Redesigning without spending alot of money...

This is my goal this month - Mike says for the year lol. I want to redo the house - we've been in it 2 years this coming April and I haven't finished the bedroom/bathroom/hallway or laundryroom. So my goal is to pick one room and work on it. Not a bad idea but it always costs more than I think in the end. So my second part of the goal is not to spend money.

How do you do that? Not easily lol. I've watched alot of HGTV and spent time online looking at how they've spruced things up for little. But all I can think is that I don't have that great of a talent.

I decided to start on the bedroom. I took a peek at what I had and what I wanted. The obvious was that I had the king size bed, comforter set, full length mirror, tv, a theme in mind that I started with (ocean,lighthouse). What do I need... easier to say what I had... A bed (headboard,footboard), matching dressers and nightstands, shelves, lamps, curtains...

I've rearranged the furniture already but it seems odd now lol - I'll have to take pictures and get ideas from you!!

These are rooms I've done for our house already - chocolate/tan alternating walls, burgundy dining room, tan kitchen -

This is the Entry Way - All chocolate walls - our wedding invite is on the wall, we had a family friend custom make this as a wedding gift, and if you hadn't noticed I'm into purple and fairies but it ends there... I go country modern in the rest of the house.
























This is our living room - I did alternating walls here for the chocolate and light tan walls.





Slate grey furniture and darker wood pieces go great in here. I just need recessed lighting since we have none in the cieling in here! Builders - they never put anything in (shaking head)



Of course we have the tv on the wall and the xbox rock band in the corner of the room lol








I custom made our frame over the half wall to the basement.
"Sometimes in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives you a fairy tale"









Next time I'll have to show you all 4 Amber Rooms (meaning each house we've owned we have done a room for Amber)

My New Surprise...

Mike agreed we needed a new one after 10 years with our old one, it only took 2 hrs to run it through the entire set. So we took the plunge...

I was waiting patiently, eager to try it out once it arrived. Then I was panting by the door while they unboxed it and put it together before bringing it in.

Now I'm scared I bought the wrong thing! I'm scared to use the darn thing - it has so many buttons, tricks, things to fill... AHHHH!!!!!

I bought a new washing dryer from GE but it has too many tricks too it...

1. Smart Dispense Pedestal - feeds itself the detergent and fabric softener (of course it takes HE detergent and I don't have that in the house so I ran out and bought some)
2. CleanSpeak - the washer talks to the dryer through a USB cord and tells is what to set itself at so I just have to push start on the dryer when I load it.
3. Stain Inspector - you scroll through a list of stains - food, ketchup and pick it. It now knows how to clean the item
4. It takes 30 mins to do one load in the washer and dryer.
   

OK I don't know about you but damn I used to push hot/cold, large,med,small and extra rinse and start... now its 45 choices and it makes noises each time you choose it lol - feels like I'm playing on the Nintendo.

Now stop laughing - there is no laughing allowed or you'll pee your pants...

I have already made errors - I've overfilled the softener section (holds 90 ounces - I was putting in 134 ounces - see the problem already?). There I was bent over having to use a turkey baster to suck it out, hold the funnel in the container that I was squeezing between my legs trying not to spill it all over me or the floor. Yes it worked but it took half an hour lol

I've reread the dang manual 4 times making sure I'm not missing a step - I'm still scared to start an actual load. I knew the old washer took 10-15 towels depending on the size and I just stacked them in. Now I ain't got the slightest idea of even how full to make it or even how the washer works. They guy who delivered it, tested it and I saw the water flowing in but it looked like one of those old bottles our moms bought us to feed the dolls - you can see the fluid in the bottle but if you tip it up it disappears... well dang it the door fills up with water, there's a bubble on the inside of the door where the water goes (not the tub inside) and then vanishes.

The guys who set it up walked me through a couple of things - one was the water filter - no not a softener filter but a filter for lint. Yep now on the washer too! Apparently once a month I'm supposed to remember to put a bucket under the latch, open it up, unscrew the cork, pull it out, let the water drain and clean the cork. Hmmm sounds interesting. I don't remember hearing about this from my husband OR seeing this online anywhere.

