June Goals

I have decided that I want to have goals each month on what to accomplish in my house. This weekend, we knocked out two big projects that had been on my list and now I am completely motivated to get more done.

My husband gave me a budget of only $100 for home stuff this month (not nice! haha) and with it, I plan to paint, put in new hardware, and hang shelves in our tiny hall bathroom and organize our measuring cups and pantry.

I also have one other project in the works but since I already bought that stuff yesterday, I'm not counting the $11 I spent for June's budget.

Because that's just how I do things!

When we bought the house, my sister insisted that the towels in this bathroom be a dark purple, her school's colors. I finally gave in because really... Who doesn't like purple?


We decided to go with a very very very very very light, key lime pie green color.

I know this is a terrible picture, but it's called Classic Key Lime by Glidden. It looks a lot brighter here than it is.

At least I'm hoping!

 

These will be made. I already have the wood cut, it's an aged wood, but it's not aged like I would like. I don't know yet if I will paint them, stain them, age them, all of the above, etc.

I do have boards already cut for shelves. My original plan was to suspend them with chain but I now have shelves suspended by chain elsewhere in my house (that's one of the projects I was talking about earlier! EEK!), and I don't want to do it again. We will see. I'm still scouring Pinterest for ideas and have a couple, it will just come down to budget.

I need a towel holder. And I have a couple of ideas in mind, I'm just at a loss as to which one I want to do. 

 

I was originally leaning towards this idea because it's different but I'm not in love with it.

Then I thought I wanted this:

but I worry that it would be too much wood for such a small bathroom.

Then I found this:

It's definitely different but I like it. And I think if done right, I can combine the three things I like from each and make one that I love.

Those are my plans for the bathroom, so far. And if all goes well, should be completed in the next two weeks. Once this bathroom is done, our entire downstairs (except the master bedroom because that's a massive undertaking) will be done and painted. We have accomplished a lot since we moved in 13 months ago, and I am super proud of how our little fixer upper is coming together.

A Texas Sunset

About 10 months ago, I was shooting a wedding out at BLORA lake, the part of Belton Lake that is run by the Army's MWR program.

It was an evening wedding and the light was gorgeous. It was giving me that hazy look that is extremely in and every picture I snapped, I oooh'd and aaah'd over how gorgeous my shots were.

Once the sun started to set, I couldn't help but just be amazed at the beauty that was happening across the lake.

I had to shoot it.

Stunning!

Another night, my family and I were out at Overlook Park near Belton, I was shooting our pre-deployment photos before my husband left. When we were finishing up, the sun was setting and I was able to get some great shots.

I am from Texas and I don't remember sunsets ever being this breathtaking.

The last sunset actually comes from my house. I shot this photo on the 4th of July last year, right before my family and I headed out to Fort Hood to watch the fireworks show.

One thing about me, I am extremely obsessed with shooting clouds, especially sunset clouds. I definitely did not let myself down with these shots!

Being Optimistic - My "I Did It" List

My husband returned home just two short months ago. During the deployment, they had made mention to be prepared to leave again in a year after they got home.

Turns out that isn't a rumor.

In one year, my husband will leave again for another 9 months. They aren't calling this a deployment but a training mission.

A 9 month training mission.

In Korea.

I could easily let this get me down. We were looking forward to the 2 years of dwell time after a deployment, but with the luck my husband has already had in his 13 years in, I'm not surprised.

I'm not exactly happy but there is nothing I can do. Instead of living in my own little pity party world, I'm changing my outlook.

I have spent the morning looking at photos of all that I accomplished during his last 9 months that he was gone. I am walking around seeing how much my house changed in those short months.

For those new readers, we bought a fixer upper with every intention to fix it up. I didn't get a whole lot on my list done, but I did get more than I could have ever imagined with all of the things Murphy's Law threw at me along the way...

Plus two toddlers.

While it's still a little early to start working on my next deployment to-do list, this is my "I did it" list.

Insert claps, whistles and whoohoos here!

The day my husband left for his deployment, I came home from dropping him off to find two beautiful things.

1. My 80s light fixture was gone and it was replaced with the light that Mat and I picked out the night before he left.

 And two. A dog door.

I can't really say that I did this, my father in law is amazing, however, I did pick them out... So that counts, right?

