time for a re-do

It is time...
time for a re-do.

I have gone long enough in our bright mustard colored master bedroom.  In fact, that isn't even the color that I wanted.  The paint chip was definitely NOT that bright or yellow.  It was quite mute compared to the paint being on the wall.  I wanted something more brown.  Guess I have learned my lesson in picking out paint.

My next vision for our master bedroom is something a lot more quiet and relaxing.  I see either a pale blue or light tan on the walls.  The comforter is going to be along the lines of ivory, khaki, or tan with some accent throw pillows.  I have already ordered the euro shams from Restoration Hardware for a third of the original price.  In fact, they are going to be my inspiration for the bedroom since I can't seem to find a picture of my dream bedroom.  The only picture that I have is in my head and sometimes that picture can be blurry.

I am planning on making curtains for the windows instead of having valances.  Our bedroom is on the east side of the house so it is bright too early in the morning especially on the weekends.  I guess you can see why the bright mustard paint isn't working now.  It is like waking up on the surface of the sun.  My sleep mask is bearly doing it's job:  keeping any hint of light off my eye-balls.

We recently upgraded to a king-sized bed (recall my stories here and then here) and felt like it is time for a more "grown-up" style.  Just to be honest, I would LOVE to rearrange the furniture for the make-over, but the someone who I am married to doesn't want to do that.  Now just answer me this:  how can I fully complete my master bedroom makeover if I can't even rearrange the furniture as it is laid out in my head?  ugh, frustrating.

my obsession

Some people are obsessed with various things such as shopping, cleaning (I am a "smidge" obsessed about this), eating, exercising, working, sleeping, facebooking, football season, tv, etc.  I think you get the idea.  The point is that people are obsessed with many things ranging in different categories.  My latest obsession is saving money....otherwise known as couponing.

I might think about saving money at least several hours or more in a single day.  It gets REALLY bad when it is time for my weekly grocery list.  I spend about 2 or more hours just making my grocery list for the week, which doesn't seem that bad when I am saving more than I spend.  I have tried to quickly go through the list without obsessing over every single dollar that might/could be saved.  It doesn't work.  I have to go through my list of known websites.

Here is my routine for each week's grocery list (in a brief nutshell):
-I start by looking through the Publix's ad to see exactly what is on sale and what we need.  I try to think about coupons that I already have cut and filed in my coupon binder.
-Next I got to I Heart Publix and Southern Savers to look at the weekly Publix ad with coupon match-ups.  They are both really good websites tell you item by item what coupons to use for each.  Some coupons can be printed from another website!  AWESOME!
-Keep in mind I am making my list and printing/searching for coupons from my binder as I am on each website.
-The next websites I go to really "seal the deal" as far as couponing goes.  Coupons.com, Money Saving Mom, and Target (store coupons) are all great places to find additional coupons for your weekly list!  And another thing:  Money Saving Mom is great about listing free samples of products that can be mailed right to your door!  I get roughly 3 samples (or more) each week on various items:  shampoo, conditioner, hair styling products, cereal, Hamburger Helper, toilet paper, deodorant, granola bars, feminine products, lotion, shaving cream, laundry detergent, just to name a few.
-And when making the grocery list I can't forget that Publix doubles coupons (up to 50 cents if in AL) and take other store coupons including $X off a $XX purchase.  Even more savings! 

Now you can see where I come from every week in making my grocery list.  It takes time, but time is money in trying to save via couponing.  For example, this past Sunday we spent $55.33 and saved $97 (savings of 63%)!  I am not going to list every single item, but we got a lot of stuff including popcorn, a frozen CPK pizza, cheesecake, produce, fish fillets, bread, 2 bottles of Complete contact cleaner, TP, shampoo, shaving gel, sandwich meat, and 6 bags of Halloween candy.

Speaking of Halloween candy, it has been my goal to not spend a dime for any candy this year.  Considering Publix has had the good candy (Nestle's Crunch, Reeses, Hershey's Kisses, and Yorks) BOGO, it has been hard to stick to my goal.  So far we have 9 total bags of candy (no small bags, but decent sized bags) and have spent less than $8 total.  Not too shabby; less than $1 a bag.  You can't even that good of candy at the Dollar Store for that price!

September 11th

Today is the day that will live on in America's history for eternity.  I will never forget that day and watching the news coverage.  The images of dying people, burning buildings, and destroyed planes are imbedded in my memory as long as I live.

Today I am lifting up the fallen, their family members, and service men and women who have helped make our country the greatest place to live.

