My Productive Weekend.

This weekend, Carson went to Michigan for a conference. After I dropped him off at the airport on Thursday morning (his flight was at 6, so we left at 4:30am - yes, I was a bit grouchy), I realized that I had an entire weekend ahead of me and only one day of work. So all weekend I worked on things I'd been meaning to do. I took pictures of some of it (you probably didn't need a picture of mopping or laundry, so I didn't take one) just to remember what was probably the most creative and productive weekend ever. I re-arranged, organized, brainstormed, decorated, baked and shopped (mainly for groceries) until I left for the airport again on Sunday morning. I'm pretty proud of my accomplishments, so take a gander: 

1. I painted my nails. Bright pink, since it was a rather rainy and gloomy afternoon.

2. I wanted something to hold my stud earrings, so here's what I did: I snapped the top off one of these pencil boxes. I think I could still use it again if I wanted to, but it was empty and had been sitting around with my craft stuff since approximately 1998. I then folded burlap accordian style and put it in the box. My burlap didn't go all the way to both ends of the pencil case, plus it was a little ugly, so I cut two pieces of paper to fit over that. It looks better than I'd anticipated, and now my vast collection of pearl studs is sorted out and not one big mess to sort through.

3. I found this little key rack at the craft store, so I just painted it and put it on the wall by the door we use most frequently. Now I won't run all around looking for my keys, only to discover that they were in the tiny pocket in my purse the entire time.

4. Our kitchen was needing some curtains. I didn't really care if they were pretty (that's why they aren't), but since that window looks right into our next-door neighbor's window, and since that window provides a great view of the stairs, which we descend in our early morning hair-everywhere-sloppy sweatpants, I thought that a curtain might not be a bad idea. We only want those neighbors seeing our best side. I made these to hang over the cabinets with no doors in our Spokane apartment (click here for a glimpse...it's photo 12) since it was the largest amount of fabric I had, and they were the right length for this window. I used a dowel rod to hang these up, and they're way too full, but it's unlikely that it will bother me enough to make new ones.

5. I used glitter nail polish on my keys. Why? Because it's a beast to get off, and now I know which key goes to which lock.

6. I painted these to go over our bed. I finally solved that dilemma. It's not what I wanted, but it was my cheapest option (four frames from the $ Store and paper and paints I already had).

7. I've had this empty frame sitting around with intentions of making an earring holder for over a year. I finally did it this weekend! I just stapled burlap to the frame with a regular old stapler, painted my first initial in the middle, and hung it up. Easy - I should have done it a year ago!

8. I made these when Carson came home. It's a Crockpot Chicken Caesar sandwich recipe I found here. I added bacon, since we had it and since most Caesar sandwiches have bacon - excellent addition. We'll make this again for sure. Very easy, not very healthy, and makes great leftovers.

9. I found this old shelf at Goodwill and painted it red. It will go above the stove in the kitchen (as opposed to the one in the bedroom?). It's not the prettiest, but that space needed something and I think a shelf will do the trick.

10. I don't think any non existent guests will have trouble finding it, but just in case, I hung these up on the door. I felt like making a sign of some sort and this was the only option that came to mind. I received the tags as a gift and LOVE them. If I had more, I'd label everything. I really enjoy labeling.

11. Our fall table. It's evolved a little bit, but these branches of fake leaves were $0.50 so I stuffed three of them in my pretty blue mason jar.

12. Hung this up in the bathroom. I'll show a picture of the whole room soon so you can see where it is, but I  wrote this C.S. Lewis quote on a piece of paper and cut burlap as a mat. Very simple. And by the way, yes, I did have a ton of burlap on hand.

13. I made breakfast sandwiches to freeze. The eggs were baked in muffin tins, which I'm for sure trying again (I had visions of exploding egg on the side of my oven, but had no problems) I haven't tried one, but I doubt you can go wrong with English muffins, cheese and egg. I may fry a little of that bacon to put on top. These will be great to grab and go.

14. This isn't going to stay on the wall, but we have a long, empty wall in the living room that just looks so WHITE and sad. So I grabbed a bunch of pictures and made a collage. It's too cluttery to keep forever, but the pictures are fun to look at, and it was free. Eventually, I'd like a big painting here.

15. I cleaned my makeup brushes using vinegar and Dawn dish soap - it worked better than brush cleaner and they're so soft now!

16. I made pumpkin bread. I'm actually not sure if this is cake or bread, but here's what I did: a spice cake mix, a can of pumpkin, one egg and a dash of milk. I threw it in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes and it was perfect! I hadn't baked in a long time and this was so easy that I'll probably do it again!

missionary training?

It's sort of funny that this is the kind of "hardship" I'm posting about because let's be honest, it's not a hardship. 

At the moment, I have sore arms. Very sore. Why's that?

The washing machine decided to be ridiculous and fill up with water and then just sit there, all wet and covered in soap. So sweet Stephanie and I wrung the water out of the clothes, I hauled them upstairs (it was heavy) and rinsed the soap out in the bathtub. After that, they were ready to be wrung out again and thrown in the dryer. 

