I remember when Will and I used to spend rainy, stormy weekends cuddled up in bed, listening to the thunder and dozing in and out of slumber. Ah, fond memories those are. Because we cannot do that any longer. Oh, sure, we still *want* to do that, but our lovely house has some issues. Like the basement which leaks in about 50 different spots. I wish I were exaggerating.
Saturday morning we were up at 7:00 to check on the basement. Earlier this summer, we noticed a major leak during a storm. As in, a pencil sized hole in the wall and water pouring in like a waterfall. So, we knew the basement leaked, we just didn't realize to what extent. Uh, yeah, we have some major issues down there, which we discovered as we spent the entire freaking day moving stuff out of the basement, and sucking up water with the shop vac.
The man we bought the house from only owned the place for 2.5 months. He bought it in January, fixed it up and then sold it to us in April. Evidently the people he bought the house from failed to disclose the fact that the basement had major leaks and I doubt the man we bought it from knew because it doesn't rain a lot during the winter so there's no way he could've known. Also, the people he bought it from had started to finish out the basement and there are 2 walls with studs and drywall. Guess where the majority of the water was coming from? Uh huh. I told Will to break the drywall so we could see behind it and sure enough, water was pouring in through several areas.
Our area easily saw 5+ inches of rain on Saturday alone. That's not counting the rain on Thursday afternoon/night and then most of the day on Friday. The ground was just so saturated that water was even seeping up through the cracks in the basement floor.
Needless to say, Will and I were both in extremely pissy moods Saturday. It was such a mess down there. I mean we probably sucked up several hundred gallons of water. Just as soon as we'd empty the 16 gallon shop vac, we'd fill it right back up. And the stairs going down into the basement are kind of shoddy, the treads aren't very wide and I just knew I was going to fall and break something as I tried to walk up/down the tiny stairs carrying a ton of crap and wearing wet sneakers.
Thank the GOOD Lord that the rain stopped yesterday though because I.was.done! I could barely walk yesterday. My legs were so sore from walking up and down stairs and carrying all that stuff. My back hurt from being all hunched over vacuuming the basement for like 8 hours. And mentally, I was just exhausted. I suppose if any good came out of this whole fiasco, the basement is finally empty and now Will can get to work on plugging any holes and then start finishing it off the way he wants.
So, in other news, today is 25% off day at the Value Village thrift. I skipped last Monday because I just didn't feel like dealing with the crowds but I'm going to go today. It's been over a week since I did any thrifting so I need to go get my fix. I also need to make some stops in the craft store, the grocery store and TJ Maxx or Marshall's. I also need to remember to get my battery charger for my camera out of the husbands truck so I can recharge the batteries and finally take some pictures of all of my new goodies.
Those are my plans for today. Well, that and trying to catch up on the 400+ items I need to read on Google Reader. Yeah, I'm a little behind on that!
Showing posts with label home life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home life. Show all posts
29 September 2008
19 September 2008
I can feel Autumn in the air...
..and I freaking LOVE IT! It was definitely crisp outside this morning when I let the dogs out. Now, I will admit, crisp to me probably means something different than it does to you. Well, if you have lived in a place with 4 seasons your entire life anyhow. See, I spent 26 years of my life in SC where we only had 2 real seasons. Summer and almost summer. Haha! There were numerous times where it would be Christmas and still be warm enough to wear shorts. So, having moved to Maryland two years ago, I am thoroughly enjoying having 4 distinct seasons. I wish winter was a little more, well, winter-y with snow and whatnot, but it's still a very pleasant change from SC. I swear I can see some leaves starting to change color too. It's very slight but I can see it!
Fall is my absolute favorite time of the year. I wish I could just live in a place that was fall all the time. I have started putting out some of our Fall accessories around the house and I hope to get some mums planted soon. I think I need to call Merry Maids to give the house a good once-over because I am just not motivated at all to clean my house lately. I need to give it a good deep cleaning though so I can finish putting out all of the fall decorations.