You can relive my 9/11 story here.

confessions of a 26 year old shopaholic

Confessions:

I told myself that I would never buy jeggings.  And I did today.  After I told myself (last year) that I would never buy skinny jeans.  And I did and currently have 2 pairs of those.  So I have 2 pairs of skinny jeans and 1 pair of jeggings.

Next I told myself that I hated those bootie high heels.  And I bought some of those today as well.

To make things even worse:  I put them on together.  And they look great as an outfit.

I just need to buy a shirt to wear with them.  Now what is a shirt that I told myself that I would never buy...?

lucky #5

For almost 2 years, I have been struggling to get good sleep again.  It just hasn't come easy.  There are several factors for this, but the #1 is the MATTRESS.  As I previously reported, mattress #4 made its appearance at our house and left in a quick fashion.  It spent roughly 4 weeks at house before making its leaves of absense last night. 

Not even 5 minutes after the delivery guys left, we noticed several stains on the brand new mattress.  GROSS!  I don't even feel like going into the round and round conversations that we had with Mattress Firm about receiving a new mattress.  I am just thankful we now have a STAIN-FREE mattress.

Not only is it stain-free, but it is SUPER firm.  In fact, it is the firmest matress they sell.  It is h-e-a-v-e-n!  I am pretty sure the mattress episode is over.  I have definitely met my sleeping match and we will sleep happily ever after.

THE END

30 day shred

The end of May has come and gone and sadly I did not meet my resolution goal.  I got down 6 pounds, but the last 4 were extremely hard to lose.  Basically I just gave up.  In the meantime, I have gained 4 back so I am still net 2 for the year.  Some people think that is a win, but for me it is a complete fail.  I am on track for gaining the 2 back plus more before the end of the year.  Then I will be back to where I started the first of the year.  It's time for a change...

For the past few weeks, my co-worker, Erika, has been saying she wanted to lose some weight.  Her birthday and a beach trip are coming up so she wanted to use those events as motivation.  She brought a couple of her work-out dvd's to work yesterday to show us just how intense they are.  After seeing The Biggest Loser workout, I set my eyes on the 30 Day Shred by Jillian Michaels:  20 minute workouts everyday.  Not too bad, I thought.  So we decided to start the dvd together; a buddy system really is the best way to go.  We set our start date for tomorrow, Sunday the 22nd. 

I have to confess, though, I started it today.  I have been SUPERLY lazy tired recently and I know it's from not proper exercise.  I hope that my workout today will help my sleeping tonight to improve.  I know that I slept great during the first half of the year.  It has to be the workout! 

We will see where this takes me.  I am not setting a goal of "I want to lose this amount of weight" or "I want to wear this size clothing".  I simply want to do the 30 Day Shred and take a look at the results afterwards.  This is my pressure-free work-out routine.

2010 backyard makeover

When we moved into our house last May, Daniel had a vision for both the front and back yards.  His front yard vision was simple compared to the back yard.  His goal was to remove the bradford pear in the front.  He did that with flying colors and ease.

The biggest project we knew buying our house was the backyard.  There was nothing wonderful about it except that it was a decent size and fenced in.  There was good bones about it, but Daniel talked about how much there was to dig up and replant. 

And boy, was there!  My intentions were to help with as much of the makeover as I could.  I am happy to say that I contributed one day's worth of work by digging up rocks.  I have never seen so many rocks on all my life!  I would have to say that we had close to 1000 rocks in and buried in the yard.  Obviously I couldn't dig them all up so Daniel did about half of the rocks digging as well.  Then my part was done.

Daniel exploded on the scenes with his digging up plants and planting new ones in their place.  He made several really nice beds for the new plants around the yard.  Two of the beds are against the house and are lined with brick pavers.  They look fantastic!

The hardest and most stressful part of the makeover was deciding on the pavers for our patio extention.  We wanted something that wouldn't look janky, but also didn't want something that was too expensive.  We had already unloaded hundreds of dollars from our wallets and I was looking to save as much as I could.  After many weeks of researching and comparing, we decided on plain gray pavers.  They were less than half of the fancy ones we had originally picked out and we still have plans to paint the them along with the original patio.

After deciding on the pavers, Daniel went to town on laying them.  I must say that Daniel surprised me with his paver-laying abilities.  He spent several hours watching video after video about how to lay pavers and the materials needed to do so.  He laid them all down within a few days' time.  And they look great!  I hope our next house is already landscaped and beautiful, because this was a very stressful project.

Before Pictures

left corner of yard

right corner of yard

back of the house

left front corner of yard

 

After Pictures

left corner of yard

right corner of yard

back of the house
part one of the patio extention

back of the house
part two of the patio extention

the new and improved back of the house