Foyer and Powder Room Paint Colors

I am very excited to share that we have finally picked paint colors for the foyer and powder room! If you remember way back when we had someone out to help us pick colors for the house and while I was happy about our choices for the main living areas, the colors fell short for the foyer. They were all too light and too beige for my taste.

So I dug through some of the paint swatches I collected (yes there are so many it's officially a collection) and found a few that H and I both liked. We narrowed it down to three choices:

Nimbus,Smoke Embers, and Revere Pewter

I was really thinking Revere Pewter was going to be the winning color. I have seen it all over Pinterest and we were even considering it for our main living spaces. But instead of just jumping into buying however many gallons of paint, we decided it might be wise to get samples this time around. We plan to have a professional paint our two story foyer so we figured it would be worth the $15-20 investment to be sure we loved the color before putting it on the walls. 

(Top to bottom) RP, Nimbus, SE

Much to our surprise, we really disliked Revere Pewter! So glad we bought that little test pot! We didn't like it mainly because in our space it was way too tan/beige instead of that nice greige color we were hoping for. I refuse to have any wall in our house be tan so we nixed the one color we thought would be perfect.

We also thought that Smoke Embers was way too dark and too blue. It was very similar to the dining room color Anonymous by Behr. We also painted the front room this color because we loved it so much. But painting the whole foyer would be a bit much. 

That left us with Nimbus. While we were putting it on the wall, H and I were both surprised with how nice of a color it was. Light enough to not be overpowering but also dark enough to feel like there is a color on the wall. It has a nice greenish/blue tint to it which, surprisingly, I liked. I think it works well with our hardwood stairs and bonus that it is more of a grey than tan : )

We figured since we were having someone come in to paint the foyer we might has well have them do the powder room too. Then the entire first floor would be painted meeting my soft deadline of 'finish painting the downstairs before my birthday' I made up at the beginning of the year. 

For those who have done DIY paint jobs in your own houses, you know that the small rooms are sometimes more of a pain than the big ones. By having the painter do it just takes the stress off of us and we are only going to be out an extra $100 bucks (including paint which is really closer to $50). This is one for the win column. 

For this room we decided to do something totally different - a dark purple/grey color. Why you ask? Well, I originally wanted to wallpaper this room just to do something fun and dramatic. But ever since I started Googling powder rooms for ideas, I have seriously loved the dark, dramatic spaces with a few glamorous details. Hence, dark purple. We are going with Silhouette by Benjamin Moore and praying it turns out the way we want it to. I know it's going to be really dark at first, but once we add some white canvas prints or frames, and a new, larger mirror, I think it will all work out. Fingers crossed!

So that's all for now. We haven't set a date for the painter to come but should be within the next two weeks or so. Be sure to check back for updates!

JP

CrossFit Friday Part One

This is my first attempt at a series. Yup, sh-tz gettin' real. I have been wanting to try to find ways to post more often so what better way then to start a series entirely about my CrossFit experience? I thought of this for two reasons: (1) in light of my recent technology meltdown I need to find ways to write without the use of photos (I mean who really wants to see pictures of this girl all gross and sweaty? Na, didn't think so) and (2) is that I want to stay true to my original goal for this blog - having a creative outlet for my everyday endeavors.

The JP Project is about me and my life. This just so happens to be centered around building our home and cooking, well and my pup : ) but with the recent addition of CrossFit I figured it would be nice to give that part of my life a little time in the spot light too. I also think this will be a good way to hold myself accountable for actually going to the gym (or the box as they call it). So what do you think? CrossFit Fridays? All in favor, say "AYE!"

Day One wasn't too bad. I was expecting the worst workout of my life but I didn't even break a sweat! Now looking back on it, it was day one, what were they really going to expect us to do? We learned a few things like front and back squats, as well as some mobility techniques. Dave, our coach, also showed us how they do push-ups (military style - awesome) and sit-ups (frog style - again, awesome). Basically everything they do is meant to be efficient and use the correct muscle groups instead of flubbing your way through things. At this point I was totally on board, feeling good, thinking, "wow, we can do this!" Then at the end of the class our coach said to us that this was just a starter and next week he's gonna make us sweat.

Day Two - much worse. Dave had us doing kettlebell swings, burpees, more squats, pull-ups, etc. Kettlebell swings look a lot easier than they actually are, well at least as far as form goes. You can't squat, but you have to bend your knees to bend over, but you don't want to use your arms coming back up, and don't let the bell move around too much... WAY too much to remember. But hey, practice makes perfect right? Right. So practice is what we did.

