Owning the manual mess

 Once upon a time I had a place for owner's manuals. It was that black box you see in the picture below.
Years passed by, it got full, and I started stashing them in the filing cabinet you see in the picture below.
Years passed by, it got full, and I started stuffing them in that white box you see in the picture below.
Years passed by, it got full, and we moved to a new house and made a pile of the new owner's manuals that came with the new house on that shelf you see in the picture below.

 Aaaargh!!!! While I was unpacking I piled all the piles together with an empty plastic file box that you see in the picture above and I resolved to get the piles under control as soon as possible. I finally managed it in the last week or so.
First, I threw away A LOT of owner's manuals. Like the ones from Kayleigh's infant toys. She's almost 25 years old and those toys are LONG gone. It's obvious why the manuals were taking over the place, I guess.
After I threw away the manuals to everything we no longer owned, I sorted the rest out and filed them.

In some cases I was very specific, and sometimes a general "Toys" or "Furniture" file seemed sufficient.
I just reused some folders I've had around forever. And I used a sharpie to label the box. I wasn't trying to make it beautiful. I'm never going to show it to anyone.
Well, except all of you.
I'll keep the box with our other files so we can easily access it when the need arises.
And I'll TRY to remember to get rid of the owner's manual to a thing when I get rid of the thing itself from now on. I mean, come on! 25 years is a long time to hang on to a piece (or 100 pieces) of paper!

Now if I could just get Roger to organize all his work paper piles into one manageable system.
One thing at a time...one thing at a time.

Linking up to a great organizing party. Lots of great ideas there, check it out!

Twice Built Spice Rack

I had a GREAT set up for spices in the old house. It was an over-the-door rack that we kept just inside the door to the pantry. Which was right next to the stove. Easy to get to and a perfect solution for my highly seasoned cooking experiments.
This house is set up differently so I had to find a solution that would work really well for us here.
Using the bottom shelf of each of the cabinets flanking the stove wasn't working. AT. ALL.

I've been going crazy for the last 2 1/2 months digging through every spice bottle trying to find what  I was looking for. 

I thought about using one of the drawers that flanks the stove but I already use those for other things that I like to keep close to the stove.

I put pen to paper and came up with these highly technical design plans...

for a custom built spice rack which would fit perfectly inside the cupboard above and to the right of the stove. Pretty nice, huh? 

Yesterday Roger and I set up a workshop in the basement by wrapping the future guest bedroom and bathroom in plastic wrap to contain the dust.

 And then we moved the power tools in.

In about an hour, with about $12 worth of materials, we had built the custom spice rack! And it was great!

Except....

when I designed it I forgot to account for the depth of it and the need to pivot it into the cabinet beyond the facing of the cabinets. Oops! It wouldn't sit flush against the back of the cabinet.

Back to the workshop we went. We disassembled the whole thing, reduced the width by 3/4 of an inch, and rebuilt it.

Tah dah!!!

Now we're in business!

The wood is hemlock which is very pretty. Or, it was, before we had to pull all those nails out of it and start over. I originally planned to stain it but after building it a second time we had used up all our time and my patience so I went ahead and attached it to the back of the cabinet with some velcro and loaded it up.

Now THAT is working for me!

I'm ready to build something else!

Joining some linky parties this week. Check them out! Lots of smart, creative people out there!

Hey, farmer, farmer, put away your DDT

Don't mind spots on my apples,

Leave me the birds and the bees, please!

*LOVE this song!

We took our first trip to the fruit and veggie stands yesterday.
We picked up a little assortment of all locally grown yumminess. I couldn't resist the 10/$1 limes even though they aren't locally grown.
It's a much longer drive from the new house so I don't know how often we'll go this year. We'll definitely make another trip for peaches when they're ready. But we might stick closer to home and hit the farmer's markets nearby for other things.
It was a nice drive though.
We were babysitting Maveryk and Tukker for the day so they came along with us.
Lots of toddler cuteness ensued.
There was playing...

And singing...

And napping...

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon. :)

T-shirt transformation. Just to see if I could.

Yesterday I followed this super well written tutorial CLICK HERE! to turn this...

Into this...

It worked! And it was pretty easy too.
It fits a little too snug around the shoulders for me. But Emily loves it and wore it to school today.
I'll see souvenir t-shirts in a whole new light now that I know how easily they can be transformed from boxy to breezy.

Again, sorry for the crappy cell phone pics.
The new camera arrived yesterday. Now I just have to figure out how to use it. Hmm...

My first slip cover. Not perfect, but not bad!

A LOOONG time ago, back in the old house, Kenzie moved from one room to another and we changed her room colors from Pepto pink and black to blue and brown.
Shortly after that we bought this hideous (her words!) chair from the DI for about $15.

We also bought a navy blue jersey knit flat sheet from the DI for a buck or two. I was thinking I would make a slipcover for the chair with the sheet.
For the past year and a half she's been living with it like this...

