This Girl Has a Budget!

So, I have been WAITING to post this since I have been a slacker friend and not seen my buddy Sassy in over a month since her birthday! In my defense, she was working 2 overlapping jobs for a month and I am me. Not a good combo for the face-to-face relationship.

What to get Sassypants? She has everything. A cute apartamento, cute Jocelyn, lots of shoes, and other than sleep there is nothing that girl needs.

So, I decided to make her something. Since we are the bestest bartending partners on the planet, if I do say so myself, and are no longer bartending, I decided to pay homage to how we met.

I must admit a quandry I find myself in as a blogger. I will not be posting prices here. What if she knows? Sass appreciates the thought and the effort, but still. Besides, some of the cost - like the ribbon will be parlayed into Christmas gifts.

So I found the frame, painted it black, touched it up with sandpaper, turned the original picture on backwards, painted it black, and went to town with the glue gun! It was the most fun I have had in a while. Important, you do not need the glass for the frame. But you should get a frame with deep and or thick sides for aesthetic reasons.

I went to Target and got some push pins. I pushed them in the back of the frame, and then doubly anchored them there with a little scotch tape. It is like giving gifts without batteries, people. You have to think through every possible need or contingency. I almost gave her a nail to hang it with...

Here it is again in all its cuteness. That's right. I put another picture up just so I could pat myself on the back again. Craftiness that turns out how I like it are few and far between.

I got the all Texas wine corks on ebay for a ridiculously tiny amount of money. I bought a little lot of 20 corks. Funny, I had oodles of corks that I dragged around for years never doing anything with them and gave them away when my aunt visited this spring. I actually forgot I gave them away and spent a ridiculous amount of time searching for them and cursing myself for putting things in "safe places" before I remembered. That is what I get for being a pack-rat for the first 28 years of my life and trying to reform in the last year. You can still remember all the treasures you had socked away. Oh well, onwards and upwards! Next year I will be glad I am purging when the hubs and the cats and I are all mushed in a tiny university apartment somewhere.

Oh! I tacked the ribbon to the side of the wine corks so it would stay like it is. It is also wire-edged ribbon I got on sale at Michael's. I firmly believe in the necessity of wire-edged ribbon.

The Only Clean Room in My House

So, keeping up with my house this semester has not gone according to plan. I did commit some time yesterday to one room. I have decided to go room by room rather than try to get ALL the sweeping and mopping done, or ALL the vacuuming done. Tasks like that are just too big and daunting with everything else swirling around.

So I committed to the guest bathroom because it is my favorite and it is small, and when it is clean - it looks REALLY clean!

Not to mention, months ago I promised pictures of the hubs brilliance in solving my bath mat dilemma. He found these all-colors-of-green-striped numbers at Target for $5 each. They are so cute! And the cats don't like them at all. Score one for the hubs!

My mother bought me these fabulous purple onion flowers for my birthday! They were at Target. Which is why birthdays are so great when you get to go shopping with your mom and pick out the stuff you would never spend the money on for yourself. Which are always the things I end up liking the most in my house.

The sandstone I bought as a present to myself a couple of years back at a hippie rock shop.

I got the tray for $1 at a yard sale a while back. The amethyst is from my grandmother's guest bathroom.

My cute sister S brought me a bag of goodies from Lush and in it was the bar of soap you see above. It looks like a rock! Which is perfect for my earthy-leaves-nature bathroom. It is made out of sand and something that makes the bathroom smell good. I kept the regular soap dispenser because not everyone is exciting enough to use sand bar soap.

I even straightened the linen closet. The basket at the top is full of shampoos and things guests might need for showering. Thank you Martha for the tip a bazillion years ago.

I also keep my candles in the linen closet to make it smell delicious.

I made an effort to make the bathroom more guest friendly. I put in toothpaste, floss, $1 travel Shout spot wipes, $1 travel deodorant, and then some contact solution, lotions, and hairspray. We are going to be having a lot of guests in the next few months, so I wanted to have all this stuff done now. Most of these items I found in my own bathroom and am not going to use but could not handle wasting.

The thing is now I do not want to use the guest bathroom. I really want to tell the hubs he cannot use it either. I want to close the door and let the perfection last a little longer. I mean I even cleaned the baseboards! I wish it wouldn't be ridiculous to not use it. Or I wish that I was not such a ridiculous lover of perfection. I am working on that.

Inexpensive Craftiness

So I had last night off of work to register for Spring classes. I caught up on some stuff, and then felt my fingers itching to be crafty. I ran across this blog by The Nester, and thought I can totally do that for Thanksgiving!

