Summary Sunday (on a Monday): Power Down Edition

Well...this would've been posted last night, but shortly after returning from my parents' house last night, we lost all power...until 2:30 this morning. So much for being productive on a Sunday evening. Instead, I read...by headlamp. Yup. Looked like a dork, but got some reading done in the otherwise very, very dark.

Thanks to the power mess, there will be not one, not two, but three posts today. Crazy, I know. But there is a lot of blogging to be done. First will be this one (obviously), second is my wrap up post for the Library Books Read-a-Thon and then third will be the introductory post for this week's read-a-thon, the Summer Library Challenge Read-a-Thon.

This month is turning more into another book month than a Pinterest month, so I've considered making a change. Pinterest Challenge month has been scrapped and I'm thinking instead about creating a year-long challenge for myself based on my Pinterest pins. I think this might be more effective. Somehow, scheduling myself for specific projects just seems a little more obnoxious and unlikely to happen than making myself a big list to attack as I get the whim. I'll mull it over.

I'm also working on my 30 day blogroll cleanup. I started with 207 on the 10th. So far, it looks like at least 39 will be surviving. Come July 10th, I'll say goodbye to at least a small handful.

Now...back to work...let's sum up last week.

Summary Sunday: Super Lazy Edition

I should totally just hang my head in shame. One post?!? One!!?? Ridiculous. I've been ultra lazy this week. Instead of getting projects done or writing posts, I've just been reading. Yup. That's pretty much all that's been accomplished around here in the last seven days.

It's been quite a while since I've been that quiet out here in the blogosphere and I have no intention of continuing this streak of silence. I should recover from my laziness by tomorrow.

I think the contents of my post earlier this week kind of drained me and the book I was reading just made me feel completely off and withdrawn. Seriously...the creep factor totally messed with me this week. I've been totally off and nothing has gone the way I've wanted it to.

Let's talk about it...

Summary Sunday: Let the Challenges Begin! Edition

The day has arrived! It's June 1st...that means it's Etsy shop opening day! That's right...I finally bit the bullet and did it. It has been a long time coming, but the shop has officially opened as of this afternoon!

Right now there are only three items at ErraticProjectJunkie, but it will grow. There are a few projects in the works that got delayed due a busy week, but pieces and parts will be coming together little by little over time. You'll be able to see some of the items in the shop by checking out my Etsy Mini in the right side bar. And if there's anything you've seen around the blog that you'd like to order, feel free to shoot me an email. I'm happy to do custom orders.

Since it's June 1st, it's also challenge day! I have been eagerly awaiting this day. All of the challenges up in those little tabs at the top of the blog are now officially underway. I'm a little overly excited. There are a few changes that will be happening with Summary Sunday posts because of the challenges. But...I'll get to that in a minute.

First...let's do a recap of the week.

Summary Sunday: Memorial Day Weekend Edtion

Whoa. I kind of lost track of time today. In fact, I think I lost track of what day of the week it was. I just now remembered that I needed to write a Summary Sunday post.

It's Memorial Day weekend, which means a little more time at home for both myself and Collin. It's kind of nice. We actually managed to spend some time together both yesterday and today. That was totally a change of pace. Unfortunately, he has to work tomorrow...so it was a short lived event. But it was still very nice to feel so relaxed at home with him.

I took a little time off this week and cut back on posting from what I have been doing recently. After doing the A to Z Challenge, Dewey's 24-hour Read-a-Thon and Bout of Books 10, I really felt drained. So I took a small respite and two whole days off from blogging this week. It was lovely. I've been doing a little blog reading catch up and it's been nice to see what everyone else has been up to.

Next week is the last week of my book-themed month. There will be a small handful of book reviews and then an update on the progress of my BOTY bracket. A week from today, I'll be drawing my selections for the first round of my Classics Spin and Deal Me In Challenges. I got all of the books assigned, so now it will just be a matter of seeing which ones are randomly picked. I'll announce those in the next Summary Sunday post.

After that, it's on to June and a Pinterest themed month. I'll be posting a few recipes that I got from pins as well as doing some of the projects that I've pinned along the way. We'll see what all I wind up getting accomplished.

What about this week? Let's see what I got done...

Summary Sunday: Mother's Day Edition

Me & my amazing mother.

Well Happy Mother's Day everyone! I'm getting to this post a little late, but only by about an hour. I call that okay. (Just pretend with me...okay?)

The major reason for the delay is some blog surgery I've been undertaking this evening. It's still not all complete, but I've gotten a few of the big things taken care of.

1. I've truncated my posts from the last month and a half. Upcoming posts will all be truncated. The reason I've gone this route is two-fold. First off, to protect the blog from having content stolen. This isn't really the primary reason, but it's an added bonus. The real reason I'm doing it is to clean up the home page. Now when you come to the main page, you can easily scroll through the posts without feeling like you're scrolling for eternity. It just looks a little nicer.

2. New header. This one took me a while. I've altered the header to go from the blocky thing that Blogger stuck me with to a more rounded and softer looking logo. I've also added the dotted outline and changed the font. Minor changes overall, but I like it much better.

3. Tabs with drop down menus! This one is my favorite. It still has quite a bit of work to go, but the basic structure is complete. This took a lot of research into programming...something I'm not terribly skilled at. But now you can access a lot of things very easily by going straight from the menus. I'll be working on this more, but it may take me a while since I'm focusing on Bout of Books this week. Don't panic if you follow a tab to a blank page for now. It will get there, I promise. Bear with me...

Now...let's see what else I accomplished this week...

Summary Sunday: Meal Prep Revamp Edition

Well...I'm getting to this a little later than I had planned. It's been a busy weekend.

I spent most of my time getting everything ready for a grocery run. It's the first big one I've done since last August.

This time, I changed things up a bit. It's in the learning curve stage, but I think it's going to work out quite well. Once I run with this procedure one more time to get out the kinks, I'll be sure to share it. It should wind up saving me about six to eight hours of prep and an hour of shopping time. Well worth it.

Today's haul was not bad. I have nearly everything we need for meals until September. I will need to pick up a little bit of produce here and there, along with some dairy. I also need to get some of the meat rounded up. I'm planning on doing that tomorrow. (It's taking a trip to a second store...the prices at my primary store were terrible on anything beef.) As of right now, we're sitting at just under $600. I've saved over $100 in simple couponing. I've changed the way I do that too, so it's less chaotic. We no longer have a newspaper subscription and I get all of my coupons online. I don't use as many coupons, but it's pretty close. And the prep work takes me a lot less time.

Anywho...how about we get this show on the road and see what I accomplished this week?

Summary Sunday: Exhaustion Edition

Ok...I'm pooped. I could totally do with at least one more weekend day. This last week has been totally exhausting. There was a lot of crafting, blogging, and reading. We also had a band concert for Darian and I managed to finally get a haircut...freeing myself of about 14" of hair which I donated to Wigs for Kids.

On an up note, I was able to finish my projects for the A to Z Challenge. I have two posts left to write (one of which requires photo editing), and then I will be all set to wrap up April. Twenty-six project posts in 30 days. Craziness.

I was also nominated for a Liebster award this week by Alix over at Kre'ativ77. The original plan was to post on that today...but this is going to be a MONSTER of a post, so that will have to happen later this week...I'm looking at Friday as the most likely candidate.

I'm running on little sleep right now since I participated in Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon yesterday and this morning. I wound up passing out in my book somewhere close to 5 a.m. The read-a-thon ended at 6 a.m. Darnit. So close.

Let's see what else I was up to this week...

Summary Sunday: Easter Edition

Happy Easter everyone! We just got back from Easter dinner at my parents' house and I'm nice and stuffed. It was a good day.

I'm moments away from heading back into the crop room to sew, but first let's do a quick wrap up of what happened around here this week!

Summary Sunday: F-K Edition

And week two of the A to Z Challenge comes to a close. As one commenter put it, I'm still "feeling the love". I've actually quite enjoyed the process and even more so, I've enjoyed seeing what everyone else has been up to. The comments have also been fabulous. In fact, a few comments have made me think of new projects or different ways to do the projects I have posted. It's been a very constructive sort of thing.

I'm already looking forward to participating next year. I'll have to sit down and come up with a new group of projects to start working on once this craziness has died down. The A to Z is good motivation for me to finish at least 26 items before next April rolls around. :)

I learned a few things this week:

Summary Sunday: A to E Edition

Whew! I have survived week one of the A to Z Challenge! I'm working on finishing up the posts for next week to keep ahead of the curve.

I found a lot of new, fun blogs this week and I continue to work my way down the A to Z Participants list a little bit at a time.

I spent a LOT of time on the internet this past week and I'm hoping that I won't be quite so addicted to it over the rest of the month. As a result of that, I didn't get a whole lot of other stuff accomplished. Let's review what did actually happen...

Summary Sunday: Preparation Edition

It's Sunday again...that means that spring break is almost over. Bummer. I was really enjoying my time off. But...it's back to work and the real world tomorrow. I really need to win the lottery so this work thing stops getting in the way of my fun time.

It's been quiet here on the blog, but don't worry...I've been plenty busy around here getting stuff ready for April's A-to-Z Challenge. It starts on Tuesday! I'm getting pretty excited. Still a lot of work to do, but I'm fully prepared for the first few days and hope to get more work accomplished today.

So let's wrap up the week and get me back to prepping!

Posts I Posted: Like I said, I was a little preoccupied with getting April posts ready to roll, so the blog got a little neglected this past week (in a sense). In fact, I only posted one little solitary post all week. So sad! But it was a good one...if you haven't tried Chicken Enchilada Pasta, you need to.

Recipes I Tried: In an attempt to try and use up some of the chicken breasts holding my freezer hostage, I busted out the CrockPot this past week and tried something new. I hit my Pinterest boards and pulled out the recipe for Italian Cream Cheese Chicken from Lindsay over at Artsy Fartsy Mama. I've followed her blog for a while (yes...initially I started reading just because I giggled at the blog name) and she's got some pretty good stuff over there. The chicken was no exception. Darian and I really enjoyed it. I do so love good CrockPot recipes.

Books I Read: We have another entry for the 2014 Book of the Year! I finished up Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. I quite enjoyed it. I'm still one book behind on my Goodreads goal, but I just started my first book from NetGalley and I'm kind of excited about it. I'm reading The Undiscovered Goddess by Michelle Colston. I think it might be a pretty light read and a good change of pace from all the YA fiction I've been diving into lately. Fingers crossed that the streak of good books continues!

Favorite Pinterest Pin: All of my pins this week came from posts on blogs I'm subscribed to. I didn't actually set foot (finger?) in/on Pinterest this week. I'm actually nearly three days behind on posts. It's probably ugly over on my Feedly right now. I seemed to be on a bit of an upcycle kick. I pinned a lot of decor projects using repurposed items. I actually really love this bench/coat rack that was made by Anna Bananas Furniture. The color is adorable and I love the fact that they used doors for the backing. Someday I will have enough room in my workspace to make something like this.

And now it's back to the prep work. I still have some photos to edit and some projects to recreate/finish for photos, but more than half of that work is finished. Phew! I'm looking forward to a fun filled (and post filled) April!

Summary Sunday: Spring Break Edition

It's Spring Break over here. Well...technically for me, it's Spring Break weekend, minorly interrupted by working Monday, and then it's Spring Break. I'll be spending my time off getting pictures and posts prepped for April's A-to-Z Challenge.

I actually did a little work on it yesterday when I discovered that I once again failed and forgot to take pictures of the majority of projects that I made for Christmas presents last year. Crap. Seriously. When will I learn?!? So...I'll now be working on recreating some of those items to have enough pictures for posts. Sometimes I can really be a dunce.