So is it better that we have all this technology? Is it going to help us or make us waste our time more with choices, options, strategies, things to fill, connect, turn on... yes I'm stalling til my gf comes over and helps me with the first load. lol

I'll let you know how it goes later...

Can't Sleep

It's 4:39 am and I can't get myself back to sleep. I've normally got a rule where you lay in bed and don't get up unless ya really gotta use the potty lol. This way your forcing your body to stay and relax and you will eventually go back to sleep.

Not today. I kept waking up to loud noises - my daughter coughing, the heater turning on, house settling noises... ahhhh it was driving me batty! So I gave up and put the news on in the living room.

It's because Mike's gone for the week. He travels often for work to learn new equipment. So this time its close by and he can come home for the weekends. Next time it will be in TX and for a whole three weeks :(

I love my husband and his quirks, I've gotten used to him annoying me with being home part of the day and getting in my way of cleaning. Used to him making a mess, leaving his shoes and socks all over, his work clothes on the bed... I have nothing to pick up, nothing to clean and the beds actually made... It's an odd feeling lol

What makes it worse is that his phone service doesn't work great out where he is. He only gets text messages during the day and at night he goes in and out on the phone. Makes it hard to really carry on a conversation - plus my phone sucks lol - I have to push three times to get an 'o' and sometimes it takes me a full 5 mins to type out a message back to him, during which he's typed me two - making me go back and find the saved message and starting back up - dang phones!

Ambers doing ok - she says good night to him on the phone and gets twice as many hugs and kisses from me. Plus I try to do special things while he's away.

Last night was one of them - she's been having weeks of 2 hr homework sessions so last night, I picked her up from school and we went shopping at Home Depot with our friends next door and mommy had fun window shopping and spending our friends money lol. Then we hit target and stocked up on detergent - she was able to get anything she wanted (with in reason) and we let her loose in the toy section. She picked the new playdough ice cream parlor with a bonus package on the top.

Poor thing, we got home from shopping, ate our Culvers food, did the nightly routines and off to bed she went by 8:30! She never had a chance to even look at the playdough box again.

I did have fun though - my gf had her husband meet us at Home Depot and he had picked out the cutest front door before we even got there. It was a half moon shape on top with nice black line work through it and some little bronze squares at the top corners... Found a picture! I asked Mike if I could get one too and he said... no... pout :(

Then we hit outside lights, fencing, phones (now she won't get a beeping sound that her phones dying when we are on the phone for an hr lol)

We were pooped! But we had to go to Target for a couple things. Plus Amber really needed something with the snow coming to keep her occupied inside.

We hit the deal of the year !! I found every detergent we used was on sale - 150 ounce Tide HE was $12 (reg $19.99) and the bounce Pure Essentials fabric softner was $6 - I had to get some of this... tell you more about that later today!!

Then I found my favorite!! OK I know I'm a nerd, I'm a housewife, I'm a cleaning addict... when I fall in love with ORANGE CLOROX WIPES!! I was dancing in the aisle... literally. I haven't seen them in almost a year and I love the smell. I'm a clorox wipes addict... I admit it proudly!

So after grabbing 5 of them (1 for each bathroom, 1 for the kitchen and leftovers for stock in the closet) I was on a high. We checked out, washed our hands and were getting our coats on to head out when my gf realized we were charged the wrong price on the detergent and we went through a song and dance at customer service but it turned out great and we headed home.

Like I said, we got home late, missed American Idol and everything! Good thing we have a DVR! So my surprise is coming later this morning and my gf is coming over to hang out and possibly watch AI with me.

Hope you got to sleep in this morning!!

Little Bow Peep Fairy Tails Contest!!

I love the ladies on Gymbohaven Boutique! So I wanted to do something special and showcase each of them - have a little contest and let you see what is so great about them!

