Our head board; nailed together with love

 I've been trying to make our house pretty... without spending money.
It's one of the hardest tasks I've ever given myself, and I've done some pretty hard things!
Well, it's not pretty yet. But it's slowly getting there.

The master bedroom has taken the longest to show any progress. It's definitely the most neglected room of the house.  I focus most of my decorating on our living room and the girls room, because it's more in the open and it's more fun decorating cute little girls rooms!

But Ryan pitched the idea that we build a headboard together.
So I posted an ISO pallets post on Facebook and got a bunch for free.
Then we, and when I say we I mean Ryan, pulled the boards off and we put together this shabby-chic headboard. Nailed it together, stained it with leftover stain we had from our table, and put it up.

 The most expensive part was the plain wreath that I bought at Walmart, which I spruced up with bright happy looking flowers.. Which added up to almost $10. The lights are one of those plastic tube Christmas lights that we never used for Christmas decor.

It's simple, and not exactly breath taking when you see it, but it's cute... It suits us.
We're not the most sophisticated, ritzy people. We're a little rough around the edges, but we've got our redeeming qualities once you look past the rough exterior......HA. Just kidding. That was a stupid analogy. But in my mind it sounded deep and eloquent.
Anyways, here's the finished product! It'll do for now. Once we get rich and famous maybe we'll spend tons of money on home decor.
But probably not.

House Update

This week I got much satisfaction out of letting two nice little Mexicans into my home and letting them rip out the last of the carpet left from the previous owners of this house. After we got the vents cleaned out there was still a funky smell in our room. Once the carpet was out of the house they had to sweep up the concrete that was under it, there was SO much dirt. SO gross. 

They hauled out that crusty nastiness and hauled in some soft, lovely carpet. I love it.

Ahh the smell of new carpet has never been so great!

 It's amazing the difference new flooring can make in a home. Its much more comfortable and the smell is gone. It smells like a normal, clean house. Finally. I can now put AddiLyn down on the floor without fearing for her health.  

This experience has me convinced that the next home we purchase has got to be brand spankin' new. No more of this fixing up stuff. Not that there's a problem with that, I know a lot of people who LOVE flipping houses. But I have found that it's not exactly my cup of tea.

However, now that it's done, I can officially say I LOVE my house. 

Next project: bathrooms. 

Breathin' Easy

The older I get the more germaphobe I become. As a kid I didn't care about all that. I was particular about how things smelled but that's about it. 

Well moving into a home where really dirty people lived before me has been difficult and I feel like the stress has aged me a few years.

 There was a smell of mold and dirt in the home that kept getting worse and worse no matter how much I cleaned. When I was pregnant I was constantly cleaning. Even when it was as clean as it could get it wasn't good enough because it didn't smell clean.

Well I hit a breaking point a couple weeks ago. The smell was worse than it's ever been. Ever. The humidity was making it worse. I told Ryan we were going to move and that was that. I wasn't going to deal with it anymore. 

So we decided that we would try a couple more things and if that didn't help we would rent the place out and figure something else out. Which would be a pain. Such a pain. But that's literally how much I hated the smell. It was a musty foresty smell, mold and dirt with a tinge of smoke is really the best way I can describe it. It was beginning to make me feel sick

So we researched some things and found out the air ducts could probably be contributing to it. We were able to find a groupon deal where a company would clean and sanitize the air duct system for a little over 100 instead of 350. Great deal. 

It was done on Thursday. 

We're pretty sure it had never been done before. This house was built in 2006. There were huge amounts of dust in the ducts and the furnace had a lot  mold and condensation it was blowing into the home. So they sanitized and cleaned everything up. 

The smell is now GONE. Completely.

The carpets still smell a little weird, so we're ripping them up and getting new carpet next week (just the living and master so it's an affordable project.) but the smell and mustiness is gone. I feel like we live in a completely different home. It's so great!! 

So get your air ducts cleaned every 2 years, people! It's disgusting up there, especially if it hasn't ever been done before!! 

The refining heat of life

So this morning I woke up, wiped the tiny beads of sweat off of my face, and laid in bed thinking about how crazy this week has been. Our air conditioner went out on Saturday, so needless to say, it's been a hot week in the Johnson house.

I laid there this morning thinking about how humid and disgusting the air felt. But then I began to think about how much fun we've ended up having this week.

