My Mind Palace

Hey! Remember when I said that I was hoping to finish my spare room soon? No? That's because it was like 2 years ago. (Whoops!)

It's still not done completely, but I really love this room. It is my little escape where I go to write or read or simply escape. We jokingly started referring to it as my Mind Palace (Sherlockians will get it) and it has somewhat stuck though I still call it the spare room on most occasions.

I decided that since we never had visitors, there was no need to get a futon as previously planned and got a comfy accent chair instead so I have set up the nice little reading nook for myself.

That's my writing idea jar, because I have a habit of coming up with new ideas before I finish current projects... you'll note there are already papers in there.

Since I had a reading nook here, I figured I should have my books here too so I moved most of them into this room.

I printed off some artwork but there is still some shelf space that needs occupied. I also want to get my writing area more organized, but at least I found a tissue box that even matched (why yes, I am a lunatic. Thanks for asking).

And since every room in our house is pretty small (this one is 11'x10'), I have my make up area here as well. 

There is still a lot I would like to do, but I am so excited to share what I have so far!

Throwing out the last year, literally.

Happy New Year, folks! 

Did you have a glorious night of fun with friends and family? Or did you sit in front of your computer beating a video game like I did? (And crying because it was a sad story!)

I wanted to finish up 2013 in a nice, clean organized way so that I could start the new year refreshed and feeling accomplished. I stuck to my goal of getting the Christmas decor down last Friday which led to re-organizing and cleaning up two closets that evening. Then Saturday I went to the Dollar Store and got some more organizational materials to do some more work! My husband was a big help in getting the decor put away and helping me move and lift stuff up high (I'm so glad he's tall).

I managed to get all the closets in order this weekend except the office closet because I don't even know how to start. Most of it isn't my stuff and I have no idea what to do with it.

But the linen closet is in line with the help of some fabric cubes I snagged for $4 at the dollar store (they are between $5 and $10 at Target so it seemed like a steal to me!)

I walked into the kitchen to do some dishes, and when I opened my cabinet to get a detergent packet I decided it was not to my liking...

So I yanked out all the crap under it and grabbed my contact paper.

Then I grabbed the rejected desk organizers & a matching waste basket to stuff things like sponges, gloves and such in. Now it is pretty and organized!

Of course I couldn't stop there. Even though I haven't gotten half the stuff I want for kitchen organization...

So I gutted the drawers filled with potholders, towels and aprons and moved them around and pulled out a grocery bag's worth of towels to be tossed or donated. I moved the aprons to the bigger drawer (I have a few aprons...) and stacked up the other stuff nice and neat in order by time of use. [That last part sounds weird but it just means that the Christmas and Halloween towels are in the back since those days are further away.]

Then I stopped myself because the rest of the kitchen needs to wait till I have made my Ikea trip. (And I still hadn't started the dishwasher...)

Apparently my organization/cleaning sickness is contagious though, because my husband started cleaning his desk that night. It snowballed (maybe with my help) and the end result was this:

The whole reason I wanted an "L" shaped desk was so I could work on the section opposite my computer, but it was piled up with the printer and a server underneath and I had no room. So Chris moved the server and the printer and now we both have desks that are quite clean!!

We also cleaned up the laundry room and got a rack to hang my cleaning supplies on.

The biggest accomplishment this week was purging, though. I am almost positive our garbage men hate us.

We took out 10 bags and 2 boxes of garbage! That of course includes Christmas and our normal weekly garbage, but GEEZ! That's is a lot of stuff! But don't worry, I didn't just throw away everything. I have multiple containers of items that I washed up and packed to be donated to my church for a missions fundraiser. And I am sure I will have more once spring gets here.

I still have so much to do, but I have to wait till my Ikea trip is over and a few things get moved. I'm really looking forward to all the accomplishments of this year, though! I have a good feeling about about 2014 and I hope you have a great year!!

The To-Do Blues

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas/whatever other holidays you celebrated and are ready to start the New Year out right! I have quite a few goals and have already started initiating them (Goal 1: Don’t eat cake for breakfast – Work in Progress). I posted on Twitter (@Serestia) yesterday that I'm going to start adding "Feel Accomplished" to my to-do lists so that I will feel good about myself even if I only complete one thing on the list. You can borrow that idea. Pin it. Feel good even when you fail.

But in these things below, I shall not fail!

