February Showers bring March flowers

It's really exciting to see our garden staring to bloom!

Chillaxing Weekend activity

We swung by G's mum's place for a visit this aft and ended up playing some Scrabble. Charlene and Terry play a lot and I'm obsessed with Words with Friends on my phone...but Garret had never played before. Sooooo of course Garret kicked our butts!

Supernanny

My brothers and I have a lot of nicknames for our Nanny. Super nanny, The Nanster, Nanny Panny, and several others. Today I picked her up at my aunt and uncles and took her back to her house. When we were about to head out I asked her if she was looking forward to going home.







I think that was a yes!

(I forgot to post a pic yesterday which killed my march photo posting streak...boooo. But I was somewhat up to my ears in homework so I thought this nanny pic today makes up for it!)

My dream stairs

Disclaimer: these are not our stairs...but I wish they were.

Breakfast Shakes

Ok so today I'm writing a research paper for school and struggling to find something interesting to post a photo of. So as G and I are prepping our breakfast fruit and veggie shake I thought I'd snap a picture. lately we have been having kale shakes for breakfast. They are delicious and we are finding that we notice a difference in how we feel the days we have them. It's all below plus kale and some lemon. Nat makes fun of me everyday and thinks I'm gross but she doesnt know what she's missing!

New pillows!

Making our couch snazzier since Saturday afternoon!

I should know by now

Whenever Garret starts a sentence with "Babe...don't be mad but" I should know that he is up to no good.  To set the stage, earlier today I was in the living room doing homework and G was upstairs painting the hallway.  Suddenly  I hear "Babe, don't be mad but, can you come upstairs and hold the paint tray" I should not have been surprised to come up the stairs to see this

I am a worrier by nature so that stuff freaks me out. ALSO I don't want to be dealing with my beloved and his two broken ankles from falling down the stairs.  He is crabby enough when he has a cold, I would likely smother him in his sleep if I had to listen to him with broken appendages.  His response was "Babe don't worry...blah blah something about being buff...blah blah"  I stopped listening and just held the paint tray with a rising level of anxiety until he came down. 

See the top of the door being way below...picture all the stairs he would fall down should he slip. I am not a total crazy person? right? right? hello?

More painting!

Soooo we are having a homey Fri night doing some more painting. It turns out that the plaster walls are requiring an insane amount of skim coating and sanding...sooooo it's going to be a waaaay longer process than originally thought. (seems like most things in our lives go that way!)

Finally painting?! Guest Room edition

[caption id="attachment_589" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="This is the room where all the random stuff ends up"][/caption]

The above photo is a not so amazing quality shot of our guest room. the cheapy shelving and the book shelf have become catch alls for the random stuff that we seem to accumulate.  (postcard of Che? check!  Garret's empty cologne bottles? check! Lotto tickets we haven't cashed in (only free tickets dont get excited)? School supplies that I pray I will never need again? check and check) We have been talking about painting for ages and since we got a jump start doing the downstairs hall (maybe photos tomorrow? I need 16 more photos to get me through the month so I better stretch them out) we got a little more motivated to get going on some other rooms!  The guest room requires the least amount of prep work so it seemed like another good one to get going with!  We keep thinking that it would be really nice to have one completed room that we love--everywhere else we have to find backsplash, wallsconces, or 10 thousand dollars in order to  make the changes we want. So Guest room it is.

[caption id="attachment_590" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="this is supposed to illustrate how purple this room is. iPhone fail"][/caption]

I thought I would take some quick pics with my phone this morning so I could show off how super duper purple the guest room is, but as you can see from the above photo, didnt work out as planned.

[caption id="attachment_592" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Closest actual match via Benjamin Moore's "your bedroom looks like Easter" line"][/caption]

Our guest room was the previous owner's daughters bedroom.  I can see why purple would be cute, but just not for us.  The room will need some TLC in the way of fixing holes from the shelving and from some lighting we removed from the wall (which can be seen in an earlier post) But aside from that it's go time.   At some point in the next few months we will be putting down nice flooring upstairs.  Bye bye randomly coloured cottagesque floors! It will be awesome to have all of the rooms painted and refreshed so once the floors go down it looks more homey and cozy upstairs.  I think it must be spring fever but suddenly we are in the home fixer upper zone!

