NO TIME!

This is a post to say that I KNOW I really need to catch up... but I have NO TIME!!!!! I will try to be back SOON!!!!!

Master, before and afters

Before

And after!

I textured and painted the walls, made the drapes, and made the duvet cover and bed skirt and pillows. I don't love the wreath. It worked well in Boise when we had a vaulted ceiling in our bedroom but here, it's too low. I'm going to make an upholstered headboard at some point but this will work for now.

I LOVE this linen fabric I found for the drapes!

Close up of the pillows. (I'm going to put some decorative buttons on the tabs of the back pillows, but haven't found the right ones yet.

And this is the big blank wall in the room. Any ideas on what I can do with it? I'm at a total loss.

Ok, I'm ready...

...ready to start couponing that is. I have friends who find incredible deals and while I didn't want to take the time to do it and organize all of those coupons and such, I'm really trying to do my part to help us get some of these student loans paid down.

So, give me all of your tricks and tips! Anyone do this regularly? Where do I start!?

And for another quick update, I'm so excited to announce... I got a vinyl cutter!!! Yay! Again, keeping with the theme of trying to get us out of debt. :-) So, if anyone needs anything, or knows of those who do, let me know! I'm going to get a blog up soon of my projects and what is available but I haven't had time for that lately. Why you ask, well, the decided to make me Primary President! That's right. Crazy! We had been here for 2 weeks when they put me into cub scouts. Then, 3 weeks later, they put me in as 1st counselor in the primary presidency. Then, our Stake decided to take our pres. to the Stake Young Women's so they reorganized us again and I got to take the Pres. spot. I had been here for just under 3 months and our primary program was the NEXT WEEK! (that was 2 days ago) It went really well considering and I'm glad it's over. This is going to be challenging but really fun I think. Any tips on that would be great too. :-)

My cute Jaron

Every day after lunch, Jaron takes a nap and he always goes down really well. Today, I was washing off his hands and face and I said, "Guess what time it is!" Jaron looked at me and said, "ummmmmm, 10 o'clock." LOL Remember, he isn't even 2.5 yet. It was so cute. I said, "no, it's nap time." And he said, "nooooo, it's 10 o'clock." And then gave me a big grin. Oh it was adorable.

More from Megan

I've been painting my master bedroom and Megan sits on the bed and talks to me as I go. Here was our conversation just a few minutes ago. :-)

Megan: "Mom, how do you make paint?"

Mom: "I don't make it, I go to the store and buy it."

Megan: "How do they make paint?"

Mom: "They mix some stuff together and add color and you have paint."

Megan: "You wanna know how they make it?"

Mom: "Sure."

Megan: "First they take some vinegar, then they add paint sauce, then they add color and then it's paint. Now do you know how to make it, since I told you?"

Mom: "Yup. Thanks Meg."

:-P

Oh the joys of buying an old house... FLOOD!

Last week we had a ton of fun at our local street festival, only to come home to a water heater that went out and had been continuously dumping hot water all over our basement. Lovely. We got it turned off and as much water sucked out with our shop vac (thank you for the Christmas gift honey!) and the next day the disaster relief people showed up and set up a dehumidifier and 6 fans that proceeded to create a wind tunnel in our basement for the next 4 days.

It's amazing what we've learned through all of this:

Lesson 1 ~ Carpet in the family room and vinyl in the storage room now needs to be replaced

Lesson 2 ~ $1000 homeowners insurance deductible sounds great to reduce your monthly premium but hurts when you have to make a claim

Lesson 3 ~ Homeowners insurance won't cover a broken down water heater but will cover the damages it causes

Lesson 4 ~ Home warrantee that came with the house won't cover damages but will cover a new water heater

Lesson 5 ~ Whoever installed the old water heater had no clue what they were doing and didn't do it up to code so we have had carbon monoxide leaking into our home every time the water heater fired up. That's right, the DEADLY poisonous carbon monoxide.

So, all in all, this was a HUGE blessing that we had this flood. We now have a working water heater that is SAFE and won't cause serious harm or DEATH. We are also picking out new flooring for our basement and we get to have the "cat" smell GONE! Yay!

I'm tired. :-)