Kemah fun

The hubs was off this weekend, which is awesome! He works a totally bizarre, 12 hour rotating shift at work where he either works days or graveyards. Twice a month he gets a weekend off, but often he is not home because he works overtime. I have NO complaint about overtime, because he takes it when it is offered. Overtime ROCKS!

He worked Friday and was off Saturday, and this week was payday, so that means we got to go somewhere fun! Off to the Kemah Boardwalk with the kiddos. We had a great time eating Mexican food, riding rides, eating chocolates at the candy store, petting stingrays, playing boardwalk games, and getting face paintings. The kids were so excited. J even said, "Dad, this is the BEST DAY EVER!!!"

Ok, so not only was that cute, but it made my weekend :)

Bunco Winner!!!

Last night I went to our monthly Bunco group. WOOHOO!

I was not doing particularly well, until the last set of 6 games. In those 6 games, I got 6 Bunco's. How does that happen? Certainly not to me!

This made me the winner of this little beauty...

Oh yeah!!! Food, fun, laughter, and prizes. Good times!

Baking and Blogging....

Today, I woke up in a baking mood. Things were kind of hairy this morning getting both the kids to school with all of our sanities in tact. This is usually when I feel like baking.

Oh boy, do I need to find another way to de-stress, or I am going to gain all of my weight back.

But on the bright side, I made cookies that were a tad bit healthier than the traditional cookies...thanks to Family Fun magazine!

Tortilla cookies!!! And they are actually good...Here is what you do:

Using a heart shaped cookie cutter, cut as many heart shapes as you want out of tortillas (wheat or flour work the best).

Lightly spray them with non-stick cooking spray...

Sprinkle with sugar sprinkles...

Bake at 400 degrees for 4 minutes...

They turn out nice and crispy with a little kick of sugar. You can make any design you want, but since Valentine's Day is right around the corner, what better than some good old hearts?!

THEN, I made a bunch of real, homemade sugar cookies. So much for the healthier alternative right? J just got home and now we are enjoying a nice, after school snack of sugar cookies and milk. To the elliptical I go!

Student desk revamp...

Ok, so my project for the week turned out great. I am really happy about how it turned out.

J is 5, and needed a desk, so I had been on the lookout at garage sales, thrift stores, and on Craigslist for months. Why would I not just buy a brand new desk?
A. We are on a budget and B. He is a 5 year old boy...one who breaks things, spills things, and ruins things faster than the speed of light.

Remember last week when I found this little gem about 20 minutes away from my home for the low, low price of $25????

Two days later....this is what I came up with...

I think it looks good in his room. Eventually, I am thinking it needs a piece of glass cut for the top. But that will come later. Basically, I just sanded this bad boy down, gave a coat of brown paint that I had left over, put a top crackle coat on it, sealed it, drilled the holes for the drawer pulls, screwed in the pulls, and called it a day. I really like the super light crackle. It is very subtle but just gives it a little something extra.

$25 for the desk and $12 for the super cool drawer pulls. How cool are those??? I love that they are big (for little hands) and have that industrial look.

Thank goodness he finally has a space for all his coloring books, crayons, and art supplies :)


Now he just needs a little chair and he is ready to go!

My Goodies....

YIPEE!!!!

After months of patient searching on Craigslist and our local thrift shops, I FINALLY found the perfect little desk for J's room! Everything I saw was either too big, not the right style, too far away, or too expensive.

I scored this little diamond in the rough today and only had to take a quick 20 minute drive to get her...
Ok, so she is really a little piece of coal, but when I am done with her, she will sparkle like a diamond! And the price was right at $25!!!!!! There is my project for the week.

Also today, my mother brought over this beauty that was given to her by a friend who no longer wanted it, and then my mom didn't have a place for it in her house. Hmmmmm, I have a place for it. Thank you for this little gift!


And the final picture of happiness in my home is this...


