First post from an iphone: benson hard ar

Ebay is Interesting

We bought this painting on ebay, and it was the first item I have purchased from them since 2006. Susan the designer found this piece in November and showed us the link; I liked it, Benson wasn't really sure. It was $250, so we skipped buying it. Two months later, it was still available. We are getting more serious abouit picking accent items rather than just big furniture, so we checked out the item page and it was still available. It was, so for kicks, I put in an offer for $100 -- and bingo, it was accepted! Now that I know buyers will sometimes take lots less in a "buy it now" scenario, I'll be looking for more bargains. :)

Here's the description from the site:

Vintage 1980s Oil/Mixed Media; High quality modernism abstract; Signed & Dated on the front: Gwen Gershon, 1985....has very nice quality in very good to excellent original condition, original frame; no glass; measurements: image is 23 by 33 1/2; outer frame size is 30 x401/2.

Organize Everything

If you ever need something for decorating/organizing your house and can't find exactly what you want, try organize.com, aka Organize Everything. I searched all over the Internet for a 24 inch wide, bookshelf-style pot rack in stainless steel (or nickel or chrome) and couldn't find it anywhere. I finally found something that worked on this site.

Also, we have some additional new organization tools in our home- a white board and dry erase markers. We are keeping a running list of all the outstanding decorating tasks on it. It's easy to walk up and pick a task to get crackin' on, and very easy to update, erase finished items (yay!), etc. We also have the grocery list posted there, and reminders to renew our license plates, etc. While much less low tech, this works a lot better than the wiki page we tried using a few years ago. The white board is right in our faces every time we walk down the hall ;)

Purple Reign Makes Roses Bloom!!!!

Rose Parade - the Lindbergh High School Spirit of St. Louis Marching Band

Rose Parade - My fave float, from Cal Poly Tech universities

Frog Nation!!!

We won!!!!!!!!!!!

TCU Won the Rose Bowl!!!!!!

Megan is a TCU Alumn, and when the football team earned the invitation to the Rose Bowl it was a dream come true. For those of you not familiar with TCU football, the team has been steadily improving its national ranking over the last decade or so under coach Gary Patterson, and the last three years in particular have been stellar. Sadly, the BCS system that favors the traditional football powerhouses has kept the Horned Frog team out of the big BCS bowl games, and out of the running for the national championship. The invitation to the Rose Bowl was a HUGE step, and the team WON, beating the U of Wisconsin Badgers (who were ranked number 5 behind TCU's number 3, so proving again how good the Horned Frogs really are on a national level).

Benson was a trooper and got up at 5 a.m. to leave the house by 5:30 a.m. - we had to hit the Rose Parade before the big game! We arrived in Pasadena at 6 a.m. to avoid the crazy traffic from the street closures, and after napping in the car a bit headed over for the parade. Thanks to my dad for snagging us bleacher seats in the second row so we didn't have to consider camping out on the street overnight! The parade was beautiful, with lots of amazing floats, great marching bands and very impressive equestrian entries, too.

After the parade we went back to the car for another nap (yes, we were that tired, it WAS New Year's Day) and after 45 minutes of rest we hoofed it over to the Rose Bowl!!! Our seats were third row from the top in the North end zone, and we can tell you from experience that there really is no bad seat in the Rose Bowl, because we had an excellent view. The TCU crowd kinda seemed like freshmen invited to the prom compared to the Badger fans who were well-seasoned in bowl game excitement. The Badgers were hardcore tailgating, taunting the TCU fans here and there, EVERY one of them was in red head to toe, etc. The TCU fans were, well, just bright-eyed and really happy to be there! Which seemed fitting, since just last year was our first real BCS game, in the Fiesta Bowl, and it was against another newcomer to the national stage, Boise State.

The game was a blast, and we've never hung on every play in a football game like that ever before. Everyone we talk to who watched it on TV thought it was a nail-biter at the end, but in the stadium it felt different. By the third quarter the Badger fans had deflated a lot. Even through that last rush where the Badgers scored, everyone was just watching the clock and it seemed like there was no way the Badgers could win it - even when they went for the 2-point conversion, it just felt like it was TCU's game.

