Office Turned Baby Room

I decided that my weekend project would be painting the baby room. For as long as we've lived here, the second upstairs bedroom has been used as an office slash dog room slash closet. All at once. Since our boy will be here in just about 13 weeks, we figured it time to relocate the office / dog room / closet to another area in the house and really get crackin' on this kid's room.

Oh, the work we cut out for ourselves! While the husband and I have only been married for a year and a half, we have accumulated quite a lot of crap stuff. Very important stuff (can you sense the sarcasm in my typing?).

See all the crap?

We started the adventure by emptying a filing cabinet that weights nearly 1 million pounds, empty. One of the drawers was perfectly organized, with labeled files and everything. The other? The other had become a junk drawer of sorts. The catch-all for everything that didn't have a home somewhere else. Going through that was a killer, but now it is so nicely organized in our new office nook.

Once we got that complete, we realized we couldn't really empty baby's room until the green couches were gone. All of our office stuff was to be moved into a little nook that had been taken up by a big couch and a cozy chair. Two items that we rarely used. When we moved in, we had no furniture. Within a week, we had a sectional and two couch / chair sets. One couch and chair set had to go. We decided to donate the couch and chair, since they were in perfect condition. With help from our brother-in-law, they were gone from our house and the office nook was put together (stay tuned for a post on that soon).

Finally, we got around to painting the baby room. We went with non-traditional colors for a couple of reasons: blue is rather over done and I love the color orange. The stripes will only be on one wall. I hope to have the crib right there, but we will have to see how everything fits. Apparently babies have a lot of stuff, and this is a small room.

Next on the docket for baby projects? Furniture painting (changing table and book shelf).

Stay tuned!

Big, Gaping Hole

When we bought our house, the previous owners had taken and/or sold everything. Including the kitchen sink. There was no microwave, no fridge, no range. No dishwasher (although there was a space for it, thank God!). No water softener, no washer, no dryer. Shower heads were missing. And the kitchen sink really was gone, too. It's like that old phrase, "everything but the kitchen sink," only opposite: "everything including the kitchen sink."

Right before closing, an oven/stove and double sink were purchased and installed for us. We lucked out, too, with other appliances. An uncle got a new washer and dryer, we got their old ones. My parents had a fridge in their basement for us to take. We got a dishwasher for Christmas. We spent a whopping $150 on appliance, so we could have a microwave. But there was still a gaping hole between the fridge space and the range. It was as though someone had taken a piece of the countertop and base cabinet. Unless the previous owners had a beautifully large range.

But, for over a year, we lived with the empty space. First, we used it as a storage space for pop and water. Then, we moved the garbage can and recycling bin to that area. We had hoped, someday, to find a base cabinet that would fit so we could better conceal our garbage bin.

Well, my friends. That day was today. In all of our trips to the Home Depot since we've been homeowners, we finally decided to wander down the cabinetry aisle today and were shocked at the price of a single base cabinet. Hubs and I were expecting to drop a couple hundred dollars on one cabinet at some point. Today was not going to be that day; there are other things that are a bit higher on the list of priorities.

The prices shocked us. Under $100 for a 15 inch base cabinet? Are you kidding me!? Sold. Right then and there.

We bought that cabinet right up and brought it home. It's currently resting between the oven and the fridge, without a countertop. It doesn't match the rest of our cabinets (they were custom cabinets), and quite frankly, I do not care. That space is filled. We no longer look at the garbage can and recycling bin. And it is white (the future color of all of our cabinetry in the kitchen). And, we're getting a piece of butcher block for the countertop in the next couple of days.

I am one happy chica.

Weddings

Today, as I get ready to attend two weddings, I am constantly reminded about how wonderful my husband is. He really is a gem.

He puts up with my tears (there have been quite a few of those, lately). He puts up with my exhaustion. He puts up with my love/hate relationship with our house.

I dislike the hole in the floor and the unfinished wall from our Wall Demolition. I love the fact that the wall is gone, creating an open floor plan on our main level.

I don't really enjoy the fact that we live in a cookie-cutter neighborhood. It just isn't my style. I love and adore the fact that we're on the outside of said neighborhood, with a large lot and privacy. With room enough for 4 raised garden beds, maple trees to tap and an Earth-friendly compost bin tucked away from the house.