Not too chic...pretty dang shabby.
Yesterday I finally got around to making the slipcover. It only took about 2 hours total. I have no idea if I did it the "right" way or not. I just did it.
I was a little nervous about working with the stretchy knit. But it ended up being very forgiving of my inexperience. I'm pretty sure canvas or some other non-stretchy fabric would have shown my inexperience a LOT more.
I didn't think that there would be enough fabric to do the chair and the cushion but there was. There is even a little leftover. Maybe I'll make some other decorative thing for her room with what's left. You know, in a year or two.
I wanted to make sure the whole thing could be removed and machine washed. Let's face it, most things in life would be a lot easier to care for if they could just be machine washed. Think car upholstery subjected to toddlers, as one example. So I covered the cushion thusly

So it's cover can be removed and washed as well.
I think it's a successful first attempt at slip covering. I hope Kenzie likes it.

*My apologies for the awful pictures. Our ancient digital camera finally died last weekend. A new one is on the way. (PYP to my rescue, once again!) But I couldn't wait to post this project so I resorted to bad cell phone pics. Please forgive me. Maybe I'll replace them with good pics when the new camera gets here.

Because I crave attention for my toiling...
Linking up to


and...

Meal Plan 8/7 - 8/13

Sat~Papa Murphy's
Sun~Pineapple Jerk Chicken and Rice, TBD veggie
Mon~Pesto Pasta with Tomatoes and Ricotta, Salad
Tue~Cheesy Chicken Shells, Salad
Wed~Quinoa Stuffed Peppers, Salad
Thu~Spiced Chicken with Onions, Lentils and Couscous, TBD veggie
Fri~Cilantro Blue Cheese Slaw, Grilled chicken, TBD veggie

Some old standbys.
Some new recipes that I'll post if they turn out as good as they sound. :)
All WW friendly because I am BACK!!!

Drill holes, spray paint stuff, make unplanned purchases, sew instead of cook and clean.

Things to do while your husband is out of town.
Roger went off on a business trip + plus sightseeing in New York City. Poor thing. And left me to my own devices.
I did what any unsupervised wife would do. Whatever I wanted. LOL

First up!
The kitchen window over the sink.
All things align just so that the morning sun shines on the window of the house behind us and then reflects directly into my eyes while I'm trying to make breakfast. And the evening sun just blasts directly into my eyes while cooking dinner.
With all this discomfort while cooking, you'd think I'd be thinner. But I'm a tough chick so I just pushed through the meal prep.

See! The glaring light is so bad I couldn't even get a decent picture.
We bought purple faux silk valances to hang there back when we bought the curtains for the rest of the great room.
I have some old black curtain rods that I meant to spray paint ORB to match the new rods we hung elsewhere. But they needed brackets. Which could not be found for less that $5 each and we needed four of them. Add the cost of spray paint to that and I just decided to buy new rods. I spent $24 for the two of them.
Ta da! Problem solved!

I usually reserve jobs like this for when Roger is home to handle the drill and I can stand back and supervise. But I decided I was an independent woman and could handle it myself with the help of some painter's tape acting as my extra hands to keep everything in line. And I did it! All by myself!
He can help me patch the "extra" holes later. I don't want him thinking he isn't needed ya know. ;)

While I was at the store buying curtain rods, I made a trip through the sewing/crafting area of the store as I am inclined to do whenever such a department is within range.
Now, in my defense, I HAD a plan to make a thread holder out of a yet-to-be-purchased-from-the-thrift-store spice rack. But I stood in front of the spool holders there in the store and told myself this..."Self, a spice rack from the thrift store will be $2-3. The spray paint for it will be $3-4. Because you know you HAVE to spray paint the stuff you get from the thrift store. I think there's a rule. So for $5-7 I'd have a thread holder that might hold a dozen spools of thread. I already have more thread than that. So this $10 spool holder is a better value and more efficient."
So glad we could have this little chat.

And then I high tailed it home before my "screw it-y" attitude cost us any more money.
Now that I was on a roll with the craft room organization I grabbed this old CD holder, leftover from a decluttering project at the old house,

and headed down to our painting/sanding/messmaking studio basement. I went after it with a can of heirloom white spray paint that we already had.
A couple hours and a couple more holes in the brand new walls of the brand new house, and I am the proud owner of a ribbon holder.

By now it was about time to feed the kids. So I did the logical thing now that cooking in the kitchen is so much more comfortable. I went to Wendy's.
Have you tried their new Almond Berry Chicken Salad? Delicious! And healthy! And only available for a limited time. Go get one!

With dinner out of the way, I decided to get to work making a birthday present for Tukker. She turned 3 last week and her party is Saturday.
While unpacking the craft room I came across leftover squares from when I made her baby blanket. I figured I could add some coordinating fabric and make her a twin size quilt for her birthday. That should save us a little money on the gift and perhaps make up for my reckless spending earlier in the day.
So I went to work on the cutting. I was just a tiny bit short and had to go buy some more flannel for the back. It was about $5. And a couple of days of doing my favorite thing. Playing with fabric!

I'm about half done with it now. I'll post a pic when it's done.
So that's what you do while your husband is out of town. Or at least it's what I do.
Thank goodness he'll be home soon.
Our debt snowball rolled UP hill there for a minute.