The Proposal aka The Day After The Worst Day Ever!

I have decided to edit this post with the comedic events of the weekend because the more I tell the story, the funnier it seems...

So imagine this... It's 7:30am on Friday morning (December 21st, 2012) I'm awake and dreading the fact that I have to work two graveyard shifts in the ER before our Christmas trip to Lance's parents house on the Island!  I tried to have a nap in the afternoon, but Slammy, I mean Kelly doesn't know how to close a door quietly, so needless to say, I spent a very busy nightshift in the ER on no sleep!  I stayed at my parents between shifts rather than commuting an hour(ish) each way but I suck at sleeping during the night, and I'm even worse at it during the day.  I finally fell asleep at 9am, but woke up at 1pm, full of beans and wanting to visit with my parents before heading off for Christmas at my other home away from home.  

I get to work on Saturday night with Gillian, who is great fun to work with.  Quietest night in the ER in FOREVER!  Unfortunately, we were both a little excited for Christmas and neither of us could take a nap.  Finally, after many giggles 7am happens!  It's Christmas Eve Eve... December 23rd!!!  

I've had a whopping 4 hours sleep in 48 hours!  I know, dumb right?  Anyway... Lance will be driving from Chilliwack to his parents, so I just have to make it home... No biggie.  Yeah right... Here's where everything goes downhill...My car is a block of ice.  I spend 15 minutes just trying to get into the cow... I'm cold and tired so I decided to grab a coffee at McDs to keep me going until I got home.  Apparently my power windows had some ice in the mechanism and when I tried to roll them down at the drive through window something broke and my window froze.  Coffee in hand, I pull over in the parking lot and try to fix it.  No go!  Well frig!  I'm running out of time as we have a ferry to catch so I figure the cold air on my drive home will also help me stay alert.  It was awesome how every semi that blew past me spat rocks and rain up into my face.  Definitely helped me stay awake.  =(

So I make it home around 8am and Lance comes out to meet me.  I explain what happened with the window and he tries to fix it while I run around loading all of the gifts into the car while the dog jumps on me repeatedly.  I'm now regretting buying Lance gifts in such gigantic, heavy boxes.  Combating the stairs 20 times when you're that tired = Not fun!  Lance is unable to fix the window and we are running out of time to make the ferry (on the busiest sailing day before Christmas, I might add!), so we leave with a still broken half-rolled-down window.  

We are on the freeway.  The wind from the broken window is a buttload colder on my legs on the passenger side.  I also forgot to grab my blanket and pillow in our rush.  Grumpy time!  I didn't want to ask Lance to turn around and grab my blanket because I didn't want to miss the stupid ferry, so I suffered.  Oh hell did I suffer!  I had a big yard garbage bag (Lance was gonna use it in the window, but we ran out of time) pinned into the glove compartment and pulled up to my chest with the air vents blowing hot air at my body.  It wasn't perfect, but it was the best I could do with what I had.  We got to the ferry terminal with minimal tears but once we realised that we had missed the ferry and the next ferry was an hour behind schedule, there were more tears.  I was so tired, cold and by this time pretty hungry that the tears would sporadically happen.  =*(

Queue my bladder.  I knew that coffee would come back to bite me on the ass, but I had banked on being on a ferry at that time, not stuck in a really long line of cars at the ferry terminal.  I tried to hold out but peeing myself was becoming inevitable.  I GPS'd the bathrooms at the terminal and figured that the 5 minute walk to the washroom in the pouring rain was better than smelling like pee for the rest of the trip.  I hoofed it to the bathrooms.  I felt awful.  Looking in the mirror I realised that I also looked awful.  Maybe that's why people had avoided smiling back at me.  Maybe they thought I was a transient?  A hobo?  *sigh*  Anyway... My foot found a lovely big puddle to dive in to and I had a nice soggy foot until I got back to the car and took my socks and shoes off.  I'm still sporadically bursting into tears and poor Lance really didn't know what to do with me.  He knows that I'm tired, cold, hungry, wet and cranky.  He's doing his best and telling me that I'm beautiful anyway.  Did it help?  No.  Haha!  I knew I was a mess and him saying that made me cry more anyway, creating an even bigger monster.  