My hubby installed these beautiful gas logs in our fireplace this week. We use our fireplace a lot during the winter, and the kids just love it. And we were going through some major firewood. Now these ceramic logs will last FOR-EV-ER. <3

What a great day for some great finds!!

Leftover curtain fabric art

Make a pillow? Nope

Make some art? Yep!

I stretched the leftover fabric from the curtains over canvas that I had in the garage, stapled it in place, and hung it in the bathroom.

Easy, peasy.

Budget cuts hit home....

This is a post that I don't want to write, because I am in general, not an activist. But occasionally, I take to my blog to post my opinion about things that are going on in our community or in our nation.

Today, it is my state. I love Texas. There is no other state that can boast as many types of landscapes as we have. From Gulf Coast beaches, to deserts, to the beautiful rolling hills of the Hill Country, to great piney areas...Texas has it all.

And in general, I do not read the newspaper, nor do I watch the news, because it is nothing but depressing information. But I caught this, and it made me very upset.

The proposed state budget includes cutting arts education, pre-k, thousands of jobs, eliminating grants and financial aid for colleges, HUGE implications on the health and human services front, AND the CLOSING of 4 community colleges, including our very own Brazosport College!!! We have a very, very small community...so if you don't work for the chemical company, or the county, you work for the school system or the college.

BC offers a degree plan in chemical processing, which is REQUIRED by most, if not ALL of the chemical companies in town. They recently added a Bachelor's degree program in this field, and is currently making additions in hopes of expanding the degree plans. It offers Summer programs for children, community education classes in everything from wine tasting, to computer programming, to pharmacy tech, to cake decorating. BC has a great music program, an amazing theater program, a world class daycare center, and TONS of affordable classes for either 2 year degrees or as stepping stones for transfers to universities.

My husband got his chemical processing degree there, I took summer classes there while attending Texas A&M, and my boys go there for their kid programs in archery, cooking, sports, art, construction etc.

It would be devestating to our community to no longer have this as a higher education option for our kids.

So, I wrote my local representative to express my concern about these cuts. Now, my personal opinion is that our politicians spend too much time, money, and resources on things that don't matter. Plane rides, bailouts for corporations that make billions of dollars, elaborate inaugural parties, etc.

I mean, I look at our budget, and with J's most recent asthma attack and trip to urgent care and purchasing his medicine, I totally get when things are tight. Single mothers know about budgets and working with tight budgets. Our middle class knows about working with tight budgets. We are in a recession and we can't have everything....but to close an entire college seems very excessive, especially when you throw in all the other cuts they are proposing.

Seriously, the state needs to consult with a board of moms to create a better budget. Moms are running the world after all.

The dreaded Master Closet!!!!!

Cue super ominous-psycho music....

Behold! The dreaded master bedroom closet...




Yes, I know. It made me cringe every time I grabbed a shirt. It was dead last on my list of things to accomplish over the next few weeks, but with the progress of the bathroom stalled, I decided to tackle it.

It made sense because the master closet is IN the master bathroom, so I still feel like I am making progress on the bathroom redecoration. Sneaky, Sneaky!

It started last night with the purging of my clothes. Since the weight loss, and then the tummy tuck, I cannot wear most of the things hanging in there. So I bagged up all the "non-wearable" clothes, and then moved on to the "haven't worn in ages" clothes. Some I kept, but most I didn't. After all that, I went to bed....cleaning is exhausting.

This morning I woke up ready to tackle the rest of the mess. After the boys and I ate breakfast, they ran off into their rooms to fight their Transformers, and I ran to my closet, ready to use as much of my energy as possible, before my ADD kicks in. (I don't really have ADD...Well, actually, I have never been diagnosed with ADD, but many times I think I have it. Design ADD, at least...but I digress...)

An hour, three trashbags, and two donate bags later, I hit the wall. The undiagnosed ADD kicked in. But I was at this last point.....


Shoes. I started to think I needed a shoe intervention. But I persevered and continued the clean. And look what I found after each pair was organized...


An open space for more shoes!!!!! Who needs an intervention? Not me!





