New Sign

When I found my new curtains at TJ Maxx I also found a piece of art that I thought was nice. (Art being a loosely used word. I feel a little shame at buying stock art from a store. But not enough shame to stop me.)

But then that red McClellan family sign started to bug me. It doesn't match anymore. If it did ever match. (I made it during a craft day and there were limited paint options.)

So I stained a piece of wood.

Cut out vinyl with my silhouette machine. 

J always helps me make sure things are straight.

And this little corner looks a lot better.

The box is on top of the cabinets in an attempt to keep the cat (cats when Jacob and Crystal were living here) down since they kept knocking things over.

I chose the words because it's right next to the kitchen. Since J is the cook, one of the things I like to do is look at what he made me and ask if he made it with love. He grins at me and responds, "Always." 

I'm pretty happy with it. I used the fonts Journal and Abraham Lincoln. I originally tried to use a stain that was lighter, but it had a reddish tint I did not love. Since it's darker than I thought, I'm glad I decided to use white vinyl instead of black.

This project didn't cost me anything. I hate when people say that, because actually, yes it did. But I had all the stuff, so I should say, I didn't spend any additional money. 

New Curtains

I decided, about a year and a half ago, that I wanted to redecorate.

It's been taking some time.

I finally found some new curtains I like.

Apparently it was an extremely emotional decision. One that could not be taken lightly.

And of course, I forgot to take a before photo. Instead of putting the old curtains back up to take a before, I decided my time was better spent digging through old photos for a half hour trying to find one of the living room.

Time well spent.

Osa's first Christmas.

This was just last Christmas. 

The below photo cracks me up. The reason for it can be found here. 

The red curtains just weren't working anymore. Plus, they were torn. I'm not really sure how it happened but I'm blaming a cat.

I thought grey curtains might be nice. J wanted white. I just wanted something that was reasonable priced. Plus I needed 95 inches in length and 84 is the standard.

I finally found some, randomly, at TJ Maxx.

When we first bought the house we purchased light blocking curtains. The new ones are much more sheer and it brightens up the house during the day. And I tested it at night; you can't see through, so that satisfied my paranoia about creepers.

J likes them so much, he wanted some for his office.

He commented that the old curtains are ugly and he doesn't know why we even bought them.

The change is nice.

I thought about trying to clean things up before I took the picture, but this is real life yo.

Twin Girls

Katelyn and I made plans to hang out with my friend Abby awhile back. I showed up at Abby's apartment and we hung out for a bit, waiting for Katelyn and our Chinese food. Abby asked if I wouldn't mind if she showered. Her oldest was at her grandmother's house so it was just the 2 1/2 year old twin girls. I told her I didn't mind.

It was a mistake.

As soon as Abby left the room, Twin One ran over to a lamp that I knew she shouldn't be touching, just because she gave me her best "What Are You Going To Do About It" look as she placed her hand squarely on the lamp.

Twin Two kept running up and hugging my legs, which I liked. Until she bit me.

Twin One heard me lecturing Twin Two that we don't bite people, so she ran over, gnashing her teeth, ready to bite down. Twin One thought that was hilarious and copied her sister. So I was holding the girls back, trying not to get bit, when the doorbell rang.

The Chinese food delivery guy had arrived. I turned around to get the money when I heard him say, "Uh, both girls just ran outside."

I ran outside and the girls were gone. Abby lives in an apartment complex so it was pretty terrifying. I sprinted to the end of the sidewalk and found Twin Two running for her life. I caught up with her, grabbed her arm, and looked around frantically for Twin One.

Twin One was nowhere to be found. Then I heard her laughing. She had run up the stairs and was above eye level. She was about halfway up and not very fast. My heart rate slowed down as I realized she had trapped herself. So I went back to Chinese food delivery guy, gave him the money, explained these weren't my children as he eyed me warily, shut Twin Two in the apartment and went to get Twin One.

Abby didn't even feel sorry for me. She just said, "That's the story of my life."

Texts I want to remember

Trash Can Storage

We have a can for trash and a can for recycles. They are just sitting out in the open, showcasing the grossness.

I found this cabinet and thought it would be a good solution.

http://blog.jennasuedesign.com/2014/10/living-room-details-diy-cabinet-tree-stump-table-and-sofa-slipcovers/

I'd gotten a set of nail guns for Christmas 2014 but didn't get an air compressor until my birthday 9 months later, so this was my first chance to use my nail guns.

A nail gun is my new favorite tool.

Joseph and I had a week off for Christmas. And when I say self-employed J had a week off, I mean that he worked twice as hard two weeks before Christmas so that he could take the time off. He is such a hard worker.

The point is we thought the week of Christmas would be a good time to do the project. We could take a day and knock it out.

