DIY- laundry soap

 Pinterest is overflowing with "recipes for laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, make your own dryer sheets, all with the promise that you'll save loads of money. Bad pun, but yes, intended. Not sure what exactly it was that made me decide to try one of them. Maybe it's just the fun of starting a new project to make Adam crazy. I do have a tendency of starting things and then losing interest in them. Whatever it was I made a list based on a couple different that I had "pinned" and hit the laundry isle.

• One four pound 12 ounce box of borax
• One four pound box Arm & Hammer baking soda
• One box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
• Four pounds of Oxi Clean {1 small/ 1 large}
• 3 bars of soap- most recipes called for Fels-Neptha I used a brand who's fragrance is lovely and tropical

Adam got me a 5 gallon bucket for mixing and I poured all the ingredients in, grated the bars of soap then turned it back over to Adam who put on the lid and shook it all up for me. Worked great!

When putting all the items in the basket I was sure it was going to cost more than this..

You supposedly use 2 to 3 tablespoons per load, so this may last a while! I'll let you know.

xoxo

Lissa

Snow Daze aka CoMo Snow 2013

Just when I thought we were out of the winter woods it caught up with us. Big time. Just like Snowpocalypse and SnOMGeddon of 2011, schools and businesses shut down, the State of Missouri issued a state of emergency as well and a "do not travel advisory". Alright, I'm going to admit I thought we'd get a few inches and it would all prove to be a lot of hype. I mean seriously, could we get another "shut the town down" storm just 2 years later. I just didn't see it in the cards. Boy was I wrong. Not only did we get one big storm we got two, in a week.

I got up February 21st, got ready for work and made my way in. It was BARELY snowing at my house. It's a 7 or 8 mile trip depending how you go and most days takes me 15 or 20 minutes. By the time I got a little over half way there it was snowing. Hard. When I passed my first fender- bender I started to think maybe I should have just stayed home.

The two staff members that don't live in Columbia were told to just stay home, turns out it was a good call. After being there about an hour and a half it was time to get out while the getting was good. I emailed Adam and told him he should think about putting his stuff together and head home too. Turns out, the gettin' wasn't all that good, but I had a much easier time than some.

 My sensitivity to snow has changed drastically over the last few years, and amounts that used to seem ridiculous to cancel anything for now makes me wish people would just stay home. Mostly because they're just plain stupid about it around here. My Twitter and Facebook feeds were full of people who took 4 hours to get home, or got stuck and left their cars on the sides of the roads or even highways. It was MAYHEM. There actually was a reason it got so bad so fast, we had a weather anomaly. Thunder-snow. Sounds really cool, right?  Well just like a rain thunderstorm is fast and intense. Lots of precip in a very short amount of time. LOTS.

This lovely box was on my porch when I made it home. Perfect for a snow day!

Giant fluffy snow flakes came fast and hard

Annie is about as much of a fan of snow as I am. 

Pretty in pink. 

I do have a couple of friends that plow in the winter so I had text one, but his crew was on the other side of town and booked solid. So when a break in the heavy snow came we bundled up and headed out. 

This was taken at 2:04. Remember there was no snow at all a little over 6 hours earlier

After an hour and 1/2 it looked a lot better. 

A fun snowstorm story~  Our really cool neighbors are pregnant and due any day. While we're shoveling we talked about how we should probably go do some of their drive way too. What if she went into labor? It was going to be a job to get to the hospital. I just kept thinking about Courtney's sister in law who had to be rescued by the National Guard in 2011 when she went into labor.... kinda scary. So in we go to take a break, eat, warm up and, of course, catch up on some social media. And what do I see? Pictures of a brand new baby that had been born that morning! Whew! That baby knew what was coming a decided not to wait. At least that's what I think. :o)

Fast forward a few days and the buzz about another storm headed our way, and we were still digging out from the week before. If I was skeptical about round 1 I was double that for round 2. But for the 2nd time I was so wrong.

