Oh my goodness!

It's been a year since I've blogged! Sorry about that. Even if you didn't notice, I'm still sorry. Real quick, I'm just going to tell you about the book I'm currently reading. I am reading "Stress Less, Weigh Less" by Holly Mosier. It'a a book on how to get your life and weight under control by reducing stress. She gives all her methods on how to reduce stress, eat healthy, and add in some exercise, without it all seeming too overwhelming. And it obviously has worked, as you can tell by taking one look at her! I was already feeling less stressed just after two chapters, and I had been at the pool with 6 kids, so that says something right there! Also, I can personally say that Holly's awesome because she's married to my husband's cousin. That's not why I'm saying nice things about her book though. She writes like a real person that you can relate to, and she doesn't try to tell you "Drink the Holly kool-aid and the next morning you will wake up feeling and looking fabulous!" She just honestly tells you everything's she's researched and what has worked for her. It's available on Amazon and other locations also, which you can probably find on her website: www.hollymosier.com I'll try to keep my blog updated with how much less stress and less me I end up with!

4th of July Goodies!

I wanted to have some fun making snacks to celebrate the 4th this year and this is what I came up with.











My husband and 2 sons loved them! Although, they are boys, and it IS food, so I probably could've made them any color and they would've liked them! The way to a man's heart is definitely through his stomach in my house!

Apples, Apples, Everywhere!!

I was fortunate enough to get lots of free apples from some trees here in town. My plan is to make caramel apple jam. I'm hoping to can enough so that I don't have to buy jelly for a while!







In the spirit of all these free apples, here's a link to a free printable apple stationery set over at Creature Comforts. It's really cute!

Box Springs Won't Fit Up Your Stairs?

After sleeping with our mattress directly on the floor for a month and deciding that I really didn't want to spend $300+ on a split box spring for our queen size bed, we decided to 'go for it' and cut the boards on the box spring so that we could fit it up the stairs. The previous owners had a full size bed, so we knew that our bed size might be an issue. After careful research and planning, here's how we did it:

First thing I did was cut the dust liner off. It would be too much trouble to remove all the staples holding it on, so I just used scissors and cut as close to the staples as possible. We then cut across these 3 boards with a saw and folded it in half. You do have to cut a slit in the fabric on the sides so that it will fold. I checked out the wires to make sure we would be folding the weaker wires and not across the bigger springy ones.

Lay it down and fold it over. We tried to fold it while it was standing, but that wasn't working too well. Once we laid it down it folded right over.




Once it was folded, we carried it up the stairs, into our room, and we had bought a package of these metal plates (they come with screws) in the bracket section at Menard's. I held the boards together, Hubby screwed in the screws, and 'Voila!' we have our box springs back intact.




I then took the staple gun and stapled the dust liner back on.



Just to introduce another part of my house, the first pics were taken in my enclosed porch.

Mindless Monday!

Obviously, they won't be licking the dog's foot either.

Finally.......THE HOUSE!

Okay, so I didn't blog for 3 months. Some people would really try to not make excuses, but I'm not one of those people. I have plenty of excuses. And here they are in chronological order:

End of school year
Closed on our house
Daughter visit for 5 weeks
Grandpa visit for 7 days
Started a new bible study
Got a new dog
Nephew visit for 7 days

So there they are and they are perfectly viable excuses. What do you mean all those excuses didn't seem to stop me from checking my facebook on a daily basis? Facebook really only requires a few minutes at a time and is much easier to check than to conjure up the brain power to write out a heartfelt and witty blog entry. So, all that aside, I know you're dying to hear about my house!

It's a 1918 American Foursquare style house. 4 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, 2-story, hardwood floors in most of the rooms, original woodwork (as far as I know), and we absolutely love it! We closed on June 12 and got all the stuff moved over on June 20. Here's some pics:

This was back in February when our offer was accepted.





Some of the inside: (I'll post more once I take some that have my furniture in it. Most of the ones I have are of when we first looked at it.)







And here is a little before and after in my kitchen:

Before:


After:


New roof being put on:



I actually have a few more things to blog about, but it is just getting too late. Maybe I can conjure up some sort of miraculous consistency and actually blog again this week!

Ok, Maybe I'm Not Really Back Yet...

Well, I thought I was back and would get some bloggity-blog-blog blogging done, but maybe not. You see, I was taken hostage by these 2 really scary men (well, actually, boys) and they refuse to let me go and move out of my house for at least another 6-13 years. They just keep making messes, dirtying everything and bringing me endless stacks of paper from their daytime hideout that I can't seem to get a grip on. I am just buried under piles and piles of their mess and filth and I can't seem to break free! You think I'm kidding??? Well, I have pictures to prove it!


This one seems to be the ring leader. He's made this ferocious face so many times, that it seems to have frozen like this! Can you imagine having to look at this hideousness day-in and day-out? It's torture, I tell you! Can't you see the pleading in my eyes? Somebody.....please.....help.....



This guy may look small, but he seems to be the muscle of the group (think Joe Pesci). My gosh, just look at him! He pulls his own teeth out for fun! Just look at that grizzly smile. Have you ever seen anything so sinister?