Quick Project

Here's a quick little project I did over the weekend. I found the idea on someone's blog to use a candle ring as a mini wreath. I can't figure out now where I saw it, but once I do I'll give credit where credit is due.

I hung my little autumn candle ring up on the side of our cupboards for a little decor but it blended in too much. So, I painted an 8x10 picture frame black and cut a piece of scrapbook paper to fit inside. I then "hung" my wreath on my picture frame by putting the ribbon in the frame, then putting the glass back in.

I just love this paper.

So there it is. A quick, cheap little project to "pretty up" the side of my cupboard.

Hope everyone had a great start to their week. I spent my morning reassuring many of my coworkers that I am not pregnant. I was horribly nauseous all morning, then had a huge headache the rest of the day. Yuck.

Weekend Recap

I started out my weekend with a lamp makeover on Friday night. I had stolen David's lamp from his night table a few weeks ago so I had been on the hunt for a new one. I found a lamp at Goodwill for $2 that I thought would do the trick. It wasn't very cute but I thought I could handle doing a mini-makeover on it. Here's the before:

It actually had three of those wire & bead things on it, but I forgot to take a picture before I disassembled them. Here's what it looks like now:

Not a huge transformation, but much better than the original. I already had the spray paint and fabric on hand. The fabric was actually from an old curtain I had.

On Saturday my mom and I ventured to Sioux Falls for a little shopping. We had a lot of fun. I always enjoy hanging out with my mom. We spent a lot of time in Hobby Lobby! They had 50% off scrapbook paper, so we both picked some up for projects. I picked up this little guy at Dollar Tree. Dave surprised me with these when he got home from work last night.

What a guy!! Gerbera daisies are my favorite flower.

Today I've ran a few errands and that's been about it.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

My Husband Rocks!

Ok, this is going to be short and sweet today. I have a pounding headache and quite honestly, feel like hell today. But I didn't want to skip posting so here I am.

My husband rocks because he bites his tongue a lot (not literally). It's such a wonderful trait, one that I do not have. Sometimes I wish I knew when to shut up instead of making things worse.

Just last night I left him a not so nice note (he worked late last night) regarding the cleanliness of(or lack there of) our office/extra bedroom. He could have returned the favor by leaving me a nasty note to find this morning or smarted off to me before I left for work. He didn't say a thing about it this morning, and no note. As I was leaving for work he said the same thing he does every morning - "I love you beautiful. Have a good day." I came home for lunch today and found him cleaning away. He still didn't comment on the note.

He's a wonderful man.


***Check out the great adventure for more information on MHR and for a great giveaway!

Pumpkins!

We made it out to the pumpkin patch today! Picking pumpkins is one of my favorite things to do in the fall. Here's my husband lugging our HUGE pumpkin back to the car.

He weighed it when we got home. 74 pounds!! We also picked up some smaller pumpkins and some gourds. I forgot to get corn, so now I'm on the hunt for Indian corn. I played around with everything when we got home. I rearranged a few times as you can see.

I don't really like the arrangement now, but I got tired of my neighbors looking at me like I'm nuts. What? Doesn't everyone take pictures of their pumpkins, move them 2 inches, then take another picture? I'll probably be back out there tomorrow playing with them again, trying to get it to look better. I'm thinking I need a smallish scarecrow to put on the table maybe?? Any suggestions?

Oh, and for my mums. I bought a pot on Sunday. I picked a plant with really deep red flowers. I think I killed it already. Here's how it looks now.

You can see a little of the red color in the flower I'm holding. It's the only flower on the whole plant with any color left. Hopefully it comes back now that it's outside and will get more sun. Keeping my fingers crossed.

V-Ball

David and I went to our niece's volleyball game this afternoon. I don't know much about volleyball, but it was still fun to watch her play. My pictures didn't turn out the greatest either. Hopefully we'll make it to another game and I can give it another go.

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We decided to go pumpkin picking tomorrow since it rained last night. Hopefully the weather will cooperate so I can get some pumpkins, gourds, and corn.

Happy Fall!

