wood you like to see my souvs?

First things first:

I WON EMPLOYEE'S CHOICE AWARD AT THE CHILI COOKOFF!!! 

WOOHOO!!! I wrote about my recipe here if you want to check it out! 

I went to Dothan this weekend for a friend's wedding. We made it in town just in time to complete the restaurant trifecta!!!! I wrote a bloggie about these hot spots, but in case you forgot, it's Conestoga, Mexican Connection, and Mama Rosa's! Naturally I brought back a big bucket of salsa from MexCon..  I also accumulated a bunch of souvs (aka souvenirs). 

First of all...

This badass Coke sign (pardon my french).

I actually didn't get to bring it back with me this trip.. sigh..

It's 103 inches long, and it wouldn't fit in my car with passengers, so I'll have to grab it next time I'm Lone Ranger-ing it.. 

Unless there are any sweet peas out there who are driving a big truck up to Bham from Dothan anytime soon.. (insert puppy dog face with eyelashes batting). 

Isn't the sign great?!?! You should all know by now I love a good old sign. Even one with a little buck shot.

It's a sign of good taste. HA! 

I dig the different shades of greens and rust. 

I have the perfect space for it.

It's a good thing I didn't shove it into my car, because that space was needed for some other goodies..

I stopped by my aunt and uncle's house on my way out of town. My cousin is building this dock to use as a prop for prom. He goes to my old high school, Houston Academy. At HA, the juniors come up with the theme for the prom and build it out. This thing is quite impressive, eh?! 

There were lots of pieces leftover, and guess who got dibs!?!? 

This girl! I shoved them into the back of my car. The dogs were thrilled.

EEEE! I can't wait to build something out of this! 

Remember Teeny, my mom's pup pup? Look how big he's gotten! That's him in the back, and Buck in the front.

He's still just as cute! 

This weekend was the Azalea Dogwood Trail in Dothan. I didn't drive through it, but I did get some shots of this azalea bush at my aunt's house. By some I mean almost 100 because I was trying to get a dang picture of a bee flying. There were tons of them, and they wouldn't cooperate with my picture taking. Idiots. 

Do you see the bee below? 

SUCCESS! 

I swear, I think this is the only picture I got with a bee mid-flight. 

Do you have "The Flight of the Bumble Bee" in your head now? I KNOW I DO.

If you've liked "I like what i'm herring" on facebook, then you saw the piece of furniture I got last week from someone on craigslist! It's outside drying right now, so tomorrow I will reveal the fancy paint job, along with the...

100th post giveaway!!!!!!!!!

BUM BUM BUMMMMM!

hot damn chili!

Tomorrow is the Chili Cook Off at work, and guess who is the chef for their team? THAT'S RIGHT. 

It is delish, if I do say so myself.

There is a ton of stuff in there including, but not limited to: 

hamburger meat, kidney beans, chili beans, tomato paste, stewed tomatoes, minced garlic, garlic salt, beer, pepper, chili powder, worchesthire lea & perrins, & paprika

Yeaahhhhh... I don't like onions. This is one meaty concoction! And beanie..

It's BEANIE, BABY! 

I let it cook down a bit, and it is splendid.

My culinary roomie even said it was good! Woo! I hope the judges agree.

Diesel says GIMME SOME, MA!

At work, I am on the Help Desk, so right now we are the Help Desk Chili Team. I used the HD and changed it to Hot Damn Chili. Much better eh? 

I make a swanky logo to persuade the judges..

Do chili judges look at logos? 

THEY BETTA! 

PS: Don't forget about the
100th post giveaway!!!!!!!!!!!!


(Pretend that's being said into a megaphone)


It's just two little posts away! 

see saws!

I started many a' projects this weekend, yall! 

I finally broke in my new saws that Santa brought me! I'm not gonna lie, I was a little nervous. I was sure I was going to cut my finger off. 

But I didn't! YAY! 

I also wore something different besides my horrendous yellow paint shorts! I'm awarding myself some points for that. I also get points for my "safety goggles". 

TURNS OUT I'M A NATURAL! Hahah I kid, I kid. It was a LOT easier than I thought it would be. I drew the lines out on the boards, and just kept the pencil mark lined up with the little groove on the front of the saw. It wasn't scary at all.

I was given these 2 x 2's fo' free at work! They were cleaning out a supply closet, and you better believe I jumped outside to grab them up as soon as the company wide email went out!

The big pieces of plywood were leftover from the bathroom project months ago. Do you like my work area?? It's a bit pathetic.. the worn out table and stools with the massive piece of plywood on the ground. It was sitting on top of the table for solo cup games, but blew off during one of the storms. Don't worry, I didn't use it. I'm afraid all it's good for now is collecting sawdust.

I'll slowly be revealing what I'm building in the upcoming weeks! EEE! 


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In other news, MY 100th POST IS COMING UP! I'm thinking I'll do a giveaway with some sweet thank you cards. This one is 97, I do believe, so be looking for it by the end of this week, or beginning of next! I'll just draw the winner from all the comments on that given post! Hooray for bloggie milestones! 

dwysywd

Isn't that a lovely palindrome? Do you know what it stands for? 

Do What You Say You Will Do. 

