30 Days of Meditation

Today I went shopping. I hit the clearance sales and picked up a few new things to wear. I'm in different sizes now which is awesome and validating. I am almost in sizes that I used to wear in middle school and high school. Love, LOVE it!

Each day I find myself doing some things really well (avocado, tomato and cheese for lunch...nitrite free bacon with eggs and hot sauce for breakfast...not in that order). And other things I struggle with (aches and pains from skipping yoga for a month...short tempers because I'm tired and my sciatica is acting up).

I've played around with meditation before. Usually it's been part of a yoga class that focuses on mindfulness. The research on meditation, stress management and overall health benefits is hard to argue with for me. So, tonight starts 30 days of meditation. Let's give this a try and see what happens.

Meditation notes:
When: bedtime
What: deep rest meditation by "meditation oasis"
I first noticed the pain and aching in my lower back. This got better and was mostly gone by the end. Several times my mind raced. At least once, I felt caught up in the moment and my mind felt empty and light. I thought I'd be super tired at the end, but was surprised that I felt only more content.

How to hang your bbq utensils and surviving a move.

We made it! We finally made it out of the apartment and into our own, beautiful, wonderful, very good home. (sorry, I had a flashback).

We've been here less than a month, so I still have a room full of boxes and a garage full of crap that needs to be sorted. I geeked out a bit when I used this awesome technique to make hanging curtain rods a super-simple-one-person-job. I was elated when we made dinner for the first time in our HUGE kitchen and got down with the music playing. I was in h.e.a.v.e.n when the bathroom was clean and sparkly (LOVE this cleaner!!) and I took my first, relaxing, wonderful bath in t-w-o years.

We were the highlight of the block on our move-in day. Everyone on the street who has a dog, and maybe a few people who borrowed someone else's dog, walked past our house. People dressed their dogs up for the cold weather, carried trowels in hand to clean up after their tiny doggies, and politely gawked at the house that had been vacant since October.

Shortly after entering our house, my father-in-law experienced an out of body moment, channeling an Italian woman and a war veteran at the same time. He is convinced that there are ghosts in our house...and buried treasure. (I'm actually not exaggerating here) This part of his personality is super endearing, and sometimes a little comical. But it's balanced out by a crazy alpha personality. He has decided that he's the king of every house he walks into. Which is not endearing to me, my hubs or my dog. More on that later as we get a dog whisperer to help us and our dog deal with crazy-misplaced-alpha-feelings and interesting extended family dynamics.

In other news, we have a grill! And we love it. We use it almost every day. It took a day to assemble because of a screwdriver error, but it was worth it. The hubs was so excited to have a grill, he hung the grill utensils from the porch roof like little ornaments. It was awesome.

TGIFF! why my phone was turned off this weekend

Happy February people! February is usually a horrible wintry month that I absolutely love. It's my birthday, it's Valentine's day, it's the month we buy a house!

February came in with a freaking bang. The work week was one to remember. And one I'd like to forget. By Friday, I desperately needed a way to unwind. I'm not actually sure what I did on Friday night because I can't remember any more. I do know that I turned off my cell phone when I got home. And I left it off this weekend.

My weekend has been spent doing things I love and leaving the stressful issues at the front door. They're not bothering me in our tiny little home. We are a few boxes closer to being packed and ready to leave. I spent a lot of time getting caught up on laundry and putting it away.

I knocked a couple things off my pinterest list:
Jillee's coconut oil and olive oil heaven - happy feet :)
DIYconfessions' eczema cream - I've had a patch on my right wrist for 3 months now! ugh.
Knot a scarf like a pro
The BEST dryer balls - I made these a couple weeks ago, but I L.O.V.E them!

Last night we went out for dinner which was awesome. Today I am getting lunch ready for the week. Then my hubs is treating me to a delicious dinner at home because we're celebrating my birthday a weekend early. My hubs has been doting on me all weekend.  I LOVE THIS MAN! Off to more relaxing...

Weekend Ramblings - DIY Part 2

We live in an apartment and are thinking about moving out in the next year, so making big, permanent changes is not what I want to be doing right now. But, I am tired of our plain white walls and white trim, white doors, white vertical blinds and beige carpet. I'm also finally feeling better now so taking on a weekend project doesn't exhaust me like it used to. I can even complete several projects in one weekend! Who would have thought??

I was perusing through Pinterest this week and saw my favorite DIY yet. Upholstering the walls with fabric and liquid starch. It sounds a little crazy, sure. The blogger decorated her nursery with pink, white and green and used the fabric to create a pink wall with a white tree over the crib. It was so darn cute! (check it out at Numbered Street Designs) She gave really excellent instructions that I thought were more doable than others I'd seen. Her recommendation is that you pin the fabric to the wall, then apply the liquid starch over top. Once the fabric is dry, you remove the pins.

