Wake & Bake

First things first - I finally found a rooster.
Now, it ain't much - but it will do. Especially since it was a mere $5 at Wally World.
I completely forgot to take a before picture. Not very smart, huh?

To help you understand the color 'before' - I will borrow words from the great master-mind himself, Mr. Nico. He said, "Mom, it looks like an animal cracker."

There. That should tell you that it was a very blotchy, beige-y, beige.

After some time outside yesterday and a coat of Ivory spray paint, allow me to introduce Roo, the rooster.

 

And here he sits, in his new home.

Isabel was joking at dinner last night..."What if the rooster wakes us up in the morning?!" We just laughed at with her. Silly girl.

Do you want to know what DID wake us up this morning?!?!  The alarm.
As in the HOUSE ALARM. As in Nic just wanted to know what the weather felt like. Oye ve. Our alarm company is going to LOVE us!

In food news, look at what I made yesterday.

My very first apple pie. Ever.
Last year, I made my very first pumpkin pie.
I will admit - for this particular pie, I did not make the crust. Marcos was begging for this pie, and I just wanted to get it over with, so I bought the pre-made crust.

Shame on me. I had NO IDEA that the apples and spices would be soooo good that they would be over-taken by the eh - so - so crust. I know I can make a nice, flaky crust. I've done it before.

So, I think I am going to give Apple Pie # 2 a shot. And really knock the socks off my hombre.

Next weekend, of course.

There you have it: Wake & Bake!

P.S. Lots of little crafts to share with you through out this coming week.

Signs, Signs, everywhere Signs...

Or maybe I should have titled this post Reminders, Reminders, everywhere Reminders...
But it doesn't have a catchy enough tune, me thinks.

Evidently, my high school crush thinks this is the best way to remind me to do something:

What I want to know is why he doesn't just fill out the form and send it in himself?

Instead of waiting 5 weeks for me to do it.

Sheesh.

Men.

I won, I won, I won, I won, I won. I did.

Would you like some wine...

with this cheese?

It only took a year.

I am going to let you in on a terrible secret.
I am ashamed.
Maybe I shouldn't tell you. You might think less of me.
Might is not strong enough. You WILL think less of me.

Our linen closet in our master bathroom has been pretty much empty the entire time we've lived in this house.

I said it.
You still there?

Over the past few weekends, Marcos and I caught the "let's finally getter done" bug.

The above picture shows you two things. We need nicer towels.

And, I've spent too much money at Victoria's Secret (as depicted below).

We didn't stop with the linen closet, oh no!

Marcos and I went on a shopping adventure, reminiscent of Extreme Couponing, and loaded up our pantry. Of course, that meant it needed to be cleaned out and reorganized.

We saved $138 in coupons.

Nice!

So... two areas of my house are in some sort of organized fashion. And they still are, 2 weeks later (yay!).
Now to get a Fall Cleaning done on the rest. I see Lysol wipes and Fabreeze in my future!

Really?

Remember this circular beauty?

Evidently my HOA says we cannot have wreaths on our front door.  We got another Nasty Gram from them over the weekend.  And they actually FINED us $25.00 because along with the wreath, they stated that we still haven't taken down our iron wall hangings. Here's that post. I can assure them we did. I even have 4-5 neighbors who stopped us as they were driving past and asked why we took them down; they loved them. Now I have a battle to fight.

I wish we would have double thought about buying a house in a neighborhood where HOAs rule the roost.

In other news, September 9th marked our ONE YEAR anniversary in this house.

It's been a year! Can you believe it?!

I am like, soooo sorry!

I find I must apologize...
For two reasons.
Here is the first:

I hope I didn't scare you away. But, a few weeks back our Bunco group had an 80s themed night. I wasn't going to dress up. I had the blues. But with an hour to spare I told myself to stop brooding and start snooping. In Isabel's room I scored her BRIGHT PINK Vans (and they fit. Ugh!), some hair things, the fishnet glove, and some necklaces. I can't believe I am admitting this own the t-shirt and the jeans skirt. It's not pretty, I know. But we had fun. And really, that's all that matters.

The second reason for my apology. I've been MIA. I wish I could blame it on one thing. And it wasn't just this blog I was neglecting. I felt out of it - and really wanted to stay locked in my house. Thankfully, I have a wonderful husband who made up stupid errands and then INSISTED I tag along. I've been working LONG hours, hardly stepping foot outside of my office. Again, a fantastic man dragged me out by my hair a few times to eat a sandwich and gulp down an Dr. Pepper.

The weather hasn't helped... It was really HOT and humid; hard to go outside for anything in that kind of weather. Thankfully, that seems to be changing. In fact, since it is starting to get darker a tad bit earlier, I've noticed it's not so hot at night anymore. I took Isabel to the store last night at 7:30 and it was only 83*, where two weeks ago it was still up in the 100s at that hour. Lovely! Of course, we are way out - near the mountains and farmland... I am not sure what the city folk felt. But we were cool.

So, I am trying to dig myself out of this personal hole. Trying to enjoy all things that have yet to come this year. And of course, document them here on this totally rad blog of mine.

So... apology accepted?