TUPPERWARE

i can't help it i like tupperware. like most females i do not really enjoy the act of going to a tupperware party or the act of opening up my wallet to fork over money i don't have for tupperware i don't need. but i do like, no perhaps love, me some tupperware.

recently a friend of mine (the second in a 365 day time span) has become a tupperware consultant. in my attempt to support her and her need for some extra cash i have in the last 3 months spent more money on tupperware then i can recall. which has lead to this dilemma: where the hell am i going to put all of this sexy tupperware!

so, from one of the many tupperware parties i went to in 2010 i purchased these items:

the next party i went to i purchased this:

(this stuff is currently in use)

and lastly while attending tupperware bingo a few weeks back i purchased (and won) even more.

on top of all of this new tupperware i've purchased i also have pieces that i've stolen from my mom

as well as pieces she or i purchased many years ago when my cousin was a consultant:

so as you can see i have a lot of tupperware. not as much as some but certainly more then others. and if you ask my husband i have plenty and there is no need to buy more. silly husband you can never have too much tupperware. this shit is great.

now back to the dilemma.

i want to separate all of the tupperware, which is not to leave this house or be used by the husband, from the cheaper stuff i now care about less and don't mind if it goes missing or ends up under the seat of someones car for six months just to emerge fully furry and frightening. but where am i going to put it and how am i going to do this?

step one: buy these bookshelves:

these were at the thrift store originally marked at $8.50 and then hiked up to $12.00 or something. i waited not so patiently for them to go on sale and as of saturday my friend purchased them for me for $0.75 a piece with an additional 25% off. my math says this means i got them for $1.37 which is not too bad. while they were still at the store i didn't think i would need both of them but figured you can't have too many shelves and if i didn't use them someone sure could.

so i got them home and wiped them off and moved them into the kitchen to prepare for step two: find a wall for them when i realized, i don't think i want all my precious tupperware on open shelves exposed to the elements. the dog hair and the splash from the dog bowl and the vomit from the occasional stupid girl who pukes on my kitchen floor. ok that last one only happened once but you never know when it might happen again. major sad. now what was i going to do? i could put all the crummy non-tupperwareness on these and keep my good tupperware in the original cabinet. and then i saw this:

these drawers were given to me by my uncle because they kind of suck and they have been housing all of this weirdness for i don't even know how long:

but now it hits me. drawers would be good for the tupperware. especially the lids. but can i make it all fit. and where do i put all the stuff that's currently in the drawers?

turns out kind of. i can make it most of it fit. as for the items that were in the drawers that stuff all now lives here:

but where am i going to put these drawers? i had wanted the tupperware in the kitchen, easily accessible but these drawers are in the dinning room and that's just to far. so the moving of furniture begins and this is where we have left it for now!

not my favorite at all. there has to be a better placement for all of this stuff. but for now i'm done. time will tell how many times i or some one walks in the the drawers and bleeds and i am open to any and all suggestions. i fear that i will not be happy until i am covered in tupperware curled up in the fetal position and someone takes over this project. or i will spend the rest of my time in this house moving these three pieces of furniture and everything in and on them.

well....

i've made some significant headway on the den in the last few weeks. in fact, if i hadn't gotten my nose pierced last week it would have been better and if my high school reunion wasn't this weekend i'd be done this weekend.

how does piercing my nose hinder my cleaning abilities you ask? well i got my nose done last week and had this fear that the puncture wound in my nose was going to get full of all the dust and dirt from my old crap so i didn't want to work in the den for a few days.

and as far as my reunion goes i have no plans to attend but a friend of mine is being pretty persistent and not excepting any of my excuses so i fear i may have to spend my saturday night at doppelgangers instead of working on cleaning. which is what i'd rather be doing. for many reasons but the biggest being, i hate doppelgangers.

but the den is looking amazing if i do say so myself. i've thrown away tons of crap and i've boxed up and taken 6 tubs or so to storage and i'm just so proud of myself. i hope hope hope to have the whole thing done before the party on the 19th because then we can open up the doors which makes the house look brighter and bigger and that i love. the last step is going to be shop vacing (it's a word) the windows and window sills of all the dead spiders and bees. yay!!! it's actually kind of gross and i can't figure out how so many freaking bees get in that room but i'm not enjoying all their tiny carcasses lying around my den. it's gross and i'm afraid i'm either going to step on one and get stung by a dead bee or the mo is going to eat one. which would also be bad.

while i did not take and before pictures i will take a slew of after one because i plan to be very very proud of myself once it's done.

i'm awesome!

the end.

