Cheers To A New Year With No New Year's Resolutions!

Awesome sauce! That is my new favorite term for the moment! I don't like to make New Year's resolutions because they seem to add too much pressure and who needs added pressure?!? A friend told me today that she was going to set small goals for herself for 2014 and I think that is an awesome plan! I say AWESOME SAUCE!

In reflecting on the past year I have learned a whole lot about myself and who I am and who I want to be. :> ) First off I am a terrible procrastinator and setting small goals is seriously the way to go these days. Also saying I am going to do something doesn't get the job done!

No New Year's resolutions but a whole lot of little projects is what I'll be working on! I haven't been focusing as much on the blog towards the end of this year because a lot of other things took priority and a lot of other things I made priority! I've been able to do a lot of different things this year and found new hobbies, and things I didn't spend much time doing before, I've learned I like in 2013. Just a lot of slowing the pace in 2013 to enjoy the little things in life.

 

No resolutions for 2014 but CHEERS to a brand new year! I vow to try and work up my blog again so the images are restored to move forward with it. Before the week is over I will have a "To Do" list of things I will be working on with the blog! Have a wonderful New Year's Day! Happy New Year's!

Do you make New Year's Resolutions???

 

 

Hanging a Crucifix

Happy New Year's Eve! Today is kind of a day of reflection on the past year. For me it has been a year of change. I've experienced a lot of change this year which has caused my family to grow closer. While good things and bad things have occurred I've tried to see the good in all. Job loss, family deaths, becoming a stay at home mom, distance of friends, best friend moving, all have been blessings. Another blessing was getting to see my parents the day before Christmas.

The pictures below are of one of the gifts my mom and dad gave me. I have never owned a crucifix nor had I ever thought of hanging one in our home. I'm not sure why, I've just never thought much about it. At first my husband was concerned it was too grandma-ish. Really the meaning is so much more than having it as a decoration so we agreed it wasn't at all. It's a gift from the heart, and I think one of the most powerful gifts I've ever received. It didn't take me long to find a place to hang it, but I wanted to make sure I didn't hide it! I had also thought about setting up a place in our home just for prayer and placing it there, but decided on hanging it. I've gotten stronger in my faith and felt that a good place to hang it would be by the front door. When the front door opens, it's the first thing you see on the wall. Raising a Catholic family, I thought it was appropriate to remind us all what is important each day! 

Do you have a crucifix in your home? I'd love to hear.

  

Our House At Christmas

How are you? Things here are good. I've been dancing a lot today to "Just Dance" that the kids got for Christmas! Hilarious. It's so much fun and I think I have burned off lunch!

 

Do you do a lot to the outside of your house for Christmas? I like to put up lights and do it up classy! I have shown many pictures of our home but never a full frontal! Here it is front and center. We are most happy with the green grass this year!

 

 

This year I had a little addition to the front yard and that was a Santa on a bicycle. Its wheels spin like crazy when the wind blows and I love it! It came from a kite store at our favorite beach.

 

 

As for the house, I put wreaths on all most all of the front windows. I have a wreath I made on the front door, porch trees that are lit up and clear lights in all the bushes. This year I added clear lights up the tree in the front yard too. Love decorating for the holidays! How are your holidays going?

 

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and celebrates the real reason for Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Decorating Has Begun!

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! We spent the week on the coast in a water front house with our whole family and it was our first vacation this year and I must say it was NICE. It has taken me a couple of days to readjust to being home again. It's funny. I haven't had the motivation to start putting Christmas decorations up until tonight. It took a lot for me to muster up the energy but it has begun! Here is a little preview!

I have recently inherited a couple of my Nana's house flags and so I'm putting them to good use. They are much more special because she picked them out. I think it's going to be a process this year to get the house all dressed up for Christmas. Have you been decorating yet? If you're all done, congrats!

Packing Lunches - Made Easier

What's up? It is coooold here! Burrrr! Does this make you hungry? Just a little organizational help with packing lunches here to save you some time! I used to despise packing lunches. Well I'm still not crazy about doing it but this drawer sure helps! Finally I made up a snack drawer full of lunch snacks for packing lunches for the kids. So instead of having to go into the pantry and find things out of separate boxes I have pre-made containers of cookies plus crackers, chips, you name it. It has been helping cut down time in the lunch packing department! Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!  

 

 

 

Post Halloween

Lots has been going on and I haven't been able to post. Today I pulled the Halloween decorations down and I didn't want to! They are still on the dining room table to be put away. We had a good Halloween but just like everything else it came and went FASSST!

