The Little Cabinet That Could

I have a little spot in my little apartment, between the kitchen and the dining room, that could easily fit a little shelf-type thing. And YOU KNOW I need to get as much storage space as possible out of this place. 

I think I was whining about that spot for a good 5 hours when my very, very sweet friend, Ali (who also happens to be my sister-in-law), gave in and generously gave me a piece of furniture from her very own furniture supply store that she calls her garage. 

Ali's awesome that way. 

It's a really cute piece, but it's open in the front. What I need is practical storage space, not Look-How-Fancy-I-Can-Display-My-Fancy-Stuff space. Besides, I don't have any fancy stuff.

See? Not fancy at all. 

(As a disclaimer, at this point I was still unloading the boxes into my apartment. I wasn't yet into the decorating/organizing phase of the big move.)

Ali's awesome in another way, too. She has the much larger version of this cabinet. She covered the front opening with fabric so she could use it to store all of her crafting supplies. I knew my little cabinet needed the same treatment. 

The mess inside that cabinet was driving me nuts. I had some extra fabric that used to be my basement window curtains (how I miss that basement!) and an extra 30 minutes on my hands, so I got down to business.

Supplies:

Cabinet

Fabric

Ribbon

Scissors 

Iron

Glue Gun and Glue

Cut the fabric to fit the height of the cabinet door opening. Cut 2 pieces of ribbon to fit the width of the door opening. You want the fabric width match the length of the ribbon (the width of the door opening). You can cut the fabric to fit the door opening or you can make some folds in the fabric and iron them so they stay. I'm sure you could get all measury and perfecty on the folds if you wanted. I just folded where I thought the folds should go. This is the back side of my fabric:

Hot glue the front of the fabric along the door frame opening. I put my cabinet on its side to make it easier to glue.




Make sure you pull the length of the fabric really tight before you glue. Otherwise, if you are like me, when you stand the cabinet back up, the extra fabric will pull at the bottom and you'll have to pull it off and start gluing again. Depending on the heaviness of your fabric, you may want to hot glue in the folds as well. Then your folds will stay perfect forever and ever.

Hot glue the pieces of ribbon to the top and bottom of the fabric. This is just cosmetic. If you wanted to get really fancy, you could glue 2 more pieces to cover up the sides of the fabric. I ran out of brown ribbon, so I didn't.

Close it up. Admire the outer beauty.

Open it up. Fill it with stuff.

Admire the inner, organizational, functional beauty.

It's The Little Cabinet That Could (Hold Lots of Not-Fancy Stuff)!

Daily Affirmation for Tomorrow

If you give an Ella a piece of paper, she's probably going to ask you for a pen.  When you give her a pen, she'll probably ask you for some spelling tips.

Ella: Mommy, how do spell 'Tomorrow'?

Me: T-o-m-o-r-r-o-w.

Ella: Okay. How do you spell 'Fight'?

Me: F-i-g-h-t.

Ella: Okay. How do you spell . . .

And when you give her some spelling tips, it will probably go on like this until she finishes expressing herself with an inspirational poster.  And when she finishes her poster, she'll probably ask you for some tape.

And when you give her the tape, she's going to want to hang her kick-ass poster on your bathroom mirror.

Which you might very well take down after a couple of days so you can have it framed. Because, seriously, that's an amazing amount of awesomeness from a little four and a half year old girl. 

To Do List in Pictures

I've been busy. We're unpacking boxes and organizing. We still have lots and lots of regular house stuff to put away. And then there are THE TOYS. Oh my dear Lord. 

The sheer amount of toys in this little apartment is kind of amazing. Awe inspiring, really. James had to make me promise not to bring in anymore boxes of toys (there are still 6 or 7 humongous boxes) from their temporary storage space in the garage until we've figured out what to do with the 15 tons of toys that are already in here. It's so cute, though. As we open each toy box, it's like Peyton and Ella are discovering their old toys all over again. Watching them play with their toys just makes me happy.

But our house is a disaster. Boxes everywhere. Stuff everywhere. Toys everywhere.

So yesterday I made my To Do List in pictures. And let me tell you, looking over the before and after pictures makes me feel really accomplished. I totally recommend it. Anyway...

Under the temporary work table in the master bedroom:

Done!

Dresser:

Done! (Except somehow Barbie's puppies' dog bones ended up there. They are so very little. Every time I see all 4 bones at once I do a little jig because I can't believe we haven't lost any yet. And Ella got them like 6 months ago. I know! It's amazing. It might be a tiny accomplishment, but an it's an important one - just ask Ella. She freakin' LOVES those bones.)

Master bedroom by the dresser:



Okay, that spot looks pretty much the same. But I did stack up a bunch of magazines that were underneath the chair. I have a lot of magazine reading to do. I kind of love this pile.


Dining room area:

Done! I love this little desk. Peyton and Ella have used it for years. It is the well-worn and well-loved little desk that could.

Dining room table:

Done! See all the scribble marks? This table is so old that when my kids scribble on it by accident it doesn't bother me. I think of it like seasoning a cast iron pan. They're kid-seasoning our table. When we get a new one, though, watch out! Rules will be made and followed! No seasoning!

There are coupons somewhere in this pile of newspapers:



Done! Cut and organized! Let the savings begin!


My sweet kids. Today they made the kinds of little messes that I love.

Ella created some cards for her Daddy:



Peyton created a battlefield on my computer and file cabinet:

That's better. Now my world is a little more tidy and a little more organized and a lot more like home.

It's Puzzle Time!

( Did you hear Moose A. Moose's voice in your head when you read the title?  *sigh*  )

We finally have a place to call home! We just moved into our own little 2-bedroom apartment. The plan is to hang out here for about a year until we find can a city and a home that we really love and want to stay for a good long while.

So, yeah, that's 4 people in a 2-bedroom. Here's the deal with that: We thought it would help us save some money while we find our perfect place. And, truthfully, the kids want to share a room. They've been talking about it for a long time. During last school year, Peyton and Ella would look forward to every weekend because it meant we would let them sleep in the same room. They LOVED it! It was like some crazy special treat that they made up all on their own. So we might as well take advantage of that craziness before they're older and wiser.

Right now, I'm in the middle of a supreme organizational challenge. In Iowa we had a 3-bedroom house with a basement and a 2-car garage. Now we have a 2-bedroom apartment and a 1-car garage-ish space. I keep my sanity by calling it an adventure. And really, I love my little family so much, where we live doesn't really matter. My family makes this apartment a home. A tiny, happy home.

So, let the organizational puzzle work begin! It will be interesting to see how I pull it off. I'm pretty confident that I can. Although, some positive, organizing thoughts sent my way couldn't hurt!

In the meantime...

I was making a list for the grocery store yesterday. Peyton came over, took the list and pen out of my hands, wrote something on the list, and then handed it back. And because of what he wrote, I had to start a whole new list just so I could keep the original one forever and ever and ever.

And . . .  my heart just melted.

On Defending One's Family

If you've read my blog for more than a day and a half, you probably have at least a small idea of how I feel about bugs. To recap: I kind of hate them.

And you know the kind I really hate, right? Yeah....That would be the buzzing kind. I feel as though I've covered this in great detail in past posts.

And now I will delve into what is terrifying me at this very moment. Causing my heart to race, my skin to feel hot and shivery and prickly, my head to feel tight. It's what's causing me to glance up from my computer every 3.5 seconds to ensure that I am not being stalked. It is what is under this box.

See that box? Under that box is some sort of EXTREMELY LARGE buzzing flying insect. I don't know what kind exactly.

What I do know:

1. It's stupid.

I know this because as I was relaxing on the couch, reading Stephen King's On Writing, I heard a VERY LOUD buzzing sound. Since the window in the living room was open, I assumed it must be large bumblebee or something on the other side of the screen. I tend to jump to these kinds of conclusions because they help me keep my sanity.

