No, we’re not having a baby.  We came home from dinner tonight to find this…

As if turning on the stove MULTIPLE times wasn’t enough, the kittens have now discovered the under the sink cabinet full of hazardous materials.

Two days ago we ordered a cord of firewood.

I came home from work to see this giant pile at the end of our driveway.  We have a wood burning (obviously) fireplace that we are very excited to use for the season.  We had one in our condo and since it was a third floor unit, we usually didn’t put the heat on until December.  So we knew we definitely wanted one again, but when we got our house option sheet, it wasn’t offered!  Apparently people don’t really want them and prefer gas? Insanity! Luckily, our special request was granted and we got our wood burning fireplace.  The smell is so wonderful and cozy, plus the kittens love it.

We ordered the wood locally (from a place around the corner) and we were excited to hear that all of that wood came from our very own development when they chopped down trees to build houses.

You see, I really try to be as environmentally conscious as possible, I was raised that way.  So I never thought I’d buy a new house and once shook my head at the thought.  But the ignorance won and it was just better financially.  So I still feel very incredibly guilty every time I think of all of the animals I left homeless.  It felt a little better to know that we will be using the wood for an alternative heat source (that maybe creates smokey pollution) but at least it didn’t travel far and is being used practically.  It helps me sleep better at night okay?!

So what are we doing to do with all that wood? We ordered some outdoor wood holder thingys off amazon and for the inside, we bought a little basket from Target.

Since we love our recycling baskets, we thought we’d get a bigger one for the wood.  It has nothing in it and still has the tag on it actually…

All this time I thought that said “arabica”, like the coffee beans.  Whoops!

Our fireplace is one of our many works in progress.  Right now it has an awkward, I-wasn’t-thinking-creatively, candle holder in it, which I do like.  But I’ll probably step up my game in the off season 🙂

And since my friend Laura told me today that she enjoyed my background/foreground pictures, I figured I’d give her another one…

The fireplace itself is currently half tiled with some of the tiles we used for our kitchen backsplash.  I wanted to include them in the family room because of our open floorplan.

It still has to be grouted and we have to figure out what to do with the rest of the fireplace.  I found some high heat paint for the black metal parts and I plan on changing out the gold hardware.

But the dilemma is what to do with the black slate bottom piece (that is ugly and cloudy in this pic)..

I wanted to paint it a shade of brown, so I don’t waste a good piece of slate, but I’m worried about the VOCs in many of those concrete type paints that the guy at Lowe’s told us to use.  It’s our family room and we and the kittens are always in there (here, I’m here now…)  Does anyone have any experience with painting interior slate?

Anywho, we’re definitely looking forward to the holiday season where the 5 of us are cuddled up the fire.  If only we could have gotten a fireplace in our bedroom too!

After I realized that I could downsize the Oreos to a smaller jar, I knew something had to be done.

Thank god I ate 4 before the warning was issued!

We have a lot of unfinished, unblogged about projects around here.  We’re waiting for some molding to be finished in the hallway/bedroom and another layer of spackle needs to be applied to the new wall.  We also have yet to finish up the office, because I am in full swing of midterm time over here.  So while Mike was hanging around, unable to make any house progress, he decided to book a vacation.  Ladies and gentlemen….

WE’RE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!

In my 26 years on earth (it will be 27 by the time I get there) I have never been to Disney.  That is right.  I might as well be the devil.  I just really didn’t start traveling until I graduated college and by then I only had 2 weeks of vacation to use, so I wanted to go to distant places.  But starting in January, I will receive a third week of vacation! Yaaay!  So we’re leaving January 5th, Mike’s birthday 🙂

Usually when we go on vacation, I like to bring a little something back for the house.  I painted this from one of our Florida vacations (and just so happens to be where we got engaged)….

I painted it for a college art class and we had it hanging in our old bedroom, but I’m not sure what to do with it here yet.  It kinda has sentimental meaning, so I’ll have to frame and hang it somewhere.

When we went to Mexico, I picked up this little cat…

I try to find local, handmade things, but it’s hard in touristy areas.

Then exactly a year ago, when we were in Maui for our honeymoon, Mike snapped literally thousands of pictures…

Four of these awesome photos (which I didn’t have the time to post right now) will be hanging above our fireplace shortly.  I placed two of the “rejects” from the rounds of choices in small frames on our entertainment center…

So what am I going to incorporate from Disney?? Hm maybe I’ll just get some mouse ears for Darwin (Macky and Mowie are too cool for that). Oooor, we do have some Pixar prints already, though they’re packed away somewhere and we never framed them.  Maybe we’ll add to that collection?  I have a weakness for Pixar and all things Finding Nemo, we shall see 🙂

ps- since I was going through honeymoon pictures, I checked the dates to see what we were doing a year ago today.  We were hanging out with chickens and kittens… in one spot!

Last night Mike ran to Rite Aid to pick up some toothpaste and brought home Oreos.  Not for himself, he’s a good husband and bought them for me.  But Oreos are my weakness and I can’t eat just 1, or 3, or 5. At least they will look pretty in my jars for the 2 days they will last.

I think that in the time that passed between the first and last picture, about 4 Oreos went missing.  I blame Macky.  Until the evidence appears on my hips.