Not enough time

I did the math this morning and if i go to work for 8 hours and i sleep for 8 hours that leaves me 8 hours for other things. well i need 2 hours for dinner and 1 hour to get ready for work and 1 hour for working out that then leaves me with 2 hours to watch t.v. 1 hour to knit or crochet and 1 hour to read. if i plan my life out as such i get to do all the things i want to do but nothing else. ever.

of course there are the weekends and those i don't have to work and so there is more time to hang out, if i ever wanted to, and then there are all the household chores to do as well but this just feels too scheduled and i'm not really a fan of that.

this budgeting of my time comes from me realizing yesterday that i don't get to read as much as i'd like to and i don't do stringy things as much as i'd like to. i can always string while watching t.v. but i've realized there are things i want to learn and that means i need to pay attention to what i'm doing and in some cases even find a tutor.

while in phoenix last month i managed to do some knitting but didn't finish the blanket like i wanted to and when i got home i got a treadmill so that's my new toy and taken up some but not all of my attention and with the weather being nicer it means i can more easily work on the den cause it's not so cold.

yet i still feel like there just isn't enough time. i always feel like i can't get to sleep fast enough and i haven't accomplished anything on my to-do list. then again, what's on my to-do list? i'm not really sure but i feel like nothing ever gets taken off the list.

so the big question is do i need more time? or is it simply that i need to want to do less?

the end

making plans

well it's that time again. when all the kids are out of school for a week and i am reminded that as a grown up i get no spring break. makes me sad and old. along with the lack of break i get, i get to add all of those out of school kids to my every day life. it's a lovely little tradition we like to call vacation bible school. a.k.a. vbs. yes vbs is here once again and i can hardly believe it. feels like i just wrapped up kettles. how can it be april already. i don't know but it is. and as i sit here i am wondering how this week will go. will the movie be sucky with the pool be open. will i have enough adult men to escort boys to the bathroom. the wonderful joys of my life.

however, if i can bring myself to look just past vbs i see vacation. wonderful vacation. nothing fun or exciting other then no work and seeing family i haven't seen in a year.

every year i make a trip to the phoenix area to see my grandma. i'm lucky because there are many aunts and uncles and cousins who live there or also visit often so i get to see a group of them all at once. it's retardedly hot in arizona 300 days of the year so i have very specific times when i will visit and due to my work schedule those dates are narrowed down even further. i pretty much am only willing to go january to may and even april and may are too hot. but i love my family so i suck it up and only complain when they can't hear. i try to go sooner then this like february or march but this year it's april and it will be better then the year it was may. and the year it was october. i never new it could be 100 degrees in october any where. that was a strange experiance i have to say. the weather forcast says it will be high 80's most of the time i'm there and while i'm not thrilled with this degree of heat i am just glad it's not hotter.

i leave on saturday so i have 5 days to pack but true to me i have already started compiling a list and a small pile of things i won't need between now and then. an extra towel so as not to die grandmas towels blue and purple with my hair, a nice dress and shoes to match, capris (it's 45 here today so i don't need those here yet), shorty socks, flip-flops (again no plans to wear them while it's 45). things of that nature. things like shampoo and deodorant will have to wait to be packed until friday because i will want to use them again before then.

i always find deciding what extracurricular goodies to bring one of the two hardest parts about packing for a trip. haven't played the ds in quite some time but what if while i'm away i have a burning need to play. should i bring it or not.

