Spring Cleaning...

Sucks. Let's face it...who LIKES Spring Cleaning?

The Paisley Cottage is in Spring Clean mode. Sort of on accident...well, I won't say accident. I'll say UNPLANNED (that means it's Mr. Paisley's fault and i'm not happy about it).

First - the majority of the family room is in the living room because the new floors are supposed to go down and the room should be painted (but still isn't...stay with me here). This always happens. Mr. P. lacks follow thru skills. It drives me crazy. He's working the next who knows how many Saturdays so who know when he's going to have a full weekend to get his helper over here to do the floor. With any luck at all it will at least get painted this week. At any rate...

I will be the first to admit, the Paisley Cottage is NOT always company ready. I can handle the regular "mess", but when more is added to it, I literally start to have panic attacks. Friday was one of those days. Mr. Paisley is lucky he was at the storage unit when I got home from work on Friday. I pulled into the driveway and saw my vintage stereo cabinet on the front porch. Honestly I don't care about the cabinet, what I care about is that it was in the guest room - aka the garage (we don't have a garage, thus, the guest room is basically a giant walk in closet for us) - a room that belongs on an episode of Hoarders.  I mentioned it awhile back. Then got side tracked.

So the fact that it was outside, made me flip out. The amount of stuff that had to be moved to get to the cabinet...OMG. You don't even know. I was literally shaking by the time I walked up the driveway to the front door. Here, i'll put it in perspective. Yep, my dirty laundry (so to speak) on the web for all to see.  Behold the guest room...the one that screams GO AWAY! Well really...I mean how welcoming is a room with a twin size, soft-side waterbed anyway?

Why yes, that is a car seat (and i'm not talking baby stuff) in the corner. One of 4 in there. Those are the 2 pieces of the back seat of one of our '65 mustangs. Mr. P decided to re-cover them the minute he bought the upholstery...even though the car wasn't ready to have the seats put in (and still isn't)...so instead of being able to leave them in the car...they have to be stored indoors now. Dandy. Right, the stereo cabinet...it's behind that car seat. See all the crap in front of it?

Well, here are pictures that I just snapped (as I write this post)

 Halloween costume? Actually it was made for a few trips to the huge Renaissance Festival that is (or was) held at Vizcaya (Miami, FL). My awesome mom made it for me - i'm pretty sure it has like 15 yards of fabric in it...however, it has gotten a ton of use and the fabric came from a clearance table - bad dye job, kinda streaky - hello - PERFECT. Right, we aren't talking about my costume.

With the exception of pulling all the bedding off and washing it, it's even been CLEANED from top to bottom. Quite a feat. Hence Spring Cleaning. As long as all this crap is getting pulled out and gone thru, might as well do it now. Spring or not...

Where's all the stuff you ask? Well, some is in the living room (but not much). A lot is in crates...tagged for a yard sale. Crates are at the storage unit. This is going to be the mother of all yard sales...let me tell you LOL. Mr. P even put up the new wood blind to replace the metal one that was jacked up due to a large lizard on the lam. Woo hoo! You might recognize my bread box...yep, still haven't finished that project. There's a set of Whitehall Indiana Glass footed tea glasses that I need to sell (as I finally found the amber ones I wanted at a reasonable price).

Of course now i'm wishing we had bought extra flooring for this room. The carpet is a wreck from when there was an iguana cage in front of the window. It'll get done eventually. The office, hall and living room  need new flooring too so it'll all get done at one time. Plus the place we got the flooring still has 154 boxes of what we bought. Doesn't seem to be flying out the door, so i'll be keeping an eye on it and hopefully will buy it when the other stuff is paid off!

Back to spring cleaning. 2 rooms down...6 to go. I'm washing curtains, cleaning blinds, scrubbing baseboards and getting rid of stuff left and right. The guest room is due for a makeover - the closet needs to be opened up to be more functional (double bi-fold doors instead of the single), the paint is tired, the carpet is done, there are a couple of water marks and a crack in the ceiling from the hurricanes tugging at the roof a few years ago.  It's time will come...but not until well after spring cleaning is over.

