Allie's Room

Sorry - been extremely overwhelmed with life lately. I have my new job, school, the house, hubby, kid and I am trying to find a suitable hobby that takes me away from it all if not for just a few minutes. In the mess of it all, we decided Allie deserves to have a bedroom update. Allie is what Will call's his "wet dream" child. She is an overall awesome kid. She is a great student, a good helper (when asked) and very sweet, kind and thoughtful. She really deserves some attention showered on her more than we have been able to in the past and we decided this would be a little reward since her report card was really good.

Since Allie's room is what use to be part of the carport, she has a really long room and no closet. Instead of a closet, she has a closet system that was built onto the wall by the previous renters for their daughter. It is a mess of wire shelving that really needs to be hidden, so we were going to put a little 'shower curtain' type system around it, but then Al decided she would rather just have colorful bright bins and boxes to put her things in on the shelf. She chose lime green for the color she wanted to do her new room in. So, that's how it started. Mom found some cute lime green bins at Ross for like $5.99. One is fuzzy and super, super cute!

She also decided to paint. Her bedroom set is extremely old and she has had it since she was little. Rather than get a new bedroom set (she says she likes her bed and won't give it up), we decided she could paint it white to go with the new green accent stuff that I started picking up here and there for her. Thank god we agreed that lime green was not a good choice for walls. So she decided on a dark purple. Purple? I hated the idea. I could just picture it looking like a cave in there all dark and mysterious. But there are certain things I guess as a mom you just have to let your kids do and I figured purple paint would probably be the least of my worries. It did not keep me from dreading the final outcome. So the two longer walls in the room were painted purple and the shorter ones were kept white (she decided all the walls would be overwhelming in purple). I have to give her kudos - her and her girlfriends did and amazing job and mom did not have to life a finger. I actually kind of like it :)

To top it off, I found some other great deals that I could not pass up., so I started picking up more and more stuff. Sheets at Wal-Mart in lime green, $14.00 A striped bedspread with lime green in it at Target. $13.98. A trash can at Ross, $2.99. Little white octagon shelves for the walls at Big Lots, $10 and a candle holder made of glass chips with a daisy on it and lime green leaves, Fry's Marketplace $1.99. But my best find was the lime green rice paper lanterns I found at Big Lots, $5. I did however have to go to 8 stores on that one to find 2 green ones. Heaven knows, you can't stop a mom on a mission, and my mission  was to find those lamps and suprise Al. I found ALL OF IT on sale racks! Each little piece has contributed to a little piece of the pie. Take a look at the before and after pictures. What a difference!

It looks great Al and I am proud of you! You have accomplished a whole new look in there! Now lets just see if you can keep it clean!

Peace out

A little catching up

So it's been a few days since I have posted and it is because I finally have a life again! New job, new semester at school, car breaking down - I'm a busy girl. To catch up a little, I am making one post for the last few days. I have managed to squeeze in the Photo a day and am still on track as far as taking one a day. My postings are just a little late. With that said, here we go.

Saturday morning it was pretty much a boring day and I really had nothing to photo. I managed to take a few of my sisters garden in the day light and of my sisters dogs - Remy and Winnie - Remington and Winchester to be exact. Yep, you guessed it, named after the guns. Perhaps that is because since Andrew moved from Torrance to Phoenix, he has gotten way into shooting and has become a redneck! They even have a 'bench' made out of a log (of course) with braces on it so that they can mount their clay shooter when they go out. Waaayyyy to into it if you ask me.

Her garden is also swarming with wasps. While they are not the best of the bugs to photograph, I did find them quite interesting and caught a few good ones. 

Onto Sunday. Sunday was also a boring day. I caught a few of my dogs and of the Barbie's that I finally convinced Will to put up in our bedroom. Yes BARBIES. I love Barbie and have collected them since I first found out I was going to have Jessi. I kept telling myself that they were for her, but truth be told, half of them were given to ME as gifts. I started with buying and "Air Fordce Thunderbirds" Barbie when I was pregnant with Jess. Then for her first Christmas she got the Christmas Barbie in 1991. Then my dad showed me something he probably shouldn't have. My dad had a neighbor that collected Barbies in a BIG way. He took me down to her house and they took me out back. She was probably in her 40's and her dad had built her a detached garage to keep all her Barbie's in. It had shelves from floor to ceiling and Barbie's everywhere. She had glass cases with Barbie 'scenes' in them. I remember seeing Barbie's on Vespa's, in living rooms and driving Corvette's. That was it. That was all it took. My goal is to someday have a Barbie room like that. No matter what anyone says!

Yesterday was the first day of my new job. I had a wonderful morning that started with seeing the sun rays beaming out of the clouds at QT when I stopped to get my energy drink and some gas. Then on a little smoke break, I caught some photos of the building, the courtyard area inside underground and the internal area of the office itself. My little office is a an office of little "suites". You can see all the little offices going down the hallway. Strangely enough, there are probably 8 of them that are all rented to some attorney. Why not rent a regular office?

Last night, I was lucky enough to catch a few of this dragonfly. We never get to see them up close and for some reason, he got stuck on our patio by the light. After flying around and dodging us, he finally got wore out and collapsed in to my craft bin. Thank goodness Will got him out :)

Today, nothing eventful happened. We are loving Miranda's 'Dump Soup' recipe (Thanks Miranda!) so I took some photos of that. Quick, easy and delish. Perhaps I will post the recipe soon. Right now it's on to homework.

Anyway, hope you have enjoyed this little journey. I'll catch you in a few days!