The End (for now) to the Master Curtain Project

Finally, I will stop thinking about them!! 

Ok, that is probably not entirely true, but at least it won't be like a fly buzzing around my head all day long!

Superhero helped me finish the master bedroom curtain project. I needed his strength to pull the wire tight behind the existing window blind set-up. He did a nice job and we thankfully still have our eyes.

 The goal was to make it look like it belonged and keep the wire hidden. I think it worked pretty well. 

 

The look doesn't overly impress me - but I do like that it hides the blinds. 

 (yes mom don't worry, now that I have committed, I will get to cutting the white tags off)

 Although these are just patterned sheers, keep in mind that the blinds can still easily be drawn from behind to block the light. 

Surprisingly, Clotaire seems quite happy with the improvement - I think mainly because he understands it takes a while to build a successful empire. 

Good-Morning Electric Man!

When we 1st moved in to our Carlsbad beach house it was to our surprise that the electricity had been turned off by the previous renter. Makes sense I guess, but had we known we would have made proper arrangements so we wouldn't have to wait take two to three days for them to come to our house.

Eric was excited by the idea- CAMPING!! While I was a bit more realistic (if you will) - no electricity, no computers, no tv, no lights, no fridge, no outlets to charge our phones....!!! It was fun for the first two days: we went to the movies, we went out to eat, and we 'had' to go to Starbucks frequently to use their outlets to charge our phones, and also so we could work from our computers and not get fired.

We barbarically made it through the weekend. Tuesday finally came and the electric man was supposed to come in the morning between 8am and 12am to turn on our electricity. Monday, I had neglected to as my dad would say "juice up" my phone at Starbucks and went to bed that night relying on the alarm from my phone. Too bad it died in the night (I obviously couldn't plug in a real alarm clock) (Eric charged his at his office on Monday and left for work at 6:00am).

I am not a morning person to begin with, and furthermore we had had a whirlwind of a trip since... the Thursday before we packed all our things and caravaned our trailers across to California arriving Friday night to my sister's in La Habra, CA so that Saturday morning I would be able to go to my cousin's baby shower in San Juan with my mother sister and auntie. Then at the crack of Sunday we drive down to Carlsbad and move in where we found there was no power and so we "camp" for almost two days and now I have no alarm to wake me up at 7:45am. Can't you see how I slept in a deep sleep like a little baby in my crib?

I am awakened in the guest room (because we hadn't gotten our new bed yet) by a noise I don't recognize.  I slowly open my eyes and am very confused of where I am so I look outside. Its a bright, sunny morning in California and then I find a man in an orange vest and hardhat waving at me while saying "Good-morning!!" with the biggest smile on his face. He is literally right outside the window. I was freaked out for about 5 seconds trying to translate if I was about to be attacked and where I was and if this was real so I went into freeze mode because if I don't see him he cant see me...!

Then I remembered OH MY GOSH its the Electric Man!! I jumped out of bed, yelled, "HOLD ON DON'T LEAVE", ran down the hallway threw pants and a sweatshirt on just as I opened the front door and he was standing there with his tool box and I had never seen such a happy guy.

He thought it was hilarious! He could not stop laughing and said his day was going to be great. I embarrassingly laughed and apologized. I asked what time it was he said 8:00am. I showed him to the backyard - we got the power on and he jollily left within 15 minutes.

Pretty embarrassing moment. I charged my phone and then called to tell Eric the whole story.

MN Barn Wedding (Boots not required)

Back in August Eric and I attended his cousin's wedding just down the dirt road from his parents house. 

It was incredibly beautiful and the decorations and details were jaw-dropping. 

The ceremony was held outside under an oak tree, and the reception took place in the barn. 

It was a rootin', tootin', boot-stompin' celebration and we had a blast. 

 The colors were yellow, gray, white and black. 

The bride and groom looked ever-so-beautiful and stylish!

Inside the barn was lots of tulle and these tweed flowers were on posts and hanging from the rafters keeping it "naturally" decorated.

 This was a real barn, on a real farm, which had a few cows and they were cute. 
I think i'ts safe to say the poop was scooped on Wedding Day!

Yes, I did choose to wear my leather cowgirl boots from which I was asked by Eric's cousin Tim, if I chose to wear them because I thought everyone would be wearing boots at this barn wedding out in the country?...

I did not think that by being more of a city folk, I would make the country folk wonder if I wore boots to fit in because I think they wear boots.  But the answer is NO No no Tim. I wore these boots because...

 I love them AND since I was invited to a casual farm wedding, I couldn't wear heals, and didn't think flip flops or tennis shoes would be appropriate, so I wore my favorite fancy boots. These ain't no work boots boy! These are genuine leather boots which happen to cost me a few pretty pennies at Nordstrom Rack! AND my feet never hurt from heels so I was able to happily dance the night away. AND I wore these boots so I didn't get my legs dirty or dusty but most importantly I wore these boots because they were like beautiful luxurious shields that blocked my legs from being eaten alive by all your country blood sucking MOSQUITOES that particularly love to feed on my sweet "city folk" blood!

But thank you for asking Tim, because it did make me laugh pretty stinkin' hard.

I LOVE corn fields. 

You know I do come from a long line of farming blood and that corn is my favorite vegetable.

 

So that was that, we left and I took my boots with me!

Grandpa's Dinky Trailer

As I mentioned in a previous post, Eric's Grandpa Bob is a skilled craftsman. He built this trailer.

Eric used it to move himself out to California. Then we used it to move us to El Paso. And again for our move to San Diego. 