Lately, I have been OBSESSING about a house Will and I put an offer in on last spring that we didn't get. I think about this house at least several times a day and I am feeling kind of heartbroken. I do like our current house but I really feel like we just settled because we were getting down to the wire as far as our lease was concerned and we'd already put offers on a couple of houses and didn't get them in the end. So, when we saw this house, we kind of jumped on it because we were just so burned out with looking and this place would work. The house I keep thinking about needed a lot of cosmetic work, but it was so huge and was on a couple of acres and I am just sad that we didn't end up moving in there. I do like the conveniences in the town where our current house is located. We're very close to a lot of things, including downtown Baltimore, so that's a nice perk. But the other house was out in the country and had so much room and I think that's the part I'm missing the most. I still feel like this house we're in now is just too small for us.
Now that I'm done having a pity party, I'll let you know about my fabulous time at the thrift stores yesterday. I was planning on going to the Ghetto Thrift on Tuesday but I forgot that we had to take the dogs to the vet for their yearly check-up that day. So, after the vet appointment, Will and I had to drive around and try to find matting for some prints we needed framed. The first AC Moore told us that if they had to order us any matting it would be over $100! They are obviously outta their freaking minds, especially considering I can buy it at Hobby Lobby for a couple of dollars. Never mind that we don't actually *have* any Hobby Lobby stores around here but I would rather wait until I'm back down in SC to pick some up at the HL in my parents town than to pay over $100 for some cardboard!
Anyhow, we drove to another AC Moore which is up above Baltimore and as we were leaving the first AC Moore, I found a new (to me anyhow!) thrift store. YAY!! It's a Value Village which is the name of the thrift store across from the base that I used to go to every week but is now too far away to justify driving to. Well, imagine my delight in seeing one that is only a couple of miles from my house!! Unfortunately, we were in a hurry and I didn't have time to stop but I knew I'd be back before the week was over.
And that's exactly what I did yesterday morning. I got up at a reasonable time and headed out to the Value Village. I should start using VV instead of having to type the whole name out. Man, how's that for lazy? Anyhow, this store is huge and so organized but the prices are kind of ridiculous on some items. I found a fabulous little wooden sewing box for $5 and saw a ton of milk glass stuff that I passed on. I think they have a sale on Monday's where everything is 25% off so that's going to be my regular day there!
Then yesterday afternoon after the husband got home from work, we had to run a couple of errands and I asked if he'd ride with me to the Ghetto Thrift (hereafter known as GT!) and bribed him into saying yes by offering to buy him a snowcone along the way! He agreed and even came inside with me! I get 25% off everyday at this thrift store so which day I go on doesn't really matter. I managed to spend 23$ and came home with two huge bags of stuff. I picked up 5 or 6 Blue's Clues VHS tapes for my niece. She's 19 months old and obsessed with Blue's Clues and it's impossible to find anything related to Blue's Clues in regular stores anymore. So, I bought those for her and they were only 75 cents each. Much cheaper than the ones my sister found on Ebay that had shipping costs of $40!! I also picked up the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown VHS for myself and I'm going to have Will burn it onto a DVD for me and then I'll send the tape down to my sister.
I also bought a cute little juice pitcher, one of those little chopper jars, a package of vintage napkins/coasters that have the Esso/Exxon Tiger on them but that tiger looks a lot like the Clemson tiger so I'll probably send the napkins to my sister since she's a huge Clemson fan. How come I never find any vintage Florida Gators items anywhere?!?
Well, the husband is gone for the day. He flew down to Tennessee for a couple of hours and I've been staying busy around the house. I'm currently sipping on some apple cider and trying to decide if I want to go back to the GT or not because as I was leaving yesterday afternoon, I noticed quite a few books that needed to come home with me but I could tell Will was beyond ready to leave so I didn't get them.
I'm thinking I need to go back, what do you think??
Fall is my absolute favorite time of the year. I wish I could just live in a place that was fall all the time. I have started putting out some of our Fall accessories around the house and I hope to get some mums planted soon. I think I need to call Merry Maids to give the house a good once-over because I am just not motivated at all to clean my house lately. I need to give it a good deep cleaning though so I can finish putting out all of the fall decorations.
Lately, I have been OBSESSING about a house Will and I put an offer in on last spring that we didn't get. I think about this house at least several times a day and I am feeling kind of heartbroken. I do like our current house but I really feel like we just settled because we were getting down to the wire as far as our lease was concerned and we'd already put offers on a couple of houses and didn't get them in the end. So, when we saw this house, we kind of jumped on it because we were just so burned out with looking and this place would work. The house I keep thinking about needed a lot of cosmetic work, but it was so huge and was on a couple of acres and I am just sad that we didn't end up moving in there. I do like the conveniences in the town where our current house is located. We're very close to a lot of things, including downtown Baltimore, so that's a nice perk. But the other house was out in the country and had so much room and I think that's the part I'm missing the most. I still feel like this house we're in now is just too small for us.