The first picture shows what our system for the kids shoes was. Not exactly efficient. This shelf now houses all of the kids shoes and it's right in front of the garage so that when we come in, shoes can be dropped. One day, when the kids are older, their shoes will go upstairs in their room, but for now, this works perfect as our little catch all. The board has hooks for our jackets, purses, dog leashes, etc.

This past deployment, I wanted to be a problem solver. And one of my problems was that I had all of these super cute bras and they were getting squished in a drawer. I found this DIY bra organizer and knew that I had to have it. It was simple and inexpensive.

And it works.

This project almost didn't make the cut. I had bought the paint for it, but I was running out of time. I kept saying I needed to do it, I needed to do it, and one day, I did. With just a couple of days before Mat came home, I knocked it out. And while that open spot is still renters poop brown, something will be done with it eventually.

The stair rail got a new facelift. The hand bar will eventually. I'm just dreading trying to figure out how to do it.

Whatever you do though, don't look underneath. That part isn't exactly done yet.

MY front door got a makeover. This is definitely one of my favorite changes. I love the color!

One of my goals will be to change the kick plate to match the door handle!

Even the doors inside weren't safe. All of the inside doors on the 1st floor got a makeover.

The laundry room was the greatest transformation. It got a fresh coat of paint, a new washer and dryer and a tack board that I covered in fabric.

Eventually, once we get it cleaned out, the garage will be where we come in and out of the house the most, so this will be where we put all of our memos and notes.

And let's not forget my laundry room sorter. It is perfect for small laundry rooms! And when we come in the garage, there aren't baskets of clothes on the floor that need to be washed. The doors open and close without anything in the way.

After a 9 month search, the living room got a Jaxon, Dottie and Harley approved rug.

The playroom got a nice, relaxing blue. The plan was to keep it calm in hopes that it would keep the kids calm.

Didn't work.

These are picture frame/art holders that I made with boards from Hobby Lobby and some clipboard clips. Easy and super cute. The idea in my head was that the blue was like the sky and the frames were clouds.

Before buying our house, it had been a rental so there were a lot of spots like this were neglected. I spent a lot of time fixing them. I'm pretty happy with my handiwork. You can't even tell that there was a whole chunk of wall missing at one point.

The hallways and living room also got a fresh coat of paint. There's my father in law, doing his thing!

We also found time to send lots of care packages to daddy. In this one, he requested his sports medicine books!

I am so happy with how much my house changed while Mat was gone. And now that I have actually sat down and written this post, I'm kind of antsy for him to leave again. I can only imagine what all can be done this time since the kids will be in school for most of the deployment. That leaves me almost 8 hours of uninterrupted toddlers to get stuff done.

Maybe I should start working on that list!

Our Little Getaway - Jamaica

You can read my Tripadvisor post about our resort here.

You may remember this post about Mat and I planning a trip to Jamaica. A couple of weeks, we finally made our trip and the whole left me speechless.

Mat and I didn't really care where we ended up, we just knew we wanted to go somewhere. After 3 deployments completed in 3 years and another one only a year away, plus our 7 year anniversary (the itch!) coming up later this year, we knew that we need to take some time away, just us, and make sure that we hadn't lost that loving feeling.

Know what I mean?

I spent weeks researching and finding the perfect resort. This trip wasn't about where we went or what we did, we didn't really care to leave the comforts of our resort, we just wanted to get away.

I finally came across Sunset at the Palms and I knew it was perfect, he knew it was perfect, and we booked it.

The night before, we headed to San Antonio to stay with one of my longtime friends. We had an early flight (hello 7:25am!) and I was not looking forward to waking up early. I made sure we stayed as close to the airport as we could get! haha

Good morning, San Antonio!

Our itinerary took us to Atlanta and then Montego Bay.

I am obsessed with cloud and wing photos... In case you were wondering.

 After arriving in Montego Bay, we had a seriously annoying long line to get through passport control and customs. After almost an hour, we finally made it through, only to find out that Mat had to have a special health stamp since he had just gotten back from Afghanistan.

 Our first views of Jamaica were filled with, "Oh my God!"s and "Holy sh!t"s. The views were stunning.

After getting through both and then picking up our luggage, we were greeted by our transportation company that would be taking us to our resort.

This was our first view of Jamaica outside the airport.