Now I'm sore. And sort of embarrassed that I consider this a hardship. What an easy life I really lead! 

what i really did this weekend

Over the weekend, I intended to attend to this:

But instead, I ate some of this:

And did a lot of this:

And this:

And more of this:

[it would be SO much faster with a sewing machine!]

To turn this:

Into this:

And the uncabineted cabinets to this:

[the floors are actually that scuffed and torn, not dirty]

And ended up with these:

And some more:

In the end, the living room looked like this:

So there's laundry waiting to be folded. But the living room has been cleaned and we have pretty pillows. All in all, a successful two days!

Hello, weekend!

This fall, I have not worried about midterms once. And I don't think I'm going to concern myself with finals either. I don't mind the lack of stress. Apparently midterms for Moody are next week. Halfway through the semester already? So quick!

I've received my first sign of working in a daycare: Yep, I'm sick. Sore throat. Hoping that if it's going to end up any worse, it will blow over by Sunday night. I was falling asleep all day on Friday, rocking babies and such. When I get sickish, I'm so tired. I'm NOT the little engine that could. I'm a sleep-all-day type. Huge wimp.

We've officially spent our first night apart in our new apartment. (Not like we did unofficially ever. But whatever.) Carson attended a men's retreat with the church. I joined the other girls in my building for a girl's night. More junk food than we'd like to admit and You've Got Mail (one of my all time favorite movies).

We purchased paint for the kitchen a few weeks ago and haven't gotten around to painting. I had Carson move the fridge before leaving for the retreat so I'm committed. It's paint that I didn't pick out - Carson found it and brought it home. Once it's up, I'll find out if I'm brave, stupid, or really brilliant for not insisting on helping decide the color. Hoping for the latter, and either way, it's going to stay there for awhile so I'll get used to it.
(this post will be scheduled so hopefully by the time you read this, paint will be drying.)

I'm in SUCH a mood to create house things. I want a table cloth or runner, to paint the table itself, to decorate our bedroom walls, to make throw pillows for the couch and our bed, to re-do the kitchen floor, to put curtains up and make the place more homey. And I want to make these things or spend under like ten dollars, which is virtually impossible.

A few weeks ago, I was thinking babies, babies, babies. I wanted one but not really to keep, just to keep for the day. To borrow, if you will. I now keep them during the day and realize that babies are cranky! I knew that but I keep getting a refresher in that lesson daily. I heard one crying in a store and while previously I would have been like "Oh, sweet thing!" I thought, "Oh boy. He sounds like he's hungry. Won't calm down for awhile. I'd better leave." Now I sound like a baby-hater. Oh dear.
I still love them; I'd just romanticized them and forgotten that they spit up and cried a lot. Now, I'm back in reality.

Our wedding pictures arrived last weekend and I adore them. I get to pick some out for printing. Can't wait to display them. Can I just print all of them? Please? I can't post them all (Oh, I would), but I have one as my Facebook profile at the moment. Beautiful. More might appear in random posts. I won't be able to help it.

Working forty hours a week didn't do much for my housekeeping. You would be appalled at the laundry waiting to be folded, the piles of papers to be sorted, filed and mailed, the dishes in the sink, and probably the clothes on the closet floor. I hope to make the weekend productive. And to make some sort of schedule so I don't live in a messy home for the rest of the time we're here just because I work. Yuck.

For Emily

Well, sort of for Emily. I didn't know what to write about and she suggested that I give details on the "humbler" things in our life right now: the laundry and the grocery stores.

We do our laundry at the Naches Laundry. It is not my favorite place to spend time, but then again, it would be a bit sad if my favorite place WAS the laundromat. For a laundromat, I think it's actually pretty expensive so we do laundry less frequently than I'd like. I usually sit in there with a book, or with one of the 1980-something magazines sitting there. They're quite entertaining, actually.

A "story" about the laundromat and why I do sit there reading old magazines: We washed our comforter one day and then went to town. We were gone longer than we should have gone. Actually, the whole thing wasn't super smart. But when we came back, the comforter was not there. We'd love to know who ran out with a comforter but who have no idea. Hopefully they're warm! (We do have a new one - thankfully, we had lots of Target cards as wedding gifts and we got one in similar colors)

And the grocery stores: This is actually funny to me, that Em wanted me to write about it at all. She LOVES the grocery stores out here. I'm fond of them too, but would never have thought to write about them. I shop primarily at Fred Meyer. It's a grocery store, yes, but also has a clothing section, jewelry store, bank, cookware, house ware section and a deli in it. That makes it sound like Wal-Mart but it isn't. It's cheaper for one thing. And it doesn't have really bright fluorescent lights. And it's not that huge. And the one in Spokane, which Emily loved, had an escalator up to the clothing section, which is just neat in a grocery store. The one in Yakima doesn't have an escalator, but I still like shopping here.

And no, we don't have a grocery store in town. What we do have: a park (pool, tennis courts, playground), a restaurant/bakery, a statuary (place that sells garden statues), laundromat, a library, a fire station, a welcome center (oddly enough), 2 bars, lots of fruit stands, several schools, a general store, two gas stations, several churches, a medical clinic, a pet spa, a dance studio and a place that sells or repairs (I wasn't paying attention) appliances. That's about it, to my knowledge.