I don't know what's cooler...

The fact that:

A. Boy Meets World, the show that my brother and I spent countless hours watching while we probably should have been doing homework, is coming back to TV as a spin-off called "Girl Meets World".

B. The show will feature original cast members Corey Matthews and Topenga Lawrence (played by Ben Savage and Danielle Fischel).  This may not mean anything to some of you, but let's just paint a little picture:  Lucy & Ricky, Mike & Carol, Ross & Rachel, Zack & Kelly and Corey & Topenga.  After Saved By the Bell ended and Zack and Kelly were no longer, tweens had to turn to another 'it' couple.  Enter Boy Meets World where Corey and Topenga were little childhood playmates who finally "went steady".  Such a sweet story. 

In related news....the 11 year old girl who will play the role of Corey and Topenga's daughter just Tweeted the official announcement.  An 11 year old, people.  Tweeting.  Let's get some perspective.  When I was 11,  I was just trying to get by without peeking down at my hands in keyboarding class when we had "library" time and had to memorize the home row and then the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog about five hundred times after that.  Now these kids are typing on mobile devices and sending messages out to the world!  Crazy.

I wonder how the show will do.  No doubt tweens will love it and I am sure people my age will tune in just to see what their old pals Corey and Topenga are up to these days.

Another room gets a facelift!

As I was driving well over the speed limit on my way home from a hectic (not really) day at the office today, I was thinking about what I should blog about next.  I couldn't really think of anything blog-worthy at that time so I figured I'd just wait until something came to me.
I got home, went to hang up my jacket and peeked into my computer room (which I now occasionally stop to glance at because I love it so much) and realized I never did a full blog post on this room update!  How dare I neglect you guys of such a thing?!?!  Of course I am kidding.  I don't expect anyone (except my mom, really) to get as excited about a room makeover as I do.
Anyway, I know I gave you a little snip-it of the update a few posts back, but here's the full rundown in a not-so-short nutshell:

First my computer room looked like this:  Note that this is on a CLEAN day.  The sample swatches of yellow paint by the window trim had been there for probably two years and the lovely floral loveseat came with the house.  It usually had a brown sheet over it to hide the in-your-face pattern but towards the end of this old room's life, I decided, 'what's the point?' and kept the sheet off.  It was more of a pain than anything.  And please don't think that the pictures on the wall had any rhyme or reason for hanging there.  The nails were there from the previous owner and things just needed a place to hang rather than collect dust in a corner somewhere so I hung them 'wherever' for the time being.

Beautiful, wasn't she? 
I kind of went back and fourth as to whether or not I wanted to tear the carpet out of this room.  I knew from when I took my living room carpet out that there was a wood floor under this stained, matted down carpet, I just still wasn't sure what I wanted to do.  Then one day, back in September I took the plunge and tore that carpet out.  A new roof was getting put on my house and I had a dumpster handy so I figured there was no time like the present to get this makeover started!  After moving the furniture out, ripping out the carpet and pulling out a boat load of carpet staples, the room was looking something like this:

Considering the floor is over 60 years old, it doesn't look too shabby!  I am glad I went with the removing-the-carpet idea.
Next came the big part...paint.  If you remember, I chose to go with white trim in my bathroom.  I had a couple reasons for wanting to go with white:  A., I liked it...I know it's trendy right now and a lot of people cringe at the thought (I used to be one of those people), but I like it.  and B. the trim in my house is so banged up, dirty and full of the previous owners paint, that there is so way that removing the trim, sanding and re-staining it and getting it back on the wall is really an option.  It's a long story, but trust me.  Anyway, it was time to paint that window trim and those baseboards white.  I won't even get into the problems I had with that.  The windows ended up turning out fine but the baseboards were a different story.  My dad and I ended up taking them all down and I bought new baseboards and quarter-round--the same baseboards that we put in the bathroom.  I LOVE it!  I really didn't get any pictures of the baseboard paint horror that occurred, but it was bad.  You can't tell in the picture below, but these are the first white baseboards (before they came off and were replaced by new ones...You're lucky I didn't get close-ups!
Ok, now it was time to paint the walls!  Yippee!!!  Oh wait, first I have to pick a rug...I am in a big fat hurry to pick a rug so my mom and I decide to give Dock 86 a try.  Has anyone ever been there?  I hadn't.  It's like a gigantic Home Goods, Pier1 and some other house store crammed into one gigantic warehouse.  Anyway, I picked out this rug that I thought was the bomb dot com.  My mom thought otherwise but I won because it's my house.  Again, I didn't get pictures of it, sorry to say.  It had this blue and yellow crazy pattern and some polka-dots thrown in there.  I got it home, laid it down and immediately decided that I wanted to paint the walls yellow--the same yellow that was in the rug.  Why I had my heart set on yellow, I'll never know.  It's not for every room, and this case was no exception.  Two coats of paint later, I had this room that looked like a bottle of mustard had gotten murdered in.  I am not sure if it was the white trim, the lack of things on the walls or the honey colored floor that clashed with it, but it was not a good look.

