Laundry Room Makeover || Episode 11 || Pipes as Shinny as a New Penny

I got my pipes to shine like a brand new penny. WOW!

Thanks for watching!

Sophia.

Spring Decor || 2018 ||

Here is the decor for Spring 2018. I am only decorating in the dining room this year and still need to do the $5 Goodwill Challenge to complete the look. I hope you like it!

Sophia.

Week-In-Review - March 23, 2018

Hello everyone,

Thank you for stopping by to check the latest happenings in our crazy busy lives. Here is a recap on the past week, filled with excitement and great results.

Saturday

Saturday morning was for pampering and lots of attempts at denying my age. I tried one of the masks Denise (DeeLovelyLife) sent me (L'Oreal Purify and Marify Green Clay Mask). It actually was really good. It felt very cool at first and dried to a crust but did not flake or pull my skin. I recommend it!

Never afraid of looking utterly ridiculous!

I was asked about the nail polish I have been wearing in the last few videos: it is OPI in Not So Bora Bora-ing Pink. I really like it. It is a soft pink with a hint of opalescent sheen. Not over the top glitter or Unicorn dust on this one!

At this point I just don't know what to do with my nails anymore, they are a complete mess. Brittle, splitting, dry, breaking in vertical lines. I made the mistake a few weeks back to get a back to back gel manicure. My manicurist used the electric rotary file to prep my nails. All she did really was remove several layers of nail bed. And for what? Pretty nails for 2 weeks followed by six months of disaster! Don't do it. Seriously, just don't do it. 

Then I spent the day building a frame for the laundry room windows. (You can watch the video HERE).

I can't say it is the best job I could have done. I just wanted to get this project out of the way. I must admit I am more interested in making the laundry room more pleasant to use for either ourselves or guests. I always found myself awfully embarrassed when people would go and use the toilet down there. Mold, peeling paint, concrete floor, duct tape fix'it'fast...etc. The way I look at it now, while it is still obviously not a finished room, at least it's not a dungeon you can't wait to get out of. 

Anyway, there was no movie night on Saturday because we had to wait for a certain someone to return home. 

Edward returned from his trip to Washington DC. This was a class trip reserved for his music group/band/choir. Interestingly, though not surprising, every single one of them not only did behave but when provided with a free day on Friday, spent it browsing the Museums. To be honest, there is not a lot of shopping to be done in DC (unless you go to Georgetown). 

Edward and his group of friends landed at the Newseum and the Smithsonian American History  where they spent most if their time browsing the WWI and Cold War rooms. 

So he returned exhausted but with great memories. On their last day, following their music clinics, they visited the National Aquarium in Baltimore, MD. where he found this cute collectible glass Dolphin (it glows in the dark too!) 

I count my blessings each and everyday. It is hard to raise kids in today's world. They are pulled in all sorts of directions, faced with conflicts and societal pressures like no other generation before them. I am proud of my boys. 

Sunday

More delusional and grandiose planning ahead! But the kitchen is clean!

We are still doing the rounds of the local R.C Churches during Lent. Sunday service was at Our Lady of The Lake in Verona, NJ. 

Another interesting sermon about the grain of wheat which much die in order to give life again. A parable for the Resurrection. It made me think of bad habits which must die in order for new habits to stick. I am not there, probably stuck between life and death actually. I always knew I was some sort of Zombie anyway. Definitely what I look like on Monday mornings, if you ask Scott!

                     

I finished my window frame with painting and making curtains out of drop cloth. (You can watch the video HERE).

I know it's not much. I am just trying to channel a farmhouse look and eliminate the dungeon feel of what will always be an unfinished part of the house. 

Sunday night was spent quilting! I am currently working on three projects. Two are from the quilt along from Quilt Along with Pat Sloan. They are free patterns. This one is called In the Summer Time. This is the one quilt I am making for my sister.

This quilt runs for 20 weeks (One block per week). I am actually behind two blocks at the moment and plan on catching up this coming weekend. 

Tuesday

We prepared ourselves for yet another huge Nor'Easter. So of course I made soup! This is another version of the Negative Calorie Soup (My video recipe is HERE). What it means is that it takes more calories to burn and digest the soup than the actual caloric value of the soup itself.

 

The exciting news was that Edward had his State Concert Band Competition and his band won Gold (again)! We are Princeton bound for the NJ Concert Gala sometimes in May. This is one of their performances:

Wednesday

So we did get a big snow storm - We all had a snow day and stayed inside puttering around. Overall, 11 inches of wet heavy snow was dumped on us (not as bad as the last storm which yielded 18 in.). And the following day it was back to normal with temperatures in the upper 40's.  Go figure! By Friday, most of it had melted away. 

