Cafe de Valentine

If you're anything like me, you hear about books or see books lying around someones house and they catch your eye or attention. If you're like me you have a laundry list of books you'd love to read if you had the time to sit down or the money to go buy them all. I have borrowed a few lately and I got one for CHRISTMAS that I'm now almost done with and I have decided that over the next few weeks (before fall tv starts up again) I would love to get some reading time in. My current reading list: Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom. I have read his books "Tuesdays with Morrie" & "The Five People You'll Meet in Heaven" and I've loved them. I'm almost done with this book and I think it's fabulous. Captivating by John & Staci Eldridge. I read "Wild at Heart" by John Eldridge numerous times when I was dating/engaged as a glimpse into the heart of a man. I plan to read it again if I ever become the Mother to a little boy. Fa...

This weekend I had a few chores needed to be done and one of them was cleaning the stove. I HATE cleaning the stove. We have a white oven/range & everything we cook on it splatters somehow and it NEVER looks clean no matter how long and hard I scrub. I have stains and spots on there that have been there since we moved in a year and half ago. I have heard great things about Mr Clean Magic Eraser, but never tried it. I finally grabbed a box at Wal Mart and the angles were singing! Y'all, my stove is cleaner than it has ever been! I used little to no elbow grease & it seriously took me all of 10 min to clean the WHOLE thing. I am in no way shape or form being paid for this post. Mr Clean & his people have no idea who I am or that I no have a clean stove... I just had to share. I would assume this is going to work just as well on any color cook top. Don't waste another minute dreading cleaning your stove or scrubbing it for hours on end... seriously go get you one... NO...

It only took us 2 months but our home office is finally done! When I say done, I mean functional and put together... I still have some plans for the wall decor. I also am not sure why some of these pictures look really pixelated on the blog, because the hard copies don't look that way. This photo shows the new hardwood floors. The desk & the book shelves. You can also see the drawers behind the desk chair if you look close. The book shelves were a cheap WalMart find. The back piece was white like the sides and shelves and we painted them dark brown to add some contrast to the tan walls and white shelves. The baskets on the shelves are from IKEA. I had actually bought 3 of them from there probably 6 years ago {maybe longer} and wanted some on both shelves, so my sister went and got us 3 more of the same kind. They hold random things like my camera software/manuals & cords, CD's & some random computer software, and extra picture frames. Each of the two side walls has ...

So let me tell you a little story... In the midst of the house remodel the last few weeks we had been noticing mouse droppings {see title of this blog post} in the work bench. We decided to invest in a few traps and hubs set them around the work bench. A few nights later we were preparing for the trash guy to come and loading up with the cans with the old carpet and padding. {side note: we pulled up so much carpet and padding that there wasn't room for it all in our cans, so we've had a pile in the garage and we put a little out each week to fill the cans until it's gone} I picked up a pile of carpet to put it out and I saw a mouse run out the pile. It took me a second to realize that it was in fact a mouse and it had run out of the pile of carpet I was holding. I won't tell you all the things I said and did at that point, but this is probably the part you wish there were photos or video of, because I assure you it was funny to watch. I did walk the handful out to the ...

This weekend hubs and I got that mini vacation I was longing for in last weeks post. We had planned a few months ago to head to the coast for a few days to camp with some friends. I took all of these photos with my iPhone. I edited them with the "Shake it photo" application. I have no idea how I left town for four days and FORGOT MY CAMERA! How does the aspiring photographer head to the beach and not take her camera? This was our home for three nights. I haven't been camping since early high school and I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed sleeping out under the stars. Yes, there is an air mattress under those sleeping bags so we didn't TOTALLY "rough it". This is a beautiful time of year on the coast. We are blessed to not live far. It's views like this that make me feel so small and yet in awe of the One who created it all. Our friends B & J lost there sweet baby in January at 20 weeks pregnant and we knew this month would be hard for th...

