lucky craigslist find

Yesterday I was doing my daily perusing of craigslist furniture. I don't even know why I look for stuff in there so often... maybe it's because it feels like a city-wide garage sale that I don't actually have to walk around in. Towards the end of my 'craigslist time' for the day, I came across an ad for a bookshelf for $40 and opened it up. I didn't expect much since nice bookshelves go for much more than that, but I was pleasantly surprised to find this one! The previous owner had purchased it for $140 two months ago for her son's bedroom, but was disappointed when it was not the "barn red" color she'd expected. This might be a boring story, but it just made my day.

 I was texting with Philip, who apparently had a slow day at work, and advised him to come searching for me in case I didn't show up again. He was nice enough to ask what kind of sandwich I wanted him to bring along after rescuing me, but thankfully neither one of those things was necessary. 

  I received A TON of pretty picture frames as wedding gifts, and my issue so far has been not having any flat surfaces to put them on, so they've been sitting in a drawer for over a month. So yay! I finally get to display them! I took extreme pleasure in filling up this bookshelf, organizing things, and making room for more books on my other one. Another great thing about this story.... we have a visit to Half-Priced Books coming up this afternoon to look for some of Philip's textbooks. Yay!

My Makeup Magnet Boards, Part 1

A while back (during my early Pinterest stage) I came across a how-to for a makeup magnet board. I never thought I'd have enough makeup to fill one up, although I thought it was such a neat idea. As it turns out, I went makeup-coupon-crazy about 3 weeks ago and now don't know where to put all of it. (I love free stuff! And I don't see myself cutting back on the coupon crazy thing just yet). 

On a whim, I stopped by Dollar Tree and looked for the cookie pans, but was disappointed to see they were out of those. They did, however, have a huge stack of 12-inch pizza pans... and I took 3. As I was headed to the register I passed by a tiny display of vinyl decals. They were mostly for nurseries and such, but I caught a glimpse of one I liked and snatched it up on my way to pay for my items. 

It wasn't until I got in my car that the "creative" side took over. The same side which took control of my driving and made me go to Hobby Lobby instead of my apartment. I was pleasantly surprised to see that all scrapbooking paper was 50% off this week, so naturally the ultimate hardest part of this project was settling on 3 pieces of paper. I might or might not have purchased more than that. I also purchased a roll of magnetic tape and a glue gun (still can't believe I didn't own one of those) and giddily headed home to make pretty things while watching The Breakfast Club on Netflix. 

 

 Materials: 

- Three 12-inch pieces of scrapbook paper or cardstock

- Three 12-inch pizza pans (Dollar Tree) 

- Vinyl decal (Dollar Tree) 

- Magnetic Tape (or small magnets) 

- Modge Podge (and foam brush) 

- Pretty acrylic paint

- Glue gun 

- Newspaper

- Scissors

- Pen found under the couch

1. Place the newspaper over the pizza pan, trace out an exact outline of the center circle, and cut it out.
2. Use the newspaper circle and trace it over the back of the 3 pieces of scrapbook paper. Cut these out and set aside for later use.
3. Use acrylic paint to paint over the pizza pans, focusing on the outer edges since the middle part will be covered by scrapbook paper. I did this while sitting under a ceiling fan,
so mine dried within a minute.

4. Spread a good amount of modge podge over the dried paint. It is up to you if you'd like to cover the outer edges of the pan... I chose not to.
5. Glue the paper cutouts onto the pans using the modge podge. I applied modge podge over one of the papers, but decided I liked them without. Oops. Now I know for next time.

6. Get creative with the vinyl decals. They stick and unstick very easily on the paper, so you can change them up without a problem. Halfway through this I realized that these can also be cute wall decor for a teen's room.
7. Now, time for the makeup. Cut off small squares of magnetic tape and glue them to the back of your makeup.





This part is pretty common sense / learn as you go. I have tons of high-end nail polish (ahemm, free with coupons) and they were very unwilling to stay up because they were so heavy. I will be visiting Hobby Lobby for larger, better-quality magnets to use on the nail polish and any other larger pieces. I also learned that magnetic tape did not do well on rounded pieces such as mascara and eyeliner, so I will be using the glue gun on these. Here's a picture of one completed board with eye shadow.

And there you have it! My next steps will include getting my nail polish up there and getting everything on a wall. I'll add another post whenever that happens. Hope you liked it so far!

The Bucket of Rocks

So this is the sort of thing I get stuck with doing at work. My boss went to Alaska for 2 weeks and he came back on Sunday, but didn't let anybody know, and now he's off on another road trip. Today I get an email saying "I left a bucket of rocks at the hotel front desk in Seattle, it weighs about 50 lbs, can you get those to my house?"
Sure thing... that's what I'm here for... lets add Rock Private Detective to my resume.

One Thing In, Two Things Out

Today Dale came in talking about how much 'crap' he and his wife have accumulated over the years. He finally put his foot down and established a new rule:

"One thing in, two things out" 

So every time a new item is brought into the house, they have to get rid of two old items. The topic was kitchen appliances, so I think there's a juicer and old mixer in his garbage can now.
I must say, this is a very good rule. I'm going to apply it next time I buy clothes.

Our Photobook

A few months before I got married I came across a pin on Pinterest where someone had compared photo books by printing the same book with different companies. The result was that Adoramapix was the highest quality, so I'd been waiting to make my own book with them. It was quite a challenge to putting it together because I wanted to give every photo a special place, and by the time I finished I had twice the amount of pages I started off with. On a whim, I thought I'd add the link to my blog and see how it looks up here.

If you care to see the large version of it, here's the link! 

Think FOREVER

What I Did With Wedding Cards

I finally got around to collecting all the wedding cards we received over a month ago and making a little book out of them. I usually don't like to keep things I don't find useful, but if it's a gift, no matter how insignificant, I will keep it for as long as possible. We received some beautiful cards along with our wedding gifts, and I hated the thought of throwing them in a drawer to be scattered about over time, so I made a book out of them. It was quite simple... all I needed was a hole puncher and 3 loose binder clips to start off with.

 I chose one of the larger cards to start off with, and simply eye-balled where I thought the rings should go.

From there, I took a pen and made small dots on all the other cards for where the holes should go.

I make sure to put the smaller cards that could only be clipped to one or two clips in the middle, so they wouldn't get damaged or tear of over time.

I also alternated them; If I had consecutive small cards I'd put one on the top two clips, and then the next on the bottom two. It helped lessen the bulk.

To this I added lace which hung on our cards box. I removed the letters and wrapped the lace around the cards to hold them in place, then wrapped two rubber bands around it.
I wouldn't have done this if I meant to showcase the book, but since it's probably going into a keepsake box, then I want it to be as snugly packed as possible.

I will probably put these in a Ziplock bag and then in the back of my closet along with a bin full of wedding things. It's a nice treasure to find years later, and I wouldn't want to forget all the people who gave us these cards.

Useful Apps To Save Money

Over the past few months I've compiled a nifty little collection of apps that help me save money or receive rewards that would otherwise have gone unnoticed and unclaimed. I've become so practiced at this that I refuse to leave a store paying retail price for something, and I thought I'd share a little of my wisdom with other iphone users out there (I don't know if these are available in the android market). (P.S. I've never put so many pictures in one post before, so bear with me if they don't have the best layout to them)

#1. CineMode. This little button can be found in the lower left-hand corner of the CineMark app, and it is advertised before every movie that plays in Cinemark theatres. It is basically a reward for not touching your phone during the movie. As soon as it is advertised on the screen, you open it up, turn CineMode on, put your phone on silent, and don't answer calls or texts during the movie. Actually, just don't touch your phone, put it out of temptation's reach (I use my husband's pocket). After the movie is over, turn CineMode off and you'll receive a coupon code for snacks and stuff at your next visit. The first time it's used it gives the best coupons where you don't have to purchase anything to get a free item. It's usually popcorn or a fountain drink, but once my hubby got a free poster for the upcoming Star Trek movie. Big Hint: as soon as it comes up on your screen, take a screenshot of it and leave it in your camera roll. These tend to disappear as soon as you exit the app if you didn't sign in to a Cinemark account. 

 #2. GasBuddy. I drive a little Toyota Matrix (V4, 1.8L) for which I only spend about $25 a week on gas, and even then I HATE paying a few extra cents per gallon. With the help of GasBuddy, I quickly figured out that the price per gallon at stations around my work/office is always about 10 cents cheaper than in town. It hardly makes a difference with my car due to the small amount of gas I put in, but with my hubby's huge Dodge Ram that fills up with $140, it's a big deal. He usually drives the 3 extra miles down the highway on Fridays, meets me for lunch, and then fills up at the gas station near my office. This also comes in useful when we travel to bigger cities and need to re-fuel for our drive back home.

 #3. Target Mobile. Target has become one of my favorite stores since I went coupon crazy. The reason is that it has a section for Mobile Coupons which can then be combined with Manufacturer Coupons + Cartwheel offers (see #4 below) and sales to get some amazing deals on stuff. I usually use these for groceries and laundry detergent and due to careful planning, have never left the store without saving at least 40% on my total purchase.

             

#4. Target Cartwheel. This is a new app that was just introduced this year (mid 2013). You have to create an account, but afterwards it allows you to choose products to add to your list to save money on. For example, if I were buying groceries, I'd go to the groceries section and select the items I was going to get, add them to my cartwheel list, and then hand my phone to the cashier at checkout for her to scan the barcode and apply the discounts. The majority of the items offer a 5% discount, but Target always has special offers going on. For example now, during the summer and times of beach bonfires, they have marshmallows at 20% off. These little percentages can add up little by little, and also be stacked with Manufacturer Coupons + Target Coupons for bigger savings. (Stacked = you're able to use them at the same time)

#5. Yowza!! I came across this app while reading an article about "apps every college student should have" and decided to try it out. I don't use it very often now, but during the 7 months of wedding planning I went through, I visited Hobby Lobby almost weekly and never paid full price for an item. This app holds a list of stores that offer mobile coupons. It reads your location and tells you the address and how far away you are from the store and the offers it has. Since Hobby Lobby has different things on sale every week, I always used my "40% off one item" coupon for a big item which was not on sale that week. Beware that some store cashiers will have no idea these things exist. Ironically, during the very last of what had to be at least 20 weekly shopping trips to Hobby Lobby, the cashier told me the store did not take mobile coupons and it had to be done online. I'd never had a problem using these before so I stood my ground and argued that I had used it many times prior to this visit. She finally gave in and, because she didn't read the coupon correctly, gave me 40% off my entire purchase.

 

#6. Shopkick. I haven't actually earned enough points to get a gift card yet, but it does not hurt to have this app sitting in a corner of my iphone for when I need it. You basically earn "Kicks" every time you enter one of the stores listed in the app, and once you earn enough Kicks you get a gift card to your choice of store listed. Beware, this is an extremely loud app that does not respect the "silence button" on your phone, so don't turn it on if you're in a no-phones-allowed place. It also tends to go off when you're driving by one of the stores which offers Kicks and prompts you to walk into the store and claim them. I have learned to ignore it every time I drive on the highway because I pass by the mall, Target, and Best Buy on a regular basis. It also gives you one Kick each day you open the app, which can slowly add up to a gift card over time.

#7. Plink. Last but not least on my list is Plink. You'll either love it or hate it, depending on how much you care about personal information. It asks you for your login information that you'd use to check your bank account online (username and password) and then links that debit or credit card with your Plink account. Any time you make a qualifying purchase at a store or restaurant with that specific card, points are added to your account. Once the points add up you get to choose your choice of gift card to certain stores listed under Plink. I happened to sign up during a promotional period where I got 1,000 points for a purchase at McDonalds. I bought a medium fountain drink ($1.00) with my Discover card and received 1,000 points about a week later, which are the equivalent to a $10 gift card to either Amazon, iTunes, Barnes and Noble, Walmart and other well-known retailers. I just haven't decided where I want those $10 to go to, so the points are sitting in my account unredeemed. I don't have anything against linking this to my Discover card, since it's a credit card and has nothing to do with my bank account, but some people might be a little more doubtful and hesitant about things like that.

And so there you have my first ever post to my "Coupon Crazy" category. Hope you find these apps useful in saving money. My thought process behind this is "I always have my iphone in my hand, so why not save a little money or get rewarded for things I'd have to do anyway? It's just a few taps away and it doesn't hurt to try." Feel free to ask me any questions! 

on clean house and conflict

When I came home this Sunday night I was exhausted from driving for 3 hours after having some car troubles, and I walked into a completely trashed apartment. There were random pieces of clothing, notebooks, papers, pens, bowls, cups, pillows and other things strewn all over the living room. The kitchen sink was overflowing with dirty, oily dishes and other things (kitchen shears and knife sharpener) which should not have been in there. The garbage can was stuffed (why even try to put a pizza box in there if it's BIGGER than the trash can??) and looked like it had vomited all over the floor. Pieces of mail were laying on every flat surface imaginable, and my dishcloths had food stains and were balled up and thrown on the stove top. Further examination of my apartment revealed a mountain of washed (and now wrinkled) laundry on the bed and floor of the second bedroom, opened toiletries laying pell-mell all across the bathroom sink, and dirty laundry scattered so bounteously in the main bedroom I could have jumped from one to another pretending the floor was lava and not burned my feet. I had gone through great pains to leave my apartment neat, clean, and organized for when I returned, and so at 10PM after a weekend of traveling (I hate driving long distances) this was a recipe for quick anger and loud, obnoxious rants.
Philip is the deepest sleeper I've ever met. I walked into our bedroom dragging my suitcase behind, threw it on the bed, turned on all the lights, slammed shut about 3 open drawers, opened and closed doors, and proceeded to have the loudest most annoying conversation with him about how great it was to be home and how my trip was and how I loved it when he kept the house clean and waited up for me. He slept soundly through all of this. I finally got him to wake up by pulling the covers off and violently shaking him awake. And then I continued with my venting for some time.
One thing about me: I have a quick temper, but an even faster 'cool down'. Usually after 5 minutes I'm left feeling deep remorse for how I acted and I'm always the first to apologize. I've gotten so good at this that half the time I also apologize for things I know were NOT my fault, but that I could have handled better. This time it took a solid 30 minutes of folding laundry before I consented to go to bed... and then I said I was sorry (which I was). Neither one of us slept very much simply out of displeasure, annoyance and tension.
We are usually extremely verbal about our disagreements, but for the next 24 hours we became silent and passive-aggressive, which is quite damaging to our relationship and makes both of us want to be anywhere but home.
Then, while listening to an FHE lesson I attended in the YSA branch, a completely unrelated topic came to my mind. I was reminded of the bible story of Jesus visiting Martha and Mary, which goes like this:

Luke 10: 38-42; Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore help me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.  

And then it hit me.... As much as I like to live in a clean and orderly house, it is much more important to work on my marriage. I was being the Martha of this story and worrying about present cares while missing the whole point. I realized that the value of our marriage is much greater, and that the progress we make is eternal, whereas our apartment's cleanliness only lasts a maximum of 2 days.
When I came home he was still in a bad mood, but since at least one of us was willing to try and work things out, it got fixed pretty fast. Our apartment still looks like a tornado swept through it, but at least we fell back into the routine of prayer and scripture study and we both slept soundly last night.
We are both much more cooperative and happy to do housework when there's no conflicts between us, so I expect some dishwashing, vacuuming, dusting, and laundry will be done tonight.

A son's first hero, a daughter's first love

This past weekend I drove down to the RGV (Rio Grande Valley) to visit my parents. Even though I do this on a monthly basis, the road just doesn't get any shorter. I've grown used to sitting for a 3-hour stretch without a problem, but driving with nothing but the monotony of tires on the road (there's no radio stations out in the middle of nowhere) somehow exhausts me.
The primary purpose of visiting home was to empty out my old bedroom which somehow still has a ton of stuff even though I swore I moved out everything I needed 2 years ago when I came to Corpus Christi. There are more than several keepsakes in there that I can't part with, and although I disapprove of hoarding, I'm still planning on bringing my 300-ish books, a select amount of stuffed animals, and some photo albums and journals.
As I got ready to pack up on Sunday afternoon for my lame drive back to CC, I walked into my room and was hit with a pang of homesickness so desperate I didn't even want to go put my toothbrush away. My dad was looking in through the doorway and I have a thing for not showing much emotion around him, so I stood in the middle of my room and acted like an explosion of memories was not going on inside my head. My dad said how he needed that room to be empty for such and such thing (probably a man-cave, but in my desperation I didn't hear him) and I immediately started blabbing out plans for what to pack first and bring last and what could be thrown away. He interrupted me by walking in and giving me a hug. He said he was just kidding and that no matter how old I grew I'd always be his little girl, and that my bedroom would always be my bedroom. I really needed to hear that more than anything else, given that I've spent about 2 hours each of the past 3 Sundays bawling away in our bedroom because I miss my family, while my not-so-tactful husband kind of sits there and tells me how great it is to have the rest of our post-church Sunday to do nothing.
So after all was said and done, I ended my stay with leaving behind more personal belongings in there
than when I started. I'm sure I'll get around to hauling off everything eventually, but it's nice to know it can stay and collect dust for as long as it needs to. In retrospect, I think my dad and I have a mutualistic relationship... Sunday also happened to be the day when Chris completed his mission papers and now all he has to do is meet with the Stake President and it's all done. With Chris gone for two years and me off in Corpus with my new hubby, things are looking quite lonely for my parents. I'm positive my homesickness will not be cured any time soon (I'm always surrounded by white people and really need my culture) so I don't see myself staying away from home for longer than a month at a time. I look forward to the next time I get to visit and get a taste of mom's outstanding home-cooked food and another taste of Mexico.

Fly Fishing

Background info: our 'Sales Department' worker is on vacation and we decided it was time to update his workstation. We got rid of his 10-year old computer and got him a new toy from Office Depot, along with a second monitor. I was in charge of the aesthetics of Windows 8 and making it look as much as possible like Windows Vista (a difficult task, I might add).
Dale took it upon himself to fix the mess of wires which connected the two monitors, tower, printer, scanner, phone, and ethernet cables to each other and his quote of the day is as follows:

"Lacing wires is like fly fishing. Only without the fish, and without the water, and without the fishing. You learn this in the army."

I hope it WAS like fly fishing, because he had to redo his beautifully laced wires 3 times since we kept on having issues with HDMI cables not talking to each other. All in all, it was an 8-hour work day well spent.

New Truck!

On July 25th 2013 Philip and I bought our first vehicle together. It's a 2012 Dodge Ram 1500 Crew Cab and other yada yadas, and her name is Claire. We have kind of a rule that vehicles have to be named, and they have to be the opposite gender of it's primary driver. We came to the abrupt decision that we needed a new truck because we realized that it was silly to be making payments on Phil's older truck, Amber, which was a 2004 GMC Sierra and needed a bit of mechanical work done on it. It was painful to buy a truck, I'd never done it before and I'm not really looking forward to the time when I have to pick out my replacement for Steve (the faithful little 04 Toyota Matrix I drive). We spent 3 consecutive evenings at the dealership in town negotiating prices and trade-in stuff, but our salesman was extremely helpful and nice and informative. 

Now that it's all over I'm glad it happened; I had NO IDEA what the vehicle purchasing process was like, but now I know what to expect when the time comes. 

I'm pretty jealous that Philip gets to drive her all the time (except on Fridays which is gas-filling day, and since the gas stations around my office are about $0.20 cheaper, it's always my job to do it) but then again, I spend about 5 minutes trying to park, which can sometimes be embarrassing if there's people watching. So far we've taken her out to two bonfires at the beach and plan to take trips to the RGV (Rio Grande Valley) to see my parents (and empty out my bedroom) and to San Antonio. She's a super comfy ride, so I'm excited for these trips to happen. I'm also very glad that I don't have to take a running jump to get into this truck... see that steppy-thingy on the side? It's one of my favorite things :) My second favorite thing is that it has a power outlet just like my car, so that I can charge my phone without needing a car charger. 

And so this is our Claire. We look forward to driving her until the end of her days... we agreed that we wouldn't trade her in for another vehicle until she could go no more, and since she only has 19,000 miles on her, she should be with us for quite some time with a little tlc.