The Reorganizing Weekend!

It was a great weekend (at least for me, can't speak for Brian), we got the cabinet that I have been working on for weeks to redo in the house and spent a good amount of time reorganizing items so that the large storage piece (it was originally a buffet) has a purpose and I can stop having things fall on me while baking or entertaining or well anytime!
Here is the quick version (since the first version I wrote might as well have been a chapter in a novel).  The tv stand from the family room became the tv stand in the living room.  The living room tv stand, otherwise known as Brian's desk he made from the fence the hurricane blew down, went up to the green guest room (otherwise known as our expanded laundry room).  The tv in the family room got moved around, along with the other furniture, and now resides on the cabinet I have spent weeks refinishing.  I got the cabinet from my Grandmother as she was preparing to move, but it wasn't our style but I figured high gloss black paint would make anything look better (I was right).  I then organized all of the overflow of wine glasses, platters, and all the little odds and ends in to the new tv stand (it was originally a buffet).  I straightened up the kitchen, since I removed a few things both to the charity pile and to other places and I made the closet in the kitchen (its really a coat closet but we use it as extra storage) in to cake baking and decorating central. Lastly we put the "extra" tv tower in my office for jewelry display, its been many things but its never actually held any electronics!
Now for the good part, the photos!

The new view of my office! I gained a chair as well because Brian now has a small desk next to the sofa.

The tower all decorated with jewelry, I think it looks great there!

I had to revamp the shelves and move a few mementos over.

Well we didn't get a new dog but she insisted on being in the shot, this is the area in the living room!

View from the eat-in kitchen area in to the family room.

The other side of the family room, its much more open to walk in to.  We haven't moved the pictures yet, but we will sometime this week so they are centered on the wall.

You get the idea!

The cabinet, it was a stained cabinet in a brownish tone with brass hardware.

A closer up look of my fab new handles, they are crystals and sparkly! I took only 3 weeks to pick them out :-P!

This is for a few friends who know how nutso I am about organizing and yet I even put black and white liner down (in the drawers is green!)

this may seem like an odd picture to share, but this is my new cake decorating shelves! The closet also houses are 2 extra chairs and the table leaf (in the monkey thing I sewed for it!).

Well thats all, as you can see we have a few more things until everything is settled but its done!  What did you guys do this weekend?

YA! Success... well the start of it at least...

This morning was the first time in a long time I felt like I finally overcome some of my obstacles in the great weight loss adventure!  I have had tons of struggles with losing due to what I like to call "my stomach issues" which more or less translates to IBS.  During which I will get sick for a day or two or a week and be on the couch or in bed the majority of the time, sick as hell and feeling like crap.
I decided to try and figure out why these days (where I felt like I wasn't eating much) were stalling out my weight loss so badly, beyond the obvious lack of exercise and movement.  So I kept a food diary for a few weeks and found on the days I felt good, or at least not like total crap, I ate well, exercised beyond what I needed and got in all my fruits and veggies, took my multivitamin and drank tons of water and almost no soda.  The days I didn't feel well at all, I would eat only very small portions but VERY often.  Obviously my intake was going to be more than I was expending but I had no idea the proportion.  I was seriously over what I needed even for my workout days.  So I regrouped.
I decided to start doing something that has worked for me in the past, the Body for Life for women eating.  It works for me because I don't have to eat a lot at one meal, I can choose my own foods (within reason) and it forces me to eat every few hours (I have a propensity to forget certain meals).  So far so good, but what about those bad days?  I need to plan basically.  I have been lucky to not have a really bad day in about 2 weeks (SCORE!), but when I do, I have a plan to expend all my energy getting healthy snacks ready so they are as easy to grab as the other ones (or rather they just aren't in the house anymore so they are far more difficult to get).
My success however was not establishing all of this, it was FINALLY seeing the numbers fall on the scale AND feeling energized (not confused as some other times when the scale would drop 10lbs one week and then gain 12 the next)!
How are your goals coming along?

Fixing one of the things that just bugged me...

There is one thing in this house that has simply bugged me since day 1, the border in the kitchen.  Now I have a feeling it bugged me more than anything because I took down a border and wallpaper similar in our last house and then only had a few short months to enjoy it.  Then we buy this house with a border in the kitchen and its not far off, same colors, same type of styling.  I would say if you are looking through a book of borders these were likely to sit right next to each other and would never enter a house if I had my way.  So I got a bee in my bonnet and decided that before we headed to VA last weekend I would go ahead and make sure it was down. the walls fixed and repainted.
So I did, or shall I saw we did.  I would have been happy doing it by myself (B. serious did NOT want to do this project), but I ran in to a few small problems, the first one, I do not have go-go gadget arms and several of the locations (above the fridge corner and the corner of the main cabinets) were just a smidge (or maybe a foot) too far away, so B. had to do them (or I suppose I could have done my precarious perch on a ladder and the cabinet and hope for the best, since he didn't seem to think that was the best of ideas he pitched in).  We got the entire border off in about 2 hours, it was 2 layers but came off more or less seamlessly.  There was one large spot that had to be repaired where I could NOT get the border off without damaging the wall.
Then the unfortunate reality set in about 2 minutes in with this project, they had painted up to the border and farther.  As a matter of fact they had painted after the border was installed (there was a bit of overlap).  I was mad, but mainly only because B. was right.  Luckily for us this paint was flat enamel so it would likely blend well when retouched and they had left us almost 1/2 a gallon of it.  So over the next few days I patched the walls as I had time and then finally on Thursday evening got to sanding and then painting coat 1.  B. helped out with this as well, mainly for his long arms but also because I think he realized it meant not hearing how much I hate the border :-P!
In the end the border is gone, the walls aren't damaged and the color blended nicely.  It looks so much nicer too!  We finished the last coat Friday morning and then hit the gym while the paint dried, came back and cleaned up before birthday and fathers day celebrations in VA with my fam!  It looks SO much better!
Here are a few pictures of our project: (sorry about the bad exposure I just grabbed our point and shoot while I had a free hand...

Before hand:                                                                          

After! (a quick snap right after taking down the tape and heading out the door)