On that note, i'm off to enjoy an evening of what else? NCIS - seriously did you think I was going to say cleaning? No...not today. I prefer my mega cleaning to be planned so that I DON'T have some sort of anxiety attack...it's not planned for today. No dice - Mr. Paisley is on his own for it this evening.

Bargains Galore...

Well, not really...but I did stock up on laundry detergent this weekend!

Walgreen's had Purex 3-in-1 sheets BOGO ($7.99 each) and I purchased 30 $3/1 coupons, plus had a few in my stash. So on a couple of separate trips (limit 4) I paid $8.74 for 4 boxes after tax each trip (I have 12 boxes now from Walgreen's)

CVS has Purex 3-in-1 sheets on sale for $3.99 each, no limit. I got 6 there for $1.05 each after tax. 

CVS also had the liquid Purex on sale for $1.99 and I had 30 or so coupons for $1/1. $.99 each? Load me up. Not with 30 though...I'm not that person who empties the shelf unless of course there are only a couple there. If it's not fully stocked it's game on. 

I also bought the following at CVS (one that was out of detergent):

• 4 Snickers peanut butter squares
• 1 12 pack of diet Sunkist
• 1 12 pack of diet A&W rootbeer
• 1 12 pack of diet Canada Dry ginger ale
• 1 tube of Colgate toothpaste
• 2 bottles of Dial Nutri-skin lotion
• 2 jars of Sundown 2000 Vitamin D (holy crap these things are $18 each for 300 pills)

I had $8.79 in extra bucks from last week's shopping. I also had 2 $1/1 coupons for Sundown vitamins (which were BOGO, plus they had $1/1 coupons on them that the clerk told me I could use too, even though I already had manuf. coupons for them. SWEET - so those ended up being $7 each - MUCH better!), 2 $2/1 coupons for the Dial lotion and $.50/1 on the toothpaste.

With sales and coupons I went from $72.98 to $25.17 and I got $7 in extra bucks for the next trip. Which won't be this week because I didn't see anything I wanted / needed in the ad this morning. 

I figure if I had $36 worth of vitamins and walked out of the store paying $11 less than that, plus had a bag of other stuff I did ok ;-)

Publix...where shopping is a pleasure

I admit it. I haven't been grocery shopping in...ummm well, let's not go there. Let's just say the Paisley Family is going on a budget diet...errr...well the Paisley Family is GETTING a budget! There we go...at the ripe old age of...yeah, i'm not saying. It's time to grow up and stop wasting so much money. The Mr. and I are going cash only during the week and we each have a $100 allowance - no questions asked, but when it's gone it's gone.

I figured it I was going to have to stop spending anywhere from $2.14 to dang near $20 for lunch (let's not even talk about breakfast) that I better buy some groceries.

Ready? Here we go...I paid $17.76 for:

• 13 boxes of Green Giant frozen veggies
• 3 bags of Armour meatballs
• 1 Hormel Parmesan Pork Loin
• 4 large loaves of Cole's frozen garlic bread
• 2 bags of Sargento reduced fat cheddar cheese, shredded
• 2 cans of Publix carrots (for my crockpot chicken noodle soup - did you know Green Giant doesn't do canned carrots? Yeah...GG was BOGO, but this Publix had no GG carrots, no space for them and WHY are the carrots all grouped together? The other veggies are sorted by brand, but all the canned carrots are together...weird)
• 6 packages of Ball Park bun size hot dogs (we have a BBQ coming up...holla!)
• 1 packages of ham steaks (2...for me to cook for lunch as Mr. P hates ham)
• 1 bottle of Frank's wing sauce
• 2 packages of small boneless pork chops (4 in each - awesome for a quick dinner when you forget to thaw something)
• 1lb of ground sirloin
• 2 packages of Butoni ref. pasta
• 4 jars of Bertolli pasta sauce
• 1 small can of sauerkraut (hey! Mr. P slipped that one in there...*gag*)
• 20 pack of Diet Coke (really? I want my other 4 cans Coke people!)
• 2 bags of Snyder's pretzels
• 4 small sweet potatoes
• 2 small containers of Sorrento part skim ricotta cheese (mmm stuffed mushrooms!)
• 1 family size bag of Pictsweet green beans (best frozen green beans EVER)
• 1 box of Jell-o Cookies n Cream pudding mix (I was hungry and it jumped into the cart)

WHEW! Oh and a rain check for Crisco EVOO because it was BOGO and they were out (and I have 2 $.75 off coupons - woot!)

