And the Time Staaaarts....Now!

Let's play a riveting game that I like to call

"What the Ding Dang is That?".

Actually,

it's not a game at all.

I just need to know what the Ding Dang these things are.

I see them everywhere under trees

in parking lots around here.

I always stop to pick them up 

and throw some in my purse because they are lucky.

OK, I have no idea if they are lucky

but I do give them to random strangers and tell them that they are lucky.

At first I thought they were olives

 since we have so many olive trees here in Arizona

but I Googled them and can't find them.

Before they fall off the tree

they are wearing these little hats.

Just like little acorns but the trees are

definitely not oak trees.

Yesterday when Jo and I

were out gallivanting and not getting into any trouble whatsoever,

especially the kind that involved staring down DPS officers,

we found some of these and like the good friend that she is,

she helped me pick them off the ground

and throw them in a bag.

Two grown women,

sitting on a curb in a parking lot,

in the rain,

picking up these doohickeys.

That's friendship right there.

Ok, the game is not done.

There's more stuff I don't know.

You're shocked, right?

See this here plant?

I don't know what that is either.
It wasn't there last week then all of a sudden
 it popped up out of the ground.
There are 6 of them.

We just moved in to this house
so I have no idea what's in the ground right now.
Stuff is popping up and it's scaring me
because I kill stuff
and I don't want to kill stuff anymore.

Since I moved into this house,
I have turned over a new leaf
and I no longer wish to murder plants and such.

Please help me to identify these things.
I would love to tell you that there is an amazing prize
for the winner,
but there's not.

You got that?
No prizes.

xxx-ooo
Holly

Best Job Ever!

So after writing yesterday's post on budgeting and finances,

I spent the morning thinking about ways to save or earn extra money.

I work from home and have some free time

so why not get a second job, right?

Only I thought that if I was going to have to get a second job 

it should really be doing something I love doing.

So I spent some time thinking about what I love doing.

Shopping was out for the obvious reasons.

The only other thing I could think about

that I love as much as shopping is watching kittens play.

I should open a kitten day care!!!

HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BE?

So then I thought about having that conversation with Brian

and decided to drop it.

He's probably had about all he can take of me right now.

I'm kind of exhausting to live with.

So I stopped thinking about kittens and 

made a couple of bird feeders instead.

I used a chicken feeder

and a mason jar.
I'd seen this on Pinterest.

We have a lot of birds in our backyard

and I'm looking forward to watching them

through my kitchen window.

Hey!!!

Would anyone be interested in paying me

 to send them cute kitten videos?

Or join a kitten on the month club?

Just think about it.

Linking up to Sunny Simple Life's Linky party.

xxx-ooo

Holly

Heavy Arms and Broken Pocketbooks

Sometimes, when I can't fall asleep, I do this thing.
I hold my arm straight up in the air as long as I can
and it gets all heavy and all I can think about is
finally being able to put my arm down
and fall asleep.
I like to share these little details of my life with you.

Threw one Brian's favorite dinners together 

in the crockpot.

This meal is so easy and soooo good.

Slow Cooker Honey Sesame Chicken
Recipe by Six Sisters' Stuff.
Find it here.

I serve this over rice and Brian likes white rice so that's what we had.

I like broccoli in mine so I put some in the steamer basket

of my rice cooker.
I didn't add sesame seeds because they look like bugs.

Headed out to the grocery store to stock up a little bit.

I've made a few changes in my pantry to make it

easier to see when I was running low on things.

I bought some jars that were on clearance

at Fry's Market Place.

I labeled them with key tags that I bought at Lowes.

It's much easier to plan my grocery list now that

I can tell what I need with just a glance.

I've been shopping at Winco lately and 

I have to say I love it.

I haven't seen better prices anywhere.

I love that so many items are in the bulk food section.

I can buy just one cup of oatmeal,

or just a teaspoon of cream of tarter.

The prices for their spices are very good.

Especially if you only need a very small amount

of something and don't want to buy a whole container.

I know it's hard to tell from this blurry photo

but I have here:

Chocolate chips 

Sugar

Wheat flour

Oatmeal

Corn Flakes (just a cup for a recipe I want to try)

Brown Sugar

Low Sodium Taco Seasoning

Jasmine Rice

Walnut pieces

I don't know about you but I can sure feel the financial crunch this year.

Our paychecks took quite a hit.

We are re-visiting our budget

and making some tough decisions.

Have you noticed a change in your finances this year?

How are you dealing with it?

xxx-ooo

Holly

I Wouldn't Smoke That

Yesterday was a good day.

Made chili.

I like mine with Fritos.

Enjoyed my flowers that Brian 

brought home the other night

after learning that we missed

our anniversary.

I had read somewhere, a couple of months ago, 

that if you are going to do a project with burlap

to be sure to use the treated burlap 

because the untreated burlap smells bad.

I filed this information in my mind,

because we all know that nothing gets lost in there.

Today I went out and bought some burlap 

to make a wreath for my front door.

And know what?

Untreated burlap smells bad.

Online it says that burlap has a strong hemp smell.

