A Glimpse...

Just to give you all a glimpse of a typical Adam and Taylor conversation....

Me: Honey, feel my arm. I used to have a muscle there. (Referring to my newly developed flab due to the marriage 15 that no body warns you about)

Adam: (touching my arm) You still do!

Me: Honey, don't squeeze me so hard, you hurt me.

Adam: I think you have fibro-mayalgia (sp?). Everything hurts you.

Me: I do not! You just don't know your own strength! It's like you try to squeeze me to the core and touch my bones or something!

Adam: Hooooooney....

Me: I mean seriously, you need to get used to being gentle with your delicate flower of a wife!

Adam: Hysterical Laughter!

Me: This seriously isn't funny! I am delicate!!! Why could this possibly be funny?!?

End Conversation due to uncontrollable laughter. Followed by a pout from yours truly :(

We really do love each other!!!

Fall Fun

As promised, my most recent fall decor for the house, if you can even call it that. Really I just use what I already have and with a little fall accents turn it into seasonal and fun decor.

Up first, a new candle for our kitchen table. I took an old vase that I had from when the hubs sent me flowers waaaaaay back in the day ;) Filled it with some vanilla flavored whole coffee beans, tied some ribbon around it, added a candle, and viola! A beautifully scented center piece...

Second on the list was a little hallway table decor with some inexpensive Indian corn i found at our local winn dixie. I peeled the shucks back down over the corn and tied them with some twine. Then I simply placed them in a bread basket on our hallway table. See....not really decorating, but it's the thought that counts right?

Lastly, a dining room table centerpiece that was specially designed for the hubs. Have I mentioned that Adam is insanely obsessed with likes John Deere. He started quite the impressive collection of miniature tractors pre-me, that are now resting quite nicely on our garage storage shelves. If you ask him, these are majorly important collectible items that we will one day pass on to our children, though they won't actually be able to touch them?!? Anyway, I decided that just for him I would create a little John Deere centerpiece highlighting one of his beloved toys collectibles.

So I bought a mini hay bail, a few miniature pumpkins, and rescued one of his tractors from impending dust collection from the garage. Here's how it turned out...

So there you have it....Fall decor en mi casa!

YouTube Tuesday: Take One

So I have a minor obsession with adorable, hilarious, or otherwise entertaining videos, and of course there is no better place to find such time-wasting meaningful content than YouTube. So I have decided to start a weekly installment of my favorite video finds right here on "Keeping up with the Kizziahs!"


So here we go....YouTube Tuesday #1, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On!



I just can't get enough of his little voice! Makes me want to take him home with me :)
Happy Tuesday everyone!

Publish Post

Fall-ish...

So it's still 90 degrees in my humble Florida abode, but the calendar claims it is fall and thus I have begun some fall decorating in casa Kizziah.

First on the DIY design plate...a homemade wreath for our front door. I didn't want to be too "halloweeny," just more subtle fall; so I went with a heather gray, maroon, and chocolate brown color palette. I bought a Styrofoam wreath and spray painted it chocolate brown to cover up the white background. Then I purchased about 1/2 a yard of felt (way too much) in those colors and spent the next century hour or so hand rolling "rosettes" in varying sizes. Just cut the fabric in strips, fold strips in half, roll them up, hot glue to secure.  Super simple, but a little time consuming.

See the varying heights

Top view, I pushed the center's up just slightly to resemble a flower shape

*Note: if you are attempting this, the longer the fabric strip, the wider the rosette, the wider the fabric strip, the taller the rosette. The really wide strips do not work as well for a wreath*

I then hot-glued them all in varying patterns to the wreath, tied some chocolate brown and white striped ribbon to attach it, and hung it on our front door! I really like how it turned out despite dropping one of the rosettes covered in VERY hot glue onto my upper thigh by accident, resulting in a removal of one complete layer of skin and a very pitiful patient (I'm such a baby when I get hurt! Just ask the hubs....wait don't)  Needless to say,  I do not recommend this part of the tutorial!! :(

Sorry, no door picture...it's raining outside :(

More fall decorations coming up soon!!

I'm Alive/ Don't let the love bugs bite?