The Nameless Room

The spare room is pretty high on my list because I am SO CLOSE! I just need yellow curtains, a trip to Ikea, and to get the futon I’m dreaming of from Target’s website. I expect (read: pray to God) that it will be completed by spring. Probably. [Please note that having deadlines for projects is not one of my goals].

I want you in my house! Get in my house!

Re-Organization

Then we start the other project (projects like this is how we test the patience of my husband). 

I like to think of myself as pretty organized and I think if you ask many of my friends they will share the same opinion (I hope), but I find that it is a process. I keep excellent records, spreadsheets, and files but there are other areas of my house that are not what I want them to be. Here's what I'm going to do and you may want to consider doing it yourself! 

Step 1: Easy-mode. I have been keeping records of utility bill payments since 2006. I really only need to keep the last year so I'm pitching all the pre-2013 paper stuff. (I also keep spreadsheets and have the "Bills Monitor" app which is a wonderful tool, I highly recommend it. Setting up all your accounts takes awhile, but once you get the info in there you will have an easier time.)

Step 2: Grunt Work. Post-Holiday rampage. All Christmas stuff put away in an organized fashion. (This will actually lead to cleaning out our hall closet too because I store my Christmas village there).

Step 3: Gonna need a step-ladder. "Re-move" into my kitchen. I can’t find things in my cabinets and I have unused items in them that have been there since we unpacked (in Fall 2010). Make them navigable using matching Tupperware/storage for uniformity.

Step 4: Organize linen closet and other nooks and crannies. 

Step 5: Get rid of stuff! Seriously!

Low on the Totem Pole

The Shed. This is part of Step 5 up there. We have a shed FULL of stuff. It's boxes upon boxes of things we keep for sentimental value, but the truth remains: we haven't used it all this time... we aren't going to.

The patio. Yea... I've mentioned it before. We don't even know what we are doing, but we have narrowed it down to 2 options, both involve taking up the stones that are there now. I have a feeling it will be both options in this order:

1) Let it grow over into a normal patch of grass until we have taken care of other projects.

2) Have a concrete slab poured for the entire area.

Pictured: "Ugh"

The Bathroom. Eventually it will get to the point where the bathroom is the only unloved room in the house. I dislike everything about it, but it's not as easy to tackle as some might think. So it's low on the list, but on my mind. We'll get there.

Pictured: "Grrr"

So what about you?

Have you set up some goals for yourself? Are you going to make your house more livable? Are you going to shed some pounds (that's on my list too)? Are you going to (not) eat cake for breakfast everyday?

Holidays are Here!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

I hope that everyone has been enjoying the holidays. This is a busy time of year for just about everyone and it is so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle.  Last year I just didn't get into the Christmas spirit, but this year we had a nice snow and I really tried to get the decor up and looking nice (at least somewhat nice). 

First things first though, one of my favorite musicians put up a free Christmas song and said we can share it with everyone, so here is a link: A Christmas Theme. 

Valentin Wiest is brilliant and I love everything he puts out. He has two albums in a series called Fragments of Legends. You should totally grab them because they are fantastic!

Now that I have put in that little plug, here are some pics of my holidays so far!

I got one of the fancy (cheaper) iPhones and now I can take panoramas! CRAZY!

Though the new tree looks better at night. I'm doing it up ROYGBIV style next year!

We also picked out stockings this year. This is the first year Chris and I have done stockings. His outshines mine by, y'know, being a freaking wookiee. 

My Christmas village continues to grow and just down the street (as in, on the entertainment center - as seen in the panorama above) is the village we had when I was growing up that I spent hours playing with, it was a pleasant addition to our home. 

Catzilla terrorizing the people of the village.

I decided to also try my luck with a direct request to the man in red. I asked him to make my mortgage disappear. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

In other matters, I have been on a motivational kick with the spare room. Remember that room? The one I posted about painting in October of LAST year? It's still not done, but holy crap are we close!! We have a nice big bookshelf that I have loaded up and bought some cute items for the wall after a moment of clarity. We were walking through Hobby Lobby and I saw an aisle of items that were gray and another color (coral, teal and yellow). My brain clicked into place as I realized the yellow and gray would work with the spare room (right? Please tell me that's right)! They were 50% off so we snagged a magnetic board, light switch cover, and a cute glass piece.

I am planning a trip to Ikea (first time on an Ikea adventure! I AM PUMPED!) to grab a table to replace the crummy free, broken desk that is currently taking up space in the room. I'm also grabbing some stool to replace the green seats (since they no longer match), and a side table to put by the futon which will eventually be ours! 

