Organization and Systems.

From a very early age I was neurotically organized and neat. I was, and am, still socially strange. And so I would hang out by myself in my room and play the clean up game. I would hum to myself the clean up song. (Imagine a little gollum) "We start with my clothes, and then my art supplies, and then my toys, and finally make my bed!" . I enjoyed the control in it I think. What I couldn't control was when a friend would come over and break one of my crayons... this was the worst! ... and now my two year old does it, and it throws me right back to 1985. "It's ok.... deep breath. It will be ok. The crayon still works". I mumble to myself in my head.  "It's just mangled and ugly and no longer fits back in the box oh dear lord he's pealing the paper off!!!! NO!!!! How will I know what color it is?" Shut up. I have issues.
 To calm myself down, or to sleep well I must have order. I have a cattle press in my room and my husband squeezes me in it, and I feel much better... hahaha no. I'm just kidding, but I sure wish I had one sometimes.  I have found that my animal friends also need order and systems. Children, Men, Pets, you name it. It all runs better on a schedule, and a system.

I'm here to help you. Take my hand and I will lead you down the path of CLEAN AND BEAUTIFUL AND ORGANIZED... lets sing and skip. Come with me my friends! La La la...clean up- clean up- lets play the clean up game...

FOOD:
If you want a happy animal FEED THEM AT THE SAME TIME every day. Don't go changing it up on them. This is the primary reason why cat's pee on your bed. They are mad at you. I found this to be especially true with my chinchilla "Chinchy". Chinchillas defend themselves by hopping on their hind legs and pee in your eyes. They have amazing aim. You can be standing and it will still some how make it on your face.
Anyway, I had an angry little chinchy. She was horrible. She was miserable... I tried everything except a schedule. So then one day, I started to write down what I was doing wrong. As I started to log in hours, I realized that the only non constant was food supply and time. We do it with horses... I thought. Imagine if I missed feeding 25 horses at 7am... what would happen? They would kick the door down and act all crazy. So it started. Chinchy was fed first thing in the morning always before 9 am. She always got one scoop. After that, no more pee. She cuddled, she loved, we laughed even. It was beautiful.

So then I tried it on my husband. Same thing. He lost weight, he liked me, he came home expecting dinner and if there was none... he would turn into a total dick with a giant attitude problem -and... would he tell you he was hungry? no! I had to figure that one out. Lesson learned. Food equals happy. No food- no happy. This is especially true for me. If you dont feed me or let me eat, your in for a bad time.

SLEEP:
I keep my kids on a tight schedule. They wake up 7:45. Eat breakfast. Play. Eat lunch at 12:00. Nap time at 1:30 they sleep for two hours. Dinner at 5:45, bath at 7:30 Sleep at 8pm. This happens everyday. No arguments. However, when my husband is home on weekends he likes to go out. He especially likes to go out during one of these scheduled times... and what we end up with are screaming horrible boys. You want good kids? Keep them to a schedule.

MESS:
Nothing horrifies me more than clutter. It makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out. I can't do it... I can't stand to sit in a room with things... everywhere. Before going to bed, I clean up all the toys, the clothes, and they all have a place to sleep for the night. If something doesn't have a home, than either it gets tossed, or it finds a place. And no... throwing it in a closet or on the floor to be dealt with later is a terrible system. Don't do it. Just do it now.
Also, don't let the mess build up. If you have a free second, (and we all do... if you watch TV) then you have free time... so instead of watching TV, take 15 minutes to sort through the homeless clutter. This is so important to my sanity, I even sleep better when there is no mess. It's zen. Have you ever noticed that you sleep better in a bed that has fresh clean sheets on it? It creates calm. I even go as far as taking all of my husbands black work socks, match them and lay them all out so that when he wakes up at 6:15 he can just grab and go, it saves him a good 5 to 10 minutes... which means that he can drive slowly listening to his audio books in the morning. I also fold and put away all of his clothes, and iron his shirts. He is a pretty neat and tidy guy but when it comes to his closet and clothes, he is a pig. He has no system, he just hangs his pants up over the pants he wore yesterday and then it falls to the ground, and then it's wrinkled, and then he has to take it to get dry cleaned, when it really could have all been avoided. He can't break this bad habit though... no matter how hard I try. So I do it for him... in front of him, so he gets all flustered and starts yelling for me to get out of his part of the closet. If I do it not in front of him... he doesn't notice. If you want praise do the work in front of the person your working for. Nuff said.

SYSTEM:
Last but not least... systems. I have a system for getting the kids out the door in under 5 minutes. I have a diaper bag packed with diapers ready to go. I just pick that sucker up and out the door we go. It has one change of clothes, and diapers to last a week. I have zip lock bags filled with "munchies" that get tossed into my huge purse. This is all I need. My husband and I also have an unspoken system with the kids. He has Watts (the two year old) and I handle James (The 6 month old). He gets Watts in and out of the car, and I do the same with James. Anything that goes wrong with Watts... thats his problem, same goes for James. We are team mates that run a well oiled rig. Without having this system in place it would be chaos.
I was just going around doing my 15 minute clean up when I came across some bills that were not filed.  (Crack goes the whip) I have a system for that too, so that this tax season will be super easy. I have an accordion folder with manilla folders inside. I label one in red, Pending Bills, and than the others are, auto, medical, utilities, loans, manuals, and other. The Pending Bills is the most important. It holds all the bills that have not been paid yet.( I learned this from my old boss. She was a freak too. It's her birthday today. Happy Birthday Buttercup! I love you.)  I then have a white board in the kitchen. I open the mail, I see a gas bill. I go to the white board, put when the gas bill is due and the amount, and then place it in the Pending Bills folder. I pay it a week in advanced and then I write on the bill the date it was paid and then it gets filed in the Utilities folder. It took my husband a while to get this system down because his job is to get the mail, open the mail, and look for bills, he is to write the amount on the board and put it in the pending bills folder. If I find a floating bill on the dining room table he gets in trouble for breaking my code of conduct. Which is another thing. Men like discipline, and so do my kids. Crack goes my whip. So basically, I do all this to save me time and energy. Many times I have needed a telephone bill from 2009.. I have it. Or. The hubster will ask for something ridiculous, that he needs to fill out something stupid. I have it. This was especially useful when we were filling out forms for the new house. He needed all sorts of proof and paperwork, and copies of this that and the other, and I was able to find it in seconds. Although, there was this one time that I couldn't find my W-4's. It was a huge problem. I was freaking out. It should have been filed under "tax and government" Was it there? No. Who was the last person to use it? The hubster. Did he put it back? nope. Not in the right folder anyway. He is no longer allowed to touch any of the other folders... just the pending bills folder. Cause it's red, and he can't mess it up.

My love affair with organization. Keep in mind this used to be a binder and everything would get hole punched... this system is way more efficient. My husband thought of it. He's good for something sometimes. 

Anyway, I hope some of these things help you out with your day.
I have included some of my helpful tips.

everything has a place to live. 

BOOM. Done. Pick those bags up and toss them in. Quick and easy. I actually have  another bag set that stays with the diaper bag. It's aways loaded and ready to go. Another great thing about the ziplock system is I can see how many diapers I have. When I'm running low I can tell immediately.

Ziplock bags are great for quick grab things. I label my bags so I can quickly grab a diaper without thinking what size or for who... and they are quickly portable. So portable, that Watts knows which bag to grab now for a diaper change. 

Cattle Press. It squeezes the cow to feel like a hug and helps calm them down so you can milk. 

After reading this blog the hubster commented through email that :"There were no bills floating around. And the cows don’t  think the press feels like a hug".

Well it looks like the cow is getting a hug but I don't know what cows think. My hubby does though. 

Yuppie World

Yuppie World

So my dad is pretty upset over the fact that my grammar blows and I can't spell good.( yup that's bad grammar right there. I'm being facetious)  He says I come off as ignorant... I think he means dumb. I don't care to be honest with you. I never claimed to be an english major, and yes I make elementary mistakes. Yet, I apologize to you the reader... for my errors. How annoying this must be for you. I tripped my way through the english language and did even worse with the french language. Yet you can clearly read this... isn't that good enough? 

