Projects: Trash to Treasure

Well, at least trash to useful.

I always yard sale with the promise of what a little paint can do for my bargains, on my mind. Only problem is sometimes those bargains end up stored in the attic or the barn for quite awhile before I get to them with my paint brush/can. I finally got inspired  (or more accurately, took the time) this spring to tackle them. I'm having so much fun with my little projects and it doesn't hurt that my house is finally receiving a bit more of the TLC it was hoping for back in the fall when we moved in. Most of these projects have been finished for a month or more so don't go gettin' all impressed that I did all this yesterday. I'm just a little slow about getting the pictures taken and posted.

Project A: Take this 

(found in a stash in the barn, Free with the purchase of a property :)

and turn it into THIS.

A little sandpaper and paint was all she needed. 

 Project B: Desk from somebodies yard sale leftovers free pile. (Remove a gazillion Spongebob and Diego stickers with razor blade. Paint chair with leftover paint from the basement stash. Free projects are my favorite kind!)

Project 3: Another yard sale find and some more leftover paint.

But how did this get there?

(sorry for the bad picture quality)

This

 is what happened to the high chair for now. I'm still scheming and dreaming on that one though.

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And we've made it to the middle of July with some life and color still present in the flower beds! So there not exactly prize winning gardens but we're making progress!

Plus this little ongoing project....

...messes to clean up.

...hugs and kisses to give.

...treats to share.

...little people to grow.

******

The big painting project continues.

It's taking longer than planned thanks to

triple digit temperatures.

It was just too blasted hot up there.

But it's all better now that we're back in the 80's.

I'm super anxious to see it all finished!

Summer Fun Minus the 101

Last summer I challenged myself to make 101 Memories with my kids between Memorial Day and Labor Day. It was a smashing success. It really helped me to stay on track and take time to do fun things instead of working my life away. You can read more about our adventures here.


Several people have asked me if I'm gonna do it again this year. I debated it for a bit but I think we would have ended up with many of the same ideas. My creative juices are limited. But I've been trying to be intentional about making the most of our summer vacation. Here's a peek at what we've been up to.

In addition to our visitors from Ghana, 

We also had visitors from Florida.

Aunt Sherri and Little Miss Abigail

A family reunion.

A chance to reconnect with cousins and friends we only see every few years (or less.)

These guys hadn't seen each other in 7 years.

We celebrated Grandma's 60th birthday with a special cake at the reunion and then a family dinner at Olive Garden. (Or as one of my clowns dubbed it, "Pickle Garden.")

A little bit of cousin time.

8 kids looking in 1 direction -- Yeah right! We tried.

There has been  few baseball games but nearly as many as other years. Daddy is taking the year off

from the team this year and Ty played with the school team so his games were all over

before summer vacation started.

My little slugger!

The 3 oldest attended Bible School. I've been looking for a good place to make this happen for 

awhile but I wasn't able to make schedules and locations work for us before.

They loved it!

While they were gone I tried to do some special things with the little ones.

Love me some Rita's!

 We renewed our library card that had apparently expired in 2009 or 2010. REALLY? 

How did that happen? It's sad to think we haven't been taking advantage of that resource

but  it's all the more exciting now. 

Soakin' up the lazy summer days.

We even spent a day at the truck parade, where we soaked in plenty of sunshine and diesel fumes

and tried to pretend Daddy wasn't brain washing us. :)

Look at that shiny truck.

We braved the fireworks madness for the first time in many years. We've either been
gone over the 4th or just weren't up to taking the crew out for a party that started
long after bedtime the last few years. We tried a new spot this year and had a fabulous time.

And we're off and running!!
Time for some more fun!
 (or at least time to get the breakfast dishes done :o)

Made Me Smile Monday

{a  snapshot from my week. with or without words. something exciting. something ordinary. something special. something silly. just something. that made me smile this week. a memory to brighten my day. to make me smile again. even though it's MONDAY!}

 the beginning of long awaited projects.

so exciting!

can't wait to show you the end results but there must be 

some sweat and sore muscles first.

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in other news, special thanks to the $10 (yard sale) carpet cleaner for your 

help in saving the day (and the carpet)

i challenge you to find the spot where there was once a quart (or more) 

of white paint on my carpet next time you visit.

What festive plans do you have for the Holiday?

It's all about the projects here.

Well, with a side of golf and fireworks.

Happy Monday to you!

"DMD"

I stumbled upon this poem in my web browsing the other day. It all sounds so familiar! It was new to me, but apparently I'm behind the times. And in my searching to post it here I found 2 different authors so I'm not sure who gets the credit. But it makes me smile all the same.

If You Give a Mom a Muffin

If you give a mom a muffin,
She'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
So she'll pour herself some.
The coffee will get spilled by her three year old.
She'll wipe it up.

Wiping the floor, she will find some dirty socks.
She'll remember she has to do some laundry.
When she puts the laundry in the washer,
She'll trip over some snow boots and bump into the freezer.
Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper for tonight.

She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She'll look for her cookbook. (101 Things To Make With a Pound of
Hamburger.)
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill which is due tomorrow.
She will look for the checkbook.

The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two year old.
She'll smell something funny.
She'll change the two year old.
While she is changing the two year old the phone will ring. (Of course!)
Her five year old will answer it and hang up.

She remembers that she wants to phone a friend to come over for coffee on
Friday.
Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
She will pour herself some.
And chances are,
If she has a cup of coffee,
Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.




