Archive for July 2014

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

The (Almost Finished) Pantry Project

Some days you wake up on a mission and never stop to question if what you're doing makes sense. This is how the Pantry Project started. In hind sight, I should have waited for the kids to start school but no, I started this project with a schedule already full of errands and other kid related stuff. I couldn't take the unfinished wood and oil stained shelves one day longer. Let's do this!   


Just one section of the chaos. 

I started with two coats of primer on the shelves.   

While those dried I thought about paint colors for the walls. I jumped from plain white to dark colors and every scenario in between but ended up choosing  the main color that's already all over our house. We had paint leftover, so I didn't need to buy any thus more money for the lighting budget, and it flows with the rest of the house. 

I don't have pictures of every step and even forgot to take a picture before loading all the food back in. Here was my process though after priming the shelves.
 -Cutting in the wall color (Holy cow there was a lot of that.)
-Rolling the wall color
-Filling in nail holes on shelf edging and random gouges in the wall
-Cutting in second coat
-Rolling second coat
-Cutting in shelves with Sherwin Williams enamel paint (sticky and thick! a little hard to work with!)
-Rolling the rest of shelves
-Cutting in second coat
-Rolling second coat

All those steps, plus drying time, plus stopping to make the kids meals, running them to where they needed to be, errands, etc., is exactly why such a small room took 5 days to finish. 

Quick story about the shelf color: I wanted a white and needed to pick before leaving the house to run an errand, so I quickly looked through a couple of color decks. I picked Cloud White by Benjamin Moore and, like I always do, Googled it quickly to see images of it on a bigger scale. Who knew so much drama could be created over a paint color! I guess Cloud White has long been noted by designers as the perfect white but there's many out there that clearly don't agree. Funny that I picked the color out of two giant paint fan decks.  

Anyways, here's a little shot of the almost finished product. I got rid of a ton of stuff and it feels great. I still need to buy a few more baskets and such, but that I will do without the kids in tow. Definitely worth the 5 days of chaos. 

This post has gone on long enough - kudos to you if you're still reading. What's left to do besides baskets? I promised the kids a dry erase wall that I'm now reconsidering and the light fixture. I want something fun and had a chandelier in mind but now think it may be too big for the space. I may save this for the laundry room and opt for something different for the pantry. 
 

There you go! A peek inside our pantry! 







Monday, July 28, 2014

Geocaching with Margot and Richie


It's been years since I've seen The Royal Tenenbaum's but these two reminded me of Margot and Richie yesterday while we were out on our first ever Geocaching hunt. 


Geocaching is a fancy word for modern day treasure hunting. A downloaded app uses your phone's compass to find a preset point. Vance wanted to try it out, so we did, and we were able to find 2 out of 3 boxes. 

(Since poison ivy and random biting bugs are drawn to me I do not stray from the paved path. I'm all about nature on paper, not in real life.)

Once you find the treasure box you write your name and the date, and news to me, you can swap little trinkets. (The boxes we chose to find were geared towards kids. Not sure if the more serious boxes follow the same practice.) One of my talents as a Mom is to be able to produce random items from my purse at all times. I don't remember putting plastic jumpy frogs in my purse but behold! there they were. The kids were able to trade and props to Vance for letting Vaughn choose the pink monkey doll with freakishly big eyes.


Afterwards we celebrated by having some fun at the pool. 
Some of us had more fun than others.

Hope you had a fun weekend! 

***************


Friday, July 25, 2014

Summer hiatus


My hiatus from here wasn't planned, it just happened. Me and associates, seen above, have been having a great summer and unplugging from the computer has been nice. 

While it seems weird to gloss over the past few weeks and jump into current events, that's what I'm going to do. I'll eventually get to the old stuff, like how Vaughn and I had an amazing girls weekend, but not today. 

A fire was lit and we started a bunch of house projects all at the same time. Not our normal practice, but some days that's the only way it seems possible to ever get done. Currently, the contents of our pantry are in the dining room while the pantry is being painted.   It's a huge test in patience for me as I need order and there's none of that around here right now. Aaaannd it might get worse because we've been talking about painting our kitchen cabinets. 

Just breathe. 

Hope you all have a good weekend! 


Monday, July 14, 2014

Hands down the best nail polish dryer


Sun, heat, pool water, and painting is not the recipe for good looking fingernails. The short story is that the weekend was hard on my nails which led me to think back to the last time they were looking their best. 

Unfortunately, I don't have another trip to the spa lined up anytime soon but I remembered that this awesome product can be bought and make your home nail session a little more like the real deal.

This is CND's SolarSpeed Spray which is a nutrient and polish dryer spray. My sister and I loved the almond scent and the way it made our skin feel. It was so good that we snuck sprays on our feet while waiting for our Mom and Aunt's manicures to end. Believe me, you'd do it too. 



*CND does not know who I am - I'm just sharing awesome products!

Wednesday, July 09, 2014

Fancy Tea Party Hosting 101

I've been planning a tea party for Vaughn in my head for years now. Our little white table, outside under the trees, glass domes covering treats, vintage chandelier hanging above, no pesky bugs, and the perfect day, warm and sunny but not too hot. You know, no big deal.

An opportunity finally presented itself in the form of two of Vaughn's buddies were moving away, and this seemed like the perfect way to send these sweet little sisters off. The end result was a bit different than what I had pictured in my head but it turned out just as great. I looked to Vaughn for the majority of the decisions and she had many tips for what fancy tea parties must have, which lucky for you, I'll share her wisdom.

"A fancy tea party must have name cards" 
(I wrote the girls names on pieces of paper and glued them to larger pink pieces of paper. Tip: calligraphy can be "faked" by making the down stroke thicker than the others.)

"A fancy tea party must have cucumber sandwiches"
(Use cookie cutters for this. Spread a little cream cheese or Boursin cheese onto the bread and slap a cucumber in between. It's unanimous, PB&J's are just as glamorous too.)

"A fancy tea party must have a tablecloth"
(Or at least a runner. Ours is actually wrapping paper found in the sale basket at a craft store which was perfect because we tossed it in the recycling bin when finished.)

"A fancy tea party must have cute napkins and flowers"
(Luck played a big part here as I had already had these little vintage lunch napkins from my mother-in-law. As for the flowers, Vaughn picked them out at Trader Joe's, aka the cheapest place to get fresh flowers.)

"A fancy tea party must have tea or pretend tea if you don't like real tea"
(Our "tea" was Trader Joe's sparkling pink lemonade.)

"A fancy tea party must have treats"
(Again, Trader Joe's is perfect for this as they have a big selection of little cookies and treats that won't break the bank. We picked meringues, lemon wafer cookies, and Speculoos cookies, which if you haven't tried you should because they're the best.)

We also made little fruit kabobs. (Using a big brother to help taste test is optional.)

"A fancy tea party must have fancy hats"
(Or in our case, fancy sun visors. Before sitting down for tea the little ladies decorated the visors with glitter flower stickers and I hot glued feathers where they wanted them.)



I really wanted to drag the table outside but it was just too hot. We went with the next best thing, which was moving the table from the carpeted office down the hall onto hardwood floors because with each life a little tea must fall. 


Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Take off my left shoe? My foot!

I cannot believe that professionals are writing stories with tips and products are being made to help people remember that they have a child in the back seat of the car. If you cannot remember on your own that your child is in the car than you should not be driving at all.  

Take your left shoe off and put it in the backseat so that when you reach your destination you remember to get it (and your child) from the back. Seriously? If people cannot remember to take their kids out of the back seat, will they remember to take a shoe off before hopping in the front seat? Put your purse back there? Duct tape a rubber band that leads from the inside front door to the inside of the back door? I'm sure someone is even working on an App. You know people would never forget their phone in a hot car!

The stories about infants and pets left in hot cars are absolutely heartbreaking and I know that accidents do happen but I believe it is time for people to check their priorities. 

Monday, July 07, 2014

Back from the Beach

Vaughnie and Clyde at it again.

If you go to the beach with boys who wear swimsuits with pockets that means you'll have sand forever in your luggage and seashells in your washing machine.  

We are back from vacation and I'll post about it when I am done shaking sand out of everything and by that I mean I'll really be finishing my hippie meditation book that's due back at the library tomorrow. Yes, I still use the library and no, I can't renew it because it's on hold which means someone is waiting on me. 

I'll leave you with this gem of a picture. Vaughn chose to wear a sweater amidst the summer heat because of the no-see-ums that were out in full force. (She attracts anything that bites which swells to a giant welt and ends up in a scab because of the itching. Can you be allergic to mosquito's and such?) She always chooses to wear cardigans that way - with the first button buttoned - and ends up looking like a cross between an old lady and a 50's poodle skirt girl. I'll also tell you that Vance chose to wear that same shirt again later on with a pair of neon green shorts and socks and he looked like a giant highlighter. I love how ridiculous they are. 

 

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