Sunday fun

Today we woke up early and watched silly movies, ate lunch at one of my favorite spots called Sprouts (we split a smoothie and a tuna burrito...a little odd but good), then walked down to the beach to fly the kite.









The wind was perfect for it. I even took a nap in the sand. Back at home we had chicken curry for dinner (he cooked) and played games...dominoes and my first game of chess. And I won! hehe

i'm red

my Bday + home in the barn

I had a lovely birthday in the Outer Banks. I started off the day checking out the one thrift store in town. Nick got to parasail for the first time and loved it.





I had a long relaxing massage, so much so I kept falling asleep. I even did the big jerk right before you fall asleep, and woke myself up. We had a nice dinner that ended with a beautiful sunset.


The weather was beautiful during our stay there, however the very last day was the sunniest. Understandably, we were reluctant to leave :) but none the less, enjoyed our time there.

We made it back to Asheville Saturday night in time to crash. Sunday we spent the day cleaning! Monday, Nick spent the day in a coffee shop working and I got my first chance to navigate myself around town. Thank goodness for gps. The roads here are crazy. One road curves into another road and then into another road and you've only gone a few blocks. Some of the streets don't even have street signs. I feel I only know a very small portion of this city so far, but have not pieced it all together yet to understand the big picture. Of course, I can tell you where all the thrift stores are. :D Oh, and a couple Aldi stores, too.

So we have a few furnishing for the house. We are trying to only buy a few things since we are not going to be here very long and don't want to take it all back with us or have to worry about loosing a lot of money donating it back. So my first task was searching for the few furnishings we need to live here comfortably while we are here. We are still sleeping on an air mattress and don't have a couch yet... so still have a few things to get. But, moving on to the next task of making curtains for this huge space. Our landlord gave me some scrap material to use and I have gotten a little myself. So I have 8 sets of curtains to make. Yikes! I definitely need more material. Good thing I brought my sewing machine. Nick's got a good idea to just do them fast and messy and funky, and not worry about making them perfect. I think he's onto something. I need to get my nesting done and on to more fun things. Like PAINTING!!!

So once I feel we kind of have this place "finished" a little, I'll take some pics. In the meantime, picture a huge room with a couple chairs, a lamp, some huge frames on the floor, an end table and my sewing machine on a table. There you have it.

Finish Painting!

Yay, it's done!
One full day of painting ended up being 3 full days instead. Isn't that just how it is.

It started out as a 24 x24 piece of plywood... then was decoupaged (very ...hmmm, should I say "roughly") with aged pages from a 1979 (the year I was born) Readers Digest. The articles and ads are related to the subject matter of the painting... a couple months then passed... this week I painted the background clouds and hills (my favorite part! too bad I forgot to take a picture of just that) allowing some of the key words and some images to show through...drew, cut out and painted the remaining key images...added the words...and then decoupaged the images on and gave it a top coat. Still need to figure out how to hang it because it's only a 1/4" thick. Then it will be off to its new owner.

Here's the finished painting



and a couple detailed shots.






Just painting and not worrying about anything else was pretty nice while it lasted, but back to reality for now. Just got to remember, we can always visit these fun memories when ever we need to.