Five Things

1) Debbie's Retirement
Last Friday was my mother in law's last day of work EVER. Pretty exciting! Her husband was out of town for work and I didn't want her to have to go home to an empty house on such a momentous occasion, so I had Clinton tell her to meet us at our place for dinner at 6 (but that was a trick!). I had the idea to do a little mini scavenger hunt leading her to meet us at her favorite restaurant. Since it was last-minute and there would only be about an hour from the time that she got home until she was supposed to meet us, I didn't want to make it too complicated, so I just did little poems instead of puzzles for clues.

After work we made a quick stop at Party City and then headed to her house to decorate the driveway/carport and place the clues, and then we headed to the restaurant to snag a seat, place the final poem, and wait for her arrival.

She was so giggly and happy when she arrived, it was so cute! She said that it was a really fun end to her day, so I'm glad we threw together this little last minute celebration.

After dinner we took her out to see a movie of her choice - Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2. It was a fun night for sure.

2) Saturday Night Shenanigans
I had to work Saturday but in the evening we spent some time with three of my thirteen nieces and nephews. Madison had a birthday recently and we got her a gift card to Hobby Lobby because she looooves all things crafty. The deal was that on the next free weekend, we would take her to spend it. Her brother Jaxon was with us too, but she wanted a girls night, so Jaxon and Clinton hung out at our place playing video games while I took Madi and Sydney to Hobby Lobby. She was awesome in there, I loved watching her! She was just blazing through the place throwing things in the cart left and right, ha! She made off with quite the haul. While we were there, the girls helped me pick out the finishing touch for Clinton's anniversary present, and it was so cute how excited they were to be in on the secret.

After HL and before heading home, I took the girls for froyo - they said no boys allowed! Sassy.

On the way home we stopped to pick up some Taco Bell for the boys, and after eating we all headed over to the playground at our apartment. Jaxon ended up hurting his heel playing, so I went back inside with him for more video games while Clinton hung back to play make believe firefighters with Syd and Madi. Later, Clinton told me that after they were done playing they went for a walk around the complex all holding hands, and Madi told him, "You're more than an uncle to me - and trust me, that means a lot! You're more like my best friend," and Sydney chimed in with, "Yeah, you're our best friend!"

Please excuse me while I just melt all over the place. Clean-up in aisle 1, we've got a Reissig puddle here.

Eventually we took them all home where the girls immediately jumped in the pool for some night swimming and Clint and I spent a little bit of time with my sister and her husband. It was a good night!

3) Clevelend Inidans
The Indians are in the playoffs! I became an Indians fan because my grandfather was one. He passed several years ago, but I have his old jacket and even got to bring it with me to a game at Progressive Field in 2011 - it was a surreal experience.

Looks like I'll be rocking my custom jersey and grandad's jacket for a bit! #tribepride

4) Sunday Family dinner
Sunday we planned on having Tom and Debbie over for dinner and to watch football and the Kids Cookoff on Food Network (cutest show ever, by the way). During the day my friend and her family dropped by since they were on our side of town, so that was nice. My husband is a total crazypants and riled her kids up as he always does, and her husband said that he's just waiting until we have kids so he can get them all worked up too. Agh! I'll have to keep an eye on that one... ha!

Dinner was Braised Short Ribs on Parmesan Polenta with Balsamic Glazed Toasted Asparagus, and Toasted Baguette. It was delicious.

5) Harry Potter News
I AM SUPER EXCITED ABOUT SOMETHING.

http://www.mugglenet.com/app/news/show/7209

Enough said.

Pinspiration 5/5 + a bonus project.

For Pinspirations 1-2 see HERE.
For Pinspirations 3-4 see HERE.

For my 5^th and final (well, not final, but the final one of at least 5 that I promised myself I would do) little Pinterest project, I made over an old shoebox to hold my many pens/markers/pencils, as well as a few extras like exacto knives and paint brushes.

The Pinterest caption: Shoe box + paper towel tubes = storage for pens and other office/art supplies.



I did mine in red/tan since it was going in the office/2nd bedroom and the color palette in there is cream/red/brown/tan.

Easy as pie, and a fair amount cuter than the Ziploc freezer bag they were previously stored in. I'll probably take those rolls out and cut them down some more so they're not sticking over the top, but the sun was setting and I wanted to snap some pics in decent lighting.

I covered the inside in a plain tan cardstock with some very light texturing just so things wouldn't slide around as easily. The outside looks like burlap, but it's just a patterned cardstock. I cut and measured individual pieces for each side of the box. It's totally up to you, but I covered the bottom of the box too even though nobody will ever see it, I'm just a little anal that way. After the paper was all on I just hot glued some twine around the edges and the middle to make it look a little more finished, and then just organized my writing/drawing utensils by type and color. fin.

When I went to put it away on the desk I looked at my bookshelf and decided that while I was at it, I was also going to attempt a fairly popular design element and organize the small bookshelf in that room by color. (Are you sensing a pattern? You should see my color-coded closet. It's ridiculous.)

Color-coded bookshelves are all over the blogosphere and design/decor magazines. A quick Google search comes up with a cornucopia of options.

I personally am not a huge fan of full wall rainbow so if I had a large bookshelf I wouldn't do it that way. I might still color block, but not in a rainbow pattern, and I would break it up with small decor items and books stacked in different directions. To each their own, though. I sort of caught some flack about this when I posted a photo of my finished product on Facebook, and then when I was looking for a link to show people that yes, this is in fact a thing that people are doing, I came across THIS Apartment Therapy article explaining why people do this. It wasn't the article that struck me though - it was the comments.

WOW. People get really unnecessarily mad at other people's design choices. Seriously, really angry and rude and judgmental. There were a lot of comments saying that this was a disgusting thing to do, and people who do this must buy their books strictly for looks and have no respect for books and never read them - so on and so forth. I mean... I like books, and I read all of the books that I have, and I happen to already have a fairly varied assortment of colored spines - but I also like things to look cute. So, you know, whatever. If any of my readers are the super angry commenters from that post then please feel free to skip the rest of this entry!

I took everything off the bookshelf and arranged the books into stacks based on color. I moved the piles around a few times before I was satisfied with them, and then added a few small pieces for visual interest like a Dwight Schrute bobblehead and beet stress ball, a Rubik's Cube, a photo from a friend's wedding, a souvenir box from our recent Seattle trip, and a small glass vase filled with bookmarks.

#ravenclawpride

I like it. I think it looks cute and cohesive and adds both some fun color and some much needed structure/organization to what is currently a very disorganized room. Now I did have to sacrifice some books for this to work - for example, I just really can't bring myself to separate books in a series, so anything like that (*ahem* like, oh, I don't know, 10 Harry Potter books) will wind up in a new home. It looks a lot better though. It was cluttered before and in addition to books held things like old cameras and previous years' taxes, which needed to be put away somewhere better anyway!

Suck it, haters.

 



Have you made any controversial design decisions? Have you ever typed up a blog post and felt absolutely ridiculous writing the words "controversial design decision"? Because I know someone who has...

Pinspiration(s) 3-4/5

For Pinspirations 1-2, click here!

It's been a busy couple of weeks here at the Reissig camp. In late August we took a super fun vacation to San Francisco and Seattle and since then have been in catch-up mode, both at work and home. I'll definitely blog about our vacation, but that's going to be a much longer blog post, so I'll save it for another day. For now, a couple more of my completed pins.

Pin 3 - Painted Knife Block:

I've seen this one floating around for awhile. The only color in my kitchen is blue - several shades of it. I have a lot of lighter blue/teal in there right now and have been trying to bring in some darker shades as well, so I decided to go for it with the painted knife block.

I bought 2 colors of paint. I liked the metallic blue and wanted it for a little extra oomph since the block goes in a shadowy area, so I also bought a darker, sort of cadet blue, and decided to just mix the two.

Mixing my colors.

Before, and during (1st coat, still wet.)

I painted down about a half inch into the two larger slots since they are just for scissors and shears, but I kept the paint out of all of the other slots for food safety. Not pictured - after application and drying of two coats of paint, I also painted a clear gloss coat over the top to both protect the paint, and just to make it glossy and give it a little something extra with that shine. After another day of drying, I put the knives back in and put the block back in his home on the counter. (well, most of the knives - some were dirty, ha!)

The block in perspective, and close-up. Left with flash, right with no flash.

Pin 4 - Food Inspired Prints:

Like approximately 5597848395065948392 billion other people, my favorite corner of the internet is Young House Love. There was an awesome post awhile back about adding personal touches to the decor all around their house that I absolutely adored, because I am a total sap. (See here for the post.) They had a super cute idea of putting not just food-related photos in their kitchen, but food items from their wedding! I pinned the link to one of my boards right away and today Clinton and I decided to go to IKEA, so I picked up a frame while we were there to get it done.

The original photo from YHL.

Knowing I only had room to put my frame vertically, I went for 3 horizontal pictures instead of the vertical ones the original shows. I picked a table setting, the gelato bar, and our cake (with the little crab topper I made!)

The frame I picked up at IKEA for only $9.99. Our dining table is brown, so that determined the color of the frame.

Hung! Please excuse my overflow of Food Network magazines, ha!

A close up from Instagram.

I love having a little reminder of our wedding day at dinner now! Anything I'm eating will taste a little sweeter looking at that groomy crab's jaunty little top hat!

So that's it - both very simple but both things make me smile when I see them, and what more can you really ask for? I only have one more pin to meet my goal, and I've actually started one but need to finish up before I can post it. Until then, I hope you can find some inspiration too!

Pinspiration(s) 1-2/5

At the beginning of each year, Clinton and I make a list of things we want to do through the year. Not to be confused with a typical "Resolution" list of things like "lose weight", "stop smoking", "eat a carrot everyday" or anything like that. Just a list of goals. Some are lofty and some, like this one, are not.

Like approximately 58,966,544,124,589,654 other people, I have a slight addiction to Pinterest. I like to think that I use mine pretty practically, and I don't use it to pin every pretty thing I've ever seen in my life. I only pin things that I can realistically achieve. I have several things pinned that I'm waiting on until we buy a house, mainly just because I don't want to build a piece of furniture or something and then just have to move it. However, I put it on my 2013 list that instead of just "someday pinning" I was going to actually do at least 5 things from Pinterest this year.

The first two I'm going to post were super easy ones but hey - if it's something I pinned and then actually followed through on, it counts!

Pin 1 - The Fruit Saver:

The original pin.

We buy a LOT of produce because I'm not a terribly big meat-eater, and we just prefer fruit and veg for snacks to chips and stuff like that. Sometimes we get a little overzealous in the produce department and wind up with some extra fruit that I have to make smoothies out of or something because it's getting too ripe - so I decided to give this a go. Can't hurt, right?

GUYS. IT TOTALLY WORKS. Seriously. That was my first attempt and not only was the water waxy, but the fruit lasted forever. I left it uneaten for longer than normal just to see if it actually worked and it did not disappoint. I do this with all of our produce now as soon as we get home from the store. I seriously cannot recommend this enough! Oh, and if anyone is wondering - no, the vinegar does not have any effect whatsoever on the taste of the produce. Pretty sweet and if you're not doing this already, I definitely recommend it.

Pin 2 - Love Notes:

I actually pinned this ages ago, but I just never got around to finishing it. I half started it a few months ago and then kept forgetting that I needed ink for our printer, so the frame sat in the spare room just waiting.

 The original pin.

 

I thought this was super cute - we already leave each other little notes sometimes so I thought having a place for it was a good idea. I knew I wanted to put it in our bedroom, which is full of black furniture, grey linens, and pops of color in the other decor (candles, vases, etc.) so I needed something fairly neutral. I used a black wood frame that I already had, and picked up some printed cardstock on one of my many trips to Hobby Lobby - only later did I realize that I had picked the same cardstock used in the pin - it honestly wasn't my intention, I just picked a neutral one that I thought was pretty! I can't remember where the flowers I used were from - they are something I had leftover from a previous project and I found them in my craft box.

 

When I sat down at the computer yesterday to finally print out the "I love you because..." part, I ended up getting super frustrated and failing a few test prints, so I just did it the old fashioned way - held the paper up to the computer screen and traced it. I traced with pencil first (so it wouldn't bleed through onto the computer), and then filled it in with a fine tipped permanent marker.

 

My version now sits on a corner of our dresser in the bedroom - and of course I had to get things started by mentioning my source of inspiration! I think it'll be a fun little thing to have, so I'm happy I finally decided to finish it.

2 down, 3 (or more!) to go. It's the little things, people. :)


Lookout Mountain Hike

On Tuesday this week, it was a rare overcast day in the city, so Clinton and I decided that we would go for a quick little hike after work. We stopped at home to change and pick up Emmy, and went to Lookout Mountain Preserve to get in some quality time with our teeny family unit.

Looking North from the base of the mountain.

Turned around, looking at part of the mountain. There's more to the left, and it's higher.

The above picture only shows part of the mountain. There's the smallest peak to the right, then to the left is the middle peak, and to the left of that (not pictured) is the highest peak. We took a circumference trail that went around the whole thing, instead of up. About 3/4 of the way through, we went up to the top of the middle peak before heading back down.

pre-hike selfies ftw.

We hiked around about a quarter of the trail before we had to stop for puppy's first water break. Seriously, our pup is a champ. She is so teeny and takes like 20 steps to our one, but she makes it through every hike we do - even the long ones!

Puppy!



About 1/4 of the way around the mountain. We are now looking Southeast.

After a quick break, we were on our way again. Clinton and I spent this leg of the hike talking about how stupid and unfair cancer is. Someone we work with was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer and it's just so frustrating because she is one of the nicest people you will ever meet - not to mention the healthiest! It just feels frustrating and unfair that someone like that (or someone like my sister) has to deal with this crap. It makes you feel helpless. It was therapeutic though - there was nobody else out on the trails but us, so it helped being able to vent and work out some frustrations by sweating a little bit.

I just thought this rocky area was cool-looking.

 



 View to the South.

 

About 3/4 of the way around the circumference of the mountain preserve we slowed the pace because we were looking at all the huuuuuge houses on the west side of the mountain. Seriously, they are enormous! In the one pictured above, there was a wraparound raised patio with arches around the entire house. There was another house (pictured below) that looked like a tropical resort or something with all of the trees surrounding it and the pool. I wondered aloud if the people who live in these houses get irritated when people on the mountain are totally creeping on where they live, because I'm sure everyone who hikes there does it.

 

Also - the clouds were awesome, so you know I had to snap some photos of those too. I just love grey days!

Thanks, clouds, for allowing us to hike in Phoenix in the middle of summer!

 



 

We also took some photos on the peak (this time the photos are facing north again, except from the top now instead of the base). I captured Clinton trying to take a photo of Emmy - poor guy, he can hardly ever get a good one! I tried to get Emmy to come stand next to me to take a photo w/ the city behind us, but she was toooooo scared because about 3 feet back you could see over the edge and she thought she was going to go over it or something. Poor thing... I was trying not to laugh at her, but it was pretty funny.

 

 

She refused to back up at all and laid flat on her belly. As soon as I told her she could move she bolted right back over to Clinton for comfort. Our dog thinks she is a human...

Wimp.

 

After taking in the views at the top for awhile we decided to head back down so we could get home and make supper.

 



The infographic and map at the base of the preserve.

 



Post-Hike. It wasn't difficult, but it was hot even though it was cloudy!

 

All in all, I'd call it a success. It was nice to get outside for awhile on a weekday. We can't wait until the weather starts turning so that we can do these quick little weeknight hikes more often, instead of being forced to go out of town on the weekend if we want to hike!