Bleck.

You know what I love an awful lot??

Breathing.

Sounds basic, but I've been under the weather for 2 1/2 days or so, and breathing is not coming easily. This nastiness started out with a wicked cough that I felt all the way down in my chest. The kind where you sit still afterwards and just say "Owww" until it stops hurting so much.

Then on Sunday, the cough was there full force, and in comes the congestion. I figured I just had a cold of some sort, but I didn't know that colds were contagious. Apparently this one is, because Brian was right there hacking along beside me.

Bless his heart, he got no sympathy from me. Usually when he's not feeling well, I try to take care of him and tend to his needs. Not this time. This time, I would have bet money that I felt worse than he did, so he was getting no sympathy from me. Even if he was moaning louder... Which he was. Men always do... :)

Yesterday, we both were still not feeling well, so I decided to stay home from work. Brian had to go in for a meeting, but he kept feeling better as the day progressed, which was great. I am slowly starting to feel better, but have spent the last few days not breathing well.

I'm all stuffed up!! Which is very entertaining when you're trying to talk on the phone. People start off with the polite "Do you have a cold?" I answer with a just-as-polite "Yes, but I'm starting to feel better..." And the conversation continues, until I start to get out of breath, because I've been talking for a few minutes, and not being able to breath through my nose, I only get little breaths between sentences. Then I try to sniff, and start coughing, which activates the drainage. This is all happening in the other person's ear, as they politely try to ignore the fact that there's a mucus factory on the other end of the phone.

Once you're done gasping for air, you hear a "Hmmm. You still don't sound so good. Maybe you should call me back when you're feeling better."

I wonder if it was the hacking cough, or the blowing of the nose that turned them off? I may never know...

SippityDoodle

One of my good friends, Nikki, has started a new business called SippityDoodle in downtown McKinney.

You take your beverage of choice (not required, but essential, I feel) to their painting studio, and an instructor leads you through the creation of a painting you get to take home at the end of the session.

We had so much fun trying out this fun new venture (thanks for the experience, Nikki!!) that I decided to blog about the importance of a dry run for a new business on my PRstore blog. I rarely mix the two blogs, but I wanted to point you there because there are more details about Nikki's business and some more fun pictures, too!

PRstore Blog


Beautiful Liz getting ready to start her painting



Christy becoming an extension of her painting (see, she's a bird, like the birds in the painting...get it??!?)

Maybe you had to be there...

This was a wonderful Valentine's Day treat. Thanks again, Nikki! By the way, the grand opening for SippityDoodle is March 12, and the first class will be on March 13 (that's Friday the 13th, people. We're tempting fate.)

Be on the lookout for links to Nikki's website once its live. You're going to love this place!

WAAAAAAAAAAAA HOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Pronounced "wa-hoo", but in an extra-excited, jumping up and down sort of way.....

I am elated, overjoyed, and exuberant as I announce.....

Drum roll, please......

One of my very dear, truly loved friends, Melissa, has met her soul mate, and is engaged to be married to this wonderful man, David!!!



In all the excitement, I have yet to get all the juicy details, but I couldn't wait to trumpet this news, even to those who don't know this wonderful woman!!

She truly is incredible, and I am blessed enough to have been in her life while she traveled some really rough roads. What a gift from God to get to watch someone grow and blossom in such awesome ways.

Congratulations, my dear friend! Marriage is the most exciting journey I have ever been on- enjoy every minute of it!

Can't Hardly Wait...

What?!?!

You're so excited to see my freshly painted walls that you're practically peeing your pants??? Yeah, me too.

You're going to have to wait a bit longer, because we ran out of paint as I was finishing the very last wall! AND, a certain someone, who, ahem, shall remain nameless, came to see the progress of our painting extravaganza, and proceeded to ram her Coach purse into the fresh paint.

While she was freaking out about the paint soaking into the fabric, I was freaking out about the fact the the texture and paint were thoroughly smudged.

Exhibit A:



Onto another paint-related topic.... oil primer.

Did you know that it makes you high? Having never been high myself, I didn't catch the warning signs. But, on Friday night as Brooke and I started prepping my guest bathroom walls for painting by first applying oil-based primer, I discovered a new experience:

Kelli: This stuff smells horrible!!

Brooke: Why are you talking with such an accent?

Kelli: What accent? You have a an accent!

Brooke: I feel funny...

Kelli: Maybe we should open a window...

(commence singing along with the Little Mermaid on Pandora.com with incredibly thick Southern accents)

Kelli: BRIAN!! Come see this how it looks!!

Brian: Holy freaking cow! You guys didn't open a window?? Are you feeling okay??

Brooke & Kelli: No. We should have a glass of wine...

So, I got high on Friday. Literally. Lord knows how many brain cells I killed. Then, when we had that glass of wine, I had one sip and passed out on the couch, with Brian barely catching my glass before it spilled. I'm not kidding, y'all, when Little Mermaid starts coming out in an incredibly thick Southern accent, and you think it sounds good, you're high.

Here's the bathroom, all oil-primed. If the picture's blurry, you know why....



What's next, you ask? The finished product!! But you're going to have to wait, because I have to buy a whole gallon of texture-paint to touch up the very top of one wall, and spot where the coach purse attacked my wall.

Until then....

Furniture

If we (Brian and I) were smart, we would have spent the last 4 1/2 years of our marriage putting money aside each month specifically for furniture. We would have done research and identified pieces that we wanted to purchase, and once we had enough saved for said piece, we would make that investment. If we were smart and had done this, we would have a house full of nice, grown-up furniture. As it is, we have a house full of our old college furniture with a couple of nice pieces thrown in here and there.

We have been so blessed to have a family (grandparents and parents) who have gifted several pieces of furniture to us, and wonderful friends who gave us a beautiful dining room table. So, dum-de-de-dum......

WAIT FOR IT!!!

...Our house, for the first time ever, actually looks like a grown-up house! We have stuff on the walls (it actually looks like we're living there, as opposed to looking like we had just moved in). We have filled our gymnastics room (so termed by the Stout's who LIVE for gymnastics) with furniture, even though we think a formal living room is totally pointless at this point in our lives. Check it out!!


Formal Living Room

And!!!

WAIT FOR IT.........

We have received permission from our landlord to paint! So, we'll be painting over the awful wallpaper in the next week or so! Debbie G! Are you ready for this?!?! (Debbie is our wonderful Realtor who swore when we moved in that this house was a find, even WITH the God-awful wallpaper. And, she even offered to help us texture and paint over it! The time has come, Debbie!)

Pictured below is one of the primary reasons we need to paint...



Oh yes, my blogger friends, that is a sparkly panda sticker covering up a hole in the wall in our guest bathroom. (Just for the record, both the hole and the panda sticker were here before we moved in.) Surrounding the panda sticker, you get a lovely view of the really dark wallpaper in our window-less guest bathroom. You can imagine the cave-like experience that guests have while using our facilities.

So! Get ready for Kelli & Brian to grow up! Or rather, have our house grow up! We have been truly blessed with this home, and really believe that God has called us to be good stewards of this home while we live here. Meaning that we will treat it like our own. Meaning that the wallpaper must go. Also, I feel a compelling need to make a beautiful home for my husband. (Am I nesting!???! What's this about??) :)

Get excited!