Gentle Leader has gone AWOL

We have had a mini crisis at the house.  Georges gentle leader has gone missing.  We had it a few weeks ago, and now its gone.  I will tout the wonderful-ness of the gentle leader for anyone who will listen to me.  I seriously love this thing.  George on the other hand, does NOT love the gentle leader.  He does his best to scrape it off his face when he wears it, he goes belly to the ground when he sees me walking up with it. 

We get complimented on Georges behavior on walks almost every time we take him out.  He doesn't stray from our sides, doesn't mess with other dogs, doesn't go chasing the wildlife on the trail.  He just keeps on going and seems to get annoyed when we stop for any reason.  We figured out that *we think* it's because George doesn't LIKE walks.  He just wants to get them over with. No detours, no delays, its like he's resigned himself that this is going to happen and just wants to power through it and be done.  Not Wednesday! 
On Wednesday evening while George and I were out for our C25K workout I realized that without the gentle leader on George is kind of a butthead on walks.  No, really.  He still just powered right on through the walk, but he had problems with staying in pace, was not amused at the other dogs on the trail (just got jumpy, didn't try and start any problems)  In light of this I've decided to post some pics of a walk we took George on last year.  He's pretty freaking adorable, even if I know he hates it!  *He has the gentle leader on for this walk.

Leaving my parents house, heading out on the trail, or maybe home.  Who knows, the possibilities are endless!

Just trucking along.

Look at his shiny coat!

To the left is home, straight to the trail.....which way to go?!?

Look how pretty the trail area is, how can he not like walks?!?

Runnin' Route

yesterday was a whirlwind!  After work I ran to the store to get the ingredients for dinner and dessert.
Then I came home threw on my running shoes and workout gear and grabbed the dog for our C25K workout.....I decided to take some photos on the way to show you our route!

Over the first bridge of the walk, people fish off here ALL THE TIME and so the fishing lures and lines get caught on the power lines....safe right?

Just trucking along the trail

Some more water, you'd never know I live in a land locked state!

The guy down the street carved this.  For fun.  Out of a huge tree trunk. With a chainsaw 

Seriously, amazing work.  But I'm glad its not in my front yard.

Finally back on our street....almost there!

After the run/walk/jog (Spence went out too, but since he is FASTER than me and can run for longer than 90 seconds at a time he went out a little after me and we high fived on the trail)  Spence and I rushed around the kitchen and got dinner and dessert ready.  (photos of dinner and dessert tomorrow maybe)

The girls came over and we spent the next 5 hours laughing and watching extreme couponing.  We were so busy laughing and talking we forgot to eat dessert!  Oh well, it still looks pretty!

Here's why today is awesome

Super excited for today to be here for several reasons:
1) I don't have to work at the part time job tonight, WOO.
2) Its wine night Wednesday with the girls and I'm super excited to see them!  Since this week feels a little crazy I'm not making a full dinner for all of us, we are doing dessert and wine at our house.  I found a delicious recipe for peanut butter bars and I'm really hoping they turn out well!
3) I get to do another day of C25K tonight after work!  I have been taking it easy after this weekends yard work overload, my right leg is not going to like me tonight but I think it will be good for it!
4) I'm making a new recipe for dinner. I found something that is a little bit outside Spencer's comfort zone but he's willing to try it.  I doubt he eats the pepper but whatever, I'm excited to make something a little different (for us at least).
5) I finally got up on time for work and got here when I planned to!

Here are tonight's recipes in case you care!
PB Bars:Ingredients
1 cup butter or margarine, melted
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 cup peanut butter
Topping:
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (I'm using dark bc I like it better....)
4 tablespoons peanut butter
Directions
In a medium bowl, mix together the butter or margarine, graham cracker crumbs, confectioners' sugar, and 1 cup peanut butter until well blended. Press evenly into the bottom of an ungreased 9x13 inch pan.  (place in freezer or fridge to cool while making topping per the reviews)
In a metal bowl over simmering water, or in the microwave, melt the chocolate chips with the peanut butter, stirring occasionally until smooth. Spread over the prepared crust. Refrigerate for at least one hour before cutting into squares.
Peppers:Ingredients
1 pound ground beef
1/2 cup uncooked long grain white rice (I'll be using instant rice as that's all I have and the reviews said it works fine, I'll also just make the rice while the meat is browning)
4 green bell peppers
2 (8 ounce) cans tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Place the rice and water in a saucepan, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and cook 20 minutes. In a skillet over medium heat, cook the beef until evenly browned.
Remove and discard the tops, seeds, and membranes of the bell peppers. Arrange peppers in a baking dish with the hollowed sides facing upward. (Slice the bottoms of the peppers if necessary so that they will stand upright.)
In a bowl, mix the browned beef, cooked rice, 1 can tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Spoon an equal amount of the mixture into each hollowed pepper. Mix the remaining tomato sauce and Italian seasoning in a bowl, and pour over the stuffed peppers.
Bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, basting* with sauce every 15 minutes, until the peppers are tender.
*One of the reviews I saw said to cover the peppers while baking and then you don't have to worry about basting, I think I'll use this method as frankly I'm a busy lady and have dessert to make as well! I have an onion I need to use and so I'll probably use fresh onion and garlic that I'll cook w the ground beef to soften.
**the recipe calls for 6 peppers, but the reviews said that this doesn't make a lot of sauce/filling so I'm using 4 so I can really get em stuffed.

Random things:

Yard work is worse than an intense workout with my old trainer.  I am walking like an old old woman.

When your husband snores like a freight train there are some guaranteed ways to wake him up in hopes that he stops.  Really, getting him to take his allergy medicine is FAR more effective (and leads to less bruising)

Mondays should come with a caffeine drip directly into my arm.  I don't know what it is, but I have the hardest time waking up on Mondays!

After about a decade I finally said goodbye to my belly button ring.  I have accepted that I am getting old.  Fast.

We got our Europe tour guides in the mail and are deciding where to take our massively long vacation to.  We have it narrowed down to 2 potential trips and just need to see the final dates.

I have zero motivation today.  Zero.

I need to learn to cook veggies in a way Spencer will eat them.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/  is one of the funniest blogs I've ever read.  EVER.

Weekend Recap

So there are always some words that no one wants to hear their significant other say.  A few of those are "car wreck" and "highway".  I got to hear those and some others from Spence on Friday!  Despite the fact that he was obviously fine (he was on the phone) I immediately went into super duper freak out mode and was having a heart attack. Once I calmed down and he assured me he was not hurt and the car was not totalled I calmed down.  

So Friday night we took it easy, I went out for a drink with a co worker. 

Snickers Martini, OMG I had no idea anything tasted this good.

Then Spence and I headed out for dinner at a sports grill by our house.

Afterwards we headed over to a friends apt to hang out for a bit before calling it  night. 

Spence, unscathed by the car wreck earlier in the night.  *Thank God*

We got some stuffed mushrooms as an app, they were pretty good, but I have to say, mine are better!

A very cheesy pasta dish, I was not expecting so much cheese.  But if you know me you know I was not going to complain!

The server forgot to bring me my soup with my meal, she felt bad so she gave me a quart to take home.  *SCORE*

Saturday morning was "housework overload Saturday" at our house.  I woke up early and cleaned the inside of the house (deep cleaned the kitchen, bathrooms and floors etc) while Spence mowed.  Then we tackled some of the bigger projects on the outside, the gutters and mulching the front and side of the house. 

This is 3 yrs worth of leaves from the side (only the side) of the house.  I swear to you we spent at least a week raking in the fall.  The trees are out of control!

less than a years worth of leaves from the front of the house. 

Spencer getting up to clean the gutters.  This was long, long overdue.

There *may* have been some tree saplings I chose to ignore that now need to go away, all but one we were able to uproot (like how I say "we" when its obvious I am not helping, I'm just taking pictures?) and one we are just hoping doesn't come back.....The one that survived is the one you can see on the right side of this pic, its about 7 feet tall.....

