Raw.

Sigh. 

I'm not getting with the program when it comes to writing as consistently as I'd like. I mean, there's part of me that cares, then there's a part that doesn't.

A lot has gone on this last year that I'd love to ...well, love isn't the term I should use...but I'd talk about, but I don't. Some days I'm ok, some I'm not. It's safer just to keep it all locked up. 

I've been fighting depression for a while now. I haven't hid that from anyone who knows me well enough. Some days I'll feel like I'm dancing on top of the world, while others, I feel like I can't pull out of the darkness. I have so much going for me in my life, but still, I feel hollow on the inside. There's only so much smiling I can do to cover up the numbness, ya know? 

Regardless of all the projects I distract myself with, the amazing people I have surrounding me, the gorgeous places I've visited throughout my life.. I feel numb. I can't explain it. I'm just...numb to everything. 

I feel numb. I feel alone. I feel nothingness. 

This post isn't some sort of lame way for asking for help, seeking attention or anything else along the lines of being dramatic. I just need to get these thoughts out of my head. Seems like my main outlet for expressing myself without people cutting me off in mid sentence is to actually write or create things. I mean, how can you interrupt someones scripture, right? 

Hugs don't make me feel better. Telling me, "It's ok, you have nothing to worry about" doesn't help. This is just how I'm functioning right now. Smile and move on. I always have another day to live, right? Right. I've been told that I'm pretty easy to read. That makes me chuckle. You learn how to adapt throughout your life... at my age, I'm getting the hang of it. 

Just smile & nod. It's all good. 

                                                                                                                 

Read More

Use ALL The Colors!!

Alright, so if you know *me*...you know that my kitchen is my sanctuary. Well, I think it's more fitting to say "work station" considering I cook like crazy and I love it. Thing is, I don't like boring colors... I want a kitchen where it's colorful, energetic yet it doesn't assault the eyes like McDonalds or Burger King. Due to the Albuquerque landscape being less than eye popping (SO many shades of brown!),I figured I'd go ahead and just paint my kitchen with colors that scream "happiness". Corny, right? Whatever..it's my kitchen. 

Not too long after we moved in, Eric and I kept switching around color chips to see what would look best with the way our kitchen was laid out. We originally were shooting for a mellow, European theme...but, it felt like it was going to be too "drab", so, color was a necessity! The cream color HAD to go! 

Four various colors later, we agreed on this gorgeous turquoise color that looks UH-mazing! 

Once the paint was officially up and dried, it was time for me to bust out with some painting of my own since I have tons of stuff I needed to, uhhhh, customize...in order for it to go with the theme I was going for. 

There happens to be a Hobby Lobby here..and oh my gosh, I frequent that place WAY more than I should. Pinterest has given me tons of ideas in terms of decor and storage things to run with in terms of the kitchen area, so when I spotted some pretty cool metal baskets, I snatched them up since I figured I could make them look pretty whimsical. They were originally a rustic off while color with heavy crackling texture all over it...wasn't what I was aiming for, so I stripped them down, primed then took my sweet time with painting out all the various loops and rods. Honestly, I think they came out pretty good! One has spots throughout it while the other is a little more simple. Either way, they both work very well when it comes to holding apples, bananas and whatever other goodies you wanna keep off the counter top. 

The next part in the kitchen overhaul was the knobs. Sounds silly, but the little metal ones that were on there before seemed to be taking something away from the overall look of the place. After doing a little bit of hunting, price comparing and overall being patient when it comes to painting things..I ended up getting these cute little ones over at Hobby Lobby. I'm definitely loving them...well, all except one. There's one that has a knack of snagging my clothes and causing cuts. Rude, right? It's about to get retired with one that's a little more cooperative when it comes to behaving. 

Oh, then there's the Talavera Pottery I've started to acquire. Man oh man..I love this stuff! SO colorful, so it works perfectly for the theme I'm shooing for. I've managed to find some cool places around here that have a good selection of stuff on hand.

