I Did It In Ten Minutes, More or Less

Nester's linky party put a fire under my tushy to actually do something around here. I've been making excuses, like not being able to paint yet, or I want a new couch, blah, blah.

Well, after I saw what a big difference one plant made last week, and with the deadline for Nester's party looming, I decided to do a few more things to spruce it up in the living room. This is the before picture.


And this is after. It's hard to take indoor pictures at night without using the flash.

I went to Goodwill this morning hoping to maybe find some curtains. No luck there, but I did find the floor lamp, brand new, for $19.99, to replace the cheap IKEA lamp. It came with a red shade, which didn't fit my color scheme, so I traded it out for a shade that I got for $3 at GW a few months ago.

I had the table in the family room but decided to move it. It's an old ice cream table that was my grandmother's. I have one of the chairs too (lost the other in a move), and I can remember eating lunch at this table on grandma's patio many times.

All us bloggers who paint furniture on a whim have nothing on my grandma. She was the original. This table had been green, and then yellow, before it was white. I definitely remember it being yellow. Okay, enough about g'ma.


I kept the chocolate brown faux suede cloth on the table that I was using in the family room. I added a $5 lamp (from Dollar General months ago), a stack of books elevating a picture of, well, my grandma. Very fitting. And a clock which was also a Goodwill purchase at one point.


While I didn't find window treatments at GW, last week I scored these faux suede panels at Target. They were on clearance for $7.49 each, originally $29.99. They are for Firstborn's room, really, but I'm nowhere near ready to do his yet. And really, with the state he keeps it in, is it even worth it? So for now I decided to use them in the living room. I had Craig hang them kind of high, which means that they are well short of touching the floor, but you can't really see it since it's behind the couch. Shh, don't tell.

The rods we hung them on were from three houses ago. I found the wooden finials on clearance at Lowe's, as well as the brackets for hanging, and cut big dowels to the width I wanted, attached the finials with double-ended screws, and spray painted everything black. I think it was about $10 total, and I have two more sets of two. This afternoon I had to brave a trip to my basement to forage them out of the bottom of a box.

On the other side of the room is my corner cupboard that my grandpa made. It's not done, but I just pulled a few things from around the house so it wouldn't be empty.

And on the wall opposite of the ice cream table is my entry table. I sadly do not have a foyer. That was my one big concession with this house. So I put this table and mirror just inside the front door. The only thing I changed here was to put one of the silhouettes on a stack of books so they weren't lined up like soldiers. I think what I really want to do is hang them on the wall.
Another day.

There you have it. It took a little more than 10 minutes, but it all happened today. Grand total of items purchased specifically for this makeover: the lamp for $19.99. Everything else I already had. Go to Nesting Place to see what everybody else did. Can't wait!

WFMW--Taming the Paper Trail

If you have children in school, you will know what I'm talking about. The paper trail is enormous! Every week, my three bring home dozens of worksheets, announcements, notes, etc. This is the pile from one child for one week! Untamed, it can overrun the place.

Rather than just throw it all in the recycling bin, or heaven forbid, the trash, I use the following method. First, I go through it and pull out anything I need or want to save (I still need a system for coping with that stuff!). I also pull out anything that is printed on both sides and put that in recycling.

The stuff with blank, or minimally scribbled on, backs, I use for one of two things. One, I stack it up and load it blank side up into the printer to cut down on our paper use. Most of what we as a family print out does not need a fresh sheet--it's just a recipe or something like that.

Some of it I tear into quarters, using the edge of a table. This photo was a little tricky to shoot with my left hand; hopefully, you get the idea. Or scissors would work, if that's how you roll. I just find it quicker to sort and tear kind of simultaneously.

These little sheets are used for grocery lists, or any other kind of little note or reminder. No more buying notepads for that!

It's frugal, it's green, it Works for Me! More tips today at Rocks in My Dryer. Go on. Check it out.

Parade of Homes Part 4: 1999-2001

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

In the fall of 1999, Firstborn was quickly approaching his second birthday. We were living in a house that had a big backyard, but it was rather hilly, was unfenced, and backed up to an intersetion of a very busy four-lane road. Not the best place for a little boy to play.

One day when the landlord's son was at our house for some reason, I just sort of wondered aloud if they owned any houses with a fenced backyard. As a matter of fact, they did, and one had just been vacated. He told us where it was and we went to take a look. Not only was the yard fenced, the house was at the end of a cul-de-sac and it backed directly to a park! It was still in the same basic area of town, but about five miles east of where we were currently. I wasn't working anymore, and Craig was now in practice and this house would actually be that much closer to his office.

Grumpy Mr. Gates, after thinking it over, agreed to let us move to the other house. The rent was a little higher: $525, but that was still half of what he could have got in that area. It was kind of funny; Mr. Gates had actually built this house some 30 years previously (and three others that encircled the cul-de-sac) and basically used our old house as the model. It had the exact floorplan, except that it was just slightly larger and the master bedroom had an attached 1/2 bath.