 Anyway, my dad is a good guy really.Thanks dad for your help. Sorry I shame you so. And sorry I just stuck this on here with your corrections... but I'm too lazy to fix them, and that's why I'm a rebel without a cause. and...  My dad is real smarty pants, he went to a swiss boarding school. I did not. clearly. Which is a perfect tie in to my story! Yuppies come from swiss boarding schools and live on the mainline, which is how I got there in the first place. My dad is a yuppie and loves Starbucks. He was not a huge fan of this blog. He said it was too...vitriol at the beginning. (I had to look that word up). Anyway, heres my story. 

Ok so this is what I wrote a few hours ago. 

I am currently sitting in a Starbucks on the main line not more than a mile from where I grew up. It is maybe the 4th time I have been alone in the last 6 months. It is a GREAT feeling. Thanks MOM! Love you….. poor woman is probably slip sliding around in dirty diapers and prying a lollypop out of her hair..

What is not a great feeling is the place that I am currently sitting. It is everything that I find wrong with the world. I couldn’t think of any other place to go to get away from the noise of screaming children. It only just dawned on me that I could have just gone to the library. Oh well. I’m here now. Sitting with my small coffee. And yeah, that’s how I ordered it. I refuse to say the French word for small. I refuse to order a special coffee with soy milk or some sort of flavor or leave the tea bag in for 10 seconds and fill the rest with foam sort of stuff. It’s bad enough I am sitting in the one establishment that has killed little coffee shops that once hosted great bands like Bruce Springsteen and other people I can’t think of right now.

Oh boy… I feel a rant coming on. Here we go. This coffee sucks! It’s too strong, what is wrong with you people?  Why does it need to be so strong?, Drink some juice for god sakes… you will get the same effect without getting the shakes and feeling like you just sniffed a barrel of cocaine (not that I would know what that’s like).

Oh look here comes the quintessential douche bag… driving up in their brand new Range Rover, tripped to the nines with the special pinstripe that has their initials on it as if they are someone special. He’s wearing the aviator sunglasses thinking he’s James Bond, wearing the tight turtle neck that most likely cost $200, and the North Face jacket that could keep you warm on a summit that this guy will never encounter.

Meanwhile, oh wait…I’m wearing the same thing…. Why? Because it’s the Main Line, and you have to dress different just to fit in. I knew I was coming here. Don’t get me wrong, I still rebel a little by wearing  my Ariat Horse boots that are covered in paint splashes and a little chicken poo…. If only these people knew I dragged some chicken poo in with me…. Classic.

And why in hell can’t I get the internet to work in this place?. I just paid $2 for a small coffee that is so strong that I am now getting aggressive. They should let you get internet without a computer degree to figure out how having to hack the system. Oh watch out, here she comes… you have to understand that while I usually write these things, I’m still in my PJ’s, and there is a lot of noise going on. My mind is shut off….. but now it’s on… and just getting warmed up thanks to this liquid crack I’m drinking.

I’m surrounded by these rich yuppies all dressed well… maybe in their mid 40’s…. what are they doing here? Why are they not at work? My god look at the ring that woman is wearing! That’s all I can see. And that’s the point. She’s got to be in her early 50’s yet she looks to be mid 40 and she is wearing her daughter’s clothes. Low rise skinny jeans in a size 0 with knee high boots that cost more than my college loan payments every month ($800).  Yup. What a waste.

And this is why I moved away from here. I want to be a REAL WOMAN. Without botox, without plastic surgery, without a complex about getting old and ugly, without hair dye, without makeup. With out a mid life crisis. I’m going to run circles around all you fake Barbie dolls when I’m 50.

It’s called confidence and I’ve always had it. This is why I don’t need all that crap. In fact I will go ahead and let you in on a little secret of how to be liked and wanted by a man. Be yourself. Don’t ask him “do I look fat” even if you are…. Flaunt that shit. Dance around as if no one is watching. If he ever puts you down….Snap that shit back in his face. Let him know it doesn’t faze you. Smile, Laugh, BE HAPPY…. Even if your not, make him think you are. Men don’t like miserable women. They avoid them.

