Recycling in California

Andrew and I have been recycling plastic water bottles for about a year.  I even have a separate trash can for them.  The husband is like a giant fish tank that cannot never be filled.  He will literally drink 5 bottles of water every night.  Why not drink out of the sink, like a normal person, you ask?  Well, because Andrew says the water tastes funny.  We used to have filtered water in our fridge, but now our fridge doesn't have one, so it's just FILLED with bottled water.  Since we are paying a few cents for every bottle that we buy, we decided to start recycling them.  We've done it a few times, but every time we get like $5.00......so it was SO not worth it!  This time, Andrew said he wanted to wait until we had a bunch, and oh boy did we.....

Good thing the seats go down in the Prius!

We seriously looked like hobos carrying all of our bags downstairs.  I've been BEGGING to take them for WEEKS.  I was losing my mind with all these bags in the office closet.  Losing. My.  Mind.

So after all the work of collecting, bagging, storing, and taking it to the recycling plant, we made $19.37.  Worth it?

At least he's a cute hobo!

PS - At the recycling place TWO DIFFERENT Mexican men (that were there recycling) asked us if we were selling our dog?  Is this something normal that people do?  "I'm going to recycle today and maybe make some extra money by selling the family pet???"

How to Store my DVDs

It has literally been years since we purchased a DVD, but Andrew used to be a crazy person that bought every movie that he ever liked.  The challenge was finding a place to keep all the DVDs.  Problem solved with our mildly obsessive same-furniture-in-every-room habit.

Notice the dog bed --- it's so fancy

We keep the dog's leash in the striped box on the shelf.  If I even look at it.....Maximus goes crazy!!!!

Precious Little Package

BEST NEWS EVER!  Ok, maybe not the best, but really good news! I got the best package in the mail.  I posted a week ago about my closet/shoe box debacle.  I was literally thinking of purging some shoes (since I clearly know that I won't stop buying shoes....), and was very concerned

So, anyhow, I got this box today (ordered from some sort of organizing website) and

THEY HAD THE OLD STYLE!!!  YIPPPEEEEEE!!! Now I have 6 more, but am actually thinking of ordering more.  Is 6 boxes enough for all of eternity?  I can't decide how many more to buy.  Oh 1st world problems....

Crisis of EPIC Proportions!

And the title doesn't exaggerate AT ALL.  A few days ago I posted a picture of my shoes.  I have like 60+ pairs, which means 60+ boxes they are in.  I buy them at Bed, Bath, & Beyond and they fit my shoes perfectly.  Every time I go, I buy a few more than I actually need.  Now, I guess I've bought a lot of shoes in the last year or two, because I was only had 3 more in stock pile (and I JUST bought 2 new pairs of shoes).  To Bed, Bath & Beyond I headed to buy more.  Now, from reading the title and knowing I'm sort of insane, I'm sure you can guess where I am going with this.

THEY CHANGED THE SHAPE OF THE BOXES.

Old box on the left....new one on the right.  They don't even stack together!

Old box on the right, new box on the left.

 aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!

The change may seem minute for the untrained-crazy-person-eyes, but for me it's an emergency!  As I was telling this story to Andrew, his immediate reaction was "you're NOT buying all new boxes!"  He knows the crazy look in my eye.  I went to several BB&B desperately hoping that they would have a few old ones sitting around, but alas, they do not.  I told the guy that I guess I had to stop buying shoes.  He looked at me like I was insane and said "that seems a little drastic."  I could also start purging old ones.  arg. I just ordered some off of Amazon and am HOPING that they are the old style.  I guess this will curb the shoe buying, since I only have ONE precious box left.  I'm going to be VERY choosy.

*I realize that this is not that serious.......but rather just annoying.

Silly Family Photos

In our house, we only have 1 place that we have personalized photos hung - in the office.  When we first moved into this house, we decided that we didn't want to fill our house with pictures of us, but rather with art and such.  The office, however is now FILLED with photos!

Now, this one, I realize is by far the most ridiculous thing you'll ever see in your whole life.  It's tucked away in the office, on a kind of a wall that you don't see.  He's just too cute not to have his own portrait!!!