Charlotte's Web (of death...in my bathroom)

I shall begin this post with a somewhat pathetic admission:  I am a scardey cat.  When G is away over night I have to gather up the courage to shower...and I may or may not sleep with the hall light on. (don't judge me people!!! It comes from watching too many episodes of Criminal Minds and so on)

Anyway...my story: Last night G stayed in the city so I pumped myself up to take a shower.  Mid hair wash, I caught something moving out of the corner of my eye.  There was a spider (ew) on the ceiling right by the fan.  I told him that I had my eye on him, and he best stay put.  I felt brave and had a brief moment of  thinking "oh Julia you are so brave ha ha stupid spider". I think he sensed my thoughts, as the next thing I knew he  was running full tilt across the ceiling towards me.   I may or may not have had a total freakout at this point (brave Julia had left the building/shower)  I don't really like bugs at the best of times.  However...if I am naked and there is a bug around...it's that much worse for some reason.  My defence mechanism of girlish shrieks obviously worked for instead of rappelling onto me, he came down just outside the tub.  Which was awesome for about 2 seconds until I realized that my towel AND my PJs were on the floor near where he landed.  Now, much like my friend Nat, I need to SEE it. I would have been trapped in that shower all night cause I would have worried it was in my towel or clothes. So I ripped back the curtain and saw him skulking around on the bathmat.  I folded it over and smushed him against the tub, shuddered a few times, and then looked up.  And apparently this guy had a buddy.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="487" caption="        "Remember that time you squished my buddy?....so do I !"                                              " *lies in wait til I am sleeping."][/caption]

You can't tell from this photo..but this baby was scary! So I may or may not have grabbed my toothbrush, contact lens case and fled the bathroom for the remainder of the night.  I left this guy to mourn his little friend in peace, and hopefully not leave the bathroom so G can bury them at sea (toilet) together when he gets home tonight. It is funny for I like to think I am so grown up and mature, but REALLY....if that spider had  landed on me in the shower I would have made G come home and fumigate the entire house. Urgh, it grosses me out just thinking about it.

My Mum was an awesome spider killer when I was little and freaked out, but I am pretty sure Garret will be the bug killer of the household when we have little ones.

Just a Hint of Spring

I came home tonight to it still being daylight out (huzzah) and these little guys poking up out of my garden.



It got me so excited thinking about the months to come. We had such a great summer living here last year...can't wait to do it all again!

Coming up on the To Do list

We have a mega to do list which I'm not going to get into tonight. But one of the things near the top for me is lighting. We inherited some really ugly wall sconces with this house. Now that we are finally getting around to painting and getting our living room in order I really want to get our lighting a little more funky. Harrison is on the case and hunting for something eclectic we can replace these with:

What am I?

A while back our friend Harrison gave us a pretty cool housewarming pressie. I meant to post a picture but am just getting around to it now (and just in the nick of time for a picture a day challenge! Can you guess what it is?

oh, hello there

:::
When we moved left the city and our apartment for our new life as homeowners I started a house blog to show family and friends all the good and exciting things that were going on with our house.  And since I didnt want to direct all those people over here, I think my other blog kind of took over. And I have since neglected little Echo since JUNE.  Doesn't seem that long ago, but with the promise of spring finally in the air today I am realizing just how long ago that was. I miss blogging with a voice sure that no one I knew (other than a few girlfriends) would be reading.  I think I may have to come back so I can have some form of an unmonitored outlet. Sooooo...let's just say "Im back"

 It is funny thinking that I have been blogging for my whole life in someway or another.  I had another old blog from 2003-2007 that if I could remember the password to I would go back and delete it all.  And prior to that I did it the old school way.  Back in the good old days I believe it was just called journalling.  A few weeks ago I was at my Mum's place going through some boxes and drawers of my old stuff.  I found some old journals---thinking that it would be such a treat to read and catch a glimpse of my younger years I brought them all home and proceeded to flip through them.  And learned that I was pretty much a confused, boy crazy kid, who grew into me.  What do I do with these journals now? I don't feel like I can throw them out, they contain my entire teenage angst experience. However, do I keep them? I dont think G needs to uncover the full crazy that was younger me (he gets enough of that being exposed to me at this age HA..30 is the new 15 when it comes to insanity apparently)  I think I need to just find a new treasure chest to keep in our home...or perhaps take them back to my mums where they can resume their dusty existence in boxes with photos from high school and other random life glimpses I can't seem to throw out. 

