My Makeshift Swiffer

I really can't believe I'm writing a blog post about cleaning the floors. But I am! And it's something I'm excited about! Because I like clean floors, they're so good on bare feet. And I like a good deal, which I think this is :)

So the story goes...

One of the perks of building our house was that we could choose the flooring. Since Paul has really bad allergies and Arizona is SUPER DUPER DUSTY, we opted for hard surface everywhere in the house except two of the bedrooms which have carpet. So on a regular basis, there's a lot of sweeping to get done.

Back when I lived at Brittany's house, we were really into swiffer. We had weekly chores that we rotated, so at least once a week we swiffered (dry and wet) the whole house. I had always grown up with a broom and pan, so this quick sweeping method was a dream to me! I loved how you could practically dance around and pick up all the dust and dirt.

But now, in my married house, we really don't want to spend the big bucks for the swiffer cloths just to throw them out. Plus, I'm cleaning the floors, like, every other day. And there are always dust bunnies. Always. So that would be a lot of swiffer wipes.

So I searched trusty old Pinterest and found the ultimate solution! Do you know those kind of silly but strangely comfortable really fuzzy socks? They are the best best best washable swiffer cloth substitute! Seriously, I think they work even better than the disposable ones. Now I'm putting on my humility hat and showing this picture below, but I'm really embarrassed because it's gross. Still, I want you to see how well this worked in our house! (I had honestly cleaned the floors a few days earlier)

Yuck that's a whole lot of dirt (and a whole lot of long blonde hairs – oops!). But I'm thankful that I can still use one of my favorite floor cleaning solutions with this eco-friendly, super-cheap alternative. And now I'm cleaning my floors all the time and it's just a snap!

A New Kind of Winter Wonderland

Hello there! Is it a Winter Wonderland where you live? Snow has been a hot topic on Facebook and Instagram this past weekend and I must say, I'm a bit jealous! Although I'll never see snowflakes fall outside my window in our new desert town, it's the most wonderful time of year here too. With highs in the 60's and 70's and the sun shining bright, it's my ideal weather for sure. The nights are quite crisp and chilly and we've added extra blankets to our bed. The best! This morning I even got dressed under the covers because it was so cold in our room. Does anyone else do this in the wintertime? You must try it. My mom taught me to do this on the dark cold winter mornings when I was a little girl and it makes a world of a difference.

So you can see, we're enjoying our own kind of Christmas season around here. And although I love to watch the white stuff fall, I can be thankful that I'm not scraping off car windows, slipping on the ice, or  shivering as I run my Christmas errands. And that I can just take a quick trip up north any time I need a snowfall fix. In all things, give thanks :)

Well, how was your weekend? We had a really sweet couple of days off. Since Friday, I've gotten to:

Sip coffee with a dear new friend.
Watch Miracle on 34th Street. Paul saw it for the first time! It's so charming.
Take a drive up the mountains to visit my parents.
Enjoy the lights in the town square, and the carols at Acker Night.
Paint my new resale finds for my future office.
Nap under my favorite quilt.
Visit our house. It's so very much almost finished. Just a few weeks now!
Finish up our Christmas stockings. I used this tutorial for the cuffs.

And what's on my to-do list for this week?

Get going on our packing. I'm actually looking forward to this! Gives me a chance to go through our things and get rid of whatever we don't use/need. Nothing like a fresh start!
Address and mail out our Christmas cards.
Finish my Christmas shopping.
Drink lots of mint hot chocolate.
Watch The Nativity Story.
Keep the Christmas music playing.
Pray for a thankful heart and a humble spirit.

Weekend Resaling

Over the weekend Paul and I went up to visit my parents. Mom and I did some shopping at some of my favorite resale shops and I scored big time! I picked up these two shelving units for a great price and I think they're going to be perfect in my office in the new house.

The wood isn't in very good shape, and it's kind of this strange olive green color. I'm planning to definitely paint them. Mom suggested a navy blue and I love that idea. I'm thinking something like Farrow & Ball's Drawing Room Blue.

I think the navy will really make the unique hardware pop. I love the corner brass pieces and the drawer pulls. But I feel like they get lost in the color of the wood (which I think looks better in the pictures even than real life).

