kelleytime...

Board & Batten Wainscoting Project: Part Three

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:58:00 +0000

Well, folks. Sorry to have left you hanging on this wainscoting project. The truth is that we've not really done much to it except finish putting it up on the wall. We stalled out after that and haven't started the caulk/prime/paint process yet!

My weekend have been jam-packed and we've been spending a lot of time helping my uncle get his house ready to move in to. He bought a house and proceeded to rip it to shreds and give it a much-needed facelift so we've been painting and helping out there for the last several weekends.

However, I'll through you a little bone and show you how the project ended. Stay tuned, too, I've got a second post coming up about a tiny, unrelated project that brought me great joy!

When I last left you, we had basically done one wall. The following weekend, we tackled the wall under the windows and the wall opposite the one we'd already completed. Knowing now how best to handle the steps, it went much faster - even at Home Depot, we knew what to do, where to go, and how to tell the cutter to cut. It was lickety split!

First, we made a huge mess (and probably fire hazard) in our hallway and cleared out the bedroom (mostly).

Then, we started with the wall under the windows. Daredevils that we are, we brought the saw up to our bedroom and set it up on a towel on top of a bedside table in the corner. We custom cut all the pieces under the window and didn't want to have to go all the way downstairs and out into the gargage for each cut. We made a minimal amount of mess - nothing that the vaccuum didn't fix!

Again, the process went fast since we had nailed down (pun intended) our process with the previous wall. So here we are:

When we got to the last slat, we fudged the placement to mirror the placement at the opposite end of the well. We kind of centered the two tall slats that go on this wall to keep everything looking balanced:

Overall, we had to do this a few times to miss outlets and things like that. If you take a ruler to it you can tell, but visually, you really can't and I did not get hung up on perfect placement. I know you can be a perfectionist about it, but houses and walls aren't perfect, so we went with that theme.

Next, we finished up the last wall. We should've paid more attention to the slats because somewhere in the cutting process at Home Depot, some of them were nearly a half inch shorter than they were supposed to be. You can see it in this picture.

Little wavy there! Luckily for us, our technique of attaching the top rail allowed us (barely!) to cover this mistake. WHEW. So on they went, the top rails mean we're almost done! Again, because nothing's perfect - including wood - we ended up with this where the top rails met. One was a little warped so we used leftover slats as shims and resolved the issue pretty quickly. We just applied some construction adhesive to both sides and slid it in there and nailed it in place.

Our last hurdle before installing the top trim piece to hide that gap was to come to a finishing point. Our master bedroom is not a nice, neat rectangle. I don't have a photo of it, but there's a tiny "hallway" that leads to our closet and master bath. We chose to end the wainscoting not a doorway, but at a corner. Because the top rails create a gap behind them, I needed a way to make it disappear. Again, we went with the shims. We cut one to the exact width of the top rail and glued it on.

We let it dry and then installed it. With a little woodfiller, when we go to paint this area should be seamless and appear that the top rail is full thickness all the way to the wall.

That's where we are, folks! I hope in the next month or so we can get back to finishing this project up! I have all new bedding and pillows and everything that I'm dying to add once the painting is done!

Shifting Gears: Fitness

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:19:00 +0000

On top of the various goings-on in our home, I'm going to start posting about the goings-on in life, too. Starting today. We joined a new gym a week or so ago (Lifetime Fitness) and went in Saturday morning for a physical assessment with a personal trainer. A few tests later, I find out I've got 60 pounds to lose (fat ass) and my body age is 44. Um, yeah.

Fast forward through a long conversation about my health and physical activity and there I was, committing to 2 personal training sessions a week for 3 months with my new trainer, Janette. Since I participate in our office group workout twice a week, I needed something to fill in the gap from Friday to Wednesday so I'll be going to Lifetime on Mondays and Saturdays.

This morning was my first session. It was fine....until I nearly passed out, broke out into a cold sweat, had to sit down in front of the air vent with a bag of ice on my neck. Yeah, it was fabulous. Argh. I was disappointed that happened, but it's nothing new - I've experienced it before and know how to get through it, but I always worry that it's going to be the one time I puke all over everything or that I pass out and pee all over myself. Neither happened and I recovered after a few minutes, but I hated it. My trainer understood, and in fact, she had been asking me all along if I was feeling dizzy or light-headed or anything and I wasn't. I assured her I'd let her know if I started feeling that way and I did.

This morning's workout was at 7am (I'm not a morning worker-outer so that may have been a contributing factor). It was at a new place, with a new person, doing new moves and lifts, and I think I just worked one part of my body too much and all the blood rushed from my head. She said she will revise the plan for next time. OH GOOD.

All-in-all, I survived and it was good. I workout with her again on Saturday at 11am this time. I'm also going through some of their tests to tell me how many calories I should eat per day and what my anerobic threshold and aerobic base is. That's Wednesday morning - at 6am. Ouch. The calorie part I just get to sit in a chair, but the cardio part has me on a treadmill for a few minutes. Hopefully I survive that seeing as how I'm to come in having not eaten, no meds, no exercising, no nothing for 10-12 hours prior. Then at a later date, I'm going to meet with a dietician and hopefully between the trainer, dietician, and metabolic specialist they'll be able to get me on the right track to buring some of this fat off with the least amount of work/effort. That sounds lazy, but that's what in their literature!

All this is in an effort to "de-age" my body and get in better shape. The PCOS is reversable with good diet and exercise and I'd love that to happen, but mostly, I just need to be healthier. Our new gym is so crazy nice and awesome, it kind of makes you want to go there and be around all the niceness so here's to hoping for success (and much less ass)!

New End-of-the-Bed Bench

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 17:46:00 +0000

It's taking me much longer to make progress on our wainscoting than I had hoped. Currently, it's still looking exactly like it did in my previous post. Boo. We've had family in from out of town, funerals to attend (too many! it needs to stop!), and of course, work. I hope to tackle the caulking this weekend. Spoiler Alert: I may HIRE someone to do the painting. DIY'er pros, don't hate!

Aside from that, my birthday present from my hubz arrived today. He was there to receive it (since I have to work on Good Friday, grrrrrrrrrrrr) and he sent me this pic!Looks like some(westie)one is feeling recovered after her dental cleaning yesterday. Hmmmmmmmmmmm?

This is the Lola Bench from Z Gallerie.