Here was the mantel this year. I tend to change it up a little every year.

 

Just like with summer ending, I didn't want the spooky fun month of October to end! I've kinda been in denial plus my father-in-law has never seen our house decorated for Halloween so I left it up for over a week after for him to view! Can you believe I saw a house already decorated for Christmas??? Holy moly! What do you think about Christmas decorations already???

Table Top Decor From Dollar Tree

Halloween is almost here and the kids are talking about what they want to be this year. Unlike every other year they haven't decided yet. The house has been all decked since the beginning of October and so that part is fun and done!

 

Here is our kitchen table. I didn't do anything fancy. I really wanted to keep it cute for the kids. Have you been to Dollar Tree lately? They have some of the cutest Halloween decorations! I picked up the chair covers and felt pumpkins and spider webs which I used as place mats. The table isn't totally balanced since it has the pumpkin and spider web place mats but I thought it worked!

 

If I had thought about it I would have covered the light fixture with black shades and hung spiders from it. My kids don't like spiders though so I have to be careful! What have you done to spruce up for Halloween?

 

 

Organizing to Treat My Boots Better

Boots - I love boots in the winter time but I haven't been treating my boots the greatest. See the Before picture and how sad they were. They were all limp and the leather could easily be damaged by storing them this way. Saw this on Pinterest and LOVE!

 

 

The After picture shows them happily standing! This way hopefully the leather won't wear and age as badly.

 

 

My solution was to cut a pool noodle and stuff it in each boot to hold them up!

 

I didn't show a picture of me cutting the noodle but I used a bread knife and it worked really well!

 

Check it out again - Before and After the pool noodle!

 

Hope you have a great start of a new week.

Super Simple Star Wars Birthday Party Favor

What is new with you? For my son's birthday this year he wanted Star Wars. His party was very simple without a lot of fluff this year because I usually go all out and wear myself down. I don't think he even noticed it was simpler!

 

Here is the simplest party favor I could come up with. I found these white tumblers at Dollar Tree. I think 4 came in a pack. I made 12. I found a silhouette of Darth Vader and simply free-handed the shape on vinyl and cut with scissors. I applied the vinyl stickers to the cups and there you have it.

 

This post just reminded me I think I forgot a couple September Birthdays this year. Happy Birthday to my friends with September Birthdays! :-) Hope all is well!

 

 

Sanitize A Water Gun For Winter

Are you ready for summer to be over??? I've been in denial that summer is over. It's hot here in the afternoons and this is when the pool should be open but college and high school lifeguards have gone back to school and I've gotta get over it! It's official though. Summer is over and I have got to come to grips! Seriously!

So when I decided to finally deal with it and clean out the pool bag, I opened the super soaker water guns my children frequently used and took a sniff and got a whiff, let me tell you. Disgusting! What was I thinking?!?! Well it dawned on me I needed to clean those suckers out for the summer or we'd have to toss them.

Saving money doesn't include throwing away a perfectly good toy. We love the super soakers so I had to sanitize to winterize!

 

I filled the water guns with cold water and added several drops of tea tree oil to sanitize the guns.

 

I let the water guns sit in the sink for a little while and then sprayed some of the water out and finally poured the rest out the back end.

 

The super soakers are now clean and ready to use again next summer.

They smell so much better too! 

 

 

 

Fixtures and Features and Doors Rehung!

Guess what I did last weekend? I was so pumped and wanted to tell you but came down with strep which turned into pneumonia and here I am done with antibiotics, a steroid shot and an inhaler, yada yada. You catch the drift. Still not 100%.

Anyway this project was before I got ill. First off let me remind you that we live in an older home which doesn't have all the latest and greatest fixtures and features that I adore(not really adore but you know what I mean!) so we are slowly replacing and updating things. So it came with the aged brass door knobs, hinges and fixtures.

I changed out all the interior doors first(over a year ago). I did the exterior door knobs and hinges and we quickly discovered the hinges weren't very good hinges. The hinges were adjustable whatever that means. All I know is they did a horrible job at holding the doors up. They had these little nuts on the top and bottom of the hinges that kept falling off causing the doors to shift and not close. It took a lot of lifting and pulling to close the doors and lock them tightly.

