Anyone who has ever experienced house hunting knows how disappointing it can be to see what looks like the ultimate home via online photos only to walk into a throwback to 1982 and find yourself scratching your head wondering how a photographer made this place look so good.  I always wonder what the point is.  It’s like putting a glamour shot from 5 years and 12 pounds ago on Match.com. 

The thing is that now that we have a before and 95% complete after to show you of our 1 car detached garage turned office/man cave and laundry room I need a professional photographer to glamour shot the whole thing.  I could not get the entire room in one shot (how the heck do they do that, they must cut a hole in the roof or something) and the lighting is funky because photography is kind of like singing for me, I LOVE to participate while the rest of the world prays I would just give it a rest already.  So I am setting aside my annoying anal tendencies and showing you what I have because this, after all, is not a home makeover site.  So why do I show you this at all you wonder…because now we have an extra room in case we should ever need it, wink.  And also because I made this big scene a couple weeks back about the makeover of my life and as much as this falls short of seeing it live I must show you some proof.

Makeover stories are the best.  I love to stare at the before just itching to see the after while wondering what expert is going to turn this crap into gold.  I am not picky either.  I love a beauty makeover and the hope it instills in all of us, an organizational makeover of any room in the home really gets me excited and I firmly believe if you aren’t hooked to HGTV makeovers you aren’t really living.  They have me rewinding (or whatever the hip Tivo word for rewind might be) and constantly asking Scott how we can weasel our way onto any show on that channel.  This is so not what this post is about, but I am consumed with the fact that I’m days away from bringing you pictures of an awesome conversion going on in my house as I type.  However, today I only have the before pictures and those are totally lame without the after pictures that will solidify my first home makeover.

In preparation for our mini renovation we are in the market for a new couch.  The one we have now is a wonderfully comfy hand me down that does not match the décor in our living room and will be relished to what Scott is calling (in an obnoxiously macho voice) his man cave.  Personally I dislike that silly expression, but it brings him the same joy I get from going to the Container Store and daydreaming about my, drum roll please, laundry room.  That is your teaser for what is about to unfold, but for now back to the couch.  (Okay, her is one little sneak peak at the before.)

Depressing, right?

Scott and I are lucky in the fact that we agree on the important things in life and marriage; warm weather over cold, vacationing means doing what the locals do and never taking a guided tour, we both chose charm and location over size when it came to buying a house, we prefer to stay in on a Friday night, birthday and Christmas presents are off limits, but great trips and just because gifts are awesome, working out keeps us sane, two kids sounds best because, as Scott describes it, one on one is better than a zone defense and when it came to decisions like picking out a TV I deferred to him and paint colors meant he deferred to me.  Compromising has been few and far between because we were the annoying couple that agrees.  Until the couch.

We have been to 15 furniture stores.  He wants comfort, that is the only thing that matters.  He wants this so much that he fell in love with a horrible burgundy thing that has about 200 pillows with the most hideous print that actually hurt my eyes.  I want a mix of style and comfort (emphasis on style) leaving me in love with a couch/chaise combo that is the most perfect shade of green.  And to be quite honest I figured all those stores on a football Sunday would leave him exhausted enough to acquiesce, but no.  Here we sit on our smelly old couch that is supposed to move to the man cave in one week and we are unable to find a compromise. 

We anticipate the next and hopefully only decision in life that will be this difficult will be naming a child.  How did you parents do it?

Click here, we dare you!

Last week I had a standing appointment for a facial because I fear getting old and wrinkly and more than that I fear needles, hence botox is out and moisturizer is in.  I walked in to find Courtney, my friend and esthetician wearing slippers.  Who are you and what have you done with my Manolo wearing fashionable girlfriend?  To which she explained, oh honey, I am a hot mess.  And yeah, that part is clear because you are wearing slippers at 2 p.m. at work and girls like us don’t wear slippers.  So I sat and she spilled.

It started two weeks ago when she was at the doctor who noticed that she had a raised mole on the top of her foot.  Courtney explained it used to be a harmless freckle that had turned into an ever growing freckle and then morphed into a mole and she swore to God if it sprouted a dark hair she was going to lose her mind.  The doctor offered, OFFERED is the key word here, to remove it right then and there.  Courtney, whose husband must have married her for her good looks or her amazing rack rather than her smarts said sure.

Fast forward about 16 hours to the next morning when she awoke to a burning sensation in her foot and looked down to see that while the freckle on steroids had not grown back, she now had a red line traveling up her shin.  Her husband rushed her to the ER where they confirmed blood poisoning.  

At this point in her story I was thinking you big fat liar, this must be like the time you swore that you stuck to Weight Watchers for five weeks and never lost a pound and then I found about fifteen McDonald’s receipts in your purse.  But this wasn’t like that at all because she had a scar that prevented any shoes from touching her foot and a two day hospital stay with pictures to prove it. 

The story got worse because she had been calling “doctor two for one” for days and never got a call back.  Never an oh sorry I totally effed up and you got blood poisoning and had that stint in the hospital followed by at least a month condemned to slippers.  We were both all fired up and I’m like who is your Dermatologist anyway and Courtney says Dermatologist?  No honey this was my OBGYN. 

Just so I’m clear, I asked, your OBGYN, like the doctor who looks at your hoo hah and delivers babies.  She confirmed and I felt the need to shake her violently, but instead reminded her that Gynecologists have a specialized region that in no way includes the foot, in fact doc should not even be looking that far south.  Did she up sell you?  Would you like a mole removal with your pap smear?  And Courtney laughed, out loud she laughed, and then I started laughing because what else can you do when you walk in to find a hot mess wearing slippers at work and you realize she would spread her legs for the Psychiatrist if he offered the right exam.

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