Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Crap for Sale, Art and the Horsey Dentist

So here is the rundown of my 3 day Memorial Day Weekend. It was so nice to have 3 days off and not have a bunch of things to do. Andrew also had Monday off which was a rare treat.

Saturday
We headed off to my Mother-in-law's house to try and sell some of our extra crap at her yard sale. We got rid of some stuff but not a lot.

@Patty Boone....tips for a killer yard sale :)  I would only add one more tip...let your favorite friends preview your crap the night before!!!
I found this picture on Pinterest but when I clicked on the link I was told the image was reported as Spam.
OK so our crap wasn't that awesome. We made a little bit of money, which Andrew then used to pay for the tip at dinner Saturday night and for a hair cut on Sunday. It was crazy hot out and I got a sunburn on my shoulders and chest. Luckily the new face cream I'm using has SPF so I didn't get any burn on my face. We then drove back to the apartment and changed clothes since our other ones were super sweaty and gross. Then we went to one of the local casinos and hit-up the new buffet. YUMMY! They had some great food. Then used some free slot play that we had on a player's club card. We didn't win anything though. But our night out was free except for the money we left for a tip at the buffet, so that was good news.

Sunday:
I went and rode my horse, Rhia, while Andrew went and got his hairs cut. Then when I got back to the house I took a shower and we walked to the park near our house to check out the art show that they run every May. A bunch of local Artisans setup booth with their wares for sale. Their are oil painting, pen & ink drawings, wood sculptures, jewelry, and a bunch of neat other items. There was two booths where these guys layer pieces of wood stained in different colors to created pieces of art. They are amazing but not cheap. This horse head was $110 and that is one of his smaller/less intricate pieces.


Another person takes glass bottles, mostly alcoholic in nature, and makes them into wind chimes. There was a no pictures allowed sign but I didn't see it until after I took this photo. And anyways why don't they want pictures? Are they afraid someone will take there idea. I've got bad news, someone could do that without taking pictures. I wish I had gotten a picture of one that they had of this large purple glass bottle. It  was really pretty. I'm not sure what the bottle originally held since there was no label.


Monday:
The Horsey Dentist was coming out to float teeth. What is floating? Well a horses teeth continue to grow all its life. Without regular visits from the dentist the teeth form points. Not on the bottom of the teeth, but on the outer edges. These points then poke and pinch the cheeks. This can cause sores and major discomfort, so much so that the horse may stop eating to avoid the pain or not chew well. Horses are not able to throw-up so if they swallow something that is too big they are very likely to choke on it. So floating is when the Dentist comes out and actually files the points of the teeth down. That's right, he has a set of different files that he actually uses on the horses teeth. No this doesn't hurt the horse and sometimes the horse actually likes it.


Here is a picture of Max with the mouth brace on so the Dentist can get to the back teeth. It will lock the horses mouth open so the Dentist can see in there and get to those teeth without the horse biting down.


Sorry for the blurry photo I was using my cellphone and there wasn't a lot of light in the barn and the Dentist was in the middle of filing so he was standing still. And here is Rhia getting her teeth filed. The Dentist hadn't moved on to the teeth farther back so he was able to file without the brace for a little while.


Horsey Dentist Dave was great! This is the first time we used him and I'm glad we switched he did really well with all the horses and was willing to ask any questions we had. I had asked him about wild horses and how they deal with there teeth. The problem is domesticated horse get pretty soft feed. We give them hay, maybe 8 hours of pasture and pellet grain. In the wild, horse are grazing for a good 14-16 hours or so. They also end up eating some sand and other things that grind their teeth naturally. They also only live to around 15 years old so it isn't like they have this extra ten years that they need to keep their teeth in shape for. And as sad as it may be if the horse doesn't find a way to keep its teeth in good shape then nature takes over and it is survival of the fittest.

After that I headed home and we had lunch and then got ready to go see a movie. What did we go see, well MIB 3 of course. Though it was almost The Avengers again since they started playing the wrong movie in our theater. The movie was pretty good but I'm not going to say it was the best movie I have seen this year.

How was everyone's Holiday Weekend?

Friday, May 25, 2012

Gettin' Creative in Graphic Spaces

Recently we got a new-to-us desktop computer. Andrew brought one with him when we moved into or apartment but we never set it up and we aren't even sure how well it works. It had started giving him some issues prior to our move so there is a chance that it has a virus. So most of the time we do our surfing on the internet using my laptop. My Mother-in-law's boyfriend decided to buy a new computer so he gave us his old one. Which is in pretty good shape and has a ginormous hard drive. The best part is I just got a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 3. I'm so excited I still need to buy the upgrade to get CS5 but at least I now have a version of it at home. What good is a Graphic Artist without Adobe Creative Suite.

So now I need to make a Graphic Space to get creative in, but where? I hate the idea of having the computer in a separate room cut-off from everyone so I want to try and put it somewhere in our living room. However, most of the space is already taken up. Then I decided maybe I could fit a small desk right next to the couch. Not along the wall but along the actual arm of the couch. The space is 36" long x 18" deep. I think that should be enough space to fit a small desk. All that needs to fit on there is a flat screen monitor, keyboard and possibly a printer (if it doesn't fit then I'll just bring it out when I need it).

Here are some inspiration photos:

This one is pretty cool but I don't think it would work for the space I have even if I did it on just one side.

Computer Desk / Craft Desk / Study Desk
(Source)

I want some shelves on one side almost like a bookshelf. If I made it myself I could possibly even use a small bookshelf to support one side of the top of the desk. I also wouldn't mind at least one cabinet or drawer to have some closed storage. One like the one below would be perfect except the cabinet side might have to be a little narrower.

Pinned Image
(Source)

The big question is do I want to buy something new, used or try to build something. New might be expensive and may be a waste when we move into a house and have room for a larger desk. A used piece could be really fun to refinished and possible less expensive but it may take longer to find something the will fit the space and my needs. Building a desk on my own will take a little work but I'll be able to make exactly what I need. Then the other thing is that Hubby thinks the living room will be to crowded if we put a desk next to the couch.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Pantry Space & Everything In Its Place

OK, so I'm horrible at this continuous blogging thing. But here is a new post for you all.

So living in an apartment with limited cabinets requires some interesting storage ideas. When we first moved in, there was this cabinet in our kitchen that we assumed was used as a pantry. It sits next to the fridge. It is now closer to the fridge and we actually have a new fridge because the one in the picture had a ripped seal so the landlord replaced it.


There are 4 selves in there and those 4 shelves hold a whole mess of stuff. Everything from snacks, spices, pasta, baking items and anything else I can fit in there.


Here is what the inside looks like with everything in it. There was stuff in here that I've never used or haven't used in a long time and don't really plan on using ever again. When we first moved into this apartment our parents went through their pantries and gave us anything they didn't need/want or that they had duplicates of. Needless to say we got things that I or Andrew would never eat. There was also stuff that had past its expiration.

So after going through everything. I threw out stuff that was expired or open stuff that I was never going to use again. Items that I didn't want but were still good were put in a plastic bag and put out for the annual food drive that the postal carriers do. It worked out to be good timing because I did the pantry clean-out on Thursday and the postal carriers were picking up on Saturday.









After all that this is what I had left.


I also cut down on some of the bulky items buy removing them for large boxes or combing items. Like I had two types of Nutri-Grain bars. I just emptied one box and put them in the other.

This left me with a very empty pantry cabinet. So now it was time to decide the best way to sort the items to fill the shelves.

I wanted things we use the most to be at the top and least used items toward the bottom. Also the door on the cabinet happens to pop open a lot, due to uneven floors and a weak magnet, so I wanted to make sure anything in the lower cubbies wasn't going to be of any interested to some nosey kittens.









In the top shelf went all of our snacks and lunch sides. This includes chips, microwave popcorn, cheez-its, Nutri-grain bars, and even the kitties' treats. The second shelf got filled with spices and any kind of sauces, toppings or items needed for cooking. That means Pasta sauce, olive oil, ice cream toppings, marinades, and  any spice bottles that can't fit in my spice rack.


In the next shelf I put everything that had to do with baking, came in packets or just really didn't have a place. This included instant Jello Pudding, Peanut Butter, extracts, Chai Tea (yummy), packets for dips and muffin mixes. After all this I didn't really have anything left for the bottom. So I decided to clean up the area to the right of the pantry and use that stuff to fill the bottom shelf. That meant any soda cans, canned seltzer water, beer bottles and my gallon of white vinegar took up residence on the bottom shelf.


Which made the right of the pantry go from:

This
To This!
Please ignore the dust. :) So this ended up being a much longer post then I intended. Guess you know more about my sorry little pantry than you ever wanted. Have any of you been doing any de-cluttering?  I got motivated to do so after reading YoungHouseLove's week of ORG posts that was kicked off with this post. ORG is short for Organizing, just in case you were afraid of what you would find when you clicked the link.