Saturday, September 29, 2012

Pinterest for the Home 2

Yep, my next post about Pinterest for the home.  I realized after I had posted the other one I had left something out, and then I just ordered some more stuff for the home this week too.

Let's start with what I left out of the last post.  I had pinned a while back an idea to use a hook, such as a command hook on the wall opposite of the shower head, then you hang your shower caddy on it so it's not under the shower head in the water and your way.  We have a HUGE shower now LOL but 2 of the walls are glass.  So on the tiled wall is where I hung the hook for our shower caddy.  It's all the way at the end of the shower wall, across from the shower door, and completely out of the water!  I will take a picture and post it later, right now I need to find the charger for my camera battery so I can charge the battery.

Next is something for my pantry.  The pantry I have now is about half the size of my old one....and my old one was FULL before!  We have quite a bit less storage space here.  In California we had closet's and cabinet's every where.  I really like'd the idea of rotating can holders (I had several different kids pinned on Pinterest LOL).  I like that I can put my newer cans on top and take the older cans from the bottom and it rotates it all for me.  With my old pantry I would have to rearrange my cans whenever I bought new stuff so that I took the older ones first, it was a lot of extra work.

I went to www.pantrymaid.com and bought a ton of rotating can holders.  I got them in various sizes for all the different kinds of cans that I have.  I can't wait for them to get here so I can put them to use.  The great thing about these is that down the road I can use them on my shelves that I am putting in my garage too!  Once they come in and I have a chance to get everything re-done in my pantry I will post picture!  I can't wait to see them!



Saturday, September 22, 2012

Pinterest for the Home

Well, now that we are home owners *does a little happy dance* I can put some of the things I have pinned on Pinterest into use.  This makes me a very happy woman.....my husband on the other hand, does the eye roll when ever I start talking about this neat idea I found on Pinterest LOL.

The first idea I did, I didn't actually get from Pinterest, but I'm gonna share it anyways 8).  I bought a bunch of contact paper (we had to buy 4 24' rolls!!) and we put contact paper down on all the cabinet shelves in the kitchen.  Man that was a lot more work than I thought it would be!

I got this fabulous idea from Pinterest to get peel and stick tiles and place them underneath the kitchen sinks.  I bought a case of the tile and am planning to put the tile down this week....not just under my kitchen sink, but all 4 bathroom sinks too!  I just need to get an exacto knife so I can easily cut the tiles that need to be cut.  I am all about quick and easy clean up and protecting the wood!

Next, I saw on Pinterest this great idea to use a spice rack for nail polish!  Since I have less counter space in my bathroom now this is a fabulous idea!  My old bathroom actually had a separate vanity area.  I had looked around in the stores some and not seen anything I liked.  Today another friend had pinned this same idea and I decided to follow the link (usually it goes to a blog post) but I got lucky and it went to Amazon!!  Needless to say, I ordered one LOL, it should be here on Tuesday!

Now I ordered it in silver (nickel satin finish) because that would go with my bathroom.  That one was a tiny bit more, but I didn't mind.



The one it direct linked to had a black finish and is about $6 cheaper, so I will share that one too if you are interested.




I can't wait for it to get in!  Once I have it up and all my nail polish in it I will share a picture!

Now I just need to decide what kind of wreath I want to make for my front door for the fall.....do I want a fall one and a Halloween one?  Or just Halloween?....hmmm, decisions, decisions LOL.



Friday, September 21, 2012

Crazy Little Thing Called Life

Sorry I have been MIA for the last month, but we moved from California to North Carolina!  We're still unpacking, organizing, and getting settled in, but we've made quite a bit of headway.

Let me tell you, driving cross country with 2 cars, 4 kids, and a dog is quite an adventure!  During the day we ate lunch at places where we could eat outside, so we could have Buddy with us (it was way to hot to leave him in the car!), then at night, we would eat after we got to the hotel, so we had a place to keep Buddy.  Luckily it got cooler as we drove across the country!

The first day (Monday) when we drove through Phoenix we stopped to see my Grandma Hook, so all the kids got to spend some time with their Great Grandma, then we headed on to my hometown in south eastern Arizona.  We spent the night there and got to spend time with my mom and my best friend Mel.

