It's a Major Award!

My lucky day!

I like to follow the blog http://www.kevinandamanda.com/. It is a cute blog that has recipes, photo tips, crafts, etc. It is the kind of blog that is ran as a business & I would guess she makes good money doing it.  If my blog ever grew up to be a big blog, I'd want it to be like this one. Every month or so they do a give-away if you leave a comment then #'s are drawn for the winner. Guess who won this Bissell rug shampooer? Yep . . . Brandy! I was psyched. I never win anything!

Towel Racks

When we were building there is a company that comes and installs your shower doors, toilet paper holders & towel racks. I didn't like the towel racks that they had, and they were expensive. We are not the kind of family that has fancy towels hanging up on a rack to just look at. If we have a towel it gets used. I decided that I'd just worry about towel racks when we moved in & find something I liked. So I had this idea to "make" them out of these little wall hanging things I found at Hobby Lobby. They were cheap to make, $5.50 each. I think they look ok, but I don't love them. I like them better than just a straight bar towel rack, but not exactly what I had in mind.

Plain hook that will hold two towels.

I just drilled two holes in the bottom of the wood.

Attached the hook

Finished!

Crazy Hair Day!

A couple of weeks ago it was Catholic Schools Week at the boys' school. They have a book fair, grandparent lunch, hat day, crazy sock day and crazy hair day. They also do a big fundraiser for Heifer International and the classes compete to see who can raise the most money. Preston's class raised enough to buy 2 trios of ducks, and Parker's class bought 2 cows. One of the things that I love about their school is they are always doing something associated with community service, volunteering, raising money, food drives, etc. I think it is a wonderful learning experience and hopefully something that will stay with them as they grow up.

Happy Valentines Day!

Superbowl Sunday

Ok. This is the first time I've seen my blog on a full-sized monitor. OMG .. It looks huge! I've been using my laptop since May where obviously the screen is much smaller. It looks like I am yelling everything, and the pictures are taking up half the screen. So sorry to those of you viewing it on a desktop. I'll have to figure out how to shrink it down.

It has been another busy week here. I finally have all of the boxes unpacked, but not everything put away. Being the anal organized person that I am, I am cleaning and organizing everything as I go. We just have way too much crap!  I have already packed up 5 boxes of stuff, as well as 4 big garbage bags of clothes for donation. I've decided that if it is something we don't use often, and it just sits around, it's gone! Same for the smaller clothes that I'll wear when I lose weight - gone!  Goodwill will get plenty of those.

In addition to the unpacking and organizing, I've got a killer cold that is slowing me down. Along the lines of not having strep throat for years then I got it in January, I've not had a cold in at least three years. Yep, they suck too!  I am always a huge vitamin taker. I take a lot of Vitamin D & C, calcium, and a multi-vitamin. In our being homeless state, vitamins were a passing thought & I rarely took them. I am convinced that this is why I've been getting sick this year. I am back in my routine now because I am not enjoying this!

Anyway, on to Superbowl Sunday. Being the non-football family that we are, we spent the day on our annual sledding outing at Soldier Hollow. Three years ago we discovered that this was the perfect place to go on this day because nobody else goes there. Everyone else is at home, on the couch, with nachos & a beer (or Diet Coke if you are from Utah). :-) Normally this place is packed with lines to get on the tow rope, and lines to get down the hill. This year it was the most crowded it has ever been for us and I counted 25 people, some of which may have been workers.  It was great!  As the afternoon went on the slopes got icy and slick. Each time I'd go down I'd slam into the safety fence at the bottom and the boys thought this was a hoot. See if I fit into those smaller pants that I'm donating, I wouldn't slam into the fence.  :-)

The fam. Preston, Me, Travis & Parker

This is Preston & Travis coming down the hill. As you can see . . . the place is pretty empty!

Preston

Parker. Love his tongue sticking out.

Parker really did the lazy man sledding. Besides the tow rope taking us to the top of the hill, Travis pulled him in the places he should have been walking.

I'm Back

Hello! I've made it back to my blog. Sorry for the delay. We are officially moved in, but not even close to being settled. It feels like all I've done the past two weeks is unpack boxes, and the house still looks exactly the same . . a mess! Oh well. It will still be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that so I might as well blog! 

For the last eight months, I can't count the number of times that someone has said to me, "do you have, where is your, can I borrow your," etc., etc, and my response was always, "It's on the trailer." This was often followed by, "can you get it?" I think that one must actually see the trailer to appreciate the trailer.

I think that the trailer is 47' long and almost 15' tall. Not a small trailer.

This picture is a little deceiving. It would sort of appear that the trailer has some space on the top. Once you get in about 5' it is solid crap. You can't see anything, or move anything. When we packed it we loaded all of the stuff we could by ourselves, then the movers came and put on all the heavy stuff. That heavy stuff was across the back so you could not get past it to get to anything else.

The trailer had been parked at my parent's house since we moved out of our old house. Travis took a long lunch the week before last and drove it over to our house. I was at the house working on sealing the granite and tile, and I got a text from him that said, "Look out the window, the Rednecks are moving in." It totally cracked me up because that is what we looked like. It is one ugly trailer! We were so lucky to get to use it though. My dad got it from his work so it was free to use, and we only had to load/unload once so I could deal with the ugliness.

The day we unloaded we hired the same moves that helped us load it. If there is anyone out there moving, they are great. They are called Tapia Movers and they are the most affordable place we could find. To unload the entire trailer it was only $160.00 and worth every penny. We had some heavy stuff, and I'd say about 200 boxes, not to mention my way too many totes. I tipped them well and still felt that it was steal. It would have taken us a good week or two to empty it ourselves.