WE. ARE. GETTING. THERE!

Have a great Christmas everyone! Go see your families, tell them you love them, give them hugs and kisses and I hope everyone is blessed beyond your imagining in the next year!

Memorial Day Weekend-No Rest for the Weary!

I was under the impression that I might rest during the 3-day Memorial weekend, but then I decided that I could be productive and proceeded to exhaust myself. I started out the mini-vacation from work by doing yard work on Friday evening with my husband which resulted in a nice, clean shaven yard and about 3 feet being chopped off my forsythia (my neighbor laughed at me from his porch. A 5'4" lady tackling an 8' tall hedge that is 3' around is a silly sight.)

Saturday we had to haul all those branches to my parents' house because you can't burn in my town and I didn't know what else to do with 2 vehicle loads of murdered nature. I thought that was all I would do, but then it snowballed into cleaning and decorating.

Like buying curtains, then realizing that those curtains weren't dark enough for a day sleeper like my husband. So we bought some black out fabric and rigged our own set up by using ring clips and a bungee cord to add a removable, adjustable blackout curtain behind the gorgeous setup I snagged from Marshall's. 

Finally did some sprucing up of the new console table (coffee table is bare and has been here longer, I need to work on that).

And here is the promised picture of the porch. Since this photo was taken, the wisteria (the vine engulfing the porch) has taken over about 90% of the railings and the parts it missed, the clematis took care of...

I would have posted this sooner but I took a week to catch up on some Doctor Who. I'm behind quite a bit so I have made progress this week. 

What did you do over your holiday? 

Springing into Action

My husband and I have spent the last couple of weeks trying to improve the curb appeal of our property. I had intended to put up pictures of the changes we made earlier, but the weather hasn't been very kind and I'm pretty sure some of the daffodils I planted are goners. So I have decided to let the plants establish themselves and let the weather pull itself together. Then I'll take pictures. Unless everything dies... then I guess I'll have to replant.... ugh.

I had made a long list of all the stuff to do around the house and we've managed to check off a lot of those tasks, like....

• Extended the flower bed
• Plant flowers (daffodils, lilies, clematis, azalea, fuschia, other...)
• Trim flowerbed with bricks for easy mow-over trimming
• Replace mailbox and decorate with planting area
• Decorate door and porch with arrangements

There are still many things I want to do, but we are going with the flow... and the weather. Our next major projects are the side porch and the back patio area (which you may remember me referring to as a failure-we're gonna fix that).I also plan to pressure wash the house and paint the shed among other things.

Yesterday we also took care of a plumbing job that needed done. Our bathroom faucet had been leaky and yucky for a long time so we bought a new faucet and replaced it (this was a first time plumbing experience for us). I mostly just handed Chris tools while he crammed himself into the vanity, but at least I was kinda helping! And it doesn't leak anymore! Now we just have to figure out how to get the hot water to get to it faster...

On the non-home repair front:
Since we are finally getting tired of re-watching our handful of DVDs over and over again we have re-activated our Netflix account. I've finally given in to all the pressure and started watching Doctor Who. I've always been curious about it, but I'm not big on Science Fiction. I'm only starting with the newest series (starting with the Ninth Doctor), because I don't want to watch 50(?) years worth of television. I just can't make that investment.

Also we're watching My Little Ponies because it is fantastic.... don't judge us. 

I'm totally Pinkie Pie.

Image Credit Here

Spring has come to save us all!

Well folks, it's finally spring. Thank the Lord! I had the worst case of cabin fever and probably some mild depression. I wrote the most depressing downer blog post and decided NOPE! Not gonna post it. I don't want to write people into a bad mood, but even though I didn't post it, writing it helped get a lot of that nasty stuff out of my system.

I bet you are all pumped for nice weather! We are having some nice weather this weekend and I have worn myself out!!

Friday I came home and jumped into old clothes and went on a gardening rampage. I cleaned out the flower bed (which has more rocks than dirt each year) and murdered the area around my lilies and mums to give them some room to breathe. I planted some seed I snagged at the Home & Garden show then I cleaned up the porch a bit before my husband kindly reminded me that food is pretty important.

Saturday my secret plans were to find some dress clothes for work and maybe do some more gardening or go buy a new wallpaper border for our bathroom. Instead, one thing led to another and I ended up making lots of flower arrangements, cleaning up the sidewalk, working in the shed and yanking up the outdoor carpet from the side porch.

