Five Favorites, and January 2015 Planning Pages

1. My fireplace is finally functional! I think this is my favorite favorite of all- no leaving the best for last going on here. Zeke still has some finishing touches to do- we'll be removing some more of the woodwork (sad, but that's what the insurance company requires), and putting up some great tile, but we can actually use it! And we have been. Every night this week.

2. Once upon a time, I used to take figure skating lessons. I know, I know. I was pretty terrible- I was too scared to actually do any jumps, and my balance was laughable. so spins were pretty much out of the question, but I did skate a lot in high school- I would put in about 5 hours a week at the rink. So when Zeke suggested we go, I was so excited!

Of course, I'm very out of shape and it took a while to get my "ice legs," but it was so much fun.

3. Peppermint hot chocolate in a giraffe mug. Need I say more?

We can just pretend you can't see those cords in the background, kay?

4. My super-creative mother-in-law asked Zeke if he had any old mattresses... and then turned bed springs into Christmas trees. So cute.

5. And (I didn't take a picture of it), but my door of Christmas cards is filling up. I love Christmas cards. There's something so special about getting cards in the mail, and then the glitter and pictures and joy... it's wonderful. Growing up, my folks put all the cards up along the windowsills, and I would spend at least ten minutes a day looking at them. Now that I'm older, I appreciate the little extra burst of color in my house from all the cards, and I take a couple minutes to pray for friends and family a couple times a day. Ah, Christmas cards. I just love 'em. 

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In other news, in printing out my December planning pages last month, I realized that I really jumbled the last few days of December... so I attached those days to my January 2015 daily planning pages for ya. Sorry about that!

January 2015 Daily Planning Pages

A note about printing: These pages are 8.5 x 5.5 sized, so they should fit in Martha Stewart small format binders, A5 size binders, and Classic size binders. You may need to trim a little.

You will want to print these double sided, flipping on the short end of the paper (or top-to-bottom printing). They'll look a little crazy at first (i.e. the pages don't seem like they're in order) but it should work just fine. After printing, cut the pages in half, and three-hole punch the edge you cut.

Oh, and if you're looking for monthly calendars for 2015, my calendar pages are also available as a free printable!

This post is linked up with Jenna at Call Her Happy for 5 Favorites, today. 

Peace- First Floor Edition {pfhr}

I.Love.Our.House. And a fun thing about living at Camp? Our home has a name. Peace. My home is called Peace. I posted some pictures of the second floor, but we really spend more time on the first floor.

{Pretty}

Doubly pretty here. I love the pretty wood that's all over the downstairs living room. And! This is my favorite of all of Zeke's grandma's paintings- originally, it was hanging in his bedroom in his folks' house, and I told him that I really loved it (even before we got married).

I don't know why I love this trunk so much, but I do. I keep blankets and Zeke's many, many electronic massage implements in here. And no, I don't know what the 7-9 means.

 

{Funny}

So, sometimes Camp asks Zeke to get rid of old, broken, orange pleather futons. And sometimes, Zeke decides to fix it and bring it home because it obviously belongs in our house. In all it's orange pleather goodness. Then, when he finds matching pleather chairs that someone is trying to get rid of at a garage sale... well, we obviously had to have them.

{Happy}

This is my second kitchen. My Italian grandmother would be proud. Peace has been used by more than one group- one family stays upstairs, one stays downstairs- although Peace hasn't been used by camper groups in about 10 years and we've used it for staff housing instead. We use the downstairs kitchen for a snack bar, mostly- popcorn, pop... you get the idea.

The downstairs bathroom is bright teal, and has a bathtub. I love bathtubs. And, as an added bonus, Zeke has recently discovered that he can rig up a series of mirrors so I can see the TV while I'm in the tub. Taaa daaaa!

{Real}

 

Super real, guys. We're tearing apart one of the two downstairs bedrooms. It was a project I started-- all I wanted to do was paint it! How was I to know that the wallpaper was directly on top of particle board that was warped and needed to be replaced? It's a much bigger project than I was anticipating, to say the least. So now, the other bedroom is being used as major storage... apparently also for a snowboard, teddy bears, helmets, and random quarts of oil. 

We are blessed!


Edited to Include: Soo... I forgot to tell you that I'm linking up today with Like Mother, Like Daughter! And, because my head's apparently not screwed on straight, it's supposed to be Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real. Well, it's reasonably correct, right? = )

{Five Faves/7QT} Peace- Second Floor Edition

Zeke and I have lived in our current home for almost a year now. Our other place was much smaller, but I did take like, 90 million pictures of it because I'm sentimental and it was our first home as a married couple. (Awwww).

And then we moved into this home, literally across the parking lot from the other, and I've taken, like, no pictures... which is a total shame because I.Love.Our.House. And a fun thing about living at Camp? Our home has a name. Peace. My home is called Peace.

Here are six (I compromised) things I love about the second floor of Peace.

The second floor of my home was actually the first floor of a lake house about 60 years ago or so. It was donated to Camp, and Camp built a bottom floor and put the lake house on top. Crazy, right? Anyway. The second floor is over a hundred years old (whereas our first floor is only 60 years old).

And we have a (not-up-to-code-so-we-can't-use-it-yet) fireplace! With a real live mantle! Love.

The upstairs bathroom is huge. It has a built-in cupboard (on the left there) a shower (out of the picture, on the right). See the door in the bathroom? Yeah. Because it was a lake house. It's handy to have a door to the outside when you're right on a lake. And Zeke's swim trunks on the hamper? I don't even know.

The door handles on the second floor all look like this. Someday I'd like to change the pulls on the kitchen cabinets to match- they are expensive! But I love these.

Updated window treatments! They're so fancy. You just pull them down or push them up- no annoying pull strings involved. I hate those pull strings on blinds. I always get them horribly tangled.

The walls in the living/dining room have several of these cut outs- so cute. And perfect for displaying all my rocks. (Zeke would be rolling his eyes right about now).

And the newest addition to this hundred-year old part of my home? DISH.WASHER. That's right, ladies and gentlemen- I have a DISH.WASHER.  It's revolutionized my life, ladies. Mostly because I now hide dirty dishes in there when I have people coming over, all willy-nilly.

I didn't know how to take a picture of this, but the whole top floor of my house is so bright- the white kitchen, the mostly white bathroom, lots of windows- it's really lovely. I wish I could get out of bed earlier every morning so I could enjoy the sunshine longer... but I like sleep. And, well, flannel sheets.

Happy Friday, all!

Linking up with Jen and Hallie! Now go check out some more Takes and Favorites!

{Theme Thursday} Dirt

About a year ago now, Zeke and I decided to undertake an exciting project.

We made ourselves a bed.

Because buying one at a store would be too easy. And because we're pretty cheap.

We also wanted a nice tall bed so we could stick storage units underneath it- because at the time we had too much stuff and not enough space for it all. The having too much stuff part hasn't really changed... we just now have more room! It's still super handy to have storage right there. I keep my off-season clothes in a tub under my side of the bed.

Anyway.

I helped make the bed. With my vast construction experience. In short, I used a belt sander for the first time and ended up looking like, well, like that ^

See? I helped!

Dusty dirty yucky.

And now I use a step stool to get into bed.

Linking up with Clan Donaldson and the rest of the dirty, dirty ladies today!

{Mostly Wordless Wednesday} What's on My Bookshelf

 

Linking up with We Are That Family for Works for Me Wednesday!

Ode to a New House

O, New House,
That sit-eth so still and so quiet
I apologize for your boxes remaining,
For the little scraps of paper
Lying on your dark and lovely
Hundred-year-old hardwood floors.

And for the piles of unfolded laundry
And your undecorated walls.
Your kitchen floor is smattered
With the mud of work boots and gym shoes
That walked your new range into place
Between the mismatched countertops.

I should mop. But I can't find the mop.

I can't find anything, really
Not my pair of gray work pants
That I meant to wear today
To my high school teaching job that keeps me busy
And is the reason for your mess and disarray.
June is coming. Thank goodness.

Mostly Wordless Wednesday

Here's a peek into my house and life lately...

 My winter theme is gray and yellow... here's my centerpiece.

 I had so much fun making little fabric flowers that I decorated the TV, too.

 It's cold out there! We've gotten quite a bit of snow this winter, and the lakes are frozen over, too.

Repost, I know.. I just love this picture of the Tucky Turtle by our frosted window!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

It's been a busy week! Just a couple little detail shots of my home...

 I use a binder clip (a pretty one!) on my shelf to hold up recipes while I'm cooking.

In our little entryway closet, I put up a cheap shoe holder for our gloves, mittens, hats, and so on. Keeps them visible and organized. 

...and... we had an extra space in a picture frame, so I've been using it as a calendar thing... and countdown... and there's only 5 DAYS until our HONEYMOON TRIP! Ah! So excited!!!


 

Wordless Wednesday: My Home

My kitchen

Kitchen looking into the living room

Kitchen and living room

Bathroom

Back Bedroom- office side

Back Bedroom, craft side

Front bedroom, spare beds

Love List

A few things that I am loving this week:

1. The smell of burning leaves. Our neighborhood allows us to burn leaves, and with so many trees around, at least one close neighbor is burning every day I know some people hate this smell, but man, it just smells like fall to me! Mmm.

2. My new bed! Zeke and I actually made the frame together, then we got a new mattress (thank heaven). With the cooler weather, I couldn't help but put all the fluffy bedding on it, and now it's nearly impossible to get out of bed in the morning. I think I should move the fridge and TV in there... then I'd almost never have to leave.

3. The cleaning checklist I've been using. Okay, I have a little confession to make here. The other day, I watched the kids of a friend of mine. She had a "Babysitter Info" sheet... I'm sure many of you have the same thing. Anyways, I didn't need it, but she had mentioned that it had the pediatrician's name on it, and I was curious. So I looked over the sheet, and then saw this checklist underneath it. And, being snoopy as I am, I had to look it all over. I immediately went, "Wow. This could be the best thing ever for me."

I went online and bought the lists. They are awesome. I was really kind of struggling with how to fill my "at home" days when I wasn't subbing- there's just so many things to do that I didn't know where to get started. Thanks a bunch to The Confident Mom at theconfidentmom.com!!

4. The beautiful scenery in my neighborhood. This was taken just across the street. No joke.

5. Knowing what to make for dinner. Now that I've been trying out recipes for a couple of months and gauging Hunky Husband's reactions, I've got a bunch of HH-approved meals, so I've been able to actually plan, rather than just frantically searching for recipes at 3:30.

6. Pandora. I'm sure you've heard of this website before, but if you haven't, it's an online radio that's customized to your preferences. At my house, the radio doesn't pick up very many channels, and doesn't get the local Christian station at all. I've got my Pandora's Hillsong Radio going almost all day, and I love it! I'm not so sure that the neighbors who live below me like it so much... they have to hear me singing all day long...

7. My wonderful husband. He's taking on more hours at work starting this week (the maintenance director is cutting back on his own hours), and it's a busy time to work maintenance at camp with all the winterizing and boat-pulling-outing they're doing.

Fall Decorating!

 Fall is here! Well, not officially, I guess, but it sure feels like fall. I think the weather in our neck of the woods went from "too hot to have the windows open" to "too cold to have the windows open" in nearly record time. Seriously. The other day, it was only 38 degrees at 8:30 in the morning! I'm so not ready for this yet.

On the bright side, the arrival of fall also means that it's time to put away the summertime decorations and start feeling fall! Here's a little peek into my house...

On top of our "pantry," I moved the wedding stuff I had there to make room for some candles, the adorable lantern we got as a wedding gift, and a jar of red candies. I also put some acorns in an old pickle jar after I removed the label and wiped the dirt off the acorns. I almost wish I'd done two of the acorn-jars, it's so cute. 

 
Even though I moved it from the prominent "pantry" location, I couldn't help but keep out a bunch of stuff from the wedding. The roses are actually my wedding bouquet, and below them is my tiara (up until the last moment, I really didn't think I was gonna wear that thing, but I did!), and the wooden heart thing was our cake topper. Oh. And please ignore all the clean dishes in my sink. I got too into decorating... they were drying when I took this picture!

On my little blanket trunk in the living room, my summery bottles and sand centerpiece has been cleared away for leaves and pumpkins. I also convinced Zeke that I neeeded the candles- we couldn't find any pumpkin wax melts at Walmart. We got a set- five candles (three small and two large) for $10. As much as I dislike Walmart, the price was right this time!

And outside? I found this scarecrow at the Dollar Tree, added a cardboard sign with our last name, and voila! Cute little welcome scarecrow!

What are you doing to decorate for fall?

A Peek Into the Life of the Little Wife

Here's a peek into my life!

Cramming so much stuff, both Zeek's and mine, into our little home has been... well, a project. Our cabin has three bedrooms (!) and even though they're small, we've been very blessed to have so much space here in our first home! The back bedroom, we decided, is being used as a spare bedroom, craft area, and storage space. I think it's my least favorite place in the house right now... just because there's so much to do in there!

It kind of became a dumping ground for stuff that we didn't know where else to put, and so it kind of looked like a tornado went through.

My craft room/storage area before...

And after...

 Still not finished, but better!

 And there's room for my a sewing table!

 The shelves are better, too!

And, behold! The second half of the room actually looks like a spare bedroom! Hurray!

I still have lots of digging through boxes, getting rid of stuff, and reorganizing to do, but it's come pretty far already. Right now, Zeke and I are still waiting to find out if the camp needs to move us before winter comes, so I don't want to get rid of the boxes for the more fragile stuff until we know where we'll be living for sure. I can't wait to toss all those boxes, though! It'll really open up the space even more!

Now that I've shown you the worst, I'll show you some of the things I'm proud of in our home!

I updated the centerpiece in our living room just the other day...

 And, since we've moved in, my wedding bouquet has been on display on the microwave cart in the kitchen.

Its these little touches that make our home feel like, well, like home! And that's a little peek into my home and my life!