Cold Weather Goals Update

My original goals can be found here.


1) Personal

• I've made it down to 150. Halloween candy was almost my downfall. But I'm half way there!
• I've lost all my images to my old computer. I haven't heard from the shop about it yet so I'm just working on some small projects and holding off a little longer on Etsy.
• I bought a small blotter to track bill due dates on. I've been updating my checkbook register once a week to track my balance. My house doesn't look like a tornado has just come through. I can live with that for now.
• My blog obviously suffered from the computer crash. The new computer is now completely set up and running (minus Quickbooks which I need to upgrade. Poo!). You should be seeing me regularly again.

2) Family

• We took Monkey to a hockey game at UMO last weekend (Little Man stayed with my GFT because it would have been too much with both kids). We've also been out to eat a couple of times. We need to find some family activities.



• Children's Creative Corner only has one update since the crash fiasco. All of my links and ideas were on the old machine so I have to do some digging. We may not have been crafty, but we have been doing all sorts of food crafts (ie, cooking).

3) Kitchen

• Still only the recipes of the week going on in the kitchen.

4) Projects

• Hanging mirror has been painted



• I have 2 of 5 wine crates stained
• I need 6 more pockets for Little Man's quilt. I found some rustic looking quilter's squares I've had for years. I'm pretty sure I'm going to use them for the front.

5) Turning house into home

• Bedroom: My dresser area has been prettified. T's dresser has been simplified. I painted his nightstand this week (with his blessing, of course). It needs baskets to organize his junk... er... stuff. I need fabric for a bed skirt. I need curtains. I currently have plant clippings rooting to add at least 1 plant to our room (I believe I'll be putting it on top of my dresser where I currently have a candle). I have a painting to hang and 2 wall sconces to paint and hang. I'm making progress.




• Bathroom: T picked up a piece of trim for me on his last trip to Home Depot. I put up a curtain hanger (it's not a rod - it's an idea I came up with and will show you as soon as I figure out curtains). I also need a new shower curtain because T got paint on my nice white one. I put in an "order" with my dad to build a shelf unit for above the toilet. Slow progress but progress nonetheless.
• Monkey's curtains have been put up.
  


• I've also put in an "order" for a bookshelf with my dad for Little Man's room. Otherwise, I haven't done anything in there yet.
• The wine crates are for the stairwell. Unfortunately, I'll be waiting on T and the drywall before I can finish.

Slow and steady. I have no intention of leaving anything unfinished on this list this year!

How are your lists coming?

Edited for an update: I heard from the computer shop after I typed this out. The old laptop is fried but they were able to pull all of my data off of it. Phew!

A beautiful day to play outside

It was a beautiful fall day outside today. We spent much of our day outdoors. I spent much of that time in just a t-shirt! I love days like this.


Monkey and I spent some time doing some winter preparations. I needed to trim down some perennials and dig up some bulbs. Then I decided to take a few pictures of our fall decorations. Most of these will transition into winter decorations very easily.


The front of the shed has an old busted out window hanging on it (there was glass when I first put it up but a wind storm had the window banging around a bit to much one day.). I finally added the wreath today. It makes it feel finished.


This old bike sits in my flower bed. It is the bike I learned how to ride on. It did have training wheels at one time but heavens knows what happened to them. The basket was an ugly yellow and green. I gave it a spray paint treatment and attached it to the bike to hold flowers. Now it holds apples and pears from our trees. And when the snow flies, I'll put pine cones in.

I also have an old chair in another flower bed. I'll change out the faux (I know!) leaves for some pine and evergreen branches once the snow flies. My father-in-law found the old rusty watering can in the woods on a walk one day and knew I'd love it. He was right.

This poor old rake got tied to a porch rail. T isn't allowed to use it anymore. I should have something on the milk can, but I don't have anything on hand that "goes."

I tried to save money this year by forgoing the mums. I'm hoping to try planting my own next year. We shall see. We also didn't get to go to the pumpkin patch. When T stopped in one evening to check the situation, he was told the picking wasn't very good. So we didn't feel too badly when the timing just didn't work out for us to go.

I've also added to my stairway. The baskets are all full of fruits and veggies. I still haven't found pretty and practical shoe storage, though. I really need to because I spend my days tripping on shoes when I'm going up and down the stairs (it wouldn't be a big deal if my washer and dryer weren't in the basement!).

I got my hanging mirror secured to the wall. I need some hooks but screws are doing the trick for now. I had this painting from my junking trip sitting in my room. I like the unfinished edge and the pop of color it adds. I haven't decided if I'll leave as is or if I'll put a wreath, as I was originally thinking.

I also played with the top of my dresser a little tonight. I got this adorable little thing on my junking trip with my mom back in May. T gave it a paint job for me (when he had me on his own version of modified bed rest) and we changed out the handles for some cute little glass knobs my mom gave me.

The painting was a junk store find. My dad built the frame for me (you're going to see more about this frame soon). I also got the candle holder and silver trays at the junk store. The glass goblets were also from my May junking trip. I don't have much jewelry and it just seemed perfect to store the little I do own on/in. I think it needs something still, but haven't decided what. I'm thinking I may put a glass plate under the candle set up. Yet another one of those things I haven't had the time to try. (Having 2 little ones is so much more work than I expected - but I do love every minute of it).

So there's a peek as to what I've been up to. I tend to get a lot done when I'm not getting much sleep and I've been suffering a bout of insomnia the past couple of weeks. I may have much more to show in the coming weeks. (Hopefully not. I'd rather sleep. haha).

I hope you've all had a wonderful and productive weekend.

PS - I'm linking up with Donna at Funky Junk Interiors for Saturday Nite Specials. Check it out!

It's called procrastination for a reason.

Ok, so it wasn't really that I procrastinated. I forgot to take into account I'd be in the office all day on the due date for our projects. Oops. Good thing we're not getting graded on this!

Click here you want to see the After pictures from the Procrastinator Party at The Inspired House.

Remember my great old mirror?



This $5 find has been taking up space in my basement for years. It's big, it's bulky, it was filthy and it needed paint. And T's been threatening to trash it.

A few coats of semi-gloss black and....

VOILA!


It's new home is on top of T's dresser. The candle holder was a $1 yard sale find last spring. It got a spray paint treatment. The handles on T's dresser were originally a brass/wood combination handle. I hated them. I don't love his dresser, but I can't paint it (I promised I wouldn't). The new handles were our compromise.

I think it still needs something. Our bedroom isn't very colorful. I'm trying to make it a calming space with calming colors - hence the off white walls. I'm thinking maybe a wreath hanging on the mirror. The mirror is currently laying on top of the dresser because I need T's help to semi-hang it. It just needs a little support because after a couple test bangs of dresser drawers, I found it wouldn't take much to have the whole thing come crashing down.

Another project finished. And another step closer to finishing up our bedroom.

Did you tackle an unfinished project?

Project Procrastination:

I'm joining in my first ever blog party.

Melissa over at The Inspired Room is hosting a Project Procrastinators Party today and I've decided to join in. I have a thousand and one projects I want done and/or currently in progress. I'm having a difficult time choosing which one to go with.

There's the master bedroom that got painted a couple of months ago but never got finished:



Then there's the bathroom remodel we're working on (though our Handy Man was sick last week and we still haven't rescheduled for him to come put in the tile):


Then there's the crib for New Bean (which is the only piece of furniture we even have for him/her!):

(I don't have a picture and can't get to it right now, so I guess I'll leave you hanging on this one!)

There's also the stairway remodel that is still a work in progress:



I could go on and on, but I won't bore you.

I've decided to start with the stairway. I've been wanting this done for quite some time (it was one of my Cold Weather Goals, after all - and the cold weather is long gone!). I know I'll still have some accessorizing to do at the end of the two weeks, but if I can get those stairs painted, I'll be happy. Besides, my accessorizing hinges on a junking trip I'm taking with my Mom the day after this party has ended!

This might be very difficult with Monkey. I can't exactly have her hanging out in the stairway with me - and I don't think she'll be happy sitting at the top of the stairs (behind a locked gate, no less), watching me work. And that's my excuse for not having done it by now. HA!

Here is the very first BEFORE pictures:



And here is what the top of the stairway currently looks like:


The bottom half has yet to be touched and still looks like the BEFORE seen above.

And tell me not to sit here thinking "No Problem! I'll finish the stairs and be over ambitious and even get another project done, too!" I am 30 weeks pregnant, after all. Shouldn't I be relaxing with my feet up a little? (NEVER!)

Wish me luck!

Home inspirations:

I've been doing a lot of blog reading this week. I've found quite a few new (to me) blogs dealing with home decorating (you'll notice them in my blog list).

I've gotten a lot of great ideas (especially for my kitchen). Now, if only I had the time and money to do everything I want to to my house!

T is painting the walls in our bedroom tomorrow. It's taken me two weeks just to get the trim and doors done (and I still have the closet doors left to paint!), so he's giving me a hand before I start screaming in frustration. Or maybe throwing paint buckets and brushes out the windows.

I'm going to share what our bedroom looked like originally. Basically, it looked like the room of a college student. (Not a very good picture. It's all I could find.)

Don't you love the Walmart special bed in a bag comforter? Or, how about the freebie brass headboard (which we finally replaced last fall because the darn thing was broken and jangled if you just breathed on it - it was extremely annoying).

What you can't tell by the picture is that the walls are a very pale, minty green and the trim is all a nearly yellow off white color. You see, when we first bought the house, I had this idea in my head for a color scheme and even purchased the fabric to make new bedding! You also can't see my first ever attempt at curtains (they served their purpose but I'm not sad to see them go).

I got overwhelmed by the new spread and its massive size. It's still half finished, in need of a backing. And the skirting has been sitting in the sewing bin with the spread because, well, what's the point in putting on a new bed skirt without new bedding?

Alas, we finally bought a new comforter last fall from LL Bean. The blue/green in the unfinished project don't match the green in the new comforter, so they'll never be used (by me, anyways).

Once T gets the walls painted for me, I'll need to:

1) Make new curtains

2) Make new bed skirt

3) Change the handles on his dresser (I'll take before and after photos when the time comes so you see why)

4) Paint his nightstand

5) Bring up my new nightstand (and hopefully have a new base on it, courtesy of Dad?)

6) Artwork (this includes painting out the frames on two mirrors I already have that I want to put in there).

7) I still need a new dresser! I've been scouring craigslist for something local to no avail (not even necessarily a dresser - I saw a great antique secretary on Ebay with drawers that would have been perfect and I'll be kicking myself for a LONG time for not snatching it). I'm hitting up the Goodwill and Salvation Army stores next week. My problem is it will be on a narrow wall (28 1/4" wide), so I need a more narrow than normal piece. UGH.

8) Dress the bed - it needs some throw pillows and maybe a nice big blanket folded at the foot of it.

9) Table lamps. We need table lamps. The one you see in the picture above died and we haven't had even one in our room since then.

I would also like to put a plant (or two or three) in there, but I don't have a great green thumb and tend to kill house plants, so we'll see about those.

My lists never seem to shrink. And I wonder why I'm always discouraged over having "too much to do."

I'm very much looking forward to finishing it and finally having a peaceful and restful place for T and I to relax at the end of the day. I think this will be even more important to have our own oasis once New Bean arrives. Don't you?