The above picture was taken about 18 months after we moved in. The blossoming tree is an apple tree, and when we moved in, in Oct. 1999, it was covered with big, juicy organic apples. Right before we found out about this house, we had gone apple picking and I had talked about how grocery store apples taste nothing like off-the-tree apples, and wouldn't it be neat to have an apple tree in your yard? I don't remember the specifics, but around the same time I had, for whatever reason, been wishing for a porch. As you can see in the photo below (my sister and I, 2000) this house had a little porch where we could put chairs.

Because of those things--the fenced yard plus a park with a playground for Firstborn, the apple tree, the porch--I kind of felt like this was a little gift from God. Not that I had been longing and praying for those things, just that He had heard my little passing wishes and bundled them up into a package for me.

Inside, the house of course needed work in the decorating department. Some people choose not to spend any money on a house they are renting, and I get that, but we always felt that even if we didn't own it, it was our home, and a little paint and whatnot would go a long way towards making it feel like a home to us.

Mr. Gates put in the kitchen floor right before we moved in. I wasn't sure what I thought about it, but at least it was in good shape. The kitchen also had these dark and filthy cabinets.

We took all the doors off, scrubbed them, painted them white and added inexpensive knobs. Below is the best after picture I could find. This is Skippy, about to get his first solid food. He was born in this house. And I do mean in. We had a home birth in a pool of water. Awesome!


We put this plaid wallpaper on one kitchen wall with a coordinating border of hens in baskets. At the time, I love, love, loved this wallpaper. I call this photo "Mad About Plaid" since it catches the lovely combination of tablecloth, wallpaper, shirt and sweater. Just so you know, I did not normally use that tablecloth. It was a one-time thing.

I perhaps should also point out that the wallpaper was part of an overall 'flow' of the house. There's a bit of gold in the plaid that coordinated with the living room wall color, which was the same color as Firstborn's room. I had deep red curtains in the living room and our bedroom was dark red.

The landlord also put in this new carpeting for us. Blah. It was that really thin, flat, industrial stuff. Unfortunately, there was no hardwood underneath. But again, at least we knew it was clean. Some previous renters had put in the jailcell-esque wallpaper. Funny enough, Craig had told one of his classmates about Mr. Gates and his cheap rent when they were still in school together, and we later figured out that this was the house he lived in. They actually were the ones who put in the fence, for their dogs! But I don't know if the wallpaper was their doing too.

We stripped the wallpaper and painted. I even remember the color: Ralph Lauren 'Edwardian Gold'. My grandma, who was in failing health, came through with my aunt and uncle, who were moving her from Michigan down to Oklahoma to live with them.

This is a view of the park over our back fence.

And this is the playground area. It had this cool sprinkler thing that was on a timer and any time you wanted to, you just turned it on.

I have good memories of this house, but I also went through a very depressed period here. It may have been postpartum depression, I don't know, but several things worked together to that end. Firstly, five miles didn't seem far, but all of my church friends lived within a mile or two of each other ten miles in the opposite direction of our new house, and I suddenly felt left out. They would watch each other's children for one another at the drop of a hat, call each other from the grocery store and ask if they needed anything, etc.

And you have to know this area to understand, but this house was just inside of a loop created by a freeway. People on each side of the loop think the other side is "way out there", and it's a chore to go that far. I didn't get many visitors unless I specifically invited them, whereas before I would, at least on occasion, have people just drop by.

Also, financially, things were very difficult. Craig had been in practice only two to three years, and in hindsight, we just hadn't given it enough time, but it wasn't bringing in enough money. (This is the time when the toothbrush incident occurred and burned itself in my brain.) We went to a Christian financial counselor, and he was apologetic, but basically didn't have anything he could tell us that would help (we were already on a budget and all that), other than you've got to figure out how to make more money.

So we, maybe mostly me, started thinking about buying an existing successful practice. I began searching the trade publication classified ads, making calls, even making some visits.

We thought we wanted to buy one that was located in the doctor's house, and would therefore include the house and Craig would work from home. We looked at two or three of those in different states. But in the end, that's not what happened.

To be continued...

Guest Poster...My Husband!

Handsome has started a blog! He insists that he has no writing skillz, and in fact, he often has me proofread his work. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to seeing what his mind comes up with on a regular basis. In real life he makes me laugh every day, so it should be good for a daily dose of levity.

He's also a pretty smart guy, so there could be some heftier content as well. I'm not about to become a political blog, but I enjoyed his post today and thought it would make a good guest post in light of today's designated holiday.

So, may I introduce today's guest poster, my husband, Craig (his cover is blown!) and his new blog You Could Call This a Blog.

Happy Presidents Day, George W. Bush.

I know everybody is on the Obama bandwagon now. But on this presidents day I want to thank President Bush for his service.

Mr. Bush, thank you for...