Hello everyone out there in blog land/ my 9 faithful followers (I LOOOOVE you all!!)! I am happy to report that I am alive and well after a week of my body rebelling against being a teacher surrounded by germy kids (better known as sickness). The hubs and I have been out of commission for the past week, but I am feeling better and raring to go. On a side note this is the FOURTH September in a row where I have missed 1-7 days of work due to allergy related illness. Do you think I should be considering a different carreer option? That actually crossed my mind until today's 1st period Spanish II class occured when I was reminded why i love the adolesence of America...

Background info: I had been noticing enormous amounts of little black and orange bugs EVERYWHERE. I mean literally Shanequa's grill appears to be a bug cemetery at the current moment, not a plot left to find. On my drive home in the afternoons they literally dive into my car's windshield like kamikaze pilots. More annoying than that, apparently they are drawn to spray paint which has halted my furniture re-purposing quite a bit,  as little black dots don't go well with painted things.

Story: one of these said bugs lands on my desk this morning. I proceeded to ask the class, "What are all these little black bugs everywhere?" Can of worms OPENED! One would think I would have learned not to ask such non-educational questions as they seemingly always end up in a 20 minute off-topic tangent, but I did. So one of my straight out of the movie Clueless preppy female students responds by saying,  "They are LOVE bugs, duh! And they like "do it" in the air and stuff!" in the most California valley girl voice one could possibly make, despite the fact that we are in deliverance country Florida. I can't remember the last time I heard the word duh and the phrase "doing it" in the same sentence, but it was about all I could do not to bust out laughing at that very moment.

She was referring to when these little honeymooner flies are attached together! Hilarious! Whether or not they are "doing- it" procreating? I have NO idea. But frankly the idea of being surrounded by LOVE BUGS all day is kinda cute, despite the fact that they are destroying my clean car! Here's to hoping you have a love filled weekend! I promise to be back to blogging next week!

P.S. I realize this is my second bug posting. I am in no way interested/like/enjoy such specimens...just too good of a story to not share!!

Weekly Wrap Up

Since it's Friday, HALLELUJAH!! I thought I would give you all a little Kizziah round up of the highlights of yet another exciting week in our lives :)


1.  Had a successful yard sale on Saturday. We managed to make $135.75!! Woo Hoo! I was going to be so happy to make $50.00. I mean who even wants our junk anyway? Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised and super excited to have a much cleaner garage to begin my demolition projects in! He he!!
   

2. Learned that there are actually people, well one person, that come to yard sales, stick their hands in the back of your recliner looking for loose change, get dissapointed when they don't find anything, and return to their car without looking at any other items or saying hello?! Can you believe this!! Hilarity!!

3. Spent all of aforementioned yard sale money to complete the bedroom renovation and manged to blog about it!

4. Spent 3 hours trying to figure out how my students could record something online only to find out I needed to hit one button that I couldn't manage to see by myself :( Darn technology!!

5. Purchased this really old antique sewing table for $4.00 at a yard sale in Keystone. It's in pretty bad shape, but I can't wait to fix'er up!! Still debating the color, but I'm thinking a beautiful Apple Red...what ya think?

6. Made a DELICIOUS new pasta recipe that I will share soon, and managed to ruin perfectly good chocolate cookies :( Adam ate them anyway. He's sweet like that and pretends to like everything that I cook, despite some of its inedible nature.

7. Discovered that Key Stone actually has a Subway! Just about the most exciting day I have had in a while considering I am teaching it what some might refer to as deliverance territory and there is literally 2 stop lights in the whole town (they are proud of this).

8. Finished several projects: 2 lamp shade re-dos (coming to a blog post near you), made a chalk holder to be attached to our new chalk board, and purchased supplies for the sewing table re-do and the dining room light fixture re-do.

9. I am officially one FULL week ahead in my lesson planning and one FULL week behind in my house cleaning! Is there something wrong with this picture? Nah!

10. Adam got a long over do hair cut and looks ever so handsome again! I have really got to learn how to cut his hair. I swear it grows like a weed. I don't know how you men keep up with such maintenance. I'm a twice a year hair cut kinda girl, but that's probably also because i NEVER do my hair. One of my students actually purchased me a curling iron last year as a Christmas present hoping that I would, "do something to make my self look better!?! he he! I'm not offended! Just makes me love the crazy world of teaching even more!

