home updates {living room shelves}

I love all the character of our house, but one thing the house didn't have a lot of was built-ins.  I love me some old house built-ins... and maybe there used to be some that got removed during renovations over the years, who knows.

So I was really wanting some shelving in our living room.  I looked at lots of pictures of different types of shelving that Caleb & I could do ourselves for a quick-fix that still looked nice.  One major trend that I did like was the pipe shelving units like this one...

via

But honestly that option seemed really permanent, time consuming to construct, and more expensive.  Then I remembered the post from House Tweaking where she talked about her new living room shelves and I decided to go more of the metal track route...

via

I didn't get a great "before" picture because I didn't get my camera out until we started working on it. So here is my best before... {with one of the metal tracks already up}

The metal tracks comes in a gray metal, black, & white.  It took me a while to decide between gray and black, but I went with black because I have other black hardware in the room.

Installation of these are super easy and self-explanatory.

The stain I went with is the one on the far left, a Minwax brand - color is Ipswich Pine.  The boards we used are a stain-grade pine boards.  We have yet to secure the boards to the brackets, but we will do that... someday.  I like how they turned out!

Of course Rifle Paper Co. makes its cameo in my post...

 

This is a very easy shelving unit to DIY in one afternoon...we even did another one in my master bathroom!  But now is not the time to show pics of my bathroom. :)

 

meal planning & cookies

Meal planning... one of those things I've mentioned on the blog before that I was going to "start doing" {<---- when you read that, feel free to make air quotes}.  I believe I talked about starting it during my freak out, crazy-list-woman post... ga'head and read that here if your unfamiliar with that wonderful trait of mine.  Anyway... similar freak out senario while I was at the store yesterday after I text Caleb and asked...

"What should we do for dinner?"

{It was six o'clock - I just got off work and Caleb was at a master's class}

Caleb's response was "Something good."  

Gonna be real honest here... I'm not your gal to just whip up "something good."

So I'm walking through the store picking up 2 more cans of refried beans when I already have about 5 cans at home, because I have no clue what food I have nor do I know what to make. So then, after I spent $60 at the store and Caleb calls me afterward and asks what we are having... my repsonse was...

"I still don't know... :( "

At home, I proceeded to give Caleb and lecture {which was really directed at myself} about how we were going to start meal planning for real because with my new job and new work schedule, I can't be getting off work at six and going to the store.  So here I go again, let's try this one more time...

To make this much more fun for myself... I designed my own weekly meal planner in photoshop! :) I will share it with you in case you need something similar. I know there are a ton of free meal planners on Pinterest, but I really just wanted to make my own for fun! Here it is....

The size is 8.5 x 11 - to make sure it fits within the margins, choose "scale to fit" or similar when printing. Link to download is below.

 Download the meal planner for yourself:
{Weekly Meal Planner} click to download

While I really dislike cooking and think it's a pain, I really don't mind baking. Last night while I was going through my own Pinterest board with meal ideas, I ran across a M&M cookie recipe I pinned a long time ago and never tried.  I really felt like some homemade cookies and I just happened to have all the ingredients... {including the secret ingredient of vanilla pudding mix powder}.  I found the recipe here.  Let me tell you, they are glorious!!!  I love them so much and will make them for many years to come!

I used my Silpat baking mat, which I have almost never used before... but the original blogger used one and I think it contributed a lot to how perfect the cookies were!

Happy planning & baking! :)

my brain is a checklist...

Confession: I'm obsessed with making lists.  Whew... feels good to get that out.
Sometimes I have these moments where I start looking around my house and realize all of this stuff that needs to be done.  I start getting this crazy look in my eye {per Caleb's accounts} and start grabbing a pad of paper and a pen... Caleb in the background going "Oh boy... here we go." cause I'm about to make a list of things that need to be done from that moment until the end of time... And then Caleb has this long talk with me about how I resort to lists when I'm stressed out.  Sounds stupid doesn't it??? That's because it's all completely true.
Lists aren't ALL bad or a source of stress for me though.  I do keep organized via my lists and feel like I can usually relax once I have the ideas bouncing in my brain written out. For Christmas, Caleb even got me three, that's right THREE, different notepads for my list obsession.  And it was a perfect gift for me, I love all of them.  They do help me organize my thoughts and all of my "to do" items... but sometimes I can still feel a little overwhelmed by all the possible lists I could make!  I could make grocery lists, a lists of errands to run, a list of home projects to work on, a list to manage all my other lists...

Caleb can get stressed out by my lists too, as mentioned above.  His least favorite are any that fall into the "home projects" category.  Those lists are ones he gets dragged into the most... and by dragged into I mean he gets dragged off of his comfy seat on the couch to somewhere in the house to do something he doesn't really want to do.  Poor guy.  He knew who he was marrying though so... that makes it kinda fair. :)

one of the lists Caleb got me for Christmas

With the start of the new year, it brought up some new lists in my brain!  This year will likely hold lots of changes for us... I started off the year already as a new graduate and I'm currently looking for a job, so that will be a major change.  Caleb continues to be earning his master's in educational administration as well and will graduate at sometime this year {although he won't be looking to change to an administrative position for a while}.  We are also considering selling our house this year, possibly in the spring -- and if that doesn't make me want to make like 20 lists I don't know what will!  Selling our current house also means buying a new {and by new I mean very old} house.  Which guess what buying a "new" old house means... you guessed it, more lists of Caleb's least favorite category!!!  I try not to talk about too much as to not stress him out. :)
Despite all these plans and plans to make more lists... I do need to get better about narrowing my focus from my BIG PICTURE lists that would take months to complete {and these tend to be the list that I make during my "crisis moments"} to making more manageable and smaller lists.
For example, I need to get better at meal planning, because when you don't do it... you aren't very good at it. :)  This is something I've been mulling on for a while but have yet to do anything about it.  It would definitely help in the "grocery list" category and make Caleb and mine's lives easier and less expensive!  So this is something I'm going to try to work on... I'll let you know how it goes!