Lesson 92- My Top Two

This week the question was posed: what are your two favorite US cities.  Easy.

1.  San Francisco, California

It is a beautiful city with so much to do and see.  But the main highlight of this city is this guy...

That's my nephew P.  He's four and pretty much the cutest thing in the world--especially San Francisco.

2.  My second favorite city is New York, New York.

 

And if you've ever been to NYC, I'm sure don't need an explanation to the greatness of this city.  So much culture, so many people to observe.  So much of everything exciting and appealing.  And my BFF lives here too, so that surely doesn't hurt.

Now, if I was going to be a cheater (which I would never consider ;-)  I would put Ft. Worth, Texas on the list too.

This is where my Papa was born and I still have tons of family who I love to pieces that live in the Ft Worth area.  And it's just a fun city that I've always enjoyed visiting (hopefully one day visiting permanently!)  But I'm not a cheater, so I would never include this city on my Top Two List.

Lesson 91- Because He's So Naughty

Last week I shared my confession of my naughty puppy.  And because of his bad behavior, I thought that it would be appropriate to make him a new shirt.

His first shirt I bought on clearance at Old Navy before Oliver had come to live with us.  But he quickly grew out of it.

"The Ladies <3 Me"

 A few months ago, I made him this one.

The iron-pack I bought had some others with it.  After the streak of 'Naughty Oliver', Husband and I decided that making him this shirt would be highly appropriate.

 And here's he is getting his 'vogue' on.  I think red is his color.  What do you think?  Have you guys made anything cool with iron-ons since middle school.  Pretty sure I need to start making more things.  Maybe I'll even get a Bedazzler.  Um...on second thought, maybe that's going a bit too far!

Hope you're all having a super Monday!

Lesson 90- Oliver the Terrible

Confession:  I have a naughty puppy. 

It’s almost as the older he gets the worse he gets. Initially we would put him in his crate while we were away from the house. This was while he was in the process of potty training. He did really well with potty training and was almost completely accident free after living with us for two months. Our next step was to attach him to his leash so he could wander around a little, but when we would get home in his excitement he would pee while we were taking him off the leash. We decided that he was grown-up enough to stay with his big sister without any restrictions. But then we ended up finding our underwear lying around the house with holes chewed out. After replacing our underwear supply we tried leaving him out but with all doors closed so he only had access to the living room, dining area and kitchen.

This solution worked for a while. Until the day I came home from work and he had pulled the table cloth off the table, taken every throw pillow off every sofa, chewed on the TV remote, chewed up a book and magazine, and scratched a hole in our carpet. Argh!!! This little monster needs to be stopped!

Off to Target we went, in search of a baby gate. He would now be detained in the laundry room. It’s all tile, there’s plenty of space for a little guy to run around and with few objects for destruction. Husband and I spent a good 30 minutes seriously contemplating our baby gate options. We ultimately decided on the cheapest gate. 1) Because it was only $13.00 2) The openings weren’t big enough for him to even fathom squeezing through 3) Did I mention it was only $13.00?

We got home and Husband immediately blocked off the laundry room with our new baby/puppy gate. Sure it made bringing laundry in and out of the room a pain, but it was definitely worth the lack of mayhem otherwise. We all lived in happiness for all of two weeks. Then one Saturday while my parents were visiting we returned home from an outing and Montana greeted us at the door as usual, accompanied by her little brother. I immediately asked Husband why he hadn’t put Little Man away. He had. Well, then how did he get out?

The work week began again. Husband put Oliver in his laundry room, turned, and walked down the hall to the living room. He looked down and had been accompanied by Oliver. He scooped him up and put him back in the laundry room and watched as the little monster jump right over the gate. Great!  We were back at square one. What to do?!

We returned to leaving him out with Montana, closing all doors, and leaving nothing in reach (or so we thought). This was fine till I came home from work and he had scratched another hole in our carpet, chewed on Husband’s X-Box controller and in the process turned the X-Box on and opened the disc drive. Our next solution was locking him up again. We still have his crate.

This is an outdated pic.  It currently is in much worse condition.

 But this is where I mention that he’s scratched a hole in it—leaving the crate useless. So off to Petsmart we went, to buy this.

Hopefully this will sufficiently contain Little Man and thus save our house from further destruction.

Coming soon: new flooring!

Has anybody else had a naughty puppy who insists on mimicking Houdini? What house training tricks are tried and true with your little critters? Or are all your pets little angels like our Montana? Please leave your own pet confessions, so I know I’m not the only one with a naughty puppy.

Lesson 89- A Clue

A couple of months ago, Husband wanted to get a subscription to a couple of magazines.  These were his choices:

                                        











He asked if I would want a subscription to something so I gave him a few suggestions.  Yesterday I received my first issue.  I was oh so very excited.  But then reading it, I got the feeling that perhaps it wasn't directed to my age group.

You know you're reading the wrong magazine when the skin care tips start with an age that you are still 20 years away from.

Oh well!  I still loved reading my Southern Living magazine!

 

Lesson 88- Black Then White All Over

Starting Memorial Day weekend, Husband and I started our bathroom update.  Doing a full bathroom renovation was definitely not in the budget.  But I figured we could update the bathroom fairly inexpensively.  And thus started our summer long project of working on the bathroom.  So for the next few weeks I'll be sharing little projects that we completed before revealing our updated and brand new bathroom.

Today we'll start with the shelves and mirror we added.  Both were something I had pre-Newlywed status.  The mirror we had hung in the entry way and the shelves were taking up space on a closet shelf.  Their original black most certainly would not work with our new color scheme.  

We lightly sanded the mirrors and shelves, covered the mirror with paper and tape, and then I sprayed away.  Um...here's a tip: 

bright summer sun

+

white paint

+

a mirror

-----------------------------

a blind Newlywed

Anyways, back to the project.  Once they were dry we hung the mirror in the little toilet room.  My thoughts were the mirror would make the room feel less clautraphobic.  Results on that are still pending.  The shelves were hung on the wall opposite the vanity.  And apparently we suck at hanging things, cause the shelves were no where near flush against the wall, thus making it impossible to acutally put anything on the shelves.  So we hung them with liquid nails.  Hahaha, please don't tell the next homeowner!

Once they were securely in place, I used Distress Ink (walnut) to tone down the whiteness.  I simply ran the ink pad on the surface, then wiped with a paper towel.

Here are the final products:

Come back next week to see the next project we conquered in our update process.  And here's a little project I did for storage in our bathroom.

Lesson 87-Epic Fail

Here's the best recipe I've found so far for screwing up your diet.  Ready...

1)  Go to Zumba after a grumpy day at work and annoying traffic
2)  Have a new Zumba teacher
3)  Be very very annoyed by new Zumba teacher
4)  Be so annoyed by new Zumba teacher you walk out after 25-ish minutes
5)  Feel grumpy, annoyed, and pathetic for yourself
6)  Because you are feeling so grumpy, annoyed, and pathetic stop at Burger King for dinner
7)  Order a double cheeseburger, fries, Dr Pepper, and a milkshake
8)  Eat that ridiculous amount of food
9)  Feel even sorrier for yourself
10)  Go to bed early because you're now feeling grumpy, annoyed, pathetic, and fat

Lesson 86- This Craft Brought to You By...

...The Letter 'M'

Remember I shared my summer wreath with you a few weeks ago?

Well, I decided I didn't like it that much after all.  Apparently Husband agreed (but he said it in the nicest way possible).  It needed something else.  But what?  I had no clue.

I brought out my glue gun, scissors, the left over seashells, the left over twine, and left over ribbon from this project.  I tried wrapping the ribbon in between in the sea shells.  Nope.  That wasn't the 'something' the wreath needed.  What if I randomly zig-zag the ribbon in the middle?  I like random.  I held the zig-zags in place with straight pins...just in case I didn't like the results nothing was permanent.

Ok the random ribbon in the middle didn't look so bad.  What else can I add?  Enter the letter 'm'.  (Does this remind anyone else of Sesame Street?  Such a classic!)

It was left over from a failed wedding project.  Clearly it didn't match the theme of the wreath, so I wrapped twine around it to make it feel a little more included.

Then I hung that from the middle of the wreath with the random ribbon as a background.

Lastly I used the last bit of green ribbon to make a loop to hang the wreath from.  Oh wait.  I still seashells left over.  So I glued the rest on, wherever they would fit.  And voila!  We now had this:

And it looks so much better!  Even better, it cost me no more dollars!  I was fairly pleased, considering I had no plan of action and just pulled it our of my...er...back pocket!


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Lesson 85-Lessons Needed

Confession:  I have no self-control

Remember last week, Helena over at Life in the Pitts, had this superb idea of having a little imaginary shopping spree and not buying anything? Well, she must have a heck-of-a-lot more self-control than I, cause that very day I headed back over to the Vera Bradley website and ordered my very own…and this time I did hit the ‘check out’ button. But I just couldn’t resist this beauty. For one, I love Vera Bradley bags. Husband says it looks like Vera Bradley threw-up in our closet. Two, it was part of the ‘Paris Collection’. Hint: if you want to sucker me in to anything just add the word Paris to it and I’m sold. Three, the description likened the bag to something Audrey Hepburn would have used. 

Source

Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE her. She is the epitome of grace, elegance, and beauty in my opinion. Four, it was on sale. The combination of these things, how could I not buy the bag?

Me: Can I buy a new purse It’s on sale…40% off

(Please notice I did not tell him the price before or after the discount. I decided the 40% of would sound better without a price. Also, I’m not sure if it really was

40% off—I’m not so good at math, but it seemed close enough that it would be

okay anyways)

Hubs: Yes ma’am

Me: Sweet!!!

Hubs: :)

Out came the debit card and not 5 minutes later had I received an email confirmation in my inbox Hey, at least it wasn’t shoes!

Lessons learned:

• I must work on self-control.

• Until I’ve improved my self-control, no more pretend shopping sprees.

• If I want something, tell Husband the discount, never the price (before or after)

• After a little math equation the discount was actually closer to 35%

• Said math equation reminded me how much I truly despise math