I despised the color of our house, for it reminded me of old parmesan cheese that had gone bad. But the wonderful husband and I tackled that project this summer.

I get irritated with our lack of kitchen storage, but am so thankful that my husband just laughs and shakes his head after I reorganize and he can't find anything. Funny story. He was just out of town with our brother-in-law. He made a comment along the lines of upon his return home, he'll have to learn a new organizational system, because it most likely has been changed (it was).

Do I hate my house? No, not at all. Do I get irritated with it? Of course! But am I so thankful for having these four walls and a roof? I sure am.

And really, I don't love my husband and think he is a gem just because I puts up with me and my thoughts of the house. But, this post would never end if I gave you all of the reasons I love my husband.

Big...No, Huge Project

The husband and I have started a new project and I'm afraid that we may have bitten off more than we can chew.

Why you ask?

We're painting our house. The outside. All of it. By ourselves. Yikes!

Not surprisingly, we have come across a few bumps in the road. Well, mostly husband has because I have been nannying while he has done most of the prep work and painting. The girls and I stopped by the other day to make some super yummy Caprese Kabobs (recipe to come shortly!) and the husband was installing a new deadbolt on the side door to the garage. Wait...he was installing a new deadbolt on the *new* side door to the garage.

A new door?

In doing prep work, he took notes on all of the rotten wood that would need to be replaced before painting. There were a few boards along the back of the house, a piece of the frame on our deck door, and a piece of the frame on said garage door. But that piece of frame gave away a bit too easily and the husband realized that the entire door frame was rotten. Falling apart rotten. Luckily, he has become skilled at door replacements. He had that door up in an hour and a half.

He has been working for two weeks on the paint job now, and it is starting to look finished (must be because I was able to help all day yesterday?). Just kidding! It's mostly because he is driven and determined to finish soon.

Owning a home really is the never-ending project.

Fish Stand

Hello, friends and happy Monday!

I am in need of your help. You see, I teach kindergarten and each spring, we do a unit on animals. We study goldfish and, at the end of the unit, students that get the "okay" from their parents, are allowed to take a goldfish or two home. One year, none of my students were allowed to take the fish home. I was stuck with 9 teeny tiny goldfish. My husband (he was my fiance at this time) remembered the old aquarium in his parents garage. It was the aquarium that he took to college. The same aquarium that my father-in-law got as a middle schooler. The hubs was willing to take all 9 goldfish.

We searched and searched and searched for the perfect stand for the aquarium. And then we realized that the perfect one was waaaay to expensive. So we used an old TV stand that Husband's parents also had in their garage.

And it is feo (that's Spanish for "ugly"). See? (Sorry if you have this item in your house. A friend of mine does, and it makes me feel bad for calling it ugly. Everyone has their own opinions, right?)

I am going to redo the fish stand, but I need some help choosing colors, etc. I also am thinking about making bigger doors...what do I use to make bigger doors? Plywood? These are the things that I just don't know.

Suggestions please!

My Other Least Favorite Chore

Vacuuming isn't my only hated house related chore. If you know me, that probably isn't surprising. I promise, though, that I do enjoy some chores. Like cleaning the mirrors. Or steam mopping the kitchen. I also enjoy .. Hmm. I'll get back to you on that one.

So, my other least favorite chore? Laundry. It's time consuming. It's tedious. I'm just not a fan. In fact, my husband and I haven't done a load of laundry in three weeks. I am out of socks (and underwear). My favorite skirts are all dirty. Our hamper is full. In fact, it spilled onto the floor a week ago.

Maybe I would like doing the laundry if my laundry room looked like this. Pretty, right? Mine doesn't have drywall. It has pretty pink insulation covered by plastic. It is bea-u-tiful. Can you sense my sarcasm?

Honestly, I don't think that will make my love of laundry grow (or my hate of laundry disappear).

So, tomorrow, I will be enjoying my first day of summer by doing the laundry. All of it.

I'll let you know how many loads I end up doing...

Project: Organize #?

I haven't organized anything in a really long time, which is a bummer. I get such a sense of accomplishment after organizing a part of my life.