The first step is admitting you have a problem, right?  I think I'm obsessed!

Yes, I had pop-art made of my dog's face.  But, when it's a face that looks like this how could you not????

Which takes me to the only other place we have personal pictures up.  We started this book shelf of pictures many, many, many, many years ago.  Then it only had a few pictures and many more books.  Now it TOTALLY looks ridiculous and you can't even see the books.  But we are planning on moving within the next year or so, so I don't want to start a whole new process.  In our eventual permanent house, we plan on having some sort of wall where all of these are posted, but for now it'll do.  On this bookshelf we post 1 picture from each trip we take.

Sometimes I'll just sit and look at each picture.  They represent SUCH great memories.  Each one reminds me of what ever country we were in.

Eventually I would like to put a label/sign on the front of each one that says what country we were in and the date/year.  As of now, I have it written on the back, but there will come a day that we will not remember.....sad but true!

What Would You Save in a Fire?

So my FAVORITE thing in my house (besides dog, of course), is actually quite simple.  I told Andrew the other day that I think I would save it in a fire.  There's nothing else in the whole house I think that I would save.  He looked at me, horrified.  He said he would save Maximus. I said that Max is smart enough to run away from the flames, so I wouldn't need to save him.  All of our pictures are saved on our picture website.  As much as I would want to save the shoes, there's just too many, so those are out.  Anything else could really be replaced.

 I really think that I would save:

I know it looks simple and sort of plain, but I love it so much.  The "B" is the topper from our wedding cake.  I rhinestoned it with Black Diamond (grey) and Jet (black).  After the wedding I bought this stand (with our names & anniversary date) and bought plain versions of our initials. I think it is such a special thing.  Andrew is not such a fan, but, duh, I had to sneak rhinestones in the house somewhere.

Andrew barely notices it anymore, however, because he is distracted by this:

I had to put some girly thing to distract from the monstrosity.

I think it means I may have a problem with rhinestones if that's what I would save?  I have the same amount of emotions and feelings as a robot, so there's not really anything else sentimental that I would save.  I never even made a wedding photo album.  I only have 1 small wedding picture up in the house.  The only thing I would save would be my pretty little rhinestones!!!

Decorating: My Bathroom

Bathrooms have a tendency to be ugly and boring.  Ever since our very first apartment, I've tried to make them a little bit more personalized.  However, I discovered that I failed years ago...

Now this hangs in one of my closets...

 When we first moved out 5 years ago, I hung this in the bathroom.  I had red towels in there, so I thought it was so cute.  I hung it on a blank wall above the toilet, since this wall was boring. I never realized it was an issue, until one of my friends (male) said it was weird to use the toilet while staring at young pictures of us.  haha.  Being a lady, this was never an issue that I saw.

So, I tried to keep that in mind this time and there are NO personalized pictures up in the bathroom.  Actually, we only have personalized pictures in one room in our house (the office)....

Now when people use the bathroom, they don't have to stare creepily at us.

While I don't have personalized pictures, I do, however, have these personalized towels.  As soon as we got married, I pretty much put our initials on everything!  I just love personalized stuff.

As I said from the beginning, bathrooms are not very exciting.

Dining Room

So here's my dining room.  And by dining room, I mean wine rack.  It really does dominate the entire room.

I <3 this blue glass stuff so hard.  Andrew is not such a fan.  He actually refuses to drink
wine out of the blue glasses.  weirdo.

 When we were table shopping, it was nearly impossible to find a set we liked.  So, we just bought the table at one place and the black leather chairs at a different place.  Eventually I would like to have a giant dining room, add the leaf to the table, and get big comfy fabric chairs to go at the end of the table.  Right now, there just isn't enough room in the dining room right now.

Wine rack - clearly I need to go wine shopping, --- several of these  stacks are looking sad and empty....

Decorating : My Bedroom

I feel VERY lukewarm about the bedspread on my bed.  It's actually a duvet cover on top of a bedspread.  We have a spoiled dog that will sit on our bed and chew on a bone, and the bedspread is a whole production to wash every week.  The duvet cover makes the washing easier, but then putting it back on is a whole thing.