I had a friend in high school. To me she was a troll, a real bitch, nothing special…. Yet she could walk into a room and people wanted to be her. I just didn’t get it. Now I do though… she smiled, laughed, and acted as though she were a celebrity. It works. When I’m feeling insecure, I pull my shoulders back, hold my head high, and make eye contact. Not in a creepy way like my husband does….that’s called a staring problem… he has these huge blue eyes, and I think he creeps people out with them.

Anyway, that’s why men love me. I’m a dude, with really small boobs and a true smile. How can you not like that? Ok well if you like huge boobs and big butt, and fancy hair and makeup…. I may not be your cup of tea.

Lately I have noticed that the hubster is really into me. You ladies know what I mean. I get lot’s of “I love you’s” that actually sound genuine, and lot’s of hugging, and hand holding… and all that crap. He likes me. He may even love me. I don’t know… but I think it’s this blog. Men also like women that DO something. Have something to talk about, and have something more to talk about other than the kids. Don’t be boring. Get yourself out there and LIVE!

This is getting long.

Anyway. These mainline yuppies? are fake. They wear their colors on the outside, and hide what’s important on the inside. Maybe I’m just jealous cause I want those boots. No… they have heels, I can’t walk in those. Nevermind. The chickens would look at me go nuts if I stomped in their poo with those boots on. And I guess… I should be a little nicer about these mainliners. They aren’t all bad. Some of them actually do work hard at….Stealing money from the poor?  Ha ha… no just kidding. I’m a I was born and raised as a mainline yuppie, and I turned out fine. And Starbucks is still a corporation that puts small business out on the street killed off many a small neighborhood cafe. I had an ex-boyfriend tree-hugger that who actually didn’t talk to me for a week because I got a cuppa joe from starbucks . I thought he was joking when he threatened me. It turned out to be fine…. I enjoyed the silence for a whole week. No more, picking up rocks in the shape of hearts and handing them to me. No more chewing on tea tree tooth picks, no more walking around the city in bare feet, and no shirt barefoot and shirtless. It was great. And that’s when I stopped dating the environmentalist guy and married instead the corporate country boy that who looks real nice but can kick your ass in a quick second. So sexy. But that’s another story.

Anyway, I have to go now. My mom is most likely on the verge of a mental breakdown. Can you blame her? My kids are a hand full, and that’s why this blog is so long today…. Because I had time to write it. Oh god you should see the shoes on that lady… they are blue Louboutins… my favorite.

I’m sure she is a bitch.

Before and After's are my favorite

I was talking to my husband about what I should write about today. I mentioned that maybe I could do a before and after blog since I like looking at before and after photos. I have documented the work we have done on our house so I can put it in my portfolio why not do this now?. I asked him if I could put the house in this blog... and he was all like "well you can do it as long as you make the house look good" what the hell does that mean? "like the photos you took before looked bad" well I asked you and you said they looked fine.... "well can you take photos with out toys everywhere?" have you noticed that we have two kids? "well I'm just saying..." well next time don't say anything.

So I'm a little apprehensive about showing you our hut. I want you to be open minded... so.... imagine that you just bought a house with a newborn, and a 21 month old. You (the money maker) have taken one week off from your job to work on the house by yourself with little money for supplies. Oh and your married to an interior designer that has extremely good taste in expensive things but you wont let her spend any money... so she is coming up with crazy ways to save money and still make it work. AND there was a lot of work to be done because the house was in bad shape, and it was old as hell, and the previous owners had the same problem... lot's of kids with little to no money to fix it the way they wanted.

Ok... so with that in mind... sit back and open your mind to the home of a young couple and their first house. Also... I would like to brag that we spent under $100 for each room. The husband built some furniture (try and guess what he built) and the previous owners left a lot of their furniture. It saves a ton of money. Also, I found some oops paint at Walmart and mixed it with some paint that we already had, and I did things like make my own curtains, and painted the floor. It killed me to do it... but I did it. I also did not want to put a ton of money into something that we are eventually going to rip out or redo with insulation, bathrooms, and other such things. It's all temporary until we become rich and famous from this blog here. Right?! I'm going to be famous... just say it enough and it will happen. Ok enough already... just take a peak. You peeping tom you.

Before: Tomato Red Accent Wall and Tiled Ceiling

After: removal of tile ceiling in one half of room, paint, and refinishing of the floor plus addition of chair moldings. 