1. Jackalope in Albuquerque 
2. Camino Real Imports

I picked up tons of outlet covers which add extra little pops of color throughout the kitchen.

I don't know why the wall to the right is coming up a pea green color..lol. It's a sandy taupe color like the main wall.

You know how some people like to have some sort of guest book or something like that in the home as a reminder of loved ones? Well, I'm doing something kinda like that, but cooler. Whenever friends or family visit, I take 'em to one of the Talavera places and have them pick a piece out for the kitchen wall, sign & date it then pick a spot to hang. Cool, right? Thaaaaat's right.

When my cousin and her son came to visit, she ended up picking out the orange salamander for herself while she got the blue frog for Aiden. Makes me smile whenever I look at 'em :)

I ended up having to order this piece for one of my friends since I haven't been able to find a snake in any of the local shops (of course he had to pick something that wasn't easy to find). Now the challenge is to hang him up somewhere with longer hooks since his tummy doesn't exactly lay flat.

John picked out this little gal:

Eric kinda broke the rules when he picked this gal out...she was supposed to have been hung up on the wall, but he insisted that she stay on the center island to "protect" the kitchen from food ninja's. Over time, she's adopted two kiddos...one is a bit cranky and always has a snarky face. Typical teenager.

My choice was a steers skull that I actually picked up while I was visiting my family in California. The crazy thing is that I haven't seen another one like it since I've been here. The ones here are Texas long horn style and the paint / patterns are on the dull side. So, I'm glad I picked this guy up when I had the chance. Odds are, whenever I get back over to California to visit again, I'll invade the pottery store I got him from for some more goodies :)

Then I found this little dude while I was checking out Old Town Albuquerque. What? I couldn't help myself...

Go ahead and laugh, but I actually had a custom Kitchen Aid mixer cover made since I couldn't find ANY that I liked! Luckily, Rebekah at www.sewmesomethin.com was up to the challenge since I ordered the fabric and had it sent to her directly. She's seriously awesome and the cover came out beautifully :)

Another custom thing I had made was a sign to hang out on top of the cabinets. It says, "Many have eaten here. Few have died. Est. 2007".....and for the ones who did die, it wasn't my fault. I swear.

When we moved in, the chandelier was already installed, so that was a bonus. Thing is, it doesn't go with all the decor I have...I mean, don't get me wrong, it would've gone really well if I stuck with the whole "European coffee" theme, but I'm much happier with the perky, super loud kitchen I've created. After talking it over with Eric (and suffering from lack of air circulation when I'm cooking & it's hotter than hell outside), we opted to replace it with a remote controlled fan.  

Luckily for us, we found an awesome fan that was on sale over at Lowes and we managed to have an electrician install it within a day. That thing PUSHES air around like no joke! I LOVE it! Plus, I think it opens up the kitchen a little more. 

So far, it's turning out really well. I'm STILL digging through boxes for goodies. Once I find all my Starbucks mugs, they'll go on the top of the cabinets on one side while the other side will hold all of my Le Creuset things (thank goodness I picked all sorts of random colors!). 

There ya have it. My crazy kitchen :) 

Read More

Curve Containage Challenge

I'm curvy. 

That's right, I said it. 

I'm curvy. 

Other people rather say "fat", but whatever...I know I'm not as aerodynamic as I could be. I know I'm not some little pin thin thing. I'm OK with that. In fact, I'm actually happy that I have curves (albeit, they could be smaller) and I actually get compliments on my appearance, even at my current size. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that's for sure.

As I've been unpacking things for our bedroom, I stumbled upon all my old jeans from ...hmmmm...six years ago. I know I've put on some weight here and there due to moving, stress, depression..ya know, all the fun shit in life. When I held them up, my heart broke a little bits.

My ass has gotten HUGE.

 UGH.