Picture found at Better Homes & Gardens

It's officially fall! It seems like fall in our apartment too. David bought me an Apple Crisp candle last night and it's making our place smell soooo good!

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David and I plan to go pumpkin picking tomorrow after work. Hopefully it won't be rainy (like it's suppose to be).

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Hope you're enjoying the first day of autumn!!

Color IQ

Here's a fun little color quiz I ran across. The lower your score the better, with 0 being a perfect score.

My score was a 27. I don't do so well with darker backgrounds. I clicked back onto my blogger page (it has a white background) and my eyes nearly popped out of my head. If I ever try to read blogs with a dark background, I usually have a headache or am nauseated by the time I'm finished reading. Now you have some useless knowledge about myself.

How'd you do?

Weekend Recap

Yesterday morning David and I watched our nephew's football game for a bit before David went to work. Once Dave had left for work, I got to work on our laundry mountain. I did laundry for four hours (yuck!). Once it was all clean and put away, I decided to go to the local Gardens to look around. These are my favorite pictures from my visit.

(Wish I would have moved that red towel.)

Last night we went to Applebee's for supper. I think we had the worst (and slowest) waitress in the whole place. We didn't eat until 9 last night so it wasn't like it was busy. And we had an extremely annoying guy behind us. Otherwise it was ok.

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I went grocery shopping early today so now I'm just going to be lazy for the rest of the day and wait for Dave to get home.

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Hope everyone had a good weekend!

My Fall Top 20

Melissa at The Inspired Room has posted her 20 Little Things to Treasure during the fall season. She's encouraging others to make their own list and share it via Mr. Linky. I'm in!! I love fall, it's my favorite season!

My 20 Little Things to Treasure in Autumn

1. Fall scents (spices, pumpkin, etc)

2. Pumpkin picking

3. Crunchy leaves

4. Big cozy sweatshirts

5. Football

6. Caramel apples

Picture taken from www.kingleocandy.com

7. Pumpkin treats

8. Baking

9. Hot chocolate

10. Crisp air

11. The smell of fallen leaves

12. Big, warm blankets

13. Homecomings (high school and college)

14. Leaves changing colors

15. Thanksgiving

16. Halloween

17. Soups & stews

Picture taken from www.recipes-recipies.com

18. Putting out fall decorations

19. Gathering with friends and family

20. Candles

Head over to The Inspired Room and share your favorites!

My Husband Rocks!

The other day I read the following post at Heaven's Gift.

.........I'm doing a little home school project with my kids. We want to build a small Holocaust memorial in our front yard, so that my kids can remember all the Jews/People that lost their lives. We are asking people to send us “stars.” Any kind of star, made from anything you wish. These stars will symbolize the lights that went out due to the Holocaust.If you are interested in doing this please let me know........

I decided that I would like to participate and started thinking how I would like to create my star. A little later I told Dave what I was doing as I dug through our office for some supplies. He immediately said that he would like to help out too and make his own star. I thought it was really neat that he wanted to help this family with their school project. Just another reason why my husband rocks!


If you want to participate in, or read more about My Husband Rocks!, visit Katy Lin over at the great adventure.

books

I've seen this on a few blogs. I ran across it today on Jill's blog and thought I'd give it a go.

The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six.

Here’s what you are supposed to do:
*Look at the list and bold those we have read.
*Italicize those we intend to read.
*Underline the books we LOVE .Share this list in your blog, too, if you like.

Ok, I browsed through these and I'm a little scared, but here it goes....

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

So there it is. I've read four of those books. I'm below average when it compared to the average adult. Always knew it. Couldn't they throw some more interesting books on there so I could feel above average?

I like to read, but obviously my taste in books differs quite drastically from the ones listed here. How about a little Baby-sitter's Club from back in the day? Ok, I'm kidding...well, kind of.

25? More like 45...

I love doing quick game type things on the computer. They have to be quick, otherwise I lose interest pretty quickly. My friend Trisha sent my this one in an email.

How old is your brain?
Procedure of Flash Fabrica Game:
1. Touch 'start'
2. Wait for 3, 2, 1.
3. Memorize the number's position on the screen, then click the circle from the smallest number to the largest number.
4. At the end of game, computer will tell you how old your brain is.
Good luck !!

