Walmart Grand Opening!

Sounds great huh? Walmart out here in BFE is great. Not great enough that we get dressed in our Sunday best for, but still a big deal.

So off me and the two girls went to check out the new Walmart. We wandered around like a bunch of slackjawed yokels checking out where everything was, making lunch out of the free samples, seeing where the bathrooms are..... the usual. Then we wandered to the front where the "incident" occurred. This is not a pretty story.

I was pushing the cart, the 13 year old is texting everyone she can as fast as she can on my cell phone and Boss Hogg is in the cart sucking her finger with Binky the Blanket. She goes no where without it. I looked away for a sec and then came the scream. You know one of those shrill screams that only little girls can do.

"MOMMY! DON'T LET THE TRUNKIE GET ME!"

A trunkie is a twinkie. I don't know why she can't call it a twinkie.

But there it is a giant walking twinkie. Really just the low man on the Walmart totem pole stuffed in a smelly costume. Scary to her to say the least. Of course the poor twinkie with the cowboy hat tries to make up for scaring her by walking over with one of the creme filled log cakes in his hand.

I would have definitely given her a 10 for her catapult onto my head from the cart if I was not the landing zone. So there it is. Me flailing around with a screaming 2 year old on my face being followed by a ginormous twinkie! The 13 year old did stop texting long enough to snap our pic on my phone so she could send it to all her friends.

Thank God! She now has proof of what an idiot her mom is. And all her friends do too.

I did manage to free myself from the death grip on my face to find we had drawn quite a crowd. I even knew some people too. I swear if I see another twinkie person coming towards me I will kick him in his creamy filling!

I am hoping though that maybe the grand opening of the Meijer won't be as eventful so maybe I can go there without shame.

I did get this beauty today though. I needed something to console my hurt feelings.

It now sits here....

I am looking for a couple of small vintage cookbooks to go with it.

It seems I have this obsession with scales lately. I guess my DH should be glad it is not with measuring sticks!

I did get the rest of the supplies to make the curtains though. I also picked up some really cheap (1.00) kitchen towels that I think I have figured out a way to dress up.

I think I should stay away from the new Walmart tomorrow and work on that stuff.

Sneak Peek!

You ladies have been so sweet and supportive on my kitchen I thought I would give you a sneak peek of it.

So without further ado....

I dug up this bookcase out of the basement and gave it a new paint job and some distressing for all my cookbooks...

...and of course the countertops that I painted. The urethane is not cured for 72 hours so I can't put things on them yet. All of the beadboard is up and painted too.

A close up of the new backsplash and a couple more piggies. There is another piece of trim that goes around the top and sides but I am going to have to wait for Jeff to come home. He has a wet saw somewhere and I need it to finish it.

The eating area with the table I found awhile ago and bench. There is also a trim piece that is going across the top of all the beadboard. I was getting a little tired.

These jars sit on the counter. I did a small patch of chalkboard paint so I could mark them. I am so tired of having my oldest fill the sugar bowl with flour!

So that is it for today. Tomorrow I plan on doing the window treatments. I thought I would get to them today, but no luck! The kitchen looks soooo much bigger and cleaner now. I actually can't wait to cook in here!

P.S. I am posting this at The Nester's Risk Taking Party. I chose this post since it was something that I did to the kitchen while my husband was out of town for the week. I had talked about painting the countertops and he thought it would look like crap. The whole time that I was doing this I was afraid that I would screw something up and make him angry about it. Thank goodness he loved it!

The Kitchen Remodel Story

Today, I ventured across great lands to obtain wisdom from the very wise Crystal. The almighty color seer told me to seek guidance from Nomadic Desert.

(Battled traffic on M59 to go to Sherwin Williams)

We went to great heights to complete the Nomadic Desert.

We divulged in a bit of Caviar on the way.

But time was ticking away

and we needed to get things buttoned up.

We spent too much time in a travertine

and beadboard castle.

The journey has been distressing

but the pig has been there for our inspiration.

So, what do you think of the kitchen so far?!

It spoke to me!

So you know my usual whining and crying. Especially about this kitchen. Then I went and ripped off the backsplash, stood back and blinked a few times.

Yup, still looked like a mess.

Lucy! You got some splaining to do!

The reaction I want him and everyone else to have and the one he is going to give me are two totally different things. So I started working on the countertops. That is soon to come with pics. And I am sure that you remember the whole paint saga. So then I went up to Home Depot.

The tile I was going to get was so not what I remembered. Uh-oh. When I explained to the very nice Home Depot guy with the 3 foot braided beard and pierced lip what I had going on he did not look well. He tried to make me feel better cause I am sure that I looked like I was going to cry. I got some tile that was totally different than what I expected. At the register when the girl rang me up the boy, in his infinite wisdom, said "Holy crap Mom! Do you really know what you are doing?" I hitched up my big girl pants and said "Yeah, I think so."

But I have a saving grace. My trump card. Crystal! I love Crystal! I did 70 mph to Sherwin Williams and Crystal. No luck though, they closed at 5! WAAAAAAH!

So defeated I went home. Threw the tile on the kitchen floor and sat down. That in itself is a hard task considering the stove and fridge are in the middle of the floor. And then I looked at my mess....

I pinkie swear that the lights got brighter, and angels were singing! I got it! I know how to fix this mess! I even did the Snoopy dance! All is good and well now! In my mind it is gorgeous. I even got the curtains figured out! That was really stumping me too.

Of course it mean repainting the kitchen..... again! But I am good with that.

And I owe it all to Steamed Milk.

Wink!

P.S. I've never done a p.s. before! I am not a p.s. virgin!

P.S.S. Oops! I was going to say that there are no pics on purpose cause I want you to be surprised or shocked too!

TTFN!

P.S.S.S. I made a whole 105.30 on the garage sale so far. If I can pull this one off I may buy myself a tiara!

Things That Make You Go....

....what the hell was I thinking?????

Uhmm.....

Well....

Yeah, that could be a it of a problem.

Ewwww.....

Would you beleive they just fell off? Actually, they came off quite easily. I now know why when the kids do something stupid that I cannot beleive they say "it was kinda fun". Cause this was. A whole 5 minutes of fun to be immediately followed by an hour of "what the crap"?

Just keep your fingers crossed that I get this fixed before the man comes home.

Maybe he should of left the Harley to entertain myself. I probably would of gotten in less trouble!

Yard Sale Day

Yes, here it is Yard Sale day!

It started with a bang too. I finally got to sleep at 4:45 am only to be wakened at 6 am with the question "Do you want to play with me?" I beleive the answer was "Are you nuts?" Thankfully she fell asleep during my first cup of coffee only to leave me awake. So I woke up everyone else to help drag the stuff out into the side yard. It's nice and shady there and you can see the stuff from the road too.

Get everything out and here come the dark and nasty clouds. Run into the house and find the screen house to set up to keep stuff dry. Get it all set up and start bringing it into the shelter....

It all won't fit.

Plan B turns out to be drag everything AGAIN to the garage and set it up there. Usually just the Harley is allowed in the garage so it is pretty cleared out. The Harley is at our office so "I wouldn't be tempted to go for a ride" while the man is gone. Yeah right! Hop on kids we are taking the Harley today! I wonder if his village knows where he is?

So for the third time we set everything up and it fit! Of course at this time, the skies cleared up, the rain quit and it turned nice.

Nice?! Are you freaking kidding me? It seems that is all the "rain" we are going to get for this weekend. So now we get to spend the weekend in the musty old garage. It even got a free cleaning. We did have 7 customers though. Made a whole $5.00!

And no pictures. I have yet to go to the office and get my camera that he borrowed 4 months ago and never brought back. Maybe while I am there I WILL take the kids for a spin on the Harley.

Just to show him I can....

I CAN'T SLEEP!

I hate it when my husband goes away. I don't know if I can stand 10 days of my "B" not working! Just kidding. Okay, not really. Every little creak and noise and I am awake.

What can you do at 1:48 am?! Nothing that won't wake up kids.

I could paint but am way too lazy to do that. Dragging out all that stuff and then I know halfway through I will get sleepy and not want to clean up so that will be a bigger mess.

I could clean off the counters and get started on that project, but I am starting to second guess that. Yes, I am a chicken. I probably wouldn't be if anything I attempted to do didn't turn out to be such a flop. Y'all need to be up and blogging so I have something to do.

Even my sister is sleeping now. The nerve of her!

My MIL is trying her hardest to get us to buy her house from her so she can go and buy a condo. Her house is just way too big for her now. Well, it always was way too big for them. I would love to buy her house not cause it is my dream house, but to redecorate it. I would love to redo the whole thing. She's tried, but she sucks at decorating more so than me!

Oh well, I guess I am off to do some painting....

Boys Will Be Boys

The man is off to wrestle with bears or something like that in the backwoods of Canada.

He also took my camera! He is very smart and sneaky though cause he waited til he was a ways down the road to call and let me know.

GRRRR!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow is yard sale day!

I did try to prepare for it though. I was again thwarted by the man though. He let me know Sunday that he volunteered me to do all the cooking for the 5 of them.

WHAT?!

Yeah, 1 gallon each of chili, goulash and sausage gravy, 3 doz each brownies and cornbread muffins, 4 doz chocolate chip cookies, 2 roasted pork loins, 1 roasted boar ham, 3 loaves of zucchini bread and 5 doz biscuits later and I am done cooking! Atleast he gave me 3 days notice. I should be thankful for the little things.

Also, it is supposed to rain all weekend. I mean why should it be nice?

The little girl also ripped off the "B" from my laptop keyboard. Makes typing more challenging!

Let the good times roll!

Day 4 of Clean House

Well in typical fashion I have yet to get in a whole day of working on my project. Today was no different. Sadly, we lost one of our teachers, Mrs Murphy, at my son's school last Thursday. Today we went to the funeral home to pay our respects. She was such a nice lady too. Her cancer came back at the end of the school year, but they were hopeful that they had caught it early enough. Also she was responding well to the medication. Both of my kids had her and I knew her since I am on the PTO.

I also had to take the 100lb doofus to get groomed today. She really is dumb. I always expect for some little guy to pop out at some time and say "Hey! Can our village have their idiot back?!" We are walking through the pet store and this little yippy dustball starts barking at her. What does she do? She cowers! For Pete's sake! You are a Great Dane! Act like one! Then she tries to "sneak" a huge honking bone off the shelf. Hello!!!!!!!!!! Try to wrestle that one from her.

I have yet to fix this fiasco...

My MIL called in a panic cause she just had her dining room painted and left the wallpaper border up. My SIL told her she should take it down. So she started to and then panicked that she was doing it wrong. You may wonder why she called me cause she has seen the mess I have made of my own kitchen. Neverless, I went to try to fix it.

But I did get this fat jolly fella for the kitchen! You will need to turn your head sideways cause the dumb puter won't let me rotate the pic. I'm waiting for it's village to call soon also.

Is he not the cutest or what?! His board is supposed to be a blackboard, but it is not. I will outsmart them though cause I have blackboard paint! Haha!

And tomorrow looks like a bust too. I will be cooking for these guys to take food on their trip.

I might have some recipes to share though.....

Why I Should Not Be A Decorator!

So, today is day 3 of Clean House. The hubby left early this morning to go up north with his buddy. What?! It will be 10 days that they will not be able to hang out together! Blah! The humanity! I would not understand cause....

A. I have no girlfriends to hang out with cause I have kids 24/7.

B. I have no time to get away cause I have kids 24/7.

Do you see a pattern evolving here?

So.... me and my BFF's aka my kids, went to the cider mill today. We went to pick stuff. Whatever was in season cause that is the kind of peeps we are. Little did I know they have remodeled the cider mill.

YEAH BABY! They added a winery!!

Woo Hoo!

Unfortunately you cannot stay in the winery and taste test while the urchins are out picking or teasing goats.

Darn It!

So a few tastes of wine and I was off with my happy self to pick raspberries.

I don't know who this fat broad is and why we got a pick of her, but here ya go....

Atleast she is a non smoker!

There is my babies slaving in the raspberry orchards or whatever they are.

We got a whole 3 quarts!

Then home to paint and here is where the story gets sad.

See in my mind things look a whole lot better than in reality. So in my infinite wisdom I bought a gallon of paint only to realize that I like the color my kitchen is NOW.

I like the color in the bathroom, but not in the kitchen. It's too dark in the kitchen. So now the upper part of the kitchen is repainted 3 times only to go back to the original color.

BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH!

So..... now the whole design is getting rethunk!

Please tell me that other people are as undecisive as me and I am not alone in this thinking!

Clean House ~ Day Two or Kill That Dog!

Today was kinda a bust. Okay, it was a bust. The boys got up early to go play paintball.

Why is it that they get up so easily for something like paintball and yet it takes me screaming to get them up otherwise?!

After coming home and regaling us with their tales of bravery in the face of danger, we went to a party. The little one tried out her first act of standing up for herself. We were getting ready to go and she crossed her arms across her chest and told her dad "I am not going anywhere til I go in the dragon's tummy again!" They had a bounce house shaped like a dragon. He leaned over and said "She does know I can just pick her up and carry her to the car right?" Yeah, but good luck with that dude!

We came home to find this....

....and this hole!

SHEBA!!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to kill that dog! My husband said she "got bored". Yeah, I am going to give her bored and not in a good way!

I love my leather couches! Now they are ruined! I just want to cry!

She's off my Christmas card list this year!

Plus..... the hunting trip to Canada is on again! Make up my mind already! He better not change it again or I will kick him in the ankle really really hard!

So the list is on again!

Better get to work!

Clean House ~ Day One

Welcome to the White Farmhouse Clean House!

The first part of the Clean House is to pick an area to clean. Usually they also organize and make gorgeous the space they clean. This space will be done this winter. We are just cleaning and moving out the stuff while it is warm.

The area chose is what I lovingly refer to the dungeon. Complete with spiders and snakes. EWWWWW! If you don't know what to do with something, throw it in the basement.

And did I mention the snakes?!

The basement is what is called a Michigan basement. It's unfinished, has stone walls, a cement floor and an open ceiling.

And snakes.

I don't know why but when we moved here 5 years ago, we just had to bring all the useless garbage to this house. I guess we were fearful about replacing all the old crap with new crap. Or maybe we did not think we had enough useless crap to fill the basement.

Or maybe the snakes needed a place to hide?

Whatever the case, it's down here. Soon to be gone.

I know I am making progress cause the garbage pile is growing.....

....and growing....

....and more floor is showing.

The yard sale pile is getting bigger. I put some of the bigger pieces of furniture on Craigslist. Last night I sold a daybed/trundle bed to a very nice lady for her daughter. I hope they enjoy it!

We do have a glitch in our plans. My husband's hunting trip fell through, so he is going to be here. That may put a damper on what I want to get done. I already told him that he would have to leave next weekend so I can have the garage sale.

For now we are $60 ahead!

Woo Hoo!

My Wish List

Tomorrow starts my own version of "Clean House". Since it is just me doing all the work, I am taking 2 weeks to get it all done. I have a little twist on it too. The upstairs living area is pretty clean, but the basement..... The basement is what is going to be cleaned out and all the garbage thrown out and anything worth 50 cents sold at the yard sale. But first for some fun. The things I want to get done from my "Clean House" episode.

1. New countertops! and something done with that ugly backsplash thingy. This will be quite the project.

2. More storage for staples. Cute storage too. Maybe some labels?!

3. A new color in the kitchen. More of the beadboard. My sister already said she can't be here to see the yellow go, it will be too sad for her. Also a fresh coat of paint on the table and some distressing.

4. A secret texture thingy for the walls in the foyer and living room with also a new paint color. The stairs will stay as they are with a new color on the wall. I LOVE my stairs!

5. New window treatments for the living room, foyer and kitchen. I still like the living room window treatments, me and my sis made them, but they are too dark. I want something lighter in color.

6. Okay now don't you girls get all jealous of my next wish. I know you are going to wonder with something so fabulous as this why in the world would I want anything else. But I guess I am snooty and just spoiled. I want a new entertainment center!

Yes, I really do want to replace this sorry excuse for a TV stand with a real live entertainment center!

7. I love my tables, but I want some plants for under them. Christopher (yes, we are on a first name basis) did it on one episode and it looked so cool. I also want new lamps for here. This may mean bringing the lamps in my bedroom down here and getting new ones for up there.

8. New living room rug.

9. Some new stuff for the mantle. I know, what gorgeous mirror! That is the fault of my MIL. She thought I would like it. She was wrong.

10. A little dressing up with this desk area, which I do like here. It's rather convenient and much nicer than being in the dungeon! A new desk and chair would work nicely. Yes Tara, I am still crying over not getting yours look a like!

11. A paint job for the doors.

and a new treatment for the front door.

I think that is it for right now, besides also giving the hardwoods a good cleaning. I was also going to replace the kitchen floor with a tile floor, but that sounds like a job for Handy Manny!

All this work has made some people very tired!

Oh yeah that reminds me, new pillows for the couch too!

I better get going before I think up more projects!