Now that I'm done having a pity party, I'll let you know about my fabulous time at the thrift stores yesterday. I was planning on going to the Ghetto Thrift on Tuesday but I forgot that we had to take the dogs to the vet for their yearly check-up that day. So, after the vet appointment, Will and I had to drive around and try to find matting for some prints we needed framed. The first AC Moore told us that if they had to order us any matting it would be over $100! They are obviously outta their freaking minds, especially considering I can buy it at Hobby Lobby for a couple of dollars. Never mind that we don't actually *have* any Hobby Lobby stores around here but I would rather wait until I'm back down in SC to pick some up at the HL in my parents town than to pay over $100 for some cardboard!
Anyhow, we drove to another AC Moore which is up above Baltimore and as we were leaving the first AC Moore, I found a new (to me anyhow!) thrift store. YAY!! It's a Value Village which is the name of the thrift store across from the base that I used to go to every week but is now too far away to justify driving to. Well, imagine my delight in seeing one that is only a couple of miles from my house!! Unfortunately, we were in a hurry and I didn't have time to stop but I knew I'd be back before the week was over.
And that's exactly what I did yesterday morning. I got up at a reasonable time and headed out to the Value Village. I should start using VV instead of having to type the whole name out. Man, how's that for lazy? Anyhow, this store is huge and so organized but the prices are kind of ridiculous on some items. I found a fabulous little wooden sewing box for $5 and saw a ton of milk glass stuff that I passed on. I think they have a sale on Monday's where everything is 25% off so that's going to be my regular day there!
Then yesterday afternoon after the husband got home from work, we had to run a couple of errands and I asked if he'd ride with me to the Ghetto Thrift (hereafter known as GT!) and bribed him into saying yes by offering to buy him a snowcone along the way! He agreed and even came inside with me! I get 25% off everyday at this thrift store so which day I go on doesn't really matter. I managed to spend 23$ and came home with two huge bags of stuff. I picked up 5 or 6 Blue's Clues VHS tapes for my niece. She's 19 months old and obsessed with Blue's Clues and it's impossible to find anything related to Blue's Clues in regular stores anymore. So, I bought those for her and they were only 75 cents each. Much cheaper than the ones my sister found on Ebay that had shipping costs of $40!! I also picked up the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown VHS for myself and I'm going to have Will burn it onto a DVD for me and then I'll send the tape down to my sister.
I also bought a cute little juice pitcher, one of those little chopper jars, a package of vintage napkins/coasters that have the Esso/Exxon Tiger on them but that tiger looks a lot like the Clemson tiger so I'll probably send the napkins to my sister since she's a huge Clemson fan. How come I never find any vintage Florida Gators items anywhere?!?
Well, the husband is gone for the day. He flew down to Tennessee for a couple of hours and I've been staying busy around the house. I'm currently sipping on some apple cider and trying to decide if I want to go back to the GT or not because as I was leaving yesterday afternoon, I noticed quite a few books that needed to come home with me but I could tell Will was beyond ready to leave so I didn't get them.
I'm thinking I need to go back, what do you think??
30 June 2008
Finally!
It really feels as though I've been neglecting my blog. I've wanted to sit down and write a couple of times but life has been very busy around here. Heck, I haven't even read any blogs in almost a week. I've got a lot of catching up to do.
First, I want to say thanks to Lisa from Confessions of an Apron Queen. I won a contest on her site a couple of weeks ago and received a FABULOUS apron & a big, huge World Atlas! Both came in the last week or so and I've thoroughly enjoyed them already!! She rocks- be sure to check out her blog and also her apron store at Rickrackattack.com. She has the best selection of vintage aprons anywhere!
My Apron:
My Atlas:
In other news, the husband was off for a couple of days last week and we made some progress outside. We planted some flowers in our naked little flower beds and did some stuff around the house too. I still need him to pressure wash the rockers so I can get those painted. Our porch looks so sad right now. It's a big ol' wrap around porch but it's really naked. I need more flowers and plants and just to spruce it up some.
