Getting closer!

I might actually finish these dining room chairs before I die of old age. They have been the most frustrating things I’ve ever worked on. I am so thrilled though that the end is is sight! Finally!!! The chairs are all stained and ready for poly, I wanted to cut the plywood for the seats before I cleaned the garage out completely. Now that I  have those cut it’s time to blow the garage out and get a couple coats of poly on the wood. I bought the fabric for the cushions from Fabric.com and received it in the mail yesterday so I got started on the seats and got one finished before So You Think You Can Dance came one. I have priorities and I love this show. Today I’m hoping to finish the rest of the seats, how that I know what I want to do I don’t think it will take more than 30 mins to do each seat.

I’m doing 3 chairs with this green fabric and 3 chairs with the same pattern but in an aqua blue color. I can’t wait to get one of the blue ones done!!

Anyone have suggestions on what to spray on the fabric to protect it from stains. When N is home he comes home from work every day and sits at the table to take his boots off and I don’t want any grime from his nasty flight suits to rub off on my seats!

Two years ago

I was driving to GA to visit family and I got a call that no wife wants to get. Nicholas had crashed. He was ok but it is still one of the scariest moments of my life. I’m thankful that he was the one that called me because I think I would have had a panic attack if it was a call from the FRG and I couldn’t hear his voice to really know he was alive. His aircraft had a complete engine failure and he crashed in the middle of a valley in Afghanistan. I still get chills thinking about it.

It’s actually hard to believe that it’s only been 2 years because it really feels like it’s been so much longer. And to put our life in perspective for that time frame, in the last 2 years Nicholas has been deployed for 9 months of it (6 months after the crash and then the 3 months of this deployment) and he also spent 5 months TDY out of state. So in the last 2 years he has actually been home with me, in our house, for 10 months. Dang, that’s actually the first time I’ve actually added that up and it sucks.

Nicholas had brought up the idea of getting out of the Army before the crash and we had been tossing it around, weighing the pros and cons. After the crash he was done. He told me the crash sealed the deal and he was done and getting out. I fully supported him and still do. When people ask me why he’s getting out I tell them “3 deployments in 6 years, and that doesn’t even count TDY time, would you stay in?”. One year from now we will be walking away from the Army and starting our new life and I can’t wait.

Great day of shopping

On Monday I was tired of staying home and decided to head to Gallatin to hit Joann’s Fabrics to look for foam to make the seat cushions for the dining room chairs. While I was down there I wanted to go check out the Home Goods store because I’ve seen the commercials lately and I was curious! After I bought the foam I saw there was a TJ Max in the same parking lot so I stopped in there and fell in love with a couple of lamps. Now, normally I don’t buy lamps or have lamps in the house but I’m not kidding these talked to me. They were so cute! There was also another lamp I really loved and it was so funky looking I kept going back to it but since I couldn’t think of anywhere to put it I walked away. Sigh. The 2 green lamps did come home with me though. I had to buy both of them because they were a set and I couldn’t just get one. Look how fun they are!!

A close up of the base.

I love how unusual they look! I think I’m going to put one of them by the sofa and the other in the guest bedroom.

Next I went over to Home Goods and could have spent N’s entire paycheck in there!! Great stuff at great prices!! I loved all the furniture and they had an awesome lamp section there!!! I didn’t buy any of them but I did look for a while. As I was walking around I found a little clearance section stuck over in a corner, that’s where I found the super cute lawn chairs!! I’m in a huge blue and green kick right now and these chairs are awesome!! I looked at the price tag and they were on sale for $15!! Normally they would have been $60 each and I got 4 for the price of one!!! Love it! I think I’m going to throw some pads on the legs and use them as my dining room chairs until I get my real chairs finished.  Haven’t completely decided on that though.

Closer

And can I say that having an SUV with fold down back seats ROCKS!!! I was able to fit everything with no issue and some room to spare. I love my car!!!

Oh and a new picture of the chairs I’m working on. I added the foot rest yesterday and I’m re-sanding all of them. I had started to stain one and it looked terrible. The stain was so blotchy I couldn’t believe it. I hate the coating they put on wood that takes forever to sand off. It’s driving me crazy right now. I sanded for 2 hours yesterday and got 3 chairs done. I guess that means I have at least another 3 hours of sanding to do today to finish the last 3. I hope I have enough sand paper, I feel like I need to buy stock in the brand of sandpaper I use because I go through so much of it! I’ve decided what fabric I’m going to use to cover the seats and I have the foam. I still need to attach the supports on the inside of the frame. Like I said before, I might have them done by the time N comes home for R&R.

