48 Questions

So I have officially decided that I'm just not cut out for this blogging thing. I love it, I do. But I get so caught up in other things that I just don't think about it. I'm hoping one day I'll improve. I do have some things I've been wanting to post and just haven't made myself sit down and do it. So until then, here's some questions about me just for fun. 

From my February Photo a Day Challenge. 

1. What time did you get up this morning? This morning .. noon. I usually don't sleep that late, ever. I remember M leaving for work at 6:30 and then .. dead to the world till noon. 

2. How do you like your steak? I don't eat steak very often, but I prefer it well done. If I see pink, it grosses me out. If I don't see it but it's there .. I'm fine. Weird, right?

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? We next to never go to the movies. We're more of the "bootlegged" kind of people, but shh! I didn't say that. :) It would either be the most recent Predator one or Jennifer's Body. 

4. What is your favorite TV show? I can't say that I have a favorite and I won't name every show that I currently keep up with because that would just prove that I have no social life. But I watch Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, Revenge, Walking Dead and Once Upon a Time. Plus about 20 more...

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? Kentucky. I lived in Lexington for almost 5 years and I loved it. I would move back in a heartbeat if I was given the chance.

6. What did you have for breakfast? I usually don't eat breakfast. Especially this morning since I slept past breakfast time and went straight into lunch. In that case, a ham sandwich.

7. What is your favorite food? All food. :) Probably just a really good homemade hamburger! Or pizza.

8. Foods you dislike? mushrooms. sweet pickles. turnip greens, or mustard greens.

9. Favorite place to eat? O'Charlies. Best potato soup ever! or Cheddars.

10. Favorite dressing? Ranch or Honey Mustard. Occasionally I like Italian.

11. What kind of vehicle do you drive? 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee. She's been a trouper, but she's slowly shutting down.

12. What are your favorite clothes? pajama pants. I live in them. Even when I was working, I would come straight home and change into pj's. 

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? Australia!

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? Here lately the cup is just flippin' empty.

15. Where would you want to retire? No idea really. Where I am, I guess. It's where my family is. Although by the time I retire, most of them will be long gone.

16. Favorite time of day? Night time. I don't sleep, so the wee morning hours are the best. It's quiet. Plus I stick all the dogs in bed with M. Peace..

17. Where were you born? Jackson, Mississippi.

18. What is your favorite sport to watch? I don't do sports. Unless WWE counts and I sometimes watch that. Not very often tho.

19. What is your favorite fragrance? I don't really wear perfume, but I adore Love Spell by Victoria's Secret.

20. What is your favorite face cream? um, cream? If that counts as a moisturizer, then Mary Kay 3in1 something. 

21. Favorite baby/kids products? No kids yet. 

22. People watcher? Absolutely. I could spend hours watching people.

23. Are you a morning or night person? Night person. 

24. Do you have any pets? 5. Hershey (lab/pit mix), Zoey (chihuahua), Roxy (minpin), Mr. Fuzzy Butt (cat) and Biscuit (cat).

25. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share? We finally framed up the wall we are building to separate the living room and kitchen. I'll share that in another post tho.

26. What did you want to be when you were little? A vet or an Interior Designer. Then I started working at Kirkland's and decided that I can't deal with picky people.

27. What is your favorite memory? Getting my first apartment. It was so exciting until I realized that I was scared by myself. I eventually got used to it.

28. Are you a cat or dog person? Both. But my cat has been driving me up a wall, so I'm on the fence.

29. Are you married? yes. Almost a whole year already!

30. Always wear your seat belt? 98% of the time.

31. Been in a car accident? 1 small fender bender. Nothing serious.

32. Any pet peeves? A bazillion. Most people in general. :) No, I'm really a nice person, just worked retail for way to long. I used up all my patience.

33. Favorite pizza toppings? Ham and black olives. Anything really except mushrooms.

34. Favorite flower? Daisy.

35. Favorite ice cream? Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

36. Favorite fast food restaurant? Wendy's or Zaxby's.

37. How many times did you fail your driver’s test? None. I got lucky. Heaven forbid I ever had to take it again tho.

38. From whom did you get your last email? Probably M. We email alot instead of texting because I don't have unlimited.

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Target. I love that store.

