New & Amazing Breathrough Exercise Routine!

Hey guys and gals, ready to shed those unwanted pounds?  Then put down the pork chops and change into your painting clothes because it's time for the GET FIT WITH PAINTING workout!!!

It's so simple anyone can do it! All you need is a can of paint, a brush, a roller, and 4 walls.  Are you ready to sweat, people?  Then let's go!

First we need to warm up.  Pick up your gallon can of paint and shake vigorously 20 times, making sure to stop every fifth shake to complain about how heavy the stupid can is (this allows you to regulate your breathing).  Now set down the can and pick up your screwdriver and slowly pry the lid up, remembering to breath. For those ready for advanced training, set aside the screwdriver and rip the can open with your teeth.

Pour slowly and hold the pour, ignoring your trembling arms that threaten to spill paint everywhere.  This is called an isometric contraction. Are you still with me?  Good!  Now do a deep knee bend, pick up your brush, dip it in the paint and start working on your cut-ins.  Bend, dip, paint. Bend, dip, paint.  Repeat this a million times.

Let's catch our breath.  Collapse on the floor and refuse to do another lick of work until the other person in the room brings you some water.

Ready to go again?  Now we're going to work those arms!  Grab your roller and get some paint on it. Now climb the ladder and apply paint.  Climb up, paint, climb down, dip; climb up, paint, climb down, dip.  Repeat 500 times per wall.

It's time for our cool down.  We'll use this time to reflect on the great workout we've had as we carefully wash our brushes and stow our paint supplies away.  For beginners, you may notice an urge to curse at anything with your chosen paint color on it and nail the room closed from the outside so you never have to deal with it again.  This is just your body telling you you've had a good workout. Embrace it.

And don't forget  to tune in next week for our show Look Thin by Feeding Your Friends to Make Them Fat.  Until then, stay healthy!

Decorating Diaries - It's Beautiful!

The bedroom color is beautiful.  Deep sigh of relief.  As we painted the first coat my heart was in my throat.  The yellow was one of those bright, cheery, get-out-of-bed-and-greet-the-day-with-a-smile-because-everything's-gonna-be-great! yellows.  Spare me.

The second coat seemed to tone it down a notch and when we added in the oriental rug and furnishings, the walls took on a sunny but not overly bright persona.  Now the room looks like a rich yellow and our pewter headboard and crystal chandelier (fake, btw), stand out.  It broke my heart to put the ugly flowered green comforter back on the bed but the new bedcoverings won't be in for over a month.

Apparently we ticked one of the cats off by painting all weekend -- one of the two pee'd in the shower in the guest bathroom.  "At least it's a semi-considerate place to pee," we consoled ourselves.  So I'll have to spend some one-on-one time with both cats because neither has fessed up to being the culprit.  (Although my suspicions rest with Lucy.  We kept shooing her out of the room when she wanted to examine the painting process.  A cat ignored ranks right up there with a woman scorned).

Decorating Diaries - Primer Complete

It's Saturday morning and we had the bedroom prepped and primed by 9 am.  That's what marrying the God of Dawn does for you - gives you a little jump on your day.  And since I've had e-mails from people wondering about the taping war (seriously y'all, get a life), here the scoop...

We started out switching positions.  I started:

Me: "Let's tape."

Blair: "No no, it was a bad idea.  You're right, we shouldn't tape."

Me: "No, better safe than sorry, we should tape."

Blair: "I refuse to tape!"

Me: "I insist we tape!!"

We ended up not taping. =)

Blair is so cute.  He is Mr. Precision and it takes him an hour to do the trim along one wall.  Admittedly, it's a much better looking paint job than my slash and dash method, but there is a balance of time to be had.  He was priming around the crown molding and I was priming the bottom half of the room and rollering the walls.  I had 3/4 of the room done by the time he finished his part.  "I was worried you would lap me," he confessed.

The funniest part though, was the radio.  We were listening to a country station and the signal was clear the whole time we painted.  Then Blair moved his ladder so he was standing pretty much right above the radio antenna and the signal weakened and faded in and out.

I glanced at the radio then at Blair.  He looked back at me.  "Just say it."

"Say what?" I asked.

"That my butt is blocking the radio signal," he said.

I almost dropped the brush I was laughing so hard.  He cracks me up.

We're heading out for some Saturday errands (foraging for food, that sort of thing) and then we'll put the first coat of color on tonight.  The only thing left to do is barricade the room before we leave to keep the cats out.

Decorating Diaries: Conflict- Yuck, Yuck, Yuck!

Aaargh!  It gets worse.  Turns out the contractor thought our appointment was on Thursday instead of Wednesday which explains the no-show.  (Not that it's entirely forgiven...I had my planner out in front of me when we made the appointment and it WAS for Wednesday - I'm confident b/c we already had a Thursday appointment elsewhere and I remember thinking I was glad she could fit us in on Wednesday).

The contractor was SO NICE about it which almost makes it harder.  She left us a voicemail and ran over all the work she had done for us that day and said she'd fax us a list of the sub-contractors she recommended we work with and her drawings for the bathroom, etc.

I'm not wavering on I think it was the right decision to let her go.  Mixed up night or not, there were other things askew.  But I still feel bad.  Not quite sure why.

On a brighter note, we've given the go ahead for the bedroom fabrics and in 4-6 weeks should have new curtains and bedspread and pillow shams (must have pillow shams. What is life without coordinating pillow shams?) And come Sunday we'll hopefully have a cheery new banana-yellow bedroom.  The name of the paint color is "banana." Like  I don't have enough stress in my life already...