the second hardest part only applies if flying (which i am this trip) and that's, how do i pack? carry on everything but a small checked bag full of full size bath products? put bath products in 3 oz containers in a quart size zip-lock? check everything except the important things and the stave off boredom items (laptop, camera, knitting). i just can't decide. my instincts say to check only the bath stuff and carry everything else. don't want to be stuck in phoenix while my underpants have been sent to milwaukee. then again, there is a part of me that says "make it easy on yourself. it's a vacation. check everything you can and hope for the best. airlines almost never lose luggage any more"

any thoughts?

the end.

all craft some of the time

i took these picture weeks ago. well two weeks ago. sunday the 14th was all craft night at the house. i took pictures with the hope that i could show off some of the things i finished and the newest addition to my on going prayer shawl. i then lent my camera to jen and have only now gotten around to bragging about my awesome craftyness. i'm lazy it happens.

so the humans of the house have chosen to participate in disney's give a day get a day program. for those of you who don't know what that is, basically you sign up with disney to volunteer with a designated organization in your area and when you have completed your volunteer time you get a free one day ticket to disney. well we decided to help out the binky patrol which is an organization that gives blankets to kids who need comfort. the blankets are made of fleece and are called tie or no-sew blankets because all you do is get 2 yards of fleece and then cut and tie the edges making fringe. so easy, and i thought they were pretty fun and soft. and i usually hate fleece. we each made two. i thought i'd pick fleece colors and patterns that could be used for either a boy or a girl and i did the large ones for teens.

the first one i did

the second one i did

they are a nice size and i was excited with the second fleece i picked because the squares made the measuring much easier.

while i didn't get to work on my prayer shawl that night i did take a moment to take a picture of the progress i had made. two days earlier at my bi-weekly thursday night knitting group i finished the second skein of my shawl. i had been itching to start the next skein but wanted to take it's picture before moving on. i threw in a mo for scale.

thanks mo dog!!

it's a nice size. i think when it's done it will be a great length but i'm sure i'm going to wish it was wider. because of that fact, i am now on the hunt for a simple blanket pattern that i can make that will be a good size for wrapping myself in. i know i could take the current measurements and adjust them to make the right size but i haven't figured out the method for that yet.

some day though.

the end!

progress bitches

sorry i'm just so very excited about me.

over the weekend i made some progress in my "craft room" and i'm very proud of myself. while the progress may not be noticeable to the average bear it sure is to me.

my craft room is really the den, and over the last few years it has been crammed full of peoples extra crap. when teak moved his junk in we divided up the house so everyone got an extra spot. jen got the blue room which was already full of her stuff. teak got the garage cause he's a man. and i got the den cause it was what was left. i was happy to take the den cause there is a corner with build in shelves and it's perfect for all my many books and what not. plus i already had some stuff in there.

well in order to make room for everyone else's crap in their prospective rooms i had to get anything of mine out of them and that meant just shoving it into my room. so the den ended up just being a storage container for awhile. in fact some stuff from my actual storage unit made it's way back into the house and was locked into the den. until now.

over the weekend i spent short amounts of time in the den rearranging and moving and throwing away various boxes, papers, toys and other random things that i found. the weekend goal was to uncover a set of plastic drawers that i knew were in there somewhere and i knew were full of crap. the purpose for uncovering these drawers you ask, to clean them out and fill them with KNITTING THINGS!!!!!

for christmas i got some books and some yarn and a really neat bag to carry things in but as the months have gone on i have acquired more things and the bag is perfect for a current project it isn't big enough to hold everything especially all of the yarn i have and all the future things i want. so i started thinking about storage for craftiness and before i could buy anything remembered i already had the perfect thing. and i was off.

the plastic drawers were buried behind a ton of other boxes and randomness so i had to move and attempt to organize those things in order to even get to what i truly wanted. but after an hour or two i made my way to them. cleaning them out was the next step.

