January 2 Flowers

#projectlife365 #you_today

My mother always gets flowers on this day.

I remember walking into my first class of my senior year of college and hearing her blurt it out on the phone.  She tried to hold it in, but my mother has always been uncomfortably straightforward.  Your grandma has lung cancer.  My hand slid down the door handle and I walked a few feet away as I tried to make sense of the words.  We just lost my great grandfather to that within a month of him finding out.  Now her.  Just perfect.

She had been having symptoms for some time and refused to get herself checked out.  If she had, who knows what would have happened.  It might have unfolded in the exact same way with wires and hospice rooms on Christmas.  There is no sense in thinking about that part too much.  What's done is done.

My mother is a machine.  She always has been but in a rough situation, look out.  Someone needs help filing some forms?  Don't worry about it.  She's already done it...and she made dinner for the next week.  The problem with my mother, while in Terminator mode, is that no one is able to reach her.  Cancer blows and it sucks even worse when there's nothing you can do for the people who have nothing wrong with them except broken hearts.

So she gets flowers.  Of course, we don't talk about why she gets flowers but she gets a phone call asking her to check her front porch when she gets home from work and I get a text message photo of what they look like on her counter.  It may not be perfect but it works for us.  I'll get a phone call tomorrow about the crazy antics of my sisters and not a word will be spoken about this.

And that's alright.

*I'm participating in the Project Life 365 Challenge.  Just roll with it or join in.

Home Organization 101: The Dining Room

Our dining room is the only room in our house that doesn't need to be decluttered.  We don't keep anything extra in here.  Woohoo for an easy week!

Home Organization 101: The Pantry

A few weeks ago, I started the Home Organization challenge.  Since I was late starting, I started from the beginning and the pantry was up next.  We have this huge pantry that becomes a bit like a catch all.

I bought seven of these plastic containers months ago to store each meal's ingredients for a week.  Since we started our once a month cooking, they haven't worked out exactly as I had planned since most of our meals are in the freezer.

After!  I took out our tupperware from the kitchen and stacked them and put the lids in a plastic tub.  This helps us see where the pieces actually are instead of blindly grabbing in that dark cabinet and hoping you get the pieces that fit together.

I condensed all of the food to one wall of the pantry.  It makes me feel like I don't need to run straight to the grocery store because there actually is food in the house.  Our small appliances and medicine cabinet are all up high since they aren't used on a daily basis.  Those plastic tubs were repurposed to hold pasta, vegetables, side dishes, and odd items like peanut butter that don't fit into categories.

Treats and leashes are stored together now instead of three different drawers.  The harnesses and collars are staying in the master closet/storm shelter.  After last year's tornado, I get anxious that my dogs might find themselves outside without identification.  If things get real, I would prefer to have those handy.

I've been on a huge homemade cleaning kick lately.

I think this will be super handy to grab and take out when I'm baking something.

Next up is the office.  Since we don't have one, I think I'd like to tackle the guest bedroom.  I don't think I've ever liked the way that it looks.  I'm excited to take a swing at it.

Another One Bites The Dust

The theme of this year in our house is sacrifice like crazy so we don't ever need to again.  We're living entirely on one salary and the other goes straight to paying off debt.  We don't have any crazy debt story or anything.  I lived the crap out of the time that I was in college and had no idea what a budget was.  I'll take a year of super frugality in exchange for being in the right mindset to find my husband when I came home from a student loan funded study abroad trip in Italy.  But it sucks to pay off later.

But small victory!  We paid off Hubs' truck yesterday.  I called him to say, "Hey guess what?!"  He answered with a "Guess what" of his own.  Within the same hour that I sent the payment off, he realized that he had a gaping hole in one of his tires and was extremely lucky that he happened to have his air compressor in the truck so he could make it home.  Such is life.

They may not be new, but they're paid for.

Our Debt Snowball:

Discover Card

Best Buy Card

Bank of America Zeta Card

Hubs' Student Loan

Hubs' Truck

My Student Loan 

And then there was one.

