Chandy heaven

Oh Craigslist.

How I love thee.

I have been looking for months for a chandelier with crystals hanging from it.

The problem was when I found one they were asking for over $100 for it.

Not going to pay that much.

Then today I found this one!

For $40!

I think there is an inch of dust on it.

Last week I stopped by our nearby Habitat for Humanity Restore and got this chandy.

It is going in the Laundry room. I just can't decide if I want to paint it blue to match the no sew curtain or just do white.

Decisions, decisions.

The not so fun part was while driving back from picking up the crystal chandy tonight, wild man got sick in the car.

Poor guy, he hasn't been acting sick at all. It scared him too.

Although I should have known something was wrong when he didn't eat any supper.

He is usually my human vacuum. 


So while Mr. Genius was cleaning out the car, I tried to finally tackle the laundry (it could not wait another day, we were about to have to wear our bathing suits as underwear) while keeping an eye on Wild Man.

Romeo decided to help me with getting the bibs all together for me.

You can't really tell but he is wearing 8 bibs at the moment.


Well gotta go and take care of my little Wild Man.

No sew curtains

Hello all!

First thank you all so much for the encouraging and very helpful comments about my new diet! Really and truly, I thank you. I have already looked at all the blogs that were recommended and have made my menu plan for the week.

Mr. Genius, in an effort to cheer me up, took us to Whole Foods to see all the beautiful foods. Seriously that place makes the most unhealthy eating want to eat better.

That is until you go to the check out.

They need to change the name to Whole Paycheck. Geez!

But the good news is I found a new favorite food!

My heart skipped a beat when I saw them! They are really good! Yay! I think this new way of eating won't be that bad, just a change in the way I think about food.

Anywho, I am rambling. I have got to show you my new project.

Cuz what is a week in my life with out a new project?

It is a worthless one I tell you, totally worthless.

My laundry room is one reason that we bought this house.

On my list of wishes for a house was a laundry room...not a laundry closet...or like we had in our old house...a laundry breeze way...but I wanted a laundry room.

This house had it and I was sold. Now it of course wasn't decorated at all. Actually the whole house was a blank slate even though it is a 5 year old house.

So the laundry room is my room I am focusing on next. Not that I won't get side tracked on other projects or anything.

First thing I did to the room was paint it.

I painted it dried parsley. It is a Benjamin Moore color. But I had Home depot color match it with their paint with the primer in it.

Which works great by the way. Highly recommend that stuff.

Next to make it a little more homey. I wanted a curtain.

But you have to remember. I am lazy.

And apparently getting the sewing machine out, was too hard for me. So I decided to make this a no sew curtain.

Off to Ikea I went to pick out fabric.

Came home and found this wood in our garage...we really need to clean out our garage.

And these...

To make the start of the curtain...

Now most people when they see someone selling their old sheets at their garage sale, get grossed out by thinking of sleeping in someone else sheets. I on the other hand, get get excited about them. Because I see curtain liners.

I think that I am the cheapest person in the world.

But I think that these sheets...

are going to make a lot of curtain linings.

I stapled the sheet onto the rod.

Here it is all stapled up.

And here is my male Vanna White to show you it all done.

Now I need to take the time to apologize to anyone who actually makes curtains the way that they are suppose to be made.

Cuz, I totally do not do it the way it is "suppose to be" I do what I want so that it looks right when it is up on the wall.

I wanted a pleated curtain.

So I started with the inside of the pleat.

I used iron on sewing tape.

Then I stapled that onto the board ontop of the white sheet.

I forgot to take the rest of the pictures for how I did the rest of the curtain.

But I am sure you get the idea.

Then all I had left was making buttons and the tab.

For some reason last night I woke up and all I could think about was finishing this curtain.

I think I have a sickness.

I got up at 11:30 and got out my handy dandy glue gun and then it was finished!

I glued the buttons on the tabs and then I glued the tabs onto the curtain.

(the colors on the wall looks really yellow, but it isn't in real life. The last color is more true to the actually color)

And this what was in the laundry room, that I had and still have no desire to do.

Ugh laundry. How I loath you.

Then after Church Mr. Genius helped me to hang it up!

Although I had to wait until night time to take picture due to glare.

The room is started to look a little better.


I am linking to these parties.

Research

Yesterday I went to a Dr. and found out that I have an food allergy to corn, wheat, barley, soy, egg yolk, olive oil, and malt.

In other words I am pretty much moving to a gluten free lifestyle, along with just eating egg whites and no olive oil (that is what I am most bummed about).

Do you know the Gluten is in pretty much everything?

So tonight I have nothing to really blog about cuz I am trying to wrap my brain around what I am able to eat tomorrow.

I am reading this book:

My neighbor is letting me borrow this book:

And I am thoroughly researching this great blog:




So sorry I don't have anything excited today, I am just working on not being overwhelmed at the moment.

Inspecter Gadget and a hound dog.

All of our bedrooms are upstairs.

The laundry room is downstairs.

In order to get the dirty clothes from upstairs to downstairs, I throw the clothes down to our foyer, to get them downstairs.

