Oarn't you glad I'm back?

Happy Father's Day! How are you all celebrating today? What did your Dads/husbands get this year? I unfortunately couldn't be with my dad today, but I did spoil him this year with something he's been wanting forever...

a 46" LCD flatscreen. I know this won't make up for me moving 3000 miles away, but it should help pass the time between visits. I hope he's enjoying a good movie in HD on it right this moment. Love you, Dad :)


Thanks for hanging in there while I took a couple weeks off to visit with my family and give the whole D&R/blogging thing a rest for a bit. It was a good break to relax & refuel.

I've returned today with a quick master bedroom update.

Remember this empty space above our headboard?

Well, originally I had decided that a long, skinny piece of driftwood would be the perfect addition. Then I realized they were extremely hard and/or expensive to just stumble upon... so I took matters into my own hands and decided I'd make my own with a tree branch I cut from our front yard.
To aid in the natural "weathering" process, I threw it in the pool and let it soak for about a month.

The next step was peeling the bark off... which I wasn't really sure how to approach.

After I took this picture, I set the branch aside and decided I'd get back to it after my family had left town.

But then my plans changed.

The day after my family arrived, I had rented a Pontoon boat for a group of us and scheduled a fun day of boating and exploring the city by river. I had this boat reserved for over a month and our whole route planned and everything.

When we get to the marina, I give the guy my name and he says "Oh... uh... yeah, the boat blew its' engine and then our backup boat sank. Sorry."

Yeah... thanks for telling me earlier.

Our neighbor/boat captain friend, Joe, who was with us tried calling every marina owner he knew to try and get us a replacement boat, but it was too short notice and our boat day was ruined.

As we were leaving, I spotted this old oar that had been rotting away in their boat graveyard. I pointed it out to Joe and he decided to take it as our parting/consolation gift.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it at first, but once we were back at home, it hit me: hang it over the bed!

A few pulls of the nailgun trigger later, and it was up:

I love it not only because it's nautical, but now I have a symbol of our family trip that I can look at every day.

I will call this look... "simplistic nautical romance." I like it.

This engraving is pretty awesome. I believe it stands for "really rad paddle."

And of course, Susie wants you all to know that she approves of this update.

That's all I've got this time... but Brad and I just finished a much needed office lighting upgrade, which I'll be back with tomorrow.


I'm off to bake some healthy brownies for a BBQ at a friend's house who is a new daddy. Check back tomorrow for my office update!