1:30pm.  We are finally loading onto the ferry.  Maybe I'll finally get some sleep.  Hah!  I was way too tired to sleep.  Does that even make sense?  I was also growling pretty bad from my stomach region.  Lance offered to get me food.  My whole body is confused.  It's lunch time but my stomach is still stuck at dinner time two days ago.  Lance offered to get me fries.  I wasn't feeling it.  He offered to get me breakfast.  Not feeling that either.  He told me to trust him and he'd figure it out.  For the first time in forever, I decided that his decision making was probably a lot better than mine at the time, and he proved himself right!  Before long, I was happily digging into a California roll.  

And then I slept!  A whole 30 minutes.  I can't imagine what went through peoples minds as they walked past our car on the ferry deck and saw me sleeping on my stomach with both legs curled under my and my ass (now in PJs because my pants were soaked from that stupid puddle) sticking up in the air because that was the only position I could semi-comfortably get myself in without having seat belt buckles and door molds poking me in the back and head.  The ferry saunters into dock around 3:20pm and we start on the next stretch of our journey....

So it's 3:30 and I've had 4.5 hours sleep in 56 hours at this point.  I'm pretty much a mess.  A big cranky bitch of a mess.  Lance loves driving on the Island because the speed limit is 10km/hr more than it is on the mainland, so in "guy logic" that means that you can still drive 20km over the speed limit for a total of 130km/hr.  Well, I'm not down with this on a normal day, and especially not down with it on a bitchy day, so we spent most of the trip to his parents bickering about speeding.  I tried reasoning with him that getting there 10 minutes sooner wasn't that big of a deal and that I'd rather get there alive than not at all!  When did I get all old and sensible?  Needless to say, he'd had about enough of my crankiness and snapped back at me "I've got this, OK!"  

I shut up.  I shut up for the rest of the damn trip.  I stared out of the passenger side window and pouted like a 2 year old.  I'm still sporadically tearing up at this point too, but I was more angry than pathetically sad.  We pull into his parents drive.  Robyn, his sister is the first to come running out to greet us, and what did I do?  I waited until she hugged me and then I burst into uncontrollable tears, right in the damn driveway.  Argh!  They worsened with every person that hugged me and he's got a lot of flipping people in his family.  I felt ridiculous and pathetic.  His Mum sent me to bed.  Haha.  It was almost 5pm and I threw myself onto their guest bed and closed my eyes.  Ahhhh, sleep...  

Well wouldn't you know it... I'd been awake for so long that I couldn't remember how to fall asleep.  I led there... I closed my eyes, but nothing happened.  What the frig!  It was like torture!!!   Needless to say, I got up and went and joined the family to visit.  Robyn went on a Red Bull run for me, and I was able to feel almost human for a good couple of hours.  By 9pm I started falling asleep, so I figured that I could finally do this sleep thing...And I did!!!!!!!

11pm.  Seriously?????????  I wake up to three grown men animatedly discussing all of the fights they've been in.  I'm sure the beer was partially to blame for how loud they'd all grown, but had they forgotten that poor little old me was struggling to catch up on some much needed zzz's in the room next door???  Lance's famous barrel laughter finally did it for me and I got back up and went to the living room.  Good old drunk Lance offered me a beer and in return received the evil stink eye and a "no, I'd rather have some sleep".  I lasted about 10 minutes before I become too irritated to stay up and humor their barbaric bantering.  Back to bed. It was only a few minutes later that Lance came to bed.  Sorry, staggered to bed.  "Sorry we kept you awake Hun, goodnight, I love you"

"Goodnight" I barked back and curled into fetal position, feeling guilty that I didn't say  "I love you" back, but I was just too darned bitchy!#@!#!.  

