SH Day 7- Cleaning The Day Away!

Saturday, is a special day. It is the day we get ready for Sunday...

So the song goes and how our day pretty much went. We made sure that the kids' finished their chores and Mr. Man got to sleep in so he's ready for work tonight. Except to pick up L-Infinity from a Choir competition today, we all stayed in.

Dinner was again composed of leftovers. No fuss, no muss!

Food Budget Trick: Needs come first. Wants can and will wait even with food. I learned this the hard way. Since 2003, I have set a very strict food budget. We still live off that same amount every month. What I do is, I set my amount and gauge my needs list against sales, use coupons, stock up during great deals, before I entertain any wants on my list. And for holidays, I only add 1/4 more to my monthly food allowance. I revise the menu to accomodate that amount. Eating out has to have an occasion or emergency reason, because it is budgeted separately and with very little. Weekends and twice more in the week, we polish off our leftovers. (I read online that the average grocery tab for a family of 4, including everything (pets, toiletries, etc.), is almost $1,000 a month. $1,000 a month! Yowza!) We don't even come anywhere close to that even without much coupon use here. Thank goodness!

Ok, back to the cleaning... I still am. In the master because I'm ready to see a newer and cleaner room plus there's a maintenance inspection going on for our townhome and my unit may be picked soon so clean, clean away I go!

Hope you are having a great weekend!

I'm Grateful For... #17

Clean rooms!!! For the past six months, we have done nothing but plan, sort and reduce every room in our apartment. Frankly, I'm sick of it, but it's gotta be done, you know?

See the above picture, as embarrassing as this is to show, I want to prove how stressful this swap had been for me alone. This is the short work, I mean short- only 1 month, of two busy teenage girls, a month after Kila moved in back in mid-September! I was so shocked when I saw this room that I had to take pictures to believe it myself! After I managed to close my mouth and breathe again, I put my foot down, opened our wallets, got in the van, made Lowe's and Ross rich and saved my sanity. For their consequence, I made the girls work all night on Halloween after we got back from trick or treating! I made sure the main bones got put in place before we called it quits; but until now, completion is still ongoing. (Darn multiple schedules!)

Our smallish kiddos swapped their two daybeds for a full bed and moved into the girls' room and vice versa. Kila and L now have their own beds while the kiddos share one bed. Surprisingly enough, my room redesign was on the money! Mr. Man was impressed! (So am I! LOL)

Here's a sneak peek at our Room Swap: L-Infinity's side

She needed her own shoe cubby... and had to choose only 18 pairs out of over 20 she's got! (The sandals on the top end are giveaways.)
Mr. Man put up shelves everywhere and we organized her clothing...
Then I had the hubs put in individual sconces for each girl and more shelves.

Tonight, I gathered her clothes to be washed and straightened up the closet (took off the sliding doors that kept getting jammed and replaced them with drapes) and her bed. We found cute polka dot matching blanket for her and Kila (hers is dark brown). As you can see in the picture below, I put their bed backs against each other, and soon it'll be further separated with more drapery. Each girl has a desk and they share the closet (halved by stackable plastic bins) I kept the color scheme neutral and earthy since this is just to keep us all sane before we move!

It's still a work in progress as Kila is still figuring out how to "dress up" her side of the room. But L's is simple, organized and will be continued to be streamlined for maximum space output. (I can hear the bigger storage groaning already; oh. well...)

How do you like it? I want to know so let me know, ok?

Saturday Ends, Sabbath Begins

Not much today... Just cleaned up for the Sabbath. Too distracted with the notion of my hubs coming home tomorrow.

We didn't go anywhere today and just feasted on grilled cheese using the homemade bread I just recently made. If you want the recipe, here's the link from EHow dot com. I made it last Thursday and the last half loaf is still quite soft today. And it has a slight sweet taste that the the kids love. Yay!

Read more of the Children of the Lamp book 1 to the kiddos, we're now on Chapter 16. We could've been done earlier, but "life" says "not yet". LOL

Goodnight...

We found room!

Once again, Mr. Man is off to Chicago to work and while on his way to the airport, we worked on "fitting" the bookcase and the plant somewhere in our dinky unit. J-Pony and I-Dude cleared the living room for the bookcase while L-Infinity and I cleaned out the dining area for the plant. (I can't help it; Fall nears and I want our home to be cozy, cozy, cozy!)

Since HGTV's Design Star designer judges constantly tout the mantra of "big items in small spaces make more impact", I decided to do just that.

So... our cockatiel Dexter had to say goodbye to hubby's poster print of Mt. Bachelor and Cece's cat tree NEXT to the couch.
Look at how still he was in making sure L-Infinity got his good side. LOL
After we cleaned up the dining area and the low bookcase/buffet/dinnerware depot, I spiffed up the shelves as well...
See the plant, it is now by the window and the platter is now red, no longer the green Bordallo Pineapple platter. It's on the top shelf now (on the picture above).
As for Mr. Man's framed print? I put it on top of the simplified mantle. I took down the gold framed mirror because for some reason, the actual mirror just doesn't get cleaned anymore. (sorry about the big glare, it was our overhead light.)
And between the mantle and the couch, I placed the tall bookshelf! The top shelf is sparse because that's Mr. Man's shelf to fill when he gets back. I placed the three main things he loves: Our Savior, his family and the aviation industry.
The other shelves, I filled with our chosen HARD COVER collected series, from Rowling to the abridged classics. And we're not done with most of them. I can't wait to finish out each series in hard cover so they can last longer. At the top, I placed our iron candelabra and fall candles from last November. I placed family pictures that used to be on the mantle, in front of the books to create interest.

So what do you think? Would HGTV designers approve or would they balk at it? You know what, SO WHAT? It's my space and I know it looks good. And cleaner too!

I'm Looking at Myself! How did that happen?

So since today is Saturday and Mr. Man is coming home tomorrow afternoon, we had to make sure that our place is presentable, but even after dusting the ceiling fans, vaccuming, doing dishes and finding out that J-Pony is sick, we also realized that our resident diva, Cece, is down to her last litter.

So off to Walmart we go! We had a list but I also knew that there were "requested" items to watch out for like fresh corn! Michelle kept taking pictures so I just went along and smiled. (she promised it as a proof to Mr. Man that we found corn!) LOL

But first, we had an inexpensive lunch at Sonic! 4-Sonic Burgers, 2 corn dogs, 2 cream slushes, 2 large tots and 2 Route 44 drinks for only $14 and some change! (I took a picture of the coupons while I was waiting for our orders. Michelle and I split the orders and they let us do that. Plus, we got there during their Happy Hour- 1/2 price on sodas and regular slushes!)

We also needed cucumbers and olives (I didn't add it in cause I don't like olives) to make our own version of the Paradise Bakery Pasta Salad for dinner. Yummy! I know, you're wondering "her kids didn't eat that" and you're right, so they had some leftover "chicken adobo" and rice instead. ;-)

We cooked pasta (I used two kinds) then added our own choice of raw veggies, Italian dressing, salt and pepper. Healthy and yummy, can't beat that!

After we got home, before dinner, I cleaned the upstairs bathroom while chatting with Michelle. I found that we had a whole bag of kitty litter! My incentive to clean, Mr. Man is coming home, and I found another bath rug (our third one in two years, we have a cat, 'nuff said.) and a replacement twin sheet set for L-Infinity's bed (since her fitted sheets' elastic started stretching out and fraying) for only $5 each! Our Wal-Mart is undergoing remodeling so there are a lot more things on clearance! Oh happy day! LOL

Then, since Michelle told me that the banana bread recipe I sent her via email didn't pan out when she tried it at home, we recreated it tonight. So, again, that's me looking into the recipe to make sure we didn't miss a step.
At 350 deg F for 50 mins (rather than the 60 that it said), it looked like this! I call this one, "Choc' Full o' Nana" Bread because I used chocolate chunks instead of chips and sliced newly ripened bananas instead of super ripe bananas. I do recommend adding 1/4 cup of milk to make it more moist if you want. It is very yummy! And all those chocolate in there, divine!


Ok, that's it for today! You've seen enough of my face for the next century. LOL

Hope you had a wonderful Saturday, because "it's the day you get ready for Sunday"!

Last Day of School & Patio Clean-up

You read right, today, we officially welcome Summer Vacation! While most families are practically done with their packing for their big vacations, we are going to stay put this summer. Texas is so big that we thought, it would be fun to explore the nearby areas to give our bank account a much needed rest (as if they really worked hard, lol)

Anyway, here are the kiddos on the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL! That's right outside the front door, in front of the living room window tree that I love to see during the day. Just before they took off for the bus, I grabbed the ol' Canon Power Shot and asked if they would be so kind as to grace me with their pearly whites on three. I think they heard me. ;-)


They had a half day, so they got home at 1:45PM, but before that, I was babysitting my neighbor's two kiddos until about 3PM. I made Pasta Roni, scrambled eggs, curly fries and of course, the chocolate cookies from last night and beverage.