We had a mini workout of 5 rds (rounds) for time, (meaning you keep going until however long it takes you to complete 5 rds) of 5 kettlebell swings, 7 burpees and 9 sit-ups. Doesn't sound too bad right? Wrong. We got our sweat on. H finished in about 7 minutes and I was just over 8. Not bad for first timers but man were we spent after that. My sit-ups could use some work too. I was fine until the end, apparently my core strength is nonexistent, cool. Everyone starts somewhere right?

Day Three was more of the same. This time we did our warmup using the medicine balls. Throwing them, kicking them, doing sit-ups with them, you name it, we did it. Then we learned how to do deadlifts and sumo deadlifts. Again, looks easier than it really is. And again, it's all about the form. Are you seeing the pattern here? It's all about putting your weight in the heals and driving your body upright from a squatting position bringing the barbell with you. More practice is definitely needed in this department, at least for me. So we did a bunch of those and then another mini workout. This time it was a modified Cindy.

What's a Cindy you ask? It's a 20 minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 15 air squats. CrossFit has a bunch of "benchmark" work outs (WODs) that allow you to see how you are progressing and they all happen to be names of women, don't ask me why. Anyway, so instead of doing the full Cindy we did a 10 minute AMRAP of 3 pull-ups, 6 push-ups, and 9 air squats. H was a champ with the pull-ups and push-ups where I struggled with them significantly. I was able to do two rounds of push-ups before I had to modify to my knees and even further to worming my way up, man I was terrible! But hey, it's something I know I need to work on (trying to stay positive here). I killed the air squats though so 1 out of 3 ain't bad. H and I both finished with 11 rounds, but like I said, I modified big time. I am wondering if it would have been better to do fewer rounds and take breaks so I could continue to have better form with the push-ups. Trials and tribulations of a beginner I guess.

So, all-in-all, not bad. Though I did wake up this morning unable to lift my right arm because my tricep was so swollen. Muscle strength is not my strong suit but I know it will come in time. I am just hoping that it is sooner rather than later. I am going to try to do some push-ups and core work at home on my off days to help build that strength so I can do more during the WOD and not make a total fool out of myself. Just gotta find the time.

Check back next week for Part Two!

JP

Drinkin' the CrossFit Koolaid?!

Side Note: Our new hard drive has officially arrived (eeeeh) however, I have yet to find the time to transfer everything over. And of course, I can't just throw stuff on there, I need to go through the last 5+ years of junk before I finally clear up some space to start posting pictures again. But until then, here is an interesting update about our lives lately.

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Yup, I've officially joined the dark side. Well, not officially I guess, more of a "I'm trying it on for size, but black is totally my color". And yes, I am bringing the hubby with me! Actually it was him that talked me into it, so when I am cranky next week you will all know who to blame : )

So here's the deal, H and I have tried a few workouts before. I got through two thirds of P90X to get in shape for the wedding (best shape of my life btw - just saying) and I really loved it. What I didn't love was Tony Horton's goofy phrases and annoying Andrea who every time she was in a video I felt like telling her to go eat a burrito! Plus the yoga video was just awful, one and half hours of the same-move-over-and-over. But, at the end of the day, I saw results. I also recently tried the T25 series with Shaun T. Must say, he is a way better coach than Tony in my opinion, but after the first 5 weeks of the Alpha program I was feeling a little underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong, the workouts kicked my butt, but I am not sure how the end result would be mainly because there was no lifting. The workouts are high intensity, 25 minutes, major cardio, and what's better than spending 25 minutes a day to work out and actually seeing/feeling results?

Apparently CrossFit.

For the last year, H and I have had multiple friends joining the CrossFit Cult trend and they all have wonderful things to say. They have been trying to get us to join for months now and our whole excuse was it's too much money and too much time. Until we saw this Groupon deal that would allow us to try out our local CrossFit, which as luck would have it is where our friends from work go, for only $40! We toyed with the idea and then we thought of Pepper. Yea she's a dog, but we love spending a lot of time with her. We have put so much time and energy into training her that we didn't want her to become neglected. However, she is not a puppy anymore, she just turned one last weekend and we are starting to give her more freedom. So maybe if we are gone an hour and a half at night we can leave her out of the crate and see how she does. I know, famous last words, but the gym is only 15 minutes from the house so we would be gone two hours max. I guess we could at least try it out right? Plus we have friends that do CrossFit and have dogs, if they can do it, then why couldn't we?

Groupon purchased!

We had our first meeting yesterday with one of the coaches. He showed us around and gave us a look into what CrossFit is all about. He seemed really knowledgable and excited about the gym, which in turn made me excited (not sure how H felt about the whole thing) and told us we are going to officially start on Wednesday. Yup that's tomorrow - que my totally freaking out face!

So we will see how it so goes. We apparently have to "test out" of individual classes which consist of learning all the lifts/moves before we are cleared for group classes and that should take about a month. I am totally fine with that because the longer I have before I make a fool out of myself in front of my friends, the better! Needless to say from time to time I will be posting about my CrossFit experience. 

