Running thru life... Blahhhhh

It has just been one of those weeks...
Blahhhhh
Not horrible but just a week I am ready to be over. 
Work has been uber stressful.... urrr!!!
Home life has been busy with working on getting all the salvation army stuff together, finishing the crawl space, getting all the finanical stuff to the financial planner, working out, etc-
Which as of this morning all is done! 
Even my hubby commented that I am just off this week....
I think I answered with... " I am allowed one off week in 52 weeks." 

So I am offically ready for the weekend because I have decided this weekend will rock!
For a couple reasons:
1) I get to see family tonight at a new restuarant which I will blog about
2) I get to hang out with friends at Tarara Wine Concert (Saturday Night) - Another blog
3) I get to take Clemson puppy swimming and give him a haircut (Saturday Morning)
4) I get to work out!!!  
5) The weather is going to be awesome which means some much needed relaxation time at the pool with my new People Magazine =0)
6) My husband and I have nothing planned for SUNDAY- NOTHING!!! I am in Love!

So goodbye blahhh week and hello Rocking Weekend!!!

Running Thru Life.... New Dog Toys

I have been very lucky at HomeGoods when it comes to dog stuff for Clemson.

I purchased his two dog beds there for both under $25 dollars each.

One is in our bedroom and one is on the main level.

Which is a steal when you compare it to PetsMart!

Then I got lucky and found a dog toy basket on clearance- so I paid like maybe $4 for it.

It has paid for itself. 
I keep it on the main level to keep Clemson dog toys in.

Just one more way to help keep the house clean.
The other day he actually put one of his toys away.... one can dream!!!

Last weekend, Joe and I walked into HomeGoods to look at some mirrors for redoing the bathroom and decided to look for a pineapple peeler (which we did not find) but on our way over we were struck with the fact that the pet section has been expanded. 
So Joe and I just looked and were pleasantly suprised.

We had not purchased any toys for Clemson since Christmas because up to this point he had enough.
However, we are down to about 4 total so we decided he needed a new one.  

Buying dog toys for Clemson is not easy because he can eat thru probably 3/4ths of them in about 5 minutes. 
We have found a brand that seems to last -
JW Dog toys.

Right now he has these two at home which he loves.

They are tough and very hard to bite thru.

 

The JW brand always has this picture on it.

So while in HomeGoods we came along some JW toys.

At 3.99 normally 7-10$ we jumped and puchased 2.

We gave him the yellow ball that makes a whistling noise yesterday but will will save the other one until a little bit later.

So I offically love HomeGood even more now because it has illimated multiple stores for me:

1) Micheals

2) PetsMart for dog toys

3) Bed Bath and Beyond

4) Macys Home Section

Running thru life....More Space in our Lives Part 2

It is done....

After about two weeks of tearing thru our house I feel more centered!

I hate when things do not have a place and now I feel better.

Started with the kitchen- getting rid of anything and everything that did not have a purpose.

Then cleaning out the guest room, from the closets, the dressers, to the computer desk- so much better.

Drawers have been pretty much emptied of junk and are much more organized now. 

I only hope we can keep it that way!! 

Then reorganizing the Christmas stuff-  Down from 5 boxes to 3.  Yeap I ROCK!!!

Reorganizing the rest of the holiday stuff- down from 3 separate places of storage to 1 bin!

Garage has been ransacked and got rid of so much junk.
 

Both our closets cleaned from top to bottom and cleared of junk.  

Cleaned thru all of the high school/childhood stuff from both Joe and I- both kept a small container of things... the rest.... GOODBYE!

Here is currently the pile of stuff going to Salvation Army... with possibly more to come.

CRAZY!!!

And.......

Our new crawl space

Jim who installed it told me that it is at least 200+ square feet of space..
I could live in that!!!

He set it up with a magnet system. 

Yeah....

Everything moved into the crawl space......

 

The Following items made it in to the crawl space
1) 3 of the 4 boxes of holiday stuff.
One is just too big to fit in the door.
I will have to put it in the garage.

2) All of the suitcases

3) My Wedding Dress

4) 1 Box of my childhood stuff and 1 box of Joe's

5) Space Heaters for the winter

6) Areobed

7) 2 Holiday Wreaths

8) 1 set of golf clubs

9) 1 Clemson fold up chair

10) Step stool

11)  Smaller Christmas tree

Obviously,  I put things to the back that we won't use like our childhood keepsakes, and Christmas items and put the more common stuff towards the front like the suitcases and heaters. 

My husband stopped last night at HomeDepot to pick up 2 Sylvania Dot-It Silver LED Battery Operated Tap Light. 

I placed two in different locations so that there is some light in the crawl space.

Joe was impressed that everything fit in the crawl space and that it was all done by the time he got home on Monday.  Yeah for days off!

SO HAPPY!!!!

Running thru Life...More Space to Our Lives Part 1

I truly love our house!!

That being said there are a couple things that annoy me about our house.

The main one lately has been the lack of space- storage space.

Besides the two closets in our bedroom, and the closets in the guestroom, and a small closet in the basement-That is it!!! Which may sound like a lot but it is not!

Fortunately,  we did purchase a house that already had shelving installed in the garage. 

So the garage and the guest room is our storage area and this annoys me. 