I used to complain about how small my closet was, even though it is twice the size of our other closet in our old house. But now it looks quite large. Now if Josh would just give up his 1/3 of the closet it would be perfect. I kid...I kid...he can have it.

****BONUS**** In all this cleaning, I uncovered $1.22 in change!!!! SCORE!!!!!

This last picture is crappy, I know. But any of you who read my blog regularly know that my camera has a mind of it's own and works when it wants to. This blurry picture was to show you the new outfit I purchased, down to the boots (which I bought last year)...just to show you the jeggings. Yes, I bought a pair of jeggings. I have always been anti-skinny jean/jegging for me because of my weight. But I finally, just for fun, tried them on. They fit and I thought they were cute, so I got them.

Alternative to contact paper

We are still working on the master bathroom, and I just know it is going to take a WHILE to get done. Especially the shower tile, because I have a feeling it is going to morph into doing the tub as well.

Anyway, I am out of contact paper and I wanted to add a little something to the inside of the drawers.

Using a stencil, I traced a quatrefoil pattern inside the drawer.

Then I just used the same brown paint I used a couple of days ago and painted in the pattern.


It is so cute. I am really happy with how it turned out.

Curtains

Today the hubs and I went to Lowes and purchased the curtains for the bathroom.

SWOON....

Here is another boring before picture...

And the after...

I super-love the fabric but had to do a complete overhaul on these. Don't be afraid to buy things that, on the surface, don't look like they will fit. Right out of the bag, these were not going to work, but with a little...ok, a lot, of tweaking, they were window ready.

I had planned on hanging them a little lower, but unfortunately, we have some kind of wicked metal casing all around that bathroom window. About 42 holes in the wall later, we decided just to hang these higher up and forget it. Thank goodness for joint compound and some touch up paint!

And the bonus is....I have quite a bit of this fabric left. Goodie, goodie, gumdrops!!

And a double bonus...the hubs and I were looking at a local fireplace store for gas logs for our fireplace, and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted this little beauty.

I just had to snap her pic with my Blackberry!! Alas, we left the store without her.

Anyway, moving on to number three on the bathroom list....

Bathroom Redo...Part 1

I have been dying to redecorate our bathroom for about 6 months now. Thankfully, it is a bigger bathroom than in our previous home, and with the previous owners being the ones that built this house, it has a few more custom fixtures.

The light fixtures and mirrors are custom, but everything else is pretty much builder grade, and BORING.

The tile is white, the vanity is white, the cabinets are white, the tub is white, the shower surround is white, the toilet is white, the doors and trim are white, and the walls....are beige. UGH.

The hubs and I talked last weekend about making some changes to it, and once given the go-ahead, I was at Lowes picking out paint. We really need to do this on a budget...more importantly....MY budget, so it is going to take some time to get each step completed.

Here are the plans so far:
1. Paint the vanity cabinets
2. Add some curtains
3. New bathroom rugs
4. A few bathroom accessories
5. Make some hurricane vases to be filled with bar soaps
6. Tile shower surround

Step 1 was completed today. Here is the before...

And After...


$30 for this beautiful greyish brown color makes a HUGE difference. It just breaks up all the boring white and adds a little dimension and contrast. In love with the color....which incidentally is Valspar's Betsy Ross House Brown.

Ok....so now I have to admit something. Something that makes me smile. Something that has become a little, ok so A BIG design obsession. QUATREFOIL!!!! This is the most beautiful pattern. It is modern without being too cold, and decorative without being too fussy. It literally makes me swoon every time I see it on a pillow or rug! Here are some examples of quatrefoil designs...

And this leads me to step #2. I am soooooo excited. Next payday, I will be the proud owner of these fabulous quatrefoil curtains...

NOT the valance, just the panels. Of course, I am going to have to make some modifications to it, number 1 being to shorten them quite a bit. I am also going to remove the grommets and sew in just a rod pocket. I can't wait to get started on this.