Since upgrading to a king-sized bed, we haven't upgraded our end-of-bed seating and the one we were using was looking kind of squat. We mostly use this end-of-bed seating as an easy way for our preshus doggie to get on and off the bed. Before we got our new bed, we had the end-of-bed bench at the side-of-bed because the footboard was so tall preshus doggie couldn't clear the footboard from the bench. Alas, the new bed. Yes, we got a new bed because our DOG couldn't get up on it from the end. We are smitten with her, what can I say?

I chose this one after a long hunt for the perfect thing. This bench is about 2 inches taller than our current, but one inch shorter than our footboard. It's wider and will stand up more to the size of our king bed. It's color is listed as "pewter gold" and on the web site it seems to be a shimmery gray. Hubz says it's straight up gold, but what does he know? I haven't seen it in person yet, but I'll post more pics later and especially when we get the room all done and have a big reveal of the whole picture!

Happy Easter, all!

Board & Batten Wainscoting Project: Part Two

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:51:00 +0000

Quick little update!

Nothing too exciting to report yet, but we were able to apply the top ledge piece to the wainscoting last night.
It was by far the easiest part we've tackled so far! Everything went according to plan and it only took us about 30 minutes to get it up (that's what she said).

Basically, we started with the corner that sticks out. As I mentioned in Part One, we decided we were only going to tackle the mitred corner on that one spot since it's our only corner that sticks out. We took the ledge piece and held it in place on top of the top rail. From underneath, I scribed the corners where the two top rail pieces met. You can see my mark in this photo:
Then we lined up our laser line on the saw at the point those lines intersected and cut a perfect 45 degree angle. Then we held that piece in place and scored the angle for the other side (we knew this would not be a perfect 45-45 corner). It worked pretty well! Since our walls aren't perfect squares, there was a small space in between the 2 pieces, but nothing I wasn't expecting or that a bit of wood filler and sanding wouldn't resolve. I took some pictures of my corner, but they were blurry so look for those in an upcoming post.

After we got that corner situated, we cut any remaining pieces and attached them. We used construction adhesive all along the top of the top rail, then placed the ledge pieces on top and used the brad nailer to secure to the top rails. Originally, we felt like we'd have to use the finishing nails and toenail them into a stud, but after thinking about it and researching online, we decided that the brad nailer and adhesive would be fine. After all, this top piece is just decorative and not heavy. The adhesive should hold it up there!

You can see in this photo that there is a small space between the wall and the trim piece.These are both just facts of life when you're dealing with imperfect walls and imperfect trim. Again, caulk will come to the rescue soon enough!

BTW, here's a shot of the saw we got:Nothing fancy, but it's working perfectly for this job. It probably won't cut anything wider than 4 inches, but at $90, we thought it a bargain to be able to do all our own cutting!

Up next: Priming everything!

Board & Batten Wainscoting Project: Part One

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:42:00 +0000

I'm so excited to share this project with the internet even if no one ever reads this post!

This past weekend, I FINALLY started what I consider a "major" project in the house. I decided a while ago that board and batten wainscoting in our master bedroom would be a charming addition to an otherwise, personality-lacking room.

Our master is a decent size. We can easily fit a king-sized bed in there, plus 2 night stands, a wing back chair in the corner (whose sole purpose is to hold my pile of clothes) and a gigantic 11-drawer dresser. There's not too much space, but it's just right. No excess - the way we like it.

However, we have A LOT of uninterrupted wall space. Nothing something I usually complain about, but in this room it's made it difficult for me to pick and commit to a paint color. It seems that ANY paint color I pick feels like way too much for long periods of time. The only wall with interruption is mostly windows, the other two main walls are floor to ceiling (9.5') plain walls.

When I finally realized why the room wasn't rubbing me right, I decided board and batten would break up the room and lessen the impact of a paint color by adding an architectural detail that would be painted some shade of white. I'm definitely not afraid of color, but this room really showcases color and that's just not the feeling I'm going for in my master bedroom.

Sooooo, on to the details of the project.

First, the SUPPLIES:
1. For the "slats" as we call them - or the vertical pieces - we used simple lattice pine. It comes in 16' pieces and we had them cut into 4, 4' pieces. We have B&B in other rooms of our home and on close inspection we determined this was the same material used by the builder.
2. For the top rail (3.5 x 8') and top ledge piece (2 x 8"), we cheated a little and bought pre-primed, pre-sanded pine boards. *They cost a bit extra, but in comparing the raw pine, I saw how much work they would take to get sanded and puttied and decided the extra dough was TOTALLY worth it.

3. Construction adhesive (we went with Loc-Tite)

4. 1.25" brad nails

5. 2" finishing nails

6. Nail set

7. Wood filler (We used Elmer's Carpenter's Interior/Exterior Wood Filler since it is paintable, sandable, easy to clean up, and solvent-free)

8. Paintable caulk & caulk gun

9. Kilz Clean Start, Zero VOC primer (we went with this primer since John & Sherry at Young House Love found it to be the only primer that successfully blocked out wood stains)
The wood alone was about $135 and we only bought enough for one side of the room. We figured we'd buy just what was needed to complete one wall before shelling out the full cost for all the wood for the full project. Just in case anything went awry and we needed to ditch the project. Luckily, that didn't happen!

10. Painters tape (for temporary placement of vertical pieces)

A few extras we bought to fill out our arsenal of tools (which you may or may not already have):

1. Brad nailer (we chose the Rigid brand nailer that was on sale for $70) 2. Air compressor (to run said brad nailer) We went with a model one step up from the cheapeast and got one that can also accept a paint sprayer attachment thinking that could come in handy for spraying furniture pieces later. This one was $100. 3. Mitre saw (sorry, no pic yet, but it's a Ryobi brand saw)
(We got the cheap $90 one that's really only meant to handle trim and small cuts. We have never owned a saw of this type so we thougth $90 was a good amount to spend and get our sawing feet wet without going overboard on the $200 saw the Home Depot dood tried to recommend.)

Prior to starting this project, I did lots of research online and found several bloggers who had done this project. We ended up combining their ideas and recommendations to land on a process that worked for us and our space. I found great tips at the NewlyWoodwards, Centsational Girl, and Vintage Revivals. All very helpful with lots of different tips. The main thing I learned is that everyone comes up with different materials and techniques to get this job done, but it all works in the end. Mostly because you can paint away any differences! YAY!