Except the weather didn't cooperate. I've mentioned before my curse with rain and how it only comes to the desert when it is inconvenient for me. So it took over a week. Which doesn't sound too bad in theory, but when you take into consideration how many power tools and miscellaneous whatnot it required to build the cabinet...there was stuff everywhere that we had to keep dragging inside because of the rain.

Plus it was freezing cold. Which maybe it should be, in some parts of the country in December. But we did not like it at all. Neither did the baby dog (can you see her in the above photo?) who wanted to stay near but was shivering.

This is about as far as we got. Then we took a day and figured we would make the doors. Super easy, right?

No.

I googled how to make doors and we wanted to do this:

http://www.remodelaholic.com/shaker-cabinet-door/

It looked so easy!  

Well it's friggin not. We cut everything but it wasn't working out. So I had the bright idea to cut off the end and just pocket hole screw it. Well the problem with that is that the pocket hole screw didn't have anything to grab to.

I don't even want to talk about the staples. That was an idiotic, stress-related, desperate attempt that failed miserably.

So we just ended up buying new wood, cutting new railings, pocket hole screwed the four pieces together, and just nailed the back piece on and covered the holes. The back doesn't look professional but the front looks fine.

And this is how it sat for a month. We didn't screw the doors on because we needed to stain it, so the doors are just sitting there for photo purposes. But otherwise they were put to the side. And the project sat while we recovered emotionally.

We finally picked out a stain, and I bought wood filler, which we mixed with the stain so the color would match. There were a few areas that had a bit of a gap (we used furring strips instead of expensive wood and I DO NOT regret my decision!) so I figured I could fill those in.

Lesson learned - don't do what I did above. You just have to sand it down once it's dried and it's a pain.

We chose a grey stain. I was a little nervous after the first application because I was not loving it.

It looked a lot better after the second application. Then it sat there again, waiting for poly.

It is unintentionally "distressed" because when we sanded for the poly, some of the stain came off. But I like it. It's done. I just need baskets for the top two shelves. This was not my favorite project, it was too time consuming and stressful. But I really like the finished product and I think it looks fabulous. 

Three Day Weekend

Sometimes I go back and look at my old blog posts. It amazes me how much I got done. I feel like I had so much more energy when I was younger.

I'm actually pretty proud of how much I crammed into this weekend. It was kind of cheating, since it was a three day weekend.

I asked my sister Kristi to be my Valentine. She loves owls, and I had found this tutorial on Pinterest:
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=433909.0#axzz34N4Rousn

I made this owl, which looks nothing like the tutorial.

I had a friend tell me it looked like it was kicked out of the nest and had a hard life. But Kristi said she liked it...

I wanted to do something fun for my Valentine, and also my brother for his birthday. So I took them rock climbing (also J, we needed a fourth).

Kristi and I did a little shopping after rock climbing. The boys were not interested.

Then I worked on a couple projects. The first is a super late birthday present for the baby sister Breezy. I really hope she likes it.  The second was started before Christmas and is so close to being done. I got to use my nail gun, which is my new favorite tool. But I am so ready to be done with the projects for awhile.

In between I cleaned my house, did laundry, had friends over for dinner, balanced my checkbook, painted my toenails, bought a new phone and did all of the upkeep that goes along with that, went out to lunch with my family to celebrate birthdays (two nephews in addition to my brother), did a project for my Mom, found some Christmas presents (yes!) and tried to prevent animals from fighting.

J's brother Jacob and his wife Crystal moved in last week. They'll be here for two months until they leave for whatever state Vivent sends them to. They'll be installing alarms for the summer. They have two cats. The two cats don't mind Tiny, the four pound Chihuahua, but don't like my 30 pound Chow Osa. I'm not sure how they behave around the old man dog, who is a 15 pound Min Pin, because he just picks a spot and stays put all day, so he's usually out of the way.

Poor Osa is too much of a chicken to do anything about it. She just stays away from the hissing cats. I don't have much hope that they'll be friends by the end of two months. Cats are jerks.

I appreciate the honesty

J and I have ridiculous conversations. If we were a celebrity couple being recorded all the time, people would make fun of us for being idiots. But that doesn't stop us.

This morning I was getting ready for work. I told J I was going to miss him. I had worked from home the previous day and got to spend the whole day with him. I told him I couldn't meet him for lunch because were were having a potluck.

J: I will think of you.
Me: You will be thinking about how I am pretty?
J: Yeah.
Me: And how I am a good fur mother?
J: Yeah.
Me: And how I have mad skills?
J: Yeah.
Me: And of how glad you are that I have a nice round butt?
J: Yeah.
Me: And that you wish I didn't have saddle bags?
J: .....
Me: ....
J: ....
Me: (laughing) So you wish I didn't have saddle bags?
J: *starts fake snoring*

That kid cracks me up.