I can't wait to get started on this project! I assured Paul that with more storage I will be much more organized and keep my desk clean. Eeek! I hope that's the case!

To Blog or Not To Blog

Obviously I've had some commitment issues with my blog this month. Woopsidaisy.

Honestly, I feel like there's this nagging battle going on inside of me in regards to blogging. Who am I? Am I a blogger? Why do I do it? Am I just trying to get people to like me? Sometimes other people's blogs make me feel like my life is not pretty/fun/exciting/trendy enough. Do I even like blogs? It is fun to look back on the last couple years and remember certain days/events/stages. So maybe it's cool. etc etc etc...

But, apparently my mom and Janell are waiting for me to post again (see previous post comments), and today felt like something blog worthy, so here I am.

I've mentioned before that ever since our move to Arizona, I'm working from home. Well the first couple months Paul was job hunting, so he was mostly around the house with me. Now it's not like we were hanging out or even interacting much of the day, but just having him here I think kept me a little closer to keeping my marbles. But now he's off at work everyday, and you guys, today I lost them. My marbles that is.

Every day I take an hour lunch break, usually at weird times like 10:30-11:30 or 11-12 because my employer is in Illinois and currently 2 hours ahead. Since Paul's been off at work, I have been having some fun during lunch either working on wedding invitations or doing some craft around the house like painting a frame and so forth and so on.

But today, something came over me. And I decided to do a craft. On myself. Yes, a craft on myself.  You see, I haven't had my haircut since before our wedding (eh hem, read, last August). And I do this to myself. I wait 6-9 months between haircuts and I get so antsy that I call Carrie (she cut my hair in IL) and I'd be all like "I need to get an appointment THIS WEEK" as if I hadn't procrastinated long enough. She's a sweetheart and would get me in and my hair would get cut. But I live here now. And I don't know anyone to cut my hair. I don't even know anyone to ask who should cut my hair. So today, when the bewitching lunch hour rolled around, I thought,"huh, I know who can cut my hair, me!"

This is getting long, you can scroll down to the pictures if you want.

Anyways, thankfully I wasn't brave enough to cut all my hair, but I had remembered that my mom had made a fleeting comment the other week about how she had liked when I had bangs. And so I thought, "Self. We shall give ourselves bangs today!" I didn't even ask anyone. I didn't ask a friend. I didn't ask Paul. I hardly asked myself. I just watched a video on YouTube, pulled Paul's trimming kit out of the closet, and hacked away.

Now the thing about cutting your bangs that is hard,  is that the very nature of you not yet having bangs makes it really impossible to see anything. So there I stood in the bathroom, not seeing anything, holding a huge long portion of my hair over my eyes and began to cut.

And then I saw.

"Oh my gosh." I said aloud although no one is around (hence why there was no one to stop me from cutting my own hair).

And so now I have bangs. Do I like them? Not particularly. But thankfully, I have no friends here, I work from home, and mostly visit with my parents on the weekends (50% of whom were the sole inspiration for cutting them in the first place). So, I'm sorry cashier at the grocery store or lady I sit next to at church, about my awkward, not quite even, slightly too short, one chunk too far to the left bangs.

And Paul, thank you for loving me no matter what my hair looks like. I love you too, babe. (he has yet to see my bangs, let alone even hear about their existence..oy).

Without further ado, my first public 2012 bang appearance and my range of emotions to go with them (I think they look better when my hair is up).

Tomorrow at lunch, I think I will go for a walk.

Be Careful What You Wish For

See this girl?

This girl is so happy because it's Friday afternoon, she just went on a lunch date to the Olive Garden with her dashing husband, and she's now off to gather supplies for her birthday DIY project. It was, after all, her wish.

But what she doesn't know, is that what lies ahead is a day and a half of sore fingers, disappointments, frustrations, stressful "conversations" with said dashing husband in Lowes, a couple stray tears, back aches, and finally, a headboard that isn't quite as lovely as Jenny Komenda's, but still a welcomed addition to our cozy bedroom.

Oh no, that girl up there has no idea what's ahead. But it sure isn't the dreamy, easy, breezy, romantic DIY project she's picturing in her head.