11. Started an ear-wash regiment to attempt to get rid of the HORRIBLE stankness coming from our pup's ear.

12. Fell in love with the song "Just the way you are" by Bruno Mars because I'm a completely dorky sap like that!! But isn't it so catchy?!?

So that's it! What did you get done this week?? Hope you have a fabulous weekend! GO DAWGS!

A Place to Lay Your Head....

And your husband's with his fighter pilot C-pap machine, and a snoring pup (see earlier blog post) who can't sleep in any other room because she "might get lonely." As promised here are the newly, cheaply, renovated bedroom pictures and the break down...

Please forgive me that there are no before pics :( You really aren't missing much, I can promise you! We had Adam's sleigh bed in the room, but it was simply too substantial for the room's size and 2 other dressers to fit. All the furniture is the same, with a little tweaking of placement, etc. as we will see...

I guess we'll start with the whole chabang and then break down the details....Here she is! Not by any means a professional photo (the curtains are crooked, my stuff is still on the floor) but I never claimed to be a photographer, just a humble DIYER.

We went with a gray, yellow, and rosy peach/poppy color scheme with lots of texture and pattern. I wanted to make a bold, yet soothing statement.

We began by changing the wall color from this:

A color similar to Behr "Ripe Wheat"

To this:

Behr "Porpoise"

I absolutely love how the color turned out and I would probably paint our whole house gray if I could convince Adam of the idea. Not likely considering that Adam would rather do absolutely anything in the whole world than paint. Is it that bad really?!?! On a side-note, I HIGHLY recommend the Behr paint and primer in one. It went on so easily and we only had to do 1 coat...thank goodness!!

We then went on the search for the perfect bedding. Adam and I both prefer to sleep with a down comforter without a duvet cover, which greatly cuts down on fabulous design choices. There are SO many beautiful duvet covers out there, but I just couldn't seem to wrap my head around the extra expense of having to buy a duvet cover and an insert only for it to be wadded up folded at the end of the bed each evening. Thus began the all out search for the perfect comforter or quilt. We ended up with this lovely and oh-so-soft "Ruffled-Circle" quilt from West Elm in Poppy. It literally feels like your grandmother's old quilt. Take another look...

I originally tried to find something else I could love equally, thinking it would be WAY to girly for my rugged husband, forgetting just how easy going he is. I drug asked him nicely to come into the store with me and he loved it just as much as me. Let me clarify love...It went something like "Whatever you want, can we please go home and take a nap. I'm going to get the car, don't EVER tell me how much it costs." He He! It was a little bit of a splurge, but I am definitely a firm believer in spending money on quality bedding that will last through multiple washings, stains, etc. And we saved tons of money on not having to buy a duvet insert.

I went with the gray Euro sham to tie in our wall color and used two textured white Euro shams that I already had. We also snagged this little beauty of a pillow for only $10.00 in the Poppy Color.

On to more detail. I had my heart set on having yellow accents and just couldn't seem to find ANYTHING that suited my taste. No fear nothing a little "Sun Yellow" spray paint can't solve. I took these lovely Goodwill candlesticks and transformed them into sunny little decorations for our dresser...

I took these $6.00 Kirkland's mirror and transformed them as well...

Then I found the finishing touch... this Dwell Studio for Target gray, white and yellow rug for the foot of the bed. And the best part was it was on sale for only $20.00!! I was thrilled. I have no idea why this thing was discounted...there is no damage and it's not on sale at target.com...but trust me I didn't argue. I think it really ties the room together.

In the room shot...

Sits right at the foot of the bed. Again, please excuse the imperfections such as the wrinkled bed skirt and the fact that Macy REFUSED to move for the picture. She DOES NOT listen to me. Only to Adam. Here she is on her newly purchased bone bedding from BBB. (She needed new bedding too)...

She is CLEARLY not phased by my photo shoot attempt. She simply cannot be bothered to move off of her perch. 

This is the dresser that is opposite the bed that holds my spray painted candle sticks and jewelry. Be on the look out for a new jewelry organizer coming soon.

