Christmas Decorations GONE

Wow! Its the end of January and I'm just now sharing this information. So that you don't have a heart attack thinking that the Christmas decorations are just now being put away, don't jump to conclusions.
You see, the decorations themselves came down pretty quickly, even before the new year, but I wanted to organize them so that next Christmas it was a little easier to find things. This caused for a little delay in actually putting everything away.
You see, as we started collecting and buying more and more Christmas decorations we just threw them in these old boxes. But the boxes have started to get a little more old and run down. They definitely weren't going to last another year, not to mention the boxes were overflowing.

So off to Target I went to get some matching heavy duty boxes to put everything in. Hannah thought they were tasty and I thought they would get the job done.

I was slightly wrong. They seemed a lot bigger in the store then they actually were. I couldn't even put one box of Christmas wine glasses in the box.

So I went all the way back to Target and got another matching purple box, came home and it sat there for another few days. Then this past week when I was sick, I finally packed them all up and had Mr. Hunt haul them up to the attic. I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of the finished product but my sick self just wanted it to be over with and finished without me throwing up all over it. Too much? Sorry. Plus, you can imagine three big purple boxes stacked to the brim with green and red decorations right? OK, good. But before that, I had to reorganize all the tree ornaments.
I took all the ornaments off the tree and realized that the little Tupperware that we had them in this past time was way too small and I didn't want any ornaments to be crammed in there and possibly break. So while at Target getting the big purple boxes, I also picked up one big Tupperware box.

The Tupperware in the picture below was the too small one already filled up with only half the ornaments.

While putting them all in their new box, I decided that I had to share some of them. We all know Mr. Hunt doesn't read this blog so he will never know that I put those pictures on here of him. Sneaky I know, but he is just too cute to pass up. Look at his cute little face in 1990 when he was 5 years old.

I think this next one is my favorite. Its from 1992 when he was 7 years old. Look at that toothless grin.

My favorite part of this ornament has to be the back when he signed his name and put the year. I love how the apostrophe for the year is backwards...he tried!

** Side Note: Sorry I don't have any pictures of me when I was little at the moment. My mother still has all of my child ornaments for her tree so most of our ornaments are Mr. Hunt's, and I love that. The tree makes  me smile. I will share any baby pictures of myself that I may come across in the future.**

Once I had them in the new box, they all fit perfectly and were ready to be packed away in the bigger purple box.

So now, I'm ready for next year. No taking down broken ripped boxes with decorations thrown everywhere and not in order. Everything has a place (or a box) and the ornaments are all snug in a box and not crammed.
Again, I know this is late, but I had to share some of the organization I started with this year. Its a step.

Love,
Jen

Photo Updates

OK. Here is about a months worth of catching up on my photo project.

Monday January 9th

OK. We have so much candy we don't know what to do with it! Its all from Christmas and it is still coming out of our ears. I might have to take it into work and set it out for everyone else to eat, or I may be gaining a few extra wanted pounds soon.

Tuesday January 10th

For Christmas, Mr. Hunt's Aunt gave us this yummy mixture and oil to dip bread into. Ive been eating it way too much. Again with the extra unwanted l-bs

Wednesday January 11th

Our Christmas decorations (not the tree) have been down for a few weeks now, but they haven't made it to the attic yet....oops.

Thursday January 12th

I made two new pillow covers in this pattern. It matches my new color scheme perfectly. I have 5 ugly pillows that we got with this couch and now two are covered. I'm on the lookout for another fabric for the other three.

Friday January 13th

A lucky picture on a not so lucky day. On Friday the 13th I decided to take a picture of something that reminded me of my favorite team. The Gamecocks. My parents got Mr. Hunt and I this bench for Christmas two years ago. We love it. Not only does it look good in the family room, it also adds seating for guests.

Saturday January 14th

Can you tell that I am holding some treats in my hand above the camera in this picture. Both Charlie and River have their mouths all shaped weird like they are about to, or just did lick their lips. Hannah got distracted. This was the best of 6 pictures that I was able to take before they lost interest.

