Jewelry Organization!

My sister's favorite thing to buy me, besides wine, is jewelry. Since I have so many earrings, I realized a month or so ago that my jewelry organization needed some help. Probably because I had NO organization whatsoever.

See below... please ignore the dust mites everywhere!

I was at a BBQ at our Youth Center director's house a few weeks ago and saw her organization, and fell in love. I couldn't help but copy what she did... So Ashlee and I set up one of our sushi dates and went to the store across from the sushi place in the mall (which everyone refers to as "the Casa store") to purchase supplies.

So this was my Saturday early afternoon project... I bought three milk crate boxes with 12 openings each. I also bought two boxes of small plastic trays/cups to fit in each to hold my earrings and necklaces. 

3 milk crate boxes = 36 euro

2 boxes of trays/cups = 3 euro

With a little help from my wonderful husband, this is what I started with on our bedroom wall:

Finished product:

But I had to add a special touch... a small pocket charm Momma gave me one Valentine's day that says "Follow Your Heart."

I absolutely love it and love that it only took me about 30 minutes, including hanging them up. So excited to look at this every day!

Dirty Dishes and Mother's Day

Tonight while Arron was dirtying the kitchen making dinner, I made a comment about all of the dirty dishes he was making. It seems like sometimes he has to use every plate, bowl, and cup we have to make one meal. Anyway, I digress...  I made a comment and he immediately started singing a song by Scotty McCreery called "Dirty Dishes." He went and put it on our surround sound, and started singing and trying to dance with me while I was cleaning. 

It got me thinking, since it's Mother's Day, about Momma, and what kind of mother I want to be. I feel like this is how Momma felt sometimes, even if she seemed exasperated and frustrated. I know she valued my love, along with Jacki's and Paul's, more than anything in the world. And I know she gave thanks every day for each one of us. She was thankful for her job, along with Pop's, for putting food on the table and Barbies and Lego's in our toy boxes.

I miss her dearly every day. I hope, if she is able to look down upon me, that she is proud of the daughter she raised.

=====

Momma hollered, "Suppertime,
And don't make me tell you twice,
Wash your hands and wipe your face.
The table's no place for your toys,
And try to use your inside voice.
Don't dig in until we say grace."
So we put down our forks and bowed our heads,
Then she prayed the strangest prayer ever said:

"I wanna thank you Lord,
For noisy children and slamming doors,
Clothes scattered all over the floor,
A husband working all the time,
Dragging in dead tired at night,
A never-ending messy kitchen,

And dirty dishes."

We all got real still and quiet,
And Daddy asked, "Hon, are you alright?"
She said, "There ain't nothing wrong.
Noisy kids are happy kids,
And slamming doors just means we live
In a warm and loving home. 
Your long hours and those dishes in the sink
Means a job and enough to eat."

"So I'm gonna thank you Lord,
For noisy children and slamming doors,
And clothes scattered all over the floor,
A husband working all the time,
Dragging in dead tired at night,
A never-ending messy kitchen,

And dirty dishes."

"For my little busy bees,
Begging, 'Momma, Momma can we please?'
Always wanting me and calling me,
Loads of laundry piling up,
Crayons crushed into the rug,
And those little sticky kisses,
And dirty dishes...."

-Scotty McCreery, "Dirty Dishes"

Looking at the Bright Side

If I had a nickle for every time a civilian wife told me, "I don't know how you live with your husband gone for so long," I'd be rolling in the dough. But as I was cleaning today, I was thinking of all of the up-sides of Arron being gone so often, whether it's TDY (temporary duty, for you civilians) or deployed.

I'm not saying I like for Arron to leave, but I think it's healthy to try to focus on the bright side of things that I can't control, rather than wallowing in self-pity.

So I've compiled a mental list of things that I like about when Arron's not here....

--The house stays clean once I clean it.
However, this does mean that I can't blame anyone else for my messes...

--I can stay up as late as I want without feeling guilty.

--I get the bed all to myself, and I don't feel like I have a radiator next to me.

--I come home from work and the house is exactly how I left it.

--Less laundry to do.

--Less groceries to buy.

--I don't feel guilty for eating cereal for dinner, or pancakes, or whatever other junk I feel like.

--I get to pick the music I listen to at home.

--I don't have to pick up socks all over our bedroom floor.

--We get a break from each other, because I think every marriage needs space to breathe.

--Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

But most of all, I love that (at least every six months) we have another reunion, and another first kiss, and another honeymoon period where neither of us can do anything wrong.

♥

I need to vent.

I missed a midterm. Midterm week is this week, but my professor decided to give it last week. And I missed it. And it's worth 30% of my grade.

Arron TDY'd early this morning and we got in a huge argument before he left.

I was at work until 8:45 tonight doing training for a government credit card.

I have insomnia.

And I'm about to break down into tears from all of this.

Organizing & Random Photos

Yesterday I spent most of the day cleaning around the house. Today was spent being productive, including laundry, homework, and even a bit of organizing. I'm pretty proud of myself. :)

Yesterday: My plant is stretching for some sunlight. Come on spring!!

Today, Arron took a two hour nap, during which I took a shower, washed my hair, and took a whole bunch of crazy pictures with my new iPhone. :)

 My friend Tessa introduced me to the Pop Photo Booth 

app, and I'm having tons of fun with it.
I particularly like this picture of my eye. :)

Then, today, as I was sitting down with Arron on the couch, I got the urge to organize one of the catch-all baskets in our living room. This particular basket was filled with all sorts of cords, from iPod/iPhone/iPad charging cords to hard drive cords, and everything in between. I was tired of trying to pull one cord out, and a whole tangled mess of them coming out.

So I pulled out a whole bunch of sandwich-size Ziplok bags, my roll of masking tape, a permanent marker, and a big heaping of patience.

I wish I had taken a "before" picture, but here are some afters: 

 As you can see, I labeled each individual cable as well, to help us find 

the right place the cord goes back into when we're finished with it. :)

I seriously used probably 15 Ziplok bags, but it is so much more organized in there. I wish I could find a way to more easily display them so we don't have to rifle through them each time we're looking for something, but this will have to do for now. At least any extra time we spend looking for something is offset by not having to untangle a thousand cords!

So I'm feeling pretty proud of myself for being so productive and organized today. :)

A New Phone :)

In December 2010, when I was home, Pops gave me his old iPhone 3G to have since he had recently upgraded to the new iPhone 4. This "new" (to me) iPhone 3G was worlds ahead of my little track phone I was using here, and I promptly had a friend jailbreak and unlock it for me.

However, since I had never had a jailbroken and unlocked phone, I didn't know that the friend did it wrong. There were glitches--I couldn't run more than one app at a time, and if I tried, the whole thing would have to restart. It was quite annoying but I got used to it.

However, about three weeks ago, I tried to restore the phone since the lock button wasn't working, and I couldn't turn it on or off.

And the phone died.

Like, it would not turn on, or respond, or anything.

Uh oh.

I gave it to a friend from work to try to fix, since she said her husband could probably fix it. Five days later, he had tried just about everything, and still couldn't get it to work. Bummer.

So she let me borrow an old track phone of hers until I could get a new phone and figure out what to do. I promptly sold my broken iPhone on the Aviano Classifieds page for $75 and Arron told me I could order the new iPhone 4S.

WHAAAAT!?!? Suh-weet!

So on Monday it finally came in the mail, and I am in heaven. Siri is hilarious, and very helpful... when she wants to be:

 Siri told me the best way to walk to Rome.

She also helped me with some of my summer curricula for work. 

It's also nice to have a camera always on hand to grab pictures of everyday things that happen...

 Imagining my ice cream is Blue Bell... the way it is in Texas.

My car hit 126K early this morning!

That's all for now, but be on the lookout for more pictures and now even some videos!!

Brittany

TDY Curse and a Failed Pinterest Craft

As some of you may know, Arron has been TDY (temporary duty--aka gone) for two weeks. As any military spouse knows, as soon as the husband leaves, everything goes wrong.

5 hours before I was supposed to drop him off at the airport, I went to take a bath and flooded our entire top floor. I now know that there are cracks in the bottom of the bathtub, and we can't use it until our landlord replaces it. The problem is, I've been calling for a week now and can't ever get in touch with the translator (through housing) since I have no clue who our landlord is. Bah humbug.

The day that he left, I made pasta salad to take to a friend's BBQ. After I made it, I put it in the fridge to cool while I got ready. I opened the fridge to leave and...

Gone is my pasta salad, and even more heartbreaking, my Pyrex bowl.


......


On a completely different note, Pinterest has gotten me so addicted to crafts and thinking I can make anything.

The Pinterest gods decided to bring my ego down a notch.

I saw the cutest headband and decided that it didn't look too terribly hard to make:

So I grabbed an old t-shirt, my sewing stuff, scissors, and began...

After an hour of braiding, re-braiding, and trying to make it look as cool as the author intended for it to look, I had this:

So I promptly threw it in the trash and went on my merry way. Thanks, Pinterest, for reminding me that I'm not crafty at ALL. 

However, I have a good idea for what I'm going to try to make for Valentine's Day for Arron, so I'll take pictures and let everyone know how it works out. Ha!