Hillbilly Halloween

Since Manny actually looks homeless in real life, that's what he decided to be for Halloween. I hadn't put much thought into a costume, so I thought I'd go along with his plan and be homeless as well.
After visiting the DI for costumes, we found matching "Freedom Is Not Free" t-shirts.

Rapidly, my costume went from "homeless" to a "homeless southern tea partier hillbilly zombie"  Yeah.
In all reality though. I was just a picture ruiner.
I stayed in character most of the night, and totally creeped everyone out with my screwed up stare and awesome accent.
I had a pretty good time TRYING to look completely awful in photos, and as you can tell, I succeeded :)

Wayne & Garth

Elder Quayle, Wayne, Garth, Sheila, Curtis, Elder Archibald

Jenn, Me, Erica, Alicia.  I'm soooo the hottest.

Me and Davey had everyone laughing with our relentless hillbilly routine :)

Yeah. We sleep in a cardboard box behind 7-11. What's it to ya?

Crawfish Boil

Earlier this year, my friends Amy and Curtis had a crawfish boil.
It was super awesome, and I decided that I'd totally copy them and put one on myself.
I had everything under control, except the teeny tiny part where I didn't have any idea what the hell I was doing. I mean, I watched Curtis pretty carefully when he was cooking, but severely underestimated the amount of work this kind of party entailed.
After finding out that Manny had to work till 10pm on the night of the boil, I was pretty upset, since I planned on getting everything ready and having him do the actual cooking. Luckily, Curtis makes an excellent loaner boyfriend and iron chef crawfish boiler. He totally came to my rescue and helped out immensely.

By the end of the night, I was boiling by myself and hopefully proved my proficiency.
I think everyone had a great time and I look forward to having more of these in the future :)

Crawfish, shrimp, corn, potatoes & sausage... mmmmmm

"Yeah, you snap him riiiiiight HERE" lol

Rebecca, Curtis, Breanne, Curtis, Laura, Ned, Melanie, Erica, Me

Breanne wasn't scared to get her nails dirty

B-Dawg (Hushpuppy Fryer Extraordinaire) Erica & Me

Pretty Girl :) 

Team Work

Once she got the hang of it, she had to help everyone else out.

Love this picture.  Pops and Mama Archibald.

Om nom nom.

Erica, Carl Crawfish & Brad.

Rebecca & Mat & My crazy messy garage.

Ahhhh Siblings.

Dave (against his will) and Erica

Sheila and Jilly Bean

Quayle Tail and Hirschi. Apparently there was a tongue theme? 

Casey and his Sissy in law

Curtis (super badass lifesaver) & Amy (also super badass)

Bedroom Makeover!

I didn't by any means HATE my bedroom, but it was time for a change. I've lived in my  house for 5 years and have almost completed everything I've wanted to, so it only makes sense to start over, right?
When we bought the house, every single wall in it was white. WHITE!
It was incredibly appealing, even though I hate white walls. Make sense?
I loved the white walls because they were a blank canvas. There wasn't any horrid wallpaper to remove, or icky colors to cover. Just blankness.
Five years later, I've painted nearly everything. The first thing that was painted was the master bedroom. This was because we were getting carpet the day after we "moved in" and I wanted to paint first because I knew that after we got the bed moved in, there would be no getting it out.
I went with beige.
Beige is almost as sad as white.

Looking back, I wish I'd put more thought into it. I was just in SUCH a hurry to get it done, and get some color on the wall that wasn't white. The upside to beige, is being able to throw basically any comforter I find on it without it clashing.
Am I rambling? I'm rambling.

Back to never moving that bed.  My room is weird shaped, and the place where the bed goes is not exactly built for a King size bed. It's pretty snug.
My ex's father welded us a pretty neat headboard before we moved to that house, and after we got divorced, the headboard was really the only thing left of the ex.
This didn't bother me that much, mostly because the thought of getting it out of there made me nauseous.

Before

We were using old crates as night stands

A couple years ago, I was walking in the alley behind work, and saw this giant piece of wood sticking out of our dumpster. They'd been remodeling the building behind us and that's probably where it came from. I one look in the dumpster and ran in the building for reinforcements.  Lori helped me dumpster dive and put it in my truck. The thought of using it as a headboard one day intrigued me, but it got shoved in the garage and not really thought about until a few weeks ago.

My mom was at a yard sale and found some end dressers she thought would fit next to my bed. I've always been on the lookout for something that would fit there because it is so tight. They ended up being the perfect size so I bought them.  This started a chain reaction that led to me wanting to finally use that nasty old piece of wood :)

After :)

ELEVEN COATS of primer & white paint went on 

the beat up end dressers. 

I also replaced the tops with bead board.

I'm really happy with the way it turned out, it honestly makes the room look so much bigger! Maybe one day Handy Manny will even forgive me for making him figure out how to hang that big bastard on the wall.

Headboard- FREE
End Dressers- $5
Paint & Primer- $19
Beadboard- $10
Screws & Wood- $5.50
TOTAL COST- $39.50

$#!T on Wednesday #44

I was in the garage painting the bagoddamnzillionth and FINAL coat of paint on my dressers. I had paint all over my hands.
Manny came in to tell me that he was leaving for work.
A few minutes after I'd finished my masterpieces, I went to go in the house and wash my painty painted hands and toddle off to work myself.

Ohhhh what is this, boyfriend? You seem to have locked me out.
No big deal, I'll go grab the spare key.
Ohhhh what is this boyfriend? You used the spare key and didn't put it back.
No big deal, I'll call my mom to bring me the key she has.
Ohhhh what is this, boyfriend? My phone is on the ottoman.
IN THE HOUSE.

I stood there for  a while looking at my painty hands, wondering where to go from here. Realizing my level of laziness, and that I could easily walk to Kent's and use their phone to call my mom, that suddenly made me feel super juvenile. 
So I walked my happy ass to work. Painty hands and all.

The rest of the day went on with about as much luck.
UNTIL.
Mims.  OMG.  Bacon Cheeseburger with TOTS. You gotta have the tots.
After the fairly shiteous day I'd had, the tots restored my sanity. That, and for some weird reason, Larsen thought he owed me money, so he bought the beer.
I just let him believe that. Nobody likes to be told they're wrong.

$#!T on Wednesday #41, 42, 43

So much for updating this every week.....
The last three Wednesdays have been fun, but not super exciting.  I think all three weeks we went out to eat :)

So even though this is the lamest update post EVER, here are some blogs I totally plan on writing some time in the moderately near future:

! My $5 bedside dressers that have 8 coats of paint and counting and may never be finished and I'm ready to take an axe to.

! My dumpster-dive find that I fully intend on turning into a headboard and decided that I'm going to leave as-is instead of painting even though Manny says it's "trashy". Literally.

! 1st Crawfish boil photos.

! Halloween!