Fall tights

My dream fall outfit includes the latest leg wear, tights and leggings. I have owned tights for a while but I never seem to make it out the door with them on. I never seem to have exactly what I need for the outfit to look right. Well I think I have finally found the perfect things to wear with tights...

The second outfit needs to be worn with black tights but you get the idea. The blue silk skirt was a steal from J Crew for only $10 a few months ago.

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I finally figured out that the skirt or dress needs to be above the knee or tailored to fit perfectly at the skinniest part of your leg. I have two simple cotton dresses from J Crew that I love but my husband never liked. I finally realized they hit the thickest part of my leg right at my calf and that's why he didn't like them, they didn't fit correctly. Last week I took them to a new tailor and she blew me away with her knowledge. After the hems were pinned my legs looked half the size! I can't wait to put them on with tights and boots.

Greetings from the Colorado Blizzard

I was suppose to be speaking tonight for the first time at Young Life club...

Instead we are stuck in the Colorado Blizzard of 2009. We have had a great day together so far!

This is what the snow looked like at 9 AM and it hasn't stopped snowing. Day's like this are amazing once you accept that you aren't going anywhere.

We did get a lot done though! We took all of our DVDs out of their cases and put them all alphabetically into sleeves. We have over 500 DVDs, enough to fill over 3 big cases. Most of them my husband had before we got married. Don't worry we recycled the cases.

My husband pulled out Ridley's Halloween costume.

We also watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown while we enjoyed chili that had been stewing all day!

Even Ridley deserves a little bowl of chili on a day like this.

Now we are curled up on the couch watching Amityville Horror and enjoying a little something different...

Sweet and salty! I like it but my hubby hated it, that's ok I hate horror movies and remind him every time something gory comes on.

Cleaning Inspiration

What did I do this Friday evening when my husband was busy at the fire house?

My last Friday as a 25 year old?

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I watched my neighbors little two year old.

Exciting right?

I actually love little kids and had a fun time. It also inspired me to make a few changes at my home. Her place was absolutely immaculate, there was no clutter or any hints of dirt.

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I brought the little boy over to my house and really realized even though my place was in order and completely organized it was dirtier than hers. I jumped online for cleaning inspiration, where else than Martha Stewart? I found these great cleaning checklists that have it broken into daily, weekly, monthly and seasonally. Click here to see them. I printed up all that applied and I plan on trying to follow them for a minimum of a month.

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Don't fear they really aren't too daunting especially after I spend way too much on new carpet. The biggest daily one will be sweeping my floor nightly. Luckily I have my shark vacuum, the best home buy I have made!

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Do you clean with lists like these?

Please leave me your cleaning tips you use!

Presents!

I may have an event coming up this week that requires a present. I am not really embracing this event this year, I would like to skip the day if possible.

Hubby won't let this happen, He has been working very hard to build me this...

After it is stained it will look like the right one of these...

He is actually making me two of them, customized to replace the dvd racks in our living room. The West Elm ones were way too tall for where we wanted them, it also saved us about $360...

The dvd cases will be disposed of and the dvds will be finding a new home in dvd sleeves. I can't wait to pull things out of storage and find a new home for them on my new shelves. I think they will be challenging to fill correctly but they will look great when done!

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We now have a rug in this room, it's in a photo in a recent post, many of you asked where it was from. I got it at Target, they still have them online and in stores.

Our house all in order now but I am totally sick. I have so much to do including send a reader an adorable letter but I can't seem to get anything done in this state. I slept 11 hours last night and it still wasn't enough. Yuck.

Lots of work

I know I have been gone for a few days without posting. This is what I have been busy doing...

We moved all of our furniture and things that were on the carpet and moved it into the kitchen, bathrooms or garage basically anywhere with tile or hardwood. We then tore up and removed all of the carpet and pad and all of the staples. Whoever installed the pad went a little staple crazy. This is only about a third of what we removed.

After two days of work we were ready for the carpet installers. We weren't too sure how long the install process would take so we just hung out for the entire time. By then end of it I was going crazy in the little bit of clear space in our kitchen. I also didn't sleep well the night before so all I wanted was a nap...

All the hard work was worth it though!

We now have beautiful clean stain free carpet!! I can't even tell you how bad our carpet was before. The rug above was purchased to cover some of the stains. I was never sure when we had people over whether to apologize for the stains or just pretend that they weren't there. The only downside is I am not too fond of the vacuum lines or footprints that the new carpet shows.

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We finally have our place 100% in order! It has taken 4 years and tons of time but everything has finally been gone through and organized. Just typing it sounds so much easier to accomplish than it actually was. Hopefully we will be able to keep it picked up at all times!

boys and their toys

I am guessing that every one of you have an item that was brought into your marriage/relationship that your significant other just wouldn't get rid of.

Let me introduce you to mine...

His name is Master Shake, yes he is a stuffed animal of a milk shake.

Absolutely ridiculous in my book. He is part of a cartoon trio who's show is called Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

I can handle most silly boy things. He may have a $100 light saber that is pretty dang realistic and I understand why he likes that, he grew up with it. I however do not understand this stuffed animal and why every time I try to get rid of it he absolutely refuses to let me. His biggest reason is he wants to keep it because his brother gave it to him. I guarantee that his brother will give him many more stupid gifts in this lifetime so why not get rid of this one?

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Well with all the cleaning and organizing going on Master Shake never had a chance. He made the trip to Goodwill today! My husband had a pretty good idea I was up to something when we left the house. I finally showed him the source of my happiness as we pulled up to drop of the trunk full of stuff at Goodwill. He never made it back into the car though!!

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What item does your husband/boyfriend refuse to get rid of?

Bye Bye Summer, Hello Winter

I have spent the last 2 full days organizing our home and I am so happy to report it is 99% of the way there. (It only took 4 years.) My first day was filled with packing away the summer stuff and get out the winter gear. I have a ton of summer stuff so it really wasn't an easy task. I was determined to finish before I went to bed though.

I started by taking out all of the summer items and laying them on my bed.

I got out the winter gear that was hidden in multiple different storage places around the house and put it where the summer items were.

There was one pair of shoes I unpacked that I had forgotten about!

That was a great surprise to come across. They are the giraffe ones on the shelf!

I got my extra closet basket's all in order and I also found uses for the ones I had not used yet, they are filled with winter sweaters! I came across the blue and green baskets on a great sale and plan on one day using them for a kids room!

My last step of the day was to pack away all the summer items in the now empty boxes that the winter clothes once filled.

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I may have to show you tomorrow the ridicules amounts of storage in our guest room that is such a blessing to have but the biggest pain to organize. It took an entire day and I have no pictures yet so it will have to be a new post.