Chore Charts for Grownups

One thing that I absolutely love about being home more is that I can finally keep my house at an acceptable level of cleanliness. It's not perfectly clean all the time, which is fine, but it's much better than it was in the days when Josh and I both worked full-time jobs.

Even with being home more often, I've found that I still have obstacles in the way of keeping the house clean. Namely, time management. I still have a lot of things to get done any given week, and I've been finding that it's difficult to clean the house efficiently. It gets done, but not without a whole lot of "Did I clean the bathroom yesterday, or was that the day before? Should I do laundry now or go grocery shopping? Should I plan lessons or vacuum the living room?"

So finally, in a moment of exasperation, I decided there was only one thing to do. I needed to make a list. Hello, my name is Mikalah, and I'm addicted to making lists. There, I said it.

I drew up a list of the chores that need to get done around the house on a weekly basis. Then, I decided which ones needed to be done on a daily basis, and which ones could be done every other day or so. Once I was happy with the rough-draft, I made a nice, clean copy of it in Excel. Here's a visual aid so you can see exactly what I mean:


Of course, I had to use a cute font and some little vacuum/broom icons.

I made it small enough that I can fit 2 on a sheet of paper, and then I printed them off and cut them in half so I have enough for a few weeks. Now, whenever I do a "chore" I just check it off on my handy-dandy Grownup Chore Chart. I've been using this for a week now and I absolutely love it. It's just so nice to know that I'm "done" with things for the day, and I don't have to stand and worry about whether or not I cleaned the kitchen sink (I have a bad memory, what can I say). I also left a lot of blank spaces so I can adjust as needed.

Has anyone else had issues with getting housework done? Do you have any tips you'd like to share? I'd love to hear them!

Eeeeeeee!

The title of this post is exactly what came out of my mouth (at a very high frequency, I might add), when I opened my early birthday present from my hubby and found this baby nestled inside.

Seriously. I have been using my husbands old point-and-click pocket sized camera for the past 2 years of blogging. And while it was very sweet of him to let me hijack his camera (thanks babe!) I'm SOOOO happy to finally have a camera that captures exactly what it sees. Especially since our house is rather dark to begin with, it is so nice to have a camera that actually functions well in low light. Also, thanks to the Optical Image Stabilization, no more blurry pictures ever again! I'm no photographer, so I won't get into all the gory details. I will just let the photos speak for themselves.


So here's a "Before" with our old camerama:

Using the flash makes me very, very sad.

New Camera:

But now, I don't have to use the flash! And I can get awesome pictures! This camera makes my house look better, and you know I love that.


I'm so excited to use this camera from now on and get a better quality of photos for this little blog of mine! I love that I can take 1 amazing picture as opposed to 50 crappy ones. Ok, end of spiel. How about you? What kind of camera do you use for blogging?

Sunshine, anyone?

Apparently, there's a few people who are on the edge of their seats to see the transformation of this little magazine rack. Seriously, you are women after my own heart. I rarely ever post the "before" pictures unless a project is actually done because, well, we all know how easy it is to get sidetracked. So I apologize profusely for taunting you with the before of this tacky, brass thingamabob. But, the wait is over my friends, and hopefully the "After" was worth it!


Ah. Cheery yellow. Just like the sunshine that I know is hiding somewhere behind those clouds. It will appear. And when it does, I'll be ready.



Sadly, I realized as I was taking the photos that I need to do a bit of touch up on the paint job. Argh. I just might face the good side out and forget about it though...

A Good-Friday Read

(Photo Credit)

Hey all, just popping back in for a moment! I have a good friend who has written some beautiful stories to go along with this Easter season, and our church has been sharing them for the past few weeks. Another church member who has a blog is featuring one of the stories he wrote today, and I wanted to share the link here so more people can read it! I love his style of writing, and the way he illustrates the time Jesus spent in the garden praying before His death on the cross. It really brings a new, meaningful perspective to those last hours.

Click here for the link. Have a wonderful Easter weekend!

Friday Finds!

Is anyone else getting bitten by the thrifting bug lately? With Spring pretty much here to stay, all I can think about are picnics in the park, wearing dresses everyday, and tall, icy glasses of homemade lemonade. Yum.

So as you can see... my thrifting obsessions lately have been leaning that way too!


I finally found one of these amazing glass lemon juicers that I've been wanting. It's different from the one I grew up using at my parents house- theirs is made from metal. Has anyone else used a glass one before, do they work just as well? Just curious.