What I was so pumped about was that I changed out the hinges on these doors by myself. I did all the interior doors, which wasn't a big deal because they were light weight. For those I simply removed a hinge, replaced a hinge, until I had all three done for each door. This door and the other exterior doors are solid and heavy. I actually had to take all hinges off and drill new holes into the doors and door jams for the new hinges. It was awesome. I had the doors completely off the hinges and was able to hang them by myself. I used a couple of rugs to prop under each door to help lift and hold at the height I needed. I couldn't believe I got it done but now the doors swing nicely and lock easily. Yay to the exterior doors being done. One less thing to have to mark off the to do list!

See what I mean - the hinges came apart, separating and loosening causing the door to loosen on the hinges. 

I didn't do a before but this is the after - brushed nickel door handle, lock and kick plate with a fresh paint job!

Ultimate Fail While Cleaning The Potty Room

I've been cleaning the house like a mad woman and butter fingers got the best of me! What a waste of a good roll of tp. Thought you could use a laugh today. Happy Weekend!

Gross Me Out - Bugs On LED Light Bulbs

EWWW Holy Grossness. I hadn't cleaned my light fixtures in a while and come to find out they were nasty buggy! GROSS ME OUT! Gnats everywhere! EWWWWW.

Well since I am home full time now I have more time to do things like clean and recycle. Today I made a trip the local recycling center to drop off some LED light bulbs that burned out. They are LED, which contain small amounts of mercury so they have to be disposed of properly.

When I dropped off the bulbs I asked a man at the recycling center about the bulbs attracting bugs. He confirmed that they do but that it's not the type of light bulb but the color spectrum. He suggested a more yellow bulb wouldn't attract insects like the bright white. I confirmed it on the Internet. Yesss! I learned something new today! Information that comes in handy!!! Glad I'm not just crazy about the buggy bulbs. Happy Friday!

Trash Can For The Car

How are you today? It is so hot here!!! The pool is closed during the week now so I have to find other things to do. The pool was awesome while it lasted but now it's back to reality. haha. School has started back and I guess one positive thing about the pool closing is that it gives me more time to catch up on things around the house. 

So it's organizing and cleaning and crafting! Oh my! So one thing I really LOVE when it is clean is my car. I love my car but I love it so much more when it is clean and it's not clean as much as I'd like it to be. To help myself and the little men who ride in my car the most, I was on a search for a "garbage can" to help with all the litter. Dollar Tree it was! I found this adorable bag at the Dollar Tree! It says Keep The Planet Green. I thought it was super cute and it was a dollar. 

Once I tried to put it in my car I realized the handle wasn't long enough to fit over the head rest on my front passenger seat. Boo! The bag was too cute NOT to use in my car so I came up with a solution!

I cut the handle at the top right in the middle and added velcro to each end and fastened the ends.

Now I can open and close the velcro to hang the garbage bag. I did have a plastic grocery bag there before and my husband thought it looked a little ghetto. I have to admit that this is much cuter. 

So here it is - a garbage back and box of tissues to handle the kids' needs. 

Yay for a cute bag to help keep my car stay clean! 

Some of Us Still Use Snail Mail

How are you??? I am tickled to have found a better use for these baskets I put together a few years ago with paint and burlap. I hung them on hooks in my pantry to hold plastic grocery bags. It wasn't the best use of the baskets so I added the black wooden letters for incoming and outgoing mail and hung them in the laundry room next to our keys. The "in" basket is currently overflowing. Uggh, another thing to go through and sort.

What have you been up to? Happy Hump Day!

Bunk Bed Find on Craigslist!

I am sooooo excited with a win from Craigslist! Time for another room redo! My youngest is growing up and has grown out of his crib. Found a great bunk bed on Craigslist! Oh the ladder is on top so our boys don't play on it right now. We'll see what I come up with for bedding and a room redo! Can't wait!

Motivated To Organize!

Organized is what I strive for but I'm not quite there yet. Definitely working on it though! I've been traveling some the past few weeks and this past weekend got to spend some time with some really close friends I hadn't seen in a while. What a nice weekend!

Anyhow I am trying to get organized and the motivator this time is TOYS! We have TOYS galore. I've worked to get them sorted and organized and will share what type of organization system I used. I'm really working to have a place for everything in the house. We'll see how it turns out! 

Long Lost Blog Images

If you go back to any of my earlier posts you'll see most of my images are missing. Technical issues have caused all my image links to disappear so I'll be taking time to relink all of my blog images. Bummer but hope you can bear with me. Hope you have a great week and we'll talk soon!

Cheapo Play Room Wall Art

I looked at my last post and can't believe it is nearing a month since I've been on here. Not intentional. Last night I sat and watched a new show on TV with my feet in a foot massage thingy to dull the aches from keeping up with them at the pool. It's all good though! How is your summer going? I hope you are having a great summer!

