Boxes, boxes, and more boxes…

Isnt’ packing fun?  Um…in a word…NO!  But knowing that we’ll be in our new house in less than a week is, in a word, EXCITING!  So, it makes it all okay. 

My agenda for today is Pack, Pack, and Pack some more.  The kids are at grandmom’s, so I have no excuses for not getting a lot done.  I’m gonna grab some lunch and get started. 

I’ll be posting my weekly Menu Plan either late tonight or early tomorrow morning, so stay tuned for that!   I got a new “Fix It and Forget It” cookbook for the crockpot, so I might try a few recipes out of that since I’ll be busy packing and moving this week anyway. 
So, check back soon for my weekly menu!

Goodwill finds, furniture to “Rehab”, a few organizing pics…

Ok, so I have been slacking on the blogging for a few days…it’s just been crazy around here trying to get ready to move next week!  Plus I had a yard sale yesterday and today, so that took up a lot of my time too.
ANYWHO…I took myself over to the Goodwill the other day, and I found some really cool things.  Some glass vases in different sizes ranging from $1 – $2, some great games for the family for only $1 each, and a cute, cute, cute lamp for my daughter’s room for $3.  I need to craft up a cute lampshade that will match her new room decor, but that will have to wait for another day.   

Now, on to the furniture that needs to be “rehabbed” (or re-purposed or whatever you want to call it!) – We are getting a new, smaller table for our new house (actually I already bought it, but we’re not putting it together until we move), but we are keeping our current china cabinet.  But there’s a problem with this cabinet…

 

 

What’s the problem, you say?  Well, our new table will be black.  I want the china cabinet to be black, and I want the doors remove.  So, once we get moved and basically settled in, I’m gonna work on bringing this baby to life with some good ‘ol black paint!    I’m excited!

I have another piece of furniter that I want to rehab too, but the pic won’t load for some reason.  Argh!  Anyway, it’s a ‘barnwood’ table that is really long and narrow (I currently use it for a scrapbooking workspace).  I’m thinking of cutting the legs down to bench height and using it at the end of our bed – Painted a nice chocolate brown, of course! 

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been organizing out the wazoo so that it will be easier when I start packing boxes.  We’ll see if all that work pays off tomorrow when I start packing!

I’ll try to post some more organizing pics tomorrow…I’m just too tired to keep my eyes open much longer tonight.

Have a great day!

Rehab’ing furniture…have you done it?

With us preparing to move next weekend, I’ve been doing a LOT of thinking about how I want our new house to look…they style I mean.  Well, I want it to be a bit different from what we have now.  So, I’m considering painting our dining room furniture.  I think I’ll like the table and the china cabinet once I get them painted black, but I’m not sure about the chairs…they’re a little too “country” looking, and I want something more streamlined.  I’ll possibly keep the chairs and cabinet and just buy new chairs.  I don’t know.  I’ll post pics of everything tonight and you tell me what you think, okay?

Be back after church!

Mudroom – Organizing RoundUp…

Yet another great thing started over at Organizied Junkie’s Blog - A monthly organizing roundup.  Being the organizational freak that I am (I have even organized stuff for a yard sale for this weekend!  I’m talking quilts, sheets, etc. tied up with ribbon, tablecloths, napkins, etc in ziplock baggies and labeled….), well, I just love this monthly organizing idea!  I’m already becoming addicted to her blog!

So this month’s ‘challenge’ is the Mudroom.  Well, we don’t officially HAVE a mudroom.  We have a split level home, and so the layout it kinda funky.  But ther is an entryway right off the garage (downstairs) which is where the majority of the ’stuff’ that comes into the house gets dropped.  Backpacks, shoes, jackets, you name it.  Well, I finally cleaned that area up last week when we listed our hosue for sale…here is it all clean…

Then after reading about the monthly roundup, and this month being the mudroom, I thought “Hey!  This would be a great place to create a “mock mudroom”!”  So, I walked around the house until I found something I could use to create this whole mudroom thing…a black wire shelf I was using in my scrapbook room, but it had a lot of unused space, so out to the entryway it went.

After an hour or so of organizing…here’s the end result:

 

 

 

On the top shelf is our “Box O Fun” for traveling – it has dvd’s the portable dvd player and some car toys (Mr potato head, magnadoodles, etc)

The next to the top shelf has baskets with scarves, taboggins (sp??) and a place for my purse:

 

The next shelf down has a basket for hats, and a small basket for keys, cell phone and other small items you need to grab as you’re going out the door:

 

And on the bottom (didn’t get a closeup pic) - room for jackets, a couple baskets, labeled with my kids’ names so they can drop in any items they bring in and easily carry the whole thing up when it needs to be unloaded.  Under this shelf is a place for shoes.

On the side, my dh made me a couple hooks to hang for the backpacks:

 

 

 

I did this on Sunday night and it’s Tuesday morning and so far, so good!  The kids are using it just like they should!

Menu Plan Monday

I recently discovered a GREAT blog called “Organizing Junkie“…being the organizing freak that I am…I fell it love with it immediately!  In addition to organizing, she also does this thing called “Menu Plan Monday” where she (and hundreds of others) post their weekly menu plan each Monday – many including recipes!  I totally love this idea b/c I have been thinking about doing a weekly menu plan to try and streamline dinner.  So, I’m giving it a shot! 

ETA:  I changed up a couple of days and added a day that I had dedicated to leftovers.  I realized I had some homemade bread that needed to be used, so I’m going to make croutons with it, and have soup to put the croutons on.

Here’s my plan for this week – CLICK HERE FOR RECIPES or click on any of the links:

Monday:  Grilled Pork Chops, Curly Cheese Potatoes, Steamed Broccolli

Tuesday:  Easy Meatloaf, Green Beans, Corn (any leftover meat loaf will be crumbled and frozen to be used later)

Wednesday:  Wild Rice Soup with homemade croutons (made from ’stale’ homemade bread)

Thursday:  Bourbon Chicken, Rice Pilaf

Friday:  Homemade Pizza, Salad

Saturday: Lasagna Pinwheels (using any meat left over from the meatloaf), Garlic Muffins

 

We usually have a little ‘treat’ in the evening after dinner as well…either a fruit smoothie or a “No-Ice Cream Milkshake“ 

Grrr…this whole house thing…

Is driving me crazy.  The owner of the house we’re buying is really frustrating us!  I won’t go into great detail, but he wanted to make this go so quickly so he could just get out and move out of state to be with his family, and now he’s telling us he needs THREE weeks after the closing date to move out.  Um, no.  It states on our agreement that we get posession at the time of closing.  We are willing to give him a week, and think that is reasonable.  I am just so frustrated with him right now!

Anyway, I just needed to vent!

Wow…long time, no blog! ;)

It’s been crazy busy around here lately.  We went on vacation to TX for two weeks.  One week later, school started.  One week later, we started the process of buying a new house.  So, right now, we’re in the chaotic state of trying to get our house in order to be sold and start packing to move our things into the new (smaller) house.  Whew!  And of course, there are wrestling practices for son, MOPS meetings for me (of which, I am the publicity coordinator, so I have things I have to do for that), and a few cake orders.  I’m tired just thinking about all of that!

We THINK we’ll be closing on the new house this Friday, but we’re not sure if the current owner will be able to have all his things out at that time, so we may not be able to move right away. 

Anyway…Here are some pics of the house…I’m so excited…I’ve spent days planning the furniture and decorating in my head!

I’ll post new pics once we get moved in!