Little Bow Peep Fairy Tails

Carol hand sews everything she makes - which is hard to find these days! She takes great pains to design her streamers to last. Built like Fort Knox, they are a unique design that involve several steps of sewing. All of her ponytail streamer ribbons are sewn together at the top (not glued) to prevent being pulled out, and all ribbon ends are heat sealed to prevent fraying. The hand-knotted top knot is HAND-SEWN to the ribbons, designed to look like a hand-tied set of ribbons. This is yet another step she takes to ensure that the knots don't come loose or fall apart with normal use.

What I truly loved was that the streamers worked no matter how Amber's hair was - when she was younger her hair was baby fine, now that she's older its gotten thicker and has some bulk to it.

With St. Pattys Day coming up - I had to share you with my favorite hair accessory - Shamrock Button Streamer - we bought ours last year and this year Carol has upgraded it to include an interchangeable button. The button is removable and is on a locking pin (not glued on). So you can do several styles with one Streamer!


This is Amber with her side pony - at the age of 11 she loves to play with her hair and wear these!

Now not only does Carol carry hair accessories but Interchangeable OAKb Shoes in sizes 2 through 11!! She offers TWO extra sets of ribbons with each shoe purchase. Change your shoe ribbons to match your outfit or coordinate with your daughter's outfit too!

She sends you bow-tying instructions with your shoe purchase also - Whew! OK I needed that! lol Amber loves her Crocs so I just had to try Carol's shoes... We got the Madison Slide in shocking pink with the Audrey Hepburn Plaid Black and White ribbon.







Take a look at what arrived!!

They arrived not only in the cutest bag but with crystal clear instructions on how to use the other two ribbons!







I gave them to Amber to try on and had to snap this picture as she was walking (running away with them).





After two hours of wearing them she still wouldn't take them off, she said their soft, bend when she walks and just comfy (with a huge grin on her face).

Personally I LOVE them! I was able to untie them (look at the awesome bottoms!) and re-tie the extra ribbon myself!

They are soft on her feet, she was able to get her feet completely into the shoe no problem and she was able to keep them on as she walked. Something I know all moms worry about when picking shoes.




Carol would like to offer the winner a FREE PAIR OF OAKb SHOES!! (Any pair Carol has on her website)

To Win: Visit Little Bow Peep Fairy Tails and choose your favorite item. Then come back here and leave a comment in this post letting me know what you love.

MORE ENTRIES!

1. Entry by blogging about this contest and include a link back to Adorable Expressions and Little Bow Peep Fairy Tails.
2. Subscribe to Adorable Expressions via email or follow us on blogger.
3. Entry by adding yourself to Little Bow Peep Fairy Tails Newsletter by emailing Carol here

leave a comment for each method of entry letting us know what you've done.

Contest will run from Feb 14th to Feb 28th - Winner will be announced here and will be contacted via email or through their blog. The winner has 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be drawn and you'll forfeit your prize. One entry per an entry method per a person. Open to residents of the United States 18 and over.

Phone calls galore!

Between my 'moms' having doctor appts and testing, schools review of Amber's IEP, talking to a long lost friend (who I miss terribly!!) - I think I've killed 3 of the 4 phones in the house and I've still got to call my mom back to find out how things went.

Mom 1 - My Motherinlaw has gall bladder disease - the one doctor who did the initial testing said it wasn't an emergency to have it removed - but I'm sorry she's 72 years old and I'd rather have it taken out now and not have her go through attacks and then be too sick to have it taken out later. So she has another appt tomorrow for a consult with the doc that's removing it and then will schedule it for March. So I'll probably be in Wisconsin next month - good thing I have the entire month free!

Mom 2 - My Mom has an enlarged heart and they just did an upper gi for her heart (I think that's what it was called) - to make sure there was no blockage or damage. They didn't see any and it was better than they had originally thought. So that's good, but now she's taking med for blood pressure and her diabetes.