This past weekend was very busy also. We've been trying to empty the basement and sort through all of the boxes and put aside things for donation or a yard sale and taking the rest of our stuff up to the attic. It's a slow process but we're almost done. The husband is going to try to get the basement empty so he can waterproof down there and then finish it off. We could use the room down there for exercise equipment or maybe put a bar down there. I also want the office moved out of my scrap/craft room so I'll have more room for MY stuff!
Our yard sale pile is huge. Bags and bags of clothing and misc stuff that we've just been hanging on to. You would've thought I would've gone through all of this stuff before we moved from SC to MD 2 years ago but evidently I was convinced that I would shrink back into some of those old clothes. I've finally realized I'm not 18 anymore, I'm never going to be that size again unless my jaws are wired shut for 6 months and even if some miracle occurred and I was that skinny again, well, the clothes aren't really my style anymore. SO, I'm freeing myself of the clutter and I'm getting rid of it all! I'm going to try to have the yard sale in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully I'll do well because I'm going to use the money I get from the sale to drive out to Wyoming later this summer.
Speaking of yard sales, I went to two fabulous estate sales on Saturday. I got up a little later than I had planned so I didn't make it to one until about 30 minutes after it started and the stuff had already been picked through. I did manage to snag this great little cabinet for $5. I didn't even realize it was light green until yesterday when the husband brought it inside for me. I thought it was white, but green is even better! I love the chippy paint and the wire on the doors. So, so cute. It's perfect for storing all of my card making supplies.
The cabinet:
The other estate sale I went to was much larger and I seriously thought I had died & gone to Heaven. The entire basement was filled, FILLED with bookshelves. Know what was on the bookshelves? Cookbooks. I'm talking literally thousands of cookbooks. There were more cookbooks in the boxes on the floor, every room in the basement had cookbooks. I was in.love. But it was also overwhelming. There were just so many to choose from. I spent a good hour down in that basement looking for books. The lighting down there was horrible though and it was hot and humid and really hard to see. I managed to pick up 8 that I just couldn't live without. I had picked up a really old Betty Crocker 3-ring cookbook that I really wanted but another lady had mentioned she needed one so I gave it to her. Still kicking myself over that one! It wasn't in very good condition though so that made it easier to part with. The cookbooks were only 50 cents and I really should have bought more. I hope they have another sale this coming weekend. I'll go armed with boxes to put the books into because carrying them the way I did was very heavy!
Yesterday I spent pretty much the entire day cleaning out my scrap room. It looks about a million percent better but I still need some more storage in here. Like a good bookshelf to put all my magazines on. Right now they are just sitting in files on the floor. And I need to figure out what I'm going to use as my ribbon storage because what I'm using now isn't going to work once I start actually crafting again. Right now they are in these big blue boxes from Ikea but I need to be able to see my ribbons while I'm working. The last couple of houses we've been in, I've used cafe rods and put the ribbons on that. It works really well except I don't have very much wall space in this room. Lots of windows which is really nice, but not a lot of room on the walls. Not sure what to do with the ribbons. I don't want to use jars because that would annoy the heck out of me each time I had to go through the jar to get to a specific ribbon. I may be able to use the back of the door though. I have to look into that.
Anyhow, here are some more pictures of my little scrap/craft room:
12 x 12 paper storage:
Ribbon Storage in blue boxes, pictures in the others:
Some of my vintage books, a train case filled with misc craft stuff and a cute cabinet I bought at the Salvation Army for $15:
Some of my favorite aprons. This little cabinet had one cup hook on the side and I added a few more. A great way to get my aprons out of a storage box so I can enjoy them:
My work table. It's never this clean so I had to take a picture so I could remember it:
And finally, my wall of embellishments- sorted by season, event, categories and completely full. I actually need another one for some of the overflow!
Now that I've caught up my blog, I'm gonna spend some time reading what everyone else has been up to this past week!! Thanks for stopping by.
First, I want to say thanks to Lisa from Confessions of an Apron Queen. I won a contest on her site a couple of weeks ago and received a FABULOUS apron & a big, huge World Atlas! Both came in the last week or so and I've thoroughly enjoyed them already!! She rocks- be sure to check out her blog and also her apron store at Rickrackattack.com. She has the best selection of vintage aprons anywhere!