Please, I'm loosing my mind. Our house is under construction and I can't stand it any longer. I am in serious need a vacation, somewhere nice, and clean, without tack strips & baseboards & caulking & hammers & vice grips {yes, I know what those are now} & heavy boxes of tile and laminate & an endless to do list & one room holding all of my worldly belongings. I have begun to wonder if we shouldn't just give this a try... start over! I just keep telling myself how awesome it will be when it's done. I'm just not sure I'm going to live long enough to see it. Hubs has the personality to freak out about money stuff. So when we make our 15 Th run to Home Depot THIS WEEK he starts to panic a bit. The job that we thought was going to cost X amount always ends up costing a bit more. I let him worry about that, and I freak out about the mess and how long it's going to take us to actually be DONE! Well, when he came home yesterday and co...

If you have wondered where I have been and why I haven't blogged in like a decade, please see the following photos! Hubs decided that in order for me to clean out all our closets (as I've been in the process of doing) that he needed to clean out his garage to make room for the stuff I'd like to store there. He would like to get our Christmas decor and camping gear that we only use once a year, up in the attic. So off to Home Depot we headed for an attic ladder. Yes, we own a truck, and no we didn't take it to Home Depot when we knew we were going to buy an attic ladder. Don't ask me why... it's a long story and it's my fault. None the less, this didn't go well. We are in the process of installing new laminate wood floors in our WHOLE house (photos below) and my parents are doing the same. Of course, when you are doing all the work yourself you'd rather practice in someone else's house. Last Saturday my dad and hubs installed this flooring in m...

I have been longing for Spring {as I'm sure I've made VERY clear} so I started our Spring Cleaning and organizing early! Two weeks ago I tackled all three closets. I got rid of old lamps, clothes, recycled ratty towels into rags and moved them to the laundry room etc. The following weekend I tackled our office and organized the massive amounts of paperwork and rearranged the furniture a bit. We had these two plastic storage bins with multiple drawers that stored our "electronic extras" which means we had old cell phones, chargers, cords, floppy discs, old CD's etc etc etc. I cleaned everything out and tossed stuff, recycled the stuff that needs to be recycled and I got RID of those two storage bins that collected JUNK! So last weekend it was the pantry. I will tell you first of all that we do not shop because we need things, we shop because things are on sale, so we always have what looks like a stockpile of food items. People often see our pantry and think we...

this labor day weekend marks college football kick off. for us valentine's... it means we're heading to the dog house! we are hoping that this guy: head coach, pat hill can lead us to victory week after week this season. i feel like we have some great new players (i wasn't a fan of the former quarterback) that can really help us out. we did lose some great guys to the NFL this year. bear pascoe (ryan wants our future son to be named bear after this guy) is currently playing for the 49ers and is doing very well in the preseason. he will be missed by the bulldogs this year! we're going tonight to grab us some new gear for the season opener. we can't wait. there are 5 home games this year and the first is here saturday night at 7pm. i'm hoping and praying it's not 102 degrees, but we'll sit through it if it is! our bulldogs will take on hte UC Davis Aggies and we'll be there front and center to watch. ok, maybe not front and center. we're about 20 ...

we've been without internet at our house for almost a week and i thought i was going to go crazy. lucky for me, i work in front of a computer all day everyday, so i was able to stay in the loop somewhat. the last two weekends we spent re-staining and refinishing an antique dresser and our two nightstands. i have a few before and after shots to share. we're getting another piece of furniture from my inlaws that we'll stain the same color. we also have two other dressers to paint. we tried to stain them but it's not real wood, they're made out of like a partical board type stuff so it doesn't absorb the stain so it looks bad. we're just going to paint them. more to come on those. before the drawer before the newly finished chest! the nightstand before (they have a marble slab that sits on top) finished nightstand. ignore the dog toys under it and the fact that i obviously didn't make the bed. i'm just keeping it real. we had a bbq last night with some ...