For a while I've wanted to have a message center for by the front door. You know... one of those cork board/dry erase/chalk board things. I had some cork and was just going to wrap them and buy a square dry erase to go with it. But then this happened...

Our ceiling fan broke.
(See the light fixture dangling in the middle?)
So it got taken down and I saved the blades. It only took me a few seconds to decide that I wanted to make a message center out of them.

This is what I was doing at midnight on New Year's Eve. Exciting.

This was pretty much all I needed.
Blades, material, cork, and chalkboard paint.

I traced out the shape of the fan blades on the cork and cut them out.

And glue them on.

I had to put two layers of cork so it would be
thick enough for the thumbtacks to stick.

Then I wrapped the cork/blade with the materials
and used spray adhesive and hot glue to attach it.

The three wrapped blades.

Then I sprayed the other two blades with chalkboard paint.

It didn't cover the sides, but that was
ok, because they're hidden.

Then I laid out all five, alternating cork and chalkboard. I attached them with hanging brackets, but they weren't very sturdy, so I attached some dowel rods to make it more sturdy. Yes, the back side is very unattractive.

Then I needed to do something with the non-covered up holes from the old hardware. So I added S-hooks for keys.

Then I sewed little pockets from the leftover scraps
and tied them into the other two holes with some cute ribbon.

One is for the chalk.

And other one is for paper or tacks or whatever.

The finished product. I'm proud of it.

And in case you were wondering...

I bought this fan in 2003 when I moved into my own place after college. There was no fan in my upstairs bedroom, and it was HOT. I never got it installed, though. So it has now lived in 2 closets, 1 storage facility, 1 garage, and 1 backyard shed. You can tell by looking at the box that it's been moved a few times. I was very excited to finally get it put in.

I like it!

Posted in: creativity, house on Sunday, January 16, 2011 at at 12:03 AM 5 comments    

Last Saturday the peach tree looked like this:


And this Saturday, it looked like this:

We are going to have a lot of peaches. Did I say that already?

Weird slimy stuff on one of the peaches. I have no idea.

The ground is covered with tiny peaches that have fallen to their demise, mixed in with last year's peach pits. I guess it's due to all of the wind recently.

Posted in: Creation, house, peach tree on Sunday, May 03, 2009 at at 5:10 PM 0 comments    

You ready? I'm about to actually update on something I wrote about a month ago! Remember that peach tree? Well just before we went to the hospital to have the Jake, it really started blossoming and looking like this:

and this:

and this:

And now it looks like this:

and this... tiny peach buds:

and this... green leaves:

We're on our way to peaches!

We also have this other really pretty, albeit small, tree in our backyard:

Somebody told me they think it's a dogwood.

I haven't google imaged "dogwood" yet.

So I'll just take their word for it.

Pretty.

Posted in: Creation, house, peach tree on Wednesday, April 08, 2009 at at 2:03 PM 1 comments    

We have this tree in our backyard:

We were told that it was a fruit tree, but they didn't know what fruit. We initially guessed peaches. Well, the ol' girl has started to bloom:

Sure looks a lot like this picture.
I originally linked to this picture. They don't like that, apparently.

Posted in: Creation, house, peach tree on Friday, March 06, 2009 at at 9:09 PM 0 comments    

Remember the time I told you we have a cemetery behind our fence? I got asked a few questions about that tonight. There seems to be no church attached to it, so I don't know if it's still used. I told the people that I thought the cemetery was maybe only two houses wide. I got on Google maps and saw I was a little wrong:

It's not huge, but bigger than I thought it was. It's good to see that the other four houses that border it also have headstones directly behind their fences too. I have also been put on mission to find out how old this cemetery is. I have to find somewhere to park because I really don't want to walk that far or pole vault over the fence. As soon as I go, I'll be sure to get back to you and let you know. I'm sure pictures will be involved.

Posted in: house on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at at 11:14 PM 0 comments    

I haven't shown you our backyard yet. Be sure to stay tuned to the end for the best part...

Posted in: creepy things, house, video on Monday, October 20, 2008 at at 7:27 PM 2 comments    

...oooh-oooh... living on a prayer... Yeah, anyway, so we are now officially halfway to baby. I said to someone the other day that I had a halfway developed baby in me, then realized that sounded really weird and kinda creepy. So here I am at 20 weeks/5 months/banana-sized baby.

It's amazing how well I'm suddenly fitting into maternity shirts, like the one I'm wearing in the picture. An explanation for the huge jump from avacado to banana came on babycenter.com. It said that up until 20 weeks, they're measuring the length from head to booty because they're all so curled up, but after that they include the length of the legs. So the baby is actually about half the size it will be, about 10 inches these days.
So at the halfway point, here are some answers to my FAQs:
Q: How do you feel/Are you still sick?
A: No already. That ended like 6 weeks ago. Thank goodness.

Q: Are you craving anything?
A: Nothing specific, just food all of the time. Always. Hungry.

Q: Do you know what you're having?
A: I assume a baby. The flavor will (hopefully) be determined at the next appointment on November 14th.

Q: Have you picked a name yet?
A: We haven't even discussed it. We both have names we like, but we haven't actually sat down and talked about it. Something about picking a name for a person that they will have for the rest of their life scares me more than anything else about having a baby. I'm just kind of avoiding it at this point.

Q: Are you settled into your house?
A: (I know. Not related to baby, but asked all of the time.) No. We (mostly I) have a LOT of stuff and it will take a while to get it all where it needs to go. Plus paint needs to be applied in most of the house and that probably won't happen until Christmas. So ask again then.

Posted in: baby, belly shots, house, Jake on at at 7:16 PM 2 comments    

Again... I'm still alive. My computer just still isn't. I haven't had the energy and/or time until tonight to sit down and post from Jon's laptop. It takes a LOT longer to put pictures and stuff on here. But I've done it! So, we found a house and bought it. Here's the story in pictures...

After signing 47,000 papers, we closed on September 19th and got the keys!

And moved in on September 20th. (This was actually the 21st, but you get the point.) When we got to the house on Saturday, I was sad to see that there was no SOLD sign in the front yard. Jon said something to our realtor on Sunday at church and after we got home, up he pulled in his little car with his SOLD sign to take our picture with it. What a great guy, that Jason James with Truman Ball Realtors!
(No, he didn't pay me to say that.)

So, people keep asking about pictures of the house. You won't see any until I'm finished unpacking and decorating (i.e. quite a while.) But here are the pictures I took the morning we moved in!
This is the view of the living room/dining area from the front door.

The dining area/kitchen from the door to the garage.

Kitchen... before our refrigerator showed up shortly after this.
Our bedroom (It's bigger than it looks.)

The nursery of the previous and current residents. And yes, the purple wall and wallpaper border will be taken care of... before March. (There's also one other bedroom just like this one... minus the purple wall.)

The wall in my bathroom that will be taken care of... soon.

So, how's Jack doing? His bed wasn't in the house on the first night, so he claimed a new one.

And then combined his old bed, his new bed, and my blanket that he LOVES into one giant bed that took up half of the living room.

I think he will eventually love the backyard, but anytime we let him out, he almost immediately does this.


So how are the neighbors? After two weeks, I went outside one afternoon and found this on the porch. It was a box of cookies! Who does that?! People in movies?! So awesome. I've met two others and they seem nice too.

However our next door neighbors are a different story. We've been hearing 4-wheeler/motorcycle/something-or-another motors every afternoon for weeks. Today I decided to investigate. I looked over the fence and saw this:

Their entire backyard is a mud pit!

They made their own 4-wheeler track.

And are riding around on it every day. (I took these through the holes on the fence.)

This is ridiculous. And loud. What I didn't get a picture of is the thing he's driving past. It's a ramp they built out of... something.

And they're standing on the shed to watch each other.

Is this whole situation legal?

Posted in: house, Jack, neighbors on Thursday, October 16, 2008 at at 8:55 PM 4 comments