Road Trip!

Nothing says summer better than a good road trip. Some snacks, a cooler full of soda and a few mixed tap . . . errr, an ipod loaded up with some great songs. Ben and I have been trying to come up with a few fun places to head off to this summer to introduce Miss J to the joys of hours on end in the car.

This little tool on TripAdvisor is a great place to find ideas for a road trip. Just plug in your area code or city and select a full, half or quarter tank of gas.

Happy traveling!

Magenta is that you?

There are so many other things I should be doing with my time but I can't stop snickering over this outfit. And yes, I did indeed pause the tv and proceed to take a picture of the tv screen - oh DVR, how I love thee . . .

Ok, so what in the world is she wearing? Was there not one crew member that was kind enough to pull her over and whisper that perhaps the alien look was a bit over the top? Or maybe Lady GaGa was her guest stylist for the day - although if that was the case, I doubt she would have been wearing jeans, or pants for that matter. And of course she'd need to be carrying an open umbrella in the house.


I think I figured it out though. During filming breaks, the entire crew was playing "Rocky Horror Picture Show"! The host was obviously playing the roll of Magenta.


"It's just a jump to the left. And then a step to the right . . ."

Rub-on magic

I snagged these little metal containers at Hobby Lobby yesterday. Half off - yeah Hobby Lobby! If you look close, they say "Coffee" and "Sugar". Of course the bottom said "not food safe" so these two are for decorative purposes only. They'll probably end up holding pens and a little notepad.


So since I don't have a need for faux coffee and sugar in the living room, I turned them around. Still cute but they're needing a little something. Que the scrapbook rub-ons . . .


And voila! How cute is that little tin now? All dressed up with a "M" for our last name. Now I'm thinking the larger one needs a number on it. Maybe our house number. Or a "3" since there's three of us.

If you haven't used rub-ons, they're so easy to use and come in hundreds of styles, colors and sizes. The only trick is making sure that you rub them long enough to transfer the whole image. Good lighting and looking at it on at angle can help you see where the rub-on has seperated from the backing paper. Easy, peasy :)

What to do with the foyer

To say it's not very welcoming would be an understatement. I've thought about painting the inside of the front door black to dress it up some. There's something about black doors that makes the space seem so warm and inviting. At the very least, the door is screaming for a wreath.

The hall to the guest bath and the laundry room is right off the foyer, you can see the entry there on the left side. Since there's no room in the actual foyer for a table, I found this tiny piece at HomeGoods to serve as our landing space for keys, the mail, cell phones, etc. Don't look to close at the bottom shelf, if you do, you'll notice that the reason this little table was so cheap is because the bottom shelf is put on backwards. The basket hides that little flaw just fine though. And it's a great spot for storing things that need to go out to the car with us.

The white, square bowl holds our keys and the vase will get dressed up with some flowers from the yard. Until they start blooming, I might have to snag some branches off of our flowering shrubs. And there's a deep drawer that's already storing our sunscreen, sun glasses and other daily use items.

This sums it all up

I was indulging Miss J's current obsession with Taylor Swift this weekend and one of her songs includes the line "I don't know how it gets better than this."

Oh, that is so perfect for right now. Sure we have the daily drama of medical bills (thank goodness for insurance), having a hundred things on the to do list and just the general drama of life but all and all, it's all so good right now. We've got a roof over our head, enough to feed the family, Ben's getting stronger every day and Miss J seems to be overcoming the issues that cropped up during Ben's transplant and recovery.

Yeah, I don't know how it gets better than this :)

It's green, it's modern and I think the Jetsons would be right at home

How cool is this? Clayton Homes has introduced the i-house. A very modern take on the traditional manufactured home.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090506/ap_on_re_us/us_clayton_i_house

Score!

Ben and I have been wanting to redo our bedroom for about a year. Ok, technically it's more me that's interested in this project - Ben doesn't much care what a bedroom looks like, if left up to him, we'd probably be sleeping on an air mattress with a Yankees bedspread and crates for nightstands. I'm joking . . . kind of . . . yeah, not really ;)

Today, I wandered in to Bed, Bath and Beyond and found this Nicole Miller bedspread. It's the perfect grey color and the best part is it was on clearence. It's even the right size for our king size mattress that's apparently deeper than a normal king. Add in my 20% off coupon and I got a steal. Oh, it's even machine washable and will actually fit in our washer. Yahoo!

Then since I was so inspired, I had to stop by Lowe's and get a paint sample. I've got the paint color narrowed down to two choices. Both are silvery, grey colors. We have black nightstands and a black dresser. The tv has a silver frame and the lamps are also silver. The plan is silver, grey and black with another color to punch it up. I'm thinking an apple green color for summer and then maybe a purple for winter. I'd keep the color to a pillow or two and a couple of inexpensive accessories. I'm also going to do some black and white prints on the walls. I want something very relaxing and calm. It seems like our bedroom has become a storage area and a forgotten space. How sad is that?

Bye, bye messy, unloved bedroom. Hello pretty, lux space :)