Well, I can tell you, 

I never smoked anything that smelled like this burlap.

Since the wreath is going to be used 

outside on the front door,

I figured that I could live with it.

It was such a beautiful day yesterday.

In the low 70's.

Just perfect after all our cold weather.

I opened up all the doors and windows and aired out the house.

But as the breeze wafted through the screen door

it brought the stench with it.

I'm thinking that the stink will wear off.

Or keep solicitors away.

 

Linking up with Classy Clutter.

And Sunny Simple Sunday.

 

 

xxx-ooo

Holly

The Post Where I Start Out Talking About One Thing, Get Side Tracked, and Almost Have a Nervous Breakdown

When I woke up this morning I told Brian that I had a dream

that I was at the mall and didn't have any money.

He asked me if I did a red-neck layaway.

I asked him what that was.

He said that his mother would go and look

for Christmas presents

and if she didn't have enough money,

she would take the items and hide them around the store

and go back and get them after she got paid.

I love red-necks.

 

But that's not really what I wanted to talk to you about.

I wanted to talk about my refrigerator.

Raise your hand if you hate your side by side refrigerator.

You do know I can't see you, right?

Put your hand down.

You look ridiculous.

This fridge came with the house and
we are grateful that we didn't need to buy one
but seriously?
Who thinks it's a great idea to buy a fridge where
the freezer is so narrow
that you can't fit a large pizza in there?
I'm not sure I want to live in a world
where one can't store giant frozen discs
of doughy goodness.

In my opinion,
the side by side refrigerator is the
red-headed step child of the appliance world.

WOW!
I didn't realize until I actually typed those words,
that I am a red-headed step child to someone.
That just explains so much.

Albeit, I'm not actually a child anymore
(Shaddup!)
And my red hair comes from a bottle.
but still.

I'm a little overwhelmed with this.
I know I'm supposed to be talking about my refrigerator
which I'm trying to organize
but this revelation has been quite upsetting.

Can we forget about the refrigerator discussion until tomorrow?
I need a some time to process this.

xxx-ooo
Holly

It's All Good As Long As You Both Suck At the Same Thing.

Conversation two weeks ago between Brian and I.

B:  What do you want to do for our anniversary this year?

H:  Is that this week?

B:  No, it's the 16th.

H:  Are you sure?  I'm thinking it's the 14th.

B:  I'm pretty sure it's the 16th.

H:  Which anniversary is this?  Our 7th?

B:  No, this will be our 5th anniversary.

H:  Feels more like 7 years.

B:  What's that supposed to mean?

H:  I don't know, just feels seveny to me.

A very similar conversation happens every single year.

I have no idea why we can't remember this date.

I was very proud of myself this morning 

when I remembered that today was the 16th

and I wished my husband a Happy Anniversary 

as I handed him a cup of coffee.

Brian just left for work and I decided to look at our marriage license

to see how many years it's been.

Turns out we were married on January 14, 2007.

That means that our anniversary was two days ago

and we've been married for 6 years.

Not five, not seven, but six.

We suck.

But at least we suck together.

xxx-ooo

Holly

Twitch

For some reason I have the twitches in my left eye this morning.

It comes and goes.

This bothers me.

I wanted to show you the new addition to our living room.

twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch

Let's build up to the picture, Okay?

As I told you before,

the living room in our last house was very large

and could accommodate large pieces of furniture.

Our new house has a rather small living room/family room

and the only place the TV can go is basically right there when you walk in the house.

twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch

So, as soon as you walk in the front door,

you see the side of this.

The front door is just to the right of the coat rack.

The large wall unit blocked the view into the rest of the house

and was just too big for this small room.

twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch

Please excuse my bad iPhone pics.

Everything is just a little blurry around here.

I found a mid century modern dresser at a 2nd hand store

and knew it was going to be great for this space.

Even though it is almost the same size in length and depth,

it opened up the space visually,

so now, at least, you can see into the house

as you enter from the front door.

twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch

We just brought this in from the garage

I haven't decided how to decorated around it yet,

but I threw some junk on there for you

so you could get the idea.

The center doors slide and the drawers are perfect for our cable box

and DVD player.

twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch

Today I am going to be working on getting those

old "dents" that the entertainment center made

out of the carpet using the ice cube/fork method.
Sounds like fun huh?

twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch

I'm just having a ball playing with this house.

Meeting up with some Bloggy friends for lunch on Thursday
and I'm excited about that.

Hope you all have a great day!

twitch

xxx-ooo
Holly

Everything's Coming Up Roses!

Ever feel like you need a little pick me up?

I've been kinda sick of my face lately.

Day after day

the same boring face looking back at me in the mirror.

I decided to take a huge leap of faith and change my lipstick color.

This will freak my daughter, Katie, out.

I have used the same color lipstick for years.

I tend to go toward the browns.

Today I am all pink.

Today it's lipstick,

who knows what tomorrow holds?

May get a nipple pierced or something.

Katie, just breathe through it.