Then, I found a set of 4 of these glasses. They are so pretty, and I can just imagine them filled with all kinds of delicious beverages. You will probably see lots of pictures of these pretties throughout the warm months.


Finally, I stumbled upon this little crockery pot that was only $0.49! I couldn't believe the price tag, these types of salt-glazed pottery usually go for a lot more than that (and usually GW puts at least a $4.99 tag on these things). So I definitely had to snatch it up for that price. I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet, but for now it looks awfully cute sitting on the stove next to our owl fondue sticks.

Well folks, that's about it for me. I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

A Trip to Vienna

Well, maybe we didn't actually go to Vienna, but it sure felt like it! This weekend Josh and I and a bunch of friends/family attended a Viennese Ball! It was SO much fun. They decorated the place beautifully, and had a huge assortment of good food, music, dancing, and people. We danced to waltz music, swing, jazz, all played by a live orchestra. Of course, the best part (for me) was getting to dress up and see all of the other pretty dresses there. Yup, I'm still pretty much a 5 year old at heart.



My brother and his girlfriend made the drive there with us, the ball was located at a university in Wisconsin so it was a bit of a drive!

We listened to some live jazz at one point during the evening. They had a bunch of different rooms with different music playing so you could pop in and out of each one throughout the night, it was really fun!


They also had lots of Austrian/German themed foods. YUM. At one point, I snapped a photo of my sister eating a brat in an evening gown. Priceless.




Everything about the weekend was absolutely perfect, except for the hotel stay. I'm not going to go into great detail here, but let's just say that they had a rave going on until 6 am. Yup. A rave. So we didn't get any sleep that night, but it didn't really matter because we just went home and napped all day Sunday!

Waiting Period

We are still waiting to get started on our kitchen tiling project, and that's a-ok with me. We have been SO busy lately, it seems like every weekend there is something going on that prevents us from getting started.

No worries though, it will happen. Just probably not before Easter.

In other news, it's officially spray-painting season again! No more walking to the garage in sub-zero temperature and fumbling for a can of spray paint to bring inside and let it warm up for 3 hours. No more getting my finger frozen to the nozzle. Nope, now I can just waltz out to the garage and use my treasure trove of paint to transform just about anything!

Here's my first victim....


Right now it's sitting in the garage with the first coat of paint. Can't wait to show you the end result!

Maxi Dress for Spring

Last week, as I was walking through the mall, I started seeing these long, flowy dresses everywhere. I began to wonder for a moment if we had suddenly experienced a time warp back to the 1970s, but it's for real. The maxi dress is back!


I found one that I LOVED at H&M (at a pretty good price too!), but decided to hold off for a bit. I'm so glad I did, because when we got home I remembered this fabric I had purchased for ridiculously cheap at a JoAnne's store that was closing near us. I bought 8 yards of fabric for $5 total. Yikes! And the sad thing was, it was just sitting in a drawer for months!

Well, no longer. I pulled out a pattern for a knee-length dress and simply adjusted the hemline (it's super easy to do, I just cut the patter in half side to side, and lay the lower half where I want the new hemline to end. Make sense?). And now, I have my very own maxi dress!

Boots- Macy's
Belt- Thrifted
Sweater- Hand-me-down from my sister (the best!)
Dress- Made by Me!

Also- Megan from Polish the Stars featured my little skirt refashion on her blog! It was such a pleasant surprise to see that, thanks Megan! She has a really fun Link Party on Mondays that I love participating in.

Refashion (from the archives)

So, since everyone has been so encouraging about the refashions I've been posting about here, I thought I would pull up one of my very favorite refashions from the archives of Posy. I posted this last Summer, so some of you may remember it, but if you are new to this little blog you might enjoy checking out this dress refashion! (Click on the link or photo for the full post).

Happy Weekend!

Kitchen Updates

I'm trying my best to keep you guys updated with all the happenings in our kitchen remodel. The past few weeks have been a little slow, so no huge projects to share, but here are a few little changes.

I found this cute artwork at Joanne Fabrics for 70% off recently, and had planned on hanging them up in our 2nd bedroom. However, I liked them so much that the thought of only seeing them once in a while kind of made me sad. So, I decided to try them over our kitchen sink!