Somewhere during the yellow wall mishap, I decided I no longer liked the rug, either.  Actually, back up...I was still kind of on the fence about the yellow walls so it wasn't a mishap...yet.  I was so stuck on yellow from the beginning that I think I thought I was going to let myself down if I didn't go with it.  Anyway, so here I am, dealing with the yellow and then I decide I don't like the rug after all.  It's way too busy and just yuck.  So, back to the store it goes.
Next I go on another rug hunt and visit Kohls.com.  I find this nice reddish Ombre rug.  It's wool, it's a good price, I like it, I buy it.  I get it and lay it out in the yellow room and then it was like Mr. Ketchup got to the murder scene of Mr. Mustard and set up camp.  Seriously, it was like a summer picnic table in my room.  Not cool.  I unfortunately skipped taking pictures of the ketchup/mustard/wall/rug combination as well.  What was I thinking??  I was probably thinking "don't take any pictures, just get this paint off the walls!"  So now it's official....it's the walls I hate and the rug I like.
So I run my buns down to Menards and get a slew of paint swatch chips.  After a week or so of the chips hanging on the wall, I decided on a color.  Back down to Menards I go to get the paint.  Something tells me though to just buy a test can.  Did you know they have test jars for like $3 or something crazy??  I didn't either.  I saw one size and assumed it was the 'test' size...to the tune of $15.  It wasn't until after I got home, opened the can and tested the color that my mom told me they have TINY test sizes, not just quart sizes.  Duh Leiann.  Anyway, I paint a few patches on the wall and it's dark.  I mean dark.  I again, think that maybe I can live with it.  It matches the outside part of my new rug so perfectly!  Again, I let the paint dwell on the wall for about a week.  Now it was time to get down to business...this has been dragging out long enough!  I am out and about and go to Menards to pick up my paint.  Something tells me to talk to my mom again.  I say to her: (mind you, she hasn't seen the dark patches on the wall)  "do you think it's going to be too dark?".  And she goes "well, based on the fact that you've asked me a few times and that you have been thinking about it for so long, yes, it's too dark".  And with that, the decision was made,...I picked a different color while standing in the paint swatch isle at Menards, had the can mixed and that was that!  I was done farting around with paint colors!
Two more coats of paint later, the rug is laid down and we have this:

Not terrible...but not the best.  By this point I am spent.  I am sick of painting, sick of looking at rugs and just ready for this room to be back together.  I decide that the "silver screen" paint actually looks a little lavender in the right light and it matches the outside edges of the rug nicely.  Ok, it's settled.  We're sticking with this rug.
I continue on with the tasks at hand:  My dad and I put up the new baseboards after their all painted, we hang those cool floating shelves that I got at Ikea and I weed through 'things' to hang on my walls and the floor looks like this for a few days:

Then I decide on an arrangement for the bare wall that looked like this:

But then it actually ends up looking like this:
Allow me to explain:  Upper left - old bathroom tile, both floor and wall pieces.  Next to tile - Turtle painting from Hawaii.  Large bottom left - State Fair painting by Michael Birawer.  Large upper Right - a corner in Minneapolis painting by Michael Birawer.  Lower right - golf scorecard from a game with my grandpa and uncle.  Next to golf score - empty cigarette packs and match books found behind the wall during the bathroom renovation.

As you may notice, there is another rug change.  While shopping at World Market probably a month and a half after the red Kohl's rug was purchased, I came across this beauty.  Something made me go over to the rug section even though I had no reason to.  I saw this rug and the Heaven's opened and the Angel's sang.  I had to have this rug and replace the red one that I was just 'eh' about anyway.  It was a lot more money than the red one, but that didn't matter.  I had to have it.  I called Kohl's to be sure I could still return the red one, had the worker at World Market grab the rug from the back and I was off.  The best part about it was that it was marked way down when I got to the register and ended up being cheaper than the red one!  It was a win-win situation.  A sign.  A must-have-happened-for-a-reason type-of-thing.  It was awesome!  I got it home, laid that bad boy down and I was a happy camper!  I after hanging more things, changing out the knobs on a little dresser I got at a barn sale and finished painting the closet, I had a pretty snazzy looking room if I do say so myself.  I still need to get blinds for the windows, do something with the ceiling fan and get maybe a small stand for the printer but other than that, she's in good shape!  I also may want to get a piece of furniture for that big wall, but that's down the road a bit.  As for the floral couch?  She was put out for free on the curb while the guys put the new roof on and somebody hauled her away.  I hope she is loving her new home!

And while we're on type and picture overload, allow me to share one more thing with you...
I purchased an old window at a barn sale this fall and had this vision of making it into a table top.  I asked my grandpa if he would make the table portion for me for Christmas, and he said he would.  I explained that I wanted the window part to open so you could store stuff in it.  I had to do my fair share of work though too...the window trim was coated in thick paint so I spent more than a few hours stripping the paint and getting it sanded down to bare wood.  The table is now at my house and I am still deciding if I want to re-paint or stain it.  I haven't quite decided.  Either way, here it is in raw wood form.  Any suggestions would be appreciated!  Also, this isn't her final resting place...I haven't made that decision yet, either.  She is just out of the way tucked in this corner.  :)

Can I Take A Minute...

I usually reserve this blog space for mainly lighthearted posts about things I find amusing or projects around my house but this morning, or at least for this post, I am changing it up a bit. Warning: This post is long, contains no pictures and is full of bad punctuation.

