Easter weekend

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend spending the holiday with loved ones. My husband was working on Easter and my parents left for Colorado last week to celebrate the holiday with my sister, so I was an orphan yesterday. Luckily a girl friend of mine came over and we ate all the ham, and asparagus we could fit into our bellies and binged on Revenge episodes on Netflix. I'm kind of obsessed with that show now that Scandal is done for the season. I may or may not have filled my belly with mimosas as well. They're so good though, I add Grand Marnier to the glass before the champagne. Delish!

Holidays are a little sad for me nowadays. Since we don't have kids yet, the holidays are just too quiet. I can't wait for the day I see little faces light up on mornings where they got a surprise visit during the night. I may have baby fever, but I know that we're not there yet so I can wait until we're ready. Still it's a little bittersweet.

Lazy weekend

It was a glorious weekend! Some highlights are:

• Friday night after work I met my mom at the local mall and searched for a bridesmaid's dress for my sister's wedding this fall. We'll be in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for it, so needed something weather appropriate. As we were walking in, I saw a dress in a photo plastered in the window and thought, "Wow, that's a super cute dress...if they have it in the right color I'm definitely trying it on." Lo and behold, as soon as we walked in, we spotted said dress in the correct color. Looked at the size (score!), tried it on...and the rest was history! Tried on only one dress, loved it, and bought it. That's the great thing about being my sister's one and only bridesmaid - I got to choose what I would wear. Luckily, we sent a pic to Christy and she loved the dress. I guess we'll be sharing a neckline ;)

• One step closer to Mexico thanks to finally getting around to renewing my passport. Technically, my passport doesn't expire until next year, but I needed to change my name since I've gotten married since previously getting a passport, so it's not valid anymore since I don't have any identification with my maiden name on it...and the plane tickets we purchased for said trip have my married name on it..So something I learned while taking my passport photo - you don't smile anymore!? How come!? I look like I'm being booked into prison. I managed a teeny tiny smile in my new photo because I suffer what is known as "Resting Bitch Face"..It's a real thing, people!
  

• Thanks to Netflix, I got to revisit a favorite movie of mine I've forgotten about. Penelope. It came out while I was in college and hit quite close to home for me..No, I wasn't born with a pig face...but during that time in my life, I didn't really like myself. I always found too many "imperfections" in me - I was too skinny, too pale, big nose, etc. Later in my college career I started to actually embrace everything I formerly hated about myself...And thanks to on demand and DVR, I've caught up with Scandal, Reign (new guilty pleasure), finally seen what's so great about this gem...and got an Emma Stone/Ryan Gosling fix with Gangster Squad. I personally love those two together. They need to make more movies I say!

• I busted out my Silhouette Portrait yesterday and started working on spring crafts. Nothing gets you into a holiday mood like crafts! Haven't finished yet because after cutting everything out, I realized I had nothing to mount it on. Oops. Had no desire to leave my house yesterday, so saving the finishing product for later in the week when I can stop by a store on my way home to grab the necessary materials. 

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  Spring banner, anyone?
  
  
  

  Got really excited to see progress with my raspberry plant I purchased in February at the Seattle Garden Expo. So far my quest to no longer be a black thumb is proving to be successful..I've managed to keep an orchid alive since September, my raspberry plant is budding, AND as I was leaving home to head to work, I saw that the hydrangea plant in my front yard is budding too!

  

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I know I enjoyed mine!

I live in a house with a boy and 2 boy long-haired dogs. Needless to say, no matter how much I clean, there is a "funk" smell in the air some days. Today was one of those days. Walked into the bedroom and living room and smelled...I don't know what. Today is not a deep clean day so that's when I turn to Arm & Hammer Carpet and Room Pet Fresh Odor Eliminator (can find it here). Man, what a difference a little sprinkle of that does before I vacuum! The fresh scent lasts for quite a long time in my experience with it as well, which is a huge plus, because I already vacuum everyday due to previously stated long-haired dogs.  If I skip a day vacuuming, the next day I'll have piles of dog hair floating around the hardwoods looking like tumble weeds. It's ridiculous!

With the weather warming up it is getting close to that time of year when the boys get shaved. It's still a tad too cold, so I'll wait a few more weeks for it to warm up. Last year we did it super early and the little one (poor guy), had to wear a sweater for like a month so he wouldn't shiver constantly.

My newest project

Over the weekend my mother-in-law and I went to thrift stores looking for a good deal on furniture because she was going to teach me how to refinish it. She's been finding these old school sewing cabinets with machines still inside and fixing them up. They look awesome.

Less than 5 minutes in our first store we find a sewing cabinet with a machine in it. Priced at $19.99. I was sold. Walked out of the store spending $30 because she also got a cutting table for me. She has one that she got at Joann Fabrics for over $100 and found the exact same one at Value Village for ten bucks. Couldn't leave it!