40. Do anything spontaneous lately? I rearranged the living room yesterday if that counts.

41. Like your job? I think that I will one day. Right now, it's not really a job.

42. Broccoli? Absolutely. Raw, steamed, in a casserole. It's the best when you steam it and put mayo on it!

43. What was your favorite vacation? Probably Disney World when I was a teenager. We don't really take vacations. When we do, it's to see M's family in Michigan and I don't count that as much of a vacation. We are way overdue one.

44. Last person you went out to dinner with? M.

45. What are you listening to right now? The fish tank and the hum of my laptop.

46. What is your favorite color? Yellow!

47. How many tattoos do you have? Right now none, but M and I are planning to soon. He has one that he wants to add on to and I want my first one!

48. Coffee drinker? yes. Not regularly, but yes. 

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New Layout!

Just a quick little post to tell you I have a new layout! Just starting the year off with something fresh is inspiring. It's nothing elaborate. I'm not well educated on blogger's html stuff. But it makes me happy, so I just wanted to share. And if you are reading this in a reader then here's a little screenshot!

Hope that everyone is enjoying their weekend! Hoping to blow through some projects tomorrow. Wish me luck! :)

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Wreck this Journal

For Christmas, I received the Wreck this Box journal set. It comes with Wreck this Journal, Mess and This is Not a Book. I am so excited about working on these! I thought it would be a fun idea to blog about my progress. So far I have only done one of the projects. I originally thought that I would do several a week but I have since decided that I'd like to take my time and really express myself. I even bought that awesome marker set to use just for this!

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Painted Ceiling Fan

Our living room makeover has officially started! We have big plans for this room. We have already picked out our paint color, but haven't yet bought it. We are planning to add a wall to separate the living room and kitchen. Once that is up, then we will paint. But my first project was painting the ceiling fan! I am so obsessed with this, I love how it turned out. Now I just want to lay on the couch and stare up at it all the time. Cheesy much?! :)

I added white stripes to the blades. They were already the dark stain color. Then I painted the base with Aqua spray paint. The same color I used for the end table a few posts back. I am completely in love! I can't wait for the rest of the room to come together now!

LINKING UP @ Handy Man, Crafty Woman, My Girlish Whims, DIY by Design, 

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Here's to New Beginning's!

December was, well .. not such a great month for me. I neglected to blog about anything because there really wasn't much to blog about. This post could be long if I let it, so instead I will split it into "groups". Short, sweet and to the point.

Depression. This has possibly been the worst month so far. I haven't done any projects since the Aqua End Table. Half way through the month, I told myself I would just focus on getting the house clean. I have cleaned, some. Christmas was a disaster but I will go into that next. I guess the best thing that did happen this month is that I finally talked to my mom. I told her that I think I need help and she agreed. I do such a good job of hiding  my depression from everyone, so she was proud that I finally came forward and asked for help. No Doctor visits have been set up yet, but I'm pretty sure within the next month or so, there will be. I am so ready to kick this depresso thing in the butt!

Christmas. My mom and I both started out the month wanting to go big. All out. We started decorating, but it kinda fizzled. My family wasn't doing a big Christmas this year. We planned no gifts, just because we all are struggling this year. Just food, games and being together was the plan. The plan. My number one problem. I always have this "plan" worked out in my head of how I feel something should play out. Then when it doesn't, I feel devastated. It just sort of ruins my whole day from that point on. Well this day didn't go how I had planned. My aunt showed up earlier than anyone thought would. Everything that came out of my mouth that day, She had something ridiculously sarcastic to say about it. Finally, enough was enough. I marched my little butt back over to my house and stayed there the rest of the night. I cried. I cried some more. M was super supportive this go round. This was the night that I decided I really did need help and Christmas Day was when I talked to my mom.

Work. I mentioned earlier that I haven't done anything this month. I have such big dreams and high hopes of making something of myself. The motivation just isn't there. I sold 2 pieces of furniture in December, which means that I have now sold every piece of furniture I have done since I started. Which tells me that I can do this. I just need to do it faster. I can't make any money selling one or two pieces a month. I need to sell 5 or more. And that is totally do-able. If I can get my butt in gear!