Things I Did Not Do Even Though Recommended By Many:

1. Pre-prime everything - I'm too impatient to prime first, I was ready to see it come to life!

2. Install top rail first - we maybe should've done this since the cutter at Home Depot clearly wasn't precise (although he couldn't swear to the accuracy of his cuts)

3. Paint the wall first

Oh well. To each his own!

Because I'm a visual girl, I used painters tape to get the slats up on the wall for a quick preview. By no means did I try to place them perfectly. I used this step to make sure the slats were a good height (I didn't want to create the illusion that I divided the wall in perfect halves). Doing this also allowed us to rule out the use of some slats that were obviously warped from left to right and would be unfixable. All this before we applied adhesive and nails and had to rip it from the wall! In preparation, we decided our slats would be approximately 8" apart. We landed on 8" because this is the same as the other rooms in our house. This part is chose your own adventure. We didn't feel it was super important to space them to the exact millimeter since I assumed at some point I'd come across an outlet or something that would muck up our measurements. So we started with the slat that would have to go between the light switch and outlet on our first wall. See? The first slat that went up is the second one from the left pictured above. Then we applied the one on the left of the light switch and after that we went around the room to the right.

We dove right in. Then, hit the brakes and had to regroup. It happens to us all, right? Read on, my friend.

First, we applied a good amount of construction adhesive to the back of the slat. Upon putting it up on the wall, it all oozed out and we realized we were using WAY too much. So we removed it and wiped it off as best we could - this explains the haze on the wall in the picture above. Not fun, but it was pretty easy to clean up since the adhesive has a 10 minute working time.

We tried again using less construction adhesive and it worked much better: We followed the steps of applying construction adhesive, measuring an approximate 8", and placing the next slat on the wall. Then the hubs would come in with the brad nailer as I held the level and would tack it to the wall permanent-style. Along the way, we realized that the best way to ensure the slats stayed level was to apply construction adhesive, shoot the first brad in the middle of the board and then check level at the bottom of the board, shoot another brad, and then recheck level at the top of the board and shoot a brad into the top. After that, we'd go back and double up the brads at the top and bottom. It was amazing how much play there was in level and explained why we had to pull the first few slats we installed and re-do them. Oops.

LEVEL, LEVEL, LEVEL! is the best advice I can give for the vertical pieces if you're using a soft, flexible wood like we used.

"DUH, you guys!" Even Three knew that!
Our original plan for putting up the top rail was just to sit it on top of the slats. However, when we tested it, it was clear that there was an annoying difference in height between the slats (in some cases up to a quarter of an inch) that couldn't be filled in with caulk without looking obviously stupid and rigged.

A bit of panic set in as we began to brainstorm ideas. Everything seemed like it was going to halt our progress and I hate that! Could we cut through the lattice with a utility knife and remove excess on the taller ones? Should we have the back side of the top rail routed out to create a channel in which to hide the different height slats? Nothing sounded easy. Until my genius kicked in.

I realized that we could place the top rail OVER the top front of the slats and just cover up their tops and their differences. Yes, it would sit out from the wall the depth of the slats, but no biggie - that would be covered by our top ledge piece. VOILA! Here's what it looks like:Not too shabby, right? I was pretty pleased with myself.

For this step, we used finishing nails and tried to nail through to a stud as much as we could. We also nailed through the slats in some place because it made things seem more solid and stable. Then I sunk the nails with a nail set and filled in with wood filler.Again, during this process we checked level over and over and over. And over.
We made no attempt to get all fancy with mitred corners and instead opted for the good old-fashioned butt joint. From my original inspection of our pre-existing B&B wainscoting, this is what was done. We'll break out the skillz when we put on the top piece (but only on the corner that sticks out in the pic above). I really see no point in possibly ruining a pricey piece of wood when I'm just going to caulk and paint the joints anyway. If we were staining, sure, I'd make it purtier, but for now, this works for us.

I filled the remaining holes with wood filler and let 'er dry.The top ledge piece still needs to be installed. Everything needs to be sanded, caulked and primed before the painting can start. This is going to be a long, tedious project, but I knew that going in. Just like I know the results are going to be awesome and so worth it!

Stay tuned for Part Two!

Kitchen Kandy

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:14:00 +0000

I've been googling up a storm looking for tile ideas for a variety of areas in our house. In looking for backsplash ideas for the kitchen I came across some photos that got me to drooling!

I've tried to give credit where i could, but a lot of these photos were found on others' blog posts and they had no source so forgive me! If anyone spot their photo here, please let me know - I'm happy to give credit where credit's due! Especially for these beautiful spaces.

*You should notice a theme with these kitchens and get an idea of the direction I'm thinking of going with our small re-dos.*

I found this kitchen on Color Outside the Lines.

This one got me with its storage capacity. Oh, what I could do with that much storage and beautiful glass-front cabinet. Yum. I love that it looks like a huuuuuge piece of furniture squeezed in next to the other charcoal-grey cabinets. The fact that it's white makes it all the more glorious and huge and I love it's contrast with the flooring. Muah!

Here's another lovely that I found on multiple sites, but again Color Outside the Lines had it with additional photos from other angles as well.

How do I love thee, let me count the ways:
1. Black lowers, white uppers.
2. Herringbone tile pattern.
3. Tile color with fairly wide grout line punched up with white grout.
4. Black paint on french doors and pantry (?) door.
5. Gigantic light fixture over pretty country table.
6. Um, hi. The wine storage? Yes, please.

This kitchen is the bees knees to me. I really love every bit of it. And TRUTHFULLY, I just paused to google some more and came across this post by Ruby Press who pretty much took the words right out of my mouth (er, even though I'd already typed them ... whatever! we agree! YAY!).

OHMIGOD

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:13:00 +0000

FEAST YOUR EYES UPON THIS:

So yesterday, I get home from work, plop down on the couch and start watching a really interesting episode of "Dateline: Hard Evidence." By the time the hubs got home, I was sleepy and thought I'd take a little nap. So off I went...

When I woke up, I made myself a bowl of Special K Red Berries and started eating. I was on the couch (obviously, where else do you eat?) and I picked up my phone to see what was new. With a mouth full of cereal I saw an email from "John Petersik" and I nearly choked as I begane to realize why Mr. Young House Love has emailed me. (It was one of those moments where I saw his name in my list of emails and thought "I know that name..." and then "Why is this fun blogger emailing me?...." and then "OMG. I think I know...." and then I scan the email with darting eyes looking for the key words to confirm what I already suspected and then... [read above]).

