Painting the Baby’s Room

I know hate is a strong word, but I hate painting. I guess it’s the perfectionist in me that causes me to find every little white spot and want to make sure it’s covered with paint and perfectly blended into the area next to it. However, it was time to paint the Baby’s Room because Colleen was tired of the white walls.

Well, this just wasn’t any painting project…oh no. This will kick it up a notch and involve two-tones, split 38″ up the wall where we would then run a chair rail (which we would have to custom make) and then top it off with wallpaper border. Oh my.

Here are a couple before pictures with us deciding what what colors to use in the last one. We eventually chose colors close to Winnie the Pooh colors, a light blue on top for the sky and a light green on bottom for grass. Next step was using blue tape to center the divide line where we would then put the chair rail.

After the first coat of paint here is where we were at.

Now it’s time to install the chair rail which we got at Home Depot. It’s amazing how expensive wood can be. At least we found out how to do the finishing nails so that when you finish you don’t see them. Also, at least our chair rail was primed.

Basically what you do is nail the chair rail to the studs (helps if you have a working studfinder) using 2″ 6d finishing nails. Then, using a nail set, sink the nails at an angle into the chair rail, cover it with putty (Colleen was a whiz with the putty), let it dry, sandpaper the putty down to match the surroundings, then paint over it. Then, it was a matter of installing the wallpaper.

Okay, I know I said before I disliked painting, well now I utterly DESPISED hanging wallpaper. It would be one thing if you have a smooth wall to install it on, but with our eggshell textured walls air bubbles are everywhere. It took us over 2.5 hours to install a simple 6-inch border wallpaper which was pre-pasted. We bought some wallpaper paste for pre-pasted wallpaper (I know, it doesn’t make sense, but that’s what you do), rolled it on, then we leveled it, and smoothed out the air bubbles. Colleen and I both threatened to rip down the whole thing many times during the process. Good thing I picked up a touch-up tube with some stronger stuff because sometimes the corners wouldn’t stick and we needed real paste to glue it down.

My crowning achievement was getting the chair rail around the rounded corners and the edges matching up. Colleen did a nice job of cutting the wallpaper behind the wallplate.

All done! I won’t be wallpapering anytime soon again. But the room does look much better than when we started.

Vail. How sweet it is.

So Shannon and John wanted to go skiing for Presidents Day weekend, and the conditions were coming into place to create a unforgettable weekend. The mountains got dumped with new snow and I-70 at Eisenhower Tunnel shut down and on Friday evening, nobody could get into (or out of) the mountains. We originally were planning on going to Breckenridge, but after seeing that Vail had 21″ of snow in the last 3 days we decided we should go for it. On top of that, the temperature was supposed to be in the 40′s all day long with little wind.

John and Shannon left at 5:30am to come pick me up so we could roll out and get up the mountain before the hordes of people on Presidents Day weekend. It turns out that, even though leaving at 6am is early, one still gets caught in traffic. In fact, usually traffic dies down after Idaho Springs, but something weird was going on. We pulled over in Idaho Springs so John and I could get our morning caffeine and the old lady running the gas station told us of an avalanche. We didn’t initially believe her, so I jumped on my Blackberry to look up the road conditions. Sure enough, CDOT set off an avalanche blast and it ended up burying I-70 up by Eisenhower Tunnel in 12 feet of snow. Apparently we would find out they set it off at 3am, and it was still not cleared by 9am. They should fire the person who decided on a holiday weekend when people are trying to get home from the roads being closed the previous day, and people are trying to fish, ski, hike, snowmobile, snowshoe and every other Colorado sport you can think of are trying to get *into* the mountains. This not very surprisingly created a massive traffic jam.

In fact, as we approached Georgetown we discovered the police were diverting everybody off I-70 and telling them to go back to Denver. Pathetic! We pulled over to the side of the road to wait it out. It was entertaining to watch everybody getting out of their cars to let their dogs play in the snow.

Luckily, by 10am they gave the all clear signal and we were in the front of the line to head up the mountain and it’s on to Vail. After we passed by the Copper Mountain exit we soon realized that with I-70 being closed most the morning and it being closed the previous day as well, there was nobody on the road.