When I glanced up from my book, you know - just to be sure, I saw a black blob of doom with wings fall to the floor NOT 10 FEET from where I was trying to relax. Bastard! It landed on its back and it was all black and shiny green underneath and it started to shimmy the way really stupid flying beetles are apt to do when they can't turn over. Because they are so stupid.

2. It's probably dead.

I grabbed the closest large object I could find, the Lego box, and laid it on top of the writhing, buzzing horror. But the box was empty. Nowhere near heavy enough to squash a bug dead. The box started to move around with a scratching sound as the thing underneath was trying to claw its way out.

I would have smashed the box and all that survived underneath it with the child's guitar that was nearby (can you picture it? classic.), but both the empty Lego box and guitar belong to our little cousin, Jack. Whose house we are staying in at the moment. Because we are homeless rock stars who just moved back from Iowa. We have been rotating around our family's homes since we got here a month ago. We feel like rock stars because we have a wonderful extended family who missed us and are so glad to have us back that they are each willing to put us up for a week or two while we find our footing. Thank you, family! We love you so much!

However, there is a small possibility that all that good will might come to a screeching halt if I start smashing up their stuff.

So, instead, I carefully loaded some very heavy books into the box through the side opening and pressed down.

And then I pressed some more.

And I slowly backed away and hoped that the thing was dead. As I stared at that box for signs of life, I knew that I needed to have some closure. Because that box would torture me for the rest of the day if I didn't (Is that thing still alive? Is it crawling out to get me?). And, also, because I fancy myself a little bit of a bad-ass.

3. If my children even come this close to accidentally moving that box I will freak out and they will be in the Naughty Corner until the end of time.

As I see it, that box is basically keeping us alive. But it doesn't matter, because Peyton and Ella are busy sorting Jack's Star Wars Lego people. For fun. They are totally my kids.

They are blissfully unaware of our situation. That is really, really good. When I see a scary bug I am able to scream on the inside. Peyton and Ella do not have that ability. Flying bugs elicit screams from my children that rival the screams of stupid people in slasher films. Also, the other day Ella discovered the teeniest, tiniest little spider ever in the history of the world on a stuffed animal and she cried about it for the next 30 minutes.

What I don't know:

1. How did it get in the house?

2. How long has it been in the house?

3. Did it already slither into my ear and lay its eggs while I slept?

4. What was that noise just now????

5. Did the box just move while I wasn't looking at it????

6. Am I going to be able to get up the courage to look underneath that damn box? For the safety of my family?

Yes. I am. But first I needed to call my mom. Because she's not afraid of bugs. She actually thinks they're beneficial. My mom's really smart about most things and I love her more than anything but on this issue she's CRAZY. So I call her so that she can talk me through this. Also, she'll know to alert the authorities should something happens to me while I'm defending my family,.

My mom doesn't answer her phone. Super awesome, Mom.

Plan B: "Kids! Come here for a second! Okay, you see that box? There's a really big bug under there. I think it's dead, but I have to check it out. Wanna watch?"

"Yeah!"

See that? That is some Parent of the Year crap right there. I use my kids to make me brave. I make it a game: Watch Mommy Slay the Beast.

I don the appropriate bug-buster safety gear (the kind that covers my whole body so that nothing can land on my skin), grab my weapon of choice (Real Simple magazine because it's super heavy), and I let Peyton take a picture of my attack face:

And I lift up the box and Peyton says, "Woa! That is humongous! Disgusting!"

See that? Confirmation from a 6-year-old. I'll take it.

Then he decides to measure it (Brave boy! When did that happen? Probably when he realized the bug wasn't really moving):























I scoop it up and take it outside. I am feeling pretty brave myself.

And then Peyton says, "Mommy, I'm proud of you for doing that."

What can I say?

I can't really say much as I'm too busy puffy-painting "H E R O" on a t-shirt for myself.