Christmas in July

With less than 5 months until Christmas Day, I have started brainstorming about this year's outside Christmas decorations. Last year's huge ornament window decor was a lot more trouble than it was worth.  I thought I had thoroughly thought through the hanging process, but it all became too much.  Daniel and I had several arguments about those brightly colored balls:  I had a vision and he had the know-how to make it work.  The catch was that his know-how and my vision clashed. 

outside Christmas decor 2009

So the goal for this year is to have a peaceful holiday decoration season.  I am thinking the traditional window wreaths will work, but as always, I am not satisfied with just the plain ol' forrest green colored ones.  How boring is it to have green wreaths with green bushes with green/mostly brown grass. Super boring!  My goal is to search for bright and shiny wreaths to add some pizzazz to our house.  I am not saying that I want 1970s tacky Christmas wreaths, but something along those lines will work.  Of course, I don't want to spend a buttload for them either.  We all know how much of a cheap gal I am and there's no sense is spending too much on decorations that are only out for a little over a month (if that).

Plus we are buying a taller Christmas tree for our living room!  I am SUPER, DUPER excited about this!  Don't worry about our first married 6 foot Christmas tree; we are still keeping it.  I plan on putting it in the kitchen with all of the "usual" ornaments.  Daniel says "we'll see" about putting it in there, but he will be the one to see once it is lit and decorated in front of the kitchen bay window.

The living room tree is going to be our "fancy" tree like the ones in rich people's houses.  I have always wanted to live in a house with multiple trees (like my grandparents who have like 4+ trees!).  The thing is growing up we barely had room for just one tree in our house.  I still have great memories from childhood Christmases though so I wasn't missing out on much.  Anyway, back to the new living room tree... My vision for this tree is simple:  silver and gold (I love that song!).  During the post-holiday season, Mamski went hog-wild buying up super cheap ornaments at the dollar store.  And thanks to her we just might have enough for the tree!  Of course, I still need garland, a tree topper, and various decor such as flowers and sticks to finish it off.  That gives me an idea.  I should collect sticks and spray paint them silver and gold!  Maybe I can remember to do that in the fall. 

Should be looking good at Christmas time though. 

And another thought:  how come when you decorate at Christmas it never feels like enough decorations, but when you pack it all back it, there are like 10 bins fill of stuff?  My philosophy is that one house can never have too many Christmas decorations.  Look out, Daniel!  We are no where close to having too many decorations.

football project preview

As of lately, my brain has been going to town on thinking of ways to make and create different inexpensive (precious) projects.  I completed my summer beach project (that I have yet to blog about, but will soon).  I have ideas for the fall season as well:

1.  Fallish table runner/napkins/maybe placemats
2.  Cardboard wall art
3.  Football t-shirts

I haven't started on the first 2, but I am full swing in making precious AU shirts for football season.  I can only leave you with this image.  More to come on this developing project...

the princess and the pea

When I was 14 months old, I began sleeping on a mattress that is thought to be harder than a brick...at least that is what other people have said.  To me it was my heaven...ironically just like sleeping on clouds.  Who cares that my back grew accustommed to the firmness of the mattriess?  It was (and still is) bliss when I lay on that mattress, but when it came time to marry, my back terribly missed that mattress.

Since Daniel and I have been married (for less than 2 years), we have gone through roughly a mattress every 6 months.  Nothing is supporting my back like "ol faithful". 

When we married, we had Daniel's old mattress.  He LOVED it and I HATED it.  It felt like I was sleeping in a bowl and I always rolled next to him.  After some research, we decided to buy a Sleep Number bed.  Great!  Problems solved.  Or not.  I must say that we kept that mattress a pretty long while.  It had its moments of good and bad, but mostly bad.  As it turns out, it was like sleeping on an air mattress.  No support at all!

Once Daniel and I completed our backyard makeover project in May, we started looking for a king-sized mattress for our ever-growing (dog) family.  Well, "start looking" to the Todds means we are buying one this weekend.  This is how fast it happened!  I wasn't complaining because I had heard great news about pillowtop mattresses.  I was exicted that we got a firm pillowtop mattress.  Ah, yes.  True heaven awaited us in our dreams.  Until the infamous bowl happened...

A month and half  (yes, less than 2 months) of owning the new king mattress, I began to sink into the mattress.  No support was given to my back/hips/neck.  It felt like being in a swimming pool and laying your head on the side of the pool.  Absolutely no support!  After spending a near sleepless night on that mattress due to horrible back discomfort, we trucked it back up to Mattress Firm.  After spending close to an hour in the store performing a sleep diagnostic test, laying on several mattresses, and mental analysizing, we are welcoming (with big arms) our 4th mattress next Thursday.  You have no idea how grateful I am to have another (and hopefully final) opportunity to have a good night's sleep.  And all I have to say is that it BETTER work this time. 

I will report back with my sleeping habits in due time.