***********************************************


After I linked it to my FB page and finished my cup of coffee (without any spills) I set out to begin my day. First on the list was scrubbing the bathroom that hadn't been scrubbed in.....wellllll.......um......a much longer time than bathrooms should go without scrubbing. :)

This is the story I told my husband when he came home......



  I started to clean the toilet but I realized I didn't have any toilet cleaner. So I went to the laundry to get the bleach. While I was in the laundry I spotted the old tablecloth that I had put in the hamper but I knew if I washed it again it would fall to pieces so I decided to take it out to the trash barrel. On my way in from the trash barrel I noticed that the hose was hooked up on the back porch and my itty bitty garden looked a little parched, so I decided to give it a quick drink. 

  While I was doing the garden I figured I should do the flowers too, at least what I could reach with the hose that was there. I started to water the flowers but I just couldn't stand that nasty, mossy, green, stuff, that had been growing on the siding since the day we moved in, any longer. So I picked up the scrub brush that was laying nearby and tackled the siding. 

   But by then I was at the corner and my hose was getting short. The only thing to do was take it up over the porch railing  and cut off the corner so I could reach more flowers. But guess what, when you drag a hose across a porch you suddenly notice that it could really use a wash down too. After the porch was washed off I continued around to the other side of the house to water more flowers. But there was icky, mossy, green stuff on that side too. More scrub brush. More rinsing. More scrubbing.  Finally, I could make my hose stretch no farther. 

  But by now my children had realized that the hose was on  and they were sure it would be the perfect time to fill the kiddie pool. Once we filled the kiddie pool we needed to find swim suits for everybody and then I had to help little people wrestle sweaty bodies into almost too tight elastic. And then while everyone (yes, all 5 of them) was happily splashing I went inside and cleaned my toilet. 

True Story! I told you that poem sounded familiar, didn't I?  I think I have what's known as "DMD"--Distracted Mom Disorder. It's what makes me give my children instruction only to realize 3 hours (or 3 days) later that they chose to ignore them. It's why I can never predict how long it will take me to get ready to leave. It's why I go to the grocery store for 4 items and come home with 24, but none of them are what I really went for. It's the reason I'm becoming more and more of a "lister" over the past year or two. There is no known cure to date.

Now where did I sit my cup of coffee? 

Made Me Smile Monday

{a  snapshot from my week. with or without words. something exciting. something ordinary. something special. something silly. just something. that made me smile this week. a memory to brighten my day. to make me smile again. even though it's MONDAY!}

soooo proud of his dirty knees.

he finally got to slide into base. 

he's been waiting for his chance all summer!

Made Me Smile Monday

{a  snapshot from my week. with or without words. something exciting. something ordinary. something special. something silly. just something. that made me smile this week. a memory to brighten my day. to make me smile again. even though it's MONDAY!}

boys devouring a fresh stack of books from the library

always good stuff

hope your week is off to a terrific start!

How to completely exhaust an entire family....

.....in one week or less.

Start with a trip to the Ballgame on Monday. Make sure it is at least an hours drive, maybe two, and doesn't start until little people are starting to show signs that it's almost bedtime. Arrive back home sometime after midnight.

So it rained and they lost but what did we care, we were in the best of company! (And besides all that, we got free bobble heads. Yippee! please read that with a heavy dose of sarcasm. one would have been plenty, we got 6!)

If the final week of school is still in session, the craziness that is parties and field day and desk emptying will speed up the process. Of course we were up and at 'em and ready to meet the bus at 7, why not?


Squeeze in a picnic on Tuesday evening, just to hold you over till the weekend.

When the last day of school FINALLY arrives, try to do 2 days worth of work in 3-4 hours and then head off for a sleepover with the whole fam. In less then 24 hours include all of the following activities....
picnic supper feasting...

building lego creations...sandbox adventures...swimming...

general craziness...campfires...marshmallow roasting...

running..bike riding...tractor driving...

 
outdoor movie night on the big screen (er, um, side of the barn. and yes, that means the movie only started at 9 p.m.)...6 little boys sleeping out in a tent...airplane rides...

picture taking...wrestling...ice cream making.........

massive coffee consumption...catching up and reconnecting.


Getting up early for Yard Sales with the sisters is a must! A successful morning indeed!

 ***Bunny trail....My normal policy is not to buy things just because they're cheap unless I have a pretty good idea what I will do with them. But I made an exception for this treasure. She begged me, pleaded actually, to rescue her from that pile of stuff, to save her from an embarrassing end in the thrift store pile.  I just couldn't leave her there. Any suggestions how to do justice to her beauty? What would you do if she had adopted herself into your home?

Early morning excursions will leave your stomach grumbling for a big tasty brunch before everything is packed up, cleaned up and hauled back home.

Just in time to prepare for another dinner party on the lawn. Again with the best of company and plenty of special treats for the visitors from afar.

Dash sweaty, dirty, little people through the bathtub long after bedtime so they're ready for as much church sitting as you  dare to brave before a sleep deprived melt down is inevitable.

Squeeze in a little nap and then head off to help Celebrate Uncle Mike's 40th birthday.

I'm guessing by now you've figured out why I haven't been blogging much lately. So much fun to be had and so many memories to be made while my brother and his family are here for a few weeks before the go back to Ghana.

We're laying pretty low today. It's our first official day of summer vacation. We stayed in bed until after 7! I'll do a little laundry, if I feel like it. I'll rock an exhausted little girl to sleep. I'll serve leftovers and cold cereal. I'll figure I still have 3 more days to cook, pack and organize before family member fly up from Florida and we head off on our next adventure.