I FREAKING WON THEIR GIVEAWAY FROM THE TILE SHOP, YOU GUYS.

A whole $1500 giveaway! I said (with ceral in mouth) Ohhhhhh. Myyyyyyy. Gooooooooood. Hubs was kind of freaking out thinking I might have some horrible news or something so I quickly shared the GOOD news.

I put down my cereal to quickly reply (because they'll give it to a runner up if you don't respond withing 72 hours). I wasted no time in at least accepting my prize. My cereal got a little soggy in the process, but it was worth it!

I'm still in shock! I haven't won anything cool since I was in 2nd grade and won the grand prize bike at the Fall Festival at my elementary school in a raffle drawing. Oddly, when I saw the giveaway, I quickly entered (I don't always enter their giveaways) and thought this one had my name written all over it. I mean, I have had so many ideas for tile jobs all over our house. The kitchen backsplash, replacing the fireplace surround, even the master bathroom floor. And $1500 can go a looooong way. Maybe if we're smart, we can take on more than one project.

Here's the post announcing my win.

I wonder if I'll ever remove John's email from my inbox?....Nah, not anytime soon :)

The Master Bedroom Makeover

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 19:50:00 +0000

First, I'm back! Well, we'll see.

Second, I'm embarking on an adventure in making over our master bedroom! I'm hoping that by putting this information out into the universe that it will cause this project to take center stage and actually get done! That's assuming that I've still got readers out there. I wouldn't blame you for leaving since I've not posted since October (shame!).

I'm posting this from work and don't have access to all my pictures so this poor, sorry excuse for a photo from one of our first visits to the house before we closed will have to work as a visual.

First, erase those awful "curtains" and remove the headboard from the photo. There! Now you've got our room sans furniture! The room boasts 9.5 foot ceilings, a sizable footprint and large bank of lovely windows that overlook our front yard. It's a great room. Plenty of space, plenty of canvas for my little hands.

I have tried to paint the room twice now. Once, I painted the wall around the windows a lovely shade of red as an accent wall. Here's a more furniture-rich, lights-turned-on kind of photo for you.
BUT, I'm a bedding whore and I've since switched my bedding out countless times and the red was really locking me into a color scheme.

Currently, our bedroom is painted - in full - a shade of green that's lovely. But after 6 months of it though, it's growing tired. Due to the ceiling height and fact that there are 2 large, completely uninterrupted walls in our room, any color choice for the walls ends up being quite a committment. It's just SO. MUCH. of any shade. Even if it was a nice neutral beige!

Cue the angels singing. Recently, I've been on a complete mental tear about "should we move?", "what renovations/upgrades can we make....NOW?", "why can't I make my master bedroom the haven I desire?" I've been a mess. But I'm constantly inspired by my fave bloggers over at Young House Love and their "make things look easy" way about them has prompted me to strive to put up ..... WAINSCOTING..... in our master bedroom!

YAY! I know we can do it! It will cut the walls in half and allow for more interest in the room instead of huge sheets of walls painted one GIANT color. Here's the plan:
1. Get rid of GIANT bed and replace with Farmhouse Bed from Pottery Barn.
2. Use MDF to create faux wainscoting a la Thrify Decor Chick.
3. I plan on painting the wainscoting either white or some shade thereof. Then the walls - possibly a grey. I'm undecided at this point.

I want to start this project ASAP, but as usual, the first weeked after my brilliant idea is chocked full of activities and I doubt we'll be able to do more than plan and perhaps buy and have cut the MDF.

Stay tuned! I promise to post this project in all its glorius phases!

Going Grey...er, Gray

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:41:00 +0000

I updated the ole blog a bit. It might be kind of hard to read now, but whatever. Not like I have any actual readers anymore (or ever).

I've been going through a fairly major style overhaul at home. It all started when we decided (again) to get rid of our couch/sectional.

See, we have a tiny living room with no full walls. Here's the best view I have, pre-move in.

The wall on the right is our most "full" wall. The other walls consist of a fireplace with built-ins, windows, and the "wall" at which I stood to take this photo is not really a wall at all. It's our "foyer"/"connection spot" to the dining room. See? No walls to work with.

Basically, we've gone through 3 couches to date. Right now we have one we are quite happy with and are waiting for another to arrive in early November.

Getting back on track, the style makeover has moved from traditional/arts & crafts to mid-century modern. I have so many colors in my house, I just up and decided to go grey - all grey. With pops of color in the accessories to liven things up.

Here's the dining room timeline of color:

Green upon move-in

Watermelon was my first repainting.

Now we're at grey. And I love it. Really love how calm the grey is with the white wainscoting.

Now I'm moving to redo the hall bathroom. AGAIN.

Last time, we ended up here:
Now that I'm going grey, I decided I wasn't crazy about all the color in the wainscoting but wasn't ready to go back to white yet. So I'm going white on the walls, and a softer grey (high gloss) on the wainscoting. Am very excited. After I thought of the idea, I search google for images just to confirm my stroke of genius and found this. I'm going a little darker, but you get the idea:
Going back to the dining room (am all over the place in this post), we're overhauling everything in there in addition to the paint. We've sold our trusty Target mission-style chairs that always seemed too small and temporary. Last week, I scored 6 vintage dining chairs at my fave used furniture warehouse for $140. Here's 4 of them. Don't hate. I'm going to whip them in to shape soon! We lucked out and found 3 more very similar chairs while we were there and bought 2 of them as well.

I'd to paint the chairs red and recover (and recushion!!) with a black and white chevron fabric a la this pic: Then I'm thinking 2 of these for either end of the dining table:
So, I've got my hands full. We have really come up with lots of great ideas for renovation and redecoration of the house. Some BIG projects, some small that we can tackle now. It's been kind of amazing. I've come up with all sorts of ideas on my own and then I've randomly bumped into my idea in real life just by chance. Take this photo I stumbled across in the most recent Crate & Barrel catalog

Not only is it totally mid-century-inspired, but see the whole stone wall with fireplace? Yeah, we've been bouncing around the idea of taking our our current fireplace and built-ins and replacing it with a free-standing fireplace or stove and putting in shallower built-in shelving under the windows. Just to free up about a foot or more floor space and give us more feeling of space in general.