Sunday January 15th

My cousin made these little cloths pin people about 15 years ago of our family. They are always on display during the holidays and we always get a good laugh out of them. I know they are about 15 years old because my mom is the one on the top row and the second one on the far left in the purple dress. She is pregnant with Davis (who is turning 15 in a few weeks) and on the back it says "baby on board." I won't go through each one, but I'm the one with the yellow face next to my mom. My face is yellow because I used to love smiley faces. Remember when those were popular? So she made my face like a smiley!

Monday January 16th

Do you love crock pots as much as I do? I think I need to use them more actually. Its so easy to just throw the ingredients into the pot in the morning, and when you get home, dinner is ready! The only tough thing is remembering to buy the ingredients the day before.

Tuesday January 17th

Operation "get the fur babies to recognize, like, and use their bed" is not working very well. Ive only seen Hannah use it once, other than that it just sits in the bedroom. When I try to get them to use it, I get this look.

Wednesday January 18th

Embarrassing? Yes, but I'm sharing it anyway in order to get my butt in action. I really really really need to go through my jewelry. I don't even know what I own and don't own, so I hardly every wear any. If I could get rid of things I never wear, like the pumpkin and ghost earrings (not even sure where they came from), and only have the essentials, then I would probably wear jewelry more often. This is on my February goal list which I will be sharing soon.

Thursday January 19th

Ive been trying to leave the fur babies out in their room more and more often to see if they will be good enough to be able to be out of their crates during the day. You see here, they failed. This ottoman already had a small hole in it from one of their toe nails a long time ago. I put the ottoman in their room so it was just out of the way. I thought maybe I could recover it one day. I have left the fur babies in there with it a few times before and they never touched it, but this time they certainly did. I guess that goes to show that you can't really predict what they are capable of. You think if they don't touch it once, they never will, and that's far from wrong. I'm still very proud of how well they have been besides this, and I will continue to try.

Friday January 20th

Mr. Hunt and I constantly feel bad for the fur babies for not having many toys around for them to play with, but the above picture really reminds us why we don't. We only have about three toys that haven't ended up in little pieces like this. Every time we think about getting them a new toy, like we did this day, we literally have to touch, squeeze, and decide if we think they can shred it. We were wrong this time. oops!

Saturday January 21st

My mom got us this skillet cookie for Christmas. We just now cooked it and it was good. It was fun to make a cookie a different way for once too. Of course, we had it with a side of vanilla frozen yogurt. Yum!

Sunday January 22nd

I finally got to see my little flower girls who I haven't seen in awhile. Since their dad moved about 45 minutes from Charlotte, I don't see them too often. We met up for lunch and it reminded me of how I love them very much! They are so special to me.

Monday January 23rd

Tuesday January 24th

There WILL be this flavor ice cream in heaven....I'm certain. I count the days for this to come to the grocery, its just as exciting as the actual girl scout cookies themselves. And yes, the chocolate and vanilla thin mint ice cream are both equally delicious!

Wednesday January 25th

I got sick again! And wouldn't you know that the day I get sick was the first day in weeks that it was sunny outside! I was so sad that I was feeling so gross on a beautiful day, but happy that I could allow Hannah to do this all day instead of bother me. She loves the outdoors.

Thursday January 26th

Here is a little peak into half a cabinet (there are two full cabinets) of my couponing gold. haha. Ive actually paused couponing for a little bit until we can catch up and use some of this stuff. Its just hard to pass it up when most of this stuff was free. I still go through my coupons every week and use good ones, but until this stash is a little smaller, I will lay off a little. This is in the guest room bath so don't worry, my bathroom cabinet looks a lot different.

Friday January 27th

We kind of forgot about our beloved field behind our house since the last time we played there, River got so hot he almost fainted. Since the weather has been pretty nice (60 degrees in January is nice), we decided it would be a good time to let them run around without worrying about overheating. They had a ball and we had some tired fur babies when we got home. I say that's a win win.