Wish him luck

Hubs has been having an identity struggle where his job is concerned lately.  He works really hard.  Goodness knows that he works hard.  He feels like he's being taken advantage of at work and the stories that he brings home makes me wonder if they're churning out gossipers more than product at his company.

He found an electrical lineman apprenticeship program that really has gotten his attention.  A lady that he works with has a husband in an apprenticeship and he loves it.  My sweet husband who would barely call to order a pizza because he was too shy when we started dating has been reaching out to anyone that he can get a hold of.  He's taken his coworker's husband out to talk to him, reached out to bloggers, and buried himself in forums to try to give himself everything he would need to try to get accepted into the program.

He officially applied last month.

Off it went!

He got a letter in the mail within a week scheduling an interview.  He tells me that he's read that this program only does interviews every 4 months so we are waiting very patiently until January to see if this is a road that we're going to go down for the next years of our life.  

He's so excited.  And it makes me so happy to see him get so excited.  He's a dang good husband.

Quick Dresser Freshener

A few weeks ago, my mother in law and I stopped in this little antique store.  She found a cute little dresser buried under and behind a bunch of things.  I can never find antique store furniture for as cheap as she got this one.  We called up Hubs and made him help us carry this bad boy out.    

It had cute bones.  The top was completely scratched up and bowing from the top frame.   The stain was fading all over the place.  It just needed a bit of TLC.  I offered to redo it for her to get out of watching football out of the goodness of my heart.

I dug out the hand sander and a stray piece of sandpaper and went to town.  There was a surprising amount of nooks and crannies to sand between.

We also had a ton of interruptions.  I think she was telling me that I missed a spot because I know my sweet girl wouldn't have just been barking for the heck of it.  She also wouldn't have stolen that pillow that I was using to save my knees either.  Right.

The face of a good dog.

I think it looks pretty good where she has it.  I wish you could see the top of the dresser now.  It's so beautifully smooth!  She liked the detail in the original drawer pulls and put those back on.

My mother in law gets me.  When she hears that we're coming down, she gathers up any house projects that she would like done.  She got me to paint her hallway on Sunday.  I love it.  I told my mom about it and she booked me to paint her bedroom in January.

Total cost of the redo: $0  :)

Home Organization 101: The Garage

Last week I started the Home Organization 101 challenge and tackled our kitchen.  This week's space was the garage.  Hubs and I just emptied the whole thing out in May so it's not terrible.  Since he was at work, I didn't do too much heavy lifting or get into the spooky attic.  Anything with pull down stairs just gives me the creeps and I'm definitely not going up there by myself.

This is kind of the catch all corner.

I believe those blankets have been lying there since the last time that we went to the drive in.  In August.

I feel like the pile of shoes can build up in about three seconds.

After!  

No blankets or shoes!  What a difference.  When we moved in, the builders left these huge scraps of carpet and they've actually been super handy as mega rugs.

I'm surprised all of the junk that spread itself on the floor fit into boxes to be put away.  I was able to close Hubs' tool box for the first time ever.  That pallet is fixed to the wall to store things like baseball bats, shovels, tall umbrellas, and things like that.

Maybe someday I'll buy some pretty boxes to hold everything but for today, my budget is $0 and I'm going to embrace the mismatchy thing going on here.

Another one down!  If Hubs immediately makes a pile of shoes when he gets home from work, he gets to clean it next time.  The next area on the list is the pantry.  I can't wait!

Blog Hop #3: Tools

It's already time for another meet up with the lovely "Nice to Meet You" ladies!  I love looking at their blogs to see what pictures they put up for our question of the month.

This month's topic is what are the 6 tools that you can't live without.  Here are mine.

1.  I am a little intense about balancing our checkbook since we're working really hard to get debt free.  Clearcheckbook has a cell phone app that lets me enter transactions right at the register and reconcile them when they post to our bank account.  Super Fan.

2. My phone is my lifeline to my husband some days.  Since he's working two jobs at the moment and our schedules are opposite, all we get some days are a few texts and phone calls.

3. My older sister said that she hates cooking with a crock pot and my head almost exploded.  True Story.

4. I like Evernote because I don't want everything I pin on Pinterest to be public.  I'm keeping a list of potential Christmas presents in here with tutorials since we're doing a homemade Christmas this year.  Plus, it's much easier than scrolling through Pinterest sites to find that recipe that I wanted to make when I'm standing in the grocery store.  

5. It's not a physical tool but I think the feeling of being in the right place at the right time is a huge guiding force.  In 2011, an F5 tornado tore through the middle of the city we live in.  The recovery effort provided such a defining moment for me that I was sure that I'm on the right track.  Little things here and there pop up but it was such an intense experience that it has been impossible to forget.  I feel like trusting this tool will get me where I want to go.

6.  Our marriage.  My husband inspires me to be better.  Knowing that I'm working on things for our future gives me such a motivation that I'm not sure I ever had alone.  There's someone to be accountable to when they're our goals.  Our goals are awesome by the way. 

Please make sure to stop by their blogs to check out what they can't live without.  We would love to see yours!  Make a Pinterest board or blog post and link up with us.  We would love to get to know you better. :)

Suzannah @ Adventures in Dressmaking
Ashley @ Bricks & Baubles

Jeanette @ Artchoo

Ashley @ She Makes A Home

Erika @ Fox Trot Press

Sentrell @ Suite Seven

Dani @ The Future Reynolds

Jenny @ House Full of Pretty

Haeley @ Design Improvised

1 Year without Soda

We had a fun milestone in my house last week.  I went a full year without a soda!

I don't remember what made me decide to see if I could make it a year without one.  Sunkist has been my vice of choice since high school.  It's not particularly good for you either.  Thankfully, I quit missing soda by Thanksgiving.  Fun twist though.  Hubs works for one of the major soda brands.  He likes to tease me that I'm not giving him enough job security by swearing off soda.

Since I drink a ton of water and I'm not drinking soda, my skin has been great.  I've pretty much maintained my weight instead of letting it continue to climb so I'm going to count that as a win too.

Looking forward to year two!

Charlie the graduate

Charlie graduated from his beginners obedience training class!  We're proud parents. :)

Home Organization 101: The Kitchen

I found this awesome organization challenge on Friday and decided to start at the beginning since my house could really use it.  The first challenge is the kitchen and it couldn't have come at a better time.  We loaded everything into the cabinets when we moved in two years ago and haven't rearranged anything since.

This is a little embarrassing.  We tried the curtain rod thing to hang your cleaning supplies on but ours was too flimsy and it's out of sight most days and forgotten.

I have empty shelves?  Say what?!  I spent $10 on plastic containers to split between the kitchen and the pantry and they've made a huge difference!  

Dachshund photobomb.

The cleaning supply cabinet isn't the messiest section of the house anymore!

I have a short container holding all of our kitchen utensils that aren't pretty enough to be left on the counter full time.  It's a smidge too tall for the silverware drawer so it found a home on the pull out section with the pots and pans.

The things on this pull out shelf were spread out between 3 different cabinets.

I have a baking cabinet.  I love it!

Another of the containers is holding travel mugs because they can take over an entire cabinet if not watched closely.  This cabinet has all of the casserole dishes, mixing bowls, and Christmas tins.

I have all of the spices in one at a decent height to where I can actually reach them.  

This is the mother in law dish cabinet.  The next time we see her, all of these will get to go home where they belong.  I do feed her son.  I promise.

I put down place mats in the fridge for easy cleaning.  I'm just one short so I'll need to go back to Target soon. 

I believe the garage is the next area on the list.  I think I'm going to pull Hubs in on that one and let him go crazy.  I can't wait to do the whole house.  My kitchen is making me so happy right now!