I'm really wrapped up in playing games on my iPad right now, so let's make this quick. I have farming that needs to be done, settlers who need settled, and a logic puzzle that won't solve itself. Yup...also a nerd.

Let's take a short walk down recent memory lane and see what I accomplished this week.

Posts I Posted: It was actually a fairly productive week of posting. I shared my long overdue "Love" blocks that double as my "Lucky" blocks.

I loved them so much that I made a second reversible set for spring and Easter.

I shared my new family cleaning plan (which is working fairly well, but still needs some tweaking and some getting used to). My mother also enjoyed the fact that Darian did a crap job on the vacuuming earlier this week. She thinks it's karma for the crap I pulled vacuuming (or rather, not vacuuming) as a kid.

And I revealed my plan for the A-to-Z Challenge (which is scaring the pants off of me).

Recipes I Tried: It was a good week in the food department as well. I experimented a few times and came up with some good recipes that will be making a debut on the blog later this year. This week I made Buffalo Chicken Macaroni & Cheese, Stuffed Cheese Ranch Burgers, and some Bacon Ranch Garlic Potatoes. We enjoyed all three of them. Yup...didn't destroy anything. Amazing. The boys liked all three recipes and have already requested that they all get made again. Double amazing.

Books I Read: Things were a little slower in the reading zone. I am currently one book behind my Goodreads goal (at 13 out of 64) and reading Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. I finished up What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty last Sunday night. It was really good and will make it into the bracket for 2014 BOTY. Though I'm not finished with Eleanor & Park yet, I think it will probably make it into the running as well. Oh...and in case you're wondering...yes, there will still be full reviews on the four and five star rated books this year (and maybe some select three stars). May will be one of two months dedicated to reading, so most of them will start debuting then. (That's also when you'll probably start hearing from Darian again. He's been a little quiet on the reading front this year.)

Projects I Worked On/Finished: Well...I finished the blocks and the cleaning plan mentioned above. I've also been doing some serious photo organization and editing for the upcoming April posts. Other than that, not much has happened. This week will get a little crazy though. I have at least two projects that will need to get made during the week to allow for photos for posts within the first week of the A-to-Z Challenge. I also have my awesome nephew turning one in just a couple of weeks, so his birthday present will be in the works. My brother will be turning 31 this week, but he's not getting a project. (Though I did contemplate making him a shirt using last week's Pinterest Pin of the Week.) Sorry, Tyler. You're out of luck until Christmas. (Don't worry...he still gets a gift, just not a homemade project.)

Favorite Pinterest Pin: Hmm...it's a tough one this week. Most of my pins were actually items pinned to my Bucket List this week (in preparation for a project in the fall). But...there were a few things that I found outside of that mess. I actually ended up with two that I can't choose between, so I'm going to go ahead and declare a tie and share both of them.

The first one is a photo only, so there will be some deconstructing and redesigning when I decide to make it myself. It's these cute little felt owls (that I will probably be turning into larger sized pillows).

My second favorite pin was this license plate map done by Angela over at blue i style. She makes some cute stuff. You need to go check her out!

And...that's a wrap! Now I can get back to those very important iPad apps.

Have a great Spring Break! I'll be checking in during the week amidst the crafting and photo editing. (I've made a promise to myself that I will get out of bed every day by 9:30. We'll see how that goes.)

Summary Sunday: Sticky Fingers Edition

Hi there! I'm taking a break from being covered in ModPodge to get this post written before Sunday becomes Monday and I'm a day late again.

I've been working on a pile of projects over the last couple of days. I've been productive, but not as much as I've wanted to be thanks to a few snafu's. I managed to have some serious issues with the ModPodge yesterday and had a couple of foam brushes disintegrate mid-glue. I'm starting to lose my love for foam brushes. To which Collin said "Aren't those meant to be for temporary use?" Ugh. Doesn't he know that logic doesn't apply when crafting?

So now that I'm actually getting some things done, let's see what else I did this week.

Posts I Posted: I finished and posted not one, but TWO St. Patrick's Day projects. Amazing. Both projects are pretty easy and inexpensive to make...just the way I like them.

The banner took Collin two days to notice. I had to point it out for him. At that point he said, "Oh. I thought it had been there for quite a while, so I didn't say anything." My husband, Captain Observant, everyone.

The blocks were the start of the ModPodge mania. I'm still not super thrilled with the fact that the wrinkles showed up the way they did on the "y", but that's the nature of this kind of project. I suppose I could have done some creative photo editing to make it look like they didn't exist, but I both don't have the patience for that kind of thing and don't feel it's fair to misrepresent the imperfection of my own projects. After all, when I make a project based on someone else's post, I like to know that they occasionally struggle with getting things to look just so. So there you go...I struggle too. (More often that I would like to.)

Recipes I Tried: We had some thawed out ground beef that desperately needed to get used and I really didn't feel like doing anything extravagant on Monday, so we tried out the Stove Top Meatloaf. It will not win any beauty awards (hence the lack of a picture for you today), but it was delicious. Both of the boys wolfed it down. It also had the added bonus of being super simple. It took me about 5 minutes to prep and then I was able to work on my St. Patrick's Banner while it cooked.

Books I Read: As long as I finish What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty tonight (which I expect to happen), I will remain on track for my book reading goals. Amazing. I finished Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson. I loved it! You need to read it. It was just so good. I'm so happy and relieved to finally be on a streak of good books.

Projects I Worked On/Finished: Other that the St. Pat's crafts, I've been busy working on a few other things. I have two projects that will be up on the blog next week and I'm working on putting together a new cleaning schedule for the family that will be my first actual post for this month's theme of spring cleaning & organization. Sad, but true. At least I'm finally getting to it. Once I get that ready to roll, then there will be some other smaller theme related projects that should be able to get tackled. I'm also prepping some projects and photos for the big A-to-Z Challenge coming up in April. It's a monster undertaking, so I'm hoping to be sufficiently prepared come April 1st.

