Room make-overs

Jerry and I bought a house this past November and it is the perfect starter home. We don't have a dining room, which I don't mind, but there are three bedrooms AND a separate loft area for Jerry's office. It also has a garage and a fenced in backyard. My favorite is probably having a garage. No more running through the rain to the front door! It has an "open" concept, in that the living room's ceiling goes all the way to the top where the ceiling would be for the second floor. The kitchen is open as well but there are beams to make up the four corners.

This is one of the beams in the kitchen.

The mirror above the mantle kind of shoes the openness of the room.

I tend to think that I have pretty good decorating skills but Pinterest is the devil. If you don't have a Pinterest, get one. It's a place to keep boards of inspirational, motivational, decorating ideas. I stay on there ALL day long. No joke. Recently I found this picture. And I loved the grays with the pop of coral. I also love the idea of putting soap in a mason jar.

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And then I saw this picture.

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I loved that this person mixed prints. Actually, I love everything. The striped wall, floral shower curtain, damask-like bath rug in front of the sink. Everything. Our bathroom right now are all blues. It came with blue speckled tiles so we have a solid navy shower curtain and rug. I bought some $1 signs from Target recently that had teal mixed in with the navy so I bought teal towels to have an equal amount of teal and navy. Last weekend, the shower curtain was pulled open and the sun was shining through the window and I noticed that the floors were gray and black speckled. We've been in this house for over six months and I just now noticed that. I felt like a dummy. After seeing the pictures above, and especially after the realization of color, I told myself that I needed to re-do my bathroom. I also decided on a few other things thanks to Pinterest. 

I'll be framing my mirror.

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I'll also be painting the inside of my drawers coral, probably.

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How much more exciting could it get for me knowing that I get to re-do some rooms in our home? I'm pumped!! I almost forgot to mention that we hired Granite Transformations to re-do our kitchen and bathrooms. They specialize in granite overlays, not full granite. So there is no demolition. We're replacing our kitchen counters, sink, faucet, and getting a fabulous subway style backsplash. The bathrooms are getting new counters and just the master bath is getting a new vessel sink and faucet. They will be doing their install this coming Monday and Tuesday. But I wanted to get things done before then. So here's the run-down of my current home To Do List.

1. Buy wood pieces to frame the mirror.
2. Paint bathroom cabinets black with coral on the inside like the last picture, above.
3. Paint white stripes on one wall (our walls are already gray).  DONE
4. Pour soap in mason jars and poke holes in lids and insert pumps.  DONE

I also have a project going for the wall along the stairs. I got my inspiration from...Pinterest, of course!

I don't know why this above section is highlighted with a white background and I can't get it to go away...

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Our last name is Lee so collecting these L's will be so much fun!

Other things on my To Do List:

1. Paint the back of the front door black.

2. Put together media shelf in the office upstairs.

3. Make home-made grout cleaner and use on master bathroom (I'll be sure to take pictures!).

4. Buy magnet strip and glue to the inside of bathroom drawer for bobby pins.

I know there's more whirling around in my head but I'm getting distracted so I better run and buy these things before my head explodes from so much planning. Tutorials are in the works for these future projects. Be looking for them :)

Mrs. Lee

I wanted to finish up my story of how the Jerbear and I met. I knew if I started on another story that I might run off with the bunnies and never come back.

Let me think of where I left off. 

Oh yeah!! I was re-telling the story of how he asked me to be his girlfriend. We were an official couple Sunday, April 1st, 2007. That Tuesday, his family asked us to go see a Predators game in Nashville. His mom's co-worker had gotten us box seats so we were super pumped about it. 

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GO PREDS!!

As the night began to wind down, his dad said he was going to walk around the arena for little while. We didn't think anything of it but then his mom disappeared later to find him. Several minutes passed and she called Jerry to say that his dad had to go to the ER. We both looked at each other a little terrified. I found out that his dad had heart problems. He didn't have a heart attack or anything but because of the irregularities, the EMS had to get him to take a pill that pretty much stopped his heart and they used the defibrillators to start it back on a normal rhythm. We left the hockey game early to meet them at the hospital and it was pouring down rain. If the heart issue wasn't scary enough, the windshield wipers were not working during the storm so we had to drive ten mph in order to see anything in front of us. People were yelling at us left and right! It was funny thinking back on it.