A text first thing in the morning said "stay home". Yay! It felt the same as when I was little and got to have a snow day. Then to make the day better I heard a plow. It was our friend Jerry, he was headed to a job and came by to rescue us. It's a wonderful thing to have friends that'll go out of their way to nice things for you.

Jerry to the rescue

When I realized how heavy and wet this snow was compared to a week before I was even more grateful. We didn't have to shovel!

Super heavy wet snow.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say I think we're done with snow for the winter. I hope.

xoxo

Lissa

Chairs for my office

About a year ago I found these chairs in the basement at work. I fell in love with them. I told my boss I wanted to buy them and she said, "You can have them!"  The plan has been to re-upholster them, but I did a little research- they are Good Form Furniture Co- so I didn't want to alter them that much myself. So plan B- just cover them.

Bad pics- sorry

I love the aluminum frame.
Our little photo bomber is back too.

These are super sturdy, but the padding is rock hard and they wouldn't really come clean. I added a layer of padding before the fabric and the upholstery is held on with clips so I (Adam) just had to remove those and reused them.

I'm not going to lie, I fought with this one. I get frustrated easily, and walked away to let it sit more than a few times. But I'm stuck at home again today with a snow day, so I had no excuse not to get it done. 

I'm pretty happy with the how it turned out. Now to get the other one finished! 

xoxo

Lissa

A project I LOVE!

I'm so excited about what's been going on in our house over the last week or so. After talking about it for a long time, we bit the bullet and picked out flooring. We'd said all along that we wanted to go light with some dark streaks in it to give it some character. Of course it's never as easy as that and, wow, once we started looking the darker woods were gorgeous. But logic prevailed, and for several reasons we stuck with the original plan.

Neither one was our final choice

We've shampooed the carpet at least once a year since we moved in, but between dogs and grand babies there were some spots that kept coming back. Yucky and embarrassing both.

Before

This was a HUGE source of stress but couldn't be avoided. The living room crammed into the kitchen and dining area. 

We had to do all the "demo" on Sunday since there would be no time at all during the week.

Annie is a blur because she was a nervous mess. She ran and back and forth like a tennis ball at Wimbledon

The carpet and pad portion of the program went so fast. Fast as in about a 1/2 hour!

Not so the tile though. OH EM GEE! What a stinkin mess. Thankfully it was a really nice day so we could open the front door.

Clouds of dust

It was kinda fun smashing the tile out, but we did have to be pretty careful. Tile EXPLODES when you smash it, and since we didn't want to add "Replace drywall & paint" to the to do list, we went the slow and steady route. I love this picture for a few reasons.  1. I didn't even put shoes on. What a dummy. I had shards in my slippers and it's just like breaking a plate- the pieces are really sharp. 2. Yep, I'm wearing safety goggles. Hot, right?! But again,it just explodes, so necessary. 3. This makes it look like I did TONS all by myself. Um, no. I'm pretty sure the ratio was like 3 to 1, maybe even 4 to 1. And even then my hands hurt like crazy. Gripping a baby sledge hammer and a heavy chisel made them pretty sore. Yes, I'm a wuss.

So pathetic. But at least she found a spot out of the way where she could see us. We kept joking that she was plotting revenge of some sort.

This is how our week went by. Our Tommy Bahama beach chairs on a concrete slab. This part didn't bother me in the least.

The flooring was delivered on Wednesday. It needed to acclimate to the house for a few days before installation. She is just the best little photo bomber ever, isn't she?? 

Saturday 8am couldn't get here soon enough. I was so excited to hear the installers pull into the drive way. They did prepare me for the possibility that they wouldn't get done in one day, mostly because each job is different, and rooms are not always square, etc. Lucky for us he said everything was great in that department, even the coat closet. Makes me feel good about the way our house was built!

A relatively thin pad with a reflective backing went down first. Moisture barrier and some insulation too. 