1. Putting our country before your own popularity.
2. Caring about unborn babies.
3. Being faithful to your wife.
4. Not lying under oath.
5. Recognising faith-based groups as the answer to social problems, not government.
6. Cutting taxes after 9/11.
7. Taking down Saddam Hussein.
8. Protecting the homeland since 9/11.

Today C-Span ranked Mr. Bush as one of the 10 worst presidents in history. No bias there.

Reagan just made it into the top 10. I guess spreading freedom to the world, ending the cold war and protecting our country from radical Islam are little things.

So as we celebrate Presidents day I pray for our current president. He is in office for a reason. Romans 13:1 says "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God."

I'm thankful that God is in control and I am not.

Happy Presidents Day.

Souper Saturday--Hearty Hamburger

If you read this post, you know that we don't do much for Valentine's Day. We had a regular Souper Saturday, and I made what I will call Hearty Hamburger Soup. Ground beef, onion, celery, carrots, 1 can diced tomatoes, beef soup base + water, bay leaves, basil, salt, pepper. I thought it was quite yummy, but nobody else seemed to think it was very good (Handsome said it was okay). Personally, I'm looking forward to the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.



I handed out Valentine goody bags to the kids; bubble gum and jump ropes for Skippy and Pinkerbelle, who had been asking for them, and bubble gum and $1 (the equivalent of the cost of the jump rope) for Firstborn. I'm happy to report that they were all well satisfied with their meager loot.

For our Valentine dessert, I made chocolate covered strawberries. Yum!


Happy V-day to you! Hope it was all you were wishing for!

Going Green

I'm joining Julia's Hooked on Fridays and Melissa's A Beautiful Life today.

My mom had a green thumb. Two green thumbs. Not only was our yard always full of flowers, but the house was always full of house plants. On windowsills, on plant stands, hanging in macrame hangers. If you were born after 1985, you may not know what macrame (ma-cruh-may) is; here is a plant hanger in all its hippie-era earthiness.

Google images

I did not inherit the green thumb gene. My few attempts at house plants years ago didn't end well. At some point I just gave up and have never had a living, growing green thing in my house since.

Then the other day I was at Aldi and they had these huge, lush plants for only $8.99. I'm pretty sure a plant this size anywhere else would be at least $25. I couldn't pass it up.

Before.


After.


It really brought my living room to life. I feel like I must point out here that, yes, I know the walls aren't painted and I don't have window treatments and I have a cheap IKEA lamp in the corner. It's only temporary, people. Okay, well verging on semi-permanent. But I will get to it, eventually.

Anyway, my point is the impact one plant made. And in the spirit of Melissa's Beautiful Life (link above), I'm looking at the bright side of what I can do right now. I may go back and get one or two more. I don't want to go overboard, but a little green here and there might be nice. I promise, no macrame.

Now, if only I can keep it alive.

Sweet Nothings

I have a confession to make...I'm not a huge fan of Valentine's Day. I'm not an opponent, I don't hate it, I just don't put a lot of stock in it. I'm not going to go sobbing into my pillow if Handsome doesn't get me a box of chocolates or something from a jewelry store.


In fact, I never, ever want him to get me anything like this:


It's just not my style. He has strict instructions, by the way, to strongly discourage the children from ever picking out any jewelry for me. I'm kind of picky in that department, and not into flashy and sparkly, which is what the kids are drawn to. But if your child gives it to you, you have to wear it. At least once.

I do not go out of the way to decorate for Valentine's, either. Oh, I had some conversation hearts around, but they're long gone. I got some of those heart picks from Dollar Tree and plucked the hearts from the picks and put them in an apothecary jar. The hearts, I mean. Not the picks. Although I saved those in case I ever want to put the hearts back on them. You never know.


I don't spend a lot of time making handmade valentines for my children to take to school. We just got the box of cards from Walmart. I didn't even spring for the fancy kind that come with candy. I figure they'll get enough of that at their party.

This school, which is new for us this year, seems to have the tradition of having the children make their Valentine mailboxes at home. That's a first for us; they've always taken care of that at school before. Skippy scotch-taped a bunch of hearts and stuff to an old first-aid kit. Firstborn doesn't care, and didn't do anything. And I decided to get cute for Pinkerbelle and make this from Family Fun.

Except I didn't fully read the instructions, which said to use stiff felt (where do you get that?), and we used cardstock and that 1/8" wide ribbon. As she carried it on to the bus this morning, it struck me. What was I thinking? That's thing's going to be a torn and crumpled mess by the time 25 first graders stick their grubby little hands inside and deposit a card. If it even makes it that long. I'll be a little surprised to hear that it survived the bus ride.

So, I guess I'm a bit of a Valentine Scrooge. A Vrooge. Oh, I get the kids a little token gifty. And Handsome gets a card, at least. If I get a card in return, I'm fine with that. Although, if he ever got the notion, I'd make an exception and accept one of these.

Photos 1,2,and 5 from flickr