Favorite Pin of the Week: This week's favorite pin had me laughing out loud. It is actually a picture from a t-shirt for sale over at RoadKill T-Shirts that I found via Sugar Bee Crafts. I love it because it actually reminds me of my brother. He has a thing for T-Rex that's too long of a story to explain here and he makes hilarious cards for my family for birthdays...this seems like something he would do.

See. Hilarious. Poor image quality...but hilarious.

And now I'm off to get back to the ModPodge. Don't forget to wear your green tomorrow! Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Summary Sunday: I Hate Being Sick Edition

Well...it's been an interesting week. Guess who got sick...again? Ugh. This time it's some sort of sinus disaster. Not my idea of a good time. I've spent the last three days (yes...my ENTIRE three day weekend) in bed. I'm pretty irritated by the fact that none of the craft projects I had planned are getting done - not to mention the fact that I now have to try and figure out how I'm going to rearrange my blog planner. Ah, the downside of trying to be organized.

Now I'm having an OCD breakdown over the fact that the planner is written in pen - PEN, people! - and it won't be accurate. Seriously. You have no idea how much that bothers me. I'd say that I'd go back and redo it and put it in pencil this time, but pencil bothers me too. All the smudgyness? That's not okay. There's just no winning.

So this week's Summary Sunday is going to be pretty short and sweet. Because I accomplished next to nothing. Again. It's getting old. Thank goodness I'm on the mend because there will have to be some SERIOUS crafting this week. That day off I have coming up on Wednesday? Ya...other than the glorious massage I have planned, there will be some sewing and paper crafts happening. Beware the typhoon of crafting that will occur!

Now...let's get down to brass tacks...

Posts I Posted : In terms of quantity, this week sucked. I only posted once. That's a low for 2014 thus far. I'm mildly ashamed. I should have at least tried to dig a draft out to throw on for you guys. But...I will say that the one post I did was a good one.

We celebrated my niece's birthday this week. She turned 3.

How adorable is this little princess?

We went out as a family and she whooped us all at bowling. I'm not kidding. The kiddo scored 117 and beat the other six of us. Okay...so she had a little bit of help in the bowling ramp, but still.

Anyway, I made her birthday present and it ended up being the only post that made it on the blog this week. Thank goodness that project was a cute one. In fact, this may be one of my most favorite projects ever. I give you...Barnyard Hand Puppets.

Seriously, these were so much fun to make. I didn't even have to curse at the sewing machine once. That has to be a record. I'm currently drawing up plans for some additional hand puppet ideas. They'll probably debut sometime in the late fall (Miss M turns 4 in November). We shall see...I may not be able to restrain myself for that long.

Books I Read: This is the category where being sick actually paid off. I am ON TRACK with my Goodreads goal for 2014. Not only am I on track, but the books I finished this week will both be in the running for 2014 Book of the Year. Color me amazed! Let's see how long I can hold on to that one.

I finished two good books this week and I'm currently in the middle of what I think will be another winner. I completed Rapture by Lauren Kate, which was really good except for one flaw that almost made me quit the book altogether. I'm glad I stuck it out because this fourth book in the Fallen series actually ended up being better for me than either the second or third.

Speaking of series books, I also read Where She Went by Gayle Forman. It's the sequel to If I Stay, which I read back in 2012 (and apparently never finished reviewing on Goodreads. Oops.) Well, here's the thing. I really enjoyed If I Stay. But...I liked Where She Went better. That is super rare for me on a series book. I think I just enjoyed Adam's character a lot. Plus, I think being sick put me in more of an emo-type place, so his angst totally worked for me. Whatever the reason, I LOVED this book.

And now...well, now I'm reading Amy and Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson. So far, I really like it. I'm expecting that it will be finished quickly. Last night I only gave it up because my Nook was running out of battery power and (thanks to the time change) it was 3 a.m. Ya...a little later than I planned on, but my schedule is all messed up with all of the sleeping I've been doing over the last few days. It's going to make going to work tomorrow at 8 a.m. just that much harder.

Recipes I Tried: It was a week of easy meals at our place. Monday night was burritos. No, not frozen ones...I actually made them. Tuesday night was Darian's favorite, Waikiki Meatballs. I should probably share that recipe at some point. They're delicious and super easy to make. Wednesday...hmm...what did we have Wednesday. Oh! I lied. Wednesday was Waikiki Meatballs. On Tuesday night, Collin made Alphabet Noodles and used up all of the cheese, so I couldn't make the nachos I had originally planned for Wednesday. (We're still obnoxiously out of cheese.) In case you're wondering, Alphabet Noodles are really just a homemade version of Spaghetti-O's. They're not that fancy. But it's nice when he cooks, because it means I don't have to. After that, it's just been leftovers and eating out. We had pizza at Miss A's party and then I've been sick. Collin picked me up some Costco chicken noodle soup yesterday and that was lovely.

Projects I Worked On/Finished: Well other than the aforementioned Barnyard Hand Puppets, nothing got finished. I'm really quite bummed about that. However, I did (with Collin's help) make some progress on the crop room. You can actually see both the table top and the carpet now. It's just this side of a miracle. Now the real work begins. I had Collin drag my paper racks into the garage so I can get them sold and have some money to put towards new cabinetry. I'm in the midst of trying to figure out exactly what I want in there. I think Collin is on to something though, he suggested a table top on the western wall that would eliminate the sewing machine cord from the floor (which would be awesome) and maybe a couch under the window to make it a little cozy. He also suggested a larger TV. I'm totally down for that one. We'll see what happens. I can tell you that the project will not be finished this month as I had originally hoped. The dead heater has seen to that. Stupid money pit of a house.