Ok, ok, so in hindsight, it wasn't as dramatic as I'm making it out to be. But it seriously was a lot harder than I thought it would be! And I don't know who these couples are who tackle DIY projects with love and adoration for one another oozing from their pores. But that was not us. It was definitely a growing experience for us as a couple. We argued and had to ask each other for forgiveness more than once. He thought I had some bad ideas, and I thought he had some bad ideas, and we weren't always on the same page. And I think that's life. It's tricky sometimes, and it's tricky to be married. It's not all kisses and rainbows, but it's also sin, and mean, and ugly. I don't like that that's true, I really wanted to report on here how it was such a wonderful experience to do this with Paul, and we just were the perfect team. But  instead we had to stretch ourselves out of our comfort zones into something unfamiliar to us both. And I think we were both humbled by it and the fact that we weren't always kind to one another. So in a different way than I was hoping, it was really good for us to do this together, and we did grow closer, and it wasn't easy, and I'm okay with that.

So here we go!  Check out our first major married DIY!

Jenny does a great step by step post on her blog, so be sure to click over to that. But here is a rough outline of what we did. Make lots of buttons. Then, when you realize your fabric is too thick, go back to the store, find thinner fabric in the exact same color, and start over. Woop woop!

Have pegboard cut to size at your local home improvement store. Ours was 61" wide by 38" high. We have a queen bed, and the 38" was because that's what we could fit in our car. Then we mapped out where we wanted our tufts to be and circled those holes on the board on both sides.

Jenny recommends 3" foam, and we ended up getting a piece of 2" and a piece of 1" and adhering  them together to make 3" (we found this to be the cheapest option because we had a 40% off coupon for Hobby Lobby and they didn't have anything thicker than 3", but you can get 3" yardage cut at Joann's). We used the pegboard to map out our dots on the foam, and then cut out holes in those spots for the buttons to tuft.

We then set up the whole operation on four chairs, so that Paul could work from underneath (like he was working on the underneath of a car) and I could work from the top. We set up the foam on top of the pegboard, then a layer of batting, and finally the 2 yards of velvet.  From the top, I threaded the button through the first hole (starting in the middle and moving outward), and Paul stapled each thread 5 or 6 times zig zagging it around. Here I am with our FIRST tuft completed. Yay!

Then we just got to work! We mapped out 22 tufts total; 7 in the top row, 8 in the middle, and 7 on the bottom. It took about 2 hours I think for us to do them all. We also watched the Duke game during this step. This was upsetting for my dear husband.

At the end I was honestly so tired of the whole operation. I kind of half heartedly finished up the edges and almost lost it when one of the tufts came loose (not my finest moment). We still need to fix the far right tuft, but for now, it is finished! It's currently propped up on two boxes under our bed, but I think once we figure out how we want to secure it's position, we'll raise it a little higher so you can see more of the tufts with the pillows on the bed. Sorry I made the bed so sloppy, but here's the best photo I have!

Overall, we're really happy with it! I must say, it looks better in person. And I'm really happy I went with the olive green. I was really tempted to choose a neutral beige or cream color, but I scolded myself since neutral is my safe tendency. I said "Mariel, NO! Choose something with some color! You MUST!" and so I did. And I'm so happy I listened to me.

See the loose tuft on the right? Grrrrr!

So that's it! I think next year I'm going to ask for a new purse or something less stressful.

wish list.

Is it okay that I already know what I want for my birthday?  I mean, it is technically February. And so my birthday is technically next month.  This week I found an awesome DIY project on one of my very favorite blogs, Little Green Notebook. Jenny's really outdone herself this time. And she's got me drooling over this:

(source)

{ahhhhhhhhh} She made this amazing tufted headboard and gives fabulous step by step instructions on how to do it yourself here. Normally, Paul gets a little squirmy when I start painting elaborate descriptions of amazing DIY projects I plan to take on. I think he gets visions of pricey trips to Hobby Lobby, messy living rooms, and unfinished projects dancing in his head. So I knew he'd be skeptical of my latest inspiration. But I gathered up some courage, and announced "I know what I want for my birthday!" hoping it would be better received than the usual. I explained that I wanted to do this DIY project, that I would need a new staple gun and a few supplies, and I told him I want to do it together. Because you know what? I really think there's a DIY studmuffin hiding inside my man. Just waiting for me to awaken him! And this March 8th, that's exactly what I intend to do. Look out world, the Schmitts are DIYing.