I started making an effort towards changing my eating habits in addition to working out more since I have my  handy dandy membership to Planet Fitness. Plus, now that I'm not working, I don't have any excuse as to WHY I can't make it in to burn some calories off. I don't know what my current weight is, nor is that really my main concern. As long as I start feeling better and my clothes start getting looser, that's all I really care about. Since I started watching my intake, I can tell I've lost something thus far since my jeans are already getting "roomy" around my waist and they don't feel like they're painted on. So, that's a good thing...right?? lol. My extra motivation to get this under control is the fact that the weather here is killing me. Who wants to be all layered when it's 100* outside?! Not I! I've been wearing more and more dresses so it'll relieve some of the heat, but I don't wanna look like I'm rocking a moo-moo. 

Luckily for me, I have a very good support group when it comes to friends and family...even Grimm got in on the encouragement when I told him, "Bubba, Momma's gonna get a little more aerodynamic"....he got all sorts of happy and thumped his tail like crazy. I'll take that as support from him, lol. If anything, he can always use my old jeans as stuffing for a doggy bed. 

Read More

Long Time No Speak

Ah, where to begin other than "It's been a while, eh?". Well, it has been a while and I have been rather busy, but now I actually have some time to write...

We're officially living in New Mexico now...and it's definitely not Belgium. Truth be told, I miss Belgium with a passion like you wouldn't believe. I've met some wonderful people here so far, but, I'm not a fan of the heat. Or the drivers...the ridiculous amount of time it takes to get from one side of town to another. Just..meh. I miss the lush greenery of Europe in addition to how slow paced it is. New Mexico..uh, Albuquerque to be specific, is a whole different beast that will take some getting used to, that's for sure.

Since we're going to be here for a while, we ended up buying a home which is now my personal project. We STILL have stuff in moving boxes since my attention had been divided between working and painting projects. Now, I'm no longer working due to a Viper infesting the work environment... I didn't get paid enough to put up with constant verbal abuse. So, I opted to leave and start my painting business that I had going when I lived in California. Hopefully that will pick up some speed and I can rely on that for a main source of income rather than being someones personal whipping bitch. Besides, who wouldn't want to be their own boss and do something they love? Plus, now that we're back in the States, I can get my camera fixed and get back into photography since there's some pretty interesting desert scenery to capture on film.

There's so much more to catch up on, but frankly, I don't have the focus right now to type out everything. Lots and lots are going on at the moment, but, I figured I'd at least do a post so people knew I was still alive and kicking.

Now that I have time, I should be able to post more consistently.

Take care,

Read More

Fridge Trophies

As you know, we're officially back in the States now and I'm biding my time in gorgeous California till my beloved Xterra shows up from the cargo ship. Due to having extra time on my hands, aside from hanging out with friends and family, I'm getting the itch to start working on projects for our new home...even though it's in a completely different state. 

Todays project was so insanely simple. I mean, incredibly simple that a five year old could do it. I have a little collection of various coins I had acquired while we were overseas and I intended on turning all of them into magnets for our fridge. So, imagine trying to make sure not to lose or use certain coins over time in order to save them for this project, lol. I actually misplaced my Polish Zloty and it's in our packed household goods, so I can't work on those till later next month. 

Anyway, here's all the coins I had to work with...Euro, British Pounds and Danish Krones. 

I picked up some E-6000 glue and some super strong magnets from Michaels and got to work. 

I did a drop of the glue on the coin and pressed the magnet into it thoroughly, allowed them to sit for a little while and came back about an hour later since I was busy doing other things. Once I came back, I tested everything out and those little suckers are good to go!

I'm really stoked with how they turned out, so I'll hammer out the remaining coins I have in order to wrap up the whole collection for the fridge. I mean, what else am I gonna use them for?

Once I get over to New Mexico, I'm kind of hoping that Albuquerque International Airport has an area where you can convert Euro into Dollars seeing that I still have 55 euros hanging out in my wallet. I mean, I HOPE I can convert it or something...otherwise, I'll be incorporating these into a rather expensive project at some point, lol. 

Read More

Not Dead!

Man oh man! It's been a bit of a whirl wind since we got back to the States, but now that I finally had a chance to relax, I can bust out a lovely blog for you folks. Don't you feel special?