Looking forward to watching lots of TCU football with friends and family next season!!!!!

Sofa Safari

As with several other things, never knew how many options for creating a sofa there are in the world! We chose a style called Slider (not like White Castle) from the Sofa Company. Now it's time for fabric choices. The company lets customers take large yard-long swaths of fabric home to check out how the colors look in their home lighting.

We've decided on micro velvet fabric- it's really soft and comfortable, and doesn't have that really contrasted two-tone look like micro-suede does when you run a hand on it cross-ways. We brought home 5 color swatches, and have it narrowed down to two of those (dark gray or coral - kind of like Jacob and Emily's wedding colors!), plus Benson wants to throw cream/white into the mix again. It's what we have on our current couches and it might look nice.

In this pic, Stormy is voting for my favorite by sitting in the chair it's on, so we now have an authentic test of how his hair does/does not show on it. (Hoping does not, since it's practically the same color as he is!) We are thinking of having an ottoman made of the coral one.

Paint the Town (or just the walls, please)

Picking a paint color is becoming a huge chore. It's my least favorite part of decorating so far. There are eight different samples on the walls; green is the settled on color, but now it's time to decide which green. It is shocking we are spending so much time and thought on this!

For the photo with 5 blocks above the fireplace (aka our Floo network connection with Chris & Gina) - we didn't like any of the colors because they all looked really tan or grey on the walls in daylight. We learned that lighting and light bulbs are really important, because they did all have a green cast to them at night under the very yellow (as we eventually figured out) lighting in the living room when we picked the colors. We bought Reveal bulbs to replace the current ones, and Benson used a suction cup on a pole to change them (will post about that later).

Soooo- we went very green and very blue for the next three paint colors. I think the picture here is in bad lighting, because they don't look nearly as vibrant here as they do on the wall. We are leaning toward the middle one - it comnes across sort of soft forest green in person. The one above it is a little too yellow/avacado in the daylight. The blue one looks too much like the sky, so having the whole room sky blue seems weird and too cold feeling.

Dining room console cabinet

battle scars, pre-restoration

final glory!

Both of us like used/antique furniture if it's a good style and quality, so we met Susan (the designer) at Wertz Bros. to look at some bars, chairs and cabinets. We didn't purchase any of the antique bars (Megan loved them, Benson hated them) but we DID find a beautiful dining room buffet cabinet.

Not that we knew/know anything about this, but apparently it is made by a mid-century designer named John Widdicomb. It needed some TLC because it was pretty scratched/banged up, so it was priced way lower than his items usually cost. We bought it and paid the Wertz Bros. furniture restorer to refinish the top, fix several nicks, re-hang the cabinet doors and add a magnetic closure to the front. It turned out gorgeous!

It looks kind of blue-ish in every photo for some reason, but it is really an espresso brown in person. The carved front cabinets are the best part. We've filled it with all our dining room linens, as well as the barware/glassware/ liquor. Come over and party any time! :)

Divine Dining

For the dining room table, we made a snap decision that we still feel good about. Susan (the interior designer) looked on Craiglist and found a gorgeous, dark chocolate wood table on sale for less than half the original cost. Benson got a call from her about it while Megan was busy with friends, so he took a look at the pics, decided he had to have it, and then called the owners. Turned out the table had been used to stage their home in NYC and didn't fit well in their new LA home, so it was hardly used-- nice bonus.

Benson talked Megan into driving the U-Haul truck from the sellers' place to our place (something about him leading using the Nav system in his car so she could follow....). So- within a span of seven hours or less, we found out about the table, rented the U-Haul, and had it in our home. Which was none too soon, because it came to live with us only eleven days before we hosted Thanksgiving Dinner. :)

Megan still thinks the shape looks a bit like a grasshopper in the DWR picture here, but we never look at it straight on like that, and the shape looks great in our dining space.