Favorite Pin of the Week: I'm a little sad to say that not a lot of pinning happened this week. For all the time I spent at home, not much of it was surfing the web. Shocking, I know. And so I have to go a little less classy than I had hoped for my favorite pin this week. Less classy, but hilarious. And I'll apologize beforehand because this pin is just a picture, it doesn't really go to the source. So you just get the link to my actual Pinterest pin for the most awesome coasters ever.

Ya...I laughed out loud at these. I particularly like the top left one.

So hopefully next week goes a little more impressively than this one. It's been a sad start to March. I need to get myself back on track and at least do a few things that apply to the theme.

I also need to get on the ball and start preparing for my April posts. That month is going to be interesting. I'll be starting the A-to-Z Challenge on April 1st, which will end up requiring a post every. single. day. of the month thanks to Summary Sundays.

I'm a little scared.  The good news is that there will be a crafting post on every day that month. The bad news is that I need to get photos organized and remake a couple of projects that are missing photos before April 1st hits. It's going to be a LOT of work. No more time for being sick! Let's get this crafting show on the road!

So much for being short and sweet. Apparently, if you coop me up for too long I can't stop myself from rambling. Maybe I can channel all this new found energy into something productive in the next few hours. Here's hoping!

Summary Sunday: 1st One on Monday in 2014 Edition

Yup. It's Monday...and I'm doing a Summary Sunday. Like Annie likes to say, "no judging". It's been an interesting few days. Let's just say that I should definitely start working towards getting posts done a few days in advance. Hahahaha...I'm laughing just reading myself write that. If you know me at all, then you know I'm totally a procrastinator. Me having stuff done super far in advance just never happens. Like, ever. But it would be nice. I'll keep dreaming.

I am obviously just not one of those "together" blog writers. If you thought that up to this point, you might want to look up the word gullible in the dictionary, because your picture might be there. I'm just about as much of a disorganized mess as they come. Which makes this even more entertaining...March is all about spring...including spring cleaning. This will be a challenge for me. We'll see how it goes.

This Summary Sunday post will be a little bit different. Not only is it a summary of last week, I also need to do a month end wrap up for February. To be completely honest, I have no idea how to do that without making this a total mess. So good luck to you as a reader. Because this might be brutal.

February's theme was love. That actually did go well. Thank goodness. I need something in this post to be positive in the accomplishment category.

There were lots of love themed posts during the month. I talked about how Collin and I met, got engaged, and finally got married...and we spent some of our wedding gift cards by having a delicious brunch at Brick 29.

©Broken H Photography

I congratulated my parents on an impressive 36 years of marriage...and they celebrated with some time together in Hawaii. (I'm jealous.)

I made the first of our new 2014 holiday decorations - which is actually our only Valentine's Day decoration. We then spent our Valentine's Day together as a family, eating sushi and watching the Olympics.

I reminded you to date your significant other all year round...and we went on a family date with my brother, his wife and my adorable niece to see The LEGO Movie. Which, by the way, if you haven't seen it...you need to. It's hilarious and cute and wonderful.

And then I piled on the DIY wedding crafts.

Our wedding canopy...

©Broken H Photography

Glitter Glue Mason Jars...

Wedding Invitations...

and my favorite post of 2014 so far...the origami wedding flowers that took me forever to complete.

Oh...and somewhere in the middle of all this awesomeness came some additional fun at our place...our heaters died. Space heaters and our gas fireplace are now our good friends as we save up for that joy.

And then I got sick. Yup. That was fun. I had to cancel a day of work and felt pukey and had a swimming head for about three days. Not my idea of a good time.

You started out good February...and I really did like you...but you ended on a very sour note. I think I'm okay with saying goodbye to you.

Now...how about last week...

Last week we got surprised by a band concert. We found out Sunday that Darian had a concert on Monday night. That was awesome. Well...the timing wasn't awesome, but the night was. We scrambled to make our schedules work and showed up at 5pm for the Potato Feed. Darian played great and we all had a good potato dinner together. They had a raffle going that night for some baskets full of prizes. Collin's office made a donation that got us a pile of entries and...well...we won. We won a lot. We never win anything. But somehow that night we won like six times. Total craziness. And I got an iPad out of the deal. Sweet.

As for the blog...

We already talked about the posts I posted, so I get to skip that one.

Books I Read: I finished Passion by Lauren Kate, the 3rd book in the Fallen series. I'm holding steady at one book behind schedule on my Goodreads goal and I have my Nook nice and loaded with a good selection of books for the next few months.

Recipes I Tried: We had potatoes on Monday night, does that count? Ya. Right. I was sick. No way I cooked people. (Yes, I should probably rephrase that to make it make some actual sense, but I'm enjoying the fact that it resembles one of those eCards about the need for appropriate punctuation and grammar far too much to fix it.) I made the men cook and we ate some leftovers on the other nights.

Projects I Worked On/Finished: Well...this post is getting even easier since I accomplished a big batch of zero last week. Boom! Laziness is paying off. I spent a lot of time bonding with my bed. We're good friends.

Favorite Pin of the Week: I love these cute little sock owls over at Craft Passion. Seriously...how cute are these? And the tutorial makes them look pretty straight forward to make too.

Wow. Longest review post ever. That only took me two hours. Ok. I'm going back to my evening now. And then I'll be starting on some crafting stuff later this week. Because the blog schedule says I have to. Fine. So be it. Crafting it is.

Summary Sunday: Money Pit Edition

Perhaps you're familiar with this movie...

Source: IMDB

It feels like my life right now. In the 1986 film version, Tom Hanks and Shelley Long play a couple who buy a home that turns out to be a complete lemon. Things begin to fall apart the moment their purchase is final.

In our life, our house has somewhat fallen suit.

In 2009, the upstairs water heater (which was inconveniently built into a closet that prevented full access) decided to explode, sending water down through the walls and ceiling to the first floor. In 2011, the main level water heater died. I was in the shower getting ready for work when I had that revelation.

