On the move

We got back from vacation...and I am still alive!

So I CAN live with out air conditioning and an indoor shower.

Who knew?!

Although we were all very excited to come home though.

On Friday morning I told the boys that it was time to go home. At first they were sad and then the electricity went out.

Which meant no fans...we had 5 going.

They immediately jumped in the car and sat in there for over an hour waiting for Mr. Genius and I cleaned up the house.

It is safe to say that we are spoiled by modern conveniences.

Later on I plan on showing you some picture of our little vacation. It was much needed time away together.

But today I want to tell you about our big news....

We are selling our house!

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I am having major, crazy emotions about this decision.

I think I mentioned before that we took the Dave Ramsey class at our church last year.

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Taking that class is the best decision Mr. Genius and I have made in our married life. It has truly blessed us.

We rarely fight about money now. And friends let me tell you about how much of a miracle that is.


I have been trying for YEARS to get us on a budget. YEARS people!!!!

This class is what got Mr. Genius motivated to get on a budget and to actually stick to it!

It has been so helpful for us.

We payed off Mr. Genius' student loan so then our only debt is our house!

Which is great! But the problem is taxes went up and with Mr. Genius' home office taken away, expenses went way up.

Also Dave Ramsey recommends that your mortgage be a certain percentage...which right now I can't remember what that percentage is. Whatever it is...ours is more.  Much more.

Mr. Genius has been wanting to put the house on the market as soon as he heard what Dave Ramsey recommended for the mortgage percentage. I fought him on it. I was not ready to move. After all we just moved here from TN. 

But more and more things have happened to help me realize that not only does Mr. Genius want us to sell, but God does too. I am still working on my attitude about it.

Do you always have to smile when you are obeying God?

Don't answer that.

I can not promise that there wasn't a temper tantrum or two...or ten. Tears may or may not have been shed over the fact that we will be renting. And pity parties could have been in full force.

There is a lot of pride in me that I didn't realize about being a home owner. I like having a house that I could paint the kitchen cabinets pink and put in green carpet.  Not that I would do that, but it is my house and I can if I want to.

 I seriously can't believe that I found a picture that matched my description!

Going back to renting...means I won't be able to have that freedom.

But the fact that we will be doing what we need to do, does out weight all the bad.

So people I have less then one week to get the house ready to be on the market!!!!!

I am freaking out over here.

Yesterday we started getting the ball rolling. I cleaned out closets. Then organized those closets. Sold furniture. Move around boxes in our basement in order for it to feel bigger. Touched up paint. Fixed blinds.

Over the next couple of days I plan on making curtains, make a frame for the boys bathroom mirror. Sell more items in the basement. (Anyone need a 46" projector TV?). And last but more certainly not least, clean up the garage. Thinking of cleaning that place out gives me hives. OH and we are having another garage sale...in two weeks! Did I mention that Mr. Genius will be out of town during most of this?

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Yeah, more hives keep breaking out as the minutes pass.

Once the house is all done. I plan on doing a big house tour so you can see what I have done around here and what I had planned to do.

My hope is to find a rental house that has a garage so I can still redo furniture. I love doing it so much.

Starting next week, I will be painting dressers and bed and chairs and whatever else I have out there in full force in order to clean out that garage.

Now my break is over and our winter shoes, gloves and scarves are looking at me wondering what in the world I will do with them.

Up to the attic I will be.

My Tuesday Ten

Stephanie Lynn at Under the Table and Dreaming is doing a party when you tell ten things you have done over the past week.

Since it was such a long time from my last post I thought I would tell you ten things I have been doing over the past month.

{1} First of all I am sure all of you have heard of Pinterest. Well it is my new obsession. Whenever Mr. Genius catching me on the computer now he says, "Are you Pinteresting again?" or sings "Ad-dic-ted".

I LOVE this site! You can find so many ideas on it!

Here is the link to my Pinterest account.

Look at some of the things I have found on there!

Baked Parmesan Tomatoes!! This is my new favorite food. This is coming from a woman that is not a big tomato fan. My mom is so proud.

This is my new favorite saying that will be put up somewhere in my house. Just need to find the time to do that.

{2} I have read this BEST book. Seriously, I read it in my 2 hour nap/quiet time. If you have lost someone dear to you whether it be a friend, family member or child. I highly recommend this book.

Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo. This book is a true story about a little boy just under 4 years old that dies and goes to heaven for what he says was 3 minutes then came back and he slowly tells his parents about what he saw while he was there. I have read books about heaven before. Especially after dad died, like 90 minutes in heaven and Heaven by Randy Alcorn. But this one is by far my favorite. This book has made me so excited about going to heaven. I can't wait to see my dad my grandparents...all without glasses, (because there are no glasses in heaven) and most of all Jesus and the angels and our baby that we miscarried over 6 years ago.

{3} The next thing I have gotten into is Heartsy.com. 
I am sure you all have heard about etsy.com well Heartsy.com is the groupon equilavant for etsy. It is a way to get some items in etsy for 50% off of more! I signed up a while back ago from another's blog (can't remember who) and she mentioned that if you sign up with her both I can her will get $5 off our first purchase. It was free to sign up so I thought I would give it a try.

One day Kiss a Prince was having a special for $15 for $30 in her shop. So I bought it and got 2 sugar scrubs and one solid lotion.

With the voucher for signing up under that blogger I got $30 worth of product for just $10! WooHoo.

I love the stuff too.

{4} Next week we are going on a vacation!!! Although I do need to say that where we are staying has NO air conditioning, NO TV, and NO indoor shower. Yes you read that right NO INDOOR shower. I will be either taking a shower at night or in my bathing suit. Honestly I think it will be a combination of the two. But what I am excited about is this will be our first vacation as a family with just the 4 of us. But I am praying that the 110 degree heat we are experiencing this week will be long gone. I may have to keep chanting to myself..we are creating memories, we are creating memories, to keep me going.

{5} There are 35 days left until Wild Man goes to Kindergarten!!! My life will not be the same after that day.

{6} I am working on make my own fabric for Wild Man's room with Spoonflower. His room needs some personality....bad. Wild Man put in a request for a Super Hero room with green and orange. This will be interesting.

{7} I have the urge to purge...I have this overwhelming feeling that we have too much stuff. When the boys aren't looking I am throwing away so many toys or putting them in the garage sale pile.

{8} Cuz I am crazy we are having another garage sale...because of point number 7.

{9} Sometimes after bath time and we tell Romeo to get his pajamas on and Mr. Genius and I are talking about the day in our bedroom we look down and see this...

We have our own naked cowboy who is stratigic where he places his guitar.

{10} I am now going to get a lot of crazies on my site because I just typed naked.


Have a good day everyone and do your best to stay cool.

A Dining table and Coat Rack

One Month!

It is been over one month since I have last posted!

Thank you to the sweet people who have emailed me to make sure I was still around.

I think it is safe to say that this summer is kicking my tail. The main thing that has changed is that Mr. Genius no longer has a home office. Which means he has to catch a train before the boys even wake up and if we are lucky he gets home just before they go to bed....at 8 pm. *Sigh*

We are trying to stay positive during this time. Especially since the reason we moved away from TN, away from all of our family, friends, and everyone we know was so Mr. Genius could get away from a schedule like this and actually spend time and be a part of this family.

Today I read the Bible verse from James 1:3-4
"Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."

So watch out people. I will be perfect after all of this. Just kidding, I will leave the perfection to Jesus.

I know that having a husband working long hours is small compared to other things going on in the world. It is just the frustration of changed plans, but we are giving it to God...daily...well actually hourly. Especially when the boys are extra crazy and I am just wanting to help to get dinner done, wanting to work on some furniture to pay for preschool, or just have a break.

Ok, ok enough about that. I have some furniture before and afters for you.

I know that is why all of you are here anyways.

So here we go. One day as I was taking the boys to our weekly library visit. For some crazy reason I decided to take a difference route out of our neighborhood. It was trash day. This day one of my neighbors decided to throw away this dining room table.

It obviously needs some work, but nothing that can't be done!

The obvious is of course the broken off leg.

I just got my gorilla glue out and let it sit for a day to get a good bond.

All done. It still has a crack in it, but I like it that way. It will give it personality when painted.

