an unexpected friday night off.

as you can guess, in the restaurant business having a friday night off is a major rarity. it is one of the busiest nights of the week. everyone works basically. i got to work early and checked out the floor map for the night to find that i was listed as "extra" with the word sick beside my name. i had to call in sick yesterday. i was pretty excited. i double checked.. and collected my paycheque and was on my way.

so… yesterday was probably one of the worst experiences with gluten (or wheat, more specifically) i have ever had. i have been staying away from it for about a year and a half. it has been pretty easy for me, considering my mom never uses wheat in her cooking, and i know how to get around it. but there are times when i cheat. and i did that too much over the holidays with jeff's family and christmas parties and stuff. it lead to gross bloaty-ness and nothing really moving through my insides. but whatever. it was worth it. i have been focusing on eating better now that the holidays are over and for the most part i felt like it had all passed. but wednesday i worked day, and so had the night off with jeff. we decided to have a junk food night. jeff has a way of just making me cheat and eat all the things. well… in the middle of the night i woke up feeling awful. i didn't leave the bathroom all night. and i was stuck there most of the next day too.

either i had a really short run in with the flu, or that was the worst gluten/wheat reaction i have ever had. it was horrible. a girl i work with who is celiac calls it being 'glutened'.

sooo… the short version of that story is that i had to call in sick to work thursday, and so they weren't sure if i would make it friday… and had too many people scheduled anyway, and so i got the night off. it was great.

i came back home without telling jeff so i could surprise him. they had just fallen asleep for nap time and so i got to join in for the rest of that (which was awesome). afterwards i suggested a family date night at ikea. it was a hit.

i got these christmas cookie cutters that fit together to make standing 3d cookies. pretty stoked. and they were on for 49 cents. we got some cool green glasses to go in our bar. and some glass water bottles, a bathmat, and some very cool grey crates to complete our shelf storage situation.

we got this big shelf to separate our living room from the dining room/office space. this is the living room half. on the other side is the giant pile of stuff we haven't dealt with or put away yet. so the middle row has been saves for crates (which jeff was supposed to build for me… but that isn't really happening) which i will fill with all my fabric from my sewing dresser, so we can get rid of the dresser and put a big 6 foot desk across the wall. so now we have acquired the crates, and figured out what we will do about the desk. woo!!

painting is well underway… and it is sooooo much brighter. i also have jeff convinced that green and sea foam are the perfect accent colours. its awesome. i'll share more pictures as more things come together!!

now… i discovered man from snowy river is on netflix, and i am making jeff watch it with me (even though he has been grumbling through the first 15 minutes mocking it. hah.

its time again.

yep. i'm writing a blog. weird, right?

so many things have happened in 2013. but i sort of feel like i haven't really been doing things to move myself forward. i sort of took a break from that. i paused things for a bit. i needed to figure things out before i could continue on.

so here i am in new westminster. and it is lovely. i have a cute little house (that still needs a bit of work to make it home), my dog who now just turned 1 (and is annoyingly shoving her snout under my arms to pet her while i am trying to type), and a good job that gives me some money (and therefore some freedom to do things).

so as one of our new years resolutions, jeff and i want to finish setting up the house and acquiring the appropriate furniture we are missing. there is a gross pile of stuff against one wall as soon as you walk in that needs to be dealt with. most of it is my sewing stuff, although there is some of his art stuff there too. we are in desperate need of a desk to share. art stuff on one end, and sewing and crafty stuff on the other.

also, jeff has been notorious for not finishing projects in 2013.

so jeff started this before we were together, for his ex actually. it is entirely made of pallet wood, and the first time he had ever tried building a cabinet. the plan was to put a cupboard on the top with glass doors, like a little hutch. i like it, but i always felt a bit weird about the fact that he started building it for someone else. anyway, he had decided to turn it into a little bar for our house and did some alterations to make it work in our small space. but so far… it has sat in our house and functioned as a junk drawer (lets be clear that i have never put anything in said junk drawer… i LOATHE junk drawers) and a place to put random things (my serger has been sitting on top of it for like 2 weeks).

but then on tuesday jeff found THIS on craigslist and we picked it up last night…

it is a vintage bar. probably 60's era. cherry wood. definitely dinged up and needing a little love, but jeff is confident he can make it look amazing. it fits better in our space, and i think it is something that is sooooo much more US. i love it. i don't really understand jeff's want to have a bar in the house (neither of us really drink that much), but he told me it makes him think of his grandparents who always had one. i like that we can fill it with fancy things. i am now on the hunt for decanters. i have always liked them, dean has one that i used to admire as a young girl. it always reminded me of the ones in 'man from snowy river' (i might be the only person who has seen that… but i have seen it a lot).

but this bar has some amazingly beautiful features. the panels on the front and sides go all the way around, so you could use it to divide a room and it would be beautiful from any side. it is on casters so it rolls to move (although not so easily right now…).

these are the top panels. jeff has explained to me that in that era they used a type of laminate to do the fancy patterns on wooden things (my vanity is like that too… it is another unfinished project i will post about later). there are two of these panels and i think they are gorgeous. jeff wanted to redo the top altogether… i say fix it up as good as it can be fixed up, and live with the imperfections. it adds character, right? 

then the top panels fold out (and you open the doors on the front to support them) and it has green granite tiles inlayed. jeff thinks they are ugly and wants to replace them with slate. i like them. i think the green is classy and vintage and slightly tacky too. its a good combo.

and this is the inside… with room for all kinds of things. see how the doors come out to support the top.

i'll keep you posted on how the restoration comes along, and also how we do on our resolution to get the house all set up the way that we want it. we have plans to paint the whole house, and jeff has a few pieces of furniture to build, or we need to find something suitable to purchase.

what do you think of our find? also, is anyone in need of a pallet wood cabinet? it weighs about 800 pounds…. not really… but its heavy.