Why I love my husband. Reason # 211.

This is usually what happens when I start a project...

Mas and I become the spectators. Remember that frame project, ya I can't take the credit for spray painting. I maybe did one then accidentally spray painted my whole hand lost my patience, and searched the house for helpful participants. Mason turned me down, so that left only one handy helper and that is usually what happens with most projects.

This one, I alloted myself a full 2 hours that I knew I was going to be at home to complete my planting. My 2 hours got turned into babysitting 2 additional bassets, chit-chatting with the neighbors, recruiting one of the neighbors to come help me, the phone ringing (Congrats Jen!), and only half a hole dug up in the end. Oh what a loving husband to put up with my personal turned family projects.

Empty Frames.

My frame project was rather successful in my eyes. A quick, cheap DIY project if you don't calculate the shipping cost it took for my Dad to get me the frames. 

Blinding empty wall 

Frames before.

Frames after.

Much better! No more empty wall space.

That took us only a little over a year to find something for that wall. So satisfied. Now moving on to the next project, which will most likely be done when it is time to pack up and move.

Acquiring a New Puppy. Attempt #45.

Sorry to leave you hanging from my last post. To recap...

My friend/neighbor came by in the early part of last week very casually, just thought she was saying hey. Finally, towards the end of the conversation, she breaks out the "We are fed up with Bells, we are getting rid of her. We wanted to ask y'all first before we put her up for sale." I was shocked, I had kid around before about stealing them giving us Bells, but never thought they actually would. I blamed it on a bad night/week/month, who knows?

To make a long story short, B and I discussed it back and forth multiple times. I really wanted her to be able to keep her puppy, plus we really weren't sold on getting an actual puppy puppy, so we delayed. Color her golden, add 4 years to her and call her Doug and you got us sold then.

Come friday night was the first time I ran into my neighbor again. I inquired about her and her husband's decision and she settled my mind with "We are going to keep her!" Excellent, she easily made our decision for us.

In other news, the weekend went by fast with nothing of importance to report and here we are on Monday again. We have a 3 day weekend coming up this weekend so we are pumped about that!

What if...

you were given the chance to have another baby basset hound? What would you do????

Making Our House a Home.

I am consumed with thoughts of how to decorate our little home. I always kid around and say, that our house will be completely decorated and beautiful, when it is time for us to leave. I think most of my "free time" in the mornings is looking through decorating blogs trying to find some inspiration.

I am stumped for creative ideas and a huge lack of supply accessibility and maybe motivation too. They don't even sell styrofoam here. Anyway, I try, and am sometimes successful with my projects.

During Christmas time, when we decided to host a Christmas brunch, I had to throw together some form of cuteness and I got this. Glittered/spray painted sticks, scrapbook paper Christmas trees, and paper plate angels compliments of Martha Stewart.

However, those decorations couldn't stay up all year, so I am still trying to work out a beautiful centerpiece for our temporary table. This would be doable* if they believed in selling mirrors here. 

*I found another example that was much nicer looking, but this just gives you an idea of what I am talking about.

My next project on the to-do list is this grand idea: hanging empty frames. Whenever I tell people I am going to do this they look at me as if I am crazy, a decor genius! All the frames I have acquired are finally in, and today I get to go grab my spray paint and get carried away. I will make sure to show you pictures, if it turns out good!

Carnaval

This past weekend was yet another Portuguese holiday. We are actually still in the midst of it. Today is the final day of their Carnaval, which is interrupted to us as their Mardi Gras/Halloween. Apparently it is a pretty wild time, but our bed time does not allow us to stay up long enough to see that.

However, on Saturday, we were feeling adventurous and were bound and determined to participate in some Carnaval activities. On our 2nd attempt, we wound up finding what we were looking for at one of the islands Casa de Povos (Peoples House), these are communities centers which our found in most of the villages throughout the island. We arrived just in time for the next "show", which turned out to be 20ish minutes of 20+ people in brightly colored costumes waddling/swaying around on stage singing the same tune. This was only interrupted by the small skits that were introduced, which I wish I could explain more to you, but since they were all in Portuguese, I got nothing.

We did manage to take a couple of pictures, but they all turned out a little blurry. This video shows a good representation of what we saw on Saturday night.

The night could not have been complete without some mishap. As we were walking out, being the obvious only Americans there, we were stopped and asked if that was our black "U" plated car at the end of the street, why yes it is. Our lights had accidentally been left on and our battery was out. Thankfully, these pictures did not turn out blurry! :) We were saved by the Portuguese man who kindly stopped to help noticing the universal sign of a popped hood, jumper cables in hand, and someone standing in the middle of the road waving their hands not letting him pass.

March 6th.

Today is a significant day for us. Today marks ONE FULL YEAR of being on this island. We have been excited to reach this point. 365 days done, 365 days in counting (if all goes to plan). We have said new hellos and our last goodbyes to more people in this one year, then probably any other. Like I have mentioned before we are happy, we are content here, tears are not been shed everyday, no one worry. It is just time to move on to our next adventure.

A year is still a stretch but it should go by quite speedily. We purposely mapped out our next year accordingly. Now we know we cannot control what happens in our lives, but we can always have a plan.

May 6th-10th: Paris! (Today also marks 2 months from our next vaca.)

June/July: Hopefully our families will come say hello to us again.

End of Sept.: I will go home again (on my own :( ) for a couple of weeks.

Nov 4th-13th: Cruising the Mediterranean.

Nov./Dec/: The holidays are always gone in a blink of the eye.

Sometime around Mar. 6th, 2012: Headed to our new "home".