The top of the table had a lot of scratches on it, but that is expected.

Oh I also found a desk that same day, but I haven't done anything to that yet.

I used that desk as my legs for the table while I was waiting for the leg to get glued on.

With the three leaves the table came with it gets 96" long.

So I stripped and sanded the table and painted the legs.

And here is the after.

Now because it has been a month since I last posted. I will now show you another before and after.

My neighbor is a handy man that is helping a friend redo and 100 year old house in a nearby city. Some furniture was left in the house and he brought some of it to me!

One item was this antique foot board which I DID take a before picture.

Cross my heart, hope to die kind of promise I took the picture.

And I can't for the life of me find it...GRRRRR

So, Mr. Genius cut the legs off for me.

And this is what it looked like after that.

So that is an almost before picture.

Then I found a Rustoleum spray paint color called Lagoon. Added some chalkboard paint in the middle. Added some hooks and TADA!

It's a coat rack! It's a message board!

So there ya go. Some of the things I have been working on lately. Hope you enjoyed!

I am linking to these parties:

Monday: The DIY Showoff, Skip to my Lou, Between Naps on the Porch Tuesday: Tip Junkie, Today's creative Blog , 

House of Grace , Just a Girl Wednesday: Blue Cricket Designs, Domestically Speaking, Someday Crafts Thursday: House of Hepworths, Shabby Chic Cottage Friday: Miss Mustard Seeds, My Romantic Home, Funky Junk Interiors, Shabby Nest, Finger Prints on the Fridge Saturday: Tatortots and Jello, Be Different act normal Sunday: Under the table and dreaming, I heart naptime 

Wildflower blue dresser and french side tables

I just did two different styles on these pieces cuz I like to change things up a bit.

Don't you?

That is how I make my life a little more interesting. Cuz the rest of my life is pretty boring.

Well one exciting thing for our little family is that Mr. Genius has been saving his pennies for a while and finally bought the camera he has been drooling over for a while.

Yay! So no more pictures taken by my iPhone! Well at least the after pictures.

So I good news for you guys! Better pictures!

So lets get right to it. I got this dresser. Let me tell you. This dresser is HEAVY!! But it isn't wood...so sad. :(  Just particle board.

Oh and these were taken with my phone, this is pre awesome camera purchase day.


And I also got these round french side tables.

For the dresser I used Wildflower blue spray paint. I long for the day when I can get a real paint sprayer. So until then I will use spray paint on some of my projects.

Here is the after with the awesome camera, but we did not take it inside due to the weight of it. I was not in the mood carrying this insanely heavy dresser inside just to take it right back out again.

I used the same white knobs that I used on the green dresser.

I love the simpleness of the knobs.

The doors each have a shelf inside for storage of bigger things.

Then for the french style round side tables.

I stained the top, painted the bottom white and then glazed it.

But what the picture doesn't show but you can completely see in person, is that inside the tables I painted them with the wildflower blue.

Just a little hint of a surprise.

I really like them. But alas there is no where to put them in my house.

There are available to anyone in the Chicago land area.

Now back to the fancy shmancy camera Mr. Genius got, let's compaire a picture that I took with my phone and what a picture looked like the real camera looks like. Cuz I know there are some people out there that can't tell a different...*cough*cough* mom *cough*cough*

Here is a picture taken with my phone.

Now this is the one taken by Mr. Genius.

Can see you how much clearer the picture is?

For a phone the iPhone takes incredible pictures, but I think that the canon camera is just amazing.

It is great to have a built in photographer in the family now!

He only requires payment in Dr. Pepper!

I am linking to these parties.

Monday: The DIY Showoff, Skip to my Lou, Between Naps on the Porch Tuesday: Tip Junkie, Today's creative Blog , 

House of Grace , Just a Girl Wednesday: Blue Cricket Designs, Domestically Speaking, Someday Crafts Thursday: House of Hepworths, Shabby Chic Cottage Friday: Miss Mustard Seeds, My Romantic Home, Funky Junk Interiors, Shabby Nest, Finger Prints on the Fridge Saturday: Tatortots and Jello, Be Different act normal Sunday: Under the table and dreaming, I heart naptime 

Antique dresser and an ornate mirror

Today I want to show you a piece that I worked on a while back ago and it is already sold. But I thought it might help some of you that might find a dresser that is in bad shape to show you that it still has some potential. 