I have one more coat of polyurethane to put on it and then this bad boy is coming home. I was so excited about it last night I moved the current computer desk my sewing machine was sitting on in my craft room into the office. So it is now holding my Silhouette Portrait which will get used tonight when my sister in law comes over to work with vinyl for a home decor project for her dining room. I'm excited to see it work with vinyl, I haven't used anything other than paper in it yet, AND I'm getting paid for it with wine and Girl Scout Thin Mints :)

Here are photos:

I was so excited when we plugged in the machine and it actually worked! All that was missing was a bobbin case. We're guessing the machine is from the '40s. It's a New Home (which is now Genome). My mother in law knows a guy that has expertise in old machines in the area so she took the machine to him to see if he could find a bobbin case for it. Just got word that he did, yay!

So here's the process of how we refinished this piece. We put Citrustrip stripping gel on it to take the varnish off. Used a palm sander to sand it down (there were cigarette burns and watermarks from drinking glasses on it so we got those off as much as we could..What we couldn't get off will be "character"), wiped it down with both a towel and this tacky cloth stuff to get all the dust. For the legs because there is so much detail into it, we thought it best to hand rub the polyurethane on it instead of using a brush, and we also did the hand rub on the front with the two toned wood just because we didn't want to have drips. The rest we brushed poly onto it. Last night I did my second coat of poly, and on the legs towards the bottom I brushed poly onto it in case I ever steam clean our carpets or anything just to protect it. In between the coats of poly we let it dry 24 hours and I rubbed it down with steel wool to get bumps out. Wiped it down with a towel and the tacky thing again, then did the next coat of poly. 

I'm already itching for my next project. It'll either be experimenting with Annie Sloan's chalk paint, or learning how to reupholster..We shall see!

3 Day weekend, holla!

I love 3 day weekends from work, especially lately because my office is so understaffed and at the same time growing like a weed. This economy is certainly very stressful on a non-profit mental health organization, let me tell you. So yes, again, I love 3 day weekends where I can lounge around the house for a whole day (A WHOLE DAY!!) and not worry about my to-do list for the weekend because I have an extra day to make that up.  It's fantastic!! Because of 3 day weekends, I feel Saturday always becomes the lazy day. Do I need to buy groceries? Yes. Am I doing that today? Absolutely not. Instead I am using all the gift cards for Amazon I've saved up since Christmas and buying myself the super indulgent item I've been lusting after for months, but refused to buy yet because I couldn't justify it. As of Tuesday, I'll be the proud owner of the Silhouette Portrait for all the craft projects I've been pinning on Pinterest and seen in magazines and other peoples' Facebook photos. I want to make crafty things too dang it! If I were being extremely indulgent, I would have opted for the Cameo instead of Portrait, but I'm not confident in my craft skills yet.

To be honest, I'm not THAT crafty. But I really want to be!! So that's why the portrait was a good decision for me. I've had the portrait in my wish list for about a year. When I originally added it, it was $150. Yes, that is a doable price, but it still was not low enough for me to bite the bullet and get it, especially since we just purchased this mondo house in September, so our mortgage is over twice what we used to pay in our condo. It was a BIG adjustment for me, that I'm still trying to get used to. I just checked my wish list out yesterday and saw that the price dropped to $119. Yes, that was a way better price for my taste and because of gift cards, I only paid around $30 because I also signed up for the trial of Amazon Prime, so free 2 day shipping for this girl!
 (I have a confession: I love Amazon Prime, but I hate paying the $80 something dollars for it a year. I did that once and I noticed that I did not use it to make paying the eighty bucks worth it. So what I do is when I get something saying I'm eligible for Prime with a 30 day trial, I say sure I'll sign up for Prime..but then a day or so after I'll go into where you can manage your prime account and there is a place that says when your trial ends and you'll be charged and it gives you an option to continue it after that date or choose to not continue. I always choose to not continue. I don't know if that's cheating, but it really helps me out by saving the shipping fee.)

Update on savings plan

Week 5 done! Woot Woot!!

I haven't really been following my exactly on this day of the week I will deposit this much amount into my savings. I've been basically doing 2 weeks at a time when I get paid. Hey, do what works for you. This works for me.

Thick Hair problems

Am I right?

I have thick hair. When I say thick, I mean, I have to get it thinned out every time I go in for a trim because if I skip it just once, the migraines set it from the weight of my hair. It was much worse when I had longer hair.

I absolute hate washing, drying, straightening my hair. It is my least favorite thing to do. Just recently I've found a few things to help with this process though!

First up is Kenra Professional Platinum Blow Dry Spray. I was introduced to this product by my hair stylist. He used it after washing my hair and before styling. It reduces blow dry time to about half AND it protects against heat damage. Kill two birds with one stone!

I also swear by dry shampoo for those days where I wake up late and washing and styling my hair just will not happen even though I really should (like today). Spray that stuff in my hair at the roots, put it up while I continue getting ready for the day, take my hair down and start finger brushing/make my hair a crazy beauty pageant contestant's volume. I basically just keep going back and forth like you would to create volume until the white powder disappears. It will add volume, but not crazy lengths when you're finished which is nice.

  I don't have a favorite brand yet, I'm not too dry shampoo savvy yet. I got a trial size of Tresemme's version with my hair spray and I really like it. I also got a groupon for a buy 1 get 1 free of Batiste original dry shampoo. I'm not a big fan of Batiste's smell, but oh well, I'll live. I use both interchangeably. Basically whichever one I find first in my stash of clutter is what I use.