I have been trying in vain to come up with some kind of color scheme for the kitchen (that ties in with the rest of our open living space, kind of difficult!). I really like the eggplant and of course the golden yellow on these canvases, plus I even have some accessories that go along with it! Also, they are just the right height above where our subway tile backsplash will soon be... ah, I can't wait.


Also- you may have noticed another switcheroo... this time on the glass lampshade for our above-the-sink light. The old one was a white, matte finish, and super boring. I love this new one and it's soft, champagne color and silver details. I think it really pulls out the metallic tones in the fixture and mimics the pattern of the countertop.



So let's take one more look at the before and after, shall we?

Ah. SO much better.

Well, I am off for the weekend friends! Hope you all have a fabulous break, and I will see you bright and early on Monday!

WOW.

I shouldn't be so shocked, but you guys just blew me away with your encouraging, sweet comments on my latest skirt refashion! It sounds like you don't mind too much if I do more posts on fashion... so I'm super excited about that! I actually went a little crazy and MADE a dress from scratch yesterday. Haha! So, I will be posting about that soon.

One of my lovely commenters (also a dear friend from my old college days, who is an uber-stylish chick and has her own blog here), asked how long it takes to do these refashions.

Well, usually they take me about 1-2 hours. I have to tell you though, that I don't worry a whole lot about what the garments look like inside. I'm just not picky, and I'd rather be wearing it than taking tons of time to make it perfect! So usually, after pulling apart lining and such and machine-sewing the outermost layer, I just do a quick stitching up the inside lining so it doesn't come apart again. It really cuts down on the amount of time it takes. I've been doing refashioning for a few years now, and 99% of the time the garments can withstand a lot of wear, so it's obviously not an issue in that respect!

Hope that answers some of the questions. You guys are awesome! I love hearing your thoughts, so keep 'em coming!


P.S. The photo I used above was from our engagement shoot, taken by my talented photographer friend Andrea. The sweater was also a refashion... sadly with no before picture! Just imagine it MUCH wider (had to take in about 2 inches on each side), and with long bell-sleeves. Yeah. After wearing it for this shoot, I accidentally washed it in warm water and it shrank to a doll-sized cardigan. Bummer.

Find the Owl

My sweet MIL is always giving me little presents. I think she's enjoying having a girl in the family. =) She is an incredible knitter and she also spins her own yarn, so a lot of these wonderful presents are handmade! Like this coffee-cup cozy. Isn't it adorable? Can you spot the little owls in there? So cute!

Anyway, I just had to share that with you. She is one of the people who most inspires me to be creative. I love seeing all the amazing things she makes and how she really pours herself into what she is passionate about. I love you, Jody-Mom!

Nothing but Blue Skies from now on!

Oh, how I love re-fashioning clothes! I love taking something that is ridiculously hideous, and making it wearable and (dare I say) fashionable.

Maybe it's the Spring in the air and the fact that I'm longing for a new wardrobe, but I've been plugging away at the ol' sewing machine again and refashioning another ridiculous item of clothing.

This time, meet my $3 skirt from (where else?) GW (that's the good will for all you folks who don't shop there. Crazy people).


I affectionately referred to her as "Big Blue" before she was transformed. In her old state, she would have been a perfect candidate for an Amish housewife. But not for me.

She had some redeeming qualities, like the inky navy blue color, simple lines, and cute buttons.


After a little hemming and taking in, here she is now:


I think it's going to be a wardrobe staple from here on out!


I promise I'm not going to become a full-on fashion blogger, but I do love talking about it from time to time. You guys don't mind if I do some of these once in a while, right??? =)

Skirt: Thrifted
Tank: Made by Elsie (my sis)
Sweater: H&M
Bracelet: Vintage, from my Grandmother
Shoes: Fergalicious. And I love them.

A Birthday To Remember!

This week is my Hubs' birthday. He's turning "old" as he so cutely put it one day. =) Not true though, he's still only 27. That's still pretty young in my book.


So we decorated our little casa, and threw a party for this man on Sunday!


I baked not one, but FOUR large pizzas. Our house has never held so much pizza. I even made our favorite "Mediterranean" pizza, with olives, onions, artichoke, mushroom, pesto, and tomato. Yum yum!


And what is a birthday without cupcakes, I ask you?


We had about 13 people in our tiny townhome. I think that was a record too!




It was a beautiful time celebrating with everyone. Hope you had a wonderful weekend too! What did you do?