I HATE when i run out of spray paint before i run out of Motivation

So the B key on this computer is now completely shot... i thought about just giving in and paying the $100 for a new keyboard, but Riley HATES this computer and just wants me to get a new one, FINE BY MEEEE!!! so excuse any missing B's in this post... i have to dig my finger nail in the little hole thing to make the letter, super fun huh.

So today Riley had Duty... for those of you unaware of what that is, it means he has to get into one of his dress uniforms and go babysit the barracks to make sure the stupid Marines don't make any decisions too high on the stupid scale. For 24 straight hours, ugh that would suck. So after dropping him off this morning i set off to do some garage saleing. i didn't bring any cash 1.) because we are trying to be really good about budgeting and hand me down crap isn't in the budget and 2.) i decided that i am a terrible impulse buyer and if i absolutely fell in love i would have to drive to go get cash, drive back... and by then i would have to still think it was a good purchase AND it would have to still be available. Well all the sales sucked big time, and i came home empty handed. i've been wanting to start on my barstool's but i am not getting fabric for those until this next payday (i made the smart decision that it wasn't a "right now" necessity.) ya, i do smart things like that from time to time. PLUS the fabric store we went to didn't have the gray i dreamed about. who knows if it actually exists... a girl can dream though. So i was sitting at home thinking about how i NEEDED to do a new project for the house. so i spent 24 minutes trying to get the code on our padlocked storage closet, finally broke in and grabbed almost all the spray paint i had in there. I grabbed the ihome, and Deezul and headed out to the back porch.

My in-laws are amazing, have i said that lately? when we bought our house, Rye's parents were changing their back patio furniture... so they just GAVE us these awesome chairs. They originally went in the set with a table and it was this amazing outdoor dining room. however a storm came and somehow shattered the glass top to the table. so they kept two of the chairs (they are SO comfy) and gave us the other 4. When the chairs first got delivered on island, they had oil spots and such all over. within 3 months of being here they have tons of rust spots on them. so i have been planning a face lift for these bad boys for a while now.

 So this is the before (super boring huh!)

 Do you SEE all that rust?!

 I'm doing yellow on two and blue on the other two.

 i then had to lay the chair down and at each angle cover all the brown with white.

 TADA!!!!!

So it took me less than a can of blue and 2 white to finish this chair, i am now all out of white and sad as could be. So what for part two of this and see how this little project finishes out!

P.S. did you notice how Dee is a total photo crasher :) that's my boy!

Inspection

So due to some recent events which i won't post about cause it's really nothing to be spread. Riley's unit is now implementing house inspections for the married Marines. which of course sends EVERYONE into panic mode... thoughts of Marines in dress blues with white gloves and a sword walking through my house, making sure my window sills are spotless... seriously though, i think last night when this was announced the mini mart on base probably had a spike in energy drink sales. Riley calls me in a panic telling me they may start in the morning, and we still have that pile of laundry that needs to be done (it is literally like 2 loads worth... that's IT)

Now i have no problem with a house inspection. i think it's a good idea. I mean we are living in military housing, they have every right to make sure we are not tearing the place down. Although with the current state of this apartment i sometimes wish that were an option. They can not tear down this condemned building fast enough. only a few more months! After the initial panic of someone coming through our house to judge us, we found out it's mostly just to check living conditions and as one Marine put it (make sure we don't have dead animals in the closet and nothing is growing in the fridge)

I am still going to make sure the house is spotless. If i am having some of Riley's higher-ups in my house it's going to look pristine. i honestly DO feel that this is a good idea, and other than not looking forward to having to mop the whole house like NOW (I've been putting it off) I'm ok with it all. It's a little motivation to get the spare room organized quickly (more to come on that). i think alot of girls (including me) got married VERY young. one of the problems of that is we move from home, to our very own place... not always knowing what running a household entails. I was really lucky to live so close to my mother in law for so long, she would take me to her cleaning supplies dealer (i guess it was not near as sketchy as her old dealer) and then she'd show me all the tricks to getting things to their cleanest potential. She is the one i call when i have any cleaning questions, i mean i dropped a plate of lasagna on her nearly white carpet... ya you can't even tell, she's THAT good. HOWEVER all the wives aren't so lucky to have a nearly OCD mother in law to show them the way. So they are left with a big house and feeling more than a little overwhelmed. i feel this inspection thing will put a fire under their bum.