I do, however, have an idea for what I would like my next Project: Organize project to be. Project: Organize #1 was a huge success. I truly enjoy the new look of my pantry. It has made cooking that much more enjoyable. Project: Organize #2 was also pretty awesome, but not as fun to complete.

For Project: Organize #3, I would like to complete the office. The one that is filled with all of our "stuff." The one that has an almost empty closet, but a door that doesn't open all the way. To fix this, we really do just need to organize.

Good thing it is my last day of work for the summer and my projects can begin!

Dream Big

I love my house. Absolutely adore it. Hubs found the house online the day it was listed. The following day, we had a showing, our second of the day. We liked the house we saw first, and were contemplating an offer on that house. Those plans flew out the window the moment I walked through the front door of the house. I stood in the entryway and knew I would live in that house. It already felt like home. It now is home, and I love it.

But, oh, I have dreams for my little house. Big dreams.

Dream #1: Paint. The color of cheap grated Parmesan cheese for a house? No thank you. But, that is what we are dealing with. New paint would be absolutely beautiful. Oh, yes, a big project, but a lovely change. I have yet to even dream of colors, but it will not look like cheese. And that, my friends, I assure you.

Dream #2: This one will be attained much more quickly. Mostly because I'm already halfway there. Woo-hoo! My husband and I have a lot of stuff and it is all hanging out in our office. Daaang. Here's the problem. It's all of our stuff. Oh wait. I haven't even stated the dream. ADD moment. The dream: a beautifully organized office. The plan: bookshelves out. Good and gone...to our bedroom. One bookshelf is already there and it has helped so much! Now, we need to get the other bookshelf over there and go through the rest of our "stuff."

Dream #3: A beautiful bedroom. Another one that we have started. But, we have not gotten far. Paint will work wonders--it always does. What color would you choose for a bedroom, though? Oh, I just don't know. There are also things that we need to move out of our bedroom. Like the box of tax documents? The (empty) ceiling fan box? The remote control car? Yeah, not necessary...

But the biggest dream of them all? Well, there are two. The first? A new kitchen. The second? An addition. We would love to add an office and a 3 season porch. Or we could buy a bigger house with more acreage. These dreams, of course, are years and years away. But a girl can dream, right?

That's what's so great about dreams. I'll dream about the kitchen and the addition for quite some time and that is just fine.

Oh, and my other dream? Chickens. I would love to have chickens!

My Least Favorite Chore

I really, really, really do not like vacuuming. I've been vacuuming the ceiling. That's right, the ceiling. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it, but today marks the first time the ceiling has been dusted or vacuumed since we moved in.

Gross, I know.

There was a healthy spider web in each corner of the living room and the bathroom, too. It's amazing how quickly these things can pop up out of nowhere!

I know that we have to be more diligent about keeping the house clean, but vacuuming is not enjoyable. One bit.

We have a nice vacuum, and I probably wouldn't mind vacuuming the floors (but my husband likes it, so he can continue with that chore!), but it is so time consuming. It doesn't help that we live in a smaller home. To do a good job in the living room, for example, the coffee table needs to be moved, otherwise, the vacuum cleaner can't maneuver around.

But, man. I was on an amazing cleaning kick this afternoon. Vacuumed the ceilings, around the cupboards and cleaned the entire kitchen. Ugh.

I feel like such a grown up.

Thunderstorm!

This afternoon, my husband and I made some purchases to finalize our Bearded Dragon set-up. We just got two Bearded Dragon babies (but that is a completely different story--another post) and thought that the equipment we were given was going to be enough. It wasn't, so we made some purchases and began set-up.

In the middle of set-up, my brother called to inform us that his plane had finally landed. We packed a few things up and headed to the airport to drop him off at my parents' house. On our way home there were severe thunderstorm warnings throughout the metro area. I was concerned--and beginning to question our competence as homeowners--about the kitchen window that was left open in the downpour.

As I headed to the garage door, for some reason or another, my husband walked out of the garage to look in the yard. He came back in as I opened the garage door and noticed the wet mess on the entryway floor.

"The front door is open," I heard from behind me. What the #*%%?!

We had 60 mile an hour winds and an unlocked front door. The wind forced the door open and allowed in all of the rain, tree bark and other messy crap.

Really, should we have bought a home? I'm not so sure...

Another Moment...