I woke up around 8am, which normally would have been a nice sleep-in, but not when you'd had such a crappy day before.  My face felt awful.  You know that feeling when you've spent hours crying and go to bed gasping for air between sobs, then you wake up with puffy eyes and a headache?  That's how I felt.  Lance came in holding out a cup of coffee as a peace offering.  I accepted.  He asked me if I wanted to take the dog for a walk down to the ocean.  Our 18 month old Lab Retriever puppy loves the ocean, even in December, but it was cold and early and I really didn't want to go anywhere (especially looking like I felt!) but I went anyway.  We were walking down the road in front of the ocean and I saw a bench that had some flowers tied to the back.  I loved the pop of color and was momentarily mesmerised and not paying attention to where Lance was going.  I had my hoodie up over my head so he couldn't see where I wasn't looking and I tripped over him as he turned to walk to the bench.  "What the heck, you can't just switch directions without warning me!"  I flipped out on him a bit.  Obviously I'm still grossly lacking sleep.  He explained that he wanted to walk over to the bench and me, being completely oblivious, didn't question it. 

I wanted to take a picture, so I found a good spot as Lance stared dramatically off into the distance obviously deep in thought.  With my picture taken, I climb back over the fallen tree trunk and put my camera back in my pocket.  When I looked back over at Lance, he was down on one knee.  Again, clueless me didn't figure it out yet and assuming that he had fallen, I laughed and asked him what the heck he was doing down there. 

He pulls out a ring box.

"Will you marry me?" 

O.......M......F.......G........

Totally in shock!  I didn't expect this... I'd hinted at it for so long and it hadn't happened that I just figured that it never would.  But now, on Christmas Eve!!!  HOORAY!

The tears start flowing, and it's cold out so naturally my nose starts running.  Don't forget, I still look like hell... I'm just a snottier, teary-eyed version of hell now.  "Yes!"  I said as I leaned down to hug him, still on one knee.  A quick snot-rub on the shoulder of his coat and I can follow my "yes" with a kiss.  I do the laundry anyway.  Hehe. 

There are no pictures after this one for a few reasons...

A) I had the ring on the wrong hand.  I really didn't expect this  and hadn't practised. 

B) Snot is relatively unattractive in photographs.

C) You can't take pictures when you're in shock and staring at sparkly diamonds! 

We went home and told Lance's Dad and his brother, Dylan.  Then we attempted to tell Hungover-Kelly.  Didn't get it.  Haha.  He looked at the ring and said "that's nice".  Then an hour later, came upstairs with a big "I totally didn't get what you were saying earlier.  Is that an engagement ring?"  Haha.  

Brook was funny too.  

     Me:  Brook, I opened a Christmas gift already.

     Brook:  You did?  Why? 

     Me:  Because your brother gave it to me early.

     Brook:  *looks at my extended hand*.  Oh, and engagement ring!  Congratulations!!!

     Me: Thanks Brook!

     Brook:  Lance, what's an engagement ring again?  

I sent my Mum a picture of my ring (on the wrong hand).  I was pointing across the ocean with the caption "Do you see what I see?".  I got a "No, what do you see" reply.  I told her to look closer and she said "I see a ring, but it's not an engagement ring because it's on the wrong hand".  D'oh!  I asked her to imagine that it was on the other hand...That's when she squealed!  I'm going to blame the wrong hand thing on my tiredness...Truth is, I just didn't know any better.  Lol. 

Anyway...Our families and friends seem happy and excited for us... I'm still in shock, and can't stop looking at how sparkly my hand is now!  We are planning the wedding for some time in 2015, but seriously... BEST FREAKING CHRISTMAS, EVER!



Our announcement picture on Facebook. 



Our new coffee nook.

With the recent addition of 3 coffee drinkers in our home the kitchen counter just wasn't cutting it anymore, and to be honest... I hate people in my fricking kitchen!!!  I saw a couple of these coffee nooks on Pinterest and decided that I must have one!  We had bought the table a few years ago for $25 in a clearance store and had been using it as a fish tank stand at our old townhouse, but since buying our first home, we hadn't really found a use for it yet, it just collected dust.  I thought it was gonna be perfect, but it still got too cluttery, what with all the mugs and coffee cans hanging out on there, so we found the two shelves at Home Depot for $13/each today.  Hooray!!!  It's quite a cozy looking nook and makes sitting at the table having a coffee much more appealing.  What do you think?  

I want to get one of those K-cup dispensers to put next to my Keurig now too.  I'm not sure what else this area needs, but for now it makes me smile.  :)

Oppan Pumpkin Style!

There it is, folks.  My pumpkin for 2012!!!  

Now to get that damn song out of my head...

Or dance my behind off!  

=D

My Old Window Project!

