What a week!

I love getting mail. Always have. From Zoo Books and Highlights magazines as a kid to all the cards and letters I got in boot camp - hell, I even like receiving bills! This week, I got not one but TWO great packages in the mail - both on Friday! Let's rewind, though, before we get there.

I love me some thrift stores. We have a great one here that, three days a week, offers 30% off their whole inventory. They also give an extra percentage - either 50% or 75%! - off merchandise with certain colored tags. This week, we picked up a lab coat for my husband, the budding scientist, for $1 because it had a 75% off tag, and I got myself one of these:  A big ol' pattern cutting board, also about $1! Not a huge deal, since they aren't that expensive new, but I wasn't able to find one this size on Amazon - plus my husband claims they're good for playing RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons because of the grid that's on them. Hooray?

Anyway, the packages! The little one contained this adorable mug rug and some super cute fat quarters from Jan at SewSowinLove! There was a mix up from the mug rug swap I did back in...May, was it?...and the person who got me didn't get my address, so I didn't get one. Boo!

The coordinator took care of me, though, and I got hooked up with Jan, who sent this adorable rug, now on my desk - maybe more for cool drinks than hot ones, but definitely appreciated nonetheless! Check her out on Twitter, too.

I definitely would've called it a great mail day at that, but that wasn't it! I also got this AMAZING assortment of stuff from Renay at And Then We Started Living - all kinds of things, including embroidery floss, a ton of scrapbooking stuff (a hobby I may now have to start!?), cuuuuuute stationery, even a painting!

 I had another painting where this one is, but we did some rearranging so that one was too big - and this one goes perfectly with the girly purples and greens and gray that are my office.

 Scrapbooking paper and doo-dads, stamps, some fabric, stationery, pencils...so much adorable, cutesy girly stuff! I think that's what I appreciate about it so much - it's the sort of thing I'd probably never buy for myself, but I totally love it now that I have it!

 I LOVE these kinds of magnets - I had another one, so now I have five! They've got great sarcastic sayings on them - the top left one says something about being disappointed that the weiners keep getting smaller while the buns keep getting bigger. Teehee!

So thank you, thank you, thank you, Renay! What an amazing collection of items!

If you appreciate good design, like pretty pictures of house interiors or baby rooms or what have you, follow Renay - both her blog, and her upcoming journey to move across country, to get married, plan for children...all that fun "big stuff" one does!

Phew - what a weekend!

What a great weekend I just had! Since my birthday shares its weekend with Easter this year, we moved my party up to this past Saturday. We had such a great time! Jeff's family (er, our family?) came up - both his parents, Terry, his grandparents, sister, brother-in-law, niece - everyone! And my bestest friends were there, Dianna and Tamera, and other friends... phew! No photos, because who wants to spend their party behind a lens?

Sunday we relaxed and recovered from the fun. I did a bunch of quilting (as I posted yesterday!), we went to Lowe's and bought more plants (another raspberry bush and a cilantro plant and a basil plant - mmm), and then to Joann's - yes, I bought more remnants for my hush-hush-it's-a-secret! projects.

This weekend...just relaxing. Recovering. Enjoying life. (I'm getting better at that, have you noticed??)

Another giveaway!

Check out Mauby's blog post here for the chance to win an adorable pattern for slippers, or some super cute fabric like this from Above All Fabric!

This is great timing, since I got SO much good work done on my big project while Dianna from Life's Little Lists was over to work on her quilt - her place doesn't have quite enough room for really spreading out a queen sized quilt, so she came over to borrow my living room floor and dining room table.

While she was here, our little visitor came back! Last night, an ADORABLE little kitty came to visit Molly and I at our front door. She's obviously someone's pet - she purred and meowed at the door and eagerly ate kitty crunchies when we put them out, then was verrrrry happy to be picked up today when she came back - thankfully she came back while D was here so she could meet her, too! After quite a bit of debate, we decided that since it is likely she was someone's cat, we took her over to Butte Humane Society so that (hopefully!) her owners can find her, or at the very least, she can get adopted by another loving family! I'm going to check back in the next few days to see if she's on their website, and if she is, I'll be sure to post the little girl! :)

Happy house

One of my favorite parts of having a house is randomly being able to tackle a project. Since hubby and I finished my office a few months ago, there were some lingering projects that needed completing - like the closet. It was still the same atrocious sky blue that it was when we moved in, even though the rest of the room had been painted. I took it upon myself today to pull out the old "organizer" (by that, I mean two sets of wood nailed to the wall with wooden dowels for clothes rods), use joint compound to fill in the holes, and then paint the doors the same gray as the rest of the room.

While I was out getting the joint compound for the walls, I also picked up six 24" wide by 12" deep pieces of white melamine for shelves, as well as white metal brackets to put them up with. I'm still debating whether or not I should paint them the same purple as the trim in the room.

After the closet's painted and the shelves are hung, I'm hoping I can convince Jeff to finish the ONE last piece of laminate flooring that needs to go in there and to put in baseboard around the bottom. I wouldn't ordinarily bother with baseboard in a closet, but the laminate kind of makes it a necessity (there's always a gap around the edges) plus we already have the baseboard painted in the same purple as the rest of the room.

