Sunday Projects

On Sunday, I found myself with a completely free afternoon and several projects to finish. After church, I convinced Michael to go to Lowe's and get the rest of the things I needed. I channeled my best DIY/HGTV knowledge to use as little money as possible.

1. Re-pot a plant
 About a month ago, a very sweet patient brought me a baby plant that was inside a little toy dinosaur. It was a really creative idea I thought, and I'm pretty sure its an aloe-vera plant.  If you knew how much aloe I end up using every summer, you would understand how excited I was to get this plant.

cute little dinosaur!

As you can see, it was getting a little too big for the dinosaur. I found a medium-sized flower pot, bought potting soil, and gave the plant a new home.

My Supplies: potting soil $4
plant, pot, gloves, spade: free!

(you can just barely see the plant sticking out the top)

2. Bookshelf fix

We bought a bookcase from ikea this summer and I put it together wrong. One of the shelves was facing to where the unfinished (ugly) edge was facing out. You may be thinking "well just take it out and turn it around silly!" but that won't work in this case because it was the only shelf that is part of the supporting structure. Unfortunately, I realized my mistake waaay too late to fix it. Well I probably could have fixed it, but that would have involved taking apart the entire bookcase. Good news is that it turned out to be a very easy fix, and only took about 15 minutes. I found an iron-on veneer and some wood stain, and now you can't even tell the difference between the shelf I fixed and the rest of the bookcase! 

Before the fix

My supplies: stain- $4
veneer- $3
sponge brush- free!
Iron (not pictured)-free!

After (see you can't even tell!!)

3. Garage Sale Treasure

One of my new favorite things to do is go to garage sales. Not every time, but sometimes I find some really great things. This chair is one of them. I have a keyboard that Michael bought me for Christmas last year but didn't have anything to sit on when I play it. I have been using either his desk chair, or the coffee table. I had an idea of what I wanted, but just couldn't find it (at a price I wanted). Then, I hit the jackpot at a garage sale. Here it is:

As you can see, it was in pretty rough shape. I could tell with just a little TLC, it would be a perfect keyboard stool. Plus, it only cost $2. How could I say no?

My Supplies: pledge (for cleaning)- free!
paint (sample size)-$3
Spray on Primer- $4
sandpaper- $2
wood dowel (for extra support)- $0.96
screws- $ 0.54
paintbrush- $7

Finished!

I pretty much love the chair now, and its just the right size and height for my keyboard. Yay for garage sale treasures!

That was it for the day. 3 projects and my total investment was $29. Not bad for a Sunday afternoon. 

Sick Day

Today is my first day to call in sick in a really long time. Sick days are usually not fun, and this one is no exception; trust me, I am not a fan of being sick. But right now, laying here in bed with my sweet puppies and a really warm heating pad, I am thinking that this day off with lots of extra sleep may be just what I need to get me through "hump day" and the rest of my week.  

Lately...

     Oh my goodness, I CANNOT believe that it is October already!! I feel like time has just been flying by lately. This might be because I am getting older, but I really don't like to think about depressing things like that :). We have just been so busy that our weeks have seriously been feeling like they are only 2 days long instead of 7. It's kinda hard to complain about being so busy though when we are doing really fun things!
     This past weekend, we went to Dallas for a long weekend (no work on Friday!!). Since it was the TX/OU game weekend, we drove in Thursday night and stayed at my parent's house all weekend. On Friday, we met Lisa and Josh at the zoo to hang out for a little bit since they were flying to California for a wedding the next day. Hannah and Abby love love animals, so they had a blast. They are babbling like crazy and running around everywhere these days and not that I am biased, but I think they are pretty fun little girls. After the zoo, we drove to North Dallas to meet my bff from high school for lunch. Trey is hilarious and I really miss getting to see him regularly...I am hoping one day I can convince him to move to Austin! Friday night we went and watched my sister cheer at the football game. She is kind of a drama queen, which makes her a great cheerleader. Saturday and Sunday were easy-going family days. We watched the football game (so depressing, but OU still sucks anyways), had Katie, Ryan and the nieces come over to my parents house for dinner, and then had a family reunion with my mom's family on Sunday. All in all, a really fun weekend.
    Driving back to Austin on Sunday, we brought Phillip with us because he rode the bus up to Dallas earlier in the day for the reunion. It was really great because even though we both live in Austin, he has been working like crazy lately and we just don't see each other very much. The good news is that he is almost done with this project he has been working on in addition to his regular 40 hour a week job, obviously causing a lot of stress and leaving no room for a social life. I am glad he will be done with that soon. For a  good chunk of the drive, Phillip and Michael got to talking about politics and the issues surrounding the upcoming election next year, and it was a very good and interesting discussion. They didn't fight, and actually tended to agree with each other on a lot of points. I don't follow politics very closely, so it was really interesting hearing their opinions and learning a little bit about what's going on. Turns out I actually have more of an opinion than I thought I would, so maybe I should try to pay more attention to what's going on out there. If I am better informed, then maybe I will act like a real grown up. But who wants to do that anyways??
    Starting this week, we are going to be doing several updates for our house. We are finally replacing the drywall that got wet from the big AC leak we had over the summer. Turns out homeowner's insurance takes basically forever to write you a check for repairs. We are also getting the columns in the front of the house repaired since the wood is kinda rotting/disinegrating? Idk if that is correct terminology, but it makes sense in my head, so we will go with that ;). Lastly, the disgusting carpet upstairs is going to be replaced. This means moving pretty much all the furniture, books, and other junk from upstairs to the downstairs. Not a very fun task. We moved a few things tonight, and I think I may just not ever buy anymore books ever again. Ok ok, not really, but seriously I have a lot of books!
     Last week, we turned in an application the the English Springer Rescue of America (or ESRA) to be foster parents for abandoned puppies in the Austin/Central Texas area. Are we crazy to willingly bring another crazyily hyper 50 pound dog into our house you ask? Yes, yes we are. BUT I dare you to go online to the website and just try to say no to all those sweet and adorable puppy faces who are just begging for someone to love on them until they find a home! I'm pretty sure I cried after reading every single one of those stories. I will update you later on how that is going after we get our first foster puppy.
     It rained 2 inches in Austin this past weekend. No that is not a typo. 2. whole. inches!!!!! The air just smelled so beautiful with all that wetness! Other than the rain, it has been in the 60s at night which is just so pleasant and makes be believe that fall is really here! And that means that Christmas is not very far behind!!!! Ok, I won't rush Christmas, but its seriously my absolute favorite time of the year. You will probably get tired of me endlessly talking about all the things I love about it, so I will save that for later ;).
   So I will leave you with the only 3 pictures I took this weekend-which I know is so sad! I really need to get my act together and take more pictures, but I just get distracted when I am having fun!

Phillip and Jacob bonding during the reunion-so cute!

Gaius not loving the drive back home