What is it -we get past 40 and our bodies start falling off piece by piece?? I'm too young to be going through all this with my parents. We just lost my FatherinLaw in July due to cancer, my grandmother died in Jan last year - this shouldn't be happening!! I'm only 32 years old...

Now Amber's review is coming up for her IEP on Thursday and we have to decide whether or not to move her on to 7th grade and if she'll be in full classes or kept in special ed if we move her on. I can't wait to see what they say.

I did get to relax and let steam out when I talked to Donna - we grew up together (3rd grade and out of high school) and hadn't talked in 10 years... I don't think I've laughed so much in a long time. Remembering all the stupid things we did, how the heck we survived the things we did lol - but how much fun it was, the free spirit we had back then.

So miss talk almighty still needs to make more phone calls and I've only got one phone left with half a charge -yes the others are charging but they need to charge all day lol.

I hope the rest of the week goes good!!

It's the weekend!

YEAH!! It seems like the week just passed us by at running speed. We were so occupied we didn't even notice....

With all the great shows on tv - it's rotting our brains and we're loving it!
Monday night are House, Heros and Medium
Tuesday night is American Idol and Fringe (sometimes I can't watch it)
Wednesday night is American Idol and Lie to me (love this new show!)
Thursday night Hells Kitchen and ER
Friday night is Ghost Whisperer and Battlestar Galactica (yeah my husbands a sci-fi geek)

I like to watch How I met your mother, I don't get it but the things that happen are funny.

YES I'm a tv junkie!! I admit it!! But its the best season I've seen so far...

Now to make it even worse - I bought the Gilmore Girls series (All 7 Seasons) for christmas and were are only on season 3. On Saturdays Amber and I hog the living room and watch the ENTIRE day!! We curl up together, make popcorn, make Mike stay in the other room (she yells at him to go back in if he appears) - its our mommy/daughter day. It's neat so to see Amber laughing at the same jokes I am, innocent jokes, that she's supposed to get and understand. :)

Now granted we do more together outside the house, we're not complete couch potatoes - but this is just some cool things we do at night to pass the time before bed... lol

Alright - I'm ready for my close up! - off to watch Gilmore Girls and stuff my face with icky stuff! Have fun this weekend!!

Soldier Pictures!

From Operation Santa Claus - we have pictures in from the troop we sent to!

The one in the Santa hat is CPT Grady Adkins --he had a good time passing all of the stockings out to his soldiers.

Cleaning house part 2

and it continues --- I feel like I'm one of those moms who keeps saying things like 'shut the door you don't live in a barn', 'did I teach you nothing, pick up your socks'. I NEVER thought I'd be that mom, my mom, the one I still hear in my head constantly. lol

Amber did pick it all up, with a little guff attitude. But heck she did it. Now its just to keep up on it. This morning - I walked down the hall to grab an item out of her closet to see the size she's in (another post) and noticed all her clothes in the bathroom, toothpaste on the sink and I said to myself - nope she's going to clean it. IF IF I get so far as getting all my stuff done today I MIGHT pick up her clothes so I can wash them. But I hate scrubbing toothpaste off a sink. How do they get so much toothpaste on the sink to begin with? Does any of it make it to their mouth?

Now I sit here waiting - I have started laundry but nothing else since there's a big lump sitting on my couch - my husband. I can't vacuum, can't clean our bathroom (my next stop on the list) - nothing til he leaves.

Mike's job can be easy at times, but mostly he's gone for the day, he leaves for a few weeks at a time for work, he's unreachable by phone unless I send a text and wait for a response. This week though I'm pulling my hair out cause he's here! lol You'd think I'd be appreciative that I'm able to see, smell, touch (ok maybe not smell!) my husband... but he's in the way of progress! lol

Someone text him that a hospital machine is broke so he leaves!! I think he's waiting for a part to arrive right now. As soon as it gets here, he'll shower and be gone in 20 mins. So I wait. (Mike fixes xray, mammogram, ultrasound machines at hospitals all around the upper IL area. Sometimes he travels to Chicago twice in a day - 4hrs round trip. So when he's gone, he's gone for the day. He works when they hospitals call to have come in, normally at 8am.)