In all honesty, I thought I would have one or two, maybe three moron moments a year. Well. It's March and I think I'm on number two. But I may have already lost count. Ugh.


My latest moron moment wasn't just me. The husband was an assistant. We have been collecting sap from our silver maple trees. With the odd weather, we didn't expect to get any sap, but we have collected a bit. Well, enough to warrant our trekking through the yard each morning to collect and refrigerate the sap.


Thursday was the day of the moron moment. We decided to head out to collect at 6:45, after having had breakfast and about ready to leave for work.


I close the front door behind me. Husband and I look at each other and think, "Oh, shit. The door is locked." Then one of us, I think it was me? says, "We'll go in through the garage." No biggie. We collected a LOT of sap that morning. Well, I guess it was only 40 ounces, which only makes an ounce of syrup. But still. For expecting nothing, it was a lot.


We made our way to the garage and punched in the code. Garage door open, we can get in the house. Hooray!


But, no. Because we are safe, we lock the deadbolt on the door that goes from the house to the garage. And we didn't unlock it on our way out this morning.


And because it's the morning, we don't have our keys with us. Nor do we have our phones.


CRAP. The husband tries everything to get in the door. I take off every screen and attempt to get in each window I could access. No luck. We are too safe and ensure that everything is locked. And, indeed, it was. Every single window. Every single door (all four of them).


With my head hung, I brought my husband a hammer. A few swings later, our (ugly) front door had a busted window and were inside. We swept up the glass, taped up the door and headed to work. 


After the work day, we headed to Menard's (how lucky to have seen their weekly ad, with entry doors on sale!) to buy a door. We had to stop at my sister's to borrow her minivan (nice ride!) and gathered all of the supplies for our new project.


Two? Three? Four hours later? We had a new front door (one I actually liked!) and a key hidden in the case that we lock ourselves out again (believe you me, this is not the first time we've been locked out). We also made some extra to distribute to parents and a nearby friend.

Lull

I've been on a blogging lull as of late. I'm finishing up some coursework for my master's degree and it has taken its toll on me. Who knew a master's was so much work!? Just kidding...I knew going into it that it would be a TON of work. I am set to be completely done, though, at the end of the next school year. I have just under a year and a half left. Pretty exciting!

Like I said, though, it has taken its toll on me. I'm tired. It's hard to go to school when you're working full time--be that working full time as a mom or in the business world. It's just tough.

As summer nears, though, I am looking forward to having more time at home. I'm a teacher, you see, and school will be wrapped up by June. Of course, I nanny during the summer, so I don't get to be a stay at home wife (no kids, yet!). I will still be working three days a week, but will absolutely adore the Mondays and Fridays that I do not work.

I've already started a list of projects that I would like to finish by the end of summer. I don't want to say they are summer projects, because I hope to get to them during the school year too.

My list of projects:

• paint the ugly fish stand we have
• paint the house (outside)
• paint the kitchen and hallway
• re-do our deck (specifically, the stairs...they're wobbly and lopsided)
• garden! (seeds are going to be started tonight or tomorrow!)
• learn how to make pickles
• make a piece of art for the blank wall we have above the stairs/in the entry way

I could continue, because now I'm getting into the brainstorming mood and the ideas are starting to flow...but, I have to run to the grocery store for our dinner feast.

Don't forget to change your clocks!

The Wall...

If you have read the post about wall demolition, you will know that husband and I have been tearing down the wall that separates the kitchen/dining room from the living room.


Everything is moving along fabulously, and the husband and I are just letting the mud dry. I've been told (who knew?) that the joint compound will contract when it dries, which means that we may need to go over it once or twice more. And that is okay by me. Here's how everything looks now (please excuse the mess, we started this whole project without cleaning up/putting things away):

Last night:

 This morning:

This moment:

I have to admit that it is rather exciting to have the wall completely gone. I love it. It definitely means that we will have to keep our kitchen nice and tidy at all times (that's a tough one). Our living room is so much brighter now (there are no ceiling lights, only a lamp or two). With the wall gone, the natural light from our sliding glass door and the kitchen window do wonders for the lighting situation.