Ok, so we managed to finish up cleaning the house in Belgium and did our final walk through. 

Luckily, we got our 1,900 euro deposit back (thank gawd!) and proceeded to migrate over to our temporary apartment till it was time to catch our flight out of Amsterdam. The final few days were bitter sweet..not going to lie. We absolutely love Belgium, the travel opportunities and everything else that's awesome about Europe, but, we're ready to move on with our lives and get settled into our new home. 

If you're a frequent reader of my blog, or actually know me, you know that we have a small horde of dogs. By small, I mean five...and it's definitely interesting when it comes to transporting them, that's for sure. I had to do a "system check" on all the crates to make sure they were all up to snuff when it came to airline requirements. Luckily, all of my prepping paid off because the check-in crew for KLM were stoked that I had everything re-enforced, paperwork in hand, and anything & everything else you can think of that's required to ship a pet internationally. 

Of course, the dogs needed to get their beauty sleep before the big journey, so they made it a point to pretty much push us out of our own bed...

On our last day, Eric and I went on one last Belgian date day and went over to my favorite cafe to grab some awesome tomato soup with a side of cappachino. It was a little depressing, to be honest. I went there so often that the staff knew me, it's always mellow so you can sit & people watch...and their coffee was ALWAYS awesome. Hopefully we'll find a place like that in New Mexico..so that seems to be something to add to our "treasure hunt" in terms of things to find. 

The day had finally arrived for us to leave...it was pretty sad, although, we didn't really have much time to dwell on it en-route to the airport. Once we rolled our six pieces of luggage and five carriers full of dogs, we were immediately directed over to a special ticketing area that takes care of...uhhh...individuals like ourselves, lol. After an hour of checking in, getting the dogs all situated and grabbing a quick lunch, it was time to board the plane and head off to beautiful California! The flight actually went pretty fast, at least to me...it didn't feel like an eleven hour flight, lol. I suppose taking naps and watching all the various "The Real Housewives of blah blah blah" killed time for me. I'm just relieved that we were able to get a straight shot flight from Amsterdam to San Francisco without having to deal with a ton of layovers. Oh, and KLM, if you happen to see this..I love you and your airline ROCKS!

We got to unwind for a few days before Eric had to head out and take care of business in terms of the home we're in the midst of buying. Yes, I stayed here in California while he and John jetted off to brave New Mexico. As of today, we're officially the owners of a home! I'm so excited! Eric went through all the paperwork earlier this week and signed off on everything, including my part of the paperwork with a handy dandy POA...he was displeased with the amount of writing he was required to do in order to officially get the  house. Oh well..he got the keys today and that's all that matters! lol

All the while, we're enjoying our time at Casa de Vandegrift. Izzy and the other furballs have taken quite a liking to my suite and it's awesome bed. You'd think they had been roughing it their whole life or something by the way they burrow into the bed ...

I've been plugging around, meeting up with friends and hanging out with family since my time here is limited. I have about a month left till I need to head on out to New Mexico...well, I'm guessing a month, but it all depends on when my vehicle shows up. Once Big Blue arrives, it's time for me to mosey on out of here so I can start decorating my new house :) I'm sure Eric will be relieved once I'm outta here so I'll stop haunting the Le Creuset place in addition to the various antique places around here...lol. 

I ended up getting a killer deal on a cast iron skillet, oval skillet, 2.5 qt container and a pie bird (all from Le Creuset) for 30% off in addition to another 40%...can you blame me for jumping on that sort of deal??

Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to start posting some more blogs as I run around California and throughout the trip to New Mexico for you guys. It's interesting trying to work on my iPad, then my Eee PC since my old faithful laptop isn't functioning at the moment...le sigh. 

Toodles!

Read More

Moving Mayhem

Aye Aye Aye! I'm sorry for the lack of posts, but I swear, I've been a very busy little bee. Between being in Scotland for two weeks (got stuck there longer due to bad weather) and the movers packing up our house, I've been trying to catch my breath.

