A Little Catch-Up

I know I have been so behind on posting lately.  It's been busy around our household with repairs and our actual jobs, that I have had little energy leftover for posting.  I feel like I am constantly playing a daily game of catch-up...and losing horribly.  Sadly, I've even been pulled away from enjoying my camera lately that I missed a free workshop this past Thursday that I had been planning on attending for a few months.  arg.

I have a lot of updates to share but little time to compose it all at this moment.

This past Friday and Saturday, we finally got our new roof installed since it was severely damaged from the huge hail storm over a month ago.  It was previously a dark  boring color, but Sparky and I decided to change it up with Terra Cotta shingles this time around.  It's not ready for a final unveiling quite yet, but here's a sneak peak halfway through.

I'm still working on sanding and re-painting all the guest bedroom furniture.  I hope to get this done next weekend.  As for this past weekend, my mother and I finally ventured out to the fabric store and I picked out the white linen fabric that will be my new sofa slipcover!  yay!  I can't wait to see the final product and share with you!  I'm hoping the final look will sort of resemble the Oasis sofa from Crate and Barrel...or at least the same feel without the $2,000 price tag.

As for now,  enjoy a little romp in the back yard with Ruby!

I always wonder what she ponders...I imagine it's food related.

What?  Did you say food?

Look at the movitation in that face.

So much enthusiam for such short stubby legs.

...and,

No.

I didn't mean myself.

Keep on Keepin on.

Closet Bliss

So, Sparky did it again.  He came through on another promise.  Yay!

Here's the background.  I have a tendency to be a bit controlling in my home about where "things" go and how they are organized.  I need my daily life to be functional and un-cluttered at home.  Otherwise, I am very cranky...to say the least.

When you live in a house that was built in the 1950's, closet and storage space was not considered a priority.  I only know this because I live in a house that was built in the 1950's and I'm convinced it had the original closet systems.

Why is it that people thought one single metal rod stretching 6ft would hold all the clothing you own in a functional clutter free zone?  It is beyond me.  One of my first annoyances moving into this house WAS the closets.  Even my little house built in the 1940's seemed more functional for some reason - and it wasn't great by any means.  Luckily, this house has one walk-in closet in one bedroom.  The other two bedrooms have closets with sliding doors.  We won't even get into that.  I first had the two closets with the sliding doors and finally convinced Sparky to switch with me so that I had the walk-in closet. 

Everytime we go to the local home improvement store (which is often), I sneak over to the organization isle to drool over the awesome and organized closet systems.  They are soooo pretty.  I always stand and stare until my cell phone rings and Sparky is wondering where I wondered off to...as if he didn't really already know.

One day back in January (yes, January) as I snuck on over to the organization isle, I stumbled upon an amazing sale on the Closet Maid systems.  I waited for Sparky to find me so that he could see my discovery in hopes that he would fall in love with my closet renovation idea. 

It worked.

We left the store that day with all the pieces to make a dreamy closet for myself and to overhaul the other two closets in the house.  I almost cried.

Anyway.  That was back in January.  We were able to complete the two other closets within a couple of weeks, but my closet had to wait.   The reason?  Because my closet also has a window in it...a very old window.  It HAD a very old window, again, probably original to the house, that was single pane and loved to condensate and sweat all over the window sill and down the wall.  It was gross and definitely time for it to be replaced. 

So.  I waited.  and I waited.   and wated...and 4 months later during our vacation, Sparky finally got a chance to replace that dang-o window with a brand new double pane and much more energy and house friendly window.  Yay!  And finally my closet was able to be complete.

This was the first day we brought home all the boxes.  Of course, Ruby and Chewy have to inspect anything new to the home.

Fors some reason, stacked drawers in a closet is so appealing to me.

Here is the closet after the new window was put in.  We were able to put in half the closet system back in January, which is why the right hand side of the picture has the shelves and drawers.  You can still see the old rod hangar supports from the dumb dumb old single metal rod hangars that are totally not functional at all.  They are the two wood slats with a hole in each one on either side of the window.  Just sayin.  You can also see under the NEW window where the old nasty window left the stain from condensation.  ew.

EEEEEE!  So I found this pretty blue gallon of paint in the returns/rejects pile at the home improvment store.  It was only $5!!!  As soon as I saw the gallon of paint sitting there alone with all the other rejects, I just new it was perfect for this one wall in the closet...and I just had to bring her home.  And I'm so glad I did!  One of the best (and few) spontaneous purchases of my life!

