Itching To Paint Something!

How often do you feel like decorating or redecorating your home?  I'm always thinking of painting a room or moving the furniture or redoing the kitchen.  I want to make our home more of a reflection of who we are, but I don't want to spend thousands of dollars! 

My husband and I bought a fixer upper in 2004, right before we got married.  We wanted a fixer upper.  My husband, Mike,  is very handy and has worked in the construction field and in HVAC.  We knew in the long run, we could save a ton of money by buying a house that needed a lot of work and then doing ALL that work ourselves.  We bought the house in October.  Mike moved in right away.  We were married in December.  Then I moved in.  I had no idea what I was in for....but I soon found out.  We gutted the entire house, ripped off the second story (it was an old cape cod with slanted ceilings) and built an addition.  We lived in the construction (not something I would recommend, but we were trying to save as much money as we could).  

Anyway.............

I was just so thrilled to be married to the man of my dreams, and now living with him, that I didn't really mind all the construction around us. 
Now when it came to making decisions, I was very practical.  We were pinching every penny and stretching every dollar!  Believe me if Pinterest would have been around in 2004, my marriage may have had a rocky start (have you seen all the ideas out there?  And those ideas can get pretty costly)!
My husband's friend, who was helping with the kitchen install, handed me a booklet that had three styles of kitchen cabinets in three different wood tones.  "Here" he said.  "You need to pick out which cabinets you want."  "Okay!" I replied excitedly!  I was so happy to be GETTING a kitchen. Up until now we were cooking in an electric skillet on a 2X4 that was stretched across the last remaining skeleton of the existing base cabinets.  I picked out the cabinets I liked based solely on the color.  I had NEVER shopped around for kitchen cabinets.  I'm not even sure I was aware that one COULD shop around for kitchen cabinets.  I never paid attention to the set-ups in the big hardware stores because I never needed too. 

Enter 2013! 

I have a nice kitchen, but I really don't like my cabinets.  Now that I've had some time to take notice of the set ups in the stores, pin the  kitchens I love on Pinterest and watch the remodeling shows on TV, I REALLY want white cabinets!  I want to change the hardware and make the kitchen reflect more of our style (okay, my style....honestly, Mike would be still be happy with the 2X4 and electric skillet)!  I've been thinking about painting the cabinets!  WOO HOO!  Should I paint them white?  I'm thinking of a light grey blue for the walls and getting rid of the country red!  Eeek... it makes me excited just dreaming of it!  What do you think?

Here's my kitchen...it's a very small space.

And here is a picture of my inspiration....

source

 

 

I would like to think that one day, I will have a cottage looking kitchen like this one. 

 

Do you have any DIY projects on the go?  We Can Do This!

The Future Of The Phone Book

Ya'll know that I'm on an organizing binge...slow though it may be.  After achieving nothing over the weekend from having a house full of sickies, I decided to get back in the game by going for a small junk drawer.

Here it is:
  It holds the odds and ends.  And it holds the phone book.  See it?  It's there, under the furniture sliders, under the pink paper.  You can just see a little tad of yellow peeking out.
I tried to organize this drawer before, but used the wrong containers.   One container holds Command Hooks, sticky tack and key rings.  The other container holds batteries. 
It's important,when organizing, to choose the right container!  Obviously I did not!
There is no room for anything else in there.  If only that phone book didn't take up so much space.

 

 

 

I emptied everything out, sorted through it all and found some different containers to work with..thank you Dollar Store!

 

 

Here's the after:

 

I didn't label anything, but I have one bin for Command Hooks (am I the only one obsessed with these things?), one for sticky tack, finally the furniture sliders have somewhere to live...and I still have a bin of "stuff I just don't know what to do with".  I decided to keep the battery storage container for now until I come up with a better solution.  But notice the phone book is gone!  Now it's sitting on top of my piano.  No, that is not where I want it to live, but my three year old took it upon himself to find a home for the phone book.  It was well thought out.  He said "There mommy, now it's right here when you need it!"  How can I argue with that logic?  It will find it's way to the top of the fridge while he's in bed tonight though.

We seriously get like 40 phone books delivered a year (or at least that's what it seems like).  Most of them make it to our local recycling facility.  I keep the big Yellowbook Directory. I RARELY use it.  If I need a phone number, I always turn to the Internet.  I understand that not EVERYONE is onto the net yet.  But I think we should have the option to say "No thank you, do not deliver one more phone book to my house!"
 
