Dishes

I have a beautiful pattern on my dishes.

Isn't it lovely?


My grandma had the pattern first.  Then one of my aunts loved it so much, she bought her own set.  Then mom decided she liked it and bought some, too.  After awhile, my aunt wanted something new, so she gave me her set when I first moved off campus in college.  Now, 4 years and only two broken dishes later, my set is still going strong.  It's good stuff.


The only problem with my dishes is that after you use them, you have to clean them.  Of all the household chores there are to do, I think doing the dishes is my least favorite.  It's not like laundry or vacuuming where you can do it once a week (or less).  Dish washing has to be done every day.  Often, multiple times.  And since our dishwasher is probably as old as me, you essentially have to wash the dishes before putting them in it. 

So I wash and scrub and get poked with a knife and pick at stuff that's gotten hardened.  And after awhile, I have a full dishwasher and a nice pile of clean non-dishwasherable stuff on the stove (because that's where you stack dishes to dry when you have a small apartment).

But no matter how many times I do dishes, there's almost always something in the sink.  A pot.  A pan.  A glass.  Or, usually, a pot, a pan, a glass, some plates, and some utensils.

I would totally invest in one of those giant dishwashing things they have in restaurants, where you stack everything under a huge cover, push a button and it does this high powered wash on everything in about 5 minutes.  Like this:

[courtesy of http://www.indiamart.com]

So if you have one of those lying around, I'd be happy to take it off your hands.  

In the end, though, I'm glad to have dishes.  Then I can bake things in the oven:

Things like this:

Which turn into this after about 7 hours:

Yummy pulled pork!

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some dishes to attend to...

The Perks of Being Married

I married an awesome guy.

He helps with dishes.  He likes to vacuum.  He's super nice and fun to be with.

Also, he's kind of a good artist.  He can draw stuff like dolphins and geometric designs and make them look super cool.

The other week, we bought a plain white terra-cotta-ish decorative pitcher at my new favorite store, Home Goods.  It was cute and I thought it would go good in our bedroom on the table we bought for the empty corner (also from Home Goods).  The table was white, so I didn't want a white pitcher on a white table against an off-white wall.  I had some blue spray paint, so I decided to spray paint it.

I sprayed and sprayed and got paint on my fingers and probably some in my lungs.  When I was finished, it looked....okay.  Not awesome.  Not terrible.  Just okay.  I decided it would be fine and put it on the table in the bedroom.  Matt looks at it and says, "Why don't we paint a design or something on it?"

Has he ever seen my illustrations?  Does he know that I can't draw much more than a circle or square??  I can't paint on a decorative pitcher to save my life!  I have the drawing skills of a 5 year old. 

Then he says, "No, let me think of something and I can paint it.  Okay?"

Fine.  He sketches something out on paper (it's like 500 billion times better than what I could do already) and starts painting.

He's really careful.

And by the end of the day it looks so much better than just plain blue!!

Then he says, "But it's not finished yet.  I'll do more tomorrow."

The next day he paints while I'm away babysitting.  When I came home, this was waiting for me in the bedroom:

Pretty stars.

It.  Looks. AWESOME!!!

And that's why you should make sure your spouse has better skills than you.  At least in some things.

New and Improved Apartment!!

As promised, I've taken pictures of parts of our apartment that I've recently updated and/or organized.  Of course it would have been handy to see "before" pictures, but who am I to think that far ahead??  

One of the generous gifts I was given at the end of the year from my class was a Target gift card.  Matt and I put it to good use over the weekend and I love the little things we were able to do.

Project 1:  Organize Bedroom Closet.

I have seriously wanted to reorganize our bedroom closet since Christmas.  I'm not exaggerating.  It quickly became a disaster zone once we got into the whole summer/winter clothes change over.  We didn't have enough storage space (bins, dresser drawers, etc.) so things got all piled up and gross.  Organizing the closet was one of the things I had the least desire to do on a Saturday after a long week at school.  So the project was put on hold until now.  Picture a "before" closet with clothes on top of the dresser; pillows and random blankets on the top shelf; shoes and purses on the floor.  Here are the results of our "make-over:"

Yay!!  There is almost nothing on the floor and just a few trinkets on top of the dresser.

Bins from Target are a lifesaver.  The clear bin has most of my winter clothes in it.  The blue and green bins have pillows and blankets.  Picture all that mess all over that shelf in piles.  Not hot.

Project Two:  Make Bedroom Cozier

On one side in our bedroom we have a huge wall that is pretty much blank.  We had had a picture hanging of an old antique map with a dark brown frame and it was just too...dark.  We picked this up for cheap at Michaels and things look much much brighter and friendly!

Project Three:  De-clutter and Organize Laundry Room

Our laundry room was another disaster zone.  When you walk through those doors you have the washer to the right and the dryer to the left.  Above each are white metal shelving units (two shelves on each side).  I wisely chose to use one shelf above the washer for laundry detergent and other laundry supplies.  That left three shelves to use as storage.

Here's a secret for engaged couples or couples who will probably get married:  When you register for wedding gifts, you will get many of them plus other things you didn't register for.  Many of those things are nice and you will want to keep them, assuring yourself that although you don't need a salad bowl big enough for 12 families to eat out of right now, you will at some point.  With this in mind, you keep everything and exchange nothing.  Bad idea.  That huge salad bowl, pizza cooker, toaster oven, and three types of blenders actually have to go somewhere.  And if you live in a 2 bedroom apartment like us, there are not many places for things to go.  

So where did many of my random bowls, plates, and serving dishes go?  That's right.  Those handy laundry room shelves.  My friends, those shelves were stuffed.  Some items ended up on top of the dryer.  If I actually wanted to use something, I had to take down five or six other things to get to the thing I wanted

Anyway, this ended up being a two-part project.  I cleaned out and reorganized our office closet and was able to store some of those thoughtful gifts in there.  That left me with much more space in the laundry room for things I use on a regular basis.  I also added a fuzzy blue mat and a picture collage with cork board on either side.  All our coupon clippings are in there now (instead of on the refrigerator).  Here's a peek:

And the picture collage:

Project Four:  Spruce Up My Bathroom

I have a nicely sized bathroom with lots of counter space that I love.  For me, though, large spaces are easily cluttered.  I added cork board to hang jewelry on and some fake flowers in a vase.  There was an under the cabinet space with no door where I keep my hamper and extra toilet paper.  I bought a cheap tension rod and curtain and hung that.  Here's what it looks like:

Whew!  That's all for now.  Maybe you can use some of my ideas in your place to cozy things up a bit :)