Toooo much painting...

And there's more painting to go.  But here are some pictures of what I've gotten done this week!

 This is the bathroom (obviously)

 This is the bedroom  It was supposed to be a bright green, but they didn't mix it right because they mixed up the numbers of the paint color. Steve liked the gray so we went with it.

 The kitchen corner

 The rest of the kitchen. We raised the cabinets and it made a big difference!  The cabinets will be painted white eventually.

 This is half of the living room.  The bottom still needs to be painted.  So after this, I have to finish the living room, paint the hallway, and paint ALL of the trim.  The trim looks nice here, but whoever lived here before didn't tape it off when they painted so there are paint marks everywhere.

 

And this is what I look like after a long day of painting.

The White House

So, did you know that I have lived in 5 different places in the past 4 years, technically 6 if you count the creepy Hawai'i house on the North Shore.  Soon, I'm going to claim my 6th home in less than 4 years. Yep 6th.
My first home was with my parents in Sparland, of course.
In 2008, I moved to Apt. 606 in Macomb.
In May of 2010, I moved to the creepy house on North Shore in Hawai'i.
Then a few days later, in May of 2010, I moved to the nice house on the mountain in Makakilo, Hawai'i.
Then in August of 2010, I moved to the house outside of Macomb.
In May 2011, I moved to my apartment in Colchester.
And now......... I will move again to a house in THE COUNTRY! I hope you read "the country" in a shouting and excited voice.  I haven't lived in the country in awhile.  Steven and I are going to rent a house from his cousin outside of Colchester.  I'm going to move in in a few weeks and Steven will join me November 3rd.  Yes its a precise date, but that's the day that his parents are kicking him out of the basement.

This house is cute and quaint. Its a good started house, oh and its very white.  Everything is white, inside and out.  White siding, white walls, white garage, white kitchen floor, white refrigerator, white ceilings, white bath tub, white knobs on the kitchen cabinets..... you get the point.  The carpet is tan though!  So the walls need to be painted because they are painted two different shades of white in random places.  Plus, I don't like white walls. 

So here are the before pictures.  I have no 'after' pictures yet because very little has changed.

 This is the 'master' bedroom. Its really just a foot wider than the other bedroom.

 the kitchen

 the tiny bathroom

 the hallway, super exciting!

 the smaller bedroom

and the living room.

The cool thing about this house is that the closets have 2 doors, each open to a different room. So you can technically run laps around this tiny home.  It also has an old stone/brick basement.  

I'll keep you updated.

Catch Up, Ketchup, or Catsup?

I'll be playing blog catch up again.  This whole summer break, "free time," and not having internet slows the blogging process I suppose. 

So here's the "Thing That Have Happened Recently in the Life of Steph" list:

1. We had visitors earlier this month! Olivia and Jayden came up from Texas for a couple of days.

2. A couple of weeks ago we tried to build a 200 foot slip and slide.  It was great, but there was no slip on the slide, so it didn't work. But it looked cool!

 Andy and Steve worked really hard to till up the hill and make a nice pool to land in at the bottom.

 TEAM WORK!!

3. We celebrated Katie and Steve's birthday!!

4. I'm still looking and applying for jobs.... no news yet.

5. Steve interviewed for the Macomb Fire Dept. and we're waiting to hear back about how he did!

6.  Steve and I are going to rent a house from his cousin.  I'm going to move in HOPEFULLY in a few weeks, Steve will move in when we get married.  So if anyone wants to come help paint, let me know!  I'll post 'before' pictures soon and keep you posted on the project.

As soon as I announced it...

Gentleman Oscar died. I woke up this morning and there was no swimming. Its sad. I called Steve and told him that he now needed to buy me a puppy because he said I was only allowed to have one pet at a time.  But maybe I shouldn't get a puppy. I've proven myself to display the same sense of responsibility at 24 as I did when I was 5 when it comes to raising a goldfish. 

I texted my sisters and told them about the loss of their beloved goldfish friend.

Katie responded with "Taps will be playing from Henry"

Emily said ":( He was a noble fish. I will keep my memories of him wherever I roam in this world, and into the next. Until we meet again"

I thought Em's response was moving. 

So, Gentleman Oscar was laid to rest in a ziploc baggie in my garbage can. I was too afraid to flush him because I didn't want him to clog my toilet.

Meet Gentleman Oscar

My life isn't too exciting these days.  I'm looking for and applying for jobs, working on my thesis, getting sleep, etc.  Life is hard. Steve and I went to Walmart way too late one night and this is what I did. I bought a goldfish. Its really because I want a puppy, but I can't have one right now. So I bought a goldfish that we named Gentleman Oscar Tuna Zimmerman. I thought it was a reasonable step in the life path that I'm tromping about on right now.  