So, here we go! 

Last week, the movers arrived bright and early to get the whole show rolling. Truth be told, I barely prepped at all. Call it laziness, call it procrastination...frankly, I just didn't care. Yes, really. With all the things that are going on, I just don't care. I realize it sounds bad, but, I think all of us hit that "wall" at some point where you throw your hands up in the air and just deal with whatever happens. I *was* responsible and put our important documents to the side so those didn't get packed, hid suitcases with prepacked clothes in addition to hiding the dogs carriers.

Bright eyed and busy tailed, the moving company descended upon our house with their prepping van and moving truck. Oh my gosh..my street is kind of narrow, so it was interesting to see other large lorries roll down the street and squeeze past our temporary road blocks. The guys were having a little team meeting when it came to figuring out how to attack our stuff..then started the mayhem.

The four man team rolled through our house like it was nothing! All the boxes throughout the house started giving me flashbacks to when we were moving from Vandenberg to here...it's crazy how fast time flies! 

The living room

Kitchen

My office

Macie & Izzy inspecting the movers packing job..

Of course, harassing the poor movers all day long really tuckered out the ankle biters:

Over the course of three days, they got everything packed up, shifted around, and then loaded up into the massive moving lorrie. There were some items I was extremely curious about them getting out of the house since we had a heavy chair in addition to a large table on the 2nd floor...and they intended on removing them through the window. Yeah..that boggled my brain a little bit. Turns out, they have this hydrolic lift that they set up in order to bring down multiple boxes in addition to furniture. This...this I've never seen before, so of course I recorded the guys in action: 

The crew was very nice and made sure to take extra care when it came to wrapping and packing up my pottery, antiques and travel trinkets. I think it's because Eric and I did some schmoozing by stocking our mini fridge with all sorts of drinks, making coffee & tea for them in the morning in addition to buying them lunch every day. Hey, some people think it's silly to do that because it's their job to move our stuff, but it doesn't hurt to be nice to the guys who are handling YOUR valuables. 

While they were packing and making more boxes, Eric and I became a little obsessed with their tape dispensers  Yes, really. If you pack and ship stuff as frequently as we do, then you know how much those dispensers with the handles are a major pain in the ass. These guys had something that was SO incredibly simple, I'm shocked that I haven't seen 'em in the States before. 

By the time they were all finished up and ready to roll out, they actually gave us two of the contraptions  because they really appreciated how much we took care of them in terms of food / drinks. Normally, I'd tell them not to worry about it..but we wanted those dispensers, LOL. So, yay! We'll be keeping one while the other goes to my Dad since I know he'll use the hell out of it.

The only casualty out of the whole packing event was our kitchen light. Truth be told, I hate that thing... it hangs down low enough to where you smack your head on it despite being vigilant of your surroundings. Apparently I wasn't the only one having issues with it since the movers cracked their domes on it several times each...

So, our stuff is on it's merry way to the States and we should hopefully be reunited with all of it sometime next month, or possibly April. Is it sad that I'm already dreaming of when I get my beloved bed back? Well, and my kitchen.....mmmmmm...large kitchen space......

A few days later, it was time to ship off my beloved Big Blue. The last time we did that, I was a little scarred by the whole experience since the shipping port in California was run by some massive assholes. This time around, the guy we worked with was extremely nice, had an awesome sense of humor got us all taken care of. He even let me go give her a hug, and tell her my good-byes. Go ahead and laugh at me, but she's my baby.

The plus size to shipping off my Xterra is that the interior has been completely detailed...I don't think shes looked that nice since I bought her! The downside is that I gotta buy gas the second we roll out of the pickup place because you can only turn your vehicle in when it's almost empty :( Nice fat gas bill in California...yayyyy. 

There you have it! A little run down of all whats been going on. Lots of stress, lots of cleaning, and lots of sleeping on uncomfortable surfaces. Only 11 more days till we're stateside bound! 

Read More