I really tried to stay upstairs and out of the way. But I had to come down for coffee a "couple" times. The progress in this picture took me by surprise. This was taken at 12:40 pm when they stopped to get something to eat. 

I can't even tell you how happy I am with the results. Sure, we could have done the install ourselves. But there's a lot to be said for knowing what you're doing. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend these guys to others, and I asked for some cards to take to work or give out myself. 

Everything was all cleaned up when they finished. Not even any sawdust on the porch. They left the box of left over wood on the floor at our request but didn't want to. He wanted to wrap it and put it away for us. 

Do you love it too?

xoxo

Lissa

Way back Wednesday

Blonde and faux fur. Not a lot has changed, other than now the blonde is mostly faux too. 

3 year old Lissa was just as sassy I'd say

xoxo 

Lissa

And Gweny makes 5

 What a week! It really started last Thursday morning with a call from Courtney. She had been having some pretty good labor pains since the middle of the night and they were headed in to get checked. Her due date is February 9th so I figured we still had a couple weeks, but posted this picture with a comment that it would be a beautiful day to have a baby.

 Sure enough, home they went. One discouraged mama and a helpless daddy that just wanted to get it over with.

We got through the next few days with no more drama- like how I say WE?

Then Tuesday morning I got the call. They were headed back to the hospital. Her water broke in the night and so I'm quoting Ray here, "Thundercats are a go". God I love my family!

Unfortunately there were things at work that had to be taken care of (I had until 9am to get payroll done) so when I got the call that she had progressed from a 5 to a 9 in 1/2 hour, I knew I was going to miss being there for this baby girl. 

Gwndolyn Isabella Ruth
7lbs 14oz 20 1/4 inches

Of course instead of the beautiful weather of a few days before I got this, and it was a "pull over and wait it out" storm. 

Right after this was taken most of the cars on both side pulled over to let it pass a little.

I got through the storm eventually and made it to meet our sweet Gweny. We just hung out all day and took turns holding her and remembering the past 4 girls birth-days. Each had their own little dramas of course!

Myla just hangin' with her Auntie playing the piano

After school here came the girls to meet their sister. When their g-pa picked them up at the crack of dawn, Grace had asked her Mama if they were going to "take apart her belly" to get the baby out. So sure enough she walked in the room and wanted to see Court's belly to make sure all was well. 

Gabi meets her baby sister. Melts my heart.

Gwen has dimples like our Grace

Myla entertained herself while Maggie gets to know her sister.

Myla was in no way impressed with her new cousin.

So now there are 5 little girls in our lives. I can't wait to see, not only how she fits into the mix, but how she cuts out her own place in it.

xoxo

Lissa

Miss America 2013 Weekend

How's it going with everyone? I'm getting pretty close to healthy again and so grateful to be that way. I've spent the last couple of weeks waffling back and forth between feeling human and feeling run over by a truck.

But in the middle of all the yuck was a yearly tradition that makes me happy and exhausts me at the same time. I'm, of course, talking about Miss America weekend. 

We were almost all here this year. Courtney just had a week of vacation and this was her weekend to work so had to miss. Boo!

Myla's baby stroller got a lot of play time. Not just for the baby dolls! 

These two were so funny. 

We tried to take a picture of all 3 of them.... you see how well that worked out

 This time next year our Jamie will be living somewhere else. Her hubby, Justin, has joined the Army and at this point they have no idea where their first post will be. We're thinking we need to all just meet in Vegas next year! 

This years picks

It's really fun to watch how all the girls have learned to look forward to this tradition- as much as (sometimes more) than the 3 "founders" of this madness.

She's ready!

 This year came down to these two. We've taught them a little too well maybe. This was taken seconds before they found out who won.

No drama around these girls

Think she's a little excited? They are our friends for sure.

Courtney, as last years winner, also missed out on crowning Gabi. Olivia was soooo excited to do it for her. 

Miss America 2013

xoxo

Lissa