Just a few of my crazy ideas and decorating that's been going on a 415. As always, stay tuned. I'll post pics at these projects come to life!

Rug steal

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:05:00 +0000

Why yes, that IS a 100% wool 9x12 rug we found for $199 at Home Goods. Why do you ask?

It's not everyone's bag, but it works perfectly with our new color scheme and the price was beyond right!

Mid-Century Makeover

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 23:48:00 +0000

Our living room is going mid-century modern. I'm so excited. Couch has been ordered and we got this fab coffee table over the weekend. The plan is laid out. Can't wait until it's complete! Stay tuned!!

Sadly...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:48:00 +0000

....I may have to retire this blog. I used to have time at work to post entries, but now, working in the land of billing and time keeping, blogging at work really isn't in the cards.

BUT.

Don't cry. I've got a new tumblr account and am going to try that to keep you nosy people up on the happenings in our lives and home.

Check me out here kelleytime.tumblr.com. I think I can manage to post a picture and a quick comment from work more easily than taking 30 mins or more to post an entire entry.

YAY! or YAY?

News Flash: I'm Not Dead

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:00:00 +0000

It's been a totally obscene amount of time since I last posted, but I've got excuses, y'all!

1. I started my new job at super law firm, which equals timekeeping, which equals no more free time at work to blog and the like.

2. I started my new job at super law firm, which equals new routine, which equals tired blogger come 5:00pm.

3. I started my new job at super law firm, which equals....well, it equals mental chaos.

4. STARTED. NEW. JOB.

Are we clear?

I have some home projects on the brain. It's been so long since I've shared any projects in the house, I've been so proud of my husband and his app success! However, I have a 4 day holiday weekend coming up July 4th and said hubby will be out of town with his family (no vacation time for first 90 days of new job = me can't go) and I have some projects up my sleeve. They include paint and new bedding. YOU THOUGHT THE DUVET ISSUE HAD BEEN SETTLED? You're so naive.

I also have the cutest new piece of furniture to show you. The pictures of which are still on the camera. I think I took those 2 weeks ago. See. New Job. No Time. I'll give you a narrative sneak "peak" - it's a side table, top is bean-shaped, has 2 drawers, and the most beautiful shapely legs. Also, it's painted a melon color so close to my dining room color it's silly. Will post pics soon! SWEAR!

Lastly, I can't pass up the chance to brag on the hubs once again. He went for a few weeks there without press, but then out of nowhere, my new BFF, Charlie Sorrel, wrote this article for WIRED!
You've heard of WIRED, right? Such a cool magazine! We love Charlie!

And then Lifehacker, after taking a poll to get the top 5, has this great little write-up and chance to vote for your favorite of the Five Best Mobile Podcast Catchers. Downcast is in the top 5. YAY! You're supposed to be able to vote, but I honestly can not figure out HOW to vote. BOO!

So that's life around here. Work is going well (I've got BUSINESS CARDS!) and I've got so much to learn it makes my head spin. I can't wait until it's a year from now (maybe sooner) and I look back on this time and laugh at how easy all this stuff I view as hard is/was.

And Again!

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Fri, 20 May 2011 18:58:00 +0000

Go to 11:55.

Bragging on my Husband

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Fri, 13 May 2011 18:29:00 +0000

Of all the days for Blogger to go down (that's what she said), why did it have to be today? This morning, I was chomping at the bit to share some exciting news and Bloggers was MIA!

My preshus, smartie-pants hubby has made me all kinds of proud today!

Check out the video below for a comparison of his iOS app, Downcast (my sole sponsor on the right), versus one of his competitors. To see the full comparison start at 38:36, but if you want to skip to the goods go to 42:46.

Now, for those of you that don't know (probably ALL of you because I hardly know) the man in the video is Leo Laporte and is the mind behind Twit and all its podcasts and stuff that my husband enjoys nerding up on in his spare time. My hubby's app has been available in the app store for several months and he's done pretty well for an app with hardly any "press." He's been selling anywhere from 15-30 apps per day which brings in a handy chunk of extra change each month.

So imagine my surprise when he comes into the bathroom this morning while I was still in the shower (this never happens) and tells me he sold a whopping 110 Downcasts yesterday. I believe I responded, "Shut up. You did not." because we like to exaggerate for no reason sometimes. But lo, he was actually NOT kidding. I kinda freaked, but did so quietly.

He proceeds to tell me that some dood named @psxmac apparently tweeted to Sarah Lane (the lovely young lady who is actually comparing the apps in the video) that she should check out Downcast in addition to the "other" podcast app she was reviewing. Hence, the segment. And Downcast won. We are in love with @psxmac and Sarah Lane.

Tomorrow morning will reveal the number of sales for today, but really, how can it get better than 30 to 110?!?! To put into perspective for those of you who might be unimpressed based on lack of knowledge, from my a little bet less lack of knowledge point of view, seeing my husband's app reviewed on iPad Today was a little like seeing your product on Oprah's Favorite Things list. That's how it feels to me anyway. Hubs might not think it's THAT big of a deal, but I do and ...

I'M SO PROUD!!!!

Older and Pottery-Wiser

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Wed, 11 May 2011 13:47:00 +0000

When I was younger, my parents would often take us to the mountains during the summer. I did not like the mountains, I wanted to go to the beach. I thought the mountains were boring.

Oh, that naive little girl.

Now that I'm all grown up and wise, the mountains for me are a relaxing retreat that I don't get to enjoy nearly enough!

Where am I headed with this? Well, during that time as a youngin' the mountains meant my mom was going to drag me to all these stores that seemed to sell nothing but pottery. Boring 'ole home-thrown pottery from North Carolina. Snooooooze fest!

Again, how naive was I?

I've slowly and steadily becoming smitten with pottery. My mom has a collection, but my MIL has a SIZEABLE collection. They both have certain colors they gravitate towards. My mom loves the blues and browns, and my MIL loves the purples, teals, and blues. I'm right there in the middle and I'm slowing trying to grow my own collection.

Pottery is a big thing in North Carolina and it's nice to know I can get some beauties right in my own backyard. However, there's another beauty out there called etsy and sellers from across the globe sell their goodies to those who might not be so lucky to buy them locally.

I've been browsing the last few days and have fallen head over heels for these pieces by Darshan Pottery in Vermont.

Check them out:

The black is striking! I love the twisting of the blues.

I love the shape of this mug.