After: One half of room covered with  GWB. The previous owners left their sofa's, rug and entertainment system and book shelf unit. I used the rug for my color palette.

Before: The bookshelves are actually sitting on a giant plank of  pine wood . Furniture was left to hide  problems. 

After

Before

After: I based this room off of something warm. It is a very dark and gloomy room that has no function. I took pictures from our honeymoon in Sedona Arizona, and matched the red rock to this paint color. I also painted the door purple.

Before: This is why we removed the ceiling tile in the living room.  

Bedroom before. Trim painted hunter green, with a bookcase bolted to the wall and some flourescent lights.

Before: This is the other side of the room painted a periwinkle blue and hunter green... please don't ever put these colors together. This is now our walk in closet.

After: not much better but we built a wall to hide this.

After: The walk in closet is behind the wall. 

Before.

After: I wanted a cottage look.  A place that was calm, quiet, and light. 

After: I wanted wall to wall plush carpet to cover the lenoleum floor, but  we got a quote of $700 for it, and it wasnt even nice. So I just painted the tiles to make it look checkered. I also put in some cheap track lights to update it a little. The ceiling needs replaceing but that will have to wait. The windows also need to be replaced, they are cheap plastic from the 80's.

So there you have it. My before and after: Oh one more. This is for my hubby!

This is what my living room normally looks like because we have kids. This is what kids do to your house.

Forks Over Knives and granola and soup.

I watch documentaries with my husband almost every night on Netflix. I have a particular interest in anything from shows on Food, Farming, Animals, and Adventures. This one is about eating habits, food, and health.  Forks over Knives is one of my favorite. It has completely changed the way we eat. My husband has lost 13 lbs in the last month and I have lost 5 lbs. It has a great website with amazing recipes. I grabbed a synopsis of this from their website.   http://www.forksoverknives.com/ Check it out!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok.... so I just got totally called out by my dad about how boring my blog was this morning. He couldn't believe I would just copy and paste something from a website. Have you been reading people... I'm lazy. This is what I'm about. I'm trying to be a Martha Stewart but like... a lazy Martha Stewart that doesn't get put in jail for insider trading.

Anyway, the reason why I was a little quick to post this morning was because I was very busy trying to get my kids to take a nap. My two year old has just discovered that if he crawls out of bed at 1 am my husband will come running to his every beck and call and pamper his little two year old butt. He does this every hour until I show up... and then he goes "uh oh" and scampers back to his bed not to be heard from again.

That's cause I'm da president of this house. So being the president and all takes a lot of work. That is why I was able to get both boys to sleep, AND make "Casssoulet" which is fancy for white been soup AND make a batch of granola AND also get some bread going. AND I got pictures to prove it.

Once your done looking at my food porn feel free to look at my copy and paste job that my dad said was boring. I would like to note that it is because of Forks over Knives that I have the energy and will power to do all this crap. AND I don't have a bunch of intern slaves doing all my prep work like Martha Stewart. So sit back and enjoy my work of the morning. Feel free to comment about how I am amazing. AND if you dont think I'm amazing. Shut it. No-one wants to hear about it.
-Da President.

Jbone say's "You aint doing crap today mom , cause I'm going to party all day" I replied, "you just wait my young one... you wait and see what this girl got up her sleeve" and then we danced. 

Meanwhile Ron did not help.

he said "how do I eat these fish mom?" and then he took a nap on my open lap top

meanwhile I was setting out the ingredients for the Cassoulet.  8 ounce veg broth, 1 onion diced, 4 garlic cloves, 2 carrots, 2 celery stalks, 2 Tbsp thyme, 2 Tbsp. parsly, 1 tomato, 2 tbsp tomato paste, and 1 can white beans. I didnt quite have all those ingredients, so I made due with what you see. 

and then I cut it all up. I'm missing the carrots and garlic, cut that stuff too.  Oh and heres a great tip. To get the paper skin off the garlic put the whole clove in the microwave for 5-10 seconds. The paper skin stuff slides right off. TRy it I aint lying. Your welcome for that one. It's my favorite tip. 

then I washed the beans.

then I put it all in a pot

but first I cooked the onion and garlic till it was translucent in a little bit of the broth. No oil... just broth. Remember Oil is not good for you. I try really hard not to ever use it. 

and then a half hour later, I ate it. 

