May 2009 - Angry Julie Monday

Show Us Where You Live Friday-Children’s Rooms

May 29, 2009

This is my 3rd entry into Kelly’s Korner Blog Carnival. She is featuring “Show Us Where You Live Friday”. This week is “Children’s Rooms”.

You can see my posts about my living room and dining room here.

We bought this house in November of 2005. We knew that the previous owner did not have the same umm, taste, as us. We were ok with that and accepted the many projects that were ahead of us. The biggest project in the house was Angry Toddler’s room. It was covered in wall to wall wallpaper. It took Angry Husband, Stacey, and I several days to get rid of this wallpaper. Angry Husband had to re-texture all the walls too. It was awful.

Here are some “before” pictures. This was how the room looked when we did the home inspection.

Since 2005, we are on our third room remodel. Angry Toddler started off in his crib, then a toddler bed, and now his “big boy” twin bed. We are currently going with a “dinosaur theme”. Angry Husband does not like it. He wants to re-do the entire room into some kind of camouflage theme. I think this may include skateboards, or something. I told him that he can wait next year when Angry Toddler turns “5”.

Here are some pictures of his room when he was in the crib. He climbed out of the crib at about 18 months, and was completely out at about 20 months. We then converted the crib into a toddler bed. He was in the toddler bed from January of 2007 to January of 2008.

The changing table converted to a normal dresser. It was made by Bonavita. We got it from a local baby store. It was very sturdy and I loved his baby furniture store. The shelves are from Pottery Barn.

The crib and the armoire were also made from Bonavita. The bedding is from Pottery Barn Kids. It is from the “Super Saurus collection”, which is retired. I bought it on e-bay.

Here is Angry Toddler’s room as it currently stands. I took these pictures last week.

The bed is from the Pottery Barn Kids Camp Collection. The rug and bedding are from Pottery Barn Kids Retired “Super Saurus” collection. We had a lot of accessories to match the bed when he was in the crib. I found the twin size bedding and the rug on e-bay. The window valance and the clock above the bed are also from e-bay. I found a seller to custom make them to match the bedding. It’s been so long that I don’t know the seller anymore. The bean bag is the oversized anywhere bean bag from Pottery Barn Kids.

The dresser is from the Pottery Barn Kids Camp Collection as well. The wood dinosaurs were made by one of my mom’s friends. The television is a 32″ Insignia with a built-in DVD player. Angry Husband installs home theaters for a living. He’s been waiting for a very long time to install a TV in Angry Toddler’s room. He mounted it in March. Angry Toddler received the Guitar World Tour set for his birthday last week. Notice that you don’t see an XBOX or any cords for the TV? Angry Husband put the XBOX and all of its accessories in our master bedroom closet which is adjacent to Angry Toddler’s room. If we want to shut down the XBOX, we just go in our room and unplug it. That happens a lot.

This is Angry Toddler’s closet. The opening is very wide and very tall. It goes from floor to ceiling. We hated the doors that were originally on it. We didn’t realize that it was a custom size though. We had to special order the new doors from Lowe’s. We are still debating whether or not to remove the doors and put a curtain up or something similar.

This photo wasn’t taken recently. It was taken a little over two years ago. Angry Husband installed this closet management system from The Container Store. It is part of their Elfa System. It looked great when it was all put together. We slowly started taking it apart when Angry Toddler was CLIMBING it. We had to move his dresser into the closet to block him from climbing it. Of course now he has no interest in the closet. Most of his clothes are in the dresser drawers and bed storage drawers. I often forget about the clothes hanging in the closet. It’s probably because he has WAY too many clothes. Notice the lovely pink carpeting. That was changed in 2007.

I hope you enjoyed touring Angry Toddler’s room. I know that there was a lot of pictures to go through. I felt that it was a better tour to show how it evolved.