*George is eating plants in the foreground.  George likes to eat plants, we arent sure why....

The side of the house all mulched and pretty.  This area took 5 bags of mulch, and will probably need a few more!

Later that night we had friends over for a cookout, it was the perfect way to end the day.  Just the right amount of fun and work to balance each other out!

Sunday was Easter!  We met my family up at church for service, which was great. Then we had brunch at my parents house before heading to see Spencer's family for a few hours.  After all that family togetherness coupled with the EXTREME sorness that lugging some 40lb bags of top soil and massive bags of mulch the day before we parked it on the couch and were bums for the rest of the day.

I hope everyone had an excellent Easter weekend!

Goal Revisit.

One of the things about goals is they need to be tangible, measurable and attainable.   So I am going to revisit them periodically to see how I'm progressing!


~Get a part time job  <----- done and done
~Paint/re-tile the hall bathroom
~Re-tile the entryway (this may be a 2012 project but we'll see)
~Read 40 books    <---- this goal should have been more ambitious apparently
~Get myself into a house cleaning routine   <----- I haven't blogged about it much, but we've been doing quite well at this! 
Sunday is laundry
Monday is floors
Tuesday is dusting
Wednesday is bathrooms
Thursday and Friday are kitchen deep cleans
Saturday is for messing it all up again!
~Run a half marathon   <-------  I am doing the C25K program now to ease myself into this goal.  I am still hopeful that this one can be accomplished, even if it is just me on the trail all alone running 13.1 miles I'm going to call it a win.

3 down 1 to go.....

Credit cards that is!  Thats right we've successfully paid off 3 of our 4 cards and only have a balance on ONE of them!  WOOOOOOO. 

I have never been happier to get our tax refund, it took most of it but we are one (big) step closer to paying off our credit cards in full by the end of this year!  Yet another one of the yearly goals set that just might get accomplished in the year 2011. 

GO US!

Weekend Recap

Since we spent a good portion of last week cleaning and organizing it was decided that this weekend would be a good time to relax.  Well, relax and for Julia to work her 2nd job on both Friday and Saturday.  Super relaxing. 
Friday night I got off work at 10pm, drove home, walked in the house and waved at Spence (who was on the phone w a friend) proceeded to the bedroom and went to bed.  Yup, I didn't even say hi to my husband before crashing. 

Woke up on Saturday and headed on over to Nike and worked till 5.  Left Nike and drove home.  We decided to head out to the drive in theatre that night to enjoy the spring weather before it gets too hot to be out there with no AC!  The movie was a double feature of Scre4m and Sucker Punch.  Anyone who has seen the previews for these movies should be aware they are not exactly "child friendly".  And yet, somehow the playground at the front of the theatre was PACKED with small children after the end of the Scre4m!  Um, I was uncomfortable with some of the stuff in the movie, I was pretty convinced I was going to end up with nightmares after some of the blood and guts screaming we saw, I have no idea how a 4 or 6 year old was doing!  And for the record, Sucker Punch is also not kid friendly!  Scantily clad girls gyrating and then killing people is not OK for small children!  That being said, I had zero expectations for Sucker Punch (and frankly close to zero expectations for Scre4m) so I was surprised that I liked the movies as much as I did.  We'll totally be going back to the Boulevard drive in this year!

From the car before the movie started, the drive in was PACKED let me tell you.

Sunday we got up and went to church, and then I entered a zone called "Julia has decided not to get off the couch for any reason that does not involve a fire".  Now, you may think this means I didn't need food, water or the occasional beer during this time.  It doesn't.  It just means that I asked Spence to get anything and everything I thought I needed for me.  This did not amuse Spence.  I think the only relief he got was when he went for his daily run! 

He came back looking like this......

 

Later that night we headed out to Tanners to meet friends for dinner.  We ended up staying for a few rounds of musical Bingo!  The first round was 70's disco which without the "sound hound" app we would have been horribly lost on, but the second was good 'ol pop music.  Awesome.  Although we did not win any of the rounds we've decided we'll be back again for this event!

My card at the start of round 2

This is where we got to on "blackout" before another person won.....SO CLOSE!

*I discovered the "instagram" app for photos and used it on the drive in photo and on the one of Spence, pretty fun right?!?  I know I'm late to the party, cause this has been around forever, but I think its super fun!

Stuff that didn't make the cut....

A few quick shots of what we will be trying to sell in the garage sale.  There are some more things in the room BUT so far this is a pretty good overview. 

We decided that anything that does not sell will be going directly to goodwill.  NOTHING that leaves the house for the garage sale will come back in.  NOTHING. 

We are "in progress"

So Wednesday and Thursday evening at our house were pretty intense as far as the organization and cleaning mode.  I walked in the house on Wednesday night and didn't even make it upstairs before the process began.  We did a TON on Wednesday night and got the storage room cleaned out and then started on the bedrooms upstairs.  I didn't post any pictures of the front bedroom, but we had a bunch of stuff in the closet of that room and then things that had collected on the floor since I had no more room in the back bedroom of doom.  We worked from 5pm to 10pm that night on the house and didn't even stop for food, although there may have been some "cleaning beers" consumed during the process. 

During the process of moving things into and from the storage room we also started putting together the basement for Spence.  We moved pictures around (for some reason he wasn't a big fan of some of the photos I've taken staying up on the wall, what man cave is complete without some English roses on the wall?)

Thursday we finished up on the back bedroom of doom and actually ate dinner! I think we may have also made progress on getting a time to start on the garage.  Fingers crossed that when this posts the garage will not look like the dumping ground it currently is!

This is the same view as as the before picture, does it even look like the same space?

The items left are a bag of candles that I need to find a closet shelf for, the backpack is actually a wedding gift, its a picnic basket!  and then the blue bag has an old computer in it.  There are still some photos on there that I want to get so I don't want to trash it just yet....but soon?

This is from the other corner that there was NO way I could have taken before!

This is a quick peek at the basement.  I'll get some more pictures of it after we finish organizing and get the last of Specers beer and Jayhawk posters up!

We haven't decided what will become of the things along this wall.  The pile of bedding in the corner will likely get trashed, or donated to goodwill.....the rolly carts we may keep as they could be useful for storage but I'm in total "purge" mode so they may go in the garage sale.....

Ahhhh, my shelves.  we have them organized by category.  The first 2 shelves are kitchen appliances (stand mixer, bread maker, deep fryer etc) the next 2 shelves are things I use when we entertain (all my B.Smith things I got for the wedding, some outdoor candle holders, extra place mats and tablecloths etc) and the bottom shelf is the misc. stuff like my great grandmas china that we probably wont use much but I need to make sure its safe!

You can also see the weight bench in the foreground, we've talked about making the back bedroom of doom into a mini home gym and putting the weight bench and a treadmill in there.  We'll need to look at the cost of the treadmill but it would mean we can cancel my gym membership.....

The Befores....part 3

Now onto the storage room.  The storage room actually has the least amount of our stuff in it, because for the last 3 years roomie used it as her closet.  I'm calling it a blessing that we don't have *nearly* as much stuff in here as I was afraid we did because I was worried for a minute that we wouldn't have enough room for all the stuff we are storing! 

A lot of the stuff that is in this room currently will probably stay.  From these pictures I can only see a few things that will get sold in the garage sale.  I will say there are some things along the front wall of this room that I didn't get photos of, but ALL of those things are garage sale bound.  They are all the kitchen stuff we cleaned out of the kitchen when we got married and started using our new things! 

My plan on Wednesday night last week was to sort through the boxes you see and start deciding what we will sell and what we will store.  I think there are some boxes of bags (duffel, backpack etc) that we may keep some and sell some, and I have a few boxes of high school/college stuff in there that need to be gone through.

This is a bigger project that I thought!

The Befores....Part 2

Today we move on to the garage.  I will preface these pictures with the statement that a LOT of the stuff in here belongs to my dad and not to us.  When I moved in I could actually get my car into the garage, and we have not added all that much stuff to it......(I may be lying just a little)

Gracing us with its presence in the garage we have a plethora of windows, trim pieces and lots of random wood that has collected (thank you dad).  We have 2 scooters that my dad brought home for us from his work, we just need to put them together so we can ride them! There is a pool table under all that mess on the side, its currently covered in "stuff" that has collected, I'm not sure who the "stuff" belongs to.  My dad has stored a riding lawnmower down there and I think I see our Christmas decor down there too....
Pretty much everything on the shelves along the back will get tossed, and the bags you see in the bottom left corner are all going to Goodwill next week.  Sigh.  The garage will be the biggest project, mainly because we need to get my dad to come over and get his stuff.

The Befores.....part 1

OK here are the "before" pictures of the rooms that are getting a reorganization makeover.  I'm posting these in the hopes that after these are all posted we will be able to post at least some "in progress" pictures and you wont be judging me for too long! 

The Back Bedroom of Doom......da da dun.....

These are from the doorway, which is frankly as far in as I've gotten in about a year.  Before we tried to move the chaise that you can kinda see in the background this room was actually a lot less OMG looking.  We tried to get it out and realized we weren't sure how we got it in!  I think the legs will need to come off.....

This room is where all the "stuff" went last year when we put in the bea-u-tiful hardwood floors.  Everything that went in did not come back out, and a lot of this stuff will hopefully find a new home this year in the garage sale!

C25K

I'm starting C25K.  For the 2nd time.  When I posted earlier in the year/last year about running the Disney Princess Half Marathon in Disney World I ran into a pretty big wall when it came to training.  The wall was known as my knee.  I ended up at my GP and the chiro several times because it seemed like no matter what I did/tried to do my knee would just swell up and keep being sore.  

I have come to realize that probably I jumped into the deep end too quickly and my body was not prepared for the amount of miles/speed I was trying to run.  So I've decided it would be beneficial for me to ease my body into a running routine.  

For years I've had a love hate relationship with running.  Actually, I take that back.  I have never had a love relationship with running, except for about 6 months in 2004.  At that time I was studying abroad and we would walk 75 miles a weekend with our hiking backpacks on (about 40 lbs) and I was in the best shape of my life.  Running was a natural extension of that activity level and I would jog about 5 miles a day when we weren't travelling.  That all ended when I fractured my leg horseback riding and wasn't able to jog more than a half mile without codeine.  

So I'm committed to the C25K program.  Here's hoping that I can follow through on it, I have terrible follow through on workouts.....

Lets get ready to.....organize?

I came to the conclusion that I really cannot start to organize the storage room, back bedroom of doom and the garage until I have someplace to put all the things I do not plan to get rid of/sell.  *I am so smart right?*

I have another secret (I know, first the earth shattering secret that I am not a morning person and now this doozy....) I am lazy.  I really and truly am, so very lazy.  And on top of that oh so attractive personality trait I am smart enough to realize that I will not do the same work twice for no reason.  So there is no way I am going to clean out/organize all the things in the storage room and then turn around AGAIN to re-organize the same items to put them on shelves.  It just wont happen.  So with this piece of information looming in my mind I set out on Saturday to find shelves we can put in the storage room so I can get my house put back together.  I went to Target, Wal Mart, Lowe's and Home Depot to price and look at shelving units. 
*because on top of being lazy I'm also cheap, and I would be peeved at me if I found out I could have saved cash on these shelves*
And the winner is......

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&productId=100095394&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&ci_sku=100095394&ci_src=14110944&cm_mmc=shopping-_-googlebase-_-D23X-_-100095394&locStoreNum=1002#BVRRWidgetID

You'd think they'd be prettier for as happy as I am to have decided on them......  They are 48" long, 72" high and 24" deep, plenty of room for the stuff I have to store currently.  The plan is to go back in a few months and get another set of them for the time in the future when we'll have more things to store. 
*the reason is that on top of lazy and cheap I'm also weird enough that I will need the shelves in the storage room to match in order to not twitch when I walk in there*
I think I'll go get them this week and start the process of moving things onto them once they are assembled *super obvious statement*. 

I took some "before" pictures of the garage, back bedroom of doom and the storage room as they are now.  I'll put them up closer to when the transformation has occurred, I'd hate to leave the impression of what they currently look like for too long....

Pee Water and the Devil Tried to Steal My Joy

Guys, yesterday was rough. 

I woke up (just a little late for work) stumbled into the bathroom;  like most people I had to relieve my bladder after being asleep for several hours....... so I took care of all that and (again like *most* people do) flushed the toilet.  Which went in the wrong direction.  Pee water flowed all over the floor and simply would not stop.  OMG.  OMG.  I was SO not awake yet, and I choose to believe that my dazed stupor was the reason no rational thoughts came to me.  I stood there for probably a good 30 seconds and just stared.  Then I frantically called Spencer (at work no less) to freak out.  ---still no cleaning has happened--  I blurt out my morning OMG moment and then ask frantically "whatshouldIdoOMG" and he replied with the most magical words "get a towel".  Smartest Man Ever.  I hightailed it into the hall bathroom and grabbed like 4 towels, because if 1 towel was a good idea 4 should be amazing.  So I mopped up all the pee water, except the water that soaked into the carpet just outside the bathroom.  I did the best I could on that.....(which is gross to me now and I haven't stepped on that part of carpet since...) 
I hurried up and took my shower and then rushed around the house taking care of the dog and running out the door since I was now like 30 minutes late for work. 

I have a secret.  I am not a morning person.  In any shape or form, I am just not.  At the best of times I am taciturn, and lethargic until about 9am.  This special morning wake up call of pee water did not help that.

All day yesterday I felt like there was nothing I could do to work myself back into a good mood!  Work was one of those days where I felt like my to-do list never moved, customer questions seemed inane and I bit my tongue to keep from telling them that (not my usual attitude toward our insureds I promise).  By the time I left work I called Spencer and informed him that the pee water and the devil stole my joy.  He laughed a little and said to hurry home.

I pulled in the driveway and was greeted by Spence and our dog, Spence immediately wrapped me in one of his hugs (I love his hugs) and just held me for a good 3 minutes.  and you know what?  I felt my joy coming back!  My parents came over for dinner last night, we had some projects we needed my dad and his tools for, and I wanted my moms opinion on what to do with now mostly empty storage room.  I made creamy chicken spaghetti and garlic bread and we had a lovely time!  By the time we went to bed that night I can safely say I stole my joy back from the devil and pee water.

Roommate Reflection.....

Now that we are roomie free I've been thinking back over the random characters we've (I've) had live in our home over the last 4 years......And friends there have been some doozies.

Lets start out with the roommate who just left one day.....seriously picked up his stuff, locked his key in the room and never came back.  Damon was his name, I don't remember the last name.......  He didn't come out of his room on a regular basis so it took a few days for us to realize that he hadn't been around for a while.  We carded into the room and found it empty! 

There was Tara, who moved to KC for a guy and then ended up moving back to CO when she realized that long distance was one thing, but really being around each other all the time was a different matter! 

We had A and D, the kookiest of them all I think.  A and D are a pagan couple who liked showering together, naked camping and working at the KC Ren Fest.  They lived with us for about 2.5 years before they moved into their own place.  While they lived with us my house was blessed with sage on a few occasions, and I was almost bitten by their dog a few times. Good times.

Nicole was another one, she was great up until she left one day and didn't come back.  Major perk of her was she worked as a box office manager at a local comedy club and we got TONS of free tickets!  She got a new boyfriend, lost her job (and her ability to pay rent?) but the good news is that we got a queen sized mattress out of the deal bc she couldn't move that on her own! She had a boyfriend at one point we called the ninja who broke one of my flower boxes trying to show her how he could sneak into our house, and she had another friend plow his car into our front yard.  She was a keeper.

R was one of the last roommates, and probably one of my favorites.  Not weird and strange, paid rent on time and pretty much stayed in his room.  That my friends is my ideal roommate!

Todd I've left for last because frankly I have no words.  Todd was a 45 year old divorcee who travelled a lot for work.  As a result he wanted a room and not an apt mainly for storing his stuff.  This all sounds great so far right?  Well Todd got a woman preggers who lived up North was around less than we'd thought.  Also sounding great, which it was until it was time for him to leave.......and he just kind of didn't for a while. When he finally left he took Spencer's prized possession, a signed poster of the NCAA 2008 championship shot signed by the starters and Coach Self.  Charges were filed, poster was not found.  Many angry facebook posts ensued and now we get his delinquent child support notices.......

There are several others but those are the ones who stick out as the random ones....

Is it any wonder I am ready to have our house to ourselves?  Lesson to be learned, craigslist can be a scary place to find a roommate, but frankly you can get a TON of stories out of it!

Spring Cleaning.....

Since the roomie is gone (well she is and her stuff will go today) and I am in full on re-organization mode I spent a good chunk of Sunday cleaning out our hall closets.  I have no before pictures of the closets, because frankly I'm mortified that they got as bad as they did.  For 5 years I literally would just shove things in there and hope no one else opened them.  Seriously any one out there who saw them you know I'm not kidding. Same with the coat closet that got re organized a few weeks ago. So I pulled  everything out and got to work.  The final product is below, sorry for the bad cell phone quality pics, the front hall closet has no good source of light around it.

Closet at the very back, nicely stocked with our recent Sam's Club loot.  In the name of honesty I should point out that the bottom shelf still needs some work.  I have yet to figure out how to fold an electric blanket so it lays nicely.....   The top shelf has some extra sheets, and the wrapping paper/gift bag collection, its organized but not really pretty....

Looking at these (poor quality) pics you'd never know that before this you were in danger of multiple concussions from things falling on you when you opened this closet. 

We have our shelf of disposable cups, plates etc for parties along with our games (bunco and catch phrase and I'll make room for Apples to Apples when I remember to ask M for it back)

and below is our cleaning supplies shelf.  I think I threw away 5 bottles of empty cleaners that had just been hanging out for Lord knows how long.

The next shelf is our home improvement shelf, tools, flashlights, duct tape, light bulbs etc and below that is Georges shelf with some assortment of extension cords, and the "random" stuff I couldn't really categorize. 

The coat closet.  Prior to cleaning it out it was filled with some old Christmas gifts that hadn't found a home, lots and lots of random stuff that had just been thrown in and left to die etc.  I had a friend open it once and I almost died I was so embarrassed.  NO MORE!  Now it houses Spence's P90X stuff our printers (a photo printer and a regular printer) and on the floor is the vacuum.   

Now on to the back bedroom and the guest room....both of which need some serious attention.

Roommate not free

Well unfortunatly we are not roommate free just yet.  You know how yesterday I mentioned that the roomie was going to come and clean and take the last of her stuff from the house?  Well half of that happened.  She cleaned and took her food.  The items left in the storage room however stayed. 
After work yesterday I was super excited to run home before going to Nike to see what my storage room/basement looked like with only our stuff in it......You can image my surprise when I got there and found that it was still full of roomies stuff! I sent her a text that told her she left clothes, photos, a TV, lots of boxes, some gifts and a LOT of trash in the storage and she responded back that I could sell it or trash it she didn't care.  Friends, I saw red.  Honestly it wasn't that she left this stuff (she also left some things that we may be able to use downstairs-- a lamp a vacuum a big carpet etc--, but it was the assumption that she could leave trash all over and I'd just take care of it.  If she had said she didn't have time to deal with it all and would be back later in the week or said she was sorry for leaving it all I wouldn't have been nearly as upset.)   All in all this is what was left for me to deal with.

After I left Nike and I had had a few hours to cool down (IE refrain from cursing and screaming) I expressed my rage anger upset feelings and that I felt it was disrespectful of her to leave her trash for me to deal with.  She advised that she didn't intend to do that she just forgot that she had all this stuff......

Roomie will be coming tomorrow to deal with her stuff and *bonus* haul her part of the massive amount of trash to the curb.  Woo. 

Roommate Free....sorta

Well its finally happened.  The hubs and I are officially the only ones who live in our house.  It's a little weird to be honest.  Well, and it hasn't totally happened.  The roomie moved 90% of her stuff out on Friday, but is coming back today for the last 10% and to clean the basement before leaving her key. 
I'm about to go off on a "yay she's gone" moment but I want to preface it with this: she and I have been friends for years, and I love her dearly.  It is just time for us to not have anyone else in our house and I'm really excited to come into this phase.
So what's so great about not having a roommate?  Well let me just tell you. 
~We get to use all the cabinet space in our kitchen.  First thing I did on Friday when I got home from work was re-organize the kitchen cabinets and space out our food.  (No pics but I'll get one soon, I need to finish cleaning up the rest of the kitchen too).  Part of the 10% she hasn't taken yet is her food from the cabinets/fridge/freezer so hopefully I'll get to finish the re-org soon.
~We can use our basement, which is about 20 degrees cooler than the rest of the house during the summer.  WINNING.  The plan is to move one of the upstairs couches down there this week and get another TV down there too so we can not sweat to death before my cheap butt turns on the AC.
~It's not awkward to use the additional full freezer and fridge in the garage for our food.  It was always a bit weird walking through her space to get to the garage, so we didn't really do it (unless we had to do laundry, and you'd be amazed at how long we can go w out doing laundry....).  BUT NOW WE CAN.  As a result we went on a Sam's Club shopping spree yesterday and stocked up on a bunch of things.
~We can park in our driveway, no more parking on the street all the time and having to walk down our super steep driveway to get into the house!
~We can start the process of trying to leave our dog out for short spurts of time while we're gone.  He has a mild severe overwhelming case of separation anxiety and freaks out if he's left out while we're gone.  Now he can freak out and it won't bother anyone.
~We can clean out the back bedroom that has become the dumping ground for everything I don't want to deal with and have it nicely organized in the storage room (formerly the roomies closet).
~Garage sale this year! For the first time since I moved into the house (5 yrs ago) I will finally know what we have and where it is.  I will also know what I don't want to keep and we can get rid of it.  Currently our garage is a jam packed mess.  (Pics to follow) and we want to get it cleaned out so we can actually put both cars in it, especially since we had our first hail storm last night!

Friday Friday Gotta Get Down on Friday.....

I'm currently sitting at my desk rocking out to the "worst song ever"  Judge away if you so choose.
Friday (Rebecca Black)
(Yeah, Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ark)
Oo-ooh-ooh, hoo yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Seven a.m., waking up in the morning
Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs
Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal
Seein’ everything, the time is goin’
Tickin’ on and on, everybody’s rushin’
Gotta get down to the bus stop
Gotta catch my bus, I see my friends (My friends)

Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?
It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, Friday
Gettin’ down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to the weekend

7:45, we’re drivin’ on the highway
Cruisin’ so fast, I want time to fly
Fun, fun, think about fun
You know what it is
I got this, you got this
My friend is by my right, ay
I got this, you got this
Now you know it

Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?
It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, Friday
Gettin’ down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to the weekend

Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)
We-we-we so excited
We so excited
We gonna have a ball today

Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes after … wards
I don’t want this weekend to end

It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, Friday
Gettin’ down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to the weekend
It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, Friday
Gettin’ down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend
http://therockabyereview.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/rebecca-black-friday-lyrics-mp3/