Magic Carpet Ride

Our designer told us the first step to decorating would be to pick a rug. How little we knew about the vast choices avaialable online for rug choices! We spent at least 4-5 days scouring sites, checking dimensions, weighing different color pallets, and second-guessing. Finally, we chose the one in the photo; it's a bit modern and funky, but the antique furniture we are using will offset it nicely, for a cool mix of colors, styles and shapes that will hopefully work harmoniously.

Back in the Saddle Again!

Hello everyone! It's been more than a year since this blog was updated, but I am determined to do a better job moving forward.

Benson and I moved to a new home in West LA near Brentwood, and we are enjoying the process of decorating it. Our good friend Gina Shelton just moved back to Dallas from LA and recommended we blog about the process so she and our other family and friends can enjoy the journey, too! I'll start doing updates about other topics, as well, but the decorating is the most fun at the moment. :) Come visit us at the new place any time!

Here's a link to our neighborhood on google maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

Garage Roof Leak - yuck

We have enjoyed an uncharacteristic downpour of rain in SoCal this week, which resulted in the discovery of a leak in our garage roof (surprise!). Rain water cascaded over several storage boxes. While much of the contents got a bit damp, miraculously only a few things were badly damaged. This was mostly due to Benson's decision a few years ago to forego cardboard boxes for storage and move to plastic bins - thanks baby! Things that were saved completely include:

• Our box of favorite clothes through the decades - from my mom's seventies bellbottoms outfits, to Benson's silver rave pants, to my cheerleading uniforms
• A box entirely filled with my college photos and Delta Gamma sorority memories (I found my pledge card and pledge pin, how fun!)
• all of Benson's old yearbooks and high school/college memories
• A box with most of Benson's signed original copies of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault

Items that did not make it through so well included:

• my college paperwork and reference notes from favorite courses
• Benson's airsoft/paintballing clothes and accompanying paraphernalia
• some winter coats (which we just stuck in the dryer and there is no water damage, yay!)
• ...and the worst - Benson's videogame collection, made up of all the games he has worked on over the last 12 years and his favorite hit games from the last 20 (original Doom, Quake and Lara Croft included!!) Not all are damaged due to the way they were stacked (including the three listed, thank goodness) but enough are wet that we might have to trash some.

We have most of the items listed above laid out on sheets in the dry part of the garge, with a fan blowing on them. While this is frustrating to deal with, we are grateful that the situation wasn't worse- the house didn't burn down, the damage was minimal, and we'll be done with the drying and repairs in just a few days.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Launch - and Amazing Reviews!!

It has been a looooong time since I posted - I was busy with lots of things and got sidetracked. However, today is a day to post about!!! The videogame Benson has been working on for two years, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, is officially available in retail stores today!

The game is getting RAVE critical reviews, and holds a strong 97% review average from journalist game reviewers across the globe. Out of 57 reviews currently posted to metacritic.com, the average score is 97% - with a whopping 23 of those 57 being PERFECT scores!

To exemplify how significant this is: The top rated, and thus mostly top selling, games over the past three years have been BioShock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Halo 3 and Gears of War 2. Well-known game industry (and Newsweek) journalist N'Gai Croal posted the below statistics about those games' perfect review scores, asking if Uncharted 2 would be able to beat them all. Most are now surpassed, and I am thinking BioShock is in the crosshairs. :)

Record of Perfect Reviews: BioShock: 34/88; Halo 3: 20/86; COD4: 14/70; Gears 2 13/90

Uncharted 2: 23/57 and counting!

Holiday Weekend

Benson and I have lots of fun activities planned for the Labor Day weekend (he doesn't have to work!!). I'll be surfing and getting together with friends Saturday and then B and I are going to see the fabulous Andrew Jed Band with a group of friends at the Malibu Winery on Saturday night. Let us know if you are around and want to head out there. Show starts at 7!

Benson's Styling Skillzzzz

While I was in Phoenix for the weekend Benson kept in touch via texting and photos to let me know he was thinking about me, and shared his thoughts about how we might be in need of makeovers for himself, me and Stormy. See below for examples of his mad personal styling skillzzzz.