Like I said before, we still have some joint compound to add. And then, I know that the husband and I will want to paint straight away. I already have a color in mind. It's called Olivewood, and I adore it. At this point, it is the color of our entry way. But, with the dreams I have for the kitchen cabinets, Olivewood would work wonderfully in the kitchen and dining room. Plus, we have two walls that are painted with Glidden's Soothing Green Tea. I think the Olivewood would really tie everything together.

I love big projects (and I am most thankful that my husband does, too!).

Demolition

We've started wall demolition and an experience it has been! As mentioned before, we had a construction buddy stop by. We were told that the wall was not load bearing and could be taken down (hooray!).


The big, ugly, useless cabinet was emptied during the pantry reorganization (another big hooray!).

Do you see how horrible it is? It isn't that deep, which is the problem. You know the big cans of tomatoes? Crushed, stewed, whole, etc.? Think of the diameter of that can (I think it's the 28 ounce size). That's how deep the pantry is. Useless, just useless. Plus, you can see in the bottom right corner of the picture, there is a counter top. That is our peninsula. Makes for a little walkway between the kitchen and dining room. Key word: little. After emptying the cabinet, it wasn't missed even a little bit.


So...after dinner the other night, we took it down. And it was frighteningly easy. And now, amazingly g-g-g-gone!

Oh yeah. We put some holes in it too. You see, here is the story:


First came the hammer.
Then came the (big) holes.
Then came the...

• Why are there two 2 by 4s in there?
• What does that note say? (there was an inspector's note nailed to the doubled up 2 by 4s).
• Can I put more holes in the wall? (that was from my lovely husband).
• Let's call a home inspector (that was from the sensible wife).

So, when I started thinking about this post, I was going to say that now we'd have to wait to hear from the city's building inspector and that we hope that the wall is not load-bearing and that we will live with a wall that is half destroyed.


But the wonderful husband went to the city right after work and found out that "what? That wall? That's not doing anything."


And, as I type, our wall looks ... fabulous? It doesn't look that fabulous right now, but the husband is pounding and demolishing away.

And soon, there will be no wall!

The Gas Man

Did I ever feel like a home-owning novice today. Goodness. Here's the full story:


I was making a recipe in the slow cooker that called for chicken stock. I glanced at my newly organized pantry and realized that I was out of chicken stock and chicken broth. Oh no! Luckily, I did have chicken bouillon cubes. Now, I've never prepared the cubes in water on their own. I normally just toss a few into the crock pot. I thought I'd give it a shot, so I put a chicken bouillon cube in a saucepan with a cup of water and turned on the stove. Hooray, it worked!


I poured all of the other ingredients into the slow cooker and then added the ... can I call it "homemade" broth? to the slow cooker and went on my way. No biggie, the recipe was turning out and smelling wonderfully!


I went about my business: checking email, putting the laundry into the dryer, cleaning off the dining room table. Then, about twenty minutes after finishing the "broth," I headed into the kitchen for a little lunch. I looked down at the stove and HOLY EXPLETIVE the stove was still ON. Quick, quick, quickly I turned it off and turned off the crock pot and the dryer (what if my house blew up!?).


If you know me at all, you know I can be a paranoid person. So, I called the gas company and talked with the woman in the call center. She decided it necessary to send a tech out to check out my house. She also made me even more nervous by asking me all of these questions, then having me open all of the windows in the kitchen, dining room and living room. She told me to not turn anything on or off (including lights) and to leave the house.


Ugh.


An hour and fifteen minutes later, the gas man came (thankfully...I was getting cold, after having been outside the whole time) and said the air was clear in the house. He said there is no issue at the furnace, water heater or dryer. He checked the gas oven and stove. All was well.


And, all is well. My toes are a little cold and the house hasn't warmed back up. As tedious and annoying the whole process was, I have to say that I am happy that I called. I'd still be worried (a full hour after the gas man left) had he not come out and said everything looked OK.


AND! Look what I found in our garden from last year (no lie, these pictures were taken today):

There's only one of them, but this is where we had onions planted last year. Needless to say, winter has been pretty odd in Minnesota this time around!

Vegetables!

I made the mistake of walking into the hardware store today. Love, love, love that store. I could wander its aisles for hours. Luckily, I had some frozen food items in the car that I had to get in the freezer. A typical Minnesota February would allow me as much time as needed in the store with frozen items in the car. This year? This year is a little different. It's 49 degrees out today!