Here are some of the flower-related stuff I did and the front porch. Just ignore the crazy spray painted carpeting, hopefully it will be removed later this year.

These I did just to add some flowery goodness to the counters in the kitchen. Took my husband's potion jars and stuffed plastic wrap down in them and filled with water. The look much better in person.

I hung these frames in the spare room and have yet to do anything with them. I saw a Pin on Pinterest of tiny arrangements hung as 3D art so I went with it. The pictures are pretty awful and I will probably switch out the flowers, but they were what I had to work with when I randomly decided to do this. I will never get over how the color of the walls appear in photos. It really isn't that loud in real life I don't think. Though it is pretty bright.

The tins were my grandmothers and I wanted to use them. I have tried doing multiple arrangements in them, or storing gardening tools in them, but it never looked right. I always think of non-vases (watering cans, wagons, toilets...) being used as vases as being an old country lady thing, but this just seemed right.

I really like lanterns... I don't know why. I saw this at Michael's and had a coupon in hand. I had to buy it. I just stuffed some Spanish Moss in the bottom (protip: use that crap outside cause it is messy!), stacked a couple mini grapevine wreaths to act as a nest (I used these for a kids craft project & had extra), and stuck a few floral bits around the sides.And DONE!

~*~*~*~

I have a lot of goals for the outside this summer and one of them includes this side porch. Since no one sees it really it's not going to be a show stopper, but it needs love. The outdoor carpet was gross and had moss like crazy so I hulked out and tore it all up in one piece. I should have gotten a picture of the before, but when you're in the moment you just go nuts.

From the back yard moving to the front.

From the front yard, the pipe on the left isn't staying there obviously...

The cracks and right side of the 2nd picture were completely covered in weeds, dirt, grime and moss. It's not perfect, but I think I did okay for a crazed lady with a snow shovel plowing them all down!

As you may notice the porch is pretty yellow from the adhesive. Most of it comes off with scraping, but the internet tells me I can grab a solvent for adhesive removal which I plan to do soon. If it still looks bad after, I found a tutorial on painting it which is about a two day project with no rain allowed. Ugh!

I'll take pictures as it progresses and once it looks more appealing I plan to load it up with flowers and such. I also want to do something along that retaining wall on the right, but I am still working on that one.

How do you dress up your porch for spring?

Vacation Part 2

Indianapolis is a pretty large city. I made a list of places that sounded interesting, but we really didn't get to visit many places since the weekend was short. I guess I will just have to go back in the spring. 

Friday night we enjoyed a nice dinner and evening with the stars of our visit who are beautifully represented here:

They are pretty awesome. If you don't know them, well, it sucks to be you.

We exchanged Christmas gifts so I can now put up the wreath I made for them. 

It's a bit sad looking, but I just haven't gotten the hang of this whole wreath making thing yet (and I probably never will).

Saturday we went to one of the local malls and followed it up with lunch at P.F. Chang's (Singapore Street Noodles, yum!)

Then we took a walk about Broad Ripple which was a neat district filled with yummy sounding food and shops. Chris' favorites were The Exchange and Panda(ology) and I liked those too as well as a little place by a cafe that I cannot remember the name of, but it had adorable hand-made gifts (I got a bat keychain that was precious with his little button eyes!)

Don't these look delicious?!   Too bad they are dog treats. 

When we finally had to pull ourselves away on Sunday morning, we stopped in Cincinnati on the way home with the intent of seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. Unfortunately, it was more than we thought it was (we saw the member price online, not the non-member price). So we opted to see the rest of the museum instead (as it was cheaper to see the all of the museum than to see the one exhibit.)

It wasn't as impressive as the Children's Museum in Indianapolis, but I got to watch bats fly! Bats!! 

They have a little bat flight thing where a guy lets bats loose in this screened in cage and once they wake up they fly around and he talks about bat facts. (Also peed in the kids' faces during one of his jokes and he thought the people were laughing at him; we'll let him continue to think that.)

Here are some pictures we got. Like I said, it wasn't the greatest museum, but it was a nice stop and BATS!

The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit is going on till April so we may go back. If you go, let me know about it.

The museum is divided into a world and natural history museum (which was good-bats and dinosaurs!) and an American history museum (we were speed walking through it, not really our interest).

Mummy!

 The natural history museum had a section of fossils and casts of various animals followed by a recreated forest environment. 