These are chili bowl/mugs. I want some chili now just so I can eat from these cuties!

Are you all in love yet? You should be. The black pottery is amazing.

But the colors are gorgeous, too!

One of my favorite NC potters is Steve Williams. I have a growing collection of his work in my home. My mom got me hooked when she randomly brought home some of his pieces after she visited Hendersonville, NC for a work trip. He has an adorable "Moon & Stars" pattern that is so lovely I can hardly stand it. I'm had to force myself to only share a few of his pieces with you. I would post them all if I didn't think it would bore my readers to tears.

I own this piece. It's a baking dish, but I have it on display.

I gifted the sugar and creamer set to my mom for Christmas a few years back along with a long, slim tray they sit on. They are precious.

Mom also has a couple of these unique votive holders. They are grand fun.
And the mugs! How cute is their shape! I don't drink coffee or have much use for mugs, but I could collect them in a heartbeat!
This is my hope and dream. I want these canisters like Three wants a Beggin' Strip. BAAAD.
Also this:

I found some other gorgeous jewels that I'd love to bring home with me. Etsy is the bomb, I swear. Here's some more eye-candy from some of my fave etsy shops.

First up JD Wolfe Pottery
Dang mugs! They get me every time!
Ah, but this tumbler I could actually USE!

Shut up, yes they have heart-shaped bowls. In lots of colors. Presh.

This pitcher would blend swimmingly with another I got in Blowing Rock last year. I love the handle. This one is from Suzanne's Pottery Farm.

And lastly, Rising Sky Pottery. They have yellow pottery for which I died.

Shut up, it's a mug. I know. I KNOW.

And this little guy is just gorgeous. He belongs to Hughes Pottery.

Now wipe your chins and get back to work.

The Beautiful Truth: Perseverance

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Wed, 11 May 2011 12:28:00 +0000

I've posted a bit of yuck here lately, but today I've got some good news.

Scratch that. GREAT news.

I'm so proud to announce that I've FINALLY landed a position as a REAL LIFE Paralegal!

I've kept it kind of hush hush because it seems each time I tell the world that I've applied for a position or even gotten an interview for a position I have to come back and tell how I didn't get the job or wasn't even considered for the job. Perhaps a little modesty helped this time.

A few weeks back my division of 9 people found out that there was a legislative proposal to retain only 3 positions in our division and eliminate 6. Immediately I thought I was once again going to lose my job. Oddly enough, on that very same day, I received a job posting through my paralegal program alma mater regarding an opening for an entry-level paralegal. Understand, this NEVER happens. I've struggled to find jobs that require anything LESS than 3-5 years of experience since I graduated from the program, and they just don't exist. I jumped on this bad boy immediately.

A very few short days later (we're talking 2 or so), I get a call from the firm's paralegal manager who is based in Atlanta. He and I had a nice phone interview (my first ever) and he told me the next step would be to schedule in-person interviews to the candidates who would move on after the phone interviews. To my great surprise, I got a call from the Raleigh Office Administrator a couple days letter scheduling an interview.

Last Wednesday, I nervously went to my interview but was pleasantly surprised by how relaxed, comfortable, and welcome I felt almost immediately. I met with the Office Admin and the one other paralegal in the office. Both chats went great. The next day, I sent a thank you email like a good interviewee and got a response back asking me to come in to meet with one of the partners. WEE! So, Monday morning I went back in to meet with him and again had a wonderful meeting.

I knew they were checking my references and that's always a good sign, but since I've never worked in the private sector I really had no idea how companies handle their hiring. Maybe they were checking references of others? All kinds of ideas were swimming through my head.

But then. YESTERDAY. I got a call from my good buddy back in Atlanta offering me the position and I accepted right then and there on the phone. He told me I had been his secret first pick and then when the interview team said the same thing, they decided I was perfect and offered me the job. How flattering to hear that and that they "were honored" to have me join their team.

I've been waiting for this for 3 years. I felt like giving up so many times assuming I'd never find a job opportunity at any decent place that was willing to take a beginner. But clearly, this is the Lord's GIANT hand at play here. Perseverance and patience (even though I didn't feel patient at times) has paid off. I can only hope that the experience at the new firm is the cherry on top.

I'm excited, nervous, scared and totally THRILLED to start this journey in my career.

The Ugly Truth about Mother's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:19:00 +0000

I've debated all morning about whether or not to post about Mother's Day 2011. I'm sure my husband will read this and tell me I should take it down before someone runs to my mom telling her to read her daughter's blog. But I decided that this IS MY blog and I'll write what I feel. I'll write what I can't seem to say to anyone other than my husband and God love him, sometimes that's just not enough. Other ears and hearts should be open to hearing what I feel and think, but for the past 10 years, those ears and hearts seem closed and not accessible which has caused me a lot of pain.

All week last week I saw girls replacing their Facebook profile pictures with pics of their dear mothers, or pics of them with their dear mothers and reading wall posts about how great and wonderful their mothers are and how their mothers are their best friends and blah, blah, blah. I'll admit, this grossed me out and made me feel nothing but ickyness toward those people. Clearly, it's not that I think a mother-child relationship is icky, but I know in my heart, it's jealousy.

Many of you know that almost 10 years ago my dad became brain-injured after open-heart surgery at the WORLD HELL-HOLE of a medical center and the same one WHO RUINS FAMILIES' LIVES, Duke University Medical Center. I cringe to even type those letters. Over the course of the past 10 years, I've watched my mom care for my dad, continue to work 40 hour work weeks, travel for work, and still try to be normal to the best of her ability. She's made it, but not unscathed.

My mom is a broken soul caring for a broken shell of a husband if you even still want to call him that. The story of the 10 years in between is too long and detailed to get into here, but has left me feeling parent-less. Not only did I for sure lose my dad, but his shell has taken my mom from me and has destroyed the mother-daughter future we could have had. I have tried to convey that to her, but I never know if the message gets through because before the conversations are over, the focus turns back to how very hard life is on her.

As selfish as it sounds, my feelings feel meaningless because I know my mom can always trump me. I've not felt there was any room for my feelings in 10 years because no matter what I have felt, my mom has felt it times 1,000. So I've just shut the hell up. I've told Seth and no one else. No one else get its.

You ask what I'm doing for my mom for Mother's Day? How was my Mother's Day? Was it a great day? Did you cook? What did you get her?