                                                         
I found this gem of a window at the New & Used store for $20.  I didn't know what it would end up being, so it kinda just hung out at home, leaning up against random walls for the past year.   I got sick of staring at the poor thing and decided that I needed to make something of it!

Here it is... Just screaming at me to make something out of its life!

 I used poster board from the dollar store and glued different squares of scrapbook paper on to each, then I stamped them with different things so that each pane has its own purpose.  I have a grocery list, a daily chore list (so the rest of the family can contribute!), an "I love you because..." board, notes, weekly dinner menu, todo list, pet chores, calendar and a blank one that I hot-glued fancy clips on to so that we can use it for whatever... Pictures, photos, mail... Whatever.  I screwed a couple of pen holders to the side to hold my menu sticks and markers in and got the man to hang it in my dining room.  I love, love, love it!!!

 I also love that it was pretty beat up.  The walls in our living room are almost the same yellow color and the two rooms are open to each other, so that contrast works really well!  =D

                          
I think the hardest part of it all was actually getting Lance to hang it up on the wall for me.  Jk.  ;)

The Day I Made A Mess In My Kitchen

Everyone keeps posting these "OAMC" posts on Pinterest, but none of my friends have actually attempted to partake in the madness (as far as I know!).  So I thought "well, dammit.  I'm gonna give it a try!"  I headed off to our local Costco and shopped up a storm.  $282 dollars later, and I've got enough stuff for my cook-a-thon and various other bulk-sized goodies that I can't fit in my pantry.  I always forget to think about that.

My plan was to prepare, prepare, prepare.  I did nothing of the sort!  I'd printed out recipes, prep sheets, grocery lists.  They are still sitting on top of my fridge.  I figured that I'd just wing it.  I know what I like to eat and what my cooking capabilities are.  I'm pretty freaking lazy in the kitchen.  Bottled sauces, pre-washed veggies and spice packages fill my cupboards and fridge.

I had 10lbs of ground beef in the frying pan.
I had 4kg of chicken breast in the oven.
I had 4 kg of chicken wings defrosting just enough that I could seperate them.

I sliced onions and mushrooms, and grated cheese!  I chopped celery and opened the zipper on my bag of carrots!  Then I got all crazy and just started throwing things together!  It worked out well.  I managed to use a lot of "food cupboard crap" that I've had for ages but never had a reason to use!

I kicked the dog and cat outside as I couldn't stand the begging, but caved and let the dog back in 15 minutes later as I was making such a mess on the floor, and he's a pretty good vacuum.

All in all (including clean up) I spent 5 hours in the kitchen.  Clean up took almost an hour, and I was trying to clean as I went!  Haha.

This is what I ended with...

That's 17 separate meals, and I still have a full large freezer bag full of cooked chicken breast which I'll use for salads, pizzas, pastas, sandwiches and stuff and another 3lbs of stewing beef that I'll use for some kinda crockpotty meal!  I also made another double-sized lasagna that we had for dinner tonight (not pictured here as it's in my tummy!)

The freezer bags include:
2 bags (2+ dozen wings in each) of hot wings, 1 bbq wing, 1 teriyaki wing.  (We cook these over 2-3 hours at 200.  They taste so much better when they're done slowly in the oven!!!)
Taco meat.  (I add some salsa to the meat mix to give it more taste and a nicer consistency, then I throw it frozen into the crockpot for a few hours.  The hamburger meat is always pre-cooked!)
Spaghetti sauce with meat (for the crockpot, so the meat is browned.  Spaghetti sauce is yummier in the crockpot and I add 1/4 cup heavy cream at the end to give it a nicer color and flavor!)
Beef Stew and Beef Strogonoff bags.  (Both using common old spice packages.  Everything is thrown in the bag so that I know I have a decent meal laying around, even if I haven't gone shopping in a while.)

The contents of the aluminum tins are self-explanitory, but if you'd like specific directions, let me know!  Even though this was time consuming and messy... I'm sooooooooooo doing it again!  It felt so good to know that I have dinners that my boyfriend can throw in the oven for when I'm working late!

Keep your eyes peeled for the 2nd installment! Hehe

Buffalo-ded Chicken!