I digress...

My goal was to pick up a bunch of paint swatches. I had recently read this post over at A Bowl Full of Lemons and loved the idea. I have to admit, it felt weird taking all of those paint swatches, so I decided to do my color books in stages. Today, I picked up oranges, blues and some browns. Have no fear, I will head back shortly and get some reds, purples, greens and grays.

As usual, I got a little sidetracked at the hardware store (not uncommon!) and headed over to the "seasonal" area. I noticed that the salts and shovels were being packed into a smaller area and garden stuff was making its arrival. Hooray!

I started to pull the packets of seeds for all of the vegetables I want to grow this year: carrots, peas, cucumbers, potatoes, summer squash. And some herbs, too: chives, cilantro, basil, oregano. I had quite a few packets ready to be purchased.

But then I remembered what I told myself when I pulled into the parking lot: "Don't spend any money." Dang, I had to put everything back.

It's probably better that way, as I know that Mr. Husband would like to help with picking out the vegetables for this year's garden...

Do you have a vegetable garden? What do you plan on growing?

Project: Organize #1 ~ The Pantry

Because our kitchen is so tiny, our pantry isn't actually in the kitchen. It's in the hallway. I know it sounds weird, but our kitchen is weird (and I kind of really don't like it). But, I love everything else about this house so I can put up with the kitchen (remodel plans are in the works!).

Anyway. The pantry is in the hallway, and it's a pretty good space. And today was the day to make it organized. I had a few places I needed to stop before I could actually start organizing (any excuse to go to The Container Store, right?). My first stop was at Crate & Barrel in search of freezer safe opaque storage, but that's an entirely different project.

Crate & Barrel wasn't that impressive today, so I headed down the road to The Container Store. My oh my, that store is beautiful. I could lose myself there for hours, and I could spend thousands. I found what I was looking for cabinet shelves and under-shelf baskets.

Pretty, oh so pretty. I'm extremely happy with these two products, and cannot wait to go back to The Container Store to show my husband the amazing elfa storage system. And the elfa stuff isn't just for the kitchen! It can be anywhere. Ahh, I'm in love with the entire store.


Back to the pantry project. Husband and I shop at Costco and stock up on our canned goods there. Which means we have a lot of the same item at times. Being that my pantry is in the hallway, taking one picture of the entire thing was..well, not good. The picture doesn't look that great, see:

Here's what I'll do: give you the before picture (on the left) AND the after picture (on the right) at the same time.  Ooh, special.

This first pictures are of the top, left side of the pantry. You can see that it originally was the cereal storage. Not ideal, because there are chips and stuff behind the cereal and if you know me at all, you know I'm short. And unable to reach things at the back of that shelf. So now, it is the lesser needed items: napkins, paper towels and the "back-up" toilet paper rolls.

Below that shelf now the Kitchenaid attachments, extra Ziploc baggies and some cough drops are found. It used to be ALL of the canned items--the only other shelf that used to hold food items in the pantry.

The bottom two shelves on the left side used to hold appliances that didn't otherwise have a home in the kitchen (and the rice). These ones stayed the same because everything fit so nicely:

The liquor cabinet also stayed the same. Again, everything fit so nicely and it is up high. Mr. Husband and I don't have any kids, but we will someday. It's important to keep naughty things out of reach.

Next, the napkins, paper towels, Pledge, and paper bags were kicked out and some food (cereal, chips, pancake mix) found their new home.

Then, we had the paper plates, table clothes and other random stuff that didn't really have a home otherwise. It was one of those shelves that was the catch-all. Now, it has most of the canned goods (which are mostly tomatoes and a few other random things). Hopefully next year, the canned tomato items will be homegrown, but that's another post for the future.

Then came the shelf with the pointless dividers. I took those right out with Mr. Husband's drill, hung the under-shelf basket and packed in the cream soups, oils, noodles and popcorn kernels. Popcorn on the stove is the only way to go. We always have popcorn kernels on hand for a quick snack (and, it's just plain fun to make). I'm glad I ended up taking the shelves out, though. It was difficult to store anything there in the first place.