I spent my snow day quilting  and catching up with the red quilt I am also gifting (I can't tell you who the recipient is just yet).

I used to scrapbook a lot and have not done it in a long time. I guess due to the mountain of slides, negatives, photos on paper or digital I have to sort through. Another long overdue project of mine. Quilting gives me immediate results. I am nowhere near being a pro or even to be considered good at it. At least I don't see myself there yet. But I do find Quilting very therapeutic. It provides the "me" time I longed for and need. 

So that just wraps it up for the week. It was indeed busy.

And now for more great news! On Monday we are expecting a truck to arrive at the house and deliver more family heirloom and furniture from grandparents three times removed (think 1860s). We are super excited and I can't wait to show you the new family treasures!

Thank you for spending the time to read about our week. I hope you continue to find these weekly updates interesting.

This blog contains affiliate links through Amazon as well as google adsense. This is how I support my blog and youtube channel.

Laundry Room Makeover || Episode 9 || Can I fix Ugly? ||

Here is a new installment in my Laundry Room Makeover. 

I made frames from my two - really ugly windows. Let's see if this works!

Thank you for watching!



Sophia

Week-In-Review - Week of March 16, 2018

Hi everyone,

I have not written on this blog in so long, I almost forgot how to do it! 

I thought it would be interesting to share a little bit more of our New Jersey activities in a written and photographic format. There is a lot more going on behind the scenes and not all of it could fit in a vlog.  I will try my very best to publish a new post every Friday night for the previous week (Saturday to Friday). Some may be just the mundane stuff going on in every household, others may be far more interesting (hopefully). 
Thank you for sharing these times with us. I hope you enjoy this and the upcoming blogs. 

I also want to thank everyone who has commented on my YouTube Channel. On some days I receive over 500 new comments. It is hard to keep up and acknowledge everyone. So from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and continue to encourage my ever so insane endeavors. 

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I am pretty sure you have all figured out by now that I am unbelievably busy. Being a natural born scattered brain does not help either. Every Sunday night I go through this grandiose phase whereby I write down all the stuff I need to accomplish for the upcoming week. They call it planning, I call it grandiose wishful thinking.
Lately I have been using my Filofax  Personal Size Malden in Ochre which was a Happy Mail gift from Tara. I use the SewMuchCrafting Week on Two Pages inserts. I like them because they allow me to not just plan but also track habits and routines I still struggle to establish. 

Filofax Malden - Personal Size 

This week - in my SewMuchCrafting inserts - so behind everything!

I can't say I am always on point with all my delusions regarding weekly accomplishments. Some weeks are better than others and this week, thus far, has been pretty insane.

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Saturday 

Saturdays tend to be pretty quiet around here. I usually go through the entire kitchen and set it back to zero on that day. I pick Saturday for a thorough cleaning because we usually eat leftovers from Friday Takeout as our lunch, and spend our Saturday night at a friend's house for Movie Night.  The kitchen stays clean for that 24 hour. That's it. After that, you guessed it, it is chaos again. 
I usually do my errands on that day as well. Since I have resumed working on my Laundry Room Makeover, I had to go to the Home Depot for a few supplies. 

And finished my run with a stop to my local Thrift Shop where these two Primitive prints were scored at a mere $3.

By 11 am , I was ready to make our Brunch - a mushroom and leeks omelette. Thumbs up from Scott.

 

Unlike me, Scott is aging pretty well, if I dare say so myself.

                                                  

And that is when I decided to make a huge batch of meatloaf because let's face it, when one is prone to procrastination, making meatloaf  on a Saturday afternoon (what I have no business doing), seems to be a much more appealing task than working in the laundry room refitting a dryer vent (what I should really be doing) .

Look who's helping!

I prefer to make meatloaf muffins, they are easier to freeze and can be
substituted for meatballs too.

Especially if it involves re-cleaning the entire kitchen. I will say it again: No Brain!

That was a lot of dishes.

And finally I managed some work in the laundry room. (You can watch the video HERE).

We take turns for movie night, it was Edward's turn to pick the movie and so we watched Thunderdome. I fell asleep. Not for anything, they should have left that series alone after the first Road Warrior. Just my opinion. But I like the idea that he keeps picking "vintage" movies as his choices - except for that one time when he picked The Meaning of Life. That was just weird.

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Sunday 

For lent, my friend and I make the rounds of the various churches in our area. It's not really a tradition, it something we like to do. I find it interesting to check out what other parishes are up to. One gets a fresh look at things, it's not same all same all, if you know what I mean.
This week, we picked St. Aloysius in Caldwell, NJ. It is one of the oldest parishes in our neck of the woods, sitting right next to President Grover Cleveland's birthplace. Check out all the snow!

President Grover Cleveland's Birthplace. Caldwell, NJ

St. Aloysius R.C. Church Caldwell, NJ

It was an interesting sermon about our need to stop looking at the flaws in others and spending the Lent season looking for assets and positive attributes instead. It is true we spend a lot of time complaining. For that reason alone, my FB page is pretty much only like minded people or things I really care about. I can no longer invest myself in the negativity of others. It is a time suck and quite frankly, I have a hard time changing myself so why waste what I have left trying to change others. 

Then it was back to the Laundry room again where I tiled my hideous floor and made it look semi-presentable for the horde of teenagers descending to the video game dungeon on a regular. (You can watch that video HERE).

                  

 

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Tuesday/Wednesday 

Rough evenings at the house. 
Tuesday:  Finding the elusive snow pants for William's Wednesday Ski Trip - turned out his old ones no longer fit - I had to rush to the Ski Barn before closing.
Wednesday: Packing for Edward's Class trip.
Every year his band goes on a trip, last year he went to Disney World, this year the school picked D.C.  I would really like to be a chaperone on one of those trips - hidden agenda here - taking good pictures of Edward since his selfies are getting ridiculous and I know he does it on purpose too! 

I pack each daily outfit into a separate plastic bag - If you think I am terrible at
color coordination, you should see Edward's!

Meanwhile, William returned from his Team Building ski trip and all he had to say was "meh".

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Thursday 

Edward left by bus. He remembered to pack his phone charger, but not his comb. Typical. 

So the house will be pretty quiet for the next few days and William is not complaining. I am getting a barrage of pictures from various tourist sites with a few selfies scattered here and there. But, let me ask you something, when your teenager is on a trip away from home and you ask questions, does he answer with one word answer? I demonstrate:

Me: Ed, what's up? What are you guys doing? Where are you right now? Did you get to Lincoln Memorial yet?
Ed: Good
Ed: No

Me: Hmmm, sounds awesome dude! What did you have for dinner? How was the food at the Kennedy Center?
Ed: Swordfish
Ed: Good

Anyway, he is having a blast and I will hear all about it when he returns (One can only hope).

In the meantime, I had this crazy idea that maybe it is time for us to have a cat again. You may recall we lost our Vesper last year. It's been tough on us, especially Scott, but let's be honest, he will NEVER admit it. So, I have been doing the rounds of the local shelters...I am not looking for a cat in particular, I am waiting for a cat to chose me. Cat people, you know what I mean. Here are two I spotted at the Jersey City Liberty Humane Society (Kudos to the shelter, it is actually very well kept).


                   

These two are available for adoption if you are interested and live in the area. The one on the left is a sweetheart. The one on the right is friendly but not a lap cat. 

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Friday

We are ordering out. Probably pizza. I stopped by my P.O Box and as always was overwhelmed with all your thoughtfulness and kind attentions. 

These pampering goodies are from Denise. Her YouTube Channel is one to check out if you have not done so already (DeeLovelyLife). There are a few YouTubers I look forward to watch. Denise is one of them. I think she is a class act. 
It never crossed my mind when I started a YouTube channel that folks would respond with such warmth and genuine kindness. The journey has been quite amazing and I have met a lot of wonderful people, some of them I now call my friends. Thank you Denise. 

Goodies from Denise @ Deelovelylife

The beautiful quilted pot holder, tea mug rug and scissor pouch are from Marlene. Handmade no less. I love them, they are beautifully made and quite frankly put me to shame. Thank you Marlene.

Look at this work!

So that's about it for this week. I am nowhere near where I want to be and still have a lot to cross out on my to-do list. I have more projects going in the Laundry Room this week end. Hopefully I will have time to do some quilting. Next week will probably be just as busy!

Thank you for spending the time to read this blog and getting to know us a bit more.
I hope you have enjoyed browsing through the pictures as well.

Until next week, be well, be kind, be you!

This blog contains affiliate links as well as Google Adsense advertisement. This is how I support my channel and my blog.