2013 was a banner year for destruction. At the beginning of last year, the wind knocked over one of our front light pillars. The second followed in August. In May, I turned on a hose in our front lawn to discover that I had left the hose on during the winter, thus freezing the pipe. It repaid me by flooding our basement. That little piece of joy took over six months to repair. In June, one of the air conditioners died.

And then there was this week. Apparently 2014 will not be the year of no home disasters. We are already expecting that we will need a new sprinkler system come spring (ours is some obsolete disaster with no clear cut ability to blow out the lines and prevent freezing and destruction of valves). That was going to be spendy enough. But it will be nothing compared to what decided to befall us this week.

I came home from work on Tuesday night and walked in the door to an odor of something burning. Turns out, it was coming from the vents. We shut off the basement heater and figured we should get someone out to inspect it...surely it needed a servicing. Oh, if we were only so lucky.

As luck would have it, we discovered on Thursday that not only do we need to replace the basement heater, we also need to replace the upstairs one. You know...unless we want to throw money at repairs that will last less than a year or we all want to die of carbon monoxide poisoning or burn down our house. And of course, they are both linked to the air conditioning units...one of which (as I mentioned earlier) died last year. Grand total for repairs? Ugly. 5 digit ugly. Needless to say, that will not be happening right away.

So...we've spent the weekend using a few space heaters to keep things warm and we'll be waiting for what we hope will be a decent tax refund to help us fix at least one of the two units.

Yup. That was my week. Fun times. What else did I do?

Posts I Posted: Most importantly, I wished my parents a happy 36th anniversary...on the correct day.

I shared my technique for getting perfect glitter distribution in mason jars and explained how I designed my own wedding invitations and saved over $200.

Oh...and I revived the post on my date box (and over 160 date ideas) to remind everyone that dating is a year round event, not just for Valentine's Day.

Books I Read: I finished two books this week and now I'm only one book behind on my Goodreads goal. Yay! Slowly catching up. I finished the Divergent series with Allegiant by Veronica Roth and I continued to read the Fallen series by finishing Torment by Lauren Kate and starting Passion.

Recipes I Tried: No new recipes this week, but it was a good week for budget friendly recipes. We dusted off my old recipe for beef stroganoff...one that I hadn't made for quite a while. It was nice to get it back in rotation. I made some super easy goulash, but used a jalapeno chili that gave me terrible heartburn. Collin also pitched in with one of his standbys, a very bachelor friendly meal we call spread.

Projects I Worked On/Finished: I started attacking the crop room clean up this week. It promises to be one heck of an endeavor. I sorted through and boxed up all of the wedding stuff that had been cluttering up a quarter of the room, so I can actually see some carpet again. I think the next step will be emptying everything out of the closet so that I can start reorganizing the shelving in there. I also have a good DIY project in mind. We'll see how it goes.

Favorite Pin of the Week: I only did a smidge of pinning this week. My time was spent on other things apparently. But I still found a couple of fun things. My favorite is simply something that appealed to my sweet tooth. It's a recipe for horchata from Love Bakes Good Cakes. I'm a big fan of the cinnamon sugar rice drink, but I've never had a recipe for it at the house. Now I do. And I intend to use it.

And that's it. Phew. Now onto a new week...let's hope this one is a little less "fun".

Summary Sunday: Hands on Fire Edition

As I type this, my hands are on fire. Yup. Continuously burning. Why? Because I'm an awesome wife, that's why. Collin's neck has been bugging him so I spent about 30 minutes rubbing his neck with BioFreeze. The tingly warmness refuses to go away...even after a solid 30 second hand wash with soap. So that'll make this just a little more interesting tonight.

How did your week go? Mine was very odd. Work was pretty slow, so I spent a lot of time at home when I normally would've been gone. You'd think that would work out to me accomplishing a lot of stuff...but really not so much. Mostly I got to sleep in a couple of times, hung out with the dog, and did some laundry. Oh...and I worked on a project that took about a bajillion layers of clear coat and mod podge to finish.

Did you celebrate Valentine's Day? We did...kind of. And then we celebrated it again today...kind of. On Valentine's Day night (that sounds totally awkward) Collin made the executive decision to take the family out to dinner. So we went and had some all-you-can-eat sushi using some Christmas money we had left over. Today we went for some yummy brunch using yet another gift card (I love gift cards) and then managed to remember to open our Valentine's Day card from my parents (Coldstone gift card...score!). All in all, not bad. It was nice to hang out with the boys a few times this week.

We also had parent-teacher conferences this week. Darian's grades look good, but (no big surprise here) he's having issues talking in class. Same story every year. The kid just doesn't know when to keep it shut. One of these days he'll figure it out.

What else did I do this week?

Posts I Posted : To be honest, I'm actually a little behind on posts. I still managed to get three of them completed this week, but I expanded my original plan for our love story and that wound up putting me a few posts back. Oh well, all in good time.

©Broken H Photography

I did finally post some pictures from our wedding and talked about how I set up our wedding canopy.

©Broken H Photography

After that, I finally finished my Valentine's Day project. We now officially have at least one piece of Valentine's Day decor.

Books I Read : Try as I may, I just cannot get on top of that darned book goal. I finished two books since the last Summary Sunday and I'm still two books behind. How does that work? Drat.

Insurgent by Veronica Roth was a clear win and The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks was disappointing.

I'm currently reading the last of the Divergent trilogy...Allegiant. So far, so good. It promises to be a quick read.

Recipes I Tried : This week I lucked upon a good find in my Facebook feed, BuzzFeed's 19 Delicious Spaghetti Dinners. We tried not one, but two of these puppies this week.

The first one was the Spaghetti with Bacon, Pecorino, and Fried Egg. You can never go wrong with bacon. I substituted some Gruyere and Parmesan for the Pecorino, but otherwise followed the recipe. It was flipping delicious you guys. Horrible for you, but ridiculously good. The boys agreed. We will be having that one again for sure.