Happy Father’s Day!

The love for ice cream runs deep in this family so I got Daddy a gift card to Kroger and wrote “For Ice Cream” on it because he LOVES the Cherry Cordial ice cream from there. My great grandmother loved her vanilla or butter pecan ice cream. I remember being up at the lake house with the family and she would be ready to go so Aunt Iona would make her a big bowl of ice cream and it would keep her quiet. N already give me ice cream to keep my quiet. Bless his heart, he has a long life ahead of him. Maybe we should look into buying stock into an ice cream company? lol Daddy said he was laughing so hard at his Kroger card he could barely read his card. :) We got Derek an Omaha Steaks gift card. I hope he enjoys his as much as Daddy will enjoy his ice cream. I bought N a card from the girls but it’s still sitting on the table (Babe, you’ll get it with your next box!).  At least I’m 2 for 3 on getting the cards there on time.

Dining Room Chairs

Are driving me CRAZY!!! I had no problem building the first 3 chairs before our anniversary back in April but the last 3 chair gave me tons of issues (a lot of that was my fault because I’d get so focused on one thing I wouldn’t notice something else). I finally got them to the point I was ready to stain and started on the first chair and the stain looks terrible! It’s SUPER blotchy. GAH! Now I need to sand all of them again. It’s so hard to get into the corners with the sander and that’s where it looks the worst. So frustrating. I keep putting off working on them because it’s been so hot that  if I start sanding I’m almost instantly covered in a sweat/dust paste. Yuck. I have a fan in the garage but I wish I had some kind of air conditioner in there! When a project gets this frustrating I really wish N was here to help me with it. I know we would have been done by now with both of us working. Deployments suck.

I’m ready to start on a new project that I can paint instead of stain! I want to build a storage bed to put in the extra bedroom so I can take the huge metal shelf out of there and put that in the garage. Most of my focus for this next year is having the house completely staged and ready to sale when N gets back from the deployment. I want the extra room to look awesome and a huge metal shelf kind of takes away from the size of the room! Plus having a bed with built in storage will be great no matter where we move, you can always use extra storage space! I’m looking forward to starting that soon. Still need to get these chairs done.

Anyone know a good place to buy foam cushioning? I really need to get some for the chair seats. I do have the fabric picked out so that’s the last step. Maybe by the time the boy comes home for R&R I’ll have them done. Or maybe not. I guess we’ll see.

New Pictures!

I told the boy that he needed to get on the ball and send me some more pictures of his smiling mug and he sent them to me today! I think he looks great! He hasn’t lost tons a weight this time around.

About to head out on a test flight with A. I still love to see him in that flight helmet. When he asked A to take a pic with him she actually asked him “are you sure? Your wife will be ok with it?” He laughed and said “obviously you’ve never met my wife or seen us together, yes I’m sure.” I think it’s sad that she’s had so many issues with troop members and wives in the past that she would actually have to ask that. :(

 

The bus stop

Where he spends all his time working.

A weird connection

The boy and I have always had a bizarre connection to each other. Even when we were dating we had it. Normally we don’t think about it too much but twice this week it’s come up and it still blows my mind a little bit.

First, a couple weeks ago N asked me to send him something to put on his flight vest to remind him of me. A little charm or something. I had no idea what to send for a while until I remembered the charm bracelet that he gave me when we were dating. I have a jewelry box that I keep all the stuff that has sentimental value but I don’t wear anymore and that bracelet had the perfect charm, a slice of pizza. Pizza has always been a huge part of our life, many a Friday night has been spent with pizza and a movie, we LOVE pizza. The silver charm was a little tarnished and worn but I knew it was perfect so I packed it up with a letter and sent it off. On Tuesday N got the package and said “I love the charm, I was JUST thinking about that bracelet a few days ago and wondered if you still had it! So crazy!”

Second, tonight the boy got off work a little early because there wasn’t much going on and he said he was going to play some Zelda video games, it was time for some old school. As soon as I read that I thought “ohh I should tell him about the new Mario game, no that’s be mean” as I was thinking that he typed “I want you to know that when I get home I will be divorcing you and devoting my life to the new Mario game” I cracked up and told him to GET OUT OF MY HEAD.

It’s a little freaky how often this happens to us. I think it’s pretty awesome.