Filed Under: In The Home 12 Comments

Angry Toddler’s Birthday Party

May 28, 2009

Last Tuesday was Angry Toddler’s 4th Birthday. We had his party the Saturday before. We had it at The Little Gym, which my BFF, Stacey, owns. I gave Angry Toddler several options on places to have his party, he picked The Little Gym. I choose to go with a skateboard theme, because I’m all about the themes.

I choose to go with this invite. Kim from bubsiedesigns on Etsy made it for me. She is fabulous and was great working with me and my ADD.

I had Kristin from Meringue Bake Shop do cupcakes for the event. She made her Groovy ones which are tie dye and she put awesome skateboards on them (which the kids fought over).

The kids were able to have some free play in the gym, along with some directed activities from the instructors. They had a great time and really burned off some energy.

Mr. and Mrs. Angry Toddler chose to have meltdowns while everyone played.

The kids then had some light snacks of Uncrustables, fruit, and vegetables. It was a nice break from pizza. Most of the birthday parties I’ve been too have included pizza. Sometimes, ok most of the time, pizza is a bit overwhelming for small kids. Plus what I served seemed to be a lot cheaper too…bonus!

And after snacks, it was time for CUPCAKES!!!! Everyone raved about the fantastic cupcakes from Kristin!

It turned out to be a great party. It was nice to have it at The Little Gym. It started at an exact time and ended promptly. We were out of there in two hours.

We did have another BBQ later that night…

I’m glad that the birthday season is now over and I can relax. I get so stressed out about planning Angry Toddler’s birthday parties.

Filed Under: Orange County, Parenting 9 Comments

Laguna Hills Memorial Day 5K Race Report

May 27, 2009

On Monday, I did the Laguna Hills Memorial Day 5K with my running pal, Monique. They also had a 1/2 Marathon going on at the same time. I worked the night before, and forgot to put in to leave early. Ooops, epic fail! I was lucky and got to leave at 1:30am, which put me in bed at 2:15ish. I had to wake up at 5:45am which equals good times.

Monique and I parked in the parking structure near the race start. We both got strange looks on our faces. Why? Because the structure was completely empty. We’ve done this race several years. It is usually a huge race. We gathered ourselves and headed to the starting area. I immediately noticed that there was a very small amount of people there. I immediately told Monique, “LA Marathon”. This is the first year that they hosted the LA Marathon on Memorial Day. I know that there was several protests about this change of date for the Marathon.

I wore my Nike Tempo Shorts, a Nike LiveSTRONG dri-FIT tank, a lululemon sports bra, and my pink Asics GT 2130’s (discontinued for the GT 2140’s) for the race. I’m thinking pink is going to my signature race color. It works for me. Note to self: must buy more PINK!

Had to have the Angry Julie full-body picture..

Our official pre-race photo. We do it every race.

Overall the run went pretty well. My Garmin dropped at 1.75 miles. It lost satellite signal. I was able to track the time but I lost my pace time and my total mileage. At least I got it off the format that it was stuck on for 2 weeks. I also used a new sunscreen. I’ve used it before during running. I had no problems with it. Of course, at Mile 3, at the very end..I got the pouring down my face, into my eyes, burning sensation. That was good times, standing over the trash can pouring water on my face.

My finish time was not as great as I wanted. Sigh. I did PR by 14 seconds from my last race, earlier in May. I ran this race last year at 35:15, this year my time was 32:01. That’s got to be some kind of improvement, right? After the race, we walked around the Expo. They had all kinds of goodies for us to buy. We also had to have some photo opportunities with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

Filed Under: Just Julie, Orange County 3 Comments

Some Recent Purchases

May 26, 2009

I’ve been doing some shopping this week. Cause you know that I’m a shopper.

On Friday, I went to the Nordstrom Half-Yearly Sale with my mom. We go to all of Nordstrom’s sales. I love shopping for shoes there. A girl can’t have too many pairs of shoes, right?

