Why?

Why are men allowed to make decisions such as where to place a thermostat (well, I'm assuming this was a man's doing because I can't see a woman thinking this would be good placement)?  We have 4 of these little beauties in our apartment and two of them really bother me.   Here's the one in the "dining room" which is really more of a nook off our living room.
Was that really the only place that thing could go?  I'm having a hard time deciding how to decorate around it.  I recently took the Live, Laugh, love signs thingies down and would like to put a shelf up, and possibly some plates(?).
The other one that bothers me is here in our bathroom:
Yup, they slapped this one up smack dab in the middle of the wall.  I'm in the process of changing decorations in the bathroom, that's why the wall decor is pretty sparse right now.  I'm having a hard time deciding how to decorate the wall here too because it's really hard to avoid having the thermostat as part of the decoration too.
Anyone have any good ideas?

Look What I Did

Joy at Joys of Home showed this project on Friday.  I thought it was pretty darn cute, so I decided to give it a try too!  Here's what I ended up with:
The picture was taken at a big of an angle so its not quite as off center as it appears.  I think I'll put it in the bottom of our "new" TV stand.
I'll be attending a baby shower next week, so I think I'll make one to give as a gift.  I'm going try an oval next time like Mrs. H did with her project.  I don't know what colors the nursery is done in though and I don't really have a way of finding out either (it's one of my co-workers at the school, she had a girl).  Any ideas on what colors I should use?

A New Home

No, not for David and me, we'll be apartment bound for awhile yet.  At least until we decide where we want to live.  But, our TV got a new home this weekend.  We moved into our apartment exactly two years ago and this was suppose to be our temporary arrangement for the TV:
This did the job, but it wasn't very nice looking.  You can see all the cords hanging down in the back, and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't hide them.
I went rummage saling this weekend and ran across this:
I came home and asked Dave if he thought we could find a way to get a TV stand home if I bought it.  He said we could so I went back to the sale and bought it.  We borrowed my brother-in-law's pickup so we could bring it home.  I really wanted to paint it black, but since we don't have lawn space of our own we decided it would be easiest to just spruce it up.  So I painted the inside black, stained the shelves, and fixed up the nicks on the bottom.  I gave it a good scrubbing with some wood soap and Dave made a hole in the back for the cords to go through. Now our TV sits on this:

Not bad for $5, eh?  Now, I just need to find some "pretties" to put in the bottom. I got a few other goodies while I was out too.  
The cutting board was .10 and as I was walking away from the sale I found a dime on the ground.  So, technically it was free!  I'm planning on doing some sort of project with it.  I paid .75 for the tall bucket thing, it still has the original price tag on it for 15.95. The apothecary jar was 25 cents.  I got nine of those square, black mirrors for $4 and the lamp for $1 at Goodwill.  I'll post the items again later when I have them finished.

Today I helped out at my friend Joy's daycare.  Her and her family left today for vacation, so I helped for a few hours today and will go back tomorrow to give a lunch break.  It was fun to work with young children again.  It's been a full year now since I worked at Children's First Step, so it was fun to get to hang out with the little ones.
Here are my Goodwill finds that I mentioned yesterday.
I carried this around with me for awhile before I actually decided to buy it.  I couldn't figure out what I'd do with it, but I couldn't leave it there for $1.

It didn't take me long to decide what to do with it once I got it home.  I made bottoms for each "shelf" by covering cardboard with some fabric that I had on hand.
Now we have a place to put our bread and the fruit that doesn't go in the fridge.
I also bought these:
They still have the store tags on them.  Couldn't pass them up either.  I'll show them again once I get them painted.
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Finally...

I finally sat down today to write my share of our wedding thank yous.  It's only been what, 3 months since our wedding?  And "proper" etiquette is to get them out within a month of the wedding you say?  Yeah, so we're a little slow.
So anyway, this is my stack of thank yous that are waiting for postage and then to be sent on their way.  David will be working on his this weekend.
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I went shopping for fruit the other night and peaches were on my list.  These were the peaches they had at HyVee:
The one on the left is the leftover from the last batch I bought about a week ago or so.  It's just a regular ol' peach.  It looks so small next to the new ones.  I didn't realize that peaches grew to softball size.  Yeah, so small things keep me entertained.
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Update on the ugly shelf thing I bought a few weeks ago.  Here is what it looked like when I bought it:

And here is what it looks like after I took out the little pots, spray painted it black, distressed some edges, and added some pictures:
It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but the middle picture sticks out a little further than our individual pictures.

Celebrating

David and I went to Sioux Falls on Saturday to celebrate our 3 years together. We had lunch at Panera Bread then went to the mall where he surprised me with a manicure. A manicure and a pedicure in a one week period? I'm getting a little spoiled here.

We also went to Hobby Lobby because I can't go to Sioux Falls and not go to Hobby Lobby. We picked out a fall themed centerpiece for our table while we were there. It was 50% off, oh how I love that store! We also did a little shopping at World Market.

We visited Annie and Brian while we were in town. We hung out at their place for awhile and then decided to go supper together at TailGators in Brandon. Our food was really good. After supper we went back to Annie and Brian's for a bit then headed back to Brookings.

Anniversary

Yesterday marked year three for David and I as a couple. I made a little sign Wednesday night and hung it where Dave would see it when he walked in from work early Thursday morning.A little cheesy, I know, but I am a little cheesy. That's my new favorite font by the way. I am slightly obsessed with fonts.

We are planning to go to Sioux Falls this Saturday to celebrate so we didn't do much today. I did make a nice supper though. It was SO good! I found a recipe online and I altered a bit to make it more "my style". Definately a little (ok, a lot) heavy on the calories, but it was worth it.

Notice the butter on the little plate? I learned today that cookie scoops make nice little butter balls. Presentation is everything ya know ;o) Anyway, we had Pasta with Chicken Mushroom Cream Sauce and some good, crusty bread to go with it. Here's the recipe if you're interested. I wouldn't make it if you're counting calories though.

Pasta with Chicken Mushroom Cream Sauce
1 package farfalle pasta
1 tablespoon butter
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I used 1 1/2 breasts)
12 shiitake mushrooms (I couldn't find these in our grocery store so I used about 2 oz. sliced baby portibellos)
1 cup heavy cream (I added 1 cup skim milk to this to make more cream sauce)
salt to taste
1 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
3 oz shredded Romano cheese (the recipe didn't orginally call for this, but I think it was a good addition)

1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.

2. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook chicken until no longer pink. Transfer chicken to a cutting board and slice thinly; set aside. Throw mushrooms into the skillet that was used for the chicken and heat slightly. Gradually stir in cream and milk. Cook, stirring constantly for 7 to 10 minutes, or until sauce has thickened (I had to add a small amount of flour to get it to thicken). Stir in Romano cheese. Add chicken back into skillet and season with salt and pepper. Cook for 5 minutes. Toss with pasta until evenly coated.

Do you still celebrate your dating anniversary?

Do you make cheesy signs?