So here is my Ragamuffin Wreath:

I already had 2 types of gold/yellow cloth torn into long strips because I was thinking about crocheting Huck a new bed. I went to Michael's and started looking around. Their Halloween stuff is 80% off, and in their $1 bin where I found the autumn leaves and brown ribbon. When I took it up to the register it was $2.50 each, but when I decided not to buy them the girl asked the manager walking by who gave them to me for $1! Yay! I did not even have to be brave and ask her to do it!

Anyways, I followed the Nester's tutorial and cut the strips of fabric and ribbon about 10" long. I then ripped apart an $.80 candle wreath I also got in the clearance section and glue gunned all the do-dads onto the ribbon. Nester recommends using ring clips to attach do-dads and to use on the ends. At Target the ring clips were $4.99 so I took a pass on those. The wreath is attached to the sides of the door with thumb tacks.

I am wondering if I should have hung it higher. It is not like we use the peep hole. I also am not very happy with the color in this picture. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers. Especially when my mom is nice enough to let me hijack her camera for months on end since mine broke.

So, final total on my little project with TX sales tax is $3.03.

My project was almost priceless as Isabelle was sneaky in her sneakers and snuck past me while I was hanging the wreath. I caught her in the driveway, but nearly had a heart attack imagining her darting off into the neighbor's bushes. Someone got a spank and so stayed away while mom was cleaning the door to take pictures today.

Back to the front door. I think I need some yellow mums or something to complete the picture. My garage sale pumpkins from this post are out there, but I need some yellow or orange.

P.S. I think my front door needs some color. Not red, as EVERYONE and their dog has a red door and our brick is not quite red. I am thinking navy...

Curious

Why does one need a cake made out of felt?

No idea.

More Dinner Angst

So sickness has infected our house once again. This time I am fine and the hubs is the sad one.

I would post a real picture of his pathetic-ness, but it involves whiteness and boxers and being surrounded by video games and sympathetic cats which makes it hard to feel bad for him.

Anywhoo, this business of feeling bad and trading feeling bad has us reevaluating our eating once again. We do good for a week or two, and then it slowly tapers off to crap yet again.

We have decided to up the vegetables this time around. We have both been craving them, which means our bodies are in desperate need.

Tonight I did not have a good idea. I had 2 chicken poblano sausage links defrosted, and that was as far as I got yesterday. They are 220 calories each which isn't bad for their tastiness and considering it is dinner.

So I made it up as I cooked. I sauteed the meat (out of its casing). I kept it on low heat and added a diced tomato and a ton of spinach to the sausage after it was cooked through. I turned off the heat shortly after because I wanted the spinach to wilt only a little tiny bit. When the brown rice was done I added about 2 TBSP (not much) worth of finely grated cheddar into it with a dash of salt and some pepper to give it flavor. Then I served the meat and veggies on top of the rice.

The review was good.

Bunny trail alert! Isn't he cute? He cut off all his hair yesterday so he looks like the man I married, and the beard has been gone for a long time now. But he is still handsome both ways.

Back to the review! J liked the flavor of the rice and that the little bit of cheese made it sticky. I liked that it was filling, and that he did not appear to notice the tomatoes.

We have also decided to add a salad every night. I know, I know, who doesn't have salad every night? Well, we restaurant people do not. There is nothing worse than feeding people all night, putting up with their shit, and then having to come home and feed yourself. Sigh.

I also have to say that I do not enjoy cooking. It seems worth it when 20 people sing your praises, but even then it is not something I would label enjoyable. It is breaking even, effort = result. I think I like to cook more because I am a control-freak than because I enjoy it.

I do like to bake. Sadly, that will only get me increasing my jean size. I try to bake on occasions when it will all be given away. Speaking of which, I tried a new peanut butter cupcake recipe that you can find here. They were delicious, moist, and a crowd pleaser at the hubs thesis defense.

That's right, I bribe with cupcakes. Want to come clean my house?

Little Miss High and Low

As you probably divined from yesterday's post, I was a:

But then I got a phone call this morning from an agency that made me:

And now that it has all sunk in, I am a:

YaY Me!

I not only have a practicum site, I saw an AMAZING Christmas gift idea that made me race to Goodwill to find treasures galores! Tomorrow I start painting!

But what you ask?

I will tell you in January!

Suspense

I hate suspense. I cannot handle commercials. Delayed gratification is an unknown concept in my world.

Take Saturday for instance. I had a gift idea, so I got dressed and went looking. That is how one gets things done.

So probably not, Andy Warhol. Not in my world.

I have been waiting over a month for a call. A practicum site that I want said they would decide by November 1st. So I figured they would call today. Another practicum site said they would call today. Both sites said they would call whether I was accepted or not. So who knows what no calls means. It means I am about to give myself an ulcer, that is what it means. SIGH.