Click here to play.

It tells me my brain age is 25. I am 28 years old, so I guess that's okay. Wonder if the game would add about 20 years if it knew the first time I played I kept clicking the circles and trying to type in a number. After 3 screens I just couldn't figure out why it wasn't working for me, so I went back to the email to look at the directions. Eh, following directions never really was my thing.

Tag!

I've been tagged by Frizzy at Heaven's Gift.

1. Where were you 10 years ago? 10 years ago I was a freshman at SDSU. I was about 3 weeks into my first semester of college. I think I was still attending class at that point. I dropped out later that semester and moved back home. I was really disappointed in myself. The next school year I attended a technical school, then transferred back to SDSU the following year. I finally graduated in 2006 from SDSU. I wasn't (and still really am not) proud of myself when I graduated because of all of my jumping around and racking up student loan debt.

2. Whats on your to-do list today? Today I needed to make a Walmart run after school (check) and get quarters for laundry (check). Tomorrow I need to get started on our mountain of laundry.

3. What if you were a Billionaire? I'd buy a house, donate to charity, build a tuition free daycare for children of college students here in town, volunteer, hire a chauffeur for my grandma so she'd stop driving, help family, and have a personal hair stylist because I hate doing my hair (and I kind of suck at it too).

4. Name 5 places that you have lived? Ok this is going to be exciting! Ready? Alpena, Woonsocket, Brookings, and Waterown. 4 places, all in South Dakota.

5. What are 3 bad habits that you have? Worrying about things until my stomach hurts, procrastination, and swearing.

6. What kind of snack do you like? Depends...sometimes sweet is good, sometimes salty is good, and sometimes both is better.

I'm tagging anyone who reads this :o)

Weekend Recap

Dave has been working all weekend so I've been trying to find ways to keep myself busy. I went to Goodwill after school on Friday. I didn't find anything too exciting but I did find this garden cart type thingy for $1.I spray painted it black then added some Spanish moss and pumpkins and here's how it looks now.

Sorry about the dark picture.

I went to a church rummage sale yesterday and scored these two items.

The sleigh is 12 inches long, and it was only 25 cents! I also got a brand new wedding memories book for $2. Now I need to get to work on that.

My parents came up yesterday to attend SDSU's football game. They came up early so my mom and I did a little shopping together, but didn't end up buying anything. We met back up with my dad and we all went out to lunch together.

That's about all I've done this weekend besides some cleaning and grocery shopping. Embarrassing tidbit: I vacuumed my carpet differently yesterday and it left the best vacuum lines! Loved it so much that I vacuumed again this morning. Anyone else love those lines (I know my name twin does :o) )?

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**Check out Brittney at My Scentsations. She's hosting a giveaway for a Scentsy plug-in & scent. I love Scentsy!!

My Husband Rocks!

I came home from work on Tuesday to find this note on the table

and this in the fridge.

He had made a casserole before leaving for work so all I had to do was heat and eat. He's very sweet.

Remembering....

Now, we have inscribed a new memory alongside those others. It’s a memory of tragedy and shock, of loss and mourning. But not only of loss and mourning. It’s also a memory of bravery and self-sacrifice, and the love that lays down its life for a friend–even a friend whose name it never knew.

-President George W. Bush-

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Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.
-President John F. Kennedy -

What the.....

So I'm home alone this evening and browsing through blogs. I ran across this on Escape Into My Thoughts.



I had to watch it twice to make sure I'd had really seen what I thought I had. My first reaction - "What the ......" My second - laughing out loud and thinking.."I need to put that on my blog!" Ok...so I'm bored.

Quick Project

I went to Goodwill last Friday night while my husband was working. I was bored so I thought I'd look for a cheap project. I found this little guy:

Not sure if the red curling ribbon was suppose to be a decoration or what. There's a piece of masking tape on the bottom that says MADE BY JERRY SCHILLERSSNOWN (I'm only sure of the letters SCHILLERS, not exactly sure what it says after that) 12-1985.