I was suprised at how good it tasted with no salt or pepper but I still added a tiny bit to add more flavor. I wish I hadn't put the parsly in. I picked that out.  It tasted very much like minestrone soup from the Olive Garden, only it didn't suck. I knew that it didn't suck because my two year old ate half of it, and he doesn't like any of the ingredients in this soup. So explain that one. 

So then the monsters were asleep, and was like, I'm bored. I'm going to make granola.  So I set out all the ingredients.
3 cups old fashioned oats, a hand full of chopped pecans, chopped walnuts, cashews, mixed nuts, muesli, almonds, and then I sprinkled the whole top with cinnamon, and drizzled honey till everything was covered. (Put enough honey so that the oats get very lightly coated.) 

I mixed it till everything was lightly coated. 

I then took parchment paper and laid it out and put it in the oven at 425 for ten minutes, I took it out stirred it up and put it back in for another ten minutes. BOOM. 

and then I added cranberries and raisons and I was DONE, so then I made some bread but you already saw how I do that.

I then put it in fancy jars. Ha ha fooled ya.... This is a classico spaghetti jar. I love them. 

But I didn't have enough so I used other jars I had recycled, cause I'm a tree hugger.

AND that was my day so far, and it it's only 2:33. I'm impressed. Are you? No? Well then go watch Martha.

Now read this boring part below. I didnt write it, but I certainly believe in it.
Hope this makes ya happy Dad. xo

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What has happened to us? Despite the most advanced medical technology in the world, we are sicker than ever by nearly every measure.

Two out of every three of us are overweight. Cases of diabetes are exploding, especially amongst our younger population. About half of us are taking at least one prescription drug. Major medical operations have become routine, helping to drive health care costs to astronomical levels. Heart disease, cancer and stroke are the country’s three leading causes of death, even though billions are spent each year to “battle” these very conditions. Millions suffer from a host of other degenerative diseases.

Could it be there’s a single solution to all of these problems? A solution so comprehensive, but so straightforward, that it’s mind-boggling that more of us haven’t taken it seriously?

FORKS OVER KNIVES examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods. The major storyline in the film traces the personal journeys of a pair of pioneering yet under-appreciated researchers, Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn.

Dr. Campbell, a nutritional scientist at Cornell University, was concerned in the late 1960’s with producing “high quality” animal protein to bring to the poor and malnourished areas of the third world. While in the Philippines, he made a life-changing discovery: the country’s wealthier children, who were consuming relatively high amounts of animal-based foods, were much more likely to get liver cancer. Dr. Esselstyn, a top surgeon and head of the Breast Cancer Task Force at the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic, found that many of the diseases he routinely treated were virtually unknown in parts of the world where animal-based foods were rarely consumed.

These discoveries inspired Campbell and Esselstyn, who didn’t know each other yet, to conduct several groundbreaking studies. One of them took place in China and is still among the most comprehensive health-related investigations ever undertaken. Their research led them to a startling conclusion: degenerative diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and even several forms of cancer, could almost always be prevented—and in many cases reversed—by adopting a whole-foods, plant-based diet. Despite the profound implications of their findings, their work has remained relatively unknown to the public.

The filmmakers travel with Drs. Campbell and Esselstyn on their separate but similar paths, from their childhood farms where they both produced “nature’s perfect food”; to China and Cleveland, where they explored ideas that challenged the established thinking and shook their own core beliefs.

The idea of food as medicine is put to the test. Throughout the film, cameras follow “reality patients” who have chronic conditions from heart disease to diabetes. Doctors teach these patients how to adopt a whole-foods plant-based diet as the primary approach to treat their ailments—while the challenges and triumphs of their journeys are revealed.

FORKS OVER KNIVES utilizes state of the art 3-D graphics and rare archival footage. The film features leading experts on health, examines the question “why we don’t know”, and tackles the issue of diet and disease in a way that will have people talking for years.

FORKS OVER KNIVES was filmed all over the United States, and in Canada and China.