Below is a little addition I made to the play room. I picked up 5 small wooden painted cars at Michael's for about a quarter a piece and hung them on the wall with 3M wall hangers. Super cheap and easy. They don't have to be perfect or symmetrical and something like this can be a simple addition to a child's room. Happy summer. Gotta try and get to the pool today before it rains!

Summer Projects Started - 6-9-13

How are you? Is school out where you are? It's out here and I can't believe how fast the year went. I feel a little bad for my kids because the first official days of summer break I've been trying to get lots of sleep to get over strep. Things have been different - the past several months my family has been thrown some serious curve balls and we're all trying to keep moving and simply embrace change.

Today was more productive. I finally got off my rump (yay for more energy. i hate being sick and laying around) and worked on our exterior door knobs, locks and hinges. I am so excited to have made some progress. The door knobs have been sitting in a closet for over a YEAR and the hinges for MONTHS. I'm not sure why it has taken so long to motivate but I'm glad I finally did. Little things like drilling new holes to fit the hinges is so much fun when I get into it. The power drill was put to use today! Went out to Lowe's today and got some new drill bits and sure used them. I still have to replace the front door hardware and two hinges to the back door so everything matches and we don't have brassy gold glaring back at us!

I'm going to try and do a project a day and I'll let you know how it goes. What are you doing with your summer? What are your plans around your house?

Mind-numbing

I feel a little numb tonight. Well A LOT numb. HOLY COW! How many of you watch Game of Thrones??? There really isn't much that I like to watch on TV besides HG TV(go figure!) but my hubs and father both read this series and I got hooked on the HBO series as soon as I was introduced to the first episode. It's jam-packed with action and drama and unfortunately has the most shock factor of any story I have heard about. Tonight I cried. I'm still sad, sniff sniff. Seriously since I haven't read the books I don't know what good could possibly come out of the story and man does it know how to tick me off. I  think all of my favorite characters are going to get killed off. Still it's so intriguing with all of the stories going on at once. I have no idea how the Season Finale will turn out but this unsettling numbness sucks tonight. So sad. Just had to share my opinion of the show. Man!

Looks Like My Site Has Been Spammed OR Hacked

In the process of removing my Wordpress site and transferring back to Blogger, I have lost my links for a lot of posts. I am working to fix this but it will take some time. In the mean time someone has put ads throughout my posts. Just wanted to let you know where I stand. Can't wait to get some summer projects done to share with you. Happy Friday!

Allow Me To Introduce A Friend

Hi all! Hope you have had a great start to your week. It was a busy day here and I have a case of the jitters because my son starts kindergarten tomorrow. YIKES! I'm getting ready for bed but wanted to give an introduction to a friend of mine who is new to the blogging world!

My friend's name is Mel and she has some really cool ideas to help you organize and decorate your home! Her blog is called Mellywood's Mansion A Diary of DIY Delights and Disasters. She's very down to earth and has a fresh perspective on home projects. Check her out and enjoy!

Rugs

How was your Mother's Day? Hopefully it was good. I had a house full of sicklings. I just have to say that I love rugs. I don't know why but I always catch myself looking at various rugs and runners when I am in any type of home store. Here are just a few we have in our house. The one in the kitchen landed in the dining room b/c I am not the cleanest cook and didn't want to ruin the kitchen rug with spills. I was noticing that all of the rugs I have in our house have similar hues. They are all very close in color schemes and flow with the rooms and each other. Do you like rugs in your house?

Happy Fourth!

I've got lots of projects around the house staring me in the face. I went to the beach last weekend with girlfriends and wouldn't you know I got sick again. Boo hoo. :- ( Not sure what is up with this whole getting sick thing but on antibiotics again fighting it. As soon as I get my energy back I'm going to show you how I've made the front door a little more welcoming! Hope you have a great fourth today!

AHHHH The HGTV Smart Home

Wonder who is going to win this beautiful vacation home!?!? Oh my gosh I love it. I'm not much of a techie but this house is AWESOME. We watched the tour of the home on tv as a family and our six year old was begging us to vote to win it. Doubtful but it's so fun to dream. Wonder what lucky family will win it! Can't wait to find out!

Use Hairspray To Remove Marker Marks From Wooden Surface

The joys of children! I used to be so particular about things but over time my kids have certainly broken me of that! Here is just a small swatch of the marker they got on the kitchen table. It was like this for weeks until my mother-in-law told me you can use hair spray to remove it. I rarely ever use hairspray but I do keep a can around to spike up the boys' hair for fun every once in a while. This is such a cool trick and I am proof that it works. I had a can of cheap Tresemme.

Spray the hairspray on and wipe off with a warm damp sponge. You may have to rub with the sponge a few times before it all comes clean but what a nifty trick!

IKEA Lantern

How are you? Today I feel blessed, really blessed. They say when one door closes another door opens and I think this is so true. Lately I've had a lot of eye opening experiences and I really do think that if you have faith in something, it's very possible it will happen. You have to have a focus and push to make it happen, but in time I think with faith and motivation anything is possible. Today the sun finally came out and a new door opened!

With all that has been going on I haven't had the time to be able to update this site the way I would like. I have tons of ideas and projects but not the time to carry them through. I'm hoping to get back on track and start posting again. I love what my site is about and it's a great escape to create and have fun! I've met so many cool people who enjoy similar things!

If you've read any of my past posts you'll see that I like to keep things simple. Below is a galvanized lantern from IKEA. I used to have it hanging from the ceiling from a hook. I got tired of the look so I painted these wooden decorative balls and placed them in the lantern for an updated look. It adds a really nice color to my bathroom vanity. Do you have any lanterns? How do you display them?

Unhinged??? Nahh!

I am soooo excited! Bet you can't guess why! I have been procrastinating on a project but as soon as it warms up I can complete it. YESSSSS!

Guess what came in the mail today! I FINALLY found brushed nickel hinges that have the straight AND curved edge to change out the ones we have on our exterior doors. They came at a large price but I think it'swell worth it at this point. I started out painting them nearly a year ago and it turned out to be way more of a chore than expected. I can mark this purchase off the to do list. Now for the installation! More to come!

Spring Has Sprung

I'm so excited! This time of the year is the best! It was absolutely beautiful today so I spent the whole day outside in the yard.

I painted some things I have been wanting to paint for a while to freshen things up and I got a lot of flowers planted today.  I have three types left to plant too but I'm working on ideas for them. I am good with potted plants but when it comes to a  flower bed,  I get lost as far as what to plant. I'll probably make another trip to the hardware store tomorrow. Happy planting!

Early Stage of Gallery WALL

Above is the current and early stage of the Gallery Wall I'm going to do. As you can see I have nothing up on the walls yet. I'm a researcher and plan carefully when it comes to walls. I'm a skeerdy cat about hanging things. It took over year to finally hang the first thing on the wall when we bought this house. I guess you could say I am anal about it but I want to be sure I'm happy with what and where I hang something.

I am the world's worst when it comes to photos of my kids. The whole getting portraits made and framed to hang or use as decoration, I suck at. I have soooo many pictures from my oldest when he was born that are sitting in envelopes in a big bag. I have had this on my to do list for a long time so I am going to work on this one.

I found a wall I thought was really nicely laid out. It was casual and comfortable looking without being totally uniform and perfectly aligned. This is what I want to do. As of right now, all the pictures I want to hang on the wall upstairs are sitting on our coffee table behind the couch. They are in matching IKEA frames. I found this blog and LOVE the third picture down. This is what I want to try and do my own version of.

How do you display pictures in your home?

Upgrades To Your Abode?

Upgrades To Your Abode? 

If you had plenty of disposable income, what ONE change would you LOVE to make to your home? I know what mine would be! Mine would be to rip up this carpet on our staircase and install wood stairs. Then I'd like to change up the railing so the wood matches the hardwood flooring. 

 

We had pine flooring when we moved in and upgraded to a dark wood floor and the difference between the staircase railing  and the floor drives me bonkers. It's one of those things you notice, or I should say I notice every time i go up or down the stairs. Funny thing is - over the weekend I was trying to count the number of times I use the stairs and I lost count. So this is one of those things we will definitely change one day. For now, it's good to have carpet b/c we have a fairly new walker in the house and he's learning just how to use the stairs. So until the kiddos get a little better, we'll have a mismatched foyer. I really can't complain though because our house has come a looooong way in just the last 5 years. 

I'll eventually take on this challenge and try to come up with a reasonable way to update the stairs without spending a fortune! I would LOVE to do wood stairs with some sort of awesome,fresh runner up and down the middle of the stairs! Can't wait until the day I can share this project but I think it will be a big undertaking. For now my excuse not to attempt it is the kids! 

One of these days though, one of these days!  I would love to hear what you would change about YOUR house! 


For fun, simple reasonable DIY home decor ideas come visit www.keepitsimpleyay.blogspot.com