Sunday is when the AC completely stopped working. The air stopped circulating, the freeon stopped pumping and our sweat glands began doing their job. 

Sunday our house reached close to 90 degrees and that's when I lost it. 

The negative thoughts and emotions crept into my mind just as the unwelcome heat and humidity seeped into our home...

"We don't have money to fix this" "why does stuff like this always happen to us" "I hate this" "I don't want to live in a disgusting hot house all week" "I'm the one who has to deal with this.."
 Blah blah Blahh... And I cried and shut myself in my room and let Ryan deal with our babies for awhile.

Yep. The drama queen inside of me has been making her appearance way too often these days.

I sat in there for maybe 45 minutes. Sweating. And crying. And feeling sorry for myself. And trying to think of someway we could just skip over this itty bitty (but such an annoying) trial.

Wouldn't it be nice if that's how life worked? "Oh, I don't want to deal with this, let's just skip over it! There's nothing I could possibly learn or gain from this." 

But, obviously, that's not how life works. And it's a good thing too.

As I sat on my bed that day being a baby, I realized that 

1-) I'm going to have to deal with this.  Whether I have to pack up all of my families belongings and live with family members for the week or stay at home and muscle through the heat, I'm going to have to deal with this. And 

2- )it's going to be awful. But it could be worse. Things can always be worse. And 

3- )I can be upset all week or I can make the best of it.

After a major attitude adjustment I was able to pick myself up and face the situation at hand.

So I, being the person I am, have a hard time asking people for help, or even accepting help people offer. It's such a flawed trait of mine, and I'm working on it. That being said, I chose to remain at my home and muscle through the heat. And guess what?
We lived. :)
As it turns out, this week Ryan and I have spent more quality time together than we have in a long time. 

Instead of watching tv ( anything that uses electricity generates heat, and when your sitting in a sauna as it is, you choose to go without..) we decided to come up with challenges for each other. The first one was who could sit in a cold ice bath without screaming. The second one was who could hold a lemon wedge in their mouth the longest... Random, and slightly childish (aka FUN) things like that. We got out of the house together everyday; went to parks, libraries, costco and took long drives. 

We talked.... My love language is quality conversation. And I feel like a lot of times I have to go without because of lack of time, motivation, ect. So this week I feel like my "love tank was filled." (If you havent read the 5 love languages, I highly reccomend it! Great marriage book. So worth the time.

Go to Amazon.com, look it up and buy it. Right now!!!

Another random thing we did; we cooked cookies on the grill. Ryan's genius plan. And they turned out amazing. 

I would take the girls on long drives during the day instead of putting them down for their naps in the house. That gave me the opportunity to think.
 Listen to my sweet babies peaceful breathing as they slept.
 And I prayed. Out loud.
(Random fact about me: I pray out loud in the car.. I only do in my car as I drive, if I'm the only one awake or present.)
 I felt at peace and close to God, driving by fields and fields of sunflowers, being out of my "workplace". 

I've got so caught up in what I think people (people who probably could care less about what I'm doing) expect of me and I haven't given enough thought to things I need to do to be genuinely happy.
And these drives gave me the opportunity to think about the things I need to change.

So yes, this little trial of ours led to greater happiness. And now that I have AC blowing on me, I'm sweat-free, the air is dry and the house is 75 degrees instead of 90 I can admit that this week has been good for me.

Hard. But good. 

All in all, I'm grateful that the only trials I've had to face recently are as mundane as broken AC and that I've been able to learn from them!

Now that I've bored you all to death, here are some dang pictures!

Making cookies outside:

Blurry picture... But you can still see the deliciousness, what else matters?

My sleepy snuggle bug

"Why is it so hot, mother? WHY!?"

Bath time became a frequent occurrence 

This stubborn little miss insisted on wearing her blankie even though it was so hot. We put a box fan in her room and pointed it right at her, and gave her a sippy with ice water in it. So she survived, thank goodness!

Emma sitting naked in her pool. She would ask me to take her diaper off and then she'd run out and sit or lay down in the cold water. Even when I wasn't out there.

All bundled up with no clothes on. She sleeps best with a blanket, just like her sister!

We made a "bubble tent"

Hanging out at the library

We're dorks, yes. I love it.

Ready to go on a drive!

Long story but it's a cute picture so I'm adding it on here :)


Anyways, kind of a random post. But life is random. What can you do?