I am sure all five of you who read this blog know that I am single.  It's no secret.  Some of you may also know that I am the Queen of Blind Dates.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, you just think that maybe that one of these times, it would have worked out, or at least led to more dates.
I am one of the last of my close friends to be married.  A lot of them are starting to have kids now and I am nowhere near that.  Not that I should compare my life to theirs because I do lead a great life in many ways, it's just very hard to see your sibling and your close friends moving in the right direction while I'm stuck in Bad Blind Datesville, going nowhere fast.  Some may say I am too picky but they haven't been in my shoes so they don't know.  Some say there's nothing wrong with being picky.  I'll go with that.
Last night was no exception.  I was set up on a blind date and no offense to the person reading this who set me up, I know you didn't know him personally, it was a friend of a friend so it's not your fault.  Last night was the worst date I've ever been on.  I should have seen it coming after his first string of mind numbing text messages the weekend before Thanksgiving where in the span of four messages, he mentioned that he was "excited for the short week" three separate times.  Deep down, I knew it right then and there that he wasn't for me but I went with it, chalking it up to "he's just nervous".  Insert the second night of texting (still while not asking me out...  who has a conversation with a stranger via text??... I mean if we both know that we are supposed to be going on a blind date, just cut to the chase and let's set something up.  Mindless banter via text message with a stranger is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.) where he again starts his conversation by saying something weird and then for lack of better things to say, mentions once again that he's excited for the short week.  That was the straw that broke the camel's back.  Since his text was more of a statement than a question, I ignored it and decided this guy is not worth persuing.
Low and behold over a month goes by and he texts me again at the beginning of this month.  I couldn't believe my eyes.  For a minute I thought this was a sign that he might be the one.  Who contacts a stranger after a month of absence after they didn't respond to your "excited about the short week" comment?  The angel on my shoulder told me to go for it.  I opened my mind and told myself that those beginning texts were just nerves and that he is probably a good guy.  Although he did proceed to have an actual conversation with me via text message rather than calling or just setting up a time to get together, I again, ignored the devil on my other shoulder and told myself to suck it up.  The following night when another text came through and I could sense another drawn out conversation similar to the night before where topics consisted of his sisters trip to Mexico and asking if I bait the fish myself even though he knew that I don't fish (you think I'm kidding...), I nipped it in the bud and told him I was free this weekend if he wanted to get together.  To spare my sanity I said we could talk later in the week and decide where and what time to meet.  This was hopefully the subtle hint he needed NOT to text me again until we meet face to face.
Fast forward five days and we meet up for our date.  You know how they say "you'll just know".  Well "I just knew" within five minutes that I was never going to see this guy again after this date.  It was the longest three and a half hours of my life.  There were so many things wrong with it that if I listed them all you would probably not believe me and some of the things that he did I cannot imitate over type.  I spent the entire evening listen to him ramble on about his dog for a solid 20 minutes, his neighbors, his friends, his friends dogs and his friends ex-wives.  He did spend a good half hour talking about HIS job.  Oh and some of the snippets of his rambles were things like how him and his friend make their own alcohol and how he tackled someone on a party bus.  Seriously??  I think the only thing he found out about me was what I do for a job (and that is just while we were in the lobby waiting for a table, so I hardly got to elaborate) and my bowling average.  He never asked about me.  Is it so much to ask to take a little interest in the person who is sitting across from the table from you?  The person who is starving, no-less because she didn't eat after work, thinking that (duh!) people usually eat or at least ask the other person if they are hungry while on a date!  But no, the poor waitress kept coming over and asking us if we were fine as the menus just sat on the edge of the table teasing me while my stomach begged me to open one.  But nope, he didn't offer so I didn't eat.  Who doesn't at least ask a person if they are hungry?!?
Like I said, he found out nothing about me.  Nothing.  I tried to fit in things that I could relate to as he rambled on but if I said something (for instance, I had the opportunity to mention that we gutted my entire bathroom last winter) it was like I didn't even say it.  Did he not hear me?  He was looking right at me but declined to comment.  I was begging for time to go by faster but no luck.  At one time I went to the bathroom and texted the code phrase "Chandler's been in accident" (fast forward to about 3:50) to my friend.  That's the first time I've ever had to use it.  Three and a half hours, two beers for me, three for him, no food and some not-so-subtle-hints-that-we-should-go later, we left.  I am not even going to mention that I finally really took note of what he was wearing because that would be really shallow of me.
Thankfully we had to go separate ways to our cars and he asked if we could go out again and he threw in an excited-sounding "dinner next time?" like I was getting some sort of reward or something.  I of course couldn't be mean and say no to his face so I will wait until he texts me next to shoot him down.
I got in my car and I was in shock.  Total shock as to what had just happened in there.  All of a sudden I have tears in my eyes.  I called my mom to give her an update and the tears started to flow.  I don't know what came over me.  I woke up extra-early this morning and the flashbacks of the awful events of the night before came back to me and tears came again.  Even now as I type this, re-hashing the details, I have tears.  I'm not quite sure why...I don't even have my period, I shouldn't be this emotional!  Maybe it's because I thought 31 was going to be a good year for me.  Maybe because earlier this week Nat The Fat Rat wrote the sweetest post about how her and her husband met and it made think that something like that could happen to me.  Or maybe the tears are just plain anger.  Anger that a stranger that you are supposed to be "getting to know" on a first date can be so oblivious and self-involved that they don't take the time to find anything out about you.  I am not sure.  Either way, I vowed to my mom that I am never being set up again on another blind date and I am giving up.  She said she doesn't blame me and that maybe if I give up, something will come along when I least expect it.  My mom is usually right about everything so I am going with it.
I am sure in a few days I may somehow find the humor in it all but right now I am still sad.  Thanks for sticking with me through this.
Now back to regularly scheduled blogging.

