Mr. and Mrs.

Today is our 2 year wedding anniversary! We thank God for bringing us together and for how he's blessed our marriage.

Mexico

S: Zach and I spent last week in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico for the wedding of our friends Bethany and Sam. (Congratulations you guys!) We stayed at the Riu Palace hotel...our first time to stay at an all inclusive resort. Eating at a buffet three times a day really throws off your perception of proper portion size. Here are a few pictures from our trip:

Our room

Outside the resort

Bethany and her bridesmaids

At the reception

Zach's dapper seersucker suit and amazing dance moves. Where am I, you ask? Being my usual wallflower self of course.

At the beach. Luckily no topless women were caught in the background of this shot.

One half bath, a whole lot of work

S: The 1/2 bath is finally done! Thanks to my hardworking husband, the bathroom was ready just in time for the baby shower I helped host the other weekend. Whew! The idea of 25+ women and no guest bathroom on the main floor was a little worrisome. That little bathroom has come a long way, all 15 square feet of it.

Before

Z: Granted, this before photo does not give you a full appreciation for the transformation this little bath received. But maybe it does?! This picture says two things simultaneously: Boring and blue flowerish wallpaper. The room bores you with such frightening severity that I fell asleep taking the photo and that is why you get one lame picture of it.

S: Before, the bathroom was dated and dark. The cultured-marble-seashell-shaped sink was yellowed and cracked with age. The walls were covered in dark blue floral wallpaper. We pretty much gutted the bathroom, removing the vanity, mirror, fixtures, toilet, and a good portion of the drywall. The only thing we left was the built in cabinet above the toilet, which we painted white. Zach tiled the floor where the vanity had been and did a wonderful job painting and installing bead board all along the walls, even though he despises painting. And of course the walls were painted my favorite color, green (no surprise to those of you who know me well). We hung a great antique mirror above the sink, given to us by Zach's stepfather. Some of the decorative trim was missing, but it was nothing a little Sculpey and paint couldn't fix. After a long search for affordable wall sconces (in the exact style I envisioned in my mind, much to Zach's chagrin) we found a perfect pair at the Pottery Barn outlet marked down 60%. The lamp shades came from Garden Ridge for 50 cents each...although I have in mind to recover them with another fabric.

After

S: We'd been planning to remodel the bathroom ever since we moved in, but we had a little extra motivation in the form of a clogged sewer line that backed up into the bathroom. Luckily, we were able to get free HE toilets from the city of Austin, and an affordable pedestal sink from the Habitat for Humanity Restore.

Z: That clogged sewer line! My Malodorous Tale of the Terrible Toilet and the Putrid Plumbing is featured here

Next time you come to visit, feel free to excuse yourself to go to the restroom.

My Malodorous Tale of the Terrible Toilet and the Putrid Plumbing

Z: I won't claim to be an expert, but I must say that the way in which the average toilet attaches to the floor is like some crappy quick fix that just caught on. It's a pretty lame set up: a hole in the floor with a flange, two bolts to keep the whole thing from wobbling, and a big ring of wax to keep it sealed up tight. Not that getting your feces out to the street needs to be a complicated or elegant matter, but the design seems to have some major weaknesses. I mean come on, wax? Really all that keeps your yellow water from flowing out from under the toilet is wax.

So when water started flowing out from under the toilet in this half bath, I thought the wax ring had broken. But once I got the toilet off the floor, I realized we had a completely different problem. The sewer line had backed up from the street and sparkling gray water was sitting in the drain pipe, level with the floor, just ready to spill throughout the whole house like it had done 10 minutes prior. So we hired a plumber to clear the main drain line from the house.

With water freely flowing from our house again the bathroom was ready for the porcelain throne.

But the lament of the plumbing continued as I realized the lead drain stub for the toilet was cracked all the way through and about 8 inches down, meaning sewer water could leak into the concrete foundation from under the wax ring.....crap.....on the floor.

A trip to home depot got me no where, so I ended up at the (highly recommended) Crump Plumbing Supply here in Austin, where the experts scratched their heads as I described my problem. They basically told me I was screwed and not to hire plumber because they wouldn't really know what to do either. Now I have great respect for plumb

er's because they do a technically difficult job and, rightly so, they are paid pretty well for it. But this situation scared me because I was outside the knowledge of the experts, it was all ad -lib from here.

I left Crump's with a PVC replacement piece that eventually solved my problem

I solved the problem but it took several days of cutting lead with a dremel (Lead dust + dust mask = Zach + intact brain), hand chiseling concrete, and applying new concrete. After chiseling all the concrete to fix the problem, the new toilet sits about 3 inches to the right of where the old one sat. After 10 days of intermittent work on the half bath, the room was still empty save for a perfect hole in the ground which no one will ever see.