I also updated our night stand hardware from 1970's brass to much better brushed nickel finish. I am not sure who designed these beauties but ALL of the hardware was different lengths, thus preventing me from buying new ones that would all match....So what did i Do? Spray paint of course! (Are you tired of my spray painting yet?)

This isn't a real before...I forgot :(

Much better huh?

It makes such a difference to be brass free in at least one room of the house!

We rearranged the furniture to position the bed under our GIANT window and hung these Ikea curtains. For 2 panels in a package...WHAT A STEAL!! Plus they come with hem tape so you can customize the length!!

So here she is one more time!! (Yes i name/ genderize everything)

So i think this might be the most picture happy/longest blog post EVER! Hope you liked our bedroom tour! Leave a comment and tell me what ya think! Do you squeal with excitement like I did some people do? Or is it a little too much color for your liking?

Lighten Up...

My most recent obsession interest is lighting. Weird, I know, but bare with me. I find lighting possibilities no matter where we are. I have picked up 6 yard sale/goodwill lamps for our home and just can't seem to stop. It's absolutely amazing what people will throw out without even an attempt to re-purpose. I have LOTS to show you all, but we'll start with the inspiration. This new found hobby originated from the absolute hatred I have developed for the current light fixtures in our home...

See exhibit A: hanging above our kitchen table....

And exhibit B: hanging in our dining room....

Can you actually believe someone would make such hideousness?!?!

As you can see these are absolutely, horrifyingly ugly (no offense to anyone who happens to have a fond liking of tacky 1980's bronze and glass fixtures)!!! I am still a little bit confused at how my husband, "never even noticed them" when he moved in. I mean how can you miss those shiny, off-centered, attempts to be modern and pretty, lovelies?!? So, my first project (there are many on the list) as a married woman was to determine how exactly I was going to remedy these problems on a MAJOR budget. I have dreamed of lighting such as these amazing Pottery Barn chandeliers and pendants...

 Only to be met with an incredible amount of sticker shock (as per usual with the PB). And since I am a new-found DIYer (do-it-yourself), I figured there must be a more reasonable solution to the problem. After a little blog stalking and a whole lot of brainstorming, here's what I have come up with for the kitchen fixture.

Isn't she pretty all lit up??

 Not too shabby for re-purposing a lamp shade I already had, a lot little grunt work from the hubby, and a can of spray paint! All for a grand total of....$4.00!! This couldn't be easier really. We just accidentally shattered removed the glass, found a lamp shade with a spider top, and slid right over the existing rod (which is now covered up).

I also just purchased this little baby to replace the dining room fixture for $12.00 from the Habitat Re-store. (A great place to find anything you might want to re-purpose in some way) Brass, I know, but nothing a little spray paint can't fix! I'll keep you posted on the details of this renovation!!

Up next...a bedroom reveal!! Can't wait to show you all the stuff I've been brewing up in our master bedroom on a budget!! So what do you think?

Holy Road Kill...

There was definitely a casualty on the road today. I am assuming it occurred sometime during my 45 minute commute to work! And YES, to all you nay sayers....I actually do wake up at 5am and make it to work on time every morning. Anyway, I digress....

If I wasn't fully aware before of my new Florida residency (thanks to the 100 degree temperatures at 6am, prevalence of "jorts", and the sea of orange and blue i'm surrounded by) I am CERTAIN of it now. Look at what made it's way into Shanequa's grill, never to return to the living world....

Shanequa is my jeep's name for those of you who were wondering. I named her back in 2004 for a plethera of reasons, some of which are quite obvious :) Irregardless this is the most gargantuan bug I have ever seen. They just don't grow 'em like that in Georgia!

One more time with the close up shot...

Forgive the poor picture quality please, but there was ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, NO way I was going to remove our dear friend. Yes, I know he is dead, but it was all I could do to muster up the nerve to get close enough to snap the shot with the zoom on!

Tomorrow we are having our newlywed yard sale of which we will dispose of mostly Adam's "bach" stuff! Yay!! He's a horder, I'm a cut-throat cleaner outer (is that a word?)! Needless to say it's been an interesting first few months in my nesting process!! He he! But seriously....he's such a good sport! I am sooo lucky!!