And finally, the bottom shelf, that used to house some cleaning supplies. It now has boxed items (instant potatoes, stuffing mix), some sauces, seasoning packets and a few packages of noodles. The cleaning supplies that started there are now hanging out in the front hall closet, near the Swiffer mop, steam mop and broom. It seemed like a much better place.

Now, after that crazy-long post, I've already started organizing some other aspects of my house. The front hall closet, cabinets in the kitchen (under the sink!) and under the bathroom sink.

I love long, productive weekends!

Pretty House? Pretty Blog?

I was reading this blog the other night and decided that I wanted to do what she did.

Back in October, she did a little project. Well, a HUGE project. A 31 day (to be exact) project.

She organized her home. And she blogged about it. I loved her ideas, especially this post from day 30. It makes me envious. What's nice is that my husband and I have set aside an entire room for my craft stuff, but it is not nearly as organized as the closet from this post. Her closet is beautiful. I want one.

Anyway, back to my main thought: I'm going to organize my house. I can't promise that I am going to do something every day. There are a couple of reasons:

1. I work full time outside of my home. I have one of those jobs that isn't done when the clock says it's "go home time." I bring work home. I love it, I wouldn't trade it, but it means that I don't have my evenings free all the time.

2. Another job "excuse." I am unable to access my personal email/personal blog websites at my workplace. Having that access would make it a lot easier to update this little blog more frequently...

3. My husband and I are just married, recently out of college, working on our masters, going to re-do our deck, thinking about painting our house, and buying a dog. Needless to say, our money is well budgeted. And there isn't a budget for blogging projects. Wouldn't that be fun, though!?

My plan is to do a modified home organization series. Modified in that it won't be every day (I'm going to shoot for once a week...).

Thanks to Lindsay for sharing a link to Kelly's The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking blog!

Quick Update

Life has been wonderful these last few weeks. There were 9 Christmas celebrations that Mr. Husband and I attended this year, and we enjoyed each one! Have to admit it...that doesn't always happen. Gathering large families can sometimes be difficult and irritating. That was not the case this year!

A couple of quick updates:

The wall I had mentioned in the previous post; the one I want to tear down. Our construction friend didn't make it out until yesterday, but brought with him good news! Our wall can be torn down. We are both very excited and have started to "draw" some plans of what we would like to do with the kitchen. Of course, we won't be tearing the wall down any time soon. If the wall comes down, the kitchen would need to be redone. That's just not in the budget right now.

On another note, we made homemade pizza last night. Simply one of my favorite things. Having a bread machine really makes life easy. I put all of the ingredients in the bread machine, pressed a couple of buttons and an hour and half later, the dough was ready to be rolled out and topped. Pepperoni and cheese were the toppings of choice, and quite frankly, I wasn't in the mood for pepperoni...so I left it off of a few pieces. I also like to sprinkle oregano and a bit of garlic on top of the pizza before baking, then a little bit more oregano half way through the baking process. Makes for some yummy pizza!

To continue with the cooking theme, I have greatly enjoyed my crock pot. I've already used it twice for today: once for a turkey breast recipe that called for an entire bottle of wine (it wasn't that good; next time I will use broth) and now for delcious (and super hot!) buffalo wings. Here is the recipe. Side note: I just went to their full website for the first time and it looks like they won't be updating anymore. BUMMER! I was excited to explore. Anyway, I didn't have enough ingredients to make the sauce, which is why the wings aren't completely covered. I figure that there will be enough sauce in the bottom of the crock pot to stir and cover the wings. I taste-tested the sauce (yum!) and it was HOT. I'm excited to taste when completely done.

Well, happy new year's eve to all!

The Wall

Mr. Husband and I took the first step in finding out about our wonderful wall with the lame "pantry." We have successfully cleared the pantry (it is only two cans deep) and found new places for each and every item. We were even able to get a few appliances off the counter to clear up some counter space. A few appliances on the counter are okay, but counter space is even better!

Our purpose for cleaning out the pantry was to open up the floor plan of our main level. Our kitchen is small and extremely enclosed, making it hard for two people to be in there at once. Slightly irriating! We made places for everything in the container, proving to us that we would not miss the "pantry" on the lame wall.

So we went right ahead and called a family friend that works in construction. He'll be over tomorrow morning to check on the wall. He will let us know if we can tear it down without having the roof cave in on us. Hooray!