Saturday January 28th

I hung out with one of my favorite little boys! This is Cooper Tate, son of our good friends Ryan and Whitney Tate. This little man is NOT shy and is the cutest thing Ive ever seen. In this picture we were looking at the fish in the tank behind him and when I asked him to look at the camera, he yelled "cheeeeeese" really loudly and held it until the camera clicked. Everyone around us was laughing including me. That's why in the picture he looks like he is saying "cheese." Cuz he is!

Sunday January 29th

Here I am getting ready to tackle the garage....and any rodents I may come in contact with. Yeah, have you ever seen a grange this messy before? I didn't think so.

Monday January 30th

We took the fur babies on another walk to "the field" and played a little fetch. They love it out there!

There you go. All caught up!

Love,

Jennifer

Sick..again

OK y'all, what the heck is going on? I'm sick again! I was just sick about two weeks ago with Mr. Hunt!
This time it hit me like a ton of bricks! I was perfectly fine on Tuesday, just had a headache which is a pretty normal thing for me. Then all of the sudden in the middle of the night, I was sick again. I couldn't go back to sleep, and this time it took me away from work for two whole days.
I couldn't move, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat. It wasn't fun!
The worst part was that Mr. Hunt was out of town. I realized that I have NEVER been sick and alone before and let me tell you, its not good. Ive always had either my parents growing up, my roommates of friends in college, and Mr. Hunt now. I took for granted how nice it is to have someone there for you when you are sick. I had to find food for myself, take care of the dogs, and still get up every time I needed something. It was awful. It made me feel worse.
Its OK people, you can feel sorry for me because truly it just sucked.
Mr. Hunt finally came home last night and I'm starting to feel better. My poor fur babies were probably so excited to see Mr. Hunt since Ive been ignoring them for the past 48 hours. I'm also very happy that the maid is coming today so that she can clean the house from top to bottom and get this virus out of here!

Love,
Sickly Lady

Mouse Friend

Or Rat, or Bunny...who knows, but we have one (or two or three) in our garage! Help!
First of all, our garage is a huge mess. We have tried to keep it Mr. Hunt's "man room," but it also tends to end up being where all the cardboard boxes, trash, and recycling goes too. We have had "clean the garage" on the to do list for about three weeks now, but it will definitely be a whole day project so we can only really tackle it on a weekend, and the weekends have been filing up too fast!
About a week ago, Mr. Hunt was enjoying a cigar in the garage/man room and he called me in there to show me what we thought looked like rodent poo on the couch. So we brushed it off and said to ourselves for the 5th time, "we really need to clean this garage."
More and more days went by and we started to notice more and more poo. Now its pretty much everywhere and I can't seem to understand where all the poo is coming from!

WARNING! Pictures of rodent poo coming up...

And there is a lot more than that...I just figured you get the point right?

So automatically I think that there is a rodent stuck in our garage. I honestly have no idea how he (I'm assuming its one male rodent) got in there because we don't ever leave our garage open, but Ive recently learned that mice and flatten their bodies and squeeze in anywhere. Why our garage? Probably because its dirty and there are a lot of places to hide and its probably a few degrees warmer at night than outside.
So I really wanted to get right to cleaning out the whole garage and hope that I find that little rodent and brush him right out with a broom and be done with it, but Ive been told (by Mr. Hunt) that its not that simple. Apparently if we brush him out with the broom, he will just find his way right back in. I honestly wouldn't mind a mouse or something living in the garage (as long as it is cute and not ugly and scary looking), but the thought of it squeezing in the door and coming inside the house freaks me out, and if he can squeeze into the garage, he will eventually squeeze in the house, so alas, we have to do something.
Mr. Hunt and I drove on over to Home Depot and bought some mouse traps. The thought of killing a innocent little mouse is making me sick even typing about it, but this is the only thing to do, so don't judge me.

Ive never had to use one of these, so this was interesting to learn how they work.

So we set up two traps with some shredded sharp cheddar cheese and set them out in two different spots in the garage.