Truth: It sucked. She asked for nothing, I gave her nothing. The moodiness and grumpiness and passive-aggressive side in us all came out making for an awkward evening held up SOLELY by my caring husband who wanted nothing more than to diffuse the evening.

I'm guilty of the moodiness sometimes, too, but this time I honestly couldn't have cared less. The night before, I knew my mom was driving back from Cullowhee, NC, which was about a 5-6 hour drive. I texted her to make sure she was driving safely. I got 2 blank texts back. I called her thinking something might have been wrong with her phone and she basically yelled at me. Gee. Sorry I was trying to check to make sure you were driving safely. I won't do it again.

So I was bothered by what seemed to me an over-reaction. The "woe is me" vibe follows pretty much everyone in my family like a shadow. You never know what you're going to get when they walk in the door, myself included on occasion.

Mother's Day and certainly Father's Day are only reminders that my family is completely effed-up. That my mother isn't happy and that my father isn't here. That no matter what I do for my mom, it doesn't make her life better. That moods can shift in a matter of seconds bringing the "weather" in the room from sunshine and rainbows to dark clouds and thunder. For no discernible reason.

So, no, we didn't have a good Mother's Day. I just wanted it to end so the interwebs would stop blabbing about it and how great their mother's are. Mine is sad and broken and I miss her.

Excuse Me, This is Fabulous

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Thu, 05 May 2011 19:27:00 +0000

Installment 2 of EMTIF brings 3 semi-OK photos taken by my trusty iPhone. See, sometimes you just might come across something fabulous that's NOT online and an image can't be so easily borrowed. I certainly don't haul my camera to work with me everyday either. So my iPhone and its might mega-pixels are my go-to guys when I just can't wait to share the fab.

As I was flipping through my latest Real Simple, I turned page 121 to see this photo staring back at me from page 123.
Aren't they fabulous? Not only is the photo itself gorgeous, but those glasses are just TDF. I think they're probably a bit large for my face, but I love that they are navy and the white detailing is so classic.

These Alexander McQueen beauties will set you back $325 so don't run out to the sto' just yet.

Mulch Appreciated

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Mon, 02 May 2011 13:17:00 +0000

After four weekends of bad weather, cold temps, and tornadoes, we finally had a perfect weekend to get some much (or mulch) needed yard work started.

Early Saturday morning, my brother came over with his truck and he and the hubs went to our local mulchery (I think I made that word up) and loaded up with 2 cubic yards of lovely brown mulch.
It was a little more than $50 for a loaded truck-bed full and that seemed like a good deal. The last time we mulched we were in our previous house and we went the way of "buying bags and bags from Lowe's" and hated it. It was much better this time and we had the perfect tools to make the job feel like less of a struggle. More on that in a minute.

The hardest part of the day was for the boys - unloading the truck. I have no pictures of this event because I was trying to be helpful, but see if you can visualize. We laid out a large blue tarp on our driveway and the boys proceeded to shovel all the mulch from truck to tarp. It took about 15 minutes or so. I hopped into the truck bed with my trusty yellow broom and swept out what was left after the shoveling. It was fun.

After the great unload, I made a run to Lowe's to get some gloves, a pitchfork and a bow rake.

These are the 2 tools you need to make your mulching experience enjoyable and easy! We decided that using a pitchfork instead of a shovel was like using a spoon rather than a fork to eat yogurt. The pitchfork goes right into the mulch and picks up tons whereas using that shovel only makes it harder on you and you wear yourself out quickly.

Additionally, the rake saved my back. Seth would pitch the mulch into the wheelbarrow, then bring it to me and dump it, and I used the rake to spread it out. SO MU(L)CH easier. We agreed that when you have the right tools for any job, it makes a world of difference. It only took us a couple of hours to put mulch out in the front and down the side of the driveway.

We did have some major weeding to do before we put down the mulch. We had long neglected our landscaping since we uprooted our crape myrtles last summer.

Here's what we started with:

Here's the driveway about half-way through.

And here we are after:

Please ignore our clumpy, spotty grass. We have two types of grass in our yard and will eventually till it all up and start fresh, but I don't think that's in the cards for this year.

There was barely enough mulch to cover the area around our butterfly bush in the backyard, but we managed to spread it thin enough to at least make it look nice:

We planted this guy last fall and were semi-afraid we'd murdered it, but he came back nice and purty a month or so ago and I'm just waiting for his lovely purple cones to blossom! We're going to get more mulch to thicken his bed up and also to spread along the entire right side of our house. (Side note, I'd seriously never even been on the right side of our house until Saturday. Weird, right?) We thought 2 cubic yards would be a ton, but I think we could've used one or two more!

Another long overdue (but not really our problem) project we tackled was thinning out the mess around the bottom of a crape myrtle tree that's technically on our neighbor's property but blocks our view of the street when pulling out of our driveway. Our neighbor's house is actually some sort of a convalescent home and the folks living there don't do any yard work. They have someone that comes by on occasion to cut the grass, but that's about it. The builder/seller of our home told us they wouldn't mind us doing some pruning and in fact they sort of welcomed it.

Again, here's what we started with:

This last shot is me standing in the driveway shooting parallel to the street. All the crud at the bottom totally blocked our view when pulling out into the street. Luckily, we live on a quiet street and it's usually not a problem, but I always worried about people walking and dogs - not as easy to see behind this junk as a car!

We grabbed all the tools we had. Some big ole limb cutters, the FatMax saw, the weed eater and a rake and had at it.

(Pardon my blue picture, I didn't set the white balance and all my pictures came out blue.
This one I forgot to edit. Get over it.)

Here's the after:
Again, this last shot is me standing at the same point parallel to the street as I referenced above. Kind of a big difference, don't you think?

We found all kinds of craziness while cleaning up this area. It looks like the tree has put off a bunch of shoots and most of what we cut away were crape myrtle shoots that were just a pain and not pretty. We even found some lovely monkey grass in there which I insisted we keep. There was even a strawberry in the mix!
I wanted to save the strawberry, but I think the weed eater got him. I'm sure it made for a lovely snack for one of the birds that was hopping all through the grass on Saturday!

Last but not least, we sawed down this dead tree on our neighbor's property. It's clearly dead so we figured it wasn't ours, but who would want a dead tree in their yard?

He smelled good after we cut him, though!

There was one area we didn't get to that's our next small project.