 Also, Andrew hates every single pillow on the bed.  If he had it his way, there would be exactly TWO pillows - the ones that we sleep upon.  He doesn't understand that a bed like that looks too empty and strange.  Also, you can see Andrew's stupid water bottle on the side table.  No joke, he drinks like 4 a night....then just leaves them there.  I go CRAZY and throw them away everyday.  He now jokingly calls it his "water-bottle graveyard" since there's always a bunch sitting there.  ARG!

It was VERY difficult to hang those pictures in a square!  Also, I hate the black
 pillows in the front.  They're too flat and look riduclous (I switched them with the ones we
 sleep on....).  I keep forgetting to buy new fluffier ones.

I do, however, LOVE my new Scrabble pillow. 

Yes, I realize that the "B" on the Scrabble board is not worth 7, however that's "our number."  We got married on 07-07-07, so I found a place that custom makes them.  It's my favorite thing in my bedroom right now.  The rest I'm a pretty much over.

How to Organize my Pantry

Today, I'm going to discuss my pantry.  No joke, I empty it out and start over about 3 times a year.  I like how it's currently set up, except there are like 2 bottles of stuff in there that totally won't fit in the shelves and stress me out when I open the cabinet.  I may be sick.

The ones that won't fit are clearly the ones lying on their sides.  Bane of my pantry existance......

Professional Organizer

I always thought this would seriously be the best job in the world.  I love nothing more than organizing.  I create messes simply to clean them up and make them organized.  I always joke (though it's not really much of a joke if I desperately wish it were true) that I would love to set up my classroom and then just keep it like a museum.  Dirty, messy teenagers come in and mess it all up everyday!  I spend so much time putting the desks back in perfect lines and reorganizing my library like everyday.  It's really a sickness.

This being said, I guess my passion for organizing are just going to be utilized in the Brownell 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom palace.  One of my friends, Emily, has enjoyed seeing my obsessive organizing & decorating and has asked for more.  (actually, funny story about how I know Emily.  I hired her as my wedding photographer 5 years ago.  For some reason, Andrew was late to the meeting, so it was just the two of us discussing and exchanging pleasantries.  When Andrew walked in, Emily looked at him all confused and asked if he went to Nohl Canyon Elementary School.  Turns out they had gone to Elementary school together and Emily even had a note that he had written her about 100 years ago.  So crazy!).  So, the bored teacher will now be posting about stuff around the house!

Now, I kind of think that my house looks like a boy set it up, then a girl moved in.  Which is funny, since Andrew and I have never not lived together.  (Right before we moved in together, I painted my bedroom hot pink.  I knew it would be my last chance to have some crazy colors on the wall.....) When we moved in together, we decided that we didn't want any "stuff" sitting around.  This stuck for a while, then I couldn't handle it, it was just too bland.  Our walls are all tan and white (with a 1/2 wall painted red in the office and the bedroom).  We like it when everything matches.  We have the same couch in the office, the same lamps in all rooms, the same furniture, same paint color, etc. One of my friends even joked one time that Maximus matches the color scheme of our house.....ha.  One time someone from our complex told me that our house looks like a model-home.  I couldn't have been prouder.  I think she said it like a bad thing (like it's not lived in), but I took it like a giant compliment!!!!!!!

VERY long story short, here's a few pictures of the casa de Brownell:

Couch in the office (the back light in the office made this picture
impossible to take.  Stupid phone).

Couch in the family room (it's huge, I know.  It seriously can sleep 2-3. )

(The pillows were purchased in Turkey 4 years ago.  BUT, I had only bought 3, so I took them to a tailor and had them cut them in half and put a square of the curtains on the back (so it would all match).  Voila, matching pillows for both rooms.

Oops, I did it again....

I went shoe shopping.  There's not much else to do.  Now, shoe shopping does not sound like it would be that bad, UNTIL you see what already exists in my closet....

Ya, I know.

That is like a million pairs of shoes.  I literally have so many shoes that I couldn't make them all fit in the picture.  They wrap further..... Yikes.  Some of the shoes are up so high that I have to have Andrew get them down for me.  When you have shoes that are over 6 feet in the air (just to fit), you may have a problem.