I hate driving in and looking at it every day, or going to the guest room closets

and sorting thru everything because we have so much because we have limited storage. 

So I came up with a two part solution:

1) GET RID OF ALL THE JUNK!!!
Up to this point we give to salvation army twice a year but it is normally a small amount.
Not this time!
I already have 10 bags of stuff and will probably have another two by the time I am done.
Old books we have been keeping for no reason, extra electronics that we no longer use or are outdated, workout equipment that is out dated- it is going!!!
Why now- because my husband took this summer off and is able to help and also because of part 2.....

2) Installing a Crawl Space Door!

A couple of our neighbors have one of these and I am so jealous. 
Our closet in the basement goes right into the steps wall, so you could easy put a door in to open that area up and use for storage.  After looking at our neighbors we have decided it has to be done.
I got a couple quotes and decided to go with a contractor we have used before because
1) he was the most economical and
2) we know his work is good. 
This is not an expensive project at all!
Around $300

Current closet


After the installation of the crawl space door I will be reorganizing everything!!!

It is perfect time to de-clutter our life...

For example, I found that my husband had been hiding a "Walk Do't Walk Street Light" in our garage.  It weighs about 35 pounds and taking so much room.... it is gone!

Or the Zebra Poster that my husband has been hiding under the guest room bed... seriously!!- GONE

Or the majority of my Sorority painted pitchers and cups- GONE! (Except for two I had to keep).

My plans for the Crawl Space door is as follows

1) Move all the Christmas/Holiday Stuff into it.

Right now I have 5 boxes of Christmas stuff with 2 trees (one large and one small). 

The large one already has a storage place for now.  So the small one will definitely be going and my goal is to go thru the Christmas stuff and organize it to try to get it more compressed.  Joe put the Christmas stuff away last year and it is not how I would have organized it- but I given him made credit for trying.  Last year I had it down to 4 boxes and somehow this year an additional box was added which does not make any sense because the only thing new I purchased was our wreath which is not in a box.... hmmmmm

2) Move all the luggage.

We have 4 suitcases.  Which you might think is crazy and it is!  But that being said we travel alot. 

Considering this year along we have been to St Augustine, FL , New Orleans, Greece and plan on going to Jacksonville FL, Portland ME,  Clemson SC,  St Augustine FL again, and London. 

I am afraid to get rid of one or two of them and then have something happen to the others. 

Fortunately they do kind of fit in each other - at least two of them do.  So I think we can manage this.

3) Move the aerobed

The aerobed if used... will be used downstairs so this make sense to me.  We actually have not used this ourselves in our house because we have an extra room and also now a sleeper sofa but we have taken it on a couple trips with us. 

4) Move Joe Golf Clubs/ Sports Equipment

My husband has attachment to these and since I make he get rid of everything else =0)-  I am not going to even try.  But they hopefully will also be joining the craw space. 

5) Move our childhood bins.
Both Joe and I have one bin full of childhood stuff such as my old toys, bab clothes, etc. 
This is the perfect thing to go on the crawl space because they will not be used any time soon.

So they came yesterday to install the Craw Space ... Stay tuned for an update.

Running thru Life... Hair Care

I now finally have found a person in VA who can cut and color my hair- it took me two years!!!!

David at Jon David in Springfield is amazing!

He knows exactly want I want for the Summer and the Winter.  

However, lately I have been noticing that my hair has just looked dried out.

Which can happen with running in the sun, coloring it, etc. 

David made a couple suggestions that I have been following relgiously

1) Wash you hair every other day if you can

2) Only blow dry your hair a couple times a week

3) Use a leave in conditioner twice a week.  

I have been you Frizz Leave in Conditioner.

Which after I run out of this bottle I will not be purchasing it again- I just felt it did not help at all.

He also recommended getting a "repair conditioner."

The one thing I love about David is he never pushes products on you.

He said any repair conditioner would probably work so when I got a coupon for John Frieda "Full Repair" a couple of weeks ago I thought I would give it a try.

 

It is normally like $5.25 at Wegmans.

I had a coupon for a dollar.

I use it twice a last week and I can tell the difference!!

Even my husband said something.

I think I actually might also buy the shampoo and also start using it twice a week.

We will see.

Yeah to healthy hair!!!

Running thru Life..... Updating Our House

After we returned from our trip to Greece I decided this would be a great time to update our pictures in our house.

Up to this point a large amount were wedding photos but after two years of marriage and so many wonderful memories, I thought some of the pictures should be changed out for more recent ones.

One thing that I hate is when people do not update their photos and you go over to visit and all their photos are 20+ years old.

That will not be the case in our house.

So here goes

New pictures the kitchen on the bookshelf. 

Frame complements of HomeGoods

Updated the picture in the sun-room. 

Previous picture was a wedding picture.

Replaced the pictures on the stairs 

(Use to be wedding photos)

We replaced the photos with all art shots.  

Purchased new frames to place in the living room above our chair.

Frames purchased at HomeGoods.

Each Pictures represents one stop on our trip

Athens

Mykonos

Santorini

Before we had nothing there. 

I also replaced one picture in the entry way which was previously a wedding picture. 

It is nice to look around our house and have a handful of pictures from before we got married, our wedding, our trips over the years and friends and family.  

Happy thoughts!