Our Own Tuscan Vineyard

Painting has finally commenced on our 3 season porch turned Tuscan Vineyard - the lights are hung and the ambiance is magnificent. Don't have a ton of time to write now, but here's a preview and more to come later :o)

Of course this is still sans new neutral carpet, but you get the idea. Enjoy!!! 

Weekend Warriors

Apparently we are making up for the un-productivity of the past couple weekends, because we are just knocking out projects like crazy this weekend! My wonderful husband graduated from graduate school this past week - he passed his thesis defense and finished the last of his research, he now officially has his M.S. in Medicinal Chemistry (woohoo!!!). And so on Friday night we went out to celebrate with my in-laws. We had dinner and drinks at a beautiful little restaurant on a nearby lake - Conesus Inn

Everything was delicious, and it was a great celebration.

For his graduation gift, my generous in-laws bought him a new grill.

He was very excited, and actually managed to get it all put together in a few hours yesterday. Hopefully he will be grilling delicious dinners for his wonderful wife in the very near future ;o)

Saturday I decided it was time to get started on a project of my own - painting the ceiling of our enclosed porch. The previous owners had painted the entire space this nasty and depressing blueish shade of gray, and I mean everything! A few weeks ago we painted the walls a nice light green, and the trim white. Now it's time to paint the rest of the ceiling white, and the exposed beams a darker brown.

We're going for a Tuscan vineyard look in this space. That was a sneak peak, so stay tuned!

Happy Birthday

Wow, it's been a while since my last post. When I started this blog I promised myself that I wouldn't go for too lengthy a period of time without posting - I was aiming for at least one post a week, to keep the momentum going for my followers/readers. So my apologies if it has been too slow for anyone. I will try to push forward and keep my aforementioned promise to both myself and you the followers/readers.

Weekends are usually the best time for me to write, so I'm going to chalk my blogging laziness up to the fact that it was just a busy weekend this past weekend :o) Reason being, today is my birthday

and so this weekend definitely was a busy one. Friends of ours came in from out of town to help me celebrate, so they were staying with us for the weekend. We went out for dinner and drinks on Saturday, which was so much fun - I have the best group of friends in the entire world, and they made my birthday celebration so special.

As a group we started a tradition were we exchange inexpensive personalized birthday gifts at each person's birthday celebration. Like I said, my friends are the best and so they got me some amazing presents

The Classics with Twilight inspired covers

The first 3 books in the Sookie Stackhouse series

I already own Something Borrowed, so they got me the next book - Something Blue

A gift set of my fave beverage - Margaritas


A special birthday wine glass, for the birthday girl

I love my friends :o) Thank you all for making it the best birthday ever!!!

Sunday we got up and went to breakfast with our out of town friends, before they headed back home. We had a fairly early morning (especially given the events from the previous night), because for my birthday my wonderful husband bought me tickets to go see WICKED!!!

The broadway cast was doing an off-broadway tour and happened to be in our town the weekend of my birthday!!! It was fabulous!!! One of the best shows I have ever seen - and we are fairly big theater go'ers. The performances were amazing and the story was just great - there was a little something for everyone. So if you ever do have the chance to see this show, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Afterwards we went over to my in-laws house for dinner. My father-in-law grilled me my fave dinner - swordfish steaks, with grilled veggies, and baked sweet potatoes!!! And then my mother-in-law made me one of my fave desserts - better than sex cake!!! Mmmmmmmm it was delicious!!! They also gave me some awesome birthday gifts... my brother-in-law gave me a Starbucks giftcard, so that I can indulge in my fave cafe beverages without feeling guilty about spending so much of my own $$$ on them :o) And they (along with the help of my hubby) also got me the FRIENDS tv series complete DVD box set!!!

In addition to the above mentioned... last week my amazing mom bought us the plants for our landscaping project and she also gave me a trip to the salon - my hair has been in desperate need of a stylist, so I was able to go and get a new do complete with styling products and tools!!!

My dad and step-mom have been helping us with projects around the house, so they gave me a giftcard to Home Depot to buy supplies for the remodel of our future master bedroom suite!!!

Wrods cannot express, how much I love my family and friends - they are the best. I am so blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life... I love you all so much!!!

So needless to say, we did not get much "domestic work" done this past weekend. The pending house projects are still pending, and I honestly didn't even get any cooking, baking or reading done this weekend either. All in all it was a fun (albeit domestically unproductive) weekend.