Under the Phoenix Sun

Heading off to Phoenix today for a weekend with several of my high school girlfriends. Since we graduated in '97 we have tried to plan a trip together every year. Some years we have earmarked each others' weddings as the trips, but we've also done Lake of the Ozarks, San Antonio, Nantucket and maybe a few others. We are very lucky this year because Barb Campbell's parents are letting us use their Phoenix condo as our meeting place for free-- saves some cash for sure! We'll be sitting by the pool, going out for drinks and hitting some outlet malls, but really the whole point is to get together and enjoy some quality time. Pics to come upon my return.

Cards over Dodgers 3-2

Went to the Cardinals v Dodgers game tonight with Julie, it was a really nice time! We got a shock though, as the tix I bought from our friend Chance's season tickets were (surprise!) in the Left Field Pavilion (aka bleachers) at Dodger stadium. It is not an exaggeration to say I am fairly leery of the Dodger bleachers, because every time I go to a game I see at least 2 fights and fan ejections occur. Tonight was no exception, though we were totally safe the entire time, even with me in my Cards jersey. (It says Gibson on the back, in case you were wondering). We did see one guy get escorted out for being a general PITA, and that was actually Dodger on Dodger issues! But overall we had a great time chatting and watching the game, eating our Dodger Dogs and nachos. And the Redbirds pulled off a win, with homers from Pujols and Ankiel- woohoo! Going again tomorrow night with Benson, they've slated a new pitcher I think, so should be interesting.

Jaye's Birthday Dinner

Just got home from a birthday dinner for our friend Jaye, lots of fun! About 12 of us showed up at Lare's for delicious Mexican food. Nicole and I shared the mole and verde tamales. We all met some new friends and drank some 'ritas and had a grand old time. Looking forward to Sunday-- church, errands and then beach time!

An End in Sight

Benson's game, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, is officially slated to hit stores in North America on October 13 - that means there is an end in sight for this crazytown work schedule, woo-hoo!!!!!!!!!! (They have to stop working several weeks before that so the game can be processed in manufacturing and shipped to retail stores). See below for the box art for the game. B and I both like the blue.

Photos

Christine, Katie, me and Alex (the Grand Champeen)

Me and Jess!

Uncle Erick, me, Mom and Dad

Home Sweet Home

I returned to LA on Saturday night. It was really fantastic to be with so many family and friends in the midst of a successful work trip, and now I am glad to be home with my hubby. The Midwest Extravaganza was fabulous! Here's a breakdown:

Friday night - out with Alex and Christine and old high school buddies
Saturday - breakfast with Gama Max and Uncle Erick, pool party at Christine's, then out with Alex, Christine and Katie, and the surprise addition of Jessica in from KC!!!
Sunday - 1:30 Cardinals game with mom, dad, and Uncle E; dinner with the previous, plus Gama Max, Jake and Emily; then to The Muny to see Camelot!
Monday - travel to Minneapolis and work from hotel, dinner out with colleagues
Tuesday - successful meetings with the journalists we were visiting, awesome steak dinner at Capital Grill
Wednesday - travel to Chicago, work, and then a delicious Mexican fiesta dinner with Benson's dad Earl, Joanne, Penny, Steve and Kellsie (loved that sangria!)
Thursday - All day meetings in Chicago that went very well, plus dinner with colleagues at the PrimeHouse
Friday - more meetings, then ended the day with cocktails and a long lingering dinner at Sepia with friend Heather
Saturday - brunch with Heather, her husband Tyler, as well as our friend Barb, her husband Dave and their 2 1/2 yr old daughter Michaela; then hopped on an earlier flight to get home sooner :)

Benson picked me up at the airport with a suggestion to go out to a nice dinner to celebrate my return. We walked out to the new-ish Santa Monica restaurant Rivas on Wilshire near 3rd, and then grabbed dessert at Yummy Cupcakes across the street (thanks to Nicole for the suggestions of both in the past, they are on our faves list now).

Photos to come tomorrow.