Friday, October 24, 2008

Valerie needs........

I saw this on someone else's blog and thought it was pretty funny.

Just Google your name and the word "needs" and see what the top 10 results are.

Here are mine...

1. Valerie needs to weed out those who seek only to ...
2. Valerie needs a very committed and supportive home.
3. Valerie needs to be deported.
4. Valerie needs a beauty makeover.
5. Valerie needs help periodically ...
6. Valerie needs numbers!!
7. Valerie needs attention
8. Valerie just needs to be played out a bit more with Danny
9. Valerie needs to beware of deceiving herself and allowing others to take advantage of her ...
10. Valerie needs more time to catch up...

This was really funny and even a little bit scary! Please do it.....I want to see what all of you "need"


****addition*****

after i posted this, i clicked on images to see what images came with "valerie needs" and I got this with the following title:


Valerie needs rotating..............i'm not kidding...........I HAD to add it :)

Thursday, October 16, 2008

This window stuff can be addictive

I couldn't quit staring at Travis's window.

It was mocking me.......bare and naked taunting.

I didn't have months of thinking and inspiration but I DID have a sense of accomplishment from Michael's mistreatment and the desire to cover Travis's.

What I didn't have was any extra money for supplies (or old giftcards laying around).

What I did have was nester's words running through my head AND a top sheet that I have given up putting on Travis's bed because he refuses to use it and it was constantly wadded up at the bottom under his comforter.

The sheet was the right color and even though it wasn't being used i didn't want to cut it because I might need it someday! However, I didn't want anyone who saw his window to think I had just hung a sheet up there. My dilemna was:
  • how to make it unrecognizable as a sheet and look just like navy cotton fabric
  • how to hang it with no rods or boards using the only thing I had (furniture upholstery nails)
My solution was:
Here is my end product! And since it is so dark you really can't see the detail at all, but trust me it looks just like Nester's did!


He didn't need to cover the whole window since it is at the back of the house and not everyone driving by will be looking in as they were in Michael's. Plus he had already been using the sill as a place to keep his trophies.


YAY!!! Another window covered and for $0

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

My first window mistreatment

BEFORE





AFTER








I am so excited about this you guys! I thought about it for a couple of months but didn't have the nerve to just do it! I have been so inspired by all the posts you talented bloggers have put up about your mistreatments and have really been wanting to try it. I am the perfect candidate....we are in a rental and I don't want to spend money on curtains that only work for this house and honestly.....you can spend a small fortune just for one window after buying the actual panels AND the hardware. Add in the fact that my son Michael wanted something nascar and so I wouldnt have been able to settle for something found on sale.
I got this specific mistreatment idea from Kimba at A Soft Place to Land and you HAVE to read it first because she makes more sense than I do!
Michael also needed a shelf for all the nascar collectibles he has that really didn't have a place to live in his room. Here they are piled on a table in his room.









I went back to the Nester's sight and read back through all her posts on the subject......thanks Nester!!! You MUST go visit her blog even if you just read the window posts your life will be forever changed :)

I went to Lowe's because I had $11.42 on an un-finished giftcard. All I had to buy was the board, furniture tacks and 2 brackets.....I even HAD to buy 3 mum plants for my front bed to finish up the card!

One thing I do have in my linen closet is a TON of extra sheets.

With 3 boys and 4 twin beds we are never short on sheets. I used a black flat sheet that is all by it's lonesome (this is pretty common in my house) and I also used the 2 extra nascar pillow cases since the other 2 boys are no longer using them (the third is still on Michael's bed so it is a great tie-in) I didnt want to cut anything just in case I might need it as a sheet again (i'm glad to read on the other blogs that I am not the only one who thinks this way). I did open the pillow cases on the seam but I know if need be I could stitch them back up again in a jiffy.

It may be hard to see here but all I did was use the tack to hold up each corner. After that I tacked up the middle making a pleat first. I then kept going half and half while making pleats and just tacked it up as I went. This is the back panel.

This may not make sense to you since it really only makes sense in my head......but go read the this post on Kimba's site (with much nicer fabric) and then it should start to come clear for you.

This is just 3 halves of the pillow cases (i have one leftover) I used no sewing at all in true mistreatment style. I bought a 1x6 board that was 6 ft long so the length was just perfect, no cutting.I used the upholstery tacks to put the fabric onto the board and hubby hung the new valance/topper/shelf over the window using the brackets. I used my hot glue gun to connect the 3 pieces of pillow case and make it look seamless. Now we have a back panel, a valance and a shelf! I know it is hard to tell from this picture but it looks really good!




I LOVE THEM! Michael loves them!!! Even Jeff thinks they are great (even though he made this face when he saw me tacking a sheet over the window)
















I also got a shot of Michael happily arranging his cars on his new one of a kind shelf :)









Wednesday, October 08, 2008

A lesson learned

I just read the funniest story on Liz's blog and it inspired me to come post my own!

You know Jeff and I have been married just over 2 years and there is a LOT of learning to do about each other still. It is pretty common for him to say "must be a southern thing" or "we don't do that up north". I think it is more indicative of us just growing up in different families.
Leading into my story......I grew up playing jokes on people and the people I knew all played jokes on each other. In my house we were always trying to come up with a good joke. We loved to jump out and scare each other, we hid things that would cause a scream. My Mom taught us early how many screams you could get dumping cold water on someone in a hot shower. She also could be found chasing David and I around the house spraying us with a water bottle until we could find a place to baracade ourselves in for protection and find something water filled to fight back with. I apparently passed this on to my boys because they are constantly practicing how to quietly sneak up on someone and love love love to jump out and cause a yell. I can't tell you how many times I have "found" snakes, spiders and mice all in unexpected places (they have some very realistic fakes out there now).
About a year ago, I was washing dishes and accidentally dropped Jeff's favorite paring knife. It fell in such a weird way that the stainless steel blade just broke in half.
He was in the shower so he was clueless about it and I thought to myself....this is too good, I could never plan on this happening but i HAVE to use it! I thought it sounded like fun!
I knew he wouldnt think it was a trick knife because he would recognize the knife right away.
When I was a kid I pulled the prank of sticking it between my fingers with ketchup to fake out my Mom (who pretended to be horrified at my injury).
NOW without thinking much about it, in about 30 seconds time I quickly grabbed the red food color and ran a few drops down my hand and mopped it all up with a towel. I was thinking of how to fool someone who would be expecting it and all the things they would look for. I held the knife pointed down tight against my skin so it would look like it had gone through, pushed the "blood" soaked towel around it and rushed into the bathroom.
I put on my best "im in a lot of pain and trying to stay calm because i'm the Mom" shaky voice and told Jeff "honey, i need you to keep the boys calm and somehow get me to the hospital because i've had a little accident".
He pulls the shower curtain back and while I expected some sort of an "OMG" yell before I said "just kidding!". I was NOT expecting to see the horror on his face as i think his heart might have temporarily stopped beating or to see this big man jumping out of a running shower and ignore the fact that he was naked and covered in suds to start issuing orders like a war time triage soldier.
I was so in shock that he didn't even doubt me for a second that I forgot to say i was kidding. The look on his face when I dropped the broken knife (and time temporarily froze with a mask of horror and shock on his face) was enough to have me running for cover!

The answer to your next question is "yes" I promised him to never ever ever ever play another practical joke on him ever ever ever again. I still feel guilty about it and wish I had taken more than 30 seconds to put it all in motion and take maybe just 10 more seconds to think about the possible heartattack I could have caused (the point he was quick to make)

This has been referrenced from time to time in the last year and always with a reminder from Jeff in his most serious voice that I will NEVER play another joke on him. Imagine MY shock when Travis comes in a couple of days ago to tell me something funny he has just done.
He is already laughing and wants me to sneak in the dining room with him to watch because he just got finished crawling under the dining table (where Jeff was sitting at his laptop) and untied his shoes and tied them to his chair leg.
I can't believe my "ARE YOU CRAZY" wasn't heard throughout the whole house as I tell Travis he better get back in there and sneak better than he ever has before to fix this before Jeff even finds out he thought about it!

(post note: he didn't manage to undo his joke without being found out but because he WAS undoing it he got off light with just a lecture about how he would have felt when Jeff tried to get up and fell and cracked his head open and we had to call 911)

You are right Liz.......not everyone likes it.....who woulda thought?
WE LOVE YOU HONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!