Resolutions. I'm not good at sticking to goals, but I do have a few that I am gonna do my hardest to follow through this year.

• Stop Smoking! (This will be the hardest for me to accomplish, but I'm ready to seriously work on it.)
• Diet! (We got a pool for the backyard back in the summer. I need to be bathing suit ready!)
• Work, Work, Work! (Got to. Our future's depend on it!)

Those are all pretty self explanatory so I won't delve into them. So that just brings me to reality. I've noticed several people around blog land posting there "realities". How everything isn't so picture perfect all the time. We only post the things we want you to see and hide the things we don't want to show. Well, this is my reality.

All the Christmas has been taken down and boxed back up. The only problem is that because I have stored so much furniture for me to work on, our storage building won't hold anything else. Literally, you can't take one step inside the door. It is packed. So until I can weed through some furniture and make some room, this lovely pile of holiday gets to live in my living room.

Laundry. I don't think I ever get caught up on laundry. It's a never ending process. This is the current state. I pulled out all the baskets and piled them in front of the laundry room. I figured if I stumbled over them enough it would encourage me to just suck it up and do it. Not so much. I still just go through and pick out what we need the most and do that. I am making a promise to myself that by this weekend, this pile will no longer exist.

This chair (which is a piece waiting to be worked on) never stays clean. Right now, it's a coat rack. And a purse rack. And those plastic bags have paint cans in them. And my kitchen floor is grossly dirty in that spot, which is a little more reality than I was going for! :) I swear, I will clean this chair out and the next day it looks like this. The catch all.


On a brighter note, I hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas and an awesome New Year's!! Hopefully you will be seeing a lot more of me in 2012.

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Aqua End Table

Somehow I managed to not take a "before" picture. But it was just a dark wood color. The thing I love about this table is that I didn't have to sand it! A friend of my dad's gave it to me and he'd already sanded 3/4 of it. I tried my luck and didn't bother with the rest and it turned out perfect! Gotta love when projects are easy peasy. I used Rustoleum spray paint in Aqua. I love it. This is gonna be a tough one to let go of!

Soon there will be linkys here, but right now American Horror Story is coming on and I must watch!!
EDIT: LINKING UP @
DIY Home Sweet Home, House of Grace, Restore Interiors, Savvy Southern Style,
My Girlish Whims, Miss Mustard Seed, The Shabby Nest

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TUTORIAL: Paper Flowers

I originally found the tutorial to make these flowers at 52 Mantels. She has an excellent tutorial as well. Probably better than mine because well, this is my first ever! I also apologize in advance for the picture quality. As of right now all I have is a Samsung point and shoot camera. I can fake it up pretty good with furniture, people, animal, everyday shots.. but when you try to take an up close picture, it's not that great. But never the less, hopefully it gets my point across and teaches you how to make an awesome flower!!

You will need lunch sized paper bags, scissors and some twine. The twine is used to secure the paper together in the middle of the flower, so you could use almost anything. Staples, twisty tie, glue, tape, etc. On the ones I made for Thanksgiving, I used staples. But all I had on hand when I made this tutorial was the twine.

The first thing you do is cut down one edge of the bag and then around the entire bottom. You'll be left with one big piece and the bottom will be thrown out. Or if you're crafty you could save all the bottoms. I debated on it, but then threw all mine away. I actually thought they might make good stencils.

After your bottom is cut out, you will then fold the large piece in half. Cut down the fold. Then fold those two pieces in half again. Cut down the folds. You will then have 4 smaller rectangle pieces.

Next, line up all four pieces and accordion fold them like you are making a fan. Then use your twine (or staple, glue, what have you) to bind the pieces together in the middle. It doesn't have to be tied super tight, just strong enough that it won't pull apart easy.

If you have been thinking that your edges aren't even, this step will solve that problem. Take your scissors and round the two ends. This is so that when fluffed out, it will look more like petals of a flower. You could also make the ends pointy, zig zag'd, it all depends on what you want your petals to look like. Use your imagination!