I made my own liquid starch by combining:

1. 2 tsp cornstarch
2. 3 tsp water
3. 1 c. boiling water

Put one cup water on the stove to boil. Meanwhile in a separate bowl, mix 2 tsp cornstarch and 3 tsp water until consistency is smooth. When water is boiling, add cornstarch mixture. Stir until it starts to clear up a little. Remove from heat and let cool. I needed to double and sometimes triple+ the recipe depending on the size of my project, but found that starting with a small batch helped me estimate how much I would actually use. Since I don't eat a lot of foods with cornstarch in them, a big batch would go to waste.

Cut and pin your fabric. Pay attention to patterns and line things up before applying the liquid starch. The fabric will shrink a little when drying. It might also be a little darker than before applying the starch, so keep that in mind.

I started with a small project with a lot of hidden edges to test things out. Here's how that turned out (I forgot a before picture, but you get the idea).

$10 accent wall

I'm really not patient about DIY projects.
The fabric is still drying a little on the wall which is why my thumbtacks are still there.
This is also how I know that fabric is easier to trim when it's dry!

the wall is straight, I promise.

Then, I moved on to the kitchen! The fabric I used below for our cabinets was $3 a yard and matches our mail holder perfectly!

Above is our yellow hanging mail holder from HomeGoods.
Am I the only one that loves this color yellow? I blame it on being raised in a house that was
painted/wallpapered 70s vintage green, orange and yellow. Who didn't love olive green walls back then??

$12 kitchen back splash

before...

After!
When this was taken, the fabric was still drying
so I hadn't trimmed the edges yet.

You can see more detail in this picture.
(And that the bottom edge still needs to be trimmed.)

This was an exciting project because the fabric is easily removed. Just pull it down and wipe the wall down with a damp sponge. It's also easily customized. You can put up a base color or pattern and then put another layer on top of that like the blogger did in the nursery. We have one more partial wall to upholster, and we may do a simple solid color with a customized design layered on top. There are so many options! You don't have to limit this to the walls either. I've seen cupboards and dresser drawers redone too.  So, be creative!

$0 Odds and Ends Tray

I was so excited I didn't take time to get rid of all the hot glue wisps! :)

When all was said and done, I wanted to add a little more organization to our kitchen counters. We don't have much storage in our apartment at all, so creating a little organized clutter is something I do often.

To construct this, I grabbed a shipping box and cut the flaps off of it with an xacto knife. Then I wrapped the box in fabric as if it were a present and hot glued the flaps down. Next, I wanted to create a more solid bottom for my tray, so I grabbed a different box that was slightly smaller than the first one. I cut out one of the sides out and trimmed it so it would fit easily into the bottom of the tray. I wrapped that in fabric too. I already had the fabric, hot glue and boxes so this was $0 and is easily changed if I want a different color or pattern.

$0.75 Ring Dishes

I've seen the tutorials for customizing dishes with Sharpie markers and wanted to try it out myself. I picked up two small saucers ($0.75 each) and then went searching online for quotes. I found two by Shakespeare that I liked, though I admit I have no idea what work they come from. I had to redo these three times. The first time I used a faulty tutorial that said to heat the oven to 150 degrees. It's supposed to be 350, so it didn't work. The second time still didn't work because I used a Sharpie pen (you need a real marker for this). The third time, I didn't have the spacing right because the tip of the marker was so much larger. 

After using a regular Sharpie marker and baking the dishes for 30 minutes at 350 degrees I finally got it and love the result...

Weekend Ramblings - DIY!

I've been diving into easy projects at home this weekend. We have curtains in the bedroom, new dishes to put jewelry in at the sink, and finally some color on the walls. All for $40 - which I am loving!

How is this possible? With a little creativity and repurposing.

$8 Curtains

from this...

to this!

I'll start this out by saying that I don't usually shop at Wal-Mart. My trip there today reminded me why. Not only are their staff members underpaid, etc, they are completely understaffed too which I think just adds insult to injury. I was impressed by one associate I overheard tell a customer "just call back and ask for me. if they tell you I'm on break, tell them to call me anyway and I'll be waiting by the phone so we can get this straightened out for you." In a moment when the phone was ringing for 10 minutes straight and multiple pages were going off for help in different departments, the associate was really being phenomenal for this customer. The guy in the parts department ended up being the one to cut fabric for me (for a different project). Really the whole thing was a mess but the associates were great which made me all the more saddened by the situation.

However, it was really cheap. Which is why I have $8 curtains.

What you'll need:

1. Twin flat sheet ($5)
2. Curtain rod ($3)
3. seam ripper (I already had this)

Once you get home, throw the sheet in the washer and dryer. Use this time to hang your curtain rod. Next, take the freshly laundered flat sheet out of the dryer and grab your seam ripper. Find the top part of the sheet, where there is a 3 inch border on one side (this is the side that you usually fold down when you are making the bed.) This border will become the top of your curtain. Remove most of the stitching from the end so that the border becomes a sleeve for your curtain rod. You'll remove about 12-15 stitches. Work your curtain rod through the sleeve you just opened up. Hang your new curtain. Tie it in the middle to create an hourglass shape or to the side with a ribbon or fabric scrap.

On our 40" wide windows we only used one twin flat sheet, though you could use two or you could use a larger flat sheet. It all depends on the style you want.

Tomorrow I'll share the other weekend projects!