This is also before we installed the left side of new shelves.

And here it all is with my stuff all snug in place. 

Here is a look at the right side of the closet.

Front view of the drawers that hold my folded sweaters and folded jeans.

 And here is the newly installed left side to complete the transformation.

I have a place for my shoes and I even still have an empty shelf!!

I of course have to have a place for my hats.  I love hats.

It's finally complete.  Now I should go buy something new to hang in it!

Keep on Keepin on.

Stay-Cation

Sparky and I took some well needed time off from work last week.  We decided not to travel anywhere this past vacation week, but instead stay home and relax.

yeah right.

If you know us, relaxation is normally not at the top of our list of "to-do's"...and we normally have quite a lengthy list of "to-do's".

So far this week, we have changed out two outside lights, put up some pretty shnazzy house numbers, painted the front door bright red, made ANOTHER compost bin, changed out all the hardware on all the interior doors, replaced two circular windows on the front of the house, purchased a NEW vehicle, purchased two new big planters for the front porch (but are waiting on soil from the new compost bin to plant something in them), removed all the guttering from around the house due to damage from the hail storm, removed our aluminum back porch patio cover that was also damaged from the hail storm, and painted a closet wall.

What else?

and we went to the zoo for a few hours for some down time.

whew.

I'm tired...  And we have to go back to work tomorrow.

I'll recap with photos on just a few things at a time in order to not overwhelm myself.

This is a picture is of the old numbers and fog light that were set above and between our two garage doors.  They were definitely not anything special to look at and probably not ever really noticed.

This is where they once used to be located.  Sparky removed them quicker than I could remember to grab my camera!  You can still see the plate where the fog light used to be connected.  You can still also see the indented stain those awful poop colored numbers left on the brick above where the fog light used to be located.  ew.

This is what we put in place of the fog light.  So much better in our opinion.  Silver and clean lines is more our style.  We also purchased it's mini version to replace the front porch light.

Below is a picture of the first coat of paint of our front door.  It was previously white.  I would go take a picture of the finished front door...but I'm too tired right now.  This is what you get.  Sorry.  Also, you can see the mini version of the garage light we changed out (in the upper right hand side), and one of the new big planters.

Below are the two big planters we got for the front porch.  They were such a good steal at TJ Maxx!  They were only $50 each!  woot woot!

And my most favorite item change for the front of the house is...our house numbers!  We re-located them from above the garage light to the side of the garage leading to our front porch.  We also decided to change them from reading left-to-right to reading up-and-down.  I love their silver and sleek straight lines and how they float away from the house.

That is all for now.  I'll share our other projects very soon!

Keep on Keepin on.

How to Make an Asian Drool

So I was perusing through blogs and stumbled upon this huge wok of rice! (from Lisa & Drew's Outdoor Wedding via Green Wedding Shoes.) 

Well, it looks more jumbalaya-ish...but let's just appease my asian jealousy right now.

Huge wok. (where did they even get that thing??)
Rice cooked in huge wok.
I'm drooling.

Just sayin

Keep on Keepin on.

Clean Up - Hail Storm Style

Stupid hail storm.

The OKC area was severely hit with a definitely memorable hail storm this past Sunday late afternoon.  I am unable to put into words the experience and damage it caused to homes, vehicles...and

our VEGETABLE GARDEN.

Stupid hail storm.

Many people are definitely grateful for home owners, renters, and auto insurance this week.  My car got some damage but other people got far worse damage.  I keep telling Sparky we are pretty lucky since we didn't have any broken windows on our home or our vehicles.  We will need a new roof, back storm door, and patio cover.  We are actually glad about these items though so it kind of works out for us.  The only annoyance really is that we will definitely have to start over on our little garden... and I know we are more than lucky that's our biggest dilemma at this point.

But these little banana peppers survived!!!  I told Sparky..."un-ba-reev-able" (like an Asian)

So, there is a lot of clean up but nothing that can't handled and paid for by great insurance.   Our back patio is covered in leaves.  There is a brick patio underneath there somewhere.

 We are grateful since we do know that there are many that are not so fortunate.