Who knows, maybe I will love it, maybe it will be awful, but at least I am giving it a try!

JP

Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies

This post is something that I was going to blog about a while ago, back during the Holidays, but never really got around to it. I am a believer of living life not just writing about it, so when the time came to post this I was just too busy getting us ready to go to Florida for Christmas.  Needless to say, the post never happened and these beautiful pictures went to the wayside. However, since I am anxiously awaiting my new hard drive, I figured this would be a good one to tide readers over for a little while. 

Oh, and note to self... while these cookies are seriously amazing, they do not keep very well in a hot car for a two day drive. We got to Florida and they were complete mush, still delicious, but not nearly as pretty as they are here : ) Enjoy!

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These might just be my favorite cookies...

So gooey and delicious.

Of course, very festive for the Holidays.

and seriously super easy to make!

I got this recipe somewhere on the Food Network website, however, it was for chocolate crinkle cookies, not red velvet. For those who don't know, I am a sucker for anything red velvet : ) My amazing girlfriends even ordered me red velvet cupcakes for my Bridal Shower from my favorite bakery in the city - Martha's. Oh, that place seriously Heaven. It's this little hole in the wall store in the middle of Forest Hills, Queens. And yes, it is so worth the trip out to Queens. I am still grateful they were able to make that happen, love you ladies! 

They know that red velvet is top on my list of favorites, and after making these cookies, it will most certainly be on yours too! Like I said, this recipe originally called for chocolate in the form of a cake mix. I have made the chocolate version too and the cookies are really good, just not nearly as good as these (in my biassed opinion). Ok here goes,...

Ingredients: 

- 1 brick of cream cheese (8 oz)

- 1 stick butter at room temp (unsalted)

- 1 egg

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 1 box moist red velvet cake mix

- a bunch of powdered sugar to roll the cookies in and for dusting (yea, I know not too technical sorry!)

Directions: 

- Cream together the cream cheese and butter until smooth

- Beat in the egg and then the vanilla extract

- Beat in the cake mix (you can just dump it in all at once, but just be sure to watch for fly aways)

- Cover dough and refrigerate for at least 2 hrs

- Preheat oven to 350

- Roll dough into tbs sized balls and then roll them in a bowl of powdered sugar making sure to cover completely

- Place balls on an ungreased cookie sheet, a inch or two apart, and bake for 12 minutes

- Cool on a wire rack and then sprinkle with extra powdered sugar if needed

Note: the cookies will look slightly underdone when you take them out of the oven, this adds to the fudge-like gooey deliciousness!

Enjoy!

JP

This Busy Life of Ours

Ok, so many of you know that things have been slow around here. Mainly because of a shortage in memory on my computer. That hasn't changed. In fact, I tried to get around this problem by taking photos with my iphone to post about some updates we have been doing around the house and then the unthinkable happened... H dropped my phone destroying my screen.

Technology - 2     JP - 0

I have also been MIA lately because H and I went to Denver to visit our good friends who moved out there last year. It was awesome to spend some time with them but we were secretly using them for a place to stay while we took advantage of the great mountains. Shh.. don't tell them : )

H and I both snowboard and our good friends both ski so it was a great opportunity to hit the slopes together since we haven't been able to do that for a few years now. When we all lived in NYC, we took bus trips up to Vermont at least twice a year which were always a good time. We would get on the bus at 4am, head up to Okemo (which was my favorite), ride all day, then hop back on the bus by 4pm to come home. Man I miss those days. Now, we have to plan a whole weekend to get up to a decent mountain, which isn't a bad thing, just not as easy as a day trip. In a few weeks we are actually going to a friends house in the Poconos to board/ski with a bunch of people, should be a good time. But nothing like riding in the Rockies!

H and I went one other time to Colorado and hit up Copper Mountain - it was amazing. Like nothing we had ever seen before. Needless to say we were psyched to get out there again and check out a few other mountains. This time we went to Keystone and Breckinridge. Both stellar mountains if you ask me. Though, I spent more time catching edges and rolling down the slopes than actually riding, I still had a blast! What made it better was being able to go with two of our best friends. If you ever have a chance to get out to that side of the world - do it, I promise it is worth the trip!

So after an amazing trip to Denver, H and I came home to ANOTHER Nor'easter! Yup, that's right, more snow. I can't tell you the last time the East Coast got this much snow in one season. But one good thing about all this snow is getting another paid day off from work : ) So even though technology is fighting against me, mother nature is going crazy, and our lives have been busy busy busy - we are still enjoying the ride.

Hopefully I will get my phone fixed (and/or a new hard drive) to post a few photos of the house updates soon. But until then, I am just gonna sit back and enjoy my day off. Anyone else doing anything on this snowy day?

JP