I'm definitely getting a little more adventurous in the kitchen since the birth of Pinterest and recently I'd tried a recipe that I'd found on there from Kayotic Kitchen.  The link will open in a new window.  :)

http://www.kayotic.nl/blog/kaytucky-chicken

Anyway... My Son is a bit of a fussier eater, but he LOVES hot wings, and pretty much anything that has hot sauce on it, so we keep a lot of it on hand.  I was about to make Kayotics awesome "Kaytucky Chicken" again, when I decided to improvise and this is what happened...


I made a delicious mixture of cream cheese, ranch dressing and Franks Red Hot Sauce.  My friend, Kaylea used to make this fabulous dip that tasted like hot wings, and this is what she made it with.  Recipe, STOLEN!  :D
I used:
1/2 block of cream cheese
1/2 cup Ranch Dressing
1/2 cup Franks Red Hot Sauce (then I added more, for good measure!)

Mix it all up into a deliciously creamy mess...

Then take a good knife and make a slit through the middle of the chicken breast. Note how I forgot to take a picture before I started stuffing the chicken.  *sigh*

After that, stuff 'em!  I used all of the mixture between 4 breasts and it was perfect.  :)
Don't they look lovely?  =D

I didn't want to make any puff pastry and I had some Shake N Bake in the cupboard.  I'm pretty sure it was for pork, but I'm sure it doesn't matter in the long run. I carefully covered the breasts with the Shake N Bake (there was no shaking involved otherwise the stuffing would be... unstuffed.), then threw them in a 350 degree oven.  After about 10 minutes I had a peek. I couldn't help it, and ZOMG!  They smelled delightful. I baked mine for 35 minutes as I have a convection oven, you'd probably wanna do 45 minutes in a conventional oven.

And again, I forgot to take a picture of them as soon as I took them out of the oven because I was soooooooooooo hungry and they smelled DELICIOUS.  Here's a shot after a few bites.  Hehe.

I'll be making these again! And again, and again!!!

Screw you, Lunchables! >:D

I am the Mother of a quirky 13 year old daughter who knows much more than I ever could know, and a lazy 15 year old son whose idea of lunch is an entire box of granola bars "because it's easy".

My daughter adamantly tells me that she has superpowers that allow her to get through an entire school day on a bagel or some oatmeal because it's simply "not cool" to have lunch at school and there's simply no time to eat in the 45 minute lunch break that they're given. 

That's when I decided to up the "cool factor" on school lunches so that I know that they're at least eating somewhat decently.  Neither of them like sandwiches and end up throwing them out regardless of how awesome I make them, so I don't waste my time!  (I personally hate sandwiches too, so I can't really fault them for that.)  The boyfriend likes whatever, so he's not a problem.

I tried a few different things last year and nothing seemed to work.  I guess it's too hard to have to look in the cupboard AND the fridge.  They just went straight for the cupboard snacks, which is all crap (yes, I like to have some junk food laying around the house, but I definitely like my healthier snacks too!)

I bought a bunch of Betty Crocker toss-away containers from the dollar store.  They come 2/pack for $1.25. Not bad, seeing as how my daughters other superpower is that she loses shit.  All.The.Time.  Grrr!  

These are what I made!  *proud smile*

Each one has some good, some bad in it but everyone seems to love them, so I'll keep making them and changing it up a bit each time.  

These ones have a:

Granola bar

Cheese and Pepperoni stick

Grapes

Yoghurt covered raisins

Fruit snacks

Baby carrots

Campari tomato

Sweet mini pepper

Airheads

So like I said in the title... Screw you, Lunchables!  You ain't got nothin' on me, and these probably cost less than $1.50 for each snackbox!  Win-Win! 

DIY Solar Lights

My dog likes to eat my solar lights. What an asshole! I needed to find a way to stop him from doing that, so I made these. adorable, eh?

A few people have asked me how I made them, so here's my tutorial. Enjoy!

I found a ton of cheap LED solar lights on sale for $1 each at Canadian Tire

I only want the top part.  The rest gets recycled. 

These lights have a couple of little screws in the top.  I take those out so that the light can dangle a bit. 

I found these airtight jars at the dollar store.  (I have since found out that they're not quite airtight and moisture can get in there.  It hasn't caused any real problems, but I may just use a sealant around the lids when I have the chance. 

Glue the top of the solar unit to the jars.  I used J-B Weld, but I'm sure crazy glue would be just as effective. 

Let them dry.  Trust me on this one and don't mess with them until they are completely dry.  I lead an impatient life!  *sigh*

Once they're dry, you can spray paint them.  You can see the can of spray in the previous picture.  It's called "frosted glass" by Rust-Oleum.  It works really well.  You just need to lightly spray the jar and wait a few minutes... Then you see it changing .  Awesomeness!
*NOTE*  Do not spray the lid of the jar otherwise the sun won't charge your lights!

I chose to add some scrapbook sticker letters onto some of my jars before spraying them.  I love how they turned out and they make super-cute personalized gifts for friends and neighbors!

I took some aircraft cable to a few jars and have them hanging in the plum tree in the back yard.  It looks so neat at night time.  They are a lot harder for my dog to get at when they're out of his reach.  ;)

I hope you enjoy making these as much as I did!  Total cost per light (if you get the materials on sale like I did), $3.00

Playoff Canucks Cupcakes

I am not a baker.  I repeat... I am NOT a baker.  I pretty much ruin everything I bake, but after being off of work after a car accident, I got antsy and bored and decided to make something intricate (for me).  I wanted to make some cupcakes for the playoff games, but couldn't find any inspiration... So I decided to just wing it, and here is my "canupcake" journey.  :D

First, I made some green royal icing and did the outline for my Canucks logos

 Then I made some white royal icing and did the insidey part of the logo.  This is where I started to get frustrated because they were already looking like a dog sat on them.  =(

(I'm also quite aware that this picture is upside down!)

 But I kept on truckin' on and whipped up a batch of blue royal icing to fill in the blanks.  Now to impatiently wait (and wait) for them to dry...

 So while we waited, my daughter made a batch of green cupcakes, and I made up some blue icing.  We had to stick with the Canucks colours! 

And finally, after what seemed like FOREVER... The Canucks logos were dry enough (mostly) to peel off the paper and plonk on top of our delicious cuppycakes!  

I'm quite impressed with these as I really haven't made anything creative baking-wise, ever. 

Now here's to hoping that the Canucks make it through the first series this year because so far we're 0 for 2, and I've got about 100 Canucks icing logos made for playoff parties, dammit!

A box of free!

One of Lance's work buddies gave him 2 boxes full of old stuff from his Grandfathers bar.  I was stoked!  I went through the box;  giving everything a good clean.  It's definitely made me want to have original pieces in our bar, rather than cheap knock-offs.  Here are a couple of pictures so far...

 I think this can be restored with a light behind it!

 I love this!  Lance, not so much but that's ok because it's going on the wall anyway!  

I just need a couple of old looking glass hurricane shades!

 Here are two smaller coats of arms and a bunch of vintage ashtrays. 

Not too sure what we'll do with the ashtrays, but I don't have the heart to throw any of it out.

 We were looking to buy some mirrors, but they were all so bloody expensive!  

Now we have five of them!!! =D

We also found a shuffleboard table and an Easton air hockey table on Craigslist.  Score!!!  We just need a floor and the room is pretty much complete!  Hooray!!!

Gigantic Picture = Awesome!

I saw this craft from Sugar Bee Crafts and HAD to try it!  The picture cost me under $7, the foam was $11 and $7 for spray glue.  Mandy from Sugar Bee has the tutorial on her link.

The only thing I can say about this is that our picture didn't come out as clear looking as hers seemed to have, but I took my picture with an iPhone, and I imagine that she probably used a decent camera.  Our picture of Coby (our Lab-Retriever) is grainy, but it actually looks good still.  My boyfriend loves it and can't get over how big it turned out.  Well, it is 4x3ft long!  Hahaha.

(The picture looks grainier in this picture.  It looks pretty decent hanging out here in our living room!)

Ok, so I'm impatient and I haven't actually glued the picture down to the board yet, but I still have to paint the foam.  I just want you to see how flipping big the thing is, and warn you that if you want a clearer picture, use a better camera than just your phones camera.  Hehe!  Also... The foam board... It comes in a 48"x96" piece, and I didn't plan for that so I had to cut it down to size at the store just so that I could fit it in my car.  Thank god I carry a utility knife with me for such emergencies!  Hehe.

Next time, I will make sure to use a proper digital camera and bring the truck to the store because I can definitely see myself making a few more gigantic pictures for different rooms in the house! 

Going crazy with old frames!

I just had to post this one too!  I went to Home Depot this morning and raided the paint chip section.  I totally felt guilty doing it, especially when the paint dept. lady came and asked me if I needed assistance while I had 40 paint chips in my hand.  Lol!  To justify my thievery, I did buy an awful lot of other stuff this morning, we're talking a full cart of things! 

Anyhoo... My daughters room is bright green and purple.  It actually looks really good.  :P 
Ok, so... I made her a dry erase calendar with all of my "borrowed" paint chips and she LOVES it!  Here it is...

And here's a picture of her room just to show you how awesome green and purple look together!   
 

  

Home Made Dry Erase Boards

Another craft I found online were these cute dry erase boards.  They were so easy that anyone can make them.  I have been commissioned by my daughter to make one for her.  Hey, if it helps her become more organized, then I'm all for it!







These cost me $5.00 for both as I already had the paper so I just had to buy the frames, dry erase pens and I also bought the "Menu" stickers, but I really didn't need to.  Hehe.  Surprisingly, you can buy some decent glass frames at the dollar stores! 

All you need to do is take whatever scrapbook paper you want to use (depending on what your dry erase board is going to be for) and decorate it with anything that you don't want to be erased all the time.  "Menu" and "I love you because" are actually on the scrapbook paper.  Put the frame back together with the decorated paper behind the glass, and Huzzah, your very own homemade dry erase board! 

I did a torn-paper design on the menu board because the frame is 11x14 and one piece of scrapbook paper just wouldn't cut it.  I hope you enjoy making and using these.  I'm already thinking of a gazillion other places in the house where we could use them.  Shopping lists, household chores, school/activity schedules, graffiti boards for kids rooms, honey-do lists... I could go on.  Hehe. 

And here's where I got my inspiration from!  


This is the original menu board
 
The original "Love Board"

What did I do before Pinterest???

I tackled my linen closet today.
My only regret is that I didn't take a before picture.
Our linen closet isn't very big, but it sure held a lot... I could barely close the door.  Nothing was organized.  
I got this idea from Pinterest!

 So basically... Sort out your sheet sets into sets, then fold them all into one of the matching pillow cases.  Now all I have to do when I go to change the bedding is grab the pillow case I want and it's all in there!  No more endless searching for the missing pillow case!!!  And look, I can close the closet door now!!!  I soooooooooooo <3 Pinterest! 

I have a feeling that I'm going to be doing a lot more crafts/organizing soon! :D

From dungeon to bar!

When we bought this house, it had a huge 31ft long rec room!  Awesome!  What wasn't so awesome was that nothing had ever been done to it since the house was built in the 60's.  Lance and I wanted to turn the room into a cozy Irish type bar/media room. 

Lance, being Lance... Did not take a before picture of the basement (of course), but you get the idea.  The ceiling was seriously outdated and probably carcinogenic!  The door to the back room was in the way so that back wall was pretty much unusable.  Oh, and you can't do home reno's without double fisting two beers!  :P 

We decided to move the door to the back room.  I found out that drywalling is a horrendous job.  It's not fun at all. 

The ceiling was a huge job, but it looks beautiful!  I'm still trying to figure out what to do with that ugly old fireplace. 

A few coats of paint later and I can feel the cozy factor already!  It does make the room feel a bit smaller though, but that's just fine.  :)

Here's Lance and my Daughter and the beginning of our bar!  Now I'm getting excited!!!

It sort of looks like a tiki bar right now, but not for long...

There we go!!!  We put the 2nd shelf and lighting up last night.  We made the bar top ourselves and I just love how glossy it is!  It's a bit dusty from all the shelf-drilling we did, but even with the dust, you can still see the reflection of the shelving in it!!!

And here's a view of what it's like with the shelving lights on and the big old pot lights off!  So pretty. 

We still have lots (and I mean LOTS) of work to do in this room, but we're chipping away at it.  :) 
We might even be able to have our housewarming party soon!!!