Grand total:  $140.73

- $8.99 in store coupons

- $14.70 in manufacturer's coupons

- $35.83 in promo savings (ie BOGOs and 2-fers)

- $63.45 leftover on a $100 gift card that Mr. P got from work since he worked 2 shifts with less than 8 hours off in between.

I didn't have a coupon for the Diet Coke (because I neglected to print one before I left), or the Jell-o pudding, the sweet potatoes, ground sirloin, ham steaks, pork chops, green beans, carrots, or kraut...nor where they on any sort of sale. The garlic bread was BOGO...and i'll get another purdy reusable grocery bag with my receipt and 3 UPCs from the Cole's stuff - it has PAISLEY on it...and I love the one I have (it's shorter, but longer than the ones they sell at the grocery store)

Everything else was on sale and I had coupons.

Frozen veggies 10/$10 + 3 $.60/3 and 2 $.50/2 coupons = $.85 per box

Hot dogs BOGO + 3 $.75/2 coupons = $1.12 per pack

Garlic bread BOGO = $1.40 per loaf

Ricotta cheese 2/$5 + 2 $1/1 coupons = $1.50 each

Pork loin $7.99 (reg. price) + $1/1 coupon = $6.99 (one is enough to feed 6 people or Mr. P and I for dinner and lunch the next day)

Wing sauce $2.39 (reg. price) - $.50 coupon = $1.89

Pretzels were $3.99 each, but on sale for 2/$4, + a Publix coupons to get 1 free with the Diet Coke 20 pack, + $1/2 coupon...the cashier rang up the Publix coupon for $3.99 off, so really I got 2 free bags of pretzels and paid $4.99 for the case of Diet Coke (kicking myself for not printing a coupon before I left!)

Meatballs were 2/$5, + 3 $.55/1 coupons = $1.95 per bag (1 bag will make spaghetti and meatballs for the two of us 3 times)

Pasta Sauce was BOGO + 2 $1.50/2 coupons = $.65 per jar

Pasta was 2/$7 + $1/1 coupon = $3 each (not great and I should have had 2 coupons, but for some reason I didn't)

Cheese was 2/$4 + hmmm looks like she didn't scan my cheese coupon - dang it! should have been $.40/2 and that isn't on my receipt. Well we'll call it $2 each (which makes me mad).

and $5/$30 Publix coupon

And I was in and out in less than an hour. 

Cabin - February 2011

Cabin Projects February 2011


First and foremost...some much needed color! Since we didn't get any snow while we were there and there were only "flurries" in the forecast I decided flowers were in order. Enough gray and gloomy, naked trees, brown leaves, blah blah blah.


When you grow up in Florida, live your entire life in Florida...it's really WEIRD to walk into Home Depot or Lowe's and find EMPTY garden centers. We buy plants year round in Florida. I have to get used to this whole "winter" thing.


Last spring we put up these flower baskets on the railing around the parking area. I put sponges in the bottom, used that fancy potting soil that retains moisture and even had the redneck version of "aqua globes" in them to try and keep my drought tolerant, low maintenance plant choices alive between visits. No dice.  In December we had one little asparagus fern still hanging in there. At the end of January even it gave up and turned brown. So I went all out redneck. I chose purples and yellows because of my new little garden flag.

Yep...they're fake. NO maintenance! Michael's had a big sale on spring florals so I spent what I would have spent on real plants that would be dead in a month and we shall see if these don't get us thru to the beginning of summer before it's time to toss them and get something more summery.

