The best free picture-hanger-thingy-dink EVER!

This week, my house project has been my bedroom. I'm super excited with the progress! It's such a tiny master bedroom, and the updates have made it just a teeny bit roomier. My king-sized bed doesn't help in terms of floor space, so I ditched my nightstands in favor of a storage headboard and two bookshelves:

I. LOVE. IT. It looks sooo much better than I pictured in my head. There's a window behind those polkadot curtains, but unfortunately, the window wall was the only sensible place to put the bed, since all the vents are in really strange places on the floor. So... I don't get to use the window much :(

I also finally filled a previously clusterf*** mess of a wall with a gallery:

The polka dot and chevron frames and the mermaid came from Hobby Lobby all of the small photo frames were spray painted white, and the blue framed lace and shell piece in the middle were made at home:

For this one ^ I just took some off-white satiny fabric and stretched it over the cardboard backing that came with the frame, secured it with hot glue, and then repeated the process with some scrap lace. Spray painted the frame turquoise, and voila! Pretty little space filler for a gallery wall :)

This one is the same satiny fabric ^ with gold ribbon and a shell hot-glued in the center, in a white spray-painted frame.

For my gallery wall, I kind of winged it in terms of where things were going to go, but I have to share my greatest secret for getting things hung level and exactly where I wanted them. It's THIS:

This little dude is nothing more than a small screw through the end of a paint stir stick. All you do is hang a picture frame on the screw as you would if it were hanging on the wall already, hold it up to the wall, and when you decide where you want it, you press the stick against the wall, remove the frame, and give the screw a light whack with your hammer. Remove the stick and drive a nail or screw where the mark is on the wall, and hang your frame!

That's how I hung everything for this wall. Which I'm going to show one more time because I'm so excited about it. Ready? Ready for it?

BAM!

Hope this little stir-stick trick helps you out if you haven't already found an easy way to get things hung properly! <3

#prayforallofus

I deliberately do not watch or read the news.

I stopped doing it years ago. I used to be involved and passionate about what goes on in the world, politics, all the hot-button issues... and then one day I just stopped the dialogue. I thrive on dialogue, but I found that the more I talked, read, etc. about all the major debates in our world, the more depressed I got over the direction we're heading. So I just kind of... checked out. Granted, I still have my beliefs, and I still stand behind them. I just don't get involved in the debates, I guess.

But on Friday, I felt a passion, a rage, a blood-boiling reaction to the news that could not be avoided, and I can't keep quiet about it.

The mass murder in Paris on Friday was not the only devastating event that happened that day, and I find myself mourning them all... but to me, it is the most poignant. A stark, vicious reminder that we live in a world where there are people out there who want to murder others just for being who they are. Make no mistake: Muslims are NOT all evil, just like Americans are not all evil. The plain fact is that there are good people in the world, and there are evil people. There are do-gooders, and there are cold-blooded killers. The Islamic EXTREMISTS, the fanatics, these calculated, remorseless murderers of innocents... they are the evil.

And evil must be eradicated.

For a long time now, I've kept quiet about the war. But as a friend said in response to the outpouring of opinions on Friday: "I have seen two different posts that have used the words 'going to war' over last night's events in Paris. I hope everyone understands that we are not going to war: WE ARE AT WAR." He continues to explain that just because Friday the 13th's atrocities occurred in a familiar city doesn't make them anything new. I couldn't agree with this more.

What happened in Paris is horrific. Heart-breaking. Terrifying. And it's SOBERING. This is what we are up against, people. These monstrous, hateful, murderous religious psychopaths that want nothing more than to destroy everyone in this world that does not fit into their ideal. Forget EVERY OTHER ARGUMENT you want to spew upon reading that; trust me, I already know. It doesn't matter. History is important, but right now, it's our future that matters. This Jihadist extremism IS NOT COMPATIBLE with what the greater good represents. The only way to win this war is to vanquish the evil that started it. The evil in question is not Islam as a whole. It is the fanatics hell-bent on taking over the world with their warped, perverted version of an otherwise peaceful religion.

