Wee!!

I can hardly contain my excitement. We're days [not weeks, not months] away from being homeowners. I've had an absolutely kick-ass week at work [yeah!] Ben's got some majorly good stuff going on with his life. And, I get to buy tile this weekend. Wee!!

With all that excitement, I also get to help my best bud, Emilie, with her latest documentary.

I don't want to give too many details, but she is doing a documentary on printed books & bookstores. Hopefully I can share the doc. with you when it' finished.

She asked me [really nicely] to help her out on the graphics front. I don't want to share everything, because I'm not done. But, I took a note from how dramatic book covers are:

Picture from Amazon. Don't click on it, you can't look inside. 

Dramatic, right?

So here's my starting point for the titles. The color isn't perfect on here, so ignore it. Also, you can kind of see the little boxes around the edges--that's for different screen sizes. [Screenshot from Photoshop.]

Since I can't show you any finished products tonight, I'll share my other obsession--picking out stuff for the house. Next space needing major renovation: the deck.

The deck is literally falling apart at the seams, and needs to be replaced ASAP. This is kind of a bummer, because Ben and I love spending time outside--especially entertaining buddies.  Here's some ideas I have:

Ignore the shower part, definitely don't need that.
I love the idea of having little seating areas built in to the deck. This is a perfect reading spot. Here.

I also want to built in an outdoor seating area that can be covered in the winter
for outdoor seating year round. Here.

We are also going to need an awesome outdoor fireplace. Here. 

Finally, one thing we are totally sold on, is adding a folding door replacing the old sliding door.

Yeah. So awesome. So, so awesome. 

Awesome, right? Can't wait to show you our progress.

All falls down the right way.

Normally, it takes me two sessions to write a blog post. I start out with my initial idea in the morning, outline it out, then finish it at night.

Today's post was completely thwarted by an awesome change of fate.

I typically have really low blood pressure. I think my blood pressure peaked at about 100/80 while I was at PLU (high stress period.)

I'm pretty sure my blood pressure for the past three days has been 4 million/120.

Before I get into the reasons why, let me give you a little background on how I like things to go:

1. I do not like surprises, sudden changes in plans, and I absolutely hate not knowing 'what comes next.' Now, this mainly refers to other people being in control of what comes next. If I'm in control, I don't care much--it's all of these other fools that make me stressed.
2. When I don't know what comes next, I absolutely obsess over all the possibilities of what comes next.
3. This obsessing turns to stressing out over the worst [and more than often least likely] of the possibilities. Not in a pessimistic way, more in a, ' let's not get our hopes up' kind of way. I guess that sounds a little pessimistic. 

For the past week or so, Ben and I have been in total limbo with this whole house ordeal. We knew we were approved to buy it we knew we would eventually be in the house--but the bank was keeping our closing date secret. Meaning, we didn't know if we would be closing in a week, or in a month. All secrets.

We desperately wanted to be able to remodel parts of the house before we moved in, but being in house-buying limbo we didn't know if we should schedule contractors, how we could get estimates and blah blah blah.

There were other areas of our life that were also in limbo [won't discuss here - no, I'm not pregnant.]

Today, within two hours [not exaggerating] everything that felt like it was up in the air, was solved. Not only was it solved, but it is all happening faster and better than we could ever dreamed.

We're closing on the house next week--closing costs are WAY lower than we thought.

Have an awesome contractor on board - estimate is on the way.

And those other things that were a little up in the air--were totally solved today.

[Exhale]

I don't know why I let myself get so worked up over this stuff.

How lucky are we, that our biggest worry right now is, 'what sink for the guest bath?'

So, now that I'm back to worrying about the design of the house - I've been working on products for the guest bath.

Unfortunately - or super fortunately, because of a big leak, we need to gut the whole bathroom and put it back together. Yeah!

So, here's what's up:

I decided on doing a white penny tile for the floor:

Also, the guest bath is really close to the laundry area (I say area, because it's just a little space in the hallway, no doors, no nothing.) So I wanted it to have a big ol' deep sink. So I'm out on a search to salvage an old farm sink that would be wall mounted. Found this one:

This is like $1680, but I'm convinced I can find one at an antique store or something like that.
Let me know if you have an old farm sink you want to get rid of--I'll buy it from you! Here

This one is a close second place:

This would be perfect to fit a puppy in it!
Give it little puppy baths! Here

Then, I found this awesome faucet:

I don't have a picture of the actual faucet. The actual one also has a sprayer.
Also perfect for washing a puppy!

And this little baby bathtub:

This one, but with brass fixtures. 

Exciting, huh? Finally at the part where I can stop dreaming, and start doing.

Yahoo!

Tutorial Tuesday: Cover Photo Extravaganza

Can I get a 'wha-what!' for all of us that hate Facebook timeline?

Ugh. How much do I hate thee? Let me count the ways...

My biggest beef is I don't quite understand how the hierarchy works. Your most recent post does not necessarily appear first or even in order. For those of us that get most of our blog traffic from FB posts--this is so frustrating! And for those of us that just like a little order in our social media--this is INFURIATING.

But, Facebook tricked me into changing to timeline (sneaky sneaky) so now I have to deal. We all have ways to cope, my best way to cope is to make it pretty.

On Saturday, I made this beauty for Ben's facebook. Being the grateful husband he is, he still hasn't added it yet (guilt trip!)

So here's a super easy way to make your very own [very cool] cover photo!

If you have Photoshop or Illustrator, open up a new document that is 851 x 315 pixels.

If you have Microsoft Paint do the same thing. From the home screen, click 'resize and skew' enter the size [make sure that you uncheck the 'ratio' option.]

[Note, from here on out, I'm going to show pictures using Illustrator. The process is very similar on Photoshop and MS Paint. If you have questions, leave a comment below and I'll answer them the best I can.]

You can make fun of my desk-top background later. 

Now, it's time to play.

I added a cool picture, a neato cut-out text layer (in illustrator: Outline your text, select the text + shape that you want to cut out, go to your 'pathfinder' window and select 'subtract), and some pizazz:

Photo by Katy Weaver Photography

Then, turn it into a JPG (For Illustrator>Export, for Photoshop/MS Paint>Save As...)

And here you have your photo:

Alright!

Now, time for Facebook. Log in to your account, and get to your profile page.

Click 'Change Cover.'

Now, upload your newly created cover photo.

You shouldn't need to reposition since we created the image with exact dimensions.

Click 'Save Changes'

...and...

You did it!

So we may hate [or love/hate] Timeline, but at least we can now do it in style.

Happy Tuesday [that really feels like a Monday] everyone. See you tomorrow.

In Memorandum.

Happy Memorial Day, all!

Thank you to all who have served, and all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Your sacrifice should not be forgotten, especially today.  

The weather in Portland is a little...Portland...so a true BBQ wasn't in the works today.

But, I did cook up some mean smoked pulled pork on the parents' Traeger today. 

Made a trip to my very favorite hispanic market in Beaverton [for those in the area, seriously visit Salsa Market on Cedar Hills, next to Falk's] in search of supplies for the perfect taco.

Pork shoulder looked awesome, so did a couple banana leaves, their awesome house-made salsa, avocados, fresh tortillas and cilantro. 

I made a quick dry rub for the pork: a tsp each of salt, garlic powder, ground cumin, cayenne and red pepper flakes. And slapped it on both sides. 

Chicka Chicka Yeah!

Then, I went forward with a banana leaf experiment. It wasn't pretty, but I got it all pretty much wrapped inside the leaves and fastened it with string.

Then, slapped the meat on the Traeger. Preheated it for 250ish--then kept it  at that heat for about 5-6 hours (until internal heat was around 160 F.)

Make sure you let it rest for a while, about 10 - 15 minutes so it stays nice and juicy. 

If you have gloves around, shred it with your hands [otherwise it's way too hot.] No gloves, use two forks.

I like carnitas to have a little bit of a crunch, so heat up a pan, and give it a quick sear. 

And...it was so good I forgot to take any pictures. Oops. My memory failed me.

Hope you got some much deserved rest this weekend, back to the grind tomorrow!

Stay tuned for tutorial Tuesday--making a bomb Facebook Timeline cover photo.

Roland Garros

In the Reese Household, this week marks a very important time of the year--The French Open [tennis.]

Ben is a certifiable tennis freak fanatic. More importantly, he has an unhealthy obsession with Rafael Nadal. 

For the 99 percent of you that don't follow tennis as closely as Ben does, Nadal is king of the clay court. Roland Garros (French Open) has clay courts. Clay court tennis is actually pretty fun to watch--there's a lot of sliding, falling and tripping.

Ben is a pretty low-maintenance guy. You give him a good beer, the tennis channel and the occasional piece of candy--he's the happiest dude on the planet. Yesterday, he made a little request, he wanted a 'cover photo' for his Facebook for Roland Garros.

Designing this was super fun--look for Tutorial Tuesday this week, where I'll walk you through designing your very own Cover Photo.

[Side Note: I'm so angry with Facebook for tricking me into changing to Timeline. I hate Timeline. Where's the hierarchy? Ugh!!]


So, here it is, Ben's [unofficial] official cover foto para Nadal!

Feel free to use it on your Facebook if you're looking to show your support to Mr. Nadal.

Ole!

Round-up!

This has been an absolutely insane week. So, I thought I'd give you a little weekly round-up for what I did this week.

Ben and I left good ol Portland on Tuesday morning at 1am. Yup, 1 in the morning.

We drove 1,000 miles to Redlands, CA to see little Boo Boo's school. University of Redlands has an absolutely beautiful campus.

This is their Admin building:

I'm not going to show a picture of PLU's Admin building.
That will be just a little embarrassing.

It was neat seeing where little Boo Boo lives and spends her time. I have to admit I was a little jealous of the campus. Shows what good long-term planning does...

With all the craziness, I still had a little time for Tutorial Tuesday. A quick tutorial on Illustrator Brushes.

Wednesday was my first day at Disneyland. Boo Boo and Ben were really good tour guides. We managed to open and close the park for two days in a row--we were also on the first 'jeep' of the day for Indiana Jones! 

Then, this happened:

The best part of this picture is the big tough guy's (plaid shirt)
face. This guy was seriously UFC fighter material in line.

Also--Boo Boo's ears. 

And, I shared my new favorite letter:

Thursday was our last day at Disneyland. We spent a lot of the day at California Adventure (awesome.) The weekend before our trip, Ben declared [if you know Ben, you know these declarations] that Phineas and Ferb is his favorite TV show. Thus, the two days at Disneyland were spent in search of P + F.  On the way to the Toy Story Midway ride [I beat Ben by about 20k points], we got this little treat:

Ben went insane. 

We said goodbye to Disneyland, and hopped on a 3am shuttle to LAX and flew back to PDX. Yesterday I was totally wiped. 

But, we got an awesome treat

Check her out at http://emilyottesonmusic.com/ right now.

Today is Lorraine's funeral. I am sad to say my final good-byes, but happy to know that she is looking down on us with all my other Church Grandmas that I've said good bye to in the past couple years. 

Have a beautiful Saturday. 

Check this girl out!

[Before you start reading this post, turn up your sound, and play this: Beards, Fixed-Gears, and You ]

I think it's an unwritten [or constantly written] rule that you should never start anything with an apology, because then it implicates you are doing something wrong.

So I'm not going to apologize, I'll make an excuse. I haven't been around a good computer all week, thus it's been hard to update you on my blog posts--but they're all there. I'll do a big round-up tomorrow so you can get updated on my life the last week.

Ben and I are extremely exhausted. I'm pretty sure we had a little mini fight today about 'who stood up faster' when trying to get on the plane...

Yeah, didn't make much sense then, either. 

Needless to say, we were in desparate need of an attitude adjustment--and boy did we get it.

Fiddle + Guitar/Mandolin + Upright Bass = Crazy Delicious.

You've heard me talk about her before, but Emily Otteson is one of the most talented people I have ever met in my life. Please check her out here.  I have no idea how she is not crazy famous right now.

She has the most beautiful original soulful/folk voice and is always accompanied by crazy talented artists. [A couple months ago, I saw her perform 'Everybody wants to be a cat' with the upright bass--without ever rehearsing it. It was crazy amazing.]

Go here to listen to a couple of her songs. Or, if the song you so obediently started playing at the beginning of this post is over, start playing this one--prob one of my favorite songs she sings: Foshizzle Fool I Quit Smoking ]  

Not only is this girl talented, but she is one of the nicest most genuine people you will ever meet. She even picked us up today from the train station on a moments notice.

She has an amazing opportunity on the other coast for the next year, and we are so happy for her--but will be equally happy when she comes back to Portland.

Seriously, check her out. Buy her CD (it's currently on constant repeat in my car.) Tell your friends.

We'll miss you Emily! 

Dubya

I'm working on a little side project, and I'm starting to discover my favorite letter - font combination.

It's RALEWAY in the way of a little bitty W.

Today is my first ever day at Disneyland, so sorry about the short post. Back to Mickey.

Tutorial Tuesday: Illustrator Brushes!

It's Tuesday. Thus, Tutorial Tuesday! [If it happens twice, does that make it tradition?]

Today, we play with CONFETTI!

Summer is almost here [c'mon, Portland!] and time for fun garden parties, and even more fun garden party invitations!

If you have Illustrator (part of the Adobe Creative Suite), creating brushes is stupid simple once you get the hang of it.

Step One: Create a document. Any size, any dimensions--go crazy.

Alright!

Step Two: Now, time for picking your confetti colors. Since I'll likely be printing this on a desktop printer, I'm not going to mess with Pantones. Actually--the only time I ever use Pantones are if I'm working on a specific brand color [gasp!]

So, I'm pulling some inspiration from a couple of my favorite sites for color-spiration: Kate Spade, J.Crew and Fabric.com.

Then, I drop images with my favorite colors into Illustrator. Then grab my eyedropper tool (press I), select the color, and press the little 'new swatch' button on the Swatches Panel. Like this:

That little piece of paper with the corner folded up is the 'New Swatch' thingy.
Click that after you grab the color from the eyedropper. 

Cool. Now we have colors.

 Step Three: Make a pattern. Go crazy, do whatever you want. I'm trying to make a confetti pattern...

Party!

Okay, now the hard part is over. 

Step Four: Once you have your pattern, select everything you want to be part of your brush. Then, go to your Brush panel, and press the 'New Brush' button (paper with the corner flipped up...) When the dialogue box comes up, select 'New Art Brush.'

Illustrator has some real ugly 'standard' brushes...ick.

Okay! 

Step Four: After you select OK on the 'New Art Brush,' another box will come up with options. Since I don't want to change the color of this brush, I'm selecting Colorization Method: None. If you want to be able to change the color of your brush for a later project, select Colorization method: Tints and Shades or Tints. Make sure you check the box 'Proportional' at the top--that will keep the dimensions of your confetti. Also, you can select the direction of your brush, and how you want it to flip.

After you press 'OK', it'll appear in the Brushes Panel (It might look a little funky in the panel, but that's OK:

So! You have a brush!

Now, play.

Depending on how you have your brushes set up, the size of your confetti will change with brush pressure and stroke length, so have fun playing around with it.

Angels on Earth

I am writing today with my emotions in a total blender.

Yesterday, afternoon the world lost a true angel; our dear friend Lorraine.

My sisters and I are all blessed to have several 'church grandmas'--people that are truly part of our family and Lorraine was one of them.

I don't think I ever saw her without a smile. Seriously. That's not an exaggeration. She always had a perma-smile plastered across her face. And that's how I'll always remember her.

This experience is so surreal--I saw her at church on Sunday (yesterday), gave her a big hug, and she said, "I am so happy to be here today."

Several hours later she joined all the saints in Heaven.

I don't know what to say today. I don't think I've accepted that I won't see her on this earth again.

I guess it's hard to accept a death if you don't perceive the person as suffering.

With certain deaths, I feel a calming when they pass. They are no longer suffering or in pain. Almost that it was their time.

I don't know enough about Lorraine's health to know if she was suffering, but I do not feel a calm. I almost feel angry. Really angry.

Almost a 'how dare you take her away from me' angry. Is that fair?

If you subscribe to the Stages of Grief, I've jumped steps 1-2 and jumped right to 3. And today, that's where I'll stay.

Lorraine was and is a beautiful person. She lived an amazingly full life; full of world travels, wonderful family and wonderful friends. She was amazingly loving. She had an amazingly strong faith. Lorraine had this amazing way to remind you how grateful you should be for every little thing. She was and is amazing.

So, Lorraine:

Thanks for the reminder.
We love you so much. 

Whew.

What a week.

Today, we're rounding out our second, and final, day at Disneyland.

So here's what I'll leave you with today:

PT [boom boom] FC [boom boom]

As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that 60 percent of my readers come from the Seattle area--so this may be dangerous...but...

ROSE CITY TILL I DIE!

I love going to Timbers games. Luckily, I tend to benefit greatly from my family's season tickets [thanks, mom and dad!] And this year, we are making out with bandits with a total of 5 games while they are on a trip. Yes!

Today was an awesome game against Chicago--won 2-1!

Besides an awesome game, my second favorite part of the game are the belligerent cheers. My third favorite part of the game are all the people asking, 'What are they saying?'

So for those of you wondering what the Timber's Army is shouting, here's the main cheer:

Happy start to the week, folks! Let's make it great!

Why does everything cost money?

Everything in my life right now seems to be extremely expensive. Maybe this is just something you go through when you buy something 3 times your annual gross salary.

Ugh!

As I shared earlier this week, we will be unexpectedly remodeling two bathrooms upon moving in to our home. Yipee? [I know I'm supposed to be excited about this, but the dollar signs are adding up...]

The bathrooms in our house were obviously all the rage in 1975.

Built in cabinet vanity, giant medicine cabinet, illegal toilet--you know the type.

So, we decided to gut the whole thing [minus the tub] and start over.

But--the vanity has really been on my mind--especially for the guest bath. I don't want to spend a huge amount of money on this bathroom [yet] but I want it to look nice.

Just as I thought that I wouldn't be able to get away with a nice vanity for under $500--I found this awesome tutorial on one of my new favorite blogs: Young House Love.

Full tutorial, here. 

This, I could do.

So I immediately started scouring the web for fun sinks and end tables.

Like this sink:

On Overstock.com for $160. 

And..I'm planning to do some serious thrifting for a dresser/end table/changing table that would make the perfect vanity. 

Goal is to remodel both bathrooms for under $1000 each. 

Wish us luck... 

Hulk, smash!

I saw the Avengers today. Again. In IMAX 3D.

It was awesome. Again.

Adding to the awesomeness was seeing it with a couple good friends and the treat of seeing it in 3D. So worth it--and I don't normally think that 3D is worth it.

But, just like the first time--it left me with a lot of questions, like:

"Are they all wearing an ear piece? How can they talk to each other while they're fighting?"

"What is Bruce Banner always angry about?" [this was my favorite part of the movie...]

"Who the hell is Thor? Why his bro so crazy?"

"How did Samuel L Jackson lose his eye?"

"When are Black Widow and Hawk going to hook up?"

For those of you reading this [my husband included] that now have a bruised forehead from the giant *face palm* you gave yourself after reading these questions--I'm sorry.

But one question has been reigning supreme:

The final push.

I am in full-fledged house-mode. This is partially forced, because the floors are being replaced in the next two weeks before we move in...

The bathrooms are in pretty sorry shape. I'll show you a before picture when construction starts...you'll giggle.

But here's what I have planned for the guest bathroom. I'd love to hear your input! Seriously! Especially if you have ideas to make it better/easier!

[Floor]

I discovered over the last week that I LOVE tile. Probably has to do with patterns...

I've been debating over different types of penny or octagonal tile. Colored, or white...

But, I'm semi set on this mustard penny tile [I'll explain why when I get to the vanity + paint + trim discussion.]

And, let's be honest--we are on a super budget for this bathrooms--but spending money in the right places. I want to invest in the tile, but get a vanity that works, with intentions of upgrading in the next 5 years as needed. That's when I found this awesome white vanity at Home Depot for $199. 

It's simple, easy and has an awesome shape to it. It also does not have granite on the top. I'll get into a discussion about why I hate granite later [tomorrow?]

Then, what's a vanity without an awesome faucet? Look at this beauty:

Chicka Chicka- YEAH!

I love this faucet--and it runs for about $130. Yes!

Now, my favorite part--PAINT! I am a paint picker outer expert. Ask anyone--or my mom. 

For the paint, I need something clean, fresh, and compliments the mustard tile well while offsetting the white vanity. Got it?

Yup, got it.

Now, this gray will be from this awesome piece of trim:

To this little chair rail:

Painted White

Then the top layer of the wall will be painted this beauty:

That's right. Whitey white. 

Now--since I'm so picky, I haven't found perfect hardware accessories yet (towel bars, toilet paper holder, bathroom mirror, etc.) So if you have good resources, tell me!

And after that... just leaves one more thing...

Apparently the toilets in the house are 'illegal.'
This one looks good...enough.