Hope you have a bug-free, enjoyable weekend!

The Grocery List Dilemma...

I don't know if it's just Adam and I that can't seem to remember anything these days, but it's true. I guess I'll just write it off as having something to do with my old age (refer to my quarter life crisis blog post)! With that being said, the only way I can manage to make a successful grocery list is to write down what I need on an ugly yellow legal pad kept on our kitchen counter at the EXACT moment we run out of said item, or it will simply not be purchased that week. Well being the tree-hugging, paper-saving, green girl that I am (totally not) I decided I could save paper by creating an easy erasable grocery list. Below is the product of my brainstorming:

I took this horrible old fish painting that hubby had during his pre-me days, which we fondly refer to as his "bach" days, and with a little white spray paint and the fantastic wonder in a bottle known as chalkboard paint, I created this lovely board for our grocery list. It hangs in our laundry room and is super easy and practical!! I think it would also be really cute with a frame spray painted a bright green or red. Any frame from Goodwill or a yard sale will do...the more detail the better!

So here is the before....

And the after.....Tah Dah!!

Not the greatest of pics, but you get the drift! So Easy and Practical!

So what do you think? How cute would this be for a little girl birthday present if it were pink? I can't wait to make more for presents!

Happy Labor Day!

Does anyone actually know what Labor Day celebrates? Irregardless I am super pumped not have had to work today. It's amazing to me how a 4 day week in a high school go by SOOOO much more quickly than a regular week.

Anyway, the hubby and I spent the day at the pool with our lovely neighbors and their 4 precious children. We ate and swam and relaxed.  But on a much more important note....my husband met his long lost twin today.

Long story short, Alan is related to our neighbors in some crazy way, but I swear to you he is "kin" to my husband in some way. I watched in amazement as they reminced together about Jerry Clower stories (don't feel bad if you don't know who this is, even though it is apparently blasphemous for a Georgia girl not to know this), used words from the backwoods that I don't even know the meaning of, and basically had the entire audience rolling in laughter all afternoon.  I have always referred to Adam as my Mississippi cowboy, and today I was seeing double.

Despite my most diligent efforts to "groom" my John Deere loving, wrangler wearing, farmer wannabe husband, he has remained true to his Mississippi roots, and i wouldn't have it any other way. My only conditions has been and will remain that I would move with him to any farm in the country, just so long as it's within 20 miles of a Target  :) So here's to you Adam (and your long lost twin)...."Ain't no one better for me"!!

Thoughts on the day of birth...

I contemplated titling this post "Who knew I had so many facebook friends?" but decided against it. Isn't it funny how many people wish you happy birthday? Not that I don't appreciate it. In fact, I felt a little popular to have so many posts :)

As yesterday marked my "I'm closer to 30 now than 20" birthday, I felt it only appropriate to ask a very bewildering question....Why does nobody discuss the doom of turning 25? Sure there is plenty of talk of the 50 year old buy a farari, die my hair, and get a young girlfriend Mid-life crisis, but why does no one pay homage to the fact that 25 marks a quarter century of living and a mild, but temporary depressive state, if you're me, that is? I think I am officially facing my QUARTER LIFE CRISIS! (a proper medical diagnosis is still pending)

But in all seriousness, a lot has happened to me in the last year of my life. I got engaged, spent 10 stressful months planning our wedding, quit my job that i loved, moved to FLORIDA of all places (GO DAWGS!!), and started work at a not so diverse high school, to put it lightly. Take any one of these events in isolation, not such a big deal, but all together makes for a pretty interesting transition period.

So how have you handled all this, you may ask? Well I have begun to embrace my 5 am wake-up call, started a blog, and began the "nesting" process with a bang. This includes asking for an electric sander for my birthday (projects to be posted later) and frequent trips to the orange and blue home improvement stores. Please don't tell me if you hate my "reveals"...i am not sure my soul could take it! he he!!

Anyway, just to commemorate the birthday, I leave you with a picture of my twin sis and I when we were just little girls. Happy Birthday Ashley!! Don't you wish we could go back to the simple life? No, not really! I'm pretty happy with my new hubby and life, just still a girl trying to figure it all out!!

Hope you have a great day!!