The boys love this part and I have no problem getting them to help me get those clothes downstairs.

Today Wild Man helped a little too much.

You see that?

That would be a t-shirt on our entry light.

Lovely.

It would have been nice if I was if I had Inspector Gadget's Go go gadget arms.

Then when I went to get the broom stick I smelled a horrible smell in the kitchen.

I got on all fours and searched for that smell.

I went through the pantry, cabinets, garbage, and smelled my two year old bum more times then I can count.

After an hour I realized that I had left the gas range on low ALL NIGHT!

Aren't I just the best mom?

Anyone want to come over and risk their life at our house?

On the bright side I started another project!

Can't wait to show you!

Did you hear that?

About 30 minutes ago I think I screamed loud enough for the entire nation to hear me!

I am so excited!

I got an email from Kristin at Betty Crocker wanna be saying that she saw that I was being featured on The Lettered Cottage!

Squeel!

Do you see now why I was screaming through the house?!!


Layla at the Lettered Cottage is my absolute favorite blog and I am just thrilled that she would even even remotely likes my candlesticks. But from her blog post she sounds like she really likes them!!

Now if you will excuse me, I need to change my pants. I think I wet myself out of all the excitement.

Now the sky's the limit

Now I showed you all a sneak peak of the new toy I got.

Now to show you what I did with it.

I have always wanted a blackboard in my kitchen.

I kept looking over Craigslist for a thick frame that is cheap enough so I can justify painting it.

I looked for a few weeks, then I remembered I had this in my basement.

I got this picture and frame at the flea market (for really cheap) when we bought our first house.

I don't really like it anymore.

But the problem is that the painting is very bumpy. The painter made it like a 3D painting.

So I thought I would sand down the painting.

Like my Reindeer pajama pants? I dress cool like that when I am doing my projects.

I went on and primed,

and painted the frame (with spray paint of course).

Then I glazed the frame to tame down the green.

I was then getting really excited about how it was going to look.

You may be wondering where my new toy fits in, well here is where.

Then I spray painted the chalkboard paint on the picture...

Oh well, the whole sanding down paint idea didn't work out. Crap.

So I looked around the garage to see if there was anything I could use instead of a canvas for the blackboard.


I saw this big piece of MDF that was left over making the shelves on our den cabinets.

And like a good lazy person I just traced the canvas onto the MDF piece.

Then I got to use my new toy!!

The first time with using a power tool didn't go with out some trial and error.

First I didn't have the bladed low enough, so it didn't cut through the whole way through.

Then when I did lower the blade (once I figured out the blade could be lowered) I lowered it too far and apparently burnt the wood.

See the burn marks from the blade? and the deep trench on the table part...Oops.

But all my fingers are still attached. Does that count?

The moment of real truth was to see if the piece fit in the frame.

It does!!

Whoo hoo!

Time to "season" the chalkboard.

Now time to hang up!

I have plans for the top of the cupboard!

But I have to figure out how to drill through porcelain. Any ideas?


I am linking to these parties and

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

To find out the winner of the Where there is a will there is a way giveaway from willyourself.com
go to my giveaway page.

HERE

I have unleashed the lion

Today Mr. Genius' family went downtown.

We were planning on meeting them at the zoo after the boys naps.

Then Romeo woke up with a fever. So him and I stayed back.

That little bugger looks like he is faking it doesn't he. But he really is sick.

2 weekends ago was our neighborhood garage sale. So I drove around to check out the goods and I saw a radial saw that looked fairly new on someones driveway. He told me he was selling it for only $30! It came with the house and he doesn't know how to use it.

Well I took that saw faster then my boys can whine about what we are eating for dinner.

I have mentioned before that Mr. Genius didn't want to show me how to us the power saws for fear I would cut something off.

Well I have learned that sometimes it is easier to ask for forgiveness then permission.

So after Mr. Genius and Wild Man left I got out the radial saw and cut some wood!

This is when I would like to insert Tim Allen's grunt he would use on the Home Improvement show he was on.

I did it and as an added bonus all appendages are still attached!

I wanna see what else I can cut up!

Our own bed and breakfast

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but we have had a bunch of company.

The boys couldn't be more happy to have someone else to "showoff" in front of.

Last week, we had one of Matt's old coworker and his family stay with us. They have a 4 year old son who is just as wild as wild man. They had the best time together and Romeo just enjoyed having someone else to shadow.

Now we have Mr. Genius' Aunt, Uncle, and college age cousins visiting. They are learning about a world that includes Yo Gabba Gabba, Diego, Hot wheels, 4 am wake up screams (yes 4 am), and pure energy that doesn't need coffee. I believe our house is great birth control.

We just introduced them to Ikea. We are now mapping out their downtown visit for tomorrow.

Love having new faces in our house.

While sitting at Ikea waiting to put Wild Man in the childcare I got an email from Roeshel at thediyshowoff.blogspot.com. 

She was just letting me know that she was featuring my foyer on her blog!

Oh happy day!

Thanks Roeshel!