The second recipe was the Spaghetti with Olive, Capers, and Roasted Red Peppers. This one I modified pretty heavily. (I also failed to take a picture.) Neither Collin nor I are a big fan of capers, so those were eliminated before I even started. And I like meat in my meals, so I added in some chicken. Once that was done, it still tasted a little plain. So...I tossed in some Parmesan, pepper, onion powder and about a half cup of leftover tomato sauce from last week. Oh, I also pretty much tripled the amount of olives since Collin is a big ol' olive fan. That's how we roll around here. That pepped it up a little bit and it wasn't bad, but not as good as the bacon pasta earlier in the week. Poor recipe. Totally overshadowed by the power of bacon.

Two new recipes in one week. Amazing. Don't expect that to happen again any time soon.

Projects I Worked On/Finished : That Valentine's Day project nearly killed me. It's probably a good thing work was slow or I never would've been able to finish it on time. But...it turned out cute and I like it. Collin even complemented it. That was nice.

Favorite Pin I Pinned : So I pinned a lot of stuff this week. I cleaned out my email inbox yesterday and that led me into a bunch of suggested pins and boards. It got a little out of hand. But I found a good pile of new recipes and a few good project ideas, so not too shabby.

It actually took me a little bit of time to figure out which one was my favorite this week. Amazingly, this week it isn't a food post. It's this lovely gem from BoBella on Tumblr via Bridgette Raes.

I have plans to clean out my closet this year...we'll see if I can follow this plan. I will admit that a good chunk of the stuff that should go in the "toss it" pile will actually probably end up as fabric scraps to be used on another project. I suppose that part won't be nearly as bad as the stuff I keep because "it would fit if I just lost a little bit of weight". That's always the case, isn't it?

Summary Sunday - Let it Snow Edition

It's been another whirlwind week around here. It's also been a cold one. Apparently the polar vortex is making its comeback. Our temperatures have dropped back down below the freezing mark and it's been snowing pretty well. In fact, between Friday and this morning we've accumulated around 8 inches of the fluffy stuff in our yard.

I'm a fan of the snow, but not the driving in it or the shoveling of it. When it comes to the driving, I can handle myself, but there's always the idiot who thinks they can floor it to get over the ice and the panicked drivers who go 15 miles an hour on the freeway. It's those other drivers that make me just want to stay home and hole up.

And then there's the shoveling. We've been pretty lucky this year in that one of our neighbors owns a snow blower and always manages to take care of the whole neighborhood before any of us are up for the day. Unfortunately, he caught the edge of a sidewalk the other day and the paddles broke off. Poor guy. He actually apologized to me yesterday morning for not having our driveway shoveled. How nice was that? He's a great neighbor. But...Darian and I braved it ourselves while Collin was at work. Unfortunately, not very well.

With half a foot to shovel, I wimped out pretty quickly and so did he. We managed to get the sidewalks all done before we called it quits, but the driveway still remains awash with the fluff. It seemed like a losing battle anyway...within two hours of our retreat the snow had covered the walkways back up.

Today we saw the sun again. It's still a pretty snowy and icy wonderland out there, but some of it melted and we (thankfully) didn't accumulate any more. We'll see how long that lasts. The forecast calls for moisture of some form every day for the next week.

How about a wrap up of the last seven snowy days?

Posts I Posted : This week kicked off posts for February's theme of love. I told you the first two parts of our love story: how Collin & I met and our engagement story. This upcoming week I'll finish out the trilogy of posts with our wedding story, including some of our wedding photos. I also have some projects coming over the next couple of weeks. Yay!

Books I Read : I continue to be 2 books behind schedule. However, that will be down to 1 by the end of the evening, as I only have about 30 pages left in Insurgent by Veronica Roth.

Earlier this week, I finished Divergent, the first book in the series. And wow. I loved it. Dystopian fiction just speaks to me I suppose. I will be posting a full review of it later this year as it certainly made the cut for the 2014 BOTY bracket.

I had held off on watching the preview for the upcoming movie until I finished the book, but it looks quite good and (based on the small snippets they show) it looks like it might actually follow the book quite well. It's one of a few novel based movies that I'm looking forward to seeing this year.

Recipes I Tried : Yet another week of no new recipes. We seem to be on a streak of making large quantities that turn into leftovers for the remainder of the week. It also doesn't hurt that we've been doing birthdays and family meals quite a bit over the last few weeks, so I don't always have to be the one cooking dinner. It's been lovely. Darian helped Collin to make my mom's meatloaf for dinner this week. It's always yummy and it's pretty simple to make. It may be one of the first recipes that he'll be able to make fully on his own. I'm thinking of having him be the one to present it on the blog later in the year.

Projects I Worked On/Finished : There have been more coats of paint than originally planned on my Valentines' Day project...so it has been slow going. But it will be finished here in the next couple of days and make it's debut on the blog soon. Even though it has been a bit more challenging than I originally anticipated (still a fairly easy project, just more time consuming than planned), I am excited to have the finished product. It should turn out cute.

I also managed to salvage some leftover shelving from the office in order to help clean out my lab area. The shelving will be great to use for vinyl signs, but their discovery in the back seat of the truck this evening led Collin to label me a hoarder. Fine. I admit it. I am a hoarder of craft supplies.

Favorite Pin I Pinned : For the second week in a row, a dessert makes this week's top pick. This week's favorite pin is actually Darian's fault. I was just poking around at things when he looked over my shoulder and saw this one. I had to agree with him though...it looks delicious. We're going to have to try them some time. It's Cherry Filled Chocolate Sandwich Cookies from Mom on Timeout.

Sorry about the complete lack of photos on this post. I'm realizing that I need to start taking more pictures during the week. I've been horrible about photos for about the last year. That will have to change. The good news is that I'll make up for it in the next post. Coming up tomorrow...our wedding story!