Athene's Baby Shower

S: This past weekend I helped host a baby shower for my friend Athene. A great opportunity to be crafty and make some handmade decorations and invites!


Invitations. The idea for these came from Jenn. We used fabric, buttons, hot glue, and a sewing machine. Quite a bit of work but they turned out great!


Guest book sign and vintage ceramic baby bottle to hold name tags. I bought the baby bottle on Etsy and was going to use it for flowers, but at the last minute decided it would be a perfect name tag holder. The guest book sign has the same stroller as the invitations. Just a cute reminder for guests to sign the guest book.

Oh boy, a handmade baby banner. I used three types of scrapbook paper, stencils, and a little green ribbon to create a banner for the fireplace. I cut several circles of cream colored paper using wavy scissors. Then, using the stencils, I traced the letters onto the paper and cut them out with an exacto knife. I layered a blue patterned paper behind the cut outs and glued it down to a solid blue paper circle. I made a few holes with a small hole punch and strung green ribbon through for hanging. I also inked up the edges a bit with a stamp pad.

I made lavender sachets as the game prizes. Coordinated quilting bundles come in handy for so many projects! I made a basic square pattern and cut my cotton fabric, along with a thin layer of batting to give the sachets a little more volume. Turning the fabric wrong side out, I did a single stitch all around the edges, leaving a small opening so that I could flip it right side out and fill with lavender. I filled each sachet with lavender and then used a slip stitch the close the opening. I then stitched all around the edges once more, to keep any lavender from leaking out. These are great for closets, dresser drawers, or in the dryer in place of fabric softener.

Baby bouquet. These are really fun to make. I usually use white cotton onesies for the "flowers" but this time I used baby washcloths. I always like to add a gift tag, this one has a bird's nest.

The food! Thanks Kelli and Jenn for preparing all the wonderful food! Along with regular cupcakes, we also had gluten-free ones. I made a little sign so guests would know which ones were gluten free. Of course, I love all things bird, so it had an egg on it. I also got a great vintage table cloth in blue on Ebay for just $6!

Bird Rescue

S: Yesterday afternoon Zach and I were working on our half bath remodel. As his faithful assistant, I went out into the garage to get him a level. The garage door was open and I saw something fluttering in the corner of the garage. At first I thought it was a leaf that had blown in then I realized it was a bird...and he was stuck to a glue trap! I starting yelling at Zach to "come help this bird!" Our home pest control service put the glue traps in the garage to monitor any bug activity. From what we can tell, the bird, enticed by all the bugs glued to the trap, flew in to our garage and got stuck! I put some garden gloves on (Epidemiologist Sarah says "Protect Yo'self! Birdies carry the encephalitis!") and held the bird down, he was flapping so violently trying to get loose I was afraid he was going to hurt himself. Zach grabbed some goo-gone and a pocket knife...we weren't really sure what to do. Zach ended up cutting off the excess glue around the bird and then we slowly peeled his foot and wing from the trap. He had lost a lot of feathers but as soon as I let him out of my hands he flew away into the neighbors tree.


Z: This situation has left me feeling like I should I receive a guest appearance on Brawny paper towels. You might wonder, "Why is there no picture of this climactic event?" And I will tell you "When the life of a frail wild creature is in jeopardy I reach into my pocket and pull out my man card, which happens to be a knife, not a camera." Sarah, in an unusual fit of desperation, began worrying about the birdie's broken legs and wings and the necessity of a vet. However, with three slices of my crappy knife (A freebie from some guy who got ripped off by cutlery corner), I had excised the bird from the viscous prison of glue and away he freely flew much to our delight in his well being. In defense of the brawny man's position, I admit that initially I took the more scientific approach and reached for the Goo-Gone because the oil based solvent weakens the viscoelastic properties of most adhesives by physical dissolution, thus rendering the glue trap not gluey. But sharpened metal prevailed and my Brawny self overcame my inner Bill Nye. Also this resulted in two new chest hairs.

A Sour Patch

The other week Zach and I went to the theater to see the movie Transformers. We both really enjoyed the movie, and the Sour Patch Kids we sneaked in with us. Sour Patch Kids are an essential part of any movie going experience, but cost about 2.5 times more at the theater compared to the grocery store. Obviously I have done my research. The only thing I don't like about eating Sour Patch Kids at the theater is the low level of light, which makes it hard to pick out the yellow ones and give them to Zach.

When we were leaving the theater, we noticed the windows around the entrance were painted with characters from various movies. To the left of the door we exited were the characters from Harry Potter. Our dialogue went something like this:

S: Those are really bad paintings!
Z: Yeah, I know. They don't look like the characters at all.
S & Z: on an on about how bad they were

As we walked out of the building I turned behind me and looked to the right. There, just inside the door was a man covered in paint, brush in hand, adding more artwork to the window.

Needless to say, we felt AWFUL. Lesson learned. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.