Birthday tomfoolery

We are at a surprise 30th today for our friend Regan. There is a bowl of fake mustaches... Destined to be a good night

Finally a winner

Big old thumbs up cause I finally won. Just a coffee but it's still giving me that "I'm a winner vibe" And I'll feel that way til I forget to take it out of my pocket and it goes through the wash. (this may or may not have already happened with one of Gs winnings...I told him it's a painful lesson about emptying ones pockets before sticking things in laundry basket. However I think I will find it annoying if I too learn that lesson)
*there is a not so hidden story thinly veiled within this rambly post....and it is this "empty your pockets, for picking pieces of washed Kleenex and timmies winnings out of the washing machine sucks for whomever does the laundry"(in our house that would be me)

Our driveway looks like a mosh pit

We have survived our first winter in the house! (guarantee as I say this I will be making it dump a pile of snow again-sorry Barrie dwellers)  As spring has been approaching and our current snow pile melting, we have discovered yet another thing to add to our home improvement list.  The driveway.  We already aren't super fond of it as it is on a really odd angle, but we seem to have some drainage issues with it as well. Dang.  When we had a thaw a few weeks ago we noticed it a little bit, but as it got cold again it turned the driveway into a death trap. Garret wiped out once and we both had to slide into the cars to avoid falling several times as well.  Now that the big melt is here our driveway is disgusting:

[caption id="attachment_552" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Dirty mucky driveway (and my snazzy ride)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_554" align="aligncenter" width="224" caption="This gets tracked into the house like crazy"][/caption]

I don't really know much about driveways, but I have a feeling that at some point later this spring/summer we will learn. I would like to do the open cell concrete cause it looks neat and I think it would help with drainage issues and not creating a heat island effect in the summer, but we have't priced that yet so it could be out of budget range.  I do know we have to do something cause this is so yucky!

Monogrammed Decor

My mum bought us these adorable hooks when we bought the house. I've been trying to think of where to put them! We took down the really ugly coat rack when Garret painted on the weekend and I was thinking these could replace it!

Coffee Break

Over Family Day my father in law Kevin spent the weekend at our place helping Garret insulate the basement. I took this picture during their morning coffee break. I'll do a post soon showing all the exciting (and super dirty/dusty) work they got up to!

Spackle

We finally decided on paint for our front hall yay! Garret spent some quality time this weekend spackling and sanding our walls so that they will have a few
less grooves when the new paint goes on. Next up...paint colours for our room, guest bedroom and downstairs bathroom!

Tis a foggy day round these parts

Just hangin around

Had an impromptu girls night tonight with Ashley! Our menfolk went snowboarding so we did what any left behind wifey would do...wedding planned! I told Ash I needed to post a pic so she got creative with the chalkboard wall. Unrelated...I gave up wine for lent, but allowed myself one night in between to have a few drinkies.(tonight is that night) So we had some wine, attempted some glue gun themed wedding crafts, and are now about to watch Ashley's wedding video. Who said girls don't know how to have fun!!!??? Hope everyone is having an amazing weekend.

Great White Buffalo

We had a painting project on our to do list after Christmas. Garret was pretty pumped with the opportunity to spray paint something. I originally was thinking a brighter colour but it has come to light recently that we have a difficult time agreeing on several things (like colour) So we settled on white. So without further ado...our great white buffalo.

March Madness

Since November was write a post a day month, I thought March could be post a photo a day. My friend Nat has been taking a picture a day for a year, so i bet i can do it for a month. Tonight G and I went out for a beer with Dods. Behold: