Bought my own website!

Finally I took the plunge!

I had to go with a different name, so if you follow in a reader you will need to change to my new blog address.....www.ourdaileylife.com

Join me for the ride!

No Spend Challenge Days 7 and 8

 

I had to spend some money yesterday.

Out of necessity.

I watch a darling little girl every Friday afternoon to Saturday evening. Her mom is a single parent, working and attending school, and her schedule at work doesn’t mesh with a typical daycare provider. My pre-teen daughter and I take turns watching her, that way we both get some pocket money.

This weekend, the kids got out of school Friday at noon. After we got home Iris (aka little girl) told me she was very hungry. Turns out she didn’t eat lunch at school because she forgot to bring it and she doesn’t have a lunch account (I can’t believe the school didn’t feed her).  All the kids had a snack, and then a few hours later they had dinner. We left so I could take my kids to the drop-off site for their non-custodial parenting time, and Iris and I headed to my sisters for the night. Everything was fine until I asked Iris to get ready for bed.

No pajamas in her bag.

No clean underclothes in her bag.

No inhaler in her bag.

No jacket in her bag.

No jeans or sweatshirt in her bag – only shorts. It’s going to be rainy and 50 degrees, people.

And she was hungry again.

I had to buy a few things for her.

Would you count this against the challenge?

No Spend Challenge Day 6

Still no spending here.

I’m afraid my posts are getting a bit dull, repetitive and boring.

I can’t help it. My son is sick again/still. Poor guy. He threw up in the classroom towards the end of the day yesterday, and thinks the other kids might be angry with him. He is still feeling yucky, so he gets to hang out with mama today. I see hours of HGTV in the future.

And Hoarding.

I’m slightly obsessed with that show, so him being home is a great excuse for me to catch up on all my dvr shows.

Back to the spending, I may have a problem this weekend. There is a big junk/vintage kind of sale in Monticello, and I’ll only be a few miles away. I reeaally want to stop in and look around.

Decisions, decisions.

No Spend Challenge Day 5

 

It’s 12:30 pm and I haven’t spent any money all month.

I had an email conversation earlier today and mentioned that this may not be as hard as I thought, because I’m 17 miles from the nearest store. If I still lived in the Twin Cities there is no. way. I would be able to do this. 

That conversation also reminded me about another addendum to my plans. If my husband stops at the grocery store on his way home from work and buys milk, eggs, etc. ~ WITHOUT BEING SPECIFICALLY ASKED TO ~ I’m not counting it as a purchase.

Regardless of who eats it.

No Spend Challenge Day 4

I’m on a roll. A bankroll!

(I kill me.)

I have not spent any money this month. Woot!

I need to clarify my no-spending policy. I will have to purchase gas, which I stated at the beginning of the challenge. I also have to pay the monthly bills. I’m just not buying anything else. This includes DS games and Bruno Mars cds. Sorry kids.

It’s been easy up to this point.  A lot of cleaning and purging and decisions.

One of the decisions I’ve made is to learn everything I can about blogging. I really want to learn more about the technical side and delve into social media. So, when Kristi at CreativeKristi offered a free How To Blog class, I jumped.

We had our first conference call via Skype last night. There is so much to learn. I really thought my years of working in the computer hardware and software industry would help, but the technology changes so quickly.  I scribbled so many notes! Today I’m madly deciphering them. I can’t wait until next week!

No Spend Challenge Day 3

 

It’s 4:30 pm. Do you know what is in your wallet?

Mine is full. of. money.

I did not spend any money yesterday.

I have not spent any money today.

I may have spent a lot of time cleaning today (see notes from Day 2).

 

No Spend Challenge Day 2

 

It’s 8 am.

I did not spend any money yesterday.

At all. Not even on gas. Yippee!!

It helped that I didn’t leave the house.

And we were babysitting a five year old.

And my daughter has a broken toe.

And my son threw up three times.

Here’s to a better day today!

October No-Spend Challenge Day 1

 

The other day on Swoon Style and Home Shanna stated she was putting herself on a strict no-spend on home stuff policy for the month of October.

I rashly commented that I would join her, only I would go one step further and not buy anything but gas.

At my age I should have learned by now to think first before speaking or writing.

After looking at our October calendar, it may not be that bad. The hubs birthday is this weekend, but everything has already been purchased.  My niece will be 7 on the 30th. We usually make the cards and gifts, and won’t see her until November. If we don’t make something I will be able to purchase a gift before our visit. 

Hubby thinks I am doing this for him.  HA! My birthday bash weekend is in November and I need money to get my party on.

It’s 9 am and I haven’t spent any money.

If one picture is worth a thousand words....

this is a really long post!

I recently won a blog giveaway, and my prize appeared yesterday.

I'll be posting in the future the finished project, but for now I want to share the beautiful packaging and the contents.

Master Bedroom Wall

We've had an empty wall in our master bedroom for 7 1/2 years.

Since we built the house.

Shocking, I know.

What can I say? The wall isn't wide enough for the king-size bed, so it's always been more of a walkway to one side of the bed slash room.

I really like the look of board and batten that I've seen on many blogs, but I knew the hubs would say no. So I got creative.

I found an old barn board in our shed.


Thanks to my wonderful FIL, I have an electric drill. I finally got to use it!

Once I hung up the board, I also screwed in some smaller boards on the top to make a narrow ledge. I placed some pictures and frames on it, but I still need to play with that arrangement.


Then I used my Silhouette (insert choirs of Angels singing) and printed out a quote and put it on the wall with a 3D effect.






Guess what? The hubs loves it!


Linked to:

Stools

I've been following some wonderful DIY blogs for a few months and decided to try my hand at some of the ideas I've earmarked for our home.

First up, stools. Boring wood stools. Like this one only uglier.



They were so ugly I didn't take a picture of them. Luckily someone else posted pictures of their semi-ugly stools online. We got two of these free (maybe because they were so ugly?) so I was okay with a possible throw-them-in-the-burn-pile future.

Everyone raves about the Heirloom White spray paint from Rust-Oleum, so I picked some up at my local hardware store. I also picked up a spray gun trigger. LOVE IT. I scrubbed and cleaned both stools and spray painted them.

I tried, I really tried to do several thin coats of the spray paint, like everyone recommends. I am unable to do that. Even my scale will attest that I do not know what the word thin means. While the trigger did help, I know a professional spray-painter can do a much better job.

Once the stools were painted I let them dry.

For a month.

Actually only 27 days.

Seriously, because I painted them on July 8, two days before hosting a baby shower for my niece.

Anyhoo...oh, you don't know that word? Very Minnesotan. Anyhoo, after the stools were finally dry, I tried an interesting transfer technique on the tops.

I found some great french typography graphics at The Graphics Fairy.

I don't know what they say. Please let me know if they are offensive. Slang I can handle.

I cropped the downloads to the size I needed and darkened them up a bit. I also reversed the images. This is a very important step if using numbers or letters. Except for x. Or o. Or l.

Then I "painted" some sheets of printer paper with good ol' elmers washable glue and let the paper dry. Once dry I fed the paper through my printer and printed out the images. I lightly mod podged the top of the stools and laid the paper image side down. I used a flat scraper and made sure there were no bubbles hiding, then I let the stools dry overnight.

The next morning I soaked the paper with water. Be smart and use a spray bottle for this step. I was in too much of a hurry to walk out to the shed. Instead I got a sponge soaking wet and squeezed it out on top of the paper. Once the paper was truly wet, I carefully peeled it off.

TA-DA!











I'm very happy with my first DIY project!

Linking up to this party: