Linen closet mini-face lift

This is our linen closet. 



















It's tiny, but functional....sort of.  As you can see the shelves are kind of organized, but in our haste to put laundry away quickly and toss aside the hair dryer in our mad dash out the door for work, things get a little.....messy. 

Ok, so the shelves get very messy.  We've been waiting for baskets so we can organize the sheets & towels and all the other stuff in the closet, but never got around to this purchase.  Well, the other day while I was cleaning our office, I discovered this little treasure that needed a home:

I knew this basket was just the sign needed that the linen closet need to be straightened up.
So, after some refolding and tucking sheet sets into the matching pillow case, and putting my new basket to good use, Iwe give you......the neater and less hectic linen closet:

We can finally find where things are and grab just one towel, instead of the whole bunch bursting out of the closet. We can also grab sheets for the bed, which are now all tucked into a pillow case, instead of searching the closet for the matching sheet or pillow case. 
Just keep your fingers crossed that we're able to keep the linen closet this organized! haha

Anxiety room

Doesn't every house have that anxiety room. The one that's a mish-mosh of stuff; the one you organize and reorganize in your mind during the day; the one where you only go in there to drop off more stuff and quickly leave the room because to clean it would be daunting.  If there's no room like that in your house, I'd like to introduce you to mine.  This is our spare bedroom/office/man cave/catchall for stuff/workout room.  Yes, it's all those rolled into one room. Look at the pictures, you can see why it causes anxiety.

Even the closet was a disaster!  Oh, and the treadmill.....doesn't work! Wish we knew that before we lugged it upstairs from the garage. 
So, I finally decided last night would be the night that I organized and brought some sort of peace to the room.  I moved our filing cabinet into the closet and set up a small table for our lamp.  I also moved all the wires for the TV and game systems behind the table holding the TV. The wires before were just hanging out for all to see....and trip on.  I also organzied my desk drawer. I should have taken a picture of this, but didn't think of it. The drawer was full of stationary...tons of it!  Here is it all laid out on the floor.

I really don't write letters to people, especially with email and facebook, I don't have reason to pen a note to anyone.  I may take it up though just to get rid of some of this stationary.  I was also thinking it could be used for a project, but I'm not sure what kind of project. Maybe some can be used for art work.
Anyway, I moved all but one box of stationary into the 3 drawer cabinent in the closet. And that desk drawer now contains useful desk stuff, like  pens, pencils, a calculator.  All that stuff was just tossed on top of the desk.
I also found this basket in the closet holding the boxes that our cameras came in.  I already have big plans for this basket!

Without further ado, I bring you my spare bedroom/office/with an ode to sports memorabilia.

I even added an area for stuff "to be filed" on top of the file cabinet.

I feel so much better walking into this room now.  Also, with less anxiety in this room, may even cause me to blog more!

Dinner for....one

Since my husband, and personal chef, had to work late Monday, it was up to me to make dinner for myself.  I've been trying to eat healthy lately, so my usualy Mac & Cheese was not going to cut it.  I had taken chicken cutlets out the night before and figured I'd try to be crafty with those.  After a little searching on-line, I had an idea of what I wanted: lemon chicken with brushetta.  The brushette we had left over from a party over the weekend, so this worked out perfectly.
I dreged the chicken through flour, sprinkled a little salt & pepper on them and cooked them in oil, squirting them with lemon juice as I turned them. 
On the side I made whole wheat pasta and I heated up some white wine and lemon juice so the pasta would not be dry.
Once the chicken was done, I topped it with the brushetta, added the pasta to the side and poured by lemon-wine sauce over the plate.  It wasn't that bad.

I even had another chicken cutlet let over for lunch!  I can't wait for lunchtime today!

My apothecary jar love

I've recently become obsessed with apothecary jars.  I love the shape and the lid and that they pretty much look beautiful no matter what's in them.

I especially love when they're filled with wine corks and decided that an apothecary jar with wine corks would make a great centerpiece for my dining room table.

I searched the web and found expensive ones that were nice, but I just didn't want to spend a lot.  On one of my many trips to Michael's I found a few, but even those were a bit more than I wanted to spend at $30 and $40.

Then, on one beautiful day, my husband and I happened to stroll into our local Home Goods and there was the perfect apothecary jar. It was huge and only $16.99!  What a bargin!

The only problem was that the line to pay was about 30 people deep. We didn't have time to wait on that line for one item so we left (reluctantly).

Then, Easter morning, Dave hands me this huge gift.  It was my apothecary jar! He went back and bought it for me for Easter.  I've already started to fill it with wine corks, although I think I have a ways to go before it's full!

  

Isn't it gorgeous!  Another item I was drooling over at Home Good was this yellow bottle with the Flur de Lis stopper.  I love this too! I think it adds a little balance to the shelf.

As you can see I had a very happy Easter!

Move over Martha!

I decided to try my hand at gardening this year. As you may recall from my previous post, I was not blessed with a green thumb, so "try" is the key word in this garden.

Since our garden here is full sun, picking flowers is going to be tough since I grew up in a partial shade house. All I know about are impatients and hostas. I've been surfing the web for full sun flowers, both annual & perrenials and I'm so excited that my favorite flowers are full sun: daisys! I can't wait to get started on adding some life to the front yard.
I did get to add a little bit of color after this Easter since I received quite a few plants from Dave & my family.

The white picket fence was an Easter gift from Dave. Isn't it great!?
I also planted some seeds for full sun flowers, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed and wishing on Miracle-Gro that they pop up. I'll be sure to keep you posted on the progress!