We have to learn from this. We have to hope our government and our people learn from it, and that the entire world learns from it. If we, the good, do not stand shoulder to shoulder to destroy the threat to our freedom and safety, we will eventually be consumed by it.

Did you see this? I'm sure you have... it's all over Facebook. But look really closely. San Francisco, Toronto, London, New York, Dublin, Sydney, Tokyo, Belgrade, Rio, Berlin, Shanghai, Mexico City... do you see this? Do you see what we're capable of? If we can come together across the world to support a long-time ally, we can come together to destroy the extremist beasts that devastated them and so many others.

(image origin: Will Black)

But, then again... that's just the humble opinion of a mere stay-at-home mom worrying about the world her children will live in.

Pray for Paris... and then pray for the rest of the world. We cannot stick our heads in the sand any longer.

A day in the life...

I've been living in the Pinterest House for almost five months now.

The twins have settled in just fine and have left their mark on the house. Literally. Marks. Every-freaking-where. The walls, the floors, the cabinets. I can't keep up with the magic erasing, so I gave up. So much for the days-on-end spent painting this place before move-in.

I'm very, very slowly getting things done. I keep telling myself, "one room at a time!", but evidently, motherhood comes with a special brand of ADD. This is a pretty normal day for me:

-Make breakfast for Stinky Twinkies and set them up to eat. Make coffee.
-Go to put contacts in and pants on (LOL just kidding, who does that?) while babies eat and coffee brews. Step on stray cat litter. Get mad and storm off to find broom to sweep cat litter.
-"Mommy! Down!" Abandon cat litter.
-Set boys up with Thomas the Tank Engine and go to get coffee. Trip on toy truck, kick across floor, immediately go to pick up truck and put away.
-Might as well put rest of toys away.
-Finish picking up toys, find five dirty socks in process. Shit, haven't done laundry in a week.
-Start laundry while twins systematically remove every.single.toy. from toy shelves.
-Finally pour coffee and sit down to watch kids play and enjoy my liquid energy.
-Toddler disappears into Mommy's room. Chase toddler out. Remember that stack of towels on dresser should have gone in bathroom a week ago. Take towels to bathroom. Cat barfed on carpet.
-Clean up cat barf. Should vacuum.
-Vacuum all rooms. God, I need coffee.
-Chase toddler out of bedroom again.
-Naptime, because I said so.
-Intend to do ALL THE THINGS. End up sitting on couch playing Pet Rescue for an hour or three.
-Lunchtime! Kids eating. Where the hell did MY lunch go? (cold coffee)
-Reheat coffee after finding cup on bathroom shelf (wtf?)
-"Mommy! Down!" Forget coffee in microwave.
-Take kids outside to distract from house wreckage.
-Garage wreckage instead.
-Okay, let's get out of the house for a bit. Take kids to store. Buy maybe two things I needed. Rest is fluff. Forgot shopping list on desk when toddler ran out back door without me.
-Home. Toddlers playing with electrical sockets. Lamps. Washing machine. No, no, no. Son of a muffin, I forgot about the laundry.
-Wet clothes smell like mildew now. Wash again with vinegar. Forget clothes again until tomorrow... maybe next week.
-Toddlers ran out back door again.
-Sit on deck and chain smoke while toddlers "mow" the lawn. Did I really just go all day without a cigarette so far? No wonder I'm grumpy-pants.
-Time to make dinner. Forgot to defrost meat again. Order pizza.
-Mentally check out as twins smear pizza sauce all over. Is it bedtime yet?
-YAY! BEDTIME! "No! No! Pway twucks!" No, it's bedtime. "Mommy no!" G'NIGHT!
-Return escaped toddlers to cribs. Twenty times.
-Man, it must be 11pm. I'm exhausted. WHAT?? IT'S 8:15?!
-F*ck it, goodnight moon. (Mentally recites entire book)

When the kids are with their dad, I do usually find time to get shit done. I clean (sometimes) and shower (sometimes) and take on projects I know nothing about. On the bright side, being forced to be innovative, cheap and hands-on, I have learned how to use a variety of tools that once would have made my vagina run screaming in sexist horror. Ladies and gents alike, my greatest discovery: if you have to sand ANYTHING, a palm sander is the bomb.com. I actually went looking for things to re-paint just so I could sand them.