But if you want to see it in action (and you haven't already seen this), here is a cool and popular video of the storm in action.  You have to at least watch about 2 minutes into it...that's when the hail got really strong.  This video was taken just a few block from our home.


Keep on Keepin on.

A Note from Macy

Our little Macy says to have a wonderful weekend relaxing in the grass somewhere while enjoying the peacefulness of your own thoughts.

Keep on Keepin on.

Our Little Earth

Since today is Earth day, I decided it would be totally fitting to finally update ya'll on our little vegetable garden.

This year Sparky decided to make his own raised gardens.  Last year he was convinced that planting our veggies in hay bales was the way to go...but slowly admitted his plan had faltered somewhere.  So this year he's convinced it's raised beds.

yay.

I actually missed out on taking pics of the creation of the raised beds, but I got pics of filling up the beds...which is far more fun in my opinion anyway.

Garden Soil!  yay!  About 10 big bags worth. 

And of course we are never without our hound help.  Ruby likes to get in the middle of all the action.  She's very proactive.

Chewy tends to just want to "blend in" and oversee things.  He's our little safety guy.

In addition to the garden soil, Sparky included and mixed together compost from our compost pile, mulch he mulched himself with dead leaves from our yard, and our leftover hay bales from this past fall.

Again, Ruby is in the middle of all the action.  You can see the pile of old hay mixed in with some old little pumpkins from this past fall.  Sparky also planted all the old pumpkins and their seeds as an experiment to see if we will have our own little pumpkin patch this year.  Crossing our fingers!

And then we found little guy amongst all the compost.  He actually wasn't so little!  He was huge!  And just grubbin away. Normally I would get really grossed out by things like this, but this little guy was actually pretty interesting.  I told the little guy to grub away.

More of Ruby getting in the middle of everything....

Here's the long view of bed.  Again notice in the middle left side...a little Ruby face sniffing around in the new pumpkin patch area. 

Sparky!  My little gardener.  He wanted me to say it's a ninja.  So there.  It's a ninja.  Whatever.

On the opposite end of the pumpkins, Sparky planted eggplant, strawberries, tomatoes (3 different types), tomatillas, banana peppers, jalapenos, and squash.

Yum.  I can' wait to see if these little guys grow!

And the banana peppers are already producing!  Wow.

Today, Sparky planted three different cucumbers, bell peppers, and cantaloupe.   I'll say it's because of Earth day, but we TRY to do things everyday that are friendly to the Earth.  We're not perfect but we try.  That's all anyone should do.  Try.

Keep on Keepin on.

Project Nightstand

For the last year, at least, I have been talking about how I want and plan to paint my guest bedroom set.  They are dark cherry-ish wood and consist of a queen sleigh bed headboard and footboard, a six drawer dresser, two matching nightstands, and a television armoire.

Last weekend I decided I needed to finally get started. 

I purchased my paint a few weeks ago, so it was waiting patiently for me to open it up and paint away.  I chose a soft white.  White paint color is more difficult to pick out than I thought and I'm not a very quick decision maker...you could probably imagine that this was not the quickest trip to the local home improvement store.

Anyway...

I decided to start small with one of the nightstands.

This is the nightstand.  Since I've chosen to paint all the bedroom furniture a shade of white...and the original color is the dark cherry, a belt sander was and will be absolutely necessary.  (Note: that is not a rat in the pic...that's our Chihuahua, Harley.)

Here's a front view of the nightstand.  The color is so dark!  Eww!

And viola!  A belt sander, a little bit of paint, one paint brush, and an hour later...

a new to me nightstand.

I can't wait to get all the bedroom furniture done!  I'll keep you posted!  (pun intended)

Keep on Keepin on.

Ruby Loves Sparky

Ruby loves Sparky.  Ruby loves when people come down to her level.  She's short.  Shorter than me.  So, when anyone decides to sit or lay down on the floor/ground, she gets uber excited.

Sparky decided to enjoy the sunny warm weather with a nap in our backyard yesterday.

Ruby has quick shorty radar for these things.  She's on the prowl.

Ruby's love is strong.

Ruby's love is deep.

Ruby's love is relentless.

Ruby's love is hands-on.

 Ruby's love is up close and personal.

Ruby's love is dreamy.

Ruby's love is playful.

Ruby's love is in-your-face.

Ruby's love is tried and true.

Keep on Keepin on.