Walmart Run

Things I witnessed and/or Discovered On My 30 Minute Walmart Trip Today Over Lunch:

• A grown woman was wearing shorts and sandals.  Let's be reminded that it's only 39 degrees outside today, not 70.
• The boy working in the electronics department claimed he knew nothing about antennas for old tube TV's...turned out he knew more than he thought - I bought one.
• Don't try to ring up any electronic device in the self-checkout line...it will ask you to set you electronic aside and a service team member will assist you.
• The head of the self-checkout section disguises herself in street clothes and doesn't stay at her assigned perch at the head of the four-section self-checkout section.  Once her attention is finally got, said person can't figure out the electronic device hiccup either and sends me to a regular cashier.  I wonder how she got promoted to Head Cashier...
• Walmart needs to have cashier lanes open closer to the regular door, not just over by the grocery section.
• While waiting in the new line, the elderly cashier says hello to two people who walk past her line.  She calls the first one by name (Gloria) and does a long, awkward wink at Gloria's friend who is close behind.  I got the feeling that the elderly cashier and Gloria's friend know something about Gloria that Gloria doesn't know they know.
• Elderly cashier called me honey about 6 times in my 2 minute visit with her.
• While making the long trek to the opposite end of the store with my new purchases, I passed the head of the self-checkout (woman disguised in her street clothes).  We made eye contact and she didn't even bother to ask if I had gotten everything figured out ok.  She probably forgot who I was in that short amount of time even though I was carrying a large shovel...the same shovel she had to avoid and step around when she first tried and failed at helping me ring up my electronic device.
• As I was leaving the parking lot some woman in a large truck thought she owned the entire lot and was driving right down the middle of the isle.  Luckily I have a small car so I could avoid her with ease.  I may have said a profanity to myself as I passed her.  In her defense I was driving down the wrong way, but still...it was a short distance that I had to go and there was no need for her to drive right down the middle, especially when she could clearly see me coming.

Do You Hear What I Hear...

A hum, a hum, ringing in ear, let me bring it Q-Tips and Peroxide.  Let me bring it Q-Tips and Peroxide.

So late last week I got what I thought to be water stuck way in my right ear.  It hung around for a few days and by day three I figured it must be wax build up.  I self-diagnosed and poked, paraded and finally did a hydrogen peroxide flush to try to get that waxy bugger out.  No luck.  I couldn't hear and had this irritating hollow sound in my head for days.  Can you say annoying?  I also started "hearing things" too.  While at work, between my heater being on and having only one good ear, I kept thinking I was hearing the Phil Phillips song playing all day long...you know the part where he sings (actually now that I think of it, is he singing or is it some sort of instrument?) all those "dooos"?.... :  "dooooo do do do do do doooo" That's what I was "hearing" with the combination of the heater and the muffled hollow sound in my head.  Low and behold when my feet were cooked to medium rare, I shut my heater off only to hear the complete opposite of Phil Phillips serenading the office on the Blend XM.
Thursday night I was at my breaking point.  I was annoyed that I had to say "what" five thousand times a day and my ear actually hurt to sleep on it.  I slept on my opposite side and ended up not hearing my alarm in the morning because my bad ear was up.  It was time to see a doctor to get this thing out.
I was actually excited to go in.  I had heard stories of people going in to get wax build up flushed out and all this wax comes flooding out like Niagara Falls and I couldn't wait to see that sight.  I know it's gross, but admit it, it's kind of cool.  After the doctor put stool softener (weird, no?) in my ear and streamed water into my canal, out popped this chunk of wax.  It was over in seconds.  To quote my doctor: "Well that's no fun".  A chunk of wax about half the size of my pinky nail came out.  Insert disappointment here.  So much for the river of wax that I secretly hoped would exit my head.  Oh well...at least I know I keep a somewhat clean ear canal.
I also had a small infection so now I am on that Amox (I am not going to spell it out because A., I don't know the spelling and B., I don't care enough to look it up) drug for 10 days. 
Onward and Upward!