Now every time I need to go into the garage, I ask Mr. Hunt to check first. I probably would freak out if I walked in and saw a dead mouse in the trap. What do we do with a squished mouse? I guess we will figure it out when the time comes.
Yesterday I walked out into the garage and looked right at the trap and lo and behold, the cheese was GONE! Not just shriveled up or a few missing, it was totally GONE....both of them! No rodent was trapped, so it looks like we have a sneaking thing on our hands.
So Ill keep you updated. We aren't sure if we want to put more food out onto them since we have to clean the garage tomorrow. Hopefully nothing will pop out at me while cleaning the garage or I may freak out. It should keep the whole "garage cleaning" project an interesting one for sure.

XOXO,
Rodent Hunter

A New Floor

Well kinda. I got a new rug for the living room.
Honestly this rug thing has been going on for a long long time. First of all, rugs are expensive so I want to make sure I get a good deal and that I also get something that I like because the last thing I want to happen is to spend a whole lot of money on something that I will want to get rid of in a few months.
So I decided a while ago that I was just going to wait for the right rug to find me. Well, of course I searched, it didn't really find me. When I say searched, I mean it! I looked all the time. If I ever had free time, I was looking for a rug.
I wanted to make sure that I had a rug that would define the living room space since the living room technically shares the space with the dining. A rug would define the two spaces.
I told myself in the beginning that normal 5X8 rugs are around $300, so anything significantly under that would be good. I think that is a good way to find a deal. Make sure you know what a normally priced item is so that you know when you see a deal. For example, I will buy a pillow that is under $20 if I really like it. Anything over $20 is too much for me.
Anyway, back to the rug. I finally found it. I literally screamed out loud after buying it and I think Mr. Hunt is a little confused why I can't stop talking about it. Come one! I got a great deal. Listen, the rug was $175...for a 5X8! Yes ma'am (or sir)! To top it off, I love it!
So here is the before of the living room. Definitely in need of some rug loving. Also, please excuse the mess.

And here it is...THE rug!

Now the room certainly isn't done. Here are some things I have to finish.
Change out the art above the couch: Those don't match the new addition (rug)
Put some matching pillows on the couch, not this nasty blue ones
Decide if I need a rug under the dining room table too or if it will just clash, and get one if the answer is yes!

But for now, I keep walking by and glancing over to the room, and loving it.

Love,
Jen

It got the chop

My hair that is. Wow, I cut off a lot! Remember that picture I put up a few days ago about the hairstyle I was thinking about? Yep! Thats what I went with, and I love it.
Here is a before just incase you forget how long it was. I put the camera in front of my face because I was super tired and didn't have any makeup on, not to mention my hair was actually pretty dirty. Who washes their hair before going to get a hair cut, not me!
If you want a better "before" just search the blog. My hair has ALWAYS been long.

A little makeup, and 10 inches G-O-N-E later, here I am now!

A little side note: Do you notice that one or the other (or both) fur babies are always in the pictures? Well, thats because they are attached at my hip! Where ever I go in the house, they go. They never follow Mr. Hunt unless he calls them too. In the mornings if Mr, Hunt gets out of bed and I don't, they stay in with me, but if I get out and Mr. Hunt stays in, they jump out of bed. Its a blessing and a curse, but I love them!

Anyways, back to the hair. Do you like it? Im still getting used to it, but I really do like it and its already so much easier to work with.
So here is the new me for awhile. Oh, my sister Katie came to my appointment becauseshe was in town and we had to catch up. The lady that cuts my hair also cuts hers and Kaki's (mom in law), so we all caught up while my hair was getting the chop. Katie took some pictures of the process. Pictures are with the phone, so they are a little blurry.

Oh my goodness, look how short the back is!

This picture is cool because half is short and the other half is still longer (but still shorter than what I started with).

In the middle of a blow dry

So yay! We will see how long the short lasts because I always love long hair, but I have a feeling I will stick with this for awhile. Maybe not this short, but shorter than what I had before this.

Love,
Shorter Haired Jen