Ok so about the spare room. so i was at the salvation army yesterday. I seriously HATE that place, they are SO overpriced. they were selling this piece of crap dresser for $160, at the D.I. it would have been $20. anyway they had this hutch their, priced at $125 i was NOT willing to pay that much, so i went up and asked the girl if they were willing to negotiate.. no dice. I asked how long they have had it, 2 days. so then i tell her i'll give her $100 right then and there. She then gets all pissed and tells me it's already on sale from $190. i ask her how it's on sale if they JUST got it, and then tell her it has ALOT of rusty and broken parts that would need to be replaced. She tells me it's worth $200(NOT) and that i should be happy to pay $125... so i got a little upset and stormed out telling her to keep her freakin overpriced hutch and that the whole store is freakin ridiculous. i was excited to get the hutch, redo it and then keep it in our craft/workout room to organize all that stuff, it would have been PERFECT! but instead she HAD to make me mad. stupid woman, and STUPID overpriced thrift store. you can keep your junk!!!

ok enough procrastinating... i need to get cleaning.

Run Forest Run!!!

So i am not a very good runner... i try, but with my legs/feet shaped and cocked funny, finding shoes that make running not painful (in a bad way) is a challenge. my husband however is insane! he loves running! him and Kyle decided to run a 20k this last weekend, and when i say decided, i mean they talked about it but were both too busy to work up for it. so they hadn't run in like 3 weeks when race day came along.

We had to set our Alarms for around 3:30 on a sunday..... let's just say the day started out with some texts along the line of "you awake Kyle?" "This is retarded" "yup"

We picked Kyle up at the barracks at nearly 4, he came down barefoot and without an ipod, so we sent him back up barefoot to grab his pod. He joked he was hoping to slice his foot open so he wouldn't have to go and he could go back to bed. in the parking lot of an infantry barracks, i'm surprised he DIDN'T slice his foot open. we drove the 40 minutes to the other side of the island (that is a FAAAR drive on this little island. i know mainland that is nothing.... but it's pretty ridiculous here) got the boys all checked in and ready to run, and then i settled in with my book for the race... it's about a 4 mile loop, so they passed me 2 times and on the third, they finished, so i was able to get some action shots :)

 here are the boys (with the matching yellow striped shorts.... ya i gave them crap for that) waiting for the horn to go off. they were originally going to go easy for the first mile to warm up... but when the horn sounded they had all sorts of motivation and just took OFF

 Rye making his first loop and feeling good!

 Kyle only a few minutes behind him.

 Riley on lap 2, i know the picture is blurry, but i love it!

 Kyle on lap 2, still only a few minutes back!

 There he is!!! finishing 6th in his age division, and 132nd overall (out of 700)

 Kyle finishing 8th in his age division and 152nd out of the 700

 cooling off

 yes they both have a piece of chocolate cake in their hand, the race provided all sorts of awesome snacks for them post-race

 these two are pretty much best friends, and they are two of the STRANGEST, and funniest guys i know

 he looks so skinny! and sweaty..... ewww

 ya, how cool is his number! this was his first race EVER, go Kyle!!!

 The results (the page they were on at least)

i love everything about this picture.
All in all it was a good morning, they were both glad they did it, and are excited about the next race they will be running. we spent the rest of the long weekend relaxing and napping.

There IS life after deployment, things for the Gardiner's have returned back to complete normalcy. people keep asking if Rye is different, and if going over there changed him. everything we do in life is going to change us, it's inevitable. we just have to have faith, and the right attitude to allow our experiences to better us rather than to effect us in a negative way. you can't look at this last picture and tell me that's not the same guy from a year ago, he is amazing. and every day i am grateful that i married him.

So congrats boys you guys did AWESOME, and i can't wait to be at your next race, camera in hand.