Happy Leap Day!

Hey everyone, we have been given the gift of time this month, a whole extra day! Well, to me it just seems like an extra day of winter and one day longer before March. We booked our trip for Florida and flight prices are CRAZY! We are also renting a Pontiac Solstice convertible while we are down there. Its kinda crazy because my in-laws will have to pick us up and drop us off at the airport because that little two seater won't even fit our luggage! Ha! How terribly impractical, I guess that's why its called vacation.
I am throwing a baby shower for my very close friend Kacey on Sunday. I should be a lot further along with the cleaning and preparing but it will all get done! Now, all I have to do is figure out how to get 23 people in my living room comfortably and how to get 30 hours in a day! Ha! I will try to take some pics of all of the yummy food I am getting!
I hope everyone is well. Remember, even though this is the snowiest February on record here in Mid-Michigan there are always a couple of warm days in March. Oh, and its light out on my drive to work everyday, what a difference the sunshine makes!

Sick of Winter!

I am so so so sick of winter. Yeah, I know I live in Michigan but give me a break! February seems SO long. I am just getting a bit bogged down at work with lots of testing and trying to keep up. We have had several 4 day weeks and it seems that I have to do the same amount of stuff in those four days. I didn't send home the weekly folder I generally send home on Fridays last week because not only did we not have school on Friday but we also had a Valentine's Day party and a whole bunch of other junk and still trying to catch up from all of the snow days from the week before. So now it seems that people are all up in arms about not getting this stupid folder home. There was a note to go home about the Daddy Daughter Dance (which is as big as prom at my school) and it isn't due for like 3 weeks. Well, I am going to send it home this Friday. It isn't the end of the world people!
Okay, enough venting for now. Work is just making me a big batty right now.
Anyway, everything else is going well. I can't wait until we go to Florida. And until then I will just keep dreaming of my VERY favorite day of the year. You know, that first day that you can drive around with the windows of your car rolled down, sunroof open, music blaring with the smell of Spring in the air. I LOVE that day, seriously. I mean, its probably like 55* when I do that but it feels like 85* when we have had such cold days! I hope everyone can keep dreaming about Spring to get them through those cold days we have left.

Our New Table . . .

is gigantic! I mean, really. I was worried that it was going to be big and it REALLY is. But I generally overreact. We used to have a fairly small table in there before so I am used to that room having a lot of space. I think that it is growing on me but at first I was ready to send it back! :) Except I could never send it back because I love it SO MUCH!
It is a mix between mission style and shaker style. Mission style furniture (with its clean lines squared edges) is my favorite. Most mission style tables, however, have a pedistal, which I don't like. But we special ordered our table so we could have whatever we wanted. So we got a mission style top and chairs with shaker style legs. They are a bit tappered and still mimick the mission style. The odd thing is that our table actually has 5 legs. That is because the top is solid oak and over time it would bow due to the weight. So there is a leg in the middle for extra strength. You don't really see it unless you are looking for it because the chairs block the way. It has a redish tint to the stain and it is BEAUTIFUL!
We got two chairs with arms on them for the short ends of the table and four side chairs. The chairs have an indent for comfort on bottoms and the backs ae also contoured for comfort. The top of the chairs comes to a really cool peak and it really gives it some style. We will leave it set up with six chairs all of the time I think. We have a leaf too, but it makes the table almost too big for the room so we will only use it a few times. It only cost about $40.00 though so it was totally worth getting it when the table was purchased.
Here are some pictures of the details:

It is SO F-ing COLD!!

And of course by F-ing I mean FREEZING!!! It was so cold this morning on our walk into church that my lungs ached when we got inside. The sidewalk was a sheet of ice from all of the blowing snow and even though it wasn't snowing the wind made the snow on the ground blow all over! It was so miserable. OH MAN! The thing that makes it worse is that I know that my mom, my sister, two of my aunts and uncles, my grandma, and my cousin are all happily in Florida, enjoying the sunshine. Then they have the audacity to say that 70* is cold. If I could go down there and strangle them I would, but frankly it is too cold to leave the house!!!
Our table is coming tomorrow! We took apart Aunt Pat's old table and put it in the basement today so now the room looks pretty empty. I can't wait to get the new table tomorrow. I am always worried, however, about being home alone with the delivery guy/guys. It seems like it goes against everything I know to invite strange men into my house. I talked to the delivery guy a few times though and he is really nice. I will be just fine, I just get a little overly-paranoid. Too much CSI:Miami and Law and Order *dun-dun*
I hope everyone is warm where they are. At least warmer that we are here. Just think, it will be Spring before we know it. I mean, it will be Easter soon, it should be warm by mid-March, right, HAHAHAHAHA! I can just see all the little girls in their Easter dresses and white sandals all bundled up in snowsuits! Nothing like an Easter Egg hunt in the snow! Gotta love Michigan!
Enjoy your Monday! Just four days with kids this week and then a four day week after that, thanks Presidents for having a day! I will post pictures of our new table soon!

We got a little snow

Well, make that a LOT of snow. By Chad's estimation we got about a foot (though I am sure it looks like a bit more when you are snowblowing it). I had Friday off of work for a snow day, a two hour delay on Tuesday due to fog and today off for snow and ice. Yikes! It hardly feels like I am working anymore. I love it, don't get me wrong, it is just throwing me off! Oh, and now our table isn't going to be delivered until Monday. They are delivering it from Omer which is way up north and the guy said he was going to have to leave there at 6:30 a.m. since he has 6 deliveries down around here. He was worried about the roads and I don't blame him. Oh well, so we will just enjoy our table on Monday instead! I hope everyone is nice and safe and staying off of the roads if they are bad where you are.

My new curtains!

BEFORE:

AFTER:


Well, we got a call on Saturday that our new table is in and will be delivered on Thursday! How exciting! Well, I told myself that the verticals would be down before the table came but I was thinking I had a few more weeks. In light of recent spending events I decided to try to find some less expensive curtains that did cost an additional $15 to ship! So, we went to Marshall's and I found some really great curtains. They are a teal/seafoam color similar to the curtains in the living room. They have a brown velvet ribbon detail along the sides and bottom. The linear nature of it compliments our style well. These curtains are 90 inches long. This means that with our 8 foot ceilings they are only 6 inches from the ceiling and it also means they are 6 inches above the top of the sliding glass door. I know it seems weird but that is the new style. Apparently if you mount your curtains higher on the wall it elongates your ceilings and makes the room appear larger. I have to get used to it I think! We used a large brown rod with heavy brown leather fineals on the ends. I think it makes it look a bit more formal. Here are some pics! Enjoy!