The Nursery...Paint is Done!

So over the last...well, forever...we have been working on painting the nursery. Personally I think I have looked as forward to this as to actually having a baby. I LOVE painting, but usually live in rentals where it is not allowed. Luckily here we had the okay to paint away.

This is how the room looked before:

The yellow wasn't a becoming shade at all, so changing that was a no-brainer. You can also see a built in dresser thing that had cabinent doors on the top that I took off to make a bookshelf. The other thing about this room was the ceiling...

I don't think this picture does justice to how grey and dingy it was...but take my word for it. It was gross.

So first Honey and I came to an agreement on the exact shade of grey we wanted the room. This conversation went like this:

Me: "Honey which of these greys do you like best. I think the darkest one is too dark."

Honey: "Hmm I like this one or this one." (He pointed to the two 2nd darkest)

Me: "Well I like this one that isn't so dark but isn't the lighest one either."

...Skip to the next day...

Me: "So I think we are going with the grey I liked best. Is that okay? I really like it better than the others.

Honey: "Sure. Whatever."

I love him!



So once we (I) picked the color we got to work on repainting the ceiling and making the walls grey.






And viola! Here is the lovely grey room. And just the perfect shade of grey, I might add. Not too light and not too dark.

I also wanted to do something fun with the built in dresser thing so I started by painting the drawers and then added color on the back of the bookshelves to add a little accent color to the whole peice.

So there you go. We have it all painted! 

Now for the next project--refinishing the changing table to an espresso color to match the crib. I will keep you posted :)

Fabulous New York

I know many couples take "Babymoons" before the little bundle of joy comes (which we totally plan to do) but I think a "Mommymoon" is also necessary. So my Mommymoon took place in New York a couple weeks ago and it was...fabulous.

I lived in New York for a year as a nanny in Westchester County but hadn't really been back since then. Now the kids are in college so it's been a while. Big changes have taken place since 2003--the World Trade Center Memorial, tables in the middle of Times Square, no Au Bon Pain's at every corner.

World Trade Center Memorial

The first two are great, but no Au Bon Pain's??? I used to love going there for chocolate croissants while I pondered why my employers wanted me to teach their 12 year old daughter how to shave her armpits...was that really in my job description? There were still a few of the cafes, here and there, but I remember them as THE staple food group of my city trips.

New York Pizza, baby!

Besides that disappointment it was a wonderful trip. I wandered up and down 5th Avenue, visited FAO Swartz, went to Times Square for greasy pizza, and mosied through Central Park.



My favorite spot in Central Park



I love Central Park. When I was young and naive, I was sure the man of my dreams would propose to me in Central Park, preferable on one of the little boats.

Considering Honey has spent very little time in New York, that wasn't likely. And his proposal on a pier in San Diego at sunset was way better anyway.

But I digress...so in New York I was able to see family, visit friends, go to the beach on Long Island, have a hotel room all to myself. And I could have dressed up all fancy with some Manolo Blahniks and partied myself to exhaustion until 4 in the morning. It is the city that never sleeps.

But let's face it--I am pregnant, and walking around the city makes me tired, so that partying thing didn't happen. I did bring Junior's chocolate swirl cheesecake back to the hotel room and curled up watching Law and Order. (Carrie Bradshaw might not have appoved, but Miranda would have given me a high five.)

And it was fabulous.

Yes, There are Stupid Questions

In every customer service related job there are certain questions that customers ask over and over and over again that drive you freakin batty. While the question must seem totally logical to the customer, as an expert in whatever field you are in, the same question is completely ridiculous.

When I waited tables at a restaurant that served pizza people would always ask "Like how big is a large, how many pieces of pizza does it have?" Now I could tell them the answer...but really is a piece of pizza a standard unit of measurement? I mean I could cut the pizza into as many slices as they want but the actual size of the pizza is the same. 2 big pieces, 8 medium pieces or 100 ittybitty pieces--still the same size of pizza. This question really makes no sense.

Same with my job now. I sell mulch, rocks, top soil, etc and I sell it by a scoop of a bobcat which is 1/2 a cubic yard. So I call out to the little loader guy and tell him how many cubic yards of mulch the client wants and we charge by that lovely standard unit of measurement. 1 Bobcat scoop = 1/2 cubic yard, 2 Bobcat scoops = 1 cubic yard, and so on. It isn't rocket science.

But people constantly want to know how much a pick-up load is. Is a pick-up a standard unit of measurement? No! Yet they expect me to hear that they have a Ford F150 and then to tell them exactly how much it will cost to fill it. Short bed, long bed, extended cab, unextended cab...trucks are all different, am I right? I don't measure mulch by truck size, I measure it by cubic yards. Standard. Units. Of. Measurement.

Now I don't expect them to know how much will fill it up either so we have the option that they can get loaded first then come pay, which I am always happy to offer. But more often than not, the lovely toothless creature in front of me will ask again, "But 'ow much'll it cost me to fill my blue pick-up out 'ere. The one 'ith the toolbox?"

...And yes I did have a woman ask me last week why I couldn't just put a scoop in the back of her Toyota Corolla...

Stupid.