In the beginning of our never ending winter I got this antique dresser.

Is that not the worse picture ever?!

I do believe that this day that I took it, the tempurature was waaaaaayyyyy in the negatives. So far in the negatives we forgot what the positives felt like. So that is why the picture was so bad because there was no way I was going to open that garage door to get some resemblance of natural light. Plus I am just a wimp in the winter.

Remember when I made my huge picture frames?

Well, this dresser was the cutting board for the project. I live on the edge that way. ;)

Notice the dresser on the left and you can kind of see how the bottom drawer is all wonky.

So sorry for the bad pictures, but you can see that it is brown and the bones of the piece were good.

So when it warmed up to at least in the 30s (which is what these people here call spring) I started working on this piece.

I took out the bottom two drawers and made shelves.

Then I added trim.

I stained the top and painted the rest white and added some big crystal knobs.

I love how the top is curvy.

Here is something else that I just got done. I got this mirror with a dresser, but the two didn't really look good together. Being the ever demanding person that I am, I declared them divorced and seperated them.

Here is the before (it is leaning against the dresser it came with). I will be showing you the dresser next week, I am still working on it.

And here is the after.

Isn't the power of paint just crazy?

Ok Chicagolanders let me know if you are interested in the mirror.

I am linking to these parties:

Monday: The DIY Showoff, Skip to my Lou, Between Naps on the Porch Tuesday: Tip Junkie, Today's creative Blog , 

House of Grace , Just a Girl Wednesday: Blue Cricket Designs, Domestically Speaking, Someday Crafts Thursday: House of Hepworths, Shabby Chic Cottage Friday: Miss Mustard Seeds, My Romantic Home, Funky Junk Interiors, Shabby Nest, Finger Prints on the Fridge Saturday: Tatortots and Jello, Be Different act normal Sunday: Under the table and dreaming, I heart naptime 

Striped Dresser, new chair, and side table

Ok, ladies (assuming that it is mostly ladies that read this).

I have got 3 transformations for you!

Let's get right to it, shall we?

First up is this dresser that I got off of freecycle!

It was in great shape! Always a plus.

Then I also have this little table to show you.

Is that not a pitiful looking table?

Then here is the chair also got off of freecycle.

I actually got two of these chairs. One is being picked up tomorrow. Yeah!

So here are the afters!

I will start with the chair and the pitiful side table.

For the chair, I spray painted it heirloom white, glazed it, distressed it, and then found this fun paisley fabric!

Then for the pitiful side table I painted it Sherwin Williams Cloudburst.

Here ya go!

When I put this picture on craigslist I got multiple offers for my lamp.

Sorry, not for sale! Got this baby and its twin at the local Habitat for humanity restore! Love that place!

Here are some close ups to the chair.

I just love this fabric!

And now for a close up for the table.

Now the dresser.

First I striped the top which had the thickest coat of poly I have ever seen! It took forever to get that top ready to stain.

Then I used my scotch blue painters tape and went to town.

Then I painted it a taupe/tan color called puppy paws.

Love that painters tape!

Once that paint dried, I sanded it and then glazed it.

Tada!

Love the curves on the front.

The drawers were in great shape!

The problem with this dresser is that I wanted to put cute turquoise knobs on it, but since the drawers were so big all the knobs I got just looked so dinky. So no knobs was the way it ended up.

But it sold, so I guess they didn't mind the no knob look.

Fellow Chicagoans. The chair is still available for $75.

I am linking to these parties.

Monday: The DIY Showoff, Skip to my Lou, Between Naps on the Porch Tuesday: Tip Junkie, Today's creative Blog , 

House of Grace , Just a Girl Wednesday: Blue Cricket Designs, Domestically Speaking, Someday Crafts Thursday: House of Hepworths, Shabby Chic Cottage Friday: Miss Mustard Seeds, My Romantic Home, Funky Junk Interiors, Shabby Nest, Finger Prints on the Fridge Saturday: Tatortots and Jello, Be Different act normal

Sunday: Under the table and dreaming, I heart naptime