Lowes Home Improvement Center

This is what Nick and I did today! This weekend we were busy but we finally managed to take some measurements to get organized. Here we have the makings of closet shelves, craft organizers and even a rake to clean up those pesky mesquite tree seeds. Wish us luck on completing all these projects this week! Nick is going to sand all the edges of the boards to match the shelves we already have and I am going to paint, paint and paint some more. Luckily we had a rebate check from Lowes for buying our washer and dryer there as well as a gift card! I am very excited because after all the cutting we ended up with a lot of end pieces that I now get to make crafts from. Maybe if I have enough time to be creative I will post some of them up for you.

Books are expensive....

So I have recently rekindled my relationship with the library. When I was younger I used to love library day at school and would always check out the maximum books allowed (which I think was three picture books or two chapter books). I would finish them as quickly as possible and then plan out the exact book I could chose for the next week. Often when I was done with my work early I would beg the teacher to let my friend and I go to the library during class to exchange books. Once I got to third grade we had set aside personal reading time and I was allowed to exchange a book whenever I got done! I must have read every single Roald Dahl book at least twice, all the box car children books that were out at the time, and unfortunately I read all those Goosebump books too.

Now as I got older it was less cool to go the library and get old used books so I decided to purchase the books instead. Although I have tried to save all my books they often get passed around through the family and I have found that when you are reading through a book in a week and then giving it away it really isn't worth the ten bucks. So I have recently got myself a library card. So far I have only had small reservations about the germs that must reside between the pages. I know they lysol the covers but you never know what is on the inside! It is nice to not worry about reading too fast to get my moneys worth and I love that I can go online and request the books I want to read. I get an email when they are ready and all I do is go pick them up. I don't even have to browse the library. It is a smaller library just five min away but they get my books from all over San Antonio. Since I have been reading at least three books every week it has saved me a lot of money just in the month that I have used it! I am a little sad that my book collection is not growing for our future personal library but oh well. I am having fun reading new books and old favorites all for the low low price of FREE!

San Antonio Temple

The Joys of Homeownership

This is a picture of our water meter leaking all over. Someone drove onto our lawn and broke our water pipe. It is really really dry out so it makes it easy for the hard ground to crack the pipes. We were notified we would be fined if we did not fix it since the water is leaking into the street and we are on water restriction. If it was not fixed we would be charged $500 a day for breaking the restrictions. So I called a plumber and got it fixed. It was pretty pricey. Oh the joys of homeownership. One positive was that I met a lot of my neighbors while I was outside watching the process! Sorry no pics from when they dug it all up. I am so bad at remembering to take pics!

Crafts

When my mom and sister came down here a few weeks ago my mom brought me some more craft supplies! I really like to be crafty but often it is more expensive than it is worth. So with my new supplies I set out to find something to create!

What I found was a few boring old clocks that we got for our wedding. So I tore apart the clock we had and started to make it pretty. Above was what I ended up with. Sorry about the poor lighting. The clock is actually a bright lime green with light electric blue ink. It is definitely not done but its a good start! The writing says "Cherish the Moment". I still need to paint the outside black, add some numbers or position markers and embellish it a bit more, but I am happy with how it has gone so far!

This is the stamp set I used from Close to My Heart. I got it when I went to CTMH convention in January with my mom and it is by far my favorite set! Thanks mom!!

Here are the stickers I am going to use for my next craft project. I am thinking magnets?? Maybe I will make our other clock into an Italian clock for Nick?? Not sure yet but I know I will try to find something for these soon.

Christmas in August

Christmas Carol train tour came to San Antonio so we had to go check out the fun! If you don't know, Disney has a new movie coming out this November and it is called A Christmas Carol. They made a train filled with exclusive behind the scenes models, scenes and info about the movie and have been taking it across the country. Here are some of the pics from our day!

Jim Carrey as Scrooge.

After the train tour we got to see a first look at the movie in 3-D. It looks like it will be a really great movie!

Here is an example of how they filmed the movie's actors and changed them into a 3-D animation movie.

The outside of the train. We waited about at least an hour outside next to this train so I thought I would get a few pics.

Those poor singers. It was over 100 degrees out..

Jim Carrey as young Scrooge

Some of the period costumes in the train and below are the models they used to visualize the scenes.

Overall it was a fun day. I can't wait to see the entire movie in theaters. My favorite Christmas Carol is still the Muppet's so we will see if Disney can top that this year!

After the train tour we headed over to the Alamodome to see the Dallas Cowboy's training camp. We only saw a little bit of their practice but it was really fun. This H-E-B shopping cart was parked outside the dome and I had to get a picture with it. I really want to drive it! It would have been a perfect day if we hadn't gotten a parking ticket when we went back to the car!

First Project

For our first project in the new house we decided to sand and paint all the shelves. They were a little beat up when we moved in so last Saturday we spent the day fixing them up and now they look all brand new! Sorry no pictures from the actual process but we didn't want our phones or cameras anywhere near the paint or dust so here are some before and after shots. You have to look closely to see just how beat up they were and take my word for it that they look one hundred times better now! We also did shelves from three other closets but they pretty much look just like these so no need for more pictures. Here you go.....

Gameroom closet BEFORE

Pantry Shelves BEFORE

Gameroom Closet AFTER

Pantry Shelves AFTER

One project down, one million projects to go!