Anywho, since the boys are napping and I'm running on three hours of sleep, I shall tank up on my cold coffee and attempt to bang out some household duties.

But probably, I'll pass out on the couch playing Pet Rescue.

ALL THE YAYS!

Oh my God, where has my life gone?!

Suddenly my kids are talking (more on that in a minute), my hair is looking gray, I have a birthday looming in three days, and we're about to close on a house. If I wasn't so tired all the itme, I might feel more accomplished and less OLD.

I'm going to be 29. Go ahead and tell me I'm still a baby.

Anyway, the last few months have been a clustermess of mindf**ks and chaos, mostly due to house hunting. But finally, with the help of the freaking amazing realtor, financial advisor and mortgage lender we've been working with, we found a sweet little manufactured home in EBF, Ohio and I am EXPLODING WITH:

TO GO ALL MARTHA STEWART ON THAT SHIT!

Seriously, Pinterest House. It's going to happen. At the very least, by the time we're ready to re-list the house for sale in five years or so, it'll be beautiful. I can't wait to get started, once we actually close on the house and people stop shitting all over us and postponing our closing date (looking at you, Title Company). Should've happened weeks ago. *sigh*

Also, toddlers. I don't know how many times I said "I just want them to say something! Why won't they talk?!". And now it's more of an "OH MY GOD DO THEY EVER STOP" kind of thing. They learned the word "hola" before "hello", and "Daddy" before "Mommy" (unacceptable). The fun part about talking babies, though, is pronunciation. Guess which letter they leave out of the word "clock"?

So, I will return soon with something useful/amusing/interesting to read, but this is my segue back into the world of blogging for now. And with that, off I go to vacuum crushed Lucky Charms for the second goddamn time today. Rules, people. Make them and enforce them. Don't be me.

BEST HOMEMADE CLEANER EVER!

So, this is an odd choice for a comeback post, I suppose, but I feel the need to share this!!

A while back, a friend of mine posted this on Facebook:

and I saved it, intending to test it out. Months and months later, I have finally done so, and while I haven't used it on the carpet yet, I have high hopes because it ANNIHILATED the stains on my microfiber couch! I am ridiculously excited about this.

The original formula calls for Awesome cleaner. I had everything except that, so I improvised and used the following formula instead:

1 gallon(ish) water

1 t fabric softener

1 scoop Oxyclean/offbrand whatever

1/4 C (instead of 2T) laundry detergent

My educated guess is that due to the nature of the products listed, if anything is harmful at all, it will be the cleaner. I did not use the cleaner, so I'm doubtful I'll have any damage to the furniture.

Anywho, I used this on the microfiber cushions of our bar stools, our storage ottomans, and the arm of the couch (just did one section of the couch as a test), and it WORKS! IT'S FANTASTIC! My biggest tip is to try and find the softest-bristled scrub brush you can. I bought mine at Dollar Tree (which is where you will find all the La's Awesome brand products... the stain remover is supposed to work wonders on clothes, by the way!!) and I find it a little too tough. It seemed to cause tiny rips in the fabric of the stools, but then... they were super cheap.

So I just made a gallon of this stuff and plan on storing it for future use, and I love it!! There's nothing but clothing-friendly products in my personal formula for it, and I love the results!

(left: couch cushion, untreated. right: arm of couch, freshly scrubbed with almost no stains left!)

DISCLAIMER: Before you try this, you may want to be certain of what type of upholstery you're working with. I know that most of my fabric-covered furniture is microfiber, and please note that I JUST TRIED THIS, so long-term effects have not been truly established yet.

A thousand years

Heart beats fast
Colors and promises
How to be brave?
How can I love when I'm afraid to fall?
Watching you stand alone
All of my doubt
Suddenly goes away somehow

I have died every day waiting for you
Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more
All along I believed I would find you
Time has brought your heart to me... I have loved you for a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9ayN39xmsI

Snowed In

Is winter over yet?

This is just a small taste of Ohio, if you don't live here:

DAY 1:

DAY 2:

Nuff said?