surprise!

They say you can't go back.

Well, they're wrong.

Because this girl is going back to her old stomping grounds. That's right folks, back to agency life at my previous company.

Mad Men? More like 'Mad, Mad Woman'.

The details - while fuzzy - went something like this:

• receive a call out of the blue and get showered with compliments
• receive a text from a creative leader at the company that says, "Hi. We've never met, but I apparently work at the headquarters for the KK Fan Club." ((grin))
• have a deal NOT go down at work, and must mentally return all of the things I mentally shopped for with my big, fat commission check
• receive call from the President of the old company who wants to have coffee
• meet for said coffee, get showered with more compliments, make my concerns known, get misty when asked, "When are you just going to come home, already?"
• agonize over life's decisions and lose approximately 2 night's sleep
• receive a call from the COO of the parent company, who also wants to meet for coffee
• realize that as much as these people love me, they aren't aware that I don't drink coffee
• order tea
• after yet another showering of compliments, feel my ego is the cleanest it's ever been
• am nicely warned by COO that this will be a 'big job, with a lot of pressure on my shoulders, so do a good job'. (good to know. i thought they'd just pay me for showing up)
• make 'pros and cons' list
• make grocery list
• weigh 'long commute' and 'eating dinner at 9pm' against 'girl who makes me consider homicide' and 'Leave It To Beaver hours'
• get ONE MORE CALL from a former colleague, to get the nitty gritty
• somehow keep my mouth shut at a social brunch with former coworkers
• realize that you truly can't take the girl out of creative
• make my current work partner cry. multiple times a day. at varying levels.
• feel relief when i hear that after the announcement of my return, the company applause lasted 30 solid seconds

So there you go blog world. KK's going back to the madness.

(Admit it, you missed the posts from my former life!)

ta da!

the masterpiece is complete!

a project 8 years in the making...

...has been completed!

Mr. KK and I, plus our generous alcoholic families*, have been saving wine corks for 8 years.

And, finally, we have put those corks to good use.

Yesterday, in what can only be described as one of the most back-breaking projects we have ever done, we created a back splash to go above our wine fridge and buffet area in our new kitchen.

It's not up yet, but it's fabulous:

And to add a little something special, we collected marble coasters from wineries on our honeymoon and our most recent trip to Napa, and included those as well.

Peppered in there are special corks that we've written on over the years with phrases like, "our first anniversary", "cruise 2007" and "game night 10/2008".

It truly is special, and once it goes up, it's never coming down.

Which just means we'll live here forever. :)

*I'm not going to say anything, but the wine cork that we have the MOST of is my mother's favorite Pinot Grigio...

you can't make this shit up, part 35

We moved into our house in May.

While remodeling, we decided that we would use the space above the fireplace to mount our TV.

That big, open space looks like this, anxiously awaiting a beautiful TV to grace its wall:

With all of the remodeling and moving, buying a new TV was not high on our priority list, since we had to purchase things like wood to build a new front of the house, and pay for a termite exterminator.

So while we dreamed of the big TV, we used our smaller bedroom TV in the meantime. THAT ghetto fabulous set-up looks like this:

The nice thing is the TV turns, so we can watch it while on the couches in the living room, then I can turn it so I can watch it while I'm cooking in the kitchen. Pretty sweet set up. Bonus points for long black cord hanging down.

In a moment of what I can only describe as 'delusions of riches', we decide to bite the bullet and buy the new TV. Mr. KK is in charge of the research. He has spent MONTHS researching this TV, the correct mount for the wall, the LCDs, the HPs and the OMGs. 51" of beauty.

We order the TV!

They ship the TV!

They deliver the TV!

With a huge crack in the screen of the TV!

a tale of two trees

I have to say, it's been hard for me to get into the Christmas spirit - mainly because it's 60 degrees out.

To me, Christmas means cold and snow. Why do you think Santa always wears that heavy, woolen suit? You don't see him a t-shirt and shorts, do you?

As much as I may complain about the snow and cold (those posts to come, I'm sure), I can't imagine living anywhere else during the holiday season.

So the fact that it's raining right now on December 7, is rather disturbing to me.

(NOTE TO MOTHER NATURE: it's NOT that I'm wishing for snow right now; just not rain. Brisk air, perhaps. But not snow. Yet.)

But time is a-tickin', and this past weekend we ventured out for our tree (s).

And because I make every outing about food, we planned our tree-getting day around breakfast at a fabulous diner (that can be seen on The Food Network, thank you very much). With full belly's we headed out for our tree.

When I was younger, my parents and I did the whole 'cut down your own tree' thing. And it's fun! In fact, I wrote about it in November, and the idea of tailgating on tree cutting day.

But now I have that 'been there, done that' mentality, and I'm just as happy going to the garden center and picking out a beautiful Frasier fur. And the day we went, each tree was more gorgeous than the next.

We ended up with two trees - one for our living room, and one to enjoy on our patio.

And I love them both. In fact, I love the outside tree so much, that the guy at the garden center put a stick on it that read "back-up tree", so we'd know them apart once we got home.

Our official measuring tool: kk.

Probably why our tree looks dwarfed in our living room.

And if our super-warm house kills the first tree, it's good to know we can just carry in our Plan B tree and throw on some ornaments.

Now, what do you say we drop the temperature and give me a reason to put on a sweater?

Our indoor tree. Each year the color scheme is different.

This year's theme: retro brights. She is a beauty!