The Joys of Being Engaged

Steven proposed to me on December 15h and the planning hasn't stopped since. One of the fun things we needed to do was get our engagement pictures done by our best friend and Steve's best man Judd.  Judd is an amazing photographer, but with his work schedule, he doesn't have a lot of time to take pictures other than what he sees on the adventures of his job.  So we had  to wait awhile to coordinate a day that we could all three get together when it was light outside.   We've gotten together a couple of times since he's been home from Florida.  One photo session was a random moment where Judd texted me and said he'd be there in 45 minutes and we only had 30 after that to take them. I was still at work and had about 25 minutes to get ready once I got home.  Short notice yes, luckily my hair wasn't too nasty and I had time to curl it and get dressed. Then Judd worked his magic.  

Some of these were taken on Steve's family farm and others were taken around where Judd lives. 

 This is one of my favorites (above) because it cracks me up.  Look at Steve's face.  Judd interpreted it as "don't touch my Ging" which is Steve's nickname for me. 

 We had a pose similar to this (above) when we started dating. Steve and Judd went to my parents with me and Judd took a picture of us two while we were standing in the corn crib.

 This one (above) is on of Steve's favorites.  You can guess why... firefighter t-shirt.

 This one captures us pretty well. We're always screwing around and laughing. The one below is one of my favorites too.

These are just a few.  We still have more to take too.  Its nice to be best friends with a good photographer isn't it?  I'll keep you updated on when we get more pictures.

Graduation!!

Well, I haven't really graduated yet. I "fake graduated" if there is such a thing. I have to complete my thesis, then I can be done.  Most of my cohort has to finish their thesis or project, so we all "fake graduated."  The first picture is of most of those who went through grad school with me. They are all fantastic people! I was so thankful to go through the stressful times with them!

 These are my 'Wine Friday' girls. I'll miss them terribly.

 The family and I.

 Steven and I, he graduated the next day! (As seen below)

Steven and Em graduated together, they actually got to sit right next to one another.  Its nice to have family in the same program isn't it?

It was a long but great weekend.  Mom, Dad, and Katie all stayed with me in my tiny apartment, so that was entertaining. They stayed until Sunday for Steven's graduation Party.  My Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin spent their Saturday with us for graduation. It was fun to see them too.

 I slept in until 11:30 on Monday after that long weekend.  I declared that I was in a state of boredom by Wednesday. Steven told me that I shouldn't be bored because I have a thesis to finish and I need to find a job.  So he spoiled it for me. So, I'm currently taking a break from reading research and developing my thesis.  Hopefully I'll finish up the majority of this puppy before the end of the summer.  The only thing left to do now is find a job...

Rise

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile.  Things have been hectic, but  I now have many stories to share.  Here's a teaser list I guess, I graduated, EB graduated, SZ graduated, I got a new engagement ring, I finally got to see one of my best friends, J, after not seeing him for a couple of months, I bought a gold fish named Gentleman Oscar Tuna Zimmerman, I helped MW move, I'm working on another draft of my thesis, I'm looking for jobs, I may be moving soon, and more....

Anyways, I came back to my office for the first time in a few days. I don't have internet at my apartment because I'm trying to save money and I'm a broke kid. (I can no longer say broke graduate student, just a broke kid looking for a job I suppose.)  Anyway, I was responding to some student emails and began to get frustrated with the fact they don't like to take responsibility for themselves sometimes.  I literally got a headache.  I have had a lot of great students and need to remember this.  My teaching assistantship ended last week. I've been teaching at WIU for the past 2 years and I think that I'm really going to miss it. I've learned a lot about myself and I have learned a good deal from my students. So, as my teaching duties come to and end, I need to remember the good from this experience and learn from my mistakes too. 

This song played at a good moment. Its one of my favorites and wanted to share!

 Happy Wednesday!

Baby Went to the Ball

E and L went to the MilBall last weekend.  I did E's hair, L is so talented and ended up doing his own. :) These are some of the pics that I took of them.

E said that they had a great time.  You'll have to ask her for the stories.

Fabric Flowers

 I love Pinterest. Its great. I've blogged about it before. It's a great distraction and its a great place to borrow ideas. Especially for weddings :) So, I saw this little number on there on how to make cute little fabric flowers. You start out with fabric and cut it into little rectangles.

 Then, take those little rectangles and cut them into petals.  After that, make a running stitch (I think that's what its called) and pull the petals together.  Circle them up, attach the last petal to the first, tie a not and you're done!  It took no time at all and they are super cute in my opinion. 

These little pretties may cause me to stray from the paper flowers that I created.  You can read about it in my post about Centerpieces - Being Crafty Again .

 These two pictures above are of a test centerpiece that I made.  I liked this one so much that I just left it together and put it in my apartment.  So this let me test the flowers out.  The flowers are a little hard to see in the first photo and there are only two so far.  But I'm thinking that I like the fabric over the paper flowers.   The pictures below are from another post, but its just to give you an idea so you can compare the two.

Annnddd this is what Steven did while I made the flowers.  He loves his iPod.

Let me know what you think!