The last step is to start pulling your layers apart. This part was hard to capture in a picture. Just start with the top piece of paper and pull it up and towards the center of the flower. I go around in circles and do the top piece of paper on both sides, then move on to the second and so on. There is no right or wrong way to do this, just figure out what is easiest for you. And yes, you will rip some of the pieces. That's ok! On a few of my flowers, I actually ended up ripping a few spots on purpose just so I could fluff a certain spot to fill in a hole. Just keep going until you get it nice and full looking!

 The final product! A pretty awesome flower! There are so many uses for these too. I made a garland out of mine. (Which you can see here!) But you could also glue some stems on them and use them in a vase. Christmas ornaments! Scatter them throughout your dining table centerpiece. Glue them to a picture frame. Attach magnets and stick to your refrigerator. The possibilities are endless!

LINKING UP @ Handy Man, Crafty Woman, Home Stories A to Z, DIY Home Sweet Home, 

Savvy Southern Style, My Girlish Whims, 

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Thanksgiving Photos ... A LOT of them!

I know that everyone has been posting Christmas pictures because well, it's that time of year! I have some of those ready to go too, but first I wanted to post some of my Thanksgiving pictures. I finally got my camera and cord back from my dad this morning, so I was able to transfer them to my computer finally. Not much to say, just a photo dump of sorts. The first few are of the decorations. We do Thanksgiving at my parents house (which is next door!) every year and my mom doesn't have many fall things. So I packed up most of my stuff and we decked out her house a little. The last few are of family. The nice thing about living in the south, we ate outside! And actually, I've been running my AC today .. in December. That's crazy! Anyways, on to the pictures..

I actually didn't get my tutorial done the other night because I finished up my end table instead. So right now, I'm sitting down to make a flower. Tutorial will be up tomorrow and my new End Table will be up Wednesday! Then maybe Thursday I'll get around to my Christmas pictures. Wow.. me posting 4 days in a row?! WHAT?! :)

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Paper Flowers

I made these amazing paper flowers to hang up at Thanksgiving. I found a wonderful tutorial for them and I will link her blog in the next post. I also want to make my own tutorial for these. I made about 20 of them for a garland with my mom the day before Thanksgiving, so I didn't take the time to snap pictures. I plan to sit down later tonight and make another for the purpose of showing all of you!

This is just a sweet little preview of them. :)

I've also been working on a new end table, which I plan to finish up tonight as well. Look for that soon too!

Hope you all are having a super weekend!

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RECIPE: Ding Dong Cake

It's sort of become a "tradition" to have Ding Dong cake at family functions the last year or so. A girl I used to work with made them a lot and would bring them to work for all of us. It's the most delicious cake I have ever eaten, and I usually hate cake. I finally decided to look up the recipe online and make one for myself. Best decision I ever made. It's my dad's favorite cake now! The first 2 pictures are from Thanksgiving. The quality is poor because I used a cell phone. The banner says "Happy Thanksgiving" and I downloaded it from here. (you can always save for next year!) I didn't get any pictures once it was cut into, but I have some from past birthday's and get together's. This particular cake, I got my icing a little to thick and once the chocolate hardened, it was difficult to cut into. But it still tasted yummy!

Ding Dong Cake (take from All Recipes)

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix
• 1 (3.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 3 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 2 1/4 tablespoons water

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10 inch springform pan.
2. In a large bowl, stir together the cake mix and instant pudding. Make a well in the center and pour in the eggs, oil and water. Mix until well blended. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool cake completely on a wire rack before removing from pan.
4. Slice a 1 inch thick slice off of the top of the cake and set aside. Scoop out the cake for the center of the bottom part to within 1 inch of the sides. Discard or save for another use. To make the filling, whisk together the flour and milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened. Set aside to cool completely.
5. Once the flour and milk mixture has cooled, beat the 1/2 cup shortening, butter, sugar and vanilla on high speed until light and fluffy. Add the milk mixture and continue to beat for 4 more minutes. Spoon into the center of the cake and replace the layer sliced from the top.
6. Combine the chocolate chips, 1/4 cup shortening, corn syrup and water in the top of a double boiler. Heat, stirring frequently until melted and smooth. Pour warm glaze over the top of the cake and smooth over the sides. Refrigerate until serving.

ENJOY!

Linking up here: Handy Man, Crafty Woman , My Girlish Whims , DIY By Design

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