productive weekend so far...

Since we knew we'd be snowed in this weekend, we were well prepared to occupy ourselves to offset the inevitable cabin fever! I had plans to go to a card-making workshop, but since that was cancelled, I knew it would be the perfect weekend to start painting our downstairs.

Friday I left work early, headed to Home Depot to pick up 2 gallons of the color we chose, Behr's Restful, and some new weather stripping for the front door. We have always had a terrible draft there, but this winter has been way colder than the others since we've lived here, so I knew it was time to throw some money at the problem, and fix it once and for all.

I had tried to cheap out last year, buying the most inexpensive weather stripping out there, thin, foam strips, and I should have known it would be ineffective - you get what you pay for, right? I think it lasted about 3 closings of the door, and then ripped right off. So, this time, I bought actual weather stripping - genius! The guy at the Depot showed me on a door in the store how to install it, and I came home confident that I'd be able to install it before Dave got home, and test him to see if he noticed (he didn't).

This is important for later in the story: Every time we've painted at our house, I've gone to the store, bought way too many rollers, brushes, drop cloths, etc., and we never use them all. We have leftovers in the garage from many projects, so I thought to myself "Self, let's be financially responsible and not buy supplies we won't need, k?"

So, I came home with paint and weather stripping in hand (and some cat food and litter so the kitty would be just as prepared for the storm as us), and got started on my project! Who knew, it was just as easy as the guy at the Depot said it would be. I just had to pull out the existing dry-rotted weather stripping from the little groove, and shove the new weather stripping in. Shove is a technical term here.

Here's old vs. new:


Look, no light shining through at the edges!


After that, Friday night was pretty typical - movie (Passengers with Anne Hathaway and the Prom King from Little Children), hot dogs for dinner, and an early bedtime.

Saturday morning, we got up and I started taking things out of the kitchen. Took everything off the walls and unscrewed the light and power plates. I taped off the lower parts of the walls (the parts I can reach). Then, the procrastination monster got us. I put ingredients in the crock pot for Pumpkin Turkey Chili, but that takes little to no effort. We didn't start painting until like 6pm, after we tasted the chili, and realized that instead of using canned pumpkin puree, I used canned pumpkin pie filling. BLECH!!! We ended up eating turkey sammiches instead.

When we finally started painting, we had a good system going - Dave did corners and around the doors and windows, and I had the roller. **Remember that little anecdote above about how I didn't buy any rollers or anything? Yeah, that was a bad idea. When I went to the garage to get a roller, I realized we didn't have any! Oops! So, I made a miniature roller work. The kind that you use to paint behind a toilet? I could either play the card and quit painting until we could dig out and buy a roller, or just suck up the fact that I'd have to do a second coat if I used the small one. I sucked it up. The little roller actually came in handy for getting behind the oven and fridge!

I kept saying "OMG I love the color!"


I couldn't help myself - after all the paint samples and rambling I did about finding the "perfect" color, I had found it and I will never have to think about it again! Thus, you all will never have to hear me think about it again! Huzzah!

Here's the finished product:


Today's job is to clean and put stuff back where it belongs. But first, breakfast! In our grocery trip for the snowy weekend, I bought plenty of crescent rolls for chili, and for a special treat for breakfast - nutella croissants! MMMM!

I just spread the Nutella (or Not-ella, as the Millers call it, since I bought the generic version to save 59 cents) on the crescent rolls, rolled 'em up, brushed some margarine on top, and baked according to the crescent roll directions. Yum!



They're all gone already :)


In the crock pot for tonight's meal is Pioneer Woman's Beef Stew with Mushrooms, sans mushrooms since I'm allergic. I'll serve them over egg noodles and serve rosemary potatoes on the side. Reminds me of Amish country: