only house on the lagoon

it's one thing to watch hoarders on tv and it's another to actually experiencing seeing it in real life.  aaron's job was to go through paperwork in the office and mine was aunt lil's bedroom.  going through the clothes in the bedroom wasn't too bad - until i got around one corner of the bed and the magazines and newspapers that i was picking up was a little damp.  this is when i needed a break as i was coughing (from the dust) and gagging (from the smell).  one thing i found that was really neat was aunt lil's diary.  i scanned through the pages and couldn't wait to read about what her life was like back in 1943-1944.

when i was cleaning aunt lil's room and going through her stuff, i thought of how sad it was to have lived like this.  i thought "did she feel ashamed living like this?"  "what was it in her life that triggered the hoarding?"  "has she always been a hoarder?"  of course no one could give me those answers. 

back to the diary - aunt lil was 25 years old in 1943 and was a WAVE (women accepted for volunteer emergency service) in the navy.  there was about 15 entries spanning about 8 months - how i wish there were more so i could read what her life was like back then.  in one of the entries, she described how ed (her future husband) made her feel like gold and everytime he's around, everything was brighter.  uncle ed passed away about 5-6 years ago and aunt lil passed away on easter, 4/24/11.  i know that their spirits are out in the water sailing as this is what they loved to do. 

before - aunt lil's bedroom

after - all those bags that are in the back are garbage that we bagged and waiting to be tossed

before - the office

it doesn't look like aaron did anything to the office, but he cleared all the file cabinets and had to painstakingly go through all the paperwork to make sure he didn't toss out anything important

aunt lil's bedroom view - only house on the lagoon

bolinas

we headed over to bolinas (20 miles north of SF) on wednesday to help leroy and charlotte with aunt lil's house, but before we got down and dirty, we took emma and dexter to the beach.  on the way back to the car, there was horse poop and dexter ate some.  good grief.  why do dogs like eating other animals poop???

CUTEST apron ever!



if you don't remember, i posted this apron and said that it was the cutest apron i had ever seen and guess what?  my friend lisa got it for me as a house warming gift.  it is so darn cute and i seriously just want to wear it everywhere.  thank you lisa!



busy weekend

this morning aaron had a 5k at golden gate park.  our friends brian and wren also came and took their dog, sadie.  while aaron and brian ran, wren and i walked sadie, emma, and dexter around the park.  i forgot to bring my camera to take a pic of the wet doggies as it rained on us, but luckily it didn't rain hard and stopped after 10 minutes. 

later in the day, we hosted our first dinner for my family at our new place - everyone enjoyed the food (at least they said they did).  we made tortellini (it was supposed to be soup, but the torellini soaked up most of the soup, so we just made an entree out of it), scalloped potatoes, baked ravioli, and cucumber salad.  we had ice cream and homemade cupcakes for dessert.

since it was easter, i surprised lianne and pierce with an egg hunt in our backyard.  needless to say, they had a great time hunting for eggs.  i put princess band aids, change, care bears and dora stickers, balloons, and gold fish in the plastic eggs.  kristen and thanhha colored eggs last night and brought those over for the egg hunt too. 

when pierce's basket got too heavy with the eggs, he would drag his basket and some of the eggs would fall out.  thinking that those were eggs he hadn't picked up, he would picked them all up again and the cycle would start all over.  so cute!  lianne saw that pierce had some eggs that she wanted and she grabbed them from pierce's basket and put them in hers (that girl know what she wants!) between lianne and pierce, they found all 60 eggs!

rest in peace

on sunday, 4/17, was clara's grave site service, which was attended by immediate family and close friends.  she was cremated and her ashes will be buried with her husband, roy.  next to them is clara's brother, ray - who served in WWII and and was on the plane headed back to the States, but the plane crashed.  how sad.  i'm glad that they are all reunited. 

new dining set

here is our new dining set.  i love the white and black contrast.  i found the cushions at costco, which i think goes perfectly with the rest of the colors in our house.  i especially like how not all the chairs look the same - who says everything needs to match? 

chair project #2

our dining area is bigger now and so we decided to put in the leaf to our dining table and therefore we need more dining chairs.  do you know how expensive chairs are???  we had our old dining set, so i figured why not redo the chairs and see how it looks with our table.  with all the spray painting the last few days, i think i lost a few of my brain cells. 

before - i steel wool it (to make the shine go away so the paint would stick), primed it and ta-da!

after - all i need now is to find cushions :)

chair project #1

i saw in a magazine my exact dining table, except it had black chairs with white cushions.  so i decided to paint our chairs black and keep the upholstery.  my first house project and i think the chairs looks great!  chair project #2 is almost done and i will post that in a few days. 

before

after