The next day we hit the road for New Mexico.  We lost an hour as we crossed into New Mexico, which combined with a late start to the day to make it a late day for us.  We stopped at the White Sands National Monument and let the kids run around and play on the dunes for a bit.  We got into Santa Rosa around 9pm, I think it was our latest day on the road.

The day after that was our drive through Texas....luckily we were just going across the top of it on the 40.  We had lunch in Amarillo, who by the way, has some of the most confusing on/off ramps to the interstate!  We stopped in Oklahoma City for dinner so I could see my friend Kristy and her 3 kids.  I hadn't seen Kristy since I left CT back in May 2001.  She was one of my closest friends when I was stationed in CT and was there with me for most of my pregnancy with Austin.  We spent about 2 hours over dinner catching up and letting all the kids play.  From there we pushed on to Henrietta to stop for the night.  I got all excited when I read their sign saying it was the home of Troy Aikman, only to find out, it's actually his grandmother's house, tho he spent some time there while growing up.

On our 4th day we had our drive through the dreaded state of Arkansas...I don't know what it is about that state, but it hates me and I hate it LOL.  The last time I drove cross country I had issues there and this time was no different.  The ONLY real traffic we hit was in Arkansas, really bad construction that stopped us and delayed us.  It's like the state KNEW I wanted to make it to Memphis in time to go to Graceland so it was doing everything in it's power to stop me LOL.  Despite Arkansas's attempt to thwart my plans we were able to check into a hotel and then make it to Graceland by 4pm, they close at 5!  I had completely forgotten that this year was the 35th anniversary of Elvis's death.  We were there about a week and a half after the anniversary.  Graceland was pretty cool and I'm glad we got to see it, it's pretty crazy seeing a place stuck in 1977, we've come a long way since then.

The day after that we were headed to the Chattanooga area to see Josh's Dad and family.  It had been almost 2 years since we made a trip out to see his family in TN so we wanted to make sure we got to see them on the drive.  Instead of taking us on the 40 to Nashville and then down the 24 it took us a weird round about way.  Good thing my cousin Laura Benton in KY had to work, since Susan (our GPS) took us the other way!  She is a teacher and if school wasn't in session we were going to drive to Nashville and then jump up to Franklin, KY to see her and her family.  The route Susan took us was from Tennessee into Mississippi and then into Alabama.  As we were driving along I saw a sign that said Florence 15 miles.  My friends Jason and Mel live in Florence AND it was just about lunch time!  I contacted them to see if they would be able to meet us up for lunch, and they could!  So we got to see them at Five Guys and had a nice lunch and visit before continuing on to Jasper, which was only about 2 hours away.

We spent that Friday and Saturday in Jasper with Josh's Dad and visiting family.  Of course, Josh had to catch the first UT game of the season, it was pretty cute watching him and his dad sit in rocking chairs in front of the computer because the game wasn't on a channel that his dad had.  Riley says that Grandpa lives in a forest, which is cute, because that's exactly what Austin said 5 years ago LOL.  The kids got to catch fireflies one night and had a blast doing it.

That Sunday we loaded up the car and headed to North Carolina.  We got in at a decent time and settles into our hotel room.  Later that night I got to see my friend Linda and her daughter Leia.  Linda worked at the hotel we were staying at.  She is another great friend from my time in CT like Kristy, who I also hadn't seen since May 2001 (well, I saw her when we were house hunting).  The 3 of us hung out together all the time (we just need Kristy to leave OKC for North Carolina now!).

The next few days were spent buying new living room furniture, canceling and reordering our new washer and dryer (long story HAHA) and.....closing on our house!!!  And, of course, registering the kids for school (which I could not do until after we closed on the house)  That's right the hubster and I are now officially 1st time home owners!  It's a very exciting time for us.  2 months ago before we came out here we were looking to rent, we had no clue that we would wind up having to buy a house, but when the time came everything just fell right into place for us.  I am a strong believer in everything happens for a reason, we were meant to come to North Carolina, for whatever reason, and we're here to stay lol.

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of kids going to school, getting our household goods, setting up our phone/internet/cable, starting Jaidan in Ballet and tumbling, unpacking, organizing, and everything else that goes with moving.  Things are starting to settle down now, so hopefully I can get back into blogging more often too!

Sorry for the long rambling post, when I sat down to do the post I didn't know exactly where I was going to go with it, but here we are lol.

This is definitely a crazy life that we are living right now the last few months, but it's our life and it is so worth it!