Interior Decorating Tips

I went to school for Interior Design and many other things. This does not make me a good decorator. Decorators make your couch cushions look nice with your rug that matches your curtain that compliments your wall, this was not my forte, or rather it doesnt interest me much. I rather like to rip down walls and put in water features. I like putting curved walls in a rectangle, I like to design horse barns and cow barns, and bank barns, any barn really... as long as it's a barn.  I love to design old and new barns, and in them I can put a water feature, and oh don't get me started I LOVE BARNS... but this is not about barns.

This is about my little old house and things I have done to it.  I don't like to be thought of as a decorator but if you like this, then sure I can help you.  However, that being said, I do come across other peoples good ideas and use them in my home. So before you go saying how crappy my house looks, just shut it... this isn't about me saying my house looks great, it's to show you how you can use things in a different way.

Ok so here we go, again look past my stuff and listen to the ideas and come up with your own.  I got the idea of using old hard covered book jackets/covers to cover up my router, cable box and WD TV box from Fox 29 news. I do wish I had thought of it myself, and was like. thats genius. May I recommend you use a nicer looking book from a thrift store? I found some old hard covered books in our garage that this old guy left when he died. The pages had been eaten by bugs so I didnt feel bad about ripping out the pages.
Check it out:

see those black things to the left? They are ugly, lets do something about it. 

This is a book jacket without the pages for those that havent picked up a book in a while. 

now look, can you tell that there are things hidden in my ugly old books? They blend in with the other crap thats on my shelf.( The black book jacket has a hole cut out of it so that the box still works with the remote). My book jackets are also unreasonably beat up because my two year old likes to throw them around to get me angry.

Ok now lets talk abut texture, line, and interest. How many people have this in their living room?  I do... that who. I love saddles, I think they are works of art. They are sculptures that smell of horse and leather,  feel soft and warm, and have beautiful color and texture. Why not use it as a statement piece? 

Saddles are beautiful to me. Leather is a texture, and this saddle has nice lines, it breaks up the simple bench and it motivates me to stop having kids so that I can get back to horses. 

Metal is another texture. Hard, cold, heavy, strong useful, why not use it as a statement piece? If you find some old iron work like you see in the photograph next to my wrenches use it!  It is an art form that is rarely used anymore.

These wrenches are enormous. I should have put it up against a normal wrench so you can see how big they are. These are my husbands, he loves abnormally large things, and these were used for tractors. We hang them on the wall for a conversation piece. Almost everyone that has ever been to our house says, "wow those are huge! where did you get those!" They trump all the other art work in our house. Again, something different on the wall, stands out. Think of the Barnes museum,- Mr Barnes collected iron work such as hinges and other things and then put them next to Picasso paintings. It works. 

Velvet, wood, ink and a plant. So much texture, shape and interesting conversation pieces.

Again texture. I have my first ever riding helmet with a drawing and a plant.  Oval, Square, fluff.  Composition, and color. 

This is not about texture it's more about keeping out the cold. Look closely. This keeps cold air out, and light in, PLUS it's great for privacy. Can you tell what is on my window? Bubble wrap. Yup, cheap, and easy. Spray some water on the window, and place some bubble wrap on and boom, you are saving about $20 a month on heating. Thank you Mother Earth Magazine for that genius idea.

Look at this window. It looks like frosted glass.  Our house is really really old , the windows are terrible and all need replacing. Talk about a draft, we might has well have them open! 

Here is the solution. As you can see this window has a crack in it. I took a misting spray bottle of water, sprayed the window with a fine mist, then I took some bubble wrap and cut out a square the size of the window and placed it on my window. The bubble wrap clings to the water and sticks really well. It creates a suction effect. No more draft, and it helps to insulate the cold out. It does wonders. The best part is when your done having your windows insulated you just take off the bubble wrap and save it for next year. This one is my favorite. Thank you Mother Earth Magazine for the idea!

And one more use for metal, I needed something to break up my wall. I had soft, I had a painting, I needed a shape, how bout my old horse bits? 

So there you have it. Some little ideas that I have used to help you decorate your space. Again, I don't think of myself as a decorator, I just thought these were neat ideas and hope you do to.