That would be Mr. Paisley looking a little annoyed because i'm always taking pictures while he's working. We are still fighting the mouse. Or rat. I prefer to think of it as a mouse. We put out traps with real food. We put out bait trays - that dang mouse just MOVES the bait from the trays! Our trip in January was the 2nd trip since putting out the bait trays - you know, the ones with the little blue-green pellets. I went to put on my snow boots and one was full of pellets! Whisky Tango Foxtrot. I decided to clean out and reorganize the closet under the stairs. I moved the shelf unit and there was an entire tray worth of pellets behind it (no tray in the closet). This trip in February - a couple of the trays were EMPTY. Yep, but that dang mouse isn't dead.

Here Mr. Paisley is putting quarter round along the top of the walls where the actual full logs stop before becoming framed above. There's a pretty good gap we found. Not so much big enough for the mouse to get in, but plenty big enough to wonder why the power bill isn't thru the roof from air loss! It's big enough that the quarter round doesn't stick out of the log wall.

Here is the new "baseboard" upstairs. The builder did a really halfass job fitting the flooring around the beams...which in fact go OUTSIDE and that was big enough for a mouse to squeeze thru. They're currently not stained, but will get stained when the floors get redone - hopefully this summer.

We also drove into Knoxville to visit our friends at Perma-Chink. Your source for anything log home. For a mere $90 they hooked us up with a case of fancy, paintable, stainable, insulating caulk specifically for log homes.  Obviously, Mr. Paisley didn't do his best work on this one. Hopefully it won't be noticeable after it's stained. The sweet thing about Perma-Chink is that they give you a ton of stuff for free. They gave us the stuff to clean the wood (2 different products) and a bottle of stain that will be plenty to do the quarter round and the caulk. Plus since we live in Florida, we didn't have to pay the somewhat ridiculous Tennessee sales tax. Sweet.

Here is the fireplace. The only thing I did was add the wood curl, pine cone and berry tree. This was an after Christmas score from Target. I paid $4 for it. 

Remember how I said this cabin is built kind of halfassed? This is a hacksaw blade. Mr. Paisley stuck it up there while he was doing the quarter round. It's where the sloped ceiling meets the front wall - above the range and kitchen cabinets.

 

This is the other end of the hacksaw blade...OUTSIDE under the eave. Remember how I said we are shocked that the power bill isn't thru the roof? The entire house is like this...it's just not sealed. Anywhere. Whisky Tango Foxtrot.

More quarter round and somewhat sloppy caulking.

More fake plants! These are on the deck - the ivy has been there, I replaced what was in the red, white and blue flag pocket with something more drapey and these cute little grassy red flowers that move with the slightest breeze.  I also added the little sign to the left of the pocket. It says I *heart* USA and has little wood buttons on it. I got it for $.25 at the local outlet where they basically pay me to take stuff home.

This is inside the screen porch-deck where the hot tub is. We finished screening (basically that triangle over the door) and sealed that up with caulk and trim. The hot tub deck is now officially bug free! I picked up the stars after Christmas at Joann, ETC. They were $19.99 originally (uhh no...), I got them for 90% off. Sold. I bought 4. They're red (duh) with embossed swirls and they're coated with clear crystal stuff that resembles chunky salt. The sign is another new addition from the outlet that just gives me stuff. I think I actually paid a little over $1 for it. It hurt. The hanger is curled wire and it has rusty jingle bells at either end and a white metal star. Random...

 

This is the last bit...I hung up the Liberty flag. I've had this one for awhile. I got it at Ross (have you seen that rap video on you tube? It's hilarious - click here to see it) on clearance (of course) for $1.99 - hey it's better quality than the one in the screened room what can I say. It's on the open deck aka front porch. As you can see, we REALLY need to clean and stain the outside of the cabin. Not really the time of year for that (and frankly, I don't want to do it, i'd rather pay someone - especially with the back side of the house 30' off the ground. The star chain came from Big Lots last summer. Someday the plant stands will have plants on them and someday there will be a seating area on the deck. Mr. Paisley is going to build me a porch swing and a couple of Adirondack chairs. Another project...another post.

Some of my recent side work...

Garrett and Layla were ordered by a coworker for gifts. 

