1.23.2009

On the home front...

We're considering renovating our attic/second floor space, so it's made me want to jump on getting some spaces on the first floor cleaned out and reorganized. Project 1: Bookcase from the college years in the guest bedroom/office/craft room. I've always wondered if we could paint the fake wood MDF, so I pleaded with my uber handy husband and he acquiesced. He added spare trim from the tool shed to the top, painted two coats of primer and two coats of paint (on the porch, in the cold), and it was ready to load. We sorted our books, made $20 at the used bookstore for some trade-ins, spent $15 of that at Target for some new jars that I've had my eye on, and I reorganized it all until 11:30pm one night when uber handy husband was out of town (because who can sleep when your hubby is gone? not me). Everything else 'new' on the shelf was pulled from other rooms and seems to fit much better here. My gift wrap organizer (yes I have one, and yes I love it because I'm a dork like that) wasn't used as frequently as my ribbon stash, so the over-the-door ribbon roll holder (aka, former bath towel holder which was reconned for ribbon early on in our marriage) got a re-do. Top two pics from left to right were the 'before' shots, last four are the 'afters'.

Next up, re-do on the laundry doors. Stay tuned.


In other home news, I'm taking a cake decorating course at our AC Moore. If you're local, Heather rocks as a teacher and I highly recommend it. Below is my first "test" cake. And yes, don't be confused, Grayson did already turn 1 last September, this was for practice. Warning: cake decorating makes your kitchen blow up. And the really good icing has a certain ingredient (to not be disclosed because you can enjoy the taste more when you don't know what it is) that does not like to come clean very easily and will stop up the drains in your 100+ year old house and make you need to call the plumber.
Posted by Picasa

6 comments:

Heather said...

1 - You make me feel REALLY disorganized.

2 - I don't sleep when my hubby is gone either. Probably because I leave most of the lights and at least one tv on all night to make the bad people think lots of people are home and awake.

3 - I have that same towel rack (somewhere) and just might dig it out and use it for ribbons and such.

Atkinson said...

that is awesome...i am proud (and envious) of your creativity:) i don't sleep when charlie is gone either...by the way your cake looks awesome..are you going to teach me??

Gramashu said...

You 2 crack me up with your blogging! As a Gramashu in another city, I LOVE it..

Unknown said...

I sleep terrible when Eric is gone these days and am glad I'm not the only one who leaves lights and TV's on to trick the bad guys (let's hope none of them are reading this). I actually prefer to watch happy kid movies like Narnia. I made the mistake once of hitting "play all" on the Lost season 4 DVD's one night and woke up to that earie music!

And one guess on the secret icing ingredient: LARD.

I love you and hope to see you really soon (perhaps as we met little anna lewis, who I predict will look just like Hannah. Looks like it will be up to me to break the boy/girl tie between the Lake Park babies! No, that does not mean I'm pregnant yet :)

millie smith said...

Adventures in lard, shortening, crisco, etc...So, i go to the HT to pick up my "shortening" (another word I thought was synonomous with crisco and lard), I stand there for 5 solid minutes debating between the off brand cheaper version versus the real deal Crisco (which mind you, Heather the teacher told us to use). I pick up the off brand because I did not have a coupon for Crisco and it was not on sale. Save a buck, right? All fine and good until I get it home and read the fine print and it says "meat fat". Seriously? I just about barfed. Apparently (who knew), wikipedia says that "lard" is actually meat fat. I know, how disgusted are you reading this. Almost barf along with me. But there is hope. Crisco is vegetable based only. As justin says, how in the world do they get fat from vegetables? Wiki will tell you. I promptly went and returned the off brand and gladly paid the higher price for my vegetable fat.

Unknown said...

you are so stinking cute. and organized. i want to be like you!! :) and i LOVE grayson's birthday cake!! :) what do i have to do to get one of those for my little munchkin next month?

and OH my goodness. i about wet my pants in your description of lard. :) (in the comments section here..) a