exterior house phase 2

This has turned into a series of activities for the exterior of our house. [will probably continue for years, too]

See phase 1 here.

Phase 2 is way more exciting, to me. I feel like our house is finally starting to look like a 'real' house. We got this guy installed on Friday...

We got our door from Gates Lumber, Co. here in Memphis. We ordered it back at the end of September. It was a long process. Gates gave us the name of a stainer and installer that was awesome. We just need to paint around the frame where the ole iron man framing used to be.

We ordered our hardware from Home Depot...

And they showed up Friday morning, door in hand, and took down the ole iron man and replaced with this beauty. It is just lovely, I think.

Gibson wanted to peek at me and see what I was doing. :)

I can't wait to hang up our Christmas wreath on our new door.

Stay tuned, phase 3 will hopefully be making its debut sometime in December. We are keeping our fingers crossed!

happy happy birthday dad!

Today was my sweet sweet dad's birthday. We got to celebrate with a yummy dinner and strawberry cake from whole foods (after we had already gone to 2 other places looking for cake).

As I have gotten older I have realized just how funny this guy is. He seems to always keep us laughing at every dinner we have at Long Leaf. Tonight was no different. He 'posed' with his cake and moccasins we got him and said, "is this good for a BLOG?"

Hilarious.

The proof is in the pudding.

Happy Birthday Dad. I Love you.

this time last year

This time last year we were here....



It was just lovely. We enjoyed drinks of the day, guacamole, queso and chips on the beach, all the food we can eat, relaxation with nothing to think about except relaxing, beach, ocean, pool, naps, I could go on and on, but I don't want to make myself jealous any longer. Azul Beach was good to us, and we would go back there one day if the chance came around...







Ahh, such nice times. I miss you, honeymoon.

One Year

What a weekend! It was our anniversary weekend this past weekend [Nov 15], and we had a lot planned. The Lotts with their friends came to stay with us and go to the Ole Miss vs. UT game. Hotty Toddy! It was so fun spending time with them and meeting their sweet friends.

Dudley joined them at the game, but I stayed here to attend a wedding for some of our friends from reach group/church. Congrats to the Midyetts, glad we can share a similar wedding weekend!

We had some great plans for Sunday. We were going to spend the day playing with Gibson outside, go on a walk, go eat dinner at one of our favorite places, Do, and then enjoy eating our cake. Sounds awesome, right?!

These plans changed in an instant. I'm waiting in line for food at the reception and my phone rings. It is a number I don't know [which I usually don't answer], but it was a (662) area code so I did. "Martha, it's Tim. Don't freak out. Dudley has gotten sick and we are at the ER."

WHAT?????

How can I stay calm? Dudley thought he was crazy and told me not to come. Yeah right! My sweet sister took me home from the reception and stayed with Gibson until the Lotts got back to our house from Oxford. I headed down there immediately, still not really knowing what's going on with T.

When I got to the ER he was getting up and leaving, so we headed to his parents for the night. He didn't really know what was going on, and they didn't really find anything wrong with him. He felt nauseous, had a terrible headache, his body was tingling and hands were shaking. He said he felt like he was dying. [Let me just say that T doesn't go to the doctor, doesn't like needles, he just brushes sickness off usually and just treks through the pain. I knew it was serious if he told his parents to take him to the ER.]

So yes, we spent the night before our anniversary at his parents. A little change of plans.

Dudley slept for about 12 hours, and I woke him up to see how he was doing. He said he thought he could get up so we could go home. He got up, but instantly felt worse. He slept late into the afternoon, and finally I just said, let's get in the car. You'll probably feel better when we get home. He did it! He got in the car and made it all the way home.

We took it easy the rest of the night, but he did seem to perk up a little more once we got home. It sure was an anniversary to remember! He wanted me to tell this story so everyone would know why he is looking so tired in the photo below.

I wanted to share some of our favorite photos from Nov. 15, 2008. The best day of my [our] life!

[photo courtesy Aaron Snow Photography]

[photo courtesy Aaron Snow Photography]

[photo courtesy Aaron Snow Photography]

[photo courtesy Aaron Snow Photography]

Dudley felt just good enough to enjoy a small slice of our cake. It was wrapped very well because it [surprisingly] tasted so good. It's weird to think about cake that's been frozen for a year. You don't know what to expect, but our cake was so tasty!

All wrapped up...

Lots of saran wrap...

Here is a little reminder of what the cake looked like last year. Beautiful fall cake with perfect leaves falling down the sides.

[photo courtesy Aaron Snow Photography]

It immediately smelled wonderful and sugary, and there she was, in perfect form with 2 leaves still in tact.

My sweet husband got me "paper" tickets to Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles at the Orpheum in January. We played hangman for me to discover what it was. I made him a silhouette of a wedding photo.

It was such a special first year for us. We have already done so much together, and I can't wait to share so much more with him in the future.

Here is our 1 year photo.

I love you, T.

exterior house phase 1

T and I have been showing some TLC to the outside of our house. It was getting to the point that I would pull in the driveway and look at the house and be like, "ugh, it's time. It's time to get rid of the stark white tattered trim and rusty gutters that are causing leakage into our house."

So we bit the bullet. And I mean bit the bullet.

We got our trim painted, and it looks so nice. Painting the muntin bars and the storm windows has totally changed the look of all our windows. New shutters [one day] will change it even more. After 3 different samples for trim color, we chose Sherwin Williams Grecian Ivory, and then we matched the gutter color, herringbone, once the trim was finished. We got our gutters from Bartlett Gutter and they did an amazing job. I love our brand new seamless gutters [as much as you can love gutters]. By the time I got home at lunch yesterday they were done and it hadn't even looked like anyone had been at the house. [except that our house had gutters] Anyway...

Here is a little refresher of what the front looked like on day 1.



Wow. The paint job worked wonders, let me tell you. Next we installed some new porch lights and house numbers. They look great. House numbers and lights from Lowe's.





Nope, still no landscaping. It's sad, but true. I honestly feel though that those bushes were hindering the beauty of those big front windows.

Phase 2 will be coming shortly, like hopefully within the next week. I know y'all are on the edges of your seats in suspense of what it might be.

i am a mother

to a sweet little pup.

He is just the sweetest thing and has been the perfect addition to our little family.

From the time we got him until last week, this was the usual position around 9:30 pm [we are both zonked] at our house... [photos taken with Shakeit by Tdud]


Now he has his own bed and looks so cute curled up on such a big bed for such a little guy. [photos taken with Shakeit by Tdud]


I do miss snuggle times, so sometimes I let him back up to cuddle. He is a wonderful cuddle pup.


You just can't resist this face...


Or this one when you get back from a run... [photo taken with Shakeit by me]


Don't worry, he loves his dad, too. [photo taken with Shakeit by me]


And his dad is pretty much obsessed with him.

I will say that saving this little guys life has been wonderful. We encourage you to do it if you're thinking about getting a dog. We adopted him from an organization in Olive Branch, MS called Save1Pet. All of the dogs they had were so sweet, but we fell in love with our Gibson. Take a look at their animals, and don't worry, they aren't mistreated in an animal shelter. [for those of us in Memphis who know about the recent tragedy at the Memphis Animal Shelter] These pets are in foster homes, and are loved on daily by their foster parents. If you want to hear more about them visit the website or email me!

a round dining table?

Is it November already?

When Dudley and I moved into Fiesta, we knew that we would have an empty house for awhile. All we had from our apt was a couch, chair, ottoman, TV, china hutch, kitchen table, bed, dresser, vanity, desk.

We have added a few things to the mix... new TV console, 2 stacked benches serving as a sideboard in the den, new coffee table, sidetable for the den (borrowed from my parents for a little while), my full bed from college in guest room #1, a tall chest of drawers from college in guest room #1, my old daybed [that I spray painted, remember? still no pinecones, sadly], and the red chair that was in my room at my parents house.

Currently, we have done a few exterior things to the house, and I can't wait to share it all here. Just another week or so and it will be complete [still no landscaping though].

The next piece of furniture that I'm focusing on is a dining room table. This has been discussion between me and T for awhile now, and he is gungho about getting a rectangle one that is kind of farm table-y looking. Well I was right there with him until I realized that A) they are freaking expensive and B) we are limited to the length we could get for such table.

I was at a lady's house in my parents neighborhood for a DG Alum event [yes, I know], and she had a round skirted dining room table. It looked so cozy and so unique. Another reason I like the idea of this is that it is an inexpensive way to get a dining room table that looks nice. We would be able to spend money on nice chairs and not have to fork over the cash for both nice chairs and nice table. Not many people have the room to have one, but I think that the layout of our room is perfect for this. I should have taken a picture, but dodo me didn't think about that at the time. Here are a few I found via google images, sorry I don't have the proper sources.

A little more elegant, but the round and skirt and chairs... Nice.


I little more simple with a glass top. This is what I would want so then you can just wipe it down and it's clean!

Same comment as above. This is more like what I'm going for with color, glass, shape, etc. It just looks cozy to me.


This is lovely. Love the multiple draped layers. Glass over the top, and it would be perfection.


Now this one is very cool, the other side has a cushioned bench. Also, love the double layer of skirts and those chairs.

Another reason this is a plus is you can see everyone when you're chatting at meal times. I grew up at a round table, and I loved how you could always see each person without any straint.

What are your thoughts? I hope Dudley will hop on board so we can start picking out fabrics!