Emma was a gift for my former payroll processor. She and my sister-in-law were on the same pregnancy calendar. She had her adorable little girl the week before my niece was born. Emma's nursery is pink and brown. 

I'm still working on the ones for Georgia Grace. Well, actually I haven't started on them yet. I have them...i'm waiting for some paper to be delivered. I was kinda hoping it would be here by now, but no such luck. Hopefully it will turn up so I can put them together this weekend. I know it's driving my sister-in-law nuts, even though Gigi is only 10 days old - actually TODAY was the day she was supposed to be delivered via scheduled c-section. Shannon changed her mind a few times on what she wanted...my current "theme" is plain with lots of girlie bling in white and silver. Pretty tame for me - we shall see what I come up with!

Did you have a fabulous Valentine's Day?

I had a great Valentine's Day. Mr. Paisley is the first to admit that romance is not in his vocabulary. I love him anyway. 

Yesterday one of the ladies at the front desk instant messaged me that I had a package up front. I got a pretty brown and green box from Pro Flowers - a dozen lovely red roses, some baby's breath, a vase and a box of Rocky Mountain Candy Company chocolates. How sweet! My husband is not really a flower kinda guy.

I worked about 40 minutes later than I normally do and when I walked in the front door I was greeted with a table set for two, a fabulous salad - in the fancy salad serving bowl, fillets on the grill, fresh squash, zucchini and asparagus waiting to be thrown on the grill and a couple of huge potatoes baking in the oven. 

We never eat at the kitchen table unless we have company. There's no dining room in the Paisley Cottage remember? It's either the kitchen or the deck...and if it's just the two of us, it's usually on the couch with feet up on the coffee table, so to have a set table?! Crazy! 

So thank you to my wonderful hubby for a very nice Valentine's Day.

PS - I promise better blog posts are coming...really!

In honor of Valentine's Day...

Oy...it's mating season.

Yes, it's mating season at the Paisley Cottage. Midori is driving us crazy with the non-stop scratching and he's really annoying "the girls" who are in a cage across the room from him...to the point that we have a blanket over the front of their cage so he can't see them during the day (they're in front of a window so they do have a view LOL). Anywho - this is his substitute girlfriend. My apologies to the relative who sent said stuffed iguana to me.

 He carries this stuffed iguana around the house now...(appears as though I need to dust the coffee table...)

 It's kinda funny...

 He dragged it out onto the screened porch, behind the washer and dryer, and eventually up onto the "sunning table" in the corner.

Here's the action shot...he just wanders around with this thing in his mouth.

The stuffed iguana at least distracts him (and keeps him QUIET) for 30 minutes or so at a time. He has no interest in it if it is in his cage, but if he's out of his cage, he's toting it around with him. Whatever it takes for some peace and quiet. I think after mating season is over, we'll be making an appointment with Dr. Bruce to have Midori fixed...

Lights!

I stopped into a local icon of a store here in Orlando.  Lightstyle of Orlando at Lake Ivanhoe. I could spend hours in that store. too bad this particular day I only had about 20 minutes. However, I snapped a few shots of lighting that intrigued me...

 

LOVE the color combo and the hanging glass baubles...

 This one is sort of stained glass rounds...

 Entirely made of tiny little shells...

 

LOVE the different shaped woven hanging lights...

and this one...gorgeous in the right space.

Trust me, there were many others worthy of photos, I just didn't have time to take a lot of shots. They literally have thousands of lights in this store. It can be a little overwhelming LOL. They also have some artwork and random furniture pieces (which is what I was looking for). 

Check out their website and see what other goodies they have! 

Here's a link to the fixture my parents recently put up over their dining room table

3 light asian contemporary 

They also purchased a coordinating single cube fixture for the entry hall since it's open to the dining room. They're beautiful pieces!

The stork made an early delivery!

Miss Georgia Grace showed up just before 2:30 yesterday afternoon. She's about two weeks early, but she's just fine. Almost 7 pounds, 18" and a full head of dark hair, she's an absolute doll. Daddy couldn't be more proud and mamma is recovering, but says Gigi is the sweetest thing ever.

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