I also learned how to decoupage this weekend. I couldn't find any outlet covers or switch plates that I liked for our bathroom, so I took it upon myself to design my own! After Jeff and I picked out colors for the room at Lowe's (a warm beige called "Basket," a medium blue, and a navy blue), I used some batik fabric from Joann's to cover the switch plates and outlet covers! I look forward to adding more little handmade touches throughout the house - like the quilt that I'm STILL not done putting the strips together for! Oops!

"I Miss You Time" Saturday

When Jeff and I spend time apart on the weekend, we call it "I miss you!" time. Today he's off at a friend's house out in the country shooting guns; I went shopping. :)

I stopped at Joann's, where I got some adorable remnants. Admittedly, not as childishly adorable as the ladybugs I got last time, but still fun - and, most importantly, I got four pieces totalling over 2 and a half yards, along with some little Velcro pieces for projects around the house, for about $11.

After that, I headed to the post office to send some books for Paperbackswap.com swaps, then headed downtown. After hitting the ATM, I wandered through the farmer's market. Apparently, oranges, apples, strawberries, kiwis, and leafy things are the only things in season; we didn't need any of these, so I left without acquiring any produce. I did notice, however, a thrift store I hadn't been to, so I stopped there.

The Shalom Free Clinic Thrift Shop, I assume, operates to help fund the Shalom Free Clinic, which provides a variety of free medical services to people here in Chico, including your basics ("Ugh, I have the flu") to more intense services like behavioral health counseling, nutrition counseling, and general PSA-type health education services. Good place to support, methinks. Anyway, I stopped at their thrift store, and was pleasantly surprised. Although incredibly crowded, there was a bunch of good stuff to be found - I found some role-playing books for Jeff for Valentine's Day (thus breaking my decision that we were not doing V-Day at all), as well as what looks to be a complete roll of twin-sized fusible quilt interfacing, which was only a dollar!! Yay!

I also got a sweet Parcheesi set, circa 1959 - despite it's age, it's only missing one mover (a red one), which is pretty good, I think!

I decided to continue the thrift store shoppin' at Thrifty Bargains, which has 30% off days on Saturdays. I didn't find any pants for Jeff, nor any of the shirts that you get when you donate blood that he doesn't already have (all of which were acquired at said thrift store, rather than through blood donation). Anyway, I did get a copy of The Karate Kid NES game, also for Jeff as a present... so hopefully he doesn't read this, LOL.

Less than $20 and I got a bunch of cool stuff! Hooray, bargain hunting! :)  Have you snagged any good deals lately?

Coworkers are annoying...

And even moreso when you have to go through them to make major purchases.

I got my oil change on Monday and was told that I need two new tires. Okay, well, awesome, I just got those. I look at the multipoint inspection sheet from the mechanic. Um, this says I need four tires. Whatever, I'm sure he just misread it, he'll order the right things.

Nope. Ordered two tires. Why'd he think I needed only two tires? Because he saw the 8s and 5s that the tech wrote for the BRAKE lining instead of the 2s that he wrote for the TIRE TREAD.

This, combined with him not being interested in calling me back - he hasnt' called me about my car at ALL this time around - do not make me happy. Hopefully they can actually FIX my car this time, too - last time they aligned it (April, 2008) they made it worse, and were unable to fix it. I was eventually told that "that's just how [my] car is." Poor Fofo.

In related news, Hyundai's coming out with soemthing called the Veloster this summer that looks adorable! Might be time to replace Mako! LOL

Flea market

Inspired by a post from another blogger today, I decided to go check out Chico's Indoor Flea Market. While not nearly as inspiring or containing any of the beautiful things the other blogger's flea market contained, I *did* learn where to acquire Stevie Nicks's entire discography (including, of course, all of Fleetwood Mac), boxes upon boxes of drill bits, a plethora of Hot Wheel cars, or baked goods made by charming old ladies who also knit and/or do needlepoint. Next time I need baked goods for a gathering, in fact, I may just go to the flea market, because they looked yummy.

While I was out, I decided to head to Joann's, which is always a dangerous trip. I was looking for a 2" wide bias tape making tool, but the widest they have in stock in the store is a 1" one. Bias tape is good for all kinds of things, and having the tool to easily make my own would be pretty awesome. Something else for the Amazon wishlist, I suppose! I then checked out their remnants cart, where I grabbed some SUPER cute glittery ladybug fabric that I'm going to use for a bag for the 2-year-old of a dear friend of mine, and 2/3 of a yard of an olive-green-y fabric with dots on it. Not sure what I'm going to use it for, but they came out to $4.45, combined, including tax. I had $1.50 left over on a gift card, so it was only $2.95 out of my pocket for a total of 1 1/3 yards of fabric - pretty good, I think!

After that, I went to Old Navy and to Target, but didn't find what I was looking for at either place (a khaki version of the awesome pants I picked up last week, and satisfactory not-annoying shower curtain rings, respectively)... so I had In-N-Out Burger for lunch. Mmmm.

Oh, right. Hubby isn't home, so this was all by my lonesome - I miss him, and won't see him until tomorrow, but it's kind of nice to have the house to myself...

Well, me and the little monsters. :)