$2.99 Entertainment

We found the game Balderdash a few years ago at Goodwill ($2.99) and recently decided to give it a try with the kids thinking they might be old enough for it. It was amusing at times, impressive at other times (they fooled me more than once!), and overall a good entertainment investment. Some of the most memorable definitions made up by various family members were the following:

whisternefet - to let one fly at the dinner table
skimmington - the lovely town where they go skimming

calipee - to urinate in California

grimalkin - a legend in which there is a giant named Grimalkin

Macula - the dorky cousin of Dracula

pipsissewa - gome (she just made up a word!)
funkify - to bully by sticking one's face in the trash can
nictitate - the joy a wife gets from scrubbing the streaks out of her husband's underwear

hoitzitzillin- to stick one's finger so far up one's nose so as to touch one's brain

hodad - a couch that has been gassed on so many times that a distinctive plume of odor is released when it is sat upon

lycanthropy - the unique ability of the digestive system to sort feces according to vegetables [which skill Eden seems to have...she ate a soup with mixed vegetables and the following day had three poopy diapers, one with corn, one with carrots and one with peas! TMI, I know]

Tringle - a person who typically walks nude from the bathroom to the bedroom after a shower, an who has a firm set of buttocks [changed from the previous, less flattering definition, if you were so fortunate as to have read it before I changed it].

I love my family...Tringles and all!

Two Down, Still Going...

Garage door re-do is finished! (ok, it's ALMOST all the way finished - I still need two more handles for the second side, but True Value was sold out and I have to wait till more come in)

Before:

After:

Custom made hinges, made exclusively by me...out of paint stir sticks :)

(and front door is painted black to match, but it still needs some touch ups, so it's not photo ready)

One Down, A Bunch Still To Go

Bathroom is done! Well, except for the chair rail which will be done shortly, and the toilet tank lid that broke not 5 seconds after I took the "after" picture when the shelf above it fell (because my anchors didn't really anchor). But anyway, it's (mostly) done!

Before:

After:

Ooooooohhhhhh, Aaaaaaahhhh

Bee in My Bonnet

Whenever I feel the need to start a project (or twelve), I get sort of obsessed with it and everything else falls apart around me. Such is our life right now. We're scrounging every night for dinner and I haven't done the laundry in a while, but I've got a bee in my bonnet, as Todd likes to accuse me, and I want to complete all these ideas I have floating around in my head while I have the motivation to do it. I haven't completed all of them, but here are some before and afters of my plans, photoshopped with my limited skills to give me an idea of what it'll look like, and so I can sell the idea to my husband who would kind of prefer I leave everything alone so I have more time for him :) I'll post pictures of the finished projects if they don't turn out crappy and if I ever actually get them done.

Garage door as is:

Garage door makeover with contrast trim and gate hardware for the "carriage door" look. It's a trick finding hardware, particularly hinges, that will work since the door still needs to bend to go up and down. I'm thinking I may have to fake it with thin pieces of wood painted glossy black cut to the size I need. I hope it works!

Outdoor curb appeal: here is the house as is:

Outdoor makeover: Besides the garage door, we added window boxes, will need to replace the tree that died this summer and will need to do some minor landscaping.

or maybe with black doors? any opinions?

Bathroom (one step past "before" as I had already started to re-do the countertop before I took the picture)

Bathroom black and white makeover with black paint (I know, BLACK?! - but it's just paint, and I think I really like it), a chair rail with white on bottom and a zebra print rug which I plan on taking back from Todd's office.

Dining room as is:

I've decided it's time to lighten things up a little with a chair rail and frame moulding on the bottom of the wall and a light aqua color on the top. If I can find a salvage chandelier I can fix up I'd like to do that, and I have some orange-ish chair cushions I'm coveting right now, although they probably won't become a reality for a while as they don't fit into the super-cheap redo category.
This is a little project I did last week since I already had all the stuff I needed on hand and I was antsy to get something done. No before picture, but it was just a plain white door out to our garage, which just so happens to be where we keep our food storage, so it made sense to do this pantry chalkboard here:

and a close up:

In addition, we've been shampooing carpets, touching up trim throughout the house, repairing little things that happen with a pile of kids, and rearranging rooms (we kicked Claire out of the office, so it could just be an office again, and we gave her daybed to Sophie and turned Sophie's into a trundle bed for Claire.) Phew!

What I really need though, are some good ideas for this room:

I don't really love the wood wall or the brick hearth (or the mess, but you have to look past that) paint or don't paint....what to do???