one drawer was full of fabric i didn't even know we had. another drawer full of sheets of plastic used for plastic sewing or whatever it's called. you know the stuff old ladies make tissue box covers and what-not out of. and the last drawer full of books. most of them were books and patterns for making those plastic things but a few were for some other types of crafty things. bead work and an all purpose craft book and book about friendship bracelets from 10 years ago. that book had some pretty neat thread bracelets in it if i remember correctly.

the fabric was placed in a box and combined with other fabric i had lying around. the plastic sheets were put aside for the thrift store as were most of the books. i kept a few. there was some neat stuff in them, but the plastic pattern ones all went. as did the yarn that you use for those types of projects. and then it was time to refill the drawers. the top one now contains yarn. practice yarn or yarn that at this point in time has no purpose. the middle drawer contains yarn with a purpose. extra skeins that will be need for current projects or yarn need for the next project. and the bottom still has books. the old books that i kept and my new knitting books. i will most likely also keep extra needles and such in these drawer somewhere too but that doesn't need to happen right now. a little progress at a time.

the point of all this, other then to clean, is to organize things. it's a chain reaction. if i clean and organize parts of the den then i can put stuff away in there and some of the things needing to be put away are in my bedroom. so if i put the things from my bedroom away then i can clean and organize my bedroom. and if i can clean and organize my bedroom perhaps some day i won't feel like i'm living under piles of crap. but instead i will be living peaceful beside them.

the end.

hooray hooray i love today

well well well today has been an interesting one.

it started out exactly as planned. i got up and went to work and then went over to the high school. i had to go deliver an award to ROTC for the volunteering they did for The Salvation Army over Christmas. they always ring bells for us and this year they won an award for doing so.

after presenting them with their award i tracked down an old teacher just to say hello, and then i tracked down my sister-in-law just to harass her. that was good times, but being back in that school 10 years after was weird. i've been there on off days but never while school was in. i'm 28 and i all of a sudden felt 18 again. strange.

by the time i was done it was 10 and my next "appointment" wasn't until 10:30 so i thought i'd treat myself to a nice breakfast. i went over to heidi's which i haven't been to in 9 years or something and had me some breakfast. in an attempt to not over eat or spend too much money i order biscuits and gravy and only water. it was a filling breakfast and i was full but not over full. so i felt good about that choice i have to say. after my tasty breakfast it was the perfect time to start my stalking mission (a.k.a. my next "appointment")

a friend of the family has been doing my hair for years. she's the only one whose ever really been able to do it right and i love her a lot. she's never afraid to do something crazy and she always answers my really dumb questions. i had called the salon and found out she'd be in a 10:30 so i headed on over.

it was still just before 10:30 and she wasn't there yet so i sat around the parking lot to wait for her. meanwhile i looked through the dvds i had brought with me for the perfect shot of the hair cut i wanted. when she showed up i told her i was there to just talk about my hair and see what she thought and if we could do it great if we needed to re-schedule fine too. she told me she had an appointment already this morning and asked if i could come back to talk about it around 12:30. i told her no problem and let her go on her way.

since i didn't have anything to really do and i was already in the midst of looking for the hair on the dvd i just stayed in the parking lot and kept looking through everything, fully intending to head back to work as soon as i found it. just wanted to be perpared for the afternoon. well a few minutes later she came out and told me her earlier appointment had come and gone so if i wanted to come in and talk now that'd be fine. so i jumped at the chance. i showed her the dvd and we talked about the cut and then the color and then she decide to jump right in and go for it. so of course i was stoked! and three hours later i was done.

and here's the result:

yay! i'm excited and i like it a lot.

the pictures don't do the purple and the blue justice but it's great and the cut makes it super curly which is perfect!

this evening i went to the new knitting group some ladies from the corps are starting. it was a lot of fun. one of the ladies has really been helping me and she showed me how to fix the knitting mistake i've been making and learn to purl. then she gave me homework. i have to knit purl like 10 rows and it's called something. i forget. but it's one of the many new steps i need to learn the next project i have to start. it was really fun and there was beer.

and the my dear was my day.

the end!