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Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Pops of Color

That phrase cracks me up. I feel like I'm on What Not To Wear just writing it.

Once we got our bed looking real-classy with the new headboard, the nightstands started looking a little sad. (I've warned B Daddy many many a time...giving me license to start sprucing up the house will probably closely resemble the plot line of, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"...)

So seeing as how I was trapped in the house yesterday for an ungodly number of hours in a row (Squirt is sick and took a 4 hour nap at 9 after waking up at 7!) I decided to see what I could do with things we have around the house.

Here's the BEFORE:

And here's AFTER:


Just a few pops of color bring in the turquoise and blue/green we have in our bedding and a painting on the wall...and I LOVE it!

Total cost for the mini-makeover: $0.00

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Home Sweet Home-work

So the second part of my New Year's resolution-ness deals with our little bungalow.

Not that our home is a bungalow...it's actually a cozy little ranch circa 1978. (I always laugh when I read magazines that advise you to keep the period of your home in mind as you decorate/re-model. Um, really? What exactly should I be keeping in mind from the late 1970s? Parquet flooring? Hunter green linoleum? All you designers help me out here.)

Well the Tyson's Corner Casa has needed some serious TLC for about 2 years, but between Dave and the Squirt...our priorities have been elsewhere. Now that we're humming along on Baby Steps 4 and 5 and not quite ready to tackle 6, we figured we could divert some cash to home decor and home improvements.

First up: the master bedroom.

We have been living sans-headboard since the day we moved in. Quite frankly it hasn't bothered me all that much. We have an amazingly comfortable bed (Original Mattress Factory is the way to go if you are looking for an incredible and affordable mattress!) and I'd rather spend my pennies on dinners out and handbags. But.... it has been on "the list" for 4+ years now. One of those things that we have been wanting to get around to.

Oh yeah, here's the list.


Some of these things I don't even care about anymore, but 3 years ago we made this list...and you can see the kind of progress we've made.

So I was totally thrilled to be able to strike one more item off the list last week when we finally purchased a grown-up headboard. Check out the before...during...and after!

BEFORE
Taken this summer sometime I believe...that baby on the bed is SO little!


DURING
Hmm...not quite the look we were going for. The blue tape is what we were envisioning.


AFTER
A few hours of DIY later...yes, that's better.

One small step for DIY-ers everywhere, one giant leap for Casa Leipprandt. : )


Next up: Painting the house and a new front door! Stay tuned...

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Anna Karenina: Spoiler Alert!

Phew! I have finished Anna Karenina, as of 8:04am this morning.

I don't know if the plot picked up during the last 5% of the book (Kindles don't give you page numbers, only percentages) or if I was merely anticipating reading another book after 5 months with this one, but the last section of the book read much more quickly than the first.

Here's a quick synopsis for those of you who want to talk about this literary behemoth without reading it yourselves. I call these Katie's Klifs - feel free to tell your high school or college-age friends who may be under the gun to write a report on this bad boy. These intellectual insights are totally free! : )

Set in Russia, sometime before WWI.

4 main characters:
Anna - our title character...beautiful and bewitching. Also, married. 
Vronsky - handsome charismatic military fellow
Kitty - contrasted against Anna throughout, wins your heart with her endearing spirit
Levin - country gentleman, soul-searching

Plot:
Kitty falls in love with Vronsky, believes he will ask her to marry him.
Levin falls in love with Kitty...realizes he is no match for Vronsky's charm.
Vronsky meets Anna (who is married) and falls madly in love.
Kitty and Anna have a falling out.

Anna and Vronsky begin an affair.
Levin asks Kitty to marry him.

Anna's husband discovers the affair...after much hand-wringing and about 1000 pages, Anna leaves her husband.
Kitty and Levin move happily to the country, Kitty gets pregnant.

Anna's husband will not divorce her, she is not accepted in Moscow society.
Vronsky and Anna begin fighting constantly, she takes a lot of opium to sleep.

Kitty has her baby, Levin's struggle to find God is becoming clearer.
Anna leaves Vronsky after a fight, goes to the train station and throws self under train.

Vronsky goes off to war to relieve his grief and suffering.
Kitty and Levin live happily ever after - he believes there is a God.


That's it. I can't say it was my favorite, it doesn't come anywhere close. As for recommending this to YOU to read...it was interesting for sure. But lots and lots of very descriptive passages that were absolutely inconsequential to the plot make me unable to whole-heartedly say it is a must-read.

Have you already read it? What did you think? Are you the kind of reader who skim reads to find out what happens (like me) or do you enjoy reading beautifully descriptive passages in their entirety?



 
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