My Apron:
My Atlas:
In other news, the husband was off for a couple of days last week and we made some progress outside. We planted some flowers in our naked little flower beds and did some stuff around the house too. I still need him to pressure wash the rockers so I can get those painted. Our porch looks so sad right now. It's a big ol' wrap around porch but it's really naked. I need more flowers and plants and just to spruce it up some.
This past weekend was very busy also. We've been trying to empty the basement and sort through all of the boxes and put aside things for donation or a yard sale and taking the rest of our stuff up to the attic. It's a slow process but we're almost done. The husband is going to try to get the basement empty so he can waterproof down there and then finish it off. We could use the room down there for exercise equipment or maybe put a bar down there. I also want the office moved out of my scrap/craft room so I'll have more room for MY stuff!
Our yard sale pile is huge. Bags and bags of clothing and misc stuff that we've just been hanging on to. You would've thought I would've gone through all of this stuff before we moved from SC to MD 2 years ago but evidently I was convinced that I would shrink back into some of those old clothes. I've finally realized I'm not 18 anymore, I'm never going to be that size again unless my jaws are wired shut for 6 months and even if some miracle occurred and I was that skinny again, well, the clothes aren't really my style anymore. SO, I'm freeing myself of the clutter and I'm getting rid of it all! I'm going to try to have the yard sale in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully I'll do well because I'm going to use the money I get from the sale to drive out to Wyoming later this summer.
Speaking of yard sales, I went to two fabulous estate sales on Saturday. I got up a little later than I had planned so I didn't make it to one until about 30 minutes after it started and the stuff had already been picked through. I did manage to snag this great little cabinet for $5. I didn't even realize it was light green until yesterday when the husband brought it inside for me. I thought it was white, but green is even better! I love the chippy paint and the wire on the doors. So, so cute. It's perfect for storing all of my card making supplies.
The cabinet:
The other estate sale I went to was much larger and I seriously thought I had died & gone to Heaven. The entire basement was filled, FILLED with bookshelves. Know what was on the bookshelves? Cookbooks. I'm talking literally thousands of cookbooks. There were more cookbooks in the boxes on the floor, every room in the basement had cookbooks. I was in.love. But it was also overwhelming. There were just so many to choose from. I spent a good hour down in that basement looking for books. The lighting down there was horrible though and it was hot and humid and really hard to see. I managed to pick up 8 that I just couldn't live without. I had picked up a really old Betty Crocker 3-ring cookbook that I really wanted but another lady had mentioned she needed one so I gave it to her. Still kicking myself over that one! It wasn't in very good condition though so that made it easier to part with. The cookbooks were only 50 cents and I really should have bought more. I hope they have another sale this coming weekend. I'll go armed with boxes to put the books into because carrying them the way I did was very heavy!
Yesterday I spent pretty much the entire day cleaning out my scrap room. It looks about a million percent better but I still need some more storage in here. Like a good bookshelf to put all my magazines on. Right now they are just sitting in files on the floor. And I need to figure out what I'm going to use as my ribbon storage because what I'm using now isn't going to work once I start actually crafting again. Right now they are in these big blue boxes from Ikea but I need to be able to see my ribbons while I'm working. The last couple of houses we've been in, I've used cafe rods and put the ribbons on that. It works really well except I don't have very much wall space in this room. Lots of windows which is really nice, but not a lot of room on the walls. Not sure what to do with the ribbons. I don't want to use jars because that would annoy the heck out of me each time I had to go through the jar to get to a specific ribbon. I may be able to use the back of the door though. I have to look into that.
Anyhow, here are some more pictures of my little scrap/craft room:
12 x 12 paper storage:
Ribbon Storage in blue boxes, pictures in the others:
Some of my vintage books, a train case filled with misc craft stuff and a cute cabinet I bought at the Salvation Army for $15:
Some of my favorite aprons. This little cabinet had one cup hook on the side and I added a few more. A great way to get my aprons out of a storage box so I can enjoy them:
My work table. It's never this clean so I had to take a picture so I could remember it:
And finally, my wall of embellishments- sorted by season, event, categories and completely full. I actually need another one for some of the overflow!
Now that I've caught up my blog, I'm gonna spend some time reading what everyone else has been up to this past week!! Thanks for stopping by.
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