These are the shoes that I got:

Fergie’s Guno in Black. I’m going to take these to BlogHer, so watch out for me walking around in these fabulous shoes. They make me very tall. I’m not usually a heels type of person. My mom made me walk all around the shoe department before we purchased them.

and these, Ed Hardy tie dye low rise shoes. I love my Ed Hardy slip-ons. They are a staple of my daily wardrobe. This will be my third pair of Ed Hardy shoes. I’m not too keen on their flashy clothing, but I do like their accessories.

I also got some black cargo pants and a Lucky jeans top. Nordstrom is my favorite department store. I can always find something there to buy.

Today, I went to Border’s Books to get some new reading material. My reading well has been very dry lately. I go to the bookstore about once a week and never seen to find anything to buy. That’s probably why I’ve spent some much time on the Internet. I also subscribe to like 20 magazines.

I got the following books. These should keep me busy for at least a week. Seriously, not joking. I read fast.

The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan
Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs
The Girls from Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow

Oh, and I got some new running socks too, plus a Nike tank top. I wore the tank top for my race today. Stay tuned for my race report!

Filed Under: Blogging, Just Julie 11 Comments

Show Us Where You Live Friday-DINING ROOMS

May 22, 2009

Kelly from Kelly’s Korner has been sponsoring a blogger carnival every Friday called “Show Us Where You Live Friday”. I love looking at everyone’s homes. I get a sneak peep into everyone’s lives. It’s also amazing how much people participate in the carnival.

I live in a pretty small house. We don’t have a formal dining room. Even if we had a formal dining room, we would probably not use it. So this is what we have. It works for us. Angry Husband hates the table and wants a square one. I think the round table is perfect for the space though. I always win.

This is the full view showing the table. We got rid of the buffet a few months ago. Angry Husband had turned it into a salt water fish tank stand. The curtains are from Pottery Barn. The table is a Mexican Rustic Pine design. The cushions are upholstered to match our family room furniture.

The chandelier is from Lowes. It was in their special order catalog. We are quite fancy in the Angry Household (not). The metal wall decoration was purchased at the Junior League of Orange County’s Christmas Company a few years ago.

This mirror is from Z Gallery, a local store here at the mall. We love it. It’s the perfect size. It used to hang over our buffet. Notice how the mirror is positioned? Yep, you can see the television in the family room if you are seated against the wall.

The last photo is to showcase our wood floors. We have them throughout most of our house. They are distressed. I love them. When we moved into this house, it had wall to wall carpeting. The carpeting was PINK. Yikes! That was the first thing that went.

This is an afterthought. I see that many people are posting BEFORE photos of their rooms before they redid them, etc. I had to dive into my old photo account to find the photos. I’m adding two photos here. I will continue to do this throughout the home tour series.

I hope that everyone enjoyed the tour of my tiny dining room. I can’t wait to see yours..

Filed Under: In The Home 9 Comments

How The Economy Hit Me This Weekend

May 21, 2009

Saturday was a great day, a bit chaotic, but still great. It was Angry Toddler’s birthday party. We all slept in that morning, which was fabulous by the way. Angry Husband did some birthday errands for me, without me nagging (very unusual). Jen from The BLAH BLAH BLAHger came over and took some pictures (a whole other fabulous post later this week) while Angry Husband was gone. We then headed to The Little Gym for Angry Toddler’s birthday party.

After Angry Toddler’s birthday party we came home and had a BBQ. One of my longtime friends couldn’t come to Angry Toddler’s birthday because her kids had baseball. I totally understand because I know that this will be my future. We are trying to enjoy our Saturday’s now because we know in the upcoming years it will be filled with sports activities and birthday parties. It was really great catching up with my friend. BUT, my mom kept interrupting us. She is quite nosey. Gee, I wonder where I get it from. My friend, Lisa, and I decided to go to a local Mexican restaurant for a margarita so we could have a little vent session without ours moms listening to every word. You would think we were sixteen or something, not women in our early thirties with children. We chatted and drank our $9 margaritas, and went back to my car to go back to my house.