I was probably kidding.

xxx-ooo

Holly

Potty Talk

DO NOT sit there all high and mighty

and pretend that you've never cooked dinner

in your bathroom before.

Today I decided to seal the granite counter tops

in my kitchen.

I can't use my kitchen counters for 24 hours.

And people still need to eat.

Yes, I am aware that most people

would be smart enough to go to a restaurant

for dinner but I already had meat thawed out

and it needed to be cooked today.

So there you have it.

Redneck housewives do the silliest things.

I can't wait to show you what I bought yesterday at a thrift store,
but it's still in the garage and we can't move it into the house until
this weekend so you all will have to wait right along with me.

Hint:

It's replacing this big ol' piece of furniture.

This picture was taken in our old house
where we had a monster sized living room.

Now we have munchkin sized living room
so it has to go.

It's supposed to get chilly here this weekend.
Really chilly.
Lows in the 20's.
That's pretty cold for Phoenix.

Hoping that covering my plants will be enough
to keep them alive.

Some things just can't be covered.

Here's hoping you're all staying warm and cozy
and in case any of you were wondering,
the answer is no.

We are not eating in the bathroom.
We're weird,
not disgusting.

xxx-ooo
Holly

"My, What a Lovely Little Ugly House you've Bought Yourself"

Ok, so I've shown you the good,

we're going to skip right past the bad,

to the ugly.

Let me first say that I love this house.

I fell in love with it the first minute
I laid my big fat eyeballs on it.

But man, oh man,

we've got our share of ugly going on over here.

I also want to say that

showing you these pictures of the house

is akin to showing you up close and personal shots
of my butt dimples.

Embarrassing.

In the previous post I told you how the

original owner was an amazing organizer.

What I didn't tell you was that she also had a love for

high gloss hunter green paint.

You know, hunter green?

 And wall paper.


And not Candace Olson 2013 wallpaper.
I'm talking 1984 shiny-ish wallpaper.
Jealous?


Does this say Spa-like retreat to you?

I walked in there this morning to take a pic with
my phone and was going to make the bed first
but then I thought,
"Who am I kidding?"


Besides, the cat was sleeping on the bed.

This is how we are living, People!!!
Usually I just keep the light off and wander around
in the dark with my hands out in front of me
until I locate what I am looking for,
then I grab it and run out and slam the door.


The entire back wall is hunter green bead board
with a shelf running the length of the wall.


I understand it's only paint.
But I hate to paint.
So, this project is going to be on my long list.

Wanna see something else ugly?
You do?

Well, you're all just sickos that get your jollies
out of looking at other people's miseries.
I'm like that too, so here you go.

The guest bathroom had a shower door.
It wasn't in bad shape but I wanted a shower curtain
so I decided to remove the shower doors
all by my handy little self.

And now I've got this mess.

The walls where the tracks were are all discolored now.
And they have those anchor things in there
and I can't get them out.
And there is silicone caulk everywhere!

And this!

Gross.

So I went and bought silicone caulk remover.
And I put it on.
And it did nothing.
NOTHING!

So I read on the wide world webber that WD-40
will remove silicone.
So that's what I'm doing this morning.
I'm removing silicone from my tub.

I'm not going to worry about the walls
because we have decided to take the
shower surround out and tile it.

A good friend of ours does tile work
so we really just have to pay for the tile.
He's not charging us much for the labor.

I guess that's enough for today.
I've got more ugly stuff but I'll save it for when you're really
depressed and need a pick-me-up.

xxx-ooo
Holly

Thank You Mrs. Alferd!

Although I've never met Mrs. Alferd,

I can tell you one thing about the

lady we bought this house from.

She was crazy organized.

When this house came on the market she had already moved out.

No furniture, no decor so I have no idea what it used to look like

when she lived here.

But I imagine her looking something like this:

I thank my lucky stars each and every time 

I open a cabinet or a closet.

I am an organizer by nature.

I just feel so much more at peace when everything is in it's place.

Mrs. Alferd was possibly my soul mate.

I'm going to share with you some

things that she did that make my heart sing.

 

(Now, just know that everything is not coming up roses around here.

Soon I will be posting pictures of the projects that need to be done.

We've got some ugly stuff going on around here.)

MASTER CLOSET

The two skinny drawers are for jewelry.

Don't tell anyone but I had my jewelry shoved in a shoe box

 in my underwear drawer at the old house.

There are three of these rows of shelves for shoes.

In the bathrooms, in addition to having drawers,

the cupboards all have slide out shelves.

Please excuse my blurry iphone pics.

The laundry room has slide out hampers.

And every cupboard in the kitchen has slide outs.

I have absolutely no reason

to be unorganized.

Disorganized.

Unorganized.

Help me out here Jo, are these words interchangeable?

It's been chilly here and our oranges on our tree are ripe.

I picked a basket full of them and made fresh squeezed OJ.

I could sure use some advice on a good citrus juicer.

Kris, can you recommend a good one?

My arm is tired.

But the juice is sweet and delicious.

Anyone in the area need oranges or grapefruit?

Come on over and get some.

Grapefruit is nasty.

xxx-ooo

Holly