This area is right at the end of our fence and right on the edge of the driveway and we think is technically ours. We wanted to mulch around it but ran out before we could get to it. The main tree in that clump is a pecan tree and it litters its goods all over our driveway in the fall. There's also some lovely irises there and although you can't really see it, they have some pretty purple flowers on them right now. We really need to rake that area out and give it some fresh mulch.

Also on our to-do list for the yard:

Mulch the right side of the house (I also want to plant lots of hostas down that side, too.
Have stump grinders come in and rid us of the stump left over from last year's great tree murder.
Plant plants! We've done nothing but take out. It's time to put in!

My new BFFs

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:18:00 +0000

I'm on a roll. The younsters are my new BFFs. I'm unstoppable. I just can't help but share.
But seriously, I commented on the most amazing birth story post I've ever read. Three weeks shy of their little one's first birthday, Sherry shared the story. I couldn't believe they'd kept it under wraps for so long. I think the jaws of their entire audience dropped yesterday. Lucky folks, I tell ya. Go read it, but take some tissues. I don't have kids and it gave me chills.

Clara's Birth Story over at YoungHouseLove.

Rolla Coastaaa....of Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 19:52:00 +0000

Ok folks, I suppose I owe you an update on the job situation.

First, last week, "they" (whoever that is) revealed to our division which three people/positions would be retained by the budget proposal. Tuesday morning, I notice my boss was inviting a few people to meet with her in the conference room around 10:30. At the time, I was busy and I didn't really notice who all she had invited. I assumed she would be taking us in one by one all day to break the news that we'd no longer have our jobs soon.

She asked me to cover reception while they were in the meeting. It may seem odd that I couldn't tell that I was all alone, but our suite is made up of cubes and some times I can go almost a whole day without laying eyes on my co-workers even though they are 2 feet away from me. So I was blissfully clueless and just figured my time would come.

After the morning meeting, I went back to my co-worker and said, "What's the meeting about? Is this where she tells us we're all getting the ax?" And she replied, "No, it's when she tells us that the positions that were saved were hers (the directors), the investigator's and MINE."

WHAAAAAAAAAA?

I was kind of sickened. ME? I have been an examiner the least amount of time compared to my four other counterparts. I feel BAD. Really bad, and I still do. Me, who has been doing this since October? Just 6 little 'ole months? The other 4 have been here for several years, some have been instrumental in reorganizing the work flow up in this piece!

When it was my turn for a meeting, it was me and the other two retainees. Aside from being outright dissed for "not having seniority over the others and yet SHE gets to stay???", I realized my selection had nothing to do with ME. It was all about the numbers. I get paid the least out of all my counterparts. The receptionist gets the very least, but they don't need one of those when they move our division. So that's the trade-off I guess? Been there the least amount of time? Get paid less?

It's simple. I got saved because I'm cheap.

For now, this is all a big 'ole proposal. Nothing is set in stone until the final budget bill is signed into law. But still, we all wonder who is going to change things so drastically before July for our division? I think we all (including me) don't see that happening, but you never can tell.

On the flipside, I have an interview with a law firm next Wednesday. I'm excited about it, but not expecting anything. A rare entry-level paralegal position was advertised and I jumped on it. I got the posting the day we found out about our division being slashed. Entry-level paralegal positions don't come around often because firms and lawyers don't have time to train you. I'm hoping for the best, but trying not to get my hopes up. Of course, I will break the news here as soon I know anything.

I Heart YHL & I'm Famous

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:45:00 +0000

Seriously, this just made my day. I heart YoungHouseLove!

Excuse Me, This is Fabulous

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:39:00 +0000

In an attempt to brighten my currently dark and depressed soul, I've made an executive decision to start a new post them called, "Excuse Me, This is Fabulous." Whenever you see this post title, be prepared for greatness.

I made this executive decision while browsing etsy for an iPad cover or sleeve and came across this made by EightSeasons:

It's leather and $78 and I can't afford it, but it's so adorable and fabulous I practically said so out loud when I saw it.

I browsed the rest of EightSeason's store and found this. And then I died.

It's $310. Ouch, but fabuous.

Here We Go Again

noreply@blogger.com (Kelley) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:28:00 +0000

While I have a few minutes before the morning mail hits my desk, I have some news to share. It's not the good kind of news, unfortunately, it's the bad kind of news.

Tuesday evening as we were watching our DVR'd shows, Seth was browsing on his iPhone per usual. I never know what he's looking at on there and he does it for long periods of time. I used to ask what he was looking at, now I don't ask as often. But suddenly he piped up and shared with me what he was looking at with the preface of, "I don't know if this is good or bad for you but..." and then proceeds to tell me he's looking at a committee document that proposes transferring three positions from my current division to another state agency and eliminating six positions from my current division. And then there was silence.

Do the math. 3+6 = 9. We actually have 8 employees in our division. The 9th person was actually promoted shortly after I started this job and while he still has a hand in our business, he's not full time with our division so he probably won't be affected by this change. However, again, going back to the math, it seems our division has been proposed to be completely demolished.

How did I get here? How did I get in the position of ANOTHER one of my jobs being eliminated? How can this be happening? All the while, my husband has been worrying about losing HIS job because of rumors of being outsourced?

For a while there, it seemed I was actually the safe one. Then overnight it's almost the opposite without question. I'm staring down the barrel of a gun whose sole purpose is to render me unemployed. Again? Maybe if I hadn't taken a job working with Satan for a supervisor the first time around, I wouldn't know what it was like to be let go from a job. But I know. I have only been re-employed for 14 months. I'm not ready to go through that ordeal again. I'm not ready for my husband to possibly lose his job.

It's kind of hurtful because when you have to tell people you lost your job, it's hard not to assume they are wondering what you did to get let go. In both situations, it hasn't been my fault. My first "letting go" was thanks to a snake of a supervisor who (in hindsight) was so jealous and threatened by me, she did all she could to mess with my life and my career. This time, it's purely the work of someone who doesn't even know us or know what this division does or what kind of people we have. This was done by someone outside of the entire department even. It sucks. People calling the shots about your life and work without a clue. Without a care. They just see dollars and they know they have to lessen the amount of them that goes out.

Needless to say we're kinda scared. We're definitely depressed. And we're for sure on an emotional roller coaster. One that's stopped at the top of the tallest, steepest hill, and all we can do is stare down the hill and wonder when the car is going to drop and we're going to plummet to the bottom.