What A Difference A Year Makes!

If you remember, my big goal of 2013 was to not buy any new clothes or shoes for the entire year.  Well, I did it!   It was hard at first, but I made it the entire year.  It was quite the accomplishment. I thought for sure as soon as the year was up I'd go right back to my old super shopper ways, but I've surprised even myself!  Need proof?

Saturday, I had a great day in Roseville shopping with my dear friend Leslie and my sister-in-law Amy.  We hit the mall around 11:00am and shopped until about 7:00pm.  It was a blast!  I loved being at the mall and seeing all the great displays, sampling a few treats, and acquiring some fun new things.  But look at this....here's what I bought. Eight hours of shopping bliss and this what I ended up with.

Some great things for sure, but...now look at this... this is what I bought on my birthday shopping trip last year. The one day off I gave myself and the last time I went shopping before Saturday.

Quite a difference right?  The picture first picture doesn't include a couple pieces of jewelry that I bought (less than $20 worth) and I did buy four milk glasses at Anthropologie to replace ones that had broken, but the shoes (my one big splurge) are actually going back due to the horrific expression on my husband's face when he saw them, so that will make my spending total pretty low!

I'm pretty excited about this!  I feel like I made a real change in my life.  I was able to have a wonderful time shopping and really enjoy the experience and yet exercise some restraint.  The best part is I didn't feel like I was depriving myself just because I didn't buy everything I saw that I liked. It's a great feeling!  I guess sometimes less really is more!

Garage Project

Ok... So I know there's nothing inherently interesting about a garage, but since it has been a huge undertaking for us, I thought I'd show you what we've done. 

First of all, garages in 1970's houses are a bit different from new homes. As you can see in this "before" picture,

this one was only partly sheet rocked and it looked old and worn out (not sure we'll ever do anything about that). Plus over the span of 40 years people have added their own "interesting" storage solutions (have you heard the term jerry-rigged???). I mean look at how we get our mail!

Not exactly 21st century (or attractive).  And really, what do you do with old closet doors?

Oh yeah...you make storage racks out of them (pretty sure we will do something about that). 

Now, the garage does have a big attic storage space and that is great.

But like I said before, storage is king right now and it turned out the attic wasn't the right place for everything we needed to store. Luckily the garage had ample room to add what we needed and to leave our mark...no jerry-rigging allowed. 

The biggest project was this: super sturdy store-all cabinets (don't worry, I'm not including children or animals in the term "store-all). 

My uber talented hubby googled shelf building and then whipped these up after he sheet rocked the rest of the walls.

Then we installed this great way to store bikes and scooters. 

Our garage is no show room. I get that. But it is very functional and quite organized. Everything has a place and is easily accessible. And we (especially aforementioned hubby) put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into getting it that way. I'm sure we will continue to make improvements over the years, but for now I'm really happy with our result! 

Impromptu Zoo Day

One of the many benefits of homeschooling is that we have a lot of freedom to plan our days. Today, mValentine's Day, felt like a perfect day to go to the zoo (which since we moved is a quick 15 minute drive!). The weather was great. The zoo wasn't crowded and we had a great time!  I love hanging out with my little valentines! 

And The Home Projects Begin...

Actually, I'm pretty sure they began the week we moved in.  Downsizing has been challenging to say the least!  We lost a room we had in our old house which was used as the office, guest room, music room, craft room and room where we put everything else that didn't have a room.  That was a big loss! So whereas in my old house, I actually had bare walls and empty drawers, in this house I am using every square inch of space!

Luckily the laundry room in my new house is a little bigger than the laundry room in my old house, but this is what it looked like when we moved in.

Basically, bare bones... a shelf and a place for your washer and dryer.  Absolutely no storage!  And storage is king these days!  

The original layout was for a side by side washer and dryer.  Come to think of it, when my house was built you couldn't buy stackable washer and dryers.  But since you can now... we did.  It freed up a lot of space for us to add the storage we needed.  And this is what we did:

This big set of cabinets holds kitchen overflow and craft stuff.  The laundry basket holds, well...laundry sorted and ready to be washed.  

 

These baskets are (believe it or not) all my cookie cutters organized like they've never been before! 

 This set of cabinets is laundry and cleaning stuff.  

My laundry room is very functional now and pretty which is a bonus since I tend to see it a lot!

Next project...the garage!

A Very Special Birthday

Sophie just turned 8 and in our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, that is the year she gets to get baptized.  It was a very special day!  She is such a special girl with a testimony of the restored gospel.  I'm so proud of who she is and who she is becoming.  I'm so glad she made the choice to be baptized!

 A very kind friend took these pictures of Sophie to remember this special event.  

  

I ordered this fun little subway art listing all the details on Etsy.  (I love Etsy!).