I carried him around for a little while. Finally I decided at 50 cents I couldn't really go wrong. So, I brought him home, painted him, and decoupaged a piece of scrapbook paper on the front. Here's what I ended up with:
I think he's kind of cute.

Weekend Recap

We started out our weekend by attending our nephew's first football game. He's a 6th grader. You can see him here, #51.

And here, he's the one hitting #18.

Later in the day we went acorn hunting. As we were picking up acorns from under a tree, Dave was pelted many times with acorn pieces from the squirrels' eating frenzy above us. It was pretty funny. Some of the other trees around us were starting to show signs of fall.

I can't wait until it officially arrives. We came home with a small baggy full of acorns. Now I just need to figure out what to do with them.

I did some laundry and other chores this morning. Not my favorite thing to do right after I get out of bed, but since I got it all done early I had the rest of the day to whatever I wanted.

Darlene over at Darlene's Days put this raggamuffin tutorial up the other day. I thought I'd give it a try today. I went to Walmart and dug through the scrap bins until I found what I thought would be enough fabric. I cut up the fabric, then got to work tying it on my twine. Here's my finished project:

It didn't take very long, and I only paid a little over $2 for the fabric.

For the rest of the afternoon my plans include sitting in our big chair with a blanket and reading old issues of various magazines to get more fall decorating inspiration. I might make some hot chocolate too (it's only 62 degrees here today).

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

My Husband Rocks!

This is one of my favorite pictures from our wedding day. It pretty much sums up what he looked like that day, well he calmed down once we got the reception.

So anyway... my husband rocks because he is so thoughtful. He often does little things around the apartment just to make my life easier. For example, he has done the dishes every day this week. It might not seem like a lot, but since I came home with a huge headache every single day this week, it was a great treat for me.

He's also thoughtful in lots of other ways too. Like all the little notes and cards he gives me, by not complaining when I drag him through Hobby Lobby because he knows I love that store, all the "spa" days he does to try to relax me, all the chick flicks he has sat through with me just so we would be spending time together, and I could go on and on and on. Wow, that was a long sentence.

So I'm not the only one....

Warning: This post is full of randomness.

Today as I was walking to a classroom I heard one a student singing "F to the R to the E to the E...." to himself. I had to laugh to myself because I love that commercial, and have my doubts that this kid even knows what a credit report is.

I always have my TV on for background noise so I often catch myself singing commercial tunes in my head. This is my other favorite

I love the guy in the Hawaiian shirt.

Update on my job: I'm starting to like it more. It's hard not to as I get to know the students better. Today I was working with a student who has autism. I could tell he was starting to get a little riled up so I told him what I wanted him to do and then didn't say anymore. We sat there in silence for a few minutes, then he looked at me and said, "So what do you want to do now". I just had to laugh. I told him that I was still waiting for him to do his work. He totally thought he was going to get out of doing his work because we had both just sat in there in silence. Ok, so that's probably only funny to me. But, you'd understand if you knew this student.

I've seen cute little tags on other blogs, so I thought I'd give them a try. I had picked up a pack of tags a few months ago on clearance for .25 so I figured I had room to experiment. Here's what I ended up with:

Fall Decor

I just couldn't wait any longer, so on Saturday I pulled out my fall decorations and went to work. I don't have a lot, but I don't have much storage space for such things either.

I used this as inspiration for one of my decorations. Perfect for my little .75 rummage sale bucket! Here's mine:

I also got this at a rummage sale early this summer.

I was so excited when I got it! I had wanted one from Hobby Lobby last fall, but was never in town at the right time to get it at 50% off so I didn't get one. So, now I have it, but am not sure what to put in it. Any ideas?

My Goodwill pumpkins are now next to our TV.

Here are a few other things I have out.

Oh! And the smell in our apartment is wonderful!! I'm using spicy pumpkin scents and it smells soooo good! If you've read my 100 list you know that I only burn/use scents that correspond with the season. I'm weird like that. I've had some Bath and Body Works wallflowers and a Scentsy bar in my closet for a few months now just waiting for fall.

So, that's it for now. Hopefully we'll be out of our financial slump soon and I'll be able to do a few fall related projects.