Right away, Lisa noticed that her keys and sunglasses were missing from my car. She told me that she set them on top of her center console since her purse was small and they wouldn’t fit. We looked all over my car for the keys and glasses. My car tends to eat things sometimes. We then went back in the restaurant and looked around for her stuff. We even left our information in case they found the keys. We just finally figured that I must have left my car accidentally unlocked and someone came in and took Lisa’s keys and sunglasses. We returned home and had to tell our story. I don’t think anyone really believed us at first. It’s not like we went out and got wasted. We had to call Lisa’s sister to meet us to get her second set of car keys. That was not fun. I felt really bad for Lisa because her car keys, house keys, work keys, and storage unit keys were on that key chain. Plus her sunglasses were gone too.

I went on with my usual busy week. I worked the rest of the weekend, took Angry Toddler to his annual doctor’s appointment, etc. Last night I had a Junior League meeting at a restaurant, which I hate..blah. When I came out of the restaurant, I noticed some bird poop on my driver’s side door of my car. It was near the door handle. I just happened to catch the door lock, and that’s when I got mad, really mad. I saw that my door lock was completely punched in. I then realized that my car had not been left unlocked on Saturday night, it was broken into. My friend, Lisa, was at the Nine Inch Nails/Jane’s Addiction concert so I left her a voicemail about what I discovered.

I came home and showed Angry Husband my door lock. He said it looks like someone took a flat head screwdriver and hit it with a hammer or something to pop the lock. I really think that this idiot (aka criminal, suspect, dirtbag) thought that the keys were to my car. They are not smart. I think they (dirtbag) were trying to steal my car. My ignition was intact though, thankfully.

I made a police report this morning with the local police department. They were very nice. I told them that the ONLY reason I was making this report was because I would have to file an insurance claim. I know it’s going to be very expensive to fix the lock. I actually wish they would have just broken the window, it would have been cheaper. I know, I’m bad. The police employees agreed with me, they think the criminal was trying to take my car. Ironically, my police id badge was sitting in the cup holder right below where the keys were. Maybe they saw it and got scared away, who knows…

I usually don’t talk much about my job. But I will give you a little paragraph right here. With the current economy right now, crime is out of control. Property crimes including commercial burglaries, residential burglaries, vehicle burglaries, stolen vehicles, and theft are on the rise. They are getting very bold. I make sure all my doors and windows are secured. I do not leave anything in my car. Try to not leave things in plain site i.e. bags, briefcases, etc. They will smash a window just to take a duffle bag out of your back seat. It may only have your gym clothes, but it could have a laptop computer. If you are a renter, please get renter’s insurance. It is very cheap and worth if it.

I called AAA this morning and filed my insurance claim. I have to pay the $250 deductible to get my lock fixed. One more thing in my life I don’t want to do.

Filed Under: Just Julie, Orange County 17 Comments

20 Minutes of Free Therapy

May 20, 2009

I had my morning phone call with my BFF, Stacey, this morning. We do this every weekday morning before/after preschool drop off. We vent about work, husbands, and our mothers. We need this phone call to get through our day. We call it our free therapy. We understand each other. We understand the issues we each have in our lives.

I vented about Disneyland yesterday. Which was supposed to be a nice birthday treat for Angry Toddler, turned into Birthday Hell.

She vented about work and dance classes. I understand.

And an I was drinking my 24 oz. Monster Energy throughout this entire phone call. I really really needed a 24 oz. today.

Do you have a daily ritual? Do you have to get your coffee? Check your e-mail?

Filed Under: Just Julie 10 Comments

Happy 4th Birthday Angry Toddler

May 20, 2009

Today is Angry Toddler’s 4th Birthday. It’s been quite the long road already with him. We had a rough start and I think we are finally on track. With a 36 week c-section (due to my gallbladder problems), a one week NICU stay, bronchitis, asthma, febrile seizures, and everything else along the way. He’s finally 4!

Right after his birth!