A note on productivity

It seems that I am way more productive when Austin is gone than I am when he is home.

I think that this is because he is not around to distract me. Let's face it, when he and I are both home together, we would rather be having fun than doing projects, and it is only if I am adamant about getting something done that I usually win out.

He thinks that I am more productive while he is away because it gives my self-admitted procrastinator self some deadlines for the first time outside of an educational setting.

Either way - I am more productive when he is gone. The fact that my parents are coming on Wednesday may have also had something to do with the whirlwind of project-ing and cleaning I have found myself in over the last two weeks.

In that time I have:

• Painted our downstairs bath "Washington Square" by Ralph Lauren. Look it up. It's a super dark purple. Don't freak out, it looks totally glam and fabulous.
• Touched up the 'man room', hung curtains and bought a rug.
• Repainted the Living Room in "Offshore mist" by Behr. A slightly greyer blue than what we ended up with before.
• Bought new pillow covers from PB for the hideous pillows that came with our couch.
• Bought and planted 4 new tea olives and a bunch of yellow pansies in front of our porch - (and mulched, go me).
• Cleaned the winter dirt off of all of our front porch furniture and bought fab new outdoor pillows from Target.

Clearly I have done various other things in this time (like taking care of three dogs) and yet my whole to-do list is not checked off yet, but we are getting there! When I have time, I will post lovely photos of all these projects (and of the whole house in general. Until then, know that I am working away.

Erin Go Bragh

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

I hope you are wearing green. 

If not, you might get pinched.

Not that I would do such a thing.

Motley Crew

Austin's mom Leslie is in Florida this week for a romantic trip with her boyfriend Matt. They are seeing Michael Buble in concert and visiting Leslie's family. While they are off trysting in the sunshine, I am taking care of this crew.

My house is a mess, but at least there is a whole lot of cuddling.

Happy new week!

Only in Norfolk...

But, wait! That's a Georgia plate! Wow.

{yes, I took this while driving, don't judge.}

Too Blue

We recently decided to go ahead and paint our living room. We bought a green couch around Christmas time and green couch + green walls = one unhappy Courtney.

The color was great, and we kept it in the dining room, but it just wasn't different enough from our couch color to keep in the living room. We searched and searched for a color that we liked and would tie in how we wanted.

We finally settled on Ralph Lauren "Spa" which is very close to this image of Glidden "Tropical Surf"

So, we set out and started taping and painting the room. Throughout we kind of looked at each other and said, "Hmm"

It ended up looking like this:

{Bingley has no comment, so long as we don't move his chair}

Not bad, but not what we were looking for. When we saw the color originally, we thought it had great grey undertones, but in our room it came out a little more aqua. We have lived with it for a few days and looked at each other last night and both said, "Nope."

I think this color would be great for a little boy's room, but not for our living room. We will be hitting the drawing boards again and going for a richer, more soothing grey-blue. All in all it didn't take us long to paint (one evening after work) and a can of paint is around 20 bucks, so it's not the end of the world.

We did hit a great note with another RL color though, up in the 'Man Room'. The color is "Toast" {who gets to come up with paint names anyway?}. Photos to come.