I found out later in our relationship that Jerry had heart problems as well. They were not related to that of his dad; his was a birth defect. In a nutshell, humans are meant to have tricuspid heart valves. He was only born with a bicuspid valve, specifically his aortic valve. He had his first surgery when he was nine, replacing those valves. And he'll eventually have to have another one. Just not at the moment. I'll get more in to this in a later post. But here's what his heart looks like compared to others.

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I don't know if there are words to describe how perfect we are for each other. We are complete opposites and have nothing in common but it works for us. The things that keep us together are similar qualities, not interests. We both have compassion for our community, are strong green-go-ers, have love for our family and friends, and every single thing just pairs well together. 

The weekend after my birthday in 2009, we had a date planned at the movies and were going to buy edible arrangements to bring back to my house for Mother's Day the next day. Our parents were supposed to meet for the first time that night. Dinner was at my house and the whole family was just going to eat and enjoy each other's company. We walk in the door and the first person I see is one of my old best friend's Sarah. Then I begin to look around the room and not only is Sarah there but her boyfriend, my family, Jerry's family, and several of our other really good friends.

No one had ever thrown a surprise birthday party for me so, of course, I cried. But the night gets better. After we eat and are getting ready to cut the cake, his dad gets all up in my face and I naturally back up because I am not one for intrusion on my personal space. He moves out of the way and Jerry is on the floor, on one knee, with a cake in his hand and a ring on top. 

I could not believe my eyes. Jerry was proposing to me in front of everyone! Not knowing how to react, I ran and hid behind my bestie, Lauren, on the screened-in porch.

I hesitated making any moves and everyone is yelling for me to come back in. 

All I could do was walk up to Jerry, hug him, kiss him, cry more, and nod my head yes. It was the best day of my entire life. And he spoiled me A LOT in the beginning. I will never forget this day.

Being three years younger than me, Jerry wanted to wait to get married for a while. But I, on the other hand, wanted to get married the next day if I could. We had tentatively chose to wait until October 2011. I had picked out gray and yellow as my colors. In August 2010, I was talking with my parents about the wedding date and my dad suggested January 1st. 01-01-11. How had I not thought about that date? Cool, huh? I ran back upstairs to tell Jerry and we decided right then and there to move the date up to the 1st. Then, there was the planning period. Four months wasn't all that much time to get things perfectly planning but we did it. And our wedding was, indeed, perfect!!

There is not much to say about the ceremony. I was the princess of my ball and any girl would be lucky to be in those shoes. I was thankful to have such loving family and friends to experience it with. We loved, we laughed, we ate, and we danced the night away.

I started to leave a few pictures of the wedding but I thought it would be better to put up some of the funny ones....ENJOY!!

Girl meets boy

In my last post I mentioned going back and re-telling some stories from my old blog. So I figured why not start from the very beginning of how I met my husband.

To start that story, I should probably give you a little background information on my family. My dad is a music minister. We've moved several times so we don't get upset anymore. It's one of those things we're just used to. I think I might can dig up a picture or two of him in action.

 This was our old church in East Ridge, TN. The sanctuary had just been remodeled.

This is what pisses me off. We were at this church in East TN for fourteen years and whomever uploaded this picture of my dad spelled our last name wrong. It's supposed to be GRANLUND. That is really besides the point. These were the only pictures I could find...

If you really want the very beginning, I was born in Florida but only lived there for two years. We then moved to Rossville, GA but was at the church from the pictures above. Seven years later, we moved houses, over the line in TN, but still at the same church and was there for another seven years. We then moved to Mt. Olive, AL. I spent the "growing up" years there so if anyone asks me where I'm from, I will most likely tell them Alabama. In 2006 we moved to Lebanon, TN and we have been in this area ever since.

I had worked as a receptionist at an OB-GYN facility in Birmingham so I had tried to find a similar job here but that didn't come so easily. I decided to take a job as a Key Holder at LifeWay Christian stores. A new hire started about six months later in 2007, named Benton. He was pretty cute but I knew from his shy demeanor that it would take a while for him to build up the courage to ask me out. Shortly after, his friend, Jerry, added me on Myspace.

This is Benton.

This is Jerry.

Jerry: So Benton tells me that I should add you because you don't have any friends.

Me: Did he? Why would he say that?