Summary Sunday: Cancelled Cable Edition

While everyone else is watching the Superbowl today, we are lounging around the house. Collin is in playing SimCity and I'm surfing the internet and watching Netflix. Why aren't we watching the game? Well...we have no TV at our house. Traditional TV that is. We have cancelled our cable in a bid to save some cash. We decided that we weren't really watching it and throwing $100 a month at something we weren't using just seemed ridiculous. It's just our latest decision to try and tighten the budget at our house. And honestly, it seems to be working out pretty well. We've been cable free for two weeks now without incident. Of course, that's mostly because I'm a huge fan of Netflix. We also have PlayOn and are considering adding Hulu Plus to our lineup. Exchanging the $100 TV bill for a $15 one...not too shabby. Even better? We're not missing out on anything with today's game thanks to three main things:

1. We aren't big on professional football around here. It's just not our speed. We aren't football haters, we actually like college ball quite a bit (as is evidenced by our having season tickets for Boise State for the last two years). We just aren't big on the pompousness and the money grubbing that seems to be the primary fuel for the games. There are good players and there are good games, but it's just not the same. Oh...and for those of you wondering, yes - we will still be rooting for Boise State next year even though Coach Pete has moved up to Washington. And no, we aren't bitter at his move.

2. The power of the interwebs. We typically only watch the Superbowl for the commercials. Yes, we're that family. But this year has let us watch the ads without watching the game. They are all over the internet. I know that some are angry that they were released early, but it works out well for us. Do I think that it will diminish the number of people watching the game and make those spots less valuable in years to come? Yes and no. I think the number of people watching will reduce, but only slightly. Even though a lot of people just watch for the commercials, I still think that there are a lot of them who watch the game as a part of popular culture whether they like football or not. And of course there will always be thousands of die hard fans who watch the game because it's the game. Because of the sheer number of watchers who will continue to watch regardless of commercial leakage on the internet, I think that they will continue to be very coveted spots. Worry not, advertisers.

3. This is really subsection 2 of number two, but social media has kept us in the loop in a way that cable alone could not. We have updates from the news outlets and our friends. We have the banter of Seahawks fans and Broncos fans. It's like one big digital party.

So...that's our Sunday. It's probably different from yours, but I like it just the same.

And how about the rest of my week?

Posts I Posted: This last week, I cleaned up my scrapbook room and have been reveling in the ability to see my desk tops. I had full intentions to do some more cleaning of the house today, but laying around doing nothing has been way more appealing and so, I have succumbed to the laziness. I am enjoying my sloth.

Before I completely crapped out, I put together a list of things we want to attack around the house to get things revamped and redecorated before the year is out. My next step with that is to organize it into a priority list and then start checking things off one by one. It will be nice. There are a couple of projects in the list that I am particularly excited for.

I reviewed the month yesterday for the blog and have jumped forward into the theme for February. I'll have a project up at the end of this week. Good times.

But I still stand by the fact that the best part of my week has been seeing the sun. I love where I live, but January is always interesting for us. We always manage to get an inversion before the winter is up that socks us into a pit of gray. After nearly three weeks, the sky cracked open and the sun came out once again. It was very much a welcome sight.

Books I Read: I'm still two books behind on my Goodreads challenge goal, but I did finish a book this week. I read Daddy's Little Girl by Mary Higgins Clark. It didn't do as well as her books usually do, but it wasn't a dud. I gave it 3.5 stars. Next up, I'm reading Divergent by Veronica Roth. I've been waiting to read this series for quite a while, so I'm excited to get it rolling.

Projects I Worked On/Finished: I haven't finished anything this week, but I've been working on a couple of things.

I'm working on a craft project for Valentine's Day that should be finished by the end of the week.

I'm doing some planning on the remodel for the crop (soon to be sewing) room.

I like this idea for a revamp to my baker's rack:

Source

 And I like the idea of a wall length cubby system for the rest of the organizational space.

Source

*** Now...a short PSA about being a responsible Pinterest pinner. If you follow either one of those links, you'll notice they both send you to Pinterest pins. I don't like that. I am really big on making sure to give credit where credit is due. But...if you click on those pins, you'll also notice that one of the links is broken and the other one takes you to a homepage rather than a post. This irks me. This is what I call irresponsible pinning. I have somewhat perpetuated the problem by repinning things that weren't linked properly the first time, but when I post an original pin I always make sure to pin properly. Please pin responsibly. Give credit where credit is due. I can tell you that the second picture is one from Becky Higgins' personal scrapbook room. I know this because I've watched several of her videos where she is hanging out in this particular room. But I know nothing about the person who came up with the organizational idea for that first photo. That is annoying to me.

So how do you pin responsibly? When you find a pin you like, follow the link to check its authenticity. When you find something you want to pin, make sure you are pinning the original, not a post that is a link to the original. Make sure you pin the specific post, not the blog homepage. And be helpful. If a link is broken or goes to the wrong location, note that in your pin. Help future pinners and help the people whose ideas you are sharing. There you go. PSA over. Continue on. ***

Recipes I Tried: Ya...this week went crazy fast. I'm trying to think back on it and it's all a blur. We didn't do anything fancy for dinners this week. There were a lot of leftovers, Collin cooked a pork chop dinner on family night (Tuesday), and Darian made soup for us on his night (Thursday). We've been working to try and spread the responsibilities and to teach Darian how to do more and more on his own. It's been nice to lighten my load, but it doesn't make for much in new stuff here on the blog.

This Week's Favorite Pin: I did a lot of Valentine's Day project pinning this week, but my favorite pin isn't even a craft one. My favorite is these Boston Cream Pie Crepes from girl. Inspired. How yummy do these look??!?!

Source

I'm excited to try them out.


And...that's it for now. Enjoy the game if you're watching, and if not...enjoy your Sunday night.

How do you celebrate Superbowl Sunday?