Maybe I'll keep this Yellowbook Directory forever just to show my kids how we looked up phone numbers...as I'm sure ONE DAY, the phone book will cease to be.  Or at least I'll keep it to show them how, when we were kids, we would turn to the listing of "Whitehead", pick one, call them up and ask to speak to Mr. Blackhead.  They would always respond, "You have the wrong number".  We would then say "Oh sorry, wrong pimple" and then hang up and roll on the floor laughing.  For the love of Pete, we were so simple.

Are you organizing too?  We Can Do This, one step at a time!



Let's Boost Immunity!

We're sick.  All of us with heads colds.  My oldest son started it off on Friday night (okay it was really the wee hours of Saturday morning).  He woke up crying and burning up.  He had a temperature and a sore throat.  I gave him some chewable Tylenol and luckily he fell back to sleep.  He woke in the morning like nothing ever happened, he felt all better!  My husband ,however, woke with a full blown head cold.  And now it's my turn.  My youngest only seems to have a runny nose so far.  Our weekend was shot!

It seems everytime we are sick, I evaluate our lifestyle.  Are we too busy, are we making poor food choices, not getting enough exercise?  Sometimes, no matter what you do, you still end up being sick.

Here are a few things we do to try and keep ourselves healthy.

1.  Wash Hands! 
As soon as any of us comes home, the first thing we do is wash our hands. When the boys come home from Pre-School we sing a little tune.
                               ~Shoes...Backpacks.....Hands~

They take off their shoes, hang up their backpacks and wash their hands before snack.  I believe washing hands is one of the biggest helpers in fending off the sick germs!

2.  Eat plenty of fruits and veggies. 
The easiest way for me to make sure the boys are choosing fruits and veggies is to have them already washed and sitting in a container in the fridge.  They just help themselves to blueberries or strawberries or carrots--they are right there!

3.  Get enough sleep!
               Here is a chart from The National Sleep Foundation 

 

 

 

4.  Take a multi-vitamin!

The boys take their kid's gummy vitamins and my husband and I take a men's/ women's multi.  We also take an extra vitamin C.   

 

What is your tried and true way to keep healthy?  I'd love for you to share!

 

Healthy days to you and your family!  We can do this!

 

 

 

 

 

I am not a health care professional.  Always check with your healthcare provider for accurate, up to date information about healthcare.  These are just the things that we do to try and stay healthy.

 

 

 

 

 









I'm Ba--ack!

Hello!
Long time, no see...ey?
Not sure what my problem was, but I'm ready to get back in the saddle and blog!  I would like to make this blog about happy self improvement.  You know, making healthier lifestyle changes, organizing, cleaning, being happy or just spending time with the people you love.  I want to make this a little blog of sunshine!  Yes, I know there are 10 million blogs out there all about this same exact thing!  I'm jumping in while it's fresh and fun!  I have a lot to learn (blog appearance being one of them)!  I'm hoping you will hop on and come along!

I've been on an organizing kick since the start of 2013.  I started by finding a great pin on Pinterest...One Year Of Organizing by Simplify 101.  I LOVE this!  Simplify 101 has monthly printable lists to help you get your house in order over the course of a year!  So you don't have to feel like you need to purge, clean and organize your ENTIRE house in one weekend! 

And then right before Lent, I found this other great blog, White House Black Shutters, with a  40 Bags in 40 Days 2013 Declutter Challenge .    It's about clearing out the clutter to simplify your life.  I took on this challenge as a Lenten project AND I decided that I would add daily exercise for 40 days (hoping I would start a new habit.....how many days does it take to make a habit again?  I forget).

So far, so good!  I have some pictures of my organizing process!  As part of the February list from Simplify 101, I needed to organize my medicine cabinet. 

Here is the before:

 
And here is the after:

I threw out some outdated stuff, moved a couple of items out of there (not sure why I had my husband's ball cap cleaner in there) and bought some baskets at the Dollar Store!  It looks much better.  And the items are no longer in danger of falling into the potty below!
The Free Printable Labels are from BHG!  Thank you Better Homes and Gardens!  Love them!

Well that wraps up a silly little post....
Have a sunshine day!  And remember, We Can Do This!