We got pretty lucky, a friend of mine works at our cell phone company and he hooked us up with unlimited texting and data while we were in Jamaica. I found quite the humor in the trip. Text messages during our hour and a half trip went something like:

"Just FYI... They drive on the opposite side of the road in Jamaica. Try to refrain from calling your driver an idiot."

"So far I have seen a store called "All The Tings" and a bar whose tagline is "Come in here and get drunk."

To say that my first taste of Jamaica was anything but less than humorous would be incorrect.

The trip to our resort wasn't exactly pretty. There was a ton of litter and the towns leave a lot to be desired.

Until you get to the resort areas.

We arrived at our resort and we were immediately greeted with cold towels (that smelled amazing!), tasty juice, and the friendliest staff ever.

They really go out of your way to wait on you.

Right before we had left, I had sent the resort a message to request a king bed. They had sent a message back and asked if we were celebrating anything and I had told them that we were celebrating the end of deployment #5 as well as what we were considering a late honeymoon. They remembered this and had champagne in our room.

Between this, and just how beautiful the resort was, Mat and I had already decided that we would have to come back. We hadn't even been there half an hour.

1. Our room 2. The view from our front deck 3. The hammock on our deck 4. My day bed (where I spent a lot of time) 5. The little table on our front deck.

1. The daily activity board. You came here every morning to find out what excursions and classes were planned for that day as well as the theme for dinner. 2. Our cute little room key.

The cute little kittens were my morning entertainment

1. The view walking to our room (that's our treehouse straight ahead) 2. The view from the hammock of the mountains 3. The view of the resort gardens 4. Same as 3. I spent my morning watching the workers pick the fresh veggies for the meals for the day 5. Mat's hammock. That's where he spent a lot of time.

The resort was lush with flours and plants. I wish I had taken photos of all of the different ones but it would have filled an entire memory card. This place was gorgeous.

The pool and pool bar area. A lot of people wondered why I didn't have many photos. I just simply answered that I didn't want to bore people with hundreds of photos of my legs. We literally lounged and relaxed the whole time we were there.

The beach. I told you. We lounged.

My handsome breakfast buddy our first morning in Jamaica

Believe it or not, Mat and I actually did a few things. Xtabi is a cliffside resort not far from where we were staying. The plans were to snorkel and they had some you could rent, but we didn't realize it was cash only. We enjoyed the view and explored the caves.

Even though we didn't get to snorkel, the views made up for it.

He did get tired of me taking random photos of him but he loves me.

The resort offered free non motorized sport activities. The first one we tried were the paddle boats.

We couldn't get over how pretty the water was and how clear. The water was super deep, yet, we could still see the bottom.

Another picture of the man. You can tell that he is thrilled!

After a morning of paddle boating, we took the cooking class. We learned to make smoked salmon... Not that we eat smoked salmon, but the show was entertaining and the company was great!

Have I mentioned that the water is crystal blue and the beaches are sandy? And that it doesn't get much better than this?

The one thing that Mat just had to do was windsail. I was a little iffy because he had never sailed before. I kept telling him no (lessons were $20), but he finally convinced me that it can't be hard and he would wing it.

Yea. Wing it.

I'm glad that we did it, I'm glad that we made it back to shore in one piece and didn't have to have the rescue boat come tow us back to shore.

My super happy captain. Probably the happiest he was the whole trip.

I wasn't so sure...

 How we spent our last day in Jamaica... Me on the daybed and Mat in the hammock.

On our last night, we made reservations at the Chef's Table. I was entirely fond of the food, it's not stuff I am used to, but it was nice to get dressed up and experience it.

The appetizer was a smoked salmon stuffed with prosciutto and smoked cho cho. I don't normally eat salmon, but I did try it and it was really good. The soup was an Italian potato and cream corn soup. We had a salad with a fruity vingearette dressing, chicken and shrimp for dinner and a passion fruit souffle for dessert.

The soup and the chicken were my favorite part!

The next morning, we had to leave. Again. Bright and early.

 

 Atlanta at night.

We got into San Antonio at 1030pm even though our day had started at 750am. We went back to my friends house and woke up the next morning to pick up our littles from my parents. 

I know we missed them, but I think they were pretty happy to see us.

Don't let the boy fool you, he's in one of those phases where he hates photos!

So. That was our trip. We are definitely planning on finding a way to go back in the next few years. I would like to go back next year but I suppose we should do a family trip then... Le sigh!