Breaking Up is Hard to Do

About a month ago I got a call on my cell from an unknow number, and surprising even me... I answered it.

Caller: "Hello MissMarrieeeeeedddddddd...." (The caller didn't actually address me as MissMarried, but he really did drag my name out. It would have been something like "Lindssssaaayyyyyyyyyyyy..." if my name was Lindsay... anyway I digress).

Me: *eyeroll* "Yes?"

Caller: "This is Insurance Agennntttttt ABC with ZXY Insurance."

Me: "Yes, hello." (I'm holding myself back from freaking out about all the extra syllables at this point).

Caller: "When you got married a year ago, you decided to drop our coverage, and since it's been a year, I was hoping to have an opporunity to rebid for your business."

Me: "Yes, well, it was easier at the time to join my husband's insurance since the homeowner's insurance was in his name, along with 3-4 other reasons."

Caller: "Well, can we take a look?"

Me: "Sure. Why not?"


At this point I was dreading the process. Transitions from one service provider whether it's your cable provider, the gas company, or an insurance agent are never easy. Emphasis on never.

Lots of paperwork has to change hands, and in the case of changing insurance brokers you have to hear the HARD last ditch sales pitch as to why you should stay with the agent you're trying to break up with.

To make a LONG story short, the agent that drawwwws out his worddds was able to save us about $600(!) a year with our car and homeowner's insurance!

If he had come back and said, we can save you $50, I probably wouldn't have gone thorugh the hassle, but since my parents have done business with the man for 23 years, and we painstakingly went through the poilcies side by side, I knew I was getting a good deal and could trust this agent. He even told me he would "break up" with our old agent for us. Hallelujah! We signed some forms, he faxed them over, and we thought it was a clean break.

Wrong.

Little did I know that our old agent would call,  promise eminent bodily harm would to strike at any moment, and that the new insurance company wouldn't cover us like she would. And then I dealt with a 10 minute lecture on the importance of being responsible. Ugh!

We've been with the new insurance agent for two weeks now, and so far so good. I do keep an eye over my shoulder for the old insurance agent ready to rear end my car just so she can tell me "I told you so."

I wish I was kidding.

Who Doesn't Want to Get Out the Door Faster?

Don't you dare call this a sorry excuse for a blog post... I did this the other morning and it saved me at least five minutes during my get-out-the-door routine. And I've got news for you, five minutes, is five minutes to sleep longer, linger in the shower longer, unload the dishwasher, take out the trash, pick up the living room.....I could go on.

Although I can't take credit for the image, I've used this trick since college to save time as I head out the door, and Real Simple did a beautiful job of capturing the little time saver in an image, so here you go:

There's not much (I say not much because I can probably list a half of a dozen things) that I dislike more than being wrinkled. I know it's a fact of life, and often unavoidable, but when I have the time to iron and make myself look presentable, I really try my best. There are days, however, when ironing gets pushed to about #30 on my priority list, and I can't be bothered... on those days... shirt collar... meet hair straighter.

If you are careful to keep the straighter on a low enough setting, and stay away from buttons, you can make your wrinkled collared shirt look like a million bucks in seconds. And hey, I'll take it.

Note to Self.

When you are on a movie date night with your husband, try not to:

1. Park on the opposite side of mall from where the movie theater is located.
2. Believe your husband when he tells you that the mall will "probably be open to walk through to get back to the car following the 9:15 show".

Time for some mental math, my friends: 9:15PM + 2ish hour movie = 11:15PM = mall closed = doors locked.

Or.... go out on a limb and do it! MrMarried and I had our first date night in a long, long time... and I was looking forward to some time with him. We had a delicious dinner, and headed over to the mall to catch a movie. After some quick shopping between dinner and the movie, we decided to not move the car to the other side of the mall. MrMarried figured since we were already inside, and could just walk back to the car after the movie. Wrong.

Fast forward 2 hours. The movie was great, but it was 11:15 or 11:30 and I was ready to go home and crawl into bed. I wasn't in the mood to walk all the way around the perimeter of the mall at almost midnight. Queue me either getting really crabby, or finding the silver lining in the situation.

I'll take silver lining party of two, please.

We had a blast walking back to the car. The stars were so bright and the conversation was so cheerful, I would have walked another 5 miles. Well, maybe.... my feet were starting to hurt.

Water for Elephants

I just finished reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. It came recommended by a friend and I was thrilled to take the recommendation since I've been in funk lately with books that I'll start, get 100 pages in, and lose interest. I think Water for Elephants pulled me out of the funk!

The story follows Jacob, a Cornell educated almost-vet, during the summer after he would have graduated from vet school. After getting terrible news right before he is about to take his final exams, and realizing he has no where to turn, Jacob joins a circus. He falls madly in love with the poorly treated animals who are underfed and kept in horrible conditions, and sets out to try to make the situation better.

After I was halfway through the story, I discovered that the movie is being adapted for film with my girl crush, Reese Witherspoon. Reese plays Marlena, who is the the wife of one of the main circus officials, and later, the object of Jacob's affection. She will be a fantastic Marlena.

photo credit

 I started doing a little research on the film and I'm already and looking forward to it's release... and I don't always feel that way about books that are adapted for film. I find that there's often something about the way the characters develop in my head that never matches what a casting director puts onto the screen. Do you find that happens to you?

Friday Musings and Lessons

Two key things I learned this week...

Always have an extra pair of heels in your trunk. On Thursday, I was on my way to a MAJOR client meeting. While I was walking from the parking garage to the office, my low kitten heel-ish sandal strap decided to break free from the base of the sandal, thus totally stranding me with no choice but to walk to my meeting without a shoe! Through downtown! With my boss right next to me! Classy! The sandal just wouldn't stay on a my foot and I had no other options in the wardrobe department. Luckily, the client laughed about it, and it was a great icebreaker.

Not my shoe, or even my picture... but a similar situation to what happened to me.

Mustard helps burns. I like to cook, and I'm pretty dang good at it... but baking? That's another story. I was channeling my inner Martha Stewart this week (HA!) and decided to make some some break-n-bake chocolate chip cookies. They were on sale at the grocery store, so I figured, why not? That's where my luck ran out. I managed to burn the inner part of my forearm on the cookie sheet when I was taking the cookies out of the oven. Ouch. Back in my college waitressing days, we were always told to put yellow mustard on a burn. I managed to get out of my waitressing career unscathed in the burn department, so I wasn't able to test this remedy... until last night. It really works! I was amazed at how it took the sting away. I've been trying to keep the skin covered with aloe and bandages and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for quick healing.

My real arm, and my real picture. Ouch.

Have a great weekend and try to avoid shoe and cookie sheet hazards! 

My Blood, Sweat, and Tears from this Week...

...yielded this beauty. Well, the picture isn't exactly beautiful, but what is INSIDE the box is truly beautiful. Not long ago, I had a stack of manialla folders that were a mess to try to file paper into. Now, orgainzed hanging file bliss that travels anywhere I need it to go! Yes, I am an organizing nerd, and I'm fine with it. Thank you, my dear sweet Container Store, for helping to organize my life.

For as obsessed concious as I am about cleaning, purging heaps of garbage each week from the far cormers of our basement, and organizaing... I don't know why I didn't start a beautiful love affair with The Container Store years ago. Mr. Married better watch out.

Now that the end of July is upon us, the summer heat is putting me in a mood to shed heavy, excess baggage from my life. Whether it's clutter from my basement (this is an ongoing battle), spammy emails from my inbox, or papers from my desk, summer has really inspired me to get rid of, or at least organize, the messes in my life. It feels great.

More Bedroom Transformations and #50!

50 posts? Really? I feel like I just started my blogging journey! I'm thankful for the blogging and twitter friends that I have met during the course of the first half of 2010, and for the encouragement to keep writing and documenting my thoughts.

When I look back to where I was in January when I started this blog, I am blown away with how far I have come as a working professional-- hello, I quit my job and started a new one. How much fun we have had with home improvment projects--yes, really, it has been fun!  And some of the wonderful breakthrough that MrMarried and I have had as a married couple!  All good stuff!

For those of you that follow this blog, you know I've been posting a lot about the decor transformation that I have been putting our master bedroom though. It was beige, and blah, and full of mismatched furniture. A night stand from here, and a lamp from there. You get the picture.

I've found that living in a house that is always somewhat torn apart with renovations, having one room that can be your haven to escape the drywall, paint cans, and endless piles of supplies is critical... and I chose to make that room the master bedroom. For me, haven = matching. Don't know why, but it does.



I still have a little bit or work to do, but I give you... the matching lamps and nightstands in our master bedroom.

Before... please excuse the dark picture. 

And... after!

Another side bonus from this project is my new found confidence in spray paint. It comes in dozens (and probably more like hundreds) of colors, and when done right, can really change the look of any piece. I will certainly be reusing items and spray painting them in the future! 

A DIY Painting Project

I recently sought some help in bringing color into our master bedroom because I am... ahem... a beige-a-holic.

Since I can be a little bit a raging type A personality, one area that was driving me nuts was the fact that I didn't have symmetry (and in mind, any sense of order) on either side of our bed in the nightstand department. We had mis-matching nightstands and mis-matching lamps, so I set out to change that.

I searched far and wide for matching lamps that wouldn't break the bank. I was even open to painting the lamps if necessary. (Spoiler alert: I painted the lamps). I found a set of lamps that I really liked, but they were a pale spring green that just wasn't working with the color palate I was trying to achieve. So, I bought the lamps and a $4 can of spray paint from Home Depot and went to work.


Here are the original lamps from PB's website. They were sold out of the white, so I ordered two of the green. I'm thankful I looked past those hideous shades that they are displaying with the lamps. I can't say that I care for them too much...

I headed outside to see what kind magic I could work on the lamps.

I made sure to carefully cover the lamps with my high tech paint blocking technology-- aka, a ziplock with a rubberband. Kind of looks like a ponytail, right?

The "ponytail ziplock" worked like a charm!

I moved on to the second lamp and repeated the process.

Not bad right??

I paired them with simple white linen drum shades and I know that they look crazy blue in these photos, but they don't look crazy blue in the room. The white shades help to tone down the color a bit too.

I think spray painting might be a knew found hobby of mine.

I was going to save this post for when I actually had pictures of them in the room, but that will just have to wait until I get the new nightstands into the room. They were shipped to the store, and I haven't had the time to go pick them them. The master bedroom redecorating marathon continues :)