1 year later . . .

During the last year of marriage I have found that a lot of little things about me have changed that I never expected to. I am much less independent than I have ever been before. Being single for 25 years, I was use to doing things on my own. But now, as my sister says, I am whooped - hard core. I have compiled a little list of things that are different since we were married almost a year ago.

1. I fully expect to never take out my trash again.

2. I was once someone who assembled my IKEA and Target furniture all by myself without any electric power tools. Now, when we buy new furniture I get Jeff his bag of electric tools and tell him to have at it.

3. I use to sprawl out and take up my whole queen sized bed. Now, I can't go to bed without Jeff snuggling up next to me.

4. I watch sports.

5. I don't take time to read my phone, computer, or TV manuals anymore, I just have Jeff show me how to do it.

6. If Jeff works on the weekend, I have no idea how to occupy my time. This is where my nesting projects come in handy.

7. I feel my heart sink a little every time I see a little kid. I can barely wait to have kids, be a mother, and see what a wonderful dad Jeff is going to be.

8. We go out less, I read more.

9. I cook.

10. I don't bother searching for new music or bands that I might like, I just have Jeff upload new play lists of bands HE thinks I might like onto my ipod. (I've actually found a lot more and better music this way).

Basically, what a lot of this list says about me is that I have become useless and lazy since getting married. With that aside, I love being married, and maybe it isn't such a bad thing to rely on someone else to do certain things. I really do feel like we work as a team very well. I can't imagine being single again living day to day without him. I loved being single, I loved being independent, but I love him A LOT more. Lets just hope I do eventually get off my butt and take out the trash myself!

Projects

So I've been doing a couple projects to keep myself busy lately - I'm still nesting. Here are couple of my favorites from the last couple months-

We needed storage in our office/guest/garage room. It is a room with many purposes and requires storage. So this is an old target dresser that I wasn't using anymore, being from Target, it was cheap and the drawers broke after just a year. So I decided to turn

it into shelves.

I painted the inside that same color I painted my old 50's school desk and stapled some Old Navy wrapping paper to the back. I had the paint on hand and the wood was maybe $10- and I kept myself entertained for an hour or two.

I put our record player,

some records and bins for

Jeff's school stuff. Not the

cutest thing in the world but it

works and it was cheap.

These curtains and pillow were my favorite project though. I made these for Heather's Birthday. The yellow matches her couch perfectly! The gray on the sides match her kitchen.

I am such a bad seamstress; every time I make something for someone else I swear that I will not put my sewing inefficiencies on other people and masquerade them as gifts. I conclude though that I can't help it.

I like to make things with my hands, no matter how they turn out. I think it is a sickness. I guess we will see if Heather actually ends up hanging them up, even with all the mistakes. I did have fun though, The two curtains and pillow just took a couple days after work and a Sat. morning. I only stressed out once (when I made a big mistake that could not be fixed) but I hope I hide it well. Next time I will be sewing for myself though.

Scavenger

My favorite blog Apartment Therapy has this post called "Scavenger" where they showcase super neat furniture finds from Craigslist. I drool over all the great things they find in places like Chicago, New York, San Francisco and LA. About a week or so ago in LA they showed a Crate and Barrel Petrie Sofa, in a perfect color for my house, for get this - $500. That is such a great deal considering the store price is $1500! Things like this make me drool all over my desk at work and make me wish I live in a real metropolitan city.

I thought to myself today, after looking at a great danish styled mid century modern kitchen table - maybe, just maybe, Las Vegas has some hidden treasures. So I went on a "Scavenger" hunt of my own on our local Craigslist site. I often check Craigslist for little things I think I need, but never really look with the idea that I could decorate my whole home with this stuff. Today, while searching for random things, I found some really neat stuff.

This sofa was found when I searched for "antiques." True, it is kind of out there, but I'd love an old piece like this to put in like a casual basement type rec/play room someday. It is just fun and makes me grin. But priced at the same $$ as my beloved Petrie sofa it doesn't seem like that great of a deal.
Seriously, how fun would these be? The couch and chairs are gross, and probably smell like smoke since this set came from a Casino Furniture Liquidator, But the yellow coffee table and side tables are adorable. They have good lines too so if bright yellow isn't your thing you could just spray paint them a high gloss white. Not bad. The whole lot is $250, but I'm sure just the tables alone couldn't be that expensive.
This lamp is kinda cool - and at $10 it is a deal. Just that large of a round shade would be 3x that much at Target.
The last is my FAVORITE! Seriously a rare find in Las Vegas. An actual Eames Atomic Chair. A perfect chair for the atomic testing valley. If I knew how, I would snatch this up and re- upholster it like that. This chair is just $175. It was posted last week so I'm sure it is gone. I guess I should do random searches like this more often.

These finds might not be as great as the ones featured on the Blog but I was pretty impressed with what little Las Vegas had to offer. I'd still really love to live in real city like San Fransisco though. . .