The Austere Reveal

Eddy has always dreamed of having his own office.  When we first moved in together our "office" was two facing desks in the dining room of our apartment.  In our second apartment together and in our first house together we shared a desk and an office and a computer.  Sharing is fun and all, but I think Eddy was super excited to have a space of his own.  Because I am at home all the time now, I offered to decorate his office for him as a surprise, a la HGTV, complete with a reveal in the end.

Again, most of what I did here was paint and arrange our stuff in the room, so here's Eddy waiting for the reveal.

And here's Eddy's new office!

Now is when you are supposed to walk in and be all teary eyed and stuff. Then we hug. Oh, HGTV.

Something About Montana

Montana was totally my favorite state on the Road Trip. (I mean, other than Colorado...)

There was just something about Montana.

We camped at Glacier National Park.

We explored Going to the Sun Road.

We lunched at Lunch Creek.

And for the first time ever Norman was actually enthusiastic about water.

Next up Idaho, the Potato State!  Also Utah.

The First Room

We might have mentioned that Project House Sunshine Fuzzy Bunny needs work.  In some areas it's dated.  In some areas it is in need of repairs.  In some areas it needs to be gutted.  Our approach so far has been one room at a time starting with the low-hanging fruit.

The first room to go from plain white box to Sunshine Fuzzy Bunny-ified was my sewing room.

I don't have too many in process pictures since all I really did was add a coat of (Sonic Plum!) paint and fill the room with things we already had so I'll just show off some of my favorite things about the room.

Here's where I do most of my fabric cutting and ironing and cat petting and what not.

Our giant white cabinet is where I keep this special quilt my grandma, Moe, gave me.

This view features my favorite Goodwill find ever (pom pom trim by yours truly).

The other side of the room has my desk.

On top of my desk live all my Pearson Maron sculptures.

Also, there's my giant golden maneki neko from mom!

It's a great place to make quilts and such, assuming I can pry the cat off of my fabric/lap/chair/desk.

Thomas Jefferson = Ice Cream Cone

We sort of did Wyoming and South Dakota things all in one go. One of the things I was adamant about when we began to plan a road trip was that I *had* to see Mount Rushmore. Why? I am strangely fascinated by it. Why? No idea.

But seriously, Mount Rushmore was totally one of my favorite things on this trip (I promise to stop claiming everything was my favorite...) The first important American History fact we learned was that Thomas Jefferson = Ice Cream Cone.

We never would have known this had we not visited Mount Rushmore. We just saved you a trip to the monument.

Also, state flags/pillars are a big deal there. Who knew?

Back in Wyoming, we also visited this amazing taxidermy emporium/bar and grill called the Occidental Saloon.

And of course we had our first camping excursion.

We saw the usual Yellowstone sites.

We had a really nice little campsite.

And we introduced Norman to another river and to his first buffalo.

Tune in next week for adventures in Montana!

Nicci's New Job

I knew when Eddy took his job in CA that I would have some time off work.  What better time to get reacquainted with quilting!

I started quilting again when we were living in the hotel and I've made quite a few beauties so far!

This

became this!

and it's going to live on our bed. (You know, someday when we get around to decorating the bedroom...)

This

became this!

I've also just finished a very special quilt that mom bought for me and that Eddy and I worked together to refurbish.  The before:

It was gorgeous, but it had the most awful cartoon grasshopper + orange square sashing.

Awful cartoon grasshoper + orange square sashing that really did not match the 1930s awesomeness that was this quilt.

Also, it was just badly sewn together and in need of some TLC. So I started to rip the whole thing apart, but let's face it. I just don't have the patience for tasks that require meticulousness on an ongoing basis. Enter Eddy.

He worked and worked and worked on that quilt and took almost all of it apart by himself.

Then I pressed and squared and repieced the whole shebang.

You can bet when it came time to add our very own signature squares I embroidered one just for Eddy.

Many, many, many more quilt posts to come. After all, quilting is now basically my full-time job.