  It did its job well. I had the liberty of pulling it behind me from El Paso to San Diego 

(not by this Santa Fe though- I used my parents Sequoia) 

 If you are thinking it is weird that I (Michelle) pulled this trailer and are wondering what about Eric - you aren't crazy, he had his own trailer... which I will share next week.

Don't worry people, I took control of the growing trailer collection thanks to the inspiring pep talk from Grandma Bea. And so with thankful hearts we moved forward and sold Grandpa's Dinky Trailer to a family in California a few weeks after we moved in.

A Visit from Charlie

Sir Charles came to live with Eric and me for two weeks this past June. We got to watch him while my parents traveled to France with Stephanie and Mark. Charlie had quite an eventful time going on at least two walks a day; hunting for rabbits and meeting up to play with his bichon frise girlfriend, Lacy. 

His favorite place to hang out was on top of the couch like the little cat-dog he is. He would scream/bark when the mail lady came every day, whimper when he saw a dog walking by, and go nuts when he heard any loud truck (A big loud diesel truck meant Eric was coming home!). 

  After getting trapped on the windowsill behind the curtains one or two times, he learned to move them aside with his head to get a good view. 

And after a while, he would finally take his nap.

Mom and Dad left me with his food mat - Isn't it the coolest?

Charlie may look like the cutest, most cuddliest, live-stuffed puppy dog ever, but don't be fooled people, he can be bad to the bone! He is lucky he is so cute though, because you can't stay mad at him for long. Speaking of bones... Charlie loved to roll on his bone in the sunshine.

 

  Especially after he had his bath. 

Something bad did happen while Charlie was here. It was very sad. I had to tell Charlie that I had killed a dog with my G500 on the freeway one night. It was an unavoidable, terrible event.

When we went to get the mail the next day, Charlie couldn't ignore investigating what happened to that poor dog that perished under my car... 

He found the evidence with his face and wouldn't let me forget about it!

He made me feel so guilty! 

                   "I know it was YOU."                       How could you do such a thing Michelle?!"

 

Despite that terrible event, Charlie did have a great time being spoiled. He got to go to the beach, the grocery store, the mall, to visit Jack and Cait and Josh's house, he went to Downtown Disney, Corner Bakery Cafe for dinner, he traveled to Irvine with us to pick up our Ikea Dresser and much more. He not only loves the G500, he looked great in it. He was the most popular guy in California! People would honk at stop lights when they saw Charlie in my car.

Charlie did get homesick for his mommy and daddy. And so after searching for him for a good 5 minutes thinking he might have ran away I finally found him here:

 Charlie! What are you doing back there?!?

 

 I could not convince the little stubborn guy to come out.

Poor Charles Margaret, he went into mourning for his missing parents:

He has such a personality he is the funniest dog, not to mention Charlie is the cutest!

The Gutless Santa Fe

Our amazing trade...

Year: 2004

Model: Santa Fe

Make: Hyundai

 Yes Eric drove this gutless SUV all around El Paso for about 2 months. I will admit I liked the fact that Eric wasn't as intimidating when he broke out into his fits of road rage on the freeways. It was nice not having to worry about him getting shot by the Juarez Cartel daily.

  
But unfortunately, I couldn't drive it because it was a 5-speed. 

 

It had a bit of damage from its rough life in Mexico. But luckily nothing too severe. 

 
It was one of those cars that we were really unfamiliar with, then the next thing we knew we were surrounded by them on the streets! 

We finally had someone from Georgia purchase it online and so it was shipped away. 

You know what that means -something needed to replace it. 

So again the circle of buying, fixing, cleaning, trading, showing, listing, and selling continued in our life. 

Privacy pronounced Prih-vacy

I've been working on dressing up Clotaire's royal lair. Curtains and bedding have been the biggest struggles for me and I am not sure why. Maybe because I want them to tie in together without matching exactly? If you have been curtain shopping recently, you'll know if you are looking for a patterned curtain it is not only complicated but can get expensive really fast.

To give you an idea, before the bathroom was just wide open to the the master bedroom. We found out pretty quickly that if you were standing in front of the bathroom mirror and the blinds to the screen door in the bedroom are open - people can definitely see you in the bathroom.

This bathroom lacked Prih-vacy!

Eric actually helped me decide that the curtains below were our best choice. Which was almost a life-saving moment because I was getting extremely frustrated with this ordeal. Yet, at the same time listening to Eric was scary because, to be honest, Eric's favorite choice is usually the first one I eliminate. But not this time (maybe I listened out of pure desperation, I'm still not 100% sold)...

Here is a close up of the pattern on the curtains I/Eric ended up choosing. 

My hesitations were:

1) They were the Target brand xhilaration (which is very jr high-ish and in fact the picture on the package had them in a hot pink girls room!) This is nothing like Clotaire's classic, romantic, royal style.

2) The pattern. I like the pattern a lot, but wasn't sure again it matched the look of the room. Also with a pattern I felt I might be limiting myself on the bedding (but I can always do stripes!!)

3) Black and White. Curtains are a good way to either add or repeat color and pattern in a room. With just black and white I wasn't adding really any color at all. 

Here it is adding a little prih-vacy.                           And here is the view of the curtain pulled back. 

The skylight really brightens up more than just the bathroom which is nice. 

Closer... feel the privacy.

Here is the view from the slider doors:

Looks nice however, the curtain situation is not quite over yet...

 I went with Eric's advice, but just hung this one curtain to make sure I really did like it. After some time had passed, I think I am brave enough to move on with the plan. I have more of these curtains to hang!! I just need superhero to help me put them up in front of the sliding door (from where this photo was taken). 

That will be coming up next!