We finally arrived at 11:15am, nearly 6 hours after John and Shannon left this morning and the decision was made to wait until noon so we could buy a half-day pass. When we walked directly up to the ticket counter with barely any line we started to catch on to the idea that maybe CDOT setting off an avalanche was a good thing. As we walked up to the Gondola we didn’t even wait in a line. It was hard to believe we were at Vail.

Yes, it was a good day. Shannon was tearing up the greens.

Eventually we made it all the way up to the top of Vail and were able to take some shots. The blue sky is great.

At the end of the day we wanted to find a hotel to stay the night to get another day of great skiing. However, it turned out that while nobody was in Vail today they still had the hotels all booked up for Presidents Day weekend. That was okay as we didn’t have staying the night planned anyhow and so we headed to Backcountry Brewery in Breckenridge and had some great food and beer and finished off a near perfect day in of skiing in Vail.

Chris Tomlin Concert and Garden of the Gods

Colleen thought it would be a great idea to drive down to Colorado Springs and go see Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman and Louie Giglio Round Two. (We went to their Indescribable Tour last year in Denver). It was a lot of fun and Colleen scored us some awesome seats. We were dead center, Row 7. I think that makes the concert a few times better because you feel more connected to what’s going on.

Since we were in Colorado Springs we decided to go to Garden of the Gods, and got a few pictures, however yet another storm was moving in and whiteout conditions along with -25 degree windchills were predicted by 5pm, so we left.

However, on our way out we found one of the cutest bears ever! We had to get it.

In other news, here’s the picture of Sooner in our backyard with all the snow. We’ve now had seven straight weeks of snow. Our driveway is officially a glacier.

Our Vehicles are Officially Paid Off!

So I know this isn’t a financial website. And I know that money is a sensitive subject for people. But I’m not going to let that interfere with how genuinely happy Colleen and I are to be without a car payment. This is obviously a huge deal as we are expecting a baby soon.

We are not financial superstars, nor are we mega-wealthy, in fact, we are just your typical “Americans”. I admit to buying a brand new 2002 Chevy Blazer ZR2 with it’s off-road upgrades when the odometer read 000007 miles (a single digit!) in 2001. Colleen, being smarter, bought a used 1998 Nissan Altima in 2003. These car payments added up to $850/month of expenses for us! And to think the US Government doesn’t think slavery in America exists today. Pfffffft! That’s a lot of days work just to pay for the hunk of metal to get us back and forth to work.

I forget who said it, but I believe the quote goes something like, “The typical American has an expensive car loan so they can drive back and forth to the job they hate so they can pay for their home that they aren’t in.”

No wonder everybody is stressed out!

Say what you want about financial counselors, but if there was one that existed that actually made sense I believe it would be Dave Ramsey. Sure, mathematically his “Baby Steps” won’t get you out of debt the fastest, but when it comes to money I think emotionally getting a few quick wins is important. (And there’s the small little footnote that it worked for us)

Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps

Baby Step #1: Pay the minimum on all debt until you are able to save $1,000. This is the starter emergency fund.

Baby Step #2: Pay off all personal debt except the home. Get mad and stay mad until you get out of debt.

Baby Step #3: With no personal debt, it will be easier to save three to six months of your expenses and fully fund your emergency fund.

Baby Step #4: Save 15 percent of your gross household income in retirement plans/mutual funds.

Baby Step #5: Start saving for your kids college expenses.

Baby Step #6: Scrape any extra money to pay off the mortgage early.

Baby Step #7: Build wealth and give it away.

With Baby Step #2, you pay off your smallest debt, regardless of interest rate, and once it’s paid off, you take that money and snowball it into your next lowest debt, and snowball both of them into a bigger debt snowball for the third smallest debt and so on. Eventually you’re paying off huge chunks of payments at a time.

Like I said before, it’s not mathematically going to get you out of debt the quickest because that would involve no emergency fund and paying off the highest interest debt first, but by getting a few quick wins you become more confident that the system actually works.

Again, it isn’t easy, and it involves writing some big, hairy checks…for instance our last check to GMAC was $1,723.61!

I’m not saying that number to brag or show off in any way. I’m just trying to give hope to people who don’t think getting out of debt can happen. Now with no credit card debt and no vehicle payments it’s onto Colleen’s student loan!

We are trying to get mad at our debt so that come July we are in the best position possible for Colleen to stay at home with Baby and not have to work.