L-Infinity got home first, then J-Pony and I-Dude with the neighbor's kiddos. And they boxed, played baseball, jumped, bowled, and made rollercoasters on the Wii. Then there was the Lego construction and the Hot Wheels tracks. Oh, and the noise was WOW! I had to ask them to turn down the volume (of their voices) a couple of times.

Here are their First Day of School shots. Can you see how much they've grown? Maybe not so much in height, but their faces...













Then, after we're all by ourselves again, we tackled the patio which is a lot harder than I thought since most of the mud, leaves and gunk got caked on at the corners. We had to take practically everything out and hose down the concrete!

This is I-Dude resting with his Capri Sun after about an hour of cleaning. He lifted, threw away and moved stuff for me. Didn't complain once!


And here are the girls, L & J resting after we were able to uncover (literally) and hose down the chairs. Two got a bit pink since the cover ripped at the top and the sun baked the top two chairs.


See the wet spots? That's the newly cleaned concrete ground. It's funny, when it was all dirty from the weather, it looked dim and sad. Now, with a cleaner area and things slowly being "styled", then it's quite bright out there but we have had the same light bulb since last year!

Obviously, it's not all done yet, we are still configuring where things are gonna be after Mr. Man takes out certain items to the storage. My fingers are crossed; I want more space out there! I also can't wait to do tablescaping out there!

Have a great weekend!

While The Diva Relaxes...

... in the humid, warm window sill,
dreaming of happy things...
I took on my spice rack! I just cleaned it a few days ago, but realized
I'm missing some and I could use the counter space, so
I grabbed a cupboard door helper, asked Mr. Man for his help and he...

Put them on the wall!
I also consolidated and wrote down what spices I ran out of.
I love how it looks under the microwave!

Mr. Man's about to graduate from his training on the 21st, I'm graduating next week and we're off to Phoenix for the commencement ceremony, but until then, I have time to tackle one room at a time. I chose the kitchen and dining area. I guess that swine flu alert gave me a few days with the kids and they helped me with a lot of the grunt work called cleaning. I guess this is my first ever Spring Cleaning, huh?

More photos to come!

Some Re-arrangement

From One Bean dot comToday was quite a day! We woke up with an agenda: to re-arrange my dining room and create more "hiding space" for my (ahem!) few (maybe more) (ahem!) dinnerware collection.

Then, we went to Tuesday Morning today for their B1Clearance, get 2nd Clearance 50% off trying to see if I can find something for the upcoming Mother's Day Potluck Brunch I'm hosting for the moms I know around our building. And would you believe it? I didn't find anything! Nothing! I am shocked myself! Wow! Nothing!

After, we went to Kohl's and what happened there? All of the pieces that I've been watching out for (that turned out perfect for my brunch) were on clearance for either 80% or 90% OFF!!! Hooray!!!

While we were at the end of our shopping trip, I noticed this other clearance shelf had some new items on it. I quickly went over there but not looking like I was going to pick up anything until I saw that it was the same items I've been watching for over 6 months now! Anyway, on approach to mentioned shelf, another lady buzzed around three times and didn't pick up anything. Well, after I got over my shock of seeing these items (after 6 full months of waiting) for 80% off, I quickly grabbed the ones I wanted. Well... when I started doing that, the lady quickly came back and started grabbing some of them! My ammo, I had four children with me so I was grabbing them quicker than she is since I had four hands taking away my picks and stashing them into the cart! I think the lady felt bummed out, but she waited too long. They were to be mine, today, after 6 long months of salivating, hoping, saving, hoping, salivating... oh, you get it. Sorry.

How was your Saturday?

I had L-Infinity's boyfriend, Daniel to also help us out but it turned out that I could have done it all myself. I love how it's looking but it's not done yet so I'll do a show and tell later one. Oh well... Anyway, post again tomorrow. I'm sleepy now...

Slow day, really?

Nothing much to report today except I'll be doing dishes, boxing up all the holiday stuff, vacuuming and work out some more!

How will your day be? However it turns out, have fun doing it!