There goes the washer - off to do another load... where's that FedEx guy!!

Cleaning House

I like to start early - get it done with and veg a little before running to start the afternoon events.

I've tried doing 15min intervals - I learned this from Flylady.com - So I do a little, push myself if I need to make it a full 15-20 mins of hard work and then come back to the puter/tv - take a break.

Well I've been off schedule for awhile now and really need to kick butt! So I started today off with Ambers bathroom (our hall bath) - its cleaned - toilet, tub, sink and floors, mats are in the hallways piled with her towels to wash. Then I was in the mood to just hit the entire end of the hallway - dusted the pictures, cleaned her playroom, started her bedroom and then I have no idea what the heck happen.... The anger took over - why was I cleaning something I had already cleaned, why is there so much of a mess, can't they put stuff away (the simple idea of giving them a sweatshirt and asking them to hang it up, seems to escape them)... Tears began to fall when I realized this child has a bowl under her bed with something unrecognizable in it!! I finished cleaning the room of all toys and garbage, made piles of dirty laundry, brought the vacuum down to clean those rooms and just stopped.

Stopped right in my tracks and walked away.

I just couldn't take one more minute of it - took the mats out of our bathroom, with the towels and piled it even higher (lol they are about to fall over) and took a dang shower - yes I thought about this while still running through my emotions - how was I going to shower with no mats or towels - I had 2 left in the closet - put one on the floor to step on and wiggle across the bathroom floor and one to dry off with. Always gotta plan lol

I'm feeling better now and can't wait for everyone to come home so I can dole out some chores! Still irritates me that I'm raising an almost 12 yr old that can't do a two step command or a husband that seems to ignore the things on the floor.

When we walk by something - we pick it up
When we spill something we clean it up
When we eat something we put the dish in the sink atleast!

Nope - the gang here seems to thing differently - they shove things under the bed, ignore the whole sentence being said - I should be happy it made it to the bedroom!

I'm laughing now cause if I didn't I'd be in there tearing the room apart even more and making it glamorous for a rock star to live in - nope she's going to do it when she gets home no matter what. Before American Idol too!

I think my eyes are open - at least there's color in front of me and I'm making my way around the room. Hmmm pretty bright for 6:45 am... Then it hits me.... its REALLY bright. I sit straight up, look at the alarm and smack my husband - its 7:30 and we have half an hour to get the monster out, fed, dressed, teeth and hair, and not argue. Wish myself luck as I head down the hall....

It didn't go as bad as I thought - I blamed Mike so she's not taking the brunt of the morning out on me lol. We have 5 mins before we need to hop in the car and drive to school (which is down the block). It's the last min that things get hairy when she forgets a backing to her earing or a glove on the table and she goes in and out of the car while I sit in the driveway freezing my butt off while the car warms up - hmm warm today at -8 degrees!! This will be nice - at least the kids won't wait outside, they'll let them wait inside the doors.

Off I go!!!

Feeling like an ol' biddy

LOL - my daughter has been bugging me to have a blog. She'll be 12 in April. So here I sit redoing my site and my blog. Cause I'll be danged it she has one going full blast before I do! lol

I swear sometimes things go right over my head and I don't even realize it. From Ipods to Ipod casts, From texting to blogging and now the twitter is the thing... I feel like my mom must have when the first CD came out and the tapes were a thing of the past. Now its just harder to understand how to work the dang things - you can't just pop the item in and use it right away.

Amber couldn't believe that I didn't have a computer my whole life - that I was 16 before we had one in our house and it was NOTHING like it is now. Or that our TV sat on the floor, not the wall lol, and only had - what 6 channels?

After being made to feel like an ol' biddy I've sworn to myself and my daughter that I would 'get with the times' and learn it all. One major rule stands though!! I get it first!! lol I want the new toys, not only cause I want it but heck to learn how to use it first so when she asks a question about it I ACTUALLY have an answer lol.