I have been slowly changing my bedroom design, and I am looking for a very specific bedside table to paint. It's a piece of furniture called a lowboy, like this:

via

It doesn't have to look exactly like this, but I REALLY want it to have rounded legs and at least two drawers. I keep finding really nice ones around for like $130, and you should know by now, I will not pay that much for thrifty furniture, especially if I'm going to paint it. SOOO miracle of miracles, I found one on Craigslist for $30. I immediately contacted the lady, but I wasn't going to be able to pick it up until the next week. She ended up giving me her phone number, and we talked on the phone to set up a time and place to meet. She told me she was going to remove the listing and assured me it was FINE if we waited until the next week to make the switch.

WELLLLL I emailed her the day before we were going to meet to confirm everything. This is the response I got:

sorry, sold it two days ago

Pardon my letters, but WTF!!! UGGGHHH!! I got seriously heated. I immediately wrote her back and reminded her that she told me it was fine if we waited, and that she had assured me she was going to remove the listing. I almost wrote DWYSYWD!!!! But I didn't.. 

Of course she didn't write back. 

So, everyone, just dwysywd, ok? If you say you're going to remove a listing, remove it. Lawd knows I need to be good about it is well, but SHEESH! We had just discussed that damn table. 

Are you tired of me going on and on about this??

I think I'm so mad because I've been look for months for this specific type of table. 

Ok, I'm done. 

Feel free to let me know if you see one around, k? 

Ok, for real now. Done with the table.

Let's have a look at some of the pictures that have aided in the inspiration of the bedroom makeover, shall we?! 

This photo below was my initial thought on the colors for the bedroom. But then I thought "didn't I want to get away from blue and white?" because that's basically what this is.

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And although the look is lovely, it's not quite me. Not spicy enough. 

must. not. mention. bedside. table...

via

This look below is a little bit closer! I really dig that headboard and mirrored bedside table. 

via

This look below is even closer. You know I dig color. 

via

The room below helped to define my color palette (with more oranges than red). 

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DING DING DING! These colors are perfect! Blues, greens, teals, and a splash of orange. 

via

This look was a little to saturated for me, but for some reason, I'm really drawn to it. Maybe it's the many shades of yellow with that awesome dark teal?

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This has been a favorite of mine for a long time! It's darker than what my bedroom will be, but it's the same colors with the teals, greens, blues, and orange. Ooooo wee, I love that high gloss teal wall! 

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Here's another room that uses orange. I love all the patterns in here! 

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So there ya go, ladies and gents! There are a couple more on my bedroom makeover Pinterest board if you wanna check them out! Hopefully my bedroom will look as great as these! There are still many things that need to be done to finish her up, so I'll slowly be revealing projects as they get finished. 

Project Hint: I'm going to break out my saws this weekend! EEE! 

Cross your fingers that i dont cut off mine! 

a tisket, a tasket..

A wrong color metal basket! 

I got these lovely baskets at HomeGoods. For all those Dothanites out there who haven't been to one (and possibly others, I just know we don't have one down in dtown), it's basically T.J. Maxx that only has home stuff. Aka my heaven. It's actually owned by the same people who own ol' TJ. 

I bought two of these babies to hold towels in my bathroom, but the finishes in there are chrome, and as you can see, these are ORB (oil rubbed bronzed). 

Now, half of this post is a project fail. I found a blog post from someone else a while ago that said you could use oven cleaner to remove metal finishes to reveal chrome. Perhaps I should've found that post and reread it.. 

This isn't the original tutorial I saw, but it's close. Tip Junkie posted this from the Canadian bloggie, Style North. Perhaps my mistake was that it only removes brass (I'm not sure if that's true or not).

Perhaps it was that fact that I used the wrong oven cleaner.. I used the el cheapo brand.

Maybe I didn't leave it on there long enough? 

I let it sit for probably 15 minutes until it dissolved. I scrubbed it a bit, and nothing happened. 

PROJECT FAIL.

Not to worry friends, I bought metallic silver spray paint to use for backup (I just had a feeling about that off brand oven cleaner). I had only sprayed one basket at a time, so while the other one was drying, I got to painting.

You know the drill: I just did a couple of light even coats. Then I flipped it over and did the underside. 

Here she is! 

Not too shabby, eh? I wish it was actual chrome, but I had been looking for towel baskets for months, and dang it I was tired of waiting!

Here they are in their new home. I only put towels on one side so far because quite honestly,  I need to do laundry. And half of my towels don't match. 

I'm thinking about investing in some navy towels. They'd look lovely, I do believe! Then perhaps I'll get a navy mat as well. Thoughts?

In other bathroom design news, you can see I still haven't purchased any pulls (still using the $1 knobs). I'm seriously considering puttying the holes and keeping these. My issue with the pulls is that the existing holes are 4 inches wide, and most pulls in stores are 3" or 3 and 5/8" (or something ridic like that). I don't want to have to drill new holes to center new pulls on the doors if I go with smaller ones. Does anyone have any input?! 

This was the only project I completed this weekend. WHY you ask? Because the weather LOVES to play this little trick on me, where it will be beautiful, sunny, and 75 degrees for four days while I'm stuck in a room with no windows at work, then on the weekends, drop down to overcast and 45 degrees with tornado warnings. There was a tiny window this Sunday where it was a little above 60 degrees (it's not recommended to spray paint when the temp is below 60), so I slapped on my paint clothes and took this project out to the ol' spray paint patch. I'm hoping this next weekend will be more project-friendly. You know what IS going to be friendly about this upcoming weekend? DAYLIGHT SAVINGS!!! 

HELLS YEAH!!!! MORE DAYLIGHT FOR PROJECTS AFTER WORK! 

I can't wait!!