BUT, shoes are totally my kryptonite.  These new ones were on SALE.  sale.  I can't pass that up.  Buy 1 get 1 half off. Come on!  No woman could walk past that!!!

Check them out, I would've felt bad leaving them behind.

I love Steve Madden wedges.  They are seriously crazy comfortable.

 

Good news is that it will give me something to do.....take pictures for the front of their new pretty little box AND to buy new boxes.  Yay for a trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond! :)

To Do

So, I'm officially bored.  I made it until July 22 until it really happened.  Andrew has been working until about 9-10 every night! ZOMG.  That's a long time to entertain myself.  Then my sister started her job this week, so I lost my shopping partner.  AND my best friend has been in Italy all summer.  Arg.  I have gone to the pool, taken a dance glass, shopped the heck out of South Coast Plaza, had lunch/happy hour with friends, organized the house, made a million dr. appointments and done all the stupid stuff that you plan on doing when you "have some time off".  But, alas, I'm officially bored.  (I do, however, have to admit that I'm bored after I start writing a blog, so when I say I'm bored, husband pretty much ignores me).

So, anyway, I'm trying to invent things to keep myself busy.  I decided to get crafty (and not just the gluing my phone back together crafty.....).

I decided to make a "To Do" board for the entry of our house.  I already have a white board hanging there where I write what is for dinner each week (Andrew thought the double board was a little over-kill, but it entertained me a for a little while AND, most importantly, I'm a crazy person.........)

I bought a cork board, painted the border black, painted some  wood cut-out letters white, and painted some little clothespins white.

 I think that I'm going to make a little weekly calender to hang in the middle
 (so we can keep track of the busy weeks), but I really like it!

I figure that I'll use it for stuff that needs to be done.  Right now there's a coupon for Wild Rivers (we're going tomorrow) and my dry cleaning receipt (which I need to pick up next week).  Normally I tape notes to the front door, but this will be much cleaner and more organized.

Now, what makes me really crazy, is that I already totally have this system going in the office:

Monthly Calender on the left & "note" board on the right

Some may same crazy (including, I'm sure, Andrew), however I just say impressively organized.  Right?

Project: Reorganize Closet

On Sunday, I was trying to put something away in our office closet.  I couldn't reach the top shelf, so I asked giant husband to put it away.  He remarked that the closet was a mess.  This offends me to my VERY CORE, as I pride myself on being painfully organized.  He was right though, it was a mess.   Then I was annoyed.  The closet has ALWAYS been organized.  Hell, the entire house has always been organized.  Recently his mother wanted everything out of his old bedroom, so Andrew dumped it all in the closet.  Annoying.  Our closet is like 80 square feet, so it's not some little hole.  He dumped a lot of stuff.  Anyway, we made a date to clean it up and reorganize it this weekend.

Which brings me to Monday.  I had someone contracted evil teenage sniffles, but that didn't stop me from a stop to my favorite place in the entire world - Bed Bath and Beyond.  45 minutes and $30 later, I had some new bins and I was ready to organize.  I sniffled and worked my way through the evening.  Mean husband came home and said it looked like I had just pulled everything out and put it into the office.  I had a plan, however.

All normal people clean out closets with a 100 + degree fever, right?

Tuesday after school, I sniffled my way through a little more and finally finished up.  This time nice husband told me it looked nice.   I think that is a slight exaggeration as it is still basically our garage/storage place.  But, it will do.

Yes there is a bin titled "Nerd Stuff" - it's just that.  And yes, my husband owns 2 giants boxes of Computer Games. 

New Place...

We just moved last week, and in typical me fashion - I am already done painting, unpack, and hardcore organizing. We even bought a bunch of new furniture. I, however, just sold the old one (off of craigslist for $100 less than we paid for it last summer!), and the new one is not being delivered until Thursday. That means we are roughing it for the week. The funny thing about the whole situation is that we just sold our barstools too, and the dining room chairs are not being delivered until Thursday. There is literally not a SINGLE chair in the house....