I wish now that we would have saved some of our earlier conversations because they were pretty hilarious. I think he's got a conversation saved from my old best friend grilling him to make sure he'd be a good guy to date me. Haha. I remember talking about him riding around topless during an outing to Murfreesboro and I was thinking he was really riding around topless. But then I found out his mustang was as convertible so I felt pretty stupid.

At the same time another friend of Benton, Justin, found me on Myspace as well. Out of the two, Justin is definitely the more aggressive one. We talked more often than Jerry and I. After about a month, we decided to go out on a date. But not Justin and I. And not Jerry and I. But all three of us. I wish I had a picture from that night.

And this is Justin. I met him with long hair like Jerry's but I couldn't find any older pictures. But he wore this hat a lot in the beginning so this one will do.

We decided to go on a date to Chili's. I had plans that night already with a customer from LifeWay but I met up with them afterwards for dinner. I did this face modeling thing that night. And it wasn't anything where pictures were taken. It was simply to show off the new make-up lines with Mary Kay. The boys still give me hell about it when it was really nothing. I remember Jerry being super quiet and Justin being the talkative one, winking at me every chance he got. We got up to leave and I offered for Jerry to sit by me while we were waiting on the checks and I pretty much had to tell him that I didn't bite in order for him to sit down.

We went to see Ghost Rider that weekend. Jerry picked me up in his mustang with Justin riding shotgun. After dropping me off, Justin hugged me by but Jerry stayed in the car. Again, I had to basically force him out to hug me too.

Next thing I know Jerry is asking me to be his girlfriend. But this is how he did it...

Jerry: Meghan Granlund, do you want to be my girlfriend?

Me: YES!!

After several minutes of nothing...

Jerry: April Fools'!!

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I swear, this is what I must have looked like after reading that text.

I was furious. April Fool's was on a Sunday that year and I was out at lunch with some of my friends after church. I literally threw my phone across the little area where we were waiting for our table. Jerry knew I was mad because he texted me back and apologized. I forgave him and we began our courtship.

I could keep going in this post, but to tell the rest of the story leading up to our married life now would take a while. So I'll spare you the hour and a half to read all of that and write it in another post.

Back at it again

I'M BACK!!

I know what you're thinking. She has another blog?? Yes. Yes I do, but it's not that bad. I could be like some of my friends who have started like three or four at this point. It's fun seeing those said friends starting new blogs because they are, in fact, always better than the first. I'm a little bit jealous of that. I tried sticking with my original for so long now but just couldn't. Plus, it was tied up with my old email address and I was thinking about getting rid of it. And on top of that, no one read it. I mean, I blog more for my own reasons than to gain attention from others but it is still nice to know people care enough to read it. That is also not meant to say that my friends didn't care about me...bleh...are you seeing what I'm trying to get at? Anyway...

I will most likely go back and write about several of my stories on the old blog, but for now I thought I'd start out with what's currently on my mind. And you know what that is?

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Babies...

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babies...

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BABIES....

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and more babies.

I've got the baby fever. BAD. It's something that just started recently too. My husband, Jerry, and I got married January 1st, 2011 but have been together for about five and a half years total. He is three years younger than me so having a child is the farthest thing from his mind. Now that I've hit 26, babies are all I can think about. I had always thought I'd have at least a couple of kids before I turned 30 and Jerry tells me he wants to wait, and wait, and wait some more.

This past March, I had some back issues so I was put on anti-inflammatories as well as anti-biotics and doctors have said that it could cancel out your birth control. With Jerry being the cautious guy that he is, we rarely had sex because he didn't want me to get pregnant. I, on the other hand, seduced him every chance I got. This is probably what I looked like in order for him to forget about babies. LOL.

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I also was at the last two weeks of my pack and I decided to just quit taking the pills. I didn't tell Jerry until after the fact. Sneaky, sneaky, huh? BUT it didn't work because I didn't get pregnant. So I got back on the pack. We talked things through and concluded that even though I wanted a baby right away, it was the best thing to wait. We had tons of credit card debt as well as a mortgage we had to pay for every month. He didn't feel we were very financially stable at the time.

A month or so ago, Jerry's boss gave him a three dollar raise and a potential two more dollars if he met a certain quota at work. We have managed our money pretty well but with a definite three extra dollars in a 50-60 hour work week, we felt like we were swimming in money!! Our first thoughts were LET'S HAVE A BABY!!!! And that is what we have been trying to do. Pretty exciting, huh?!