Example: Ground Sloths. Terrifying no matter what.

What would YOU recommend for a little vacation?!  Any recommendations for Indianapolis for our return trip? Any suggestions for other quick places to visit in the area? 

What was your favorite museum to visit?

Indy Vacation:Children's Museum

I hope you have all started your new year right! I started mine with a little vacation (the first "real vacation" since about 2008!) It was just a weekend, but I feel refreshed and exhausted all at once! We went to Indianapolis to visit my best friend and her husband (and dog, Dallas, of course) and enjoyed every minute.

Our original plan was to leave Friday and stop in Cincinnati for lunch and a look around, but after getting turned around and not being hungry, we pushed on. We decided to stop on the way back though because there was a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the museum!! (I didn't get to see that, but we will go over that later).

So our early arrival in Indy resulted in a visit to the Children's Museum. If you live near Indy and have not been to the Museum you need to go. Right now. Pronto! It is amazing. No kids? Who cares?! You don't need kids! I was so pumped when we decided to go that I couldn't stop smiling for an hour and I was not disappointed. They have changing exhibits (right now a holiday one which we didn't go to), a National Geographic hall, the Dinosphere and more.The Nat Geo section and Dinosphere were enough to keep me entranced all day and really overshadowed the rest. I took over a hundred pictures on my trip and most of them were from this museum.

I did combine some pictures for space-saving reasons. I also made many small so click to see the larger picture!

I will sort them by exhibit starting with ones that were just found around the museum not in exhibits.

General Pictures

When you enter (for now at least) you get to see the Bumblebee prop from the Transformers movies.

I couldn't capture the true size of this blown glass sculpture in the middle of the museum. It was about 4 stories tall and the bottom (on right) spread out to form the ceiling for the lower level. It was beautiful.

Rawr!

DINOSAURS!!!!

Everyone likes dinosaurs, right? (If you don't like dinosaurs you are probably broken and should get that fixed soon.)

 Fight, Fight Fight!

This next picture are two combined that are just silly. They had a section called "What dinosaurs did in their free time" which included going shopping, errands, visiting museums and robbing banks only to be stopped by super heroes. 

Paleontologists are on site in this section actually working and there is always at least one or two who will make themselves available to answer questions in between their work. I really can't put up all the pictures I got or truly express how amazing the exhibit was for all ages. There is an excavation site for kids to practice digging, eggs, insects and small fossils and so many tiny raptors and other details to enjoy. They play a soundtrack and have a lighting show to depict the sounds and environment through different types of weather and the displays are simply amazing.

National Geographic Exhibit

Archaeology in Egypt, China, and the Caribbean.

This section was my second favorite and I just want to thank the staff for not throwing me out for being over excited. Why you ask? This is why:

Yes these are props from The Last Crusade. My squealing was only silenced by the next image which almost stopped my heart.

Can you see my goosebumps from where you are?!?! It is glorious!

That's not all for the exhibit of course! This was just the icing on the cake for me, which I promptly rubbed all over my face.

MUMMIES!

For those of you who saw my canopic jars and are wondering what they are, but don't know how to use Google, above is your answer. As well as a mummified cat.

And if the mummified cat wasn't enough, here is a falcon and a shrew.

Unfortunately, they didn't have an actual mummy on loan when we were there, but they had a cast with a screen to pass over it for information about mummification. Cause mummies are freaking awesome.

The Caribbean exhibit was really neat and I didn't get enough pictures because there were lots of kids running all over. I also was distracted by terra cotta warriors and lost my husband who was talking to an archaeologist; this was maybe one of his favorite exhibits.

Also note these pictures may look weird because all of these items are on display in water for preservation.

Grape shot, bar shot and cannonballs.

Those are coins.

A freaking cannon! It was too big to get a picture of it all at once. Chris was super pumped about this part...

Terra cotta warrior replicas were EVERYWHERE.

Other sections

There were also sections for important children in history, real car-size Hot Wheels cars (neither of which we went to), more glass sculptures, and a section about Egyptian culture which was set up with houses and businesses (bazaar, coffeehouses, etc.) I can't put up many of them because they were constantly occupied by children playing server to their parents and cooking and whatnot (it was adorable).

Here is what I got though:

Well this post is huge and it is late. Back to work tomorrow, but I hope to post other pictures soon. If you have any questions let me know and I'll see what I can do to answer!

Happy 2013!!