A HOT Home project

We had been talking about building a fire pit in the back yard, you know just a simple one dug out a little with a circle of rocks around it. Nothing too fancy. Then I came across this picture of a fire pit on Pinterest.

I really liked it and thought ..we could do something like that. How hard could it be?  So I showed it to my husband and he agreed it shouldn't be that hard. It wouldn't be something we would get done in one day but we could do it. And so After a couple days work, here is our version of the picture above.

I just wish I had gotten a picture before we started burning in it.

Christmas lights turned into Summer Lights

Now that Summer is here I love spending time out on the back deck. Even at night it's nice to just sit out there and relax chatting with my husband or the boys. To make it more inviting I like to add some lights out there. Using some strings of old Christmas lights and whatever else I had laying around,( A basket ,an empty concrete planter and an old jar), I made a few light pieces for out there.

An old concrete planter that I just stuck an old string of lights in.

The planter in the corner

Here I took an old hanging basket and put an old string of lights in it.

The basket hanging on the railing

Here I took a string of lights and put them in a jar on a table

A close up of the jar

Face lift

Last Saturday we took down this Aluminum Awning that was on the front of our house. It was on the house when we bought it over 2 years ago and I was never really that crazy about it. Now that it is down I like it so much better. Our next step is to power wash the house and then paint. These are some before and after pictures.

This is the only before picture I could find right now. It's a little hard to see it with the snow.

This is after we took it down. It opens things up A LOT..

Can't wait to re paint the shudders and door a different color other than black.

Any suggestions on a new shudder and door color? The house is staying white.

Coupon Caddy

Years ago, when I didn't work outside the home, I use to coupon. I use to go through the sale flier and match coupons up to the sale items making up my list. Even though I was home with 2 little ones, It seemed I had more time to do this then. I use to do pretty well in savings too, sometimes saving up to 70 dollars or more. When I started working outside the home, I just didn't take the time to clip and cut and match. It just got to be to much. Plus taking the time to put them in the coupon holder and try to remember what kind I had just got to be a hassle.


Recently I started watching Extreme Couponing. It is just amazing the money these people save and the time that they put in to couponing. It is a 40 hour or more a week job, literally. I was so impressed that I got my hubby to watch an episode and he was just as impressed. We both came to the same conclusion, why can't we do this? Definitely not to this extreme but hey, those coupons are money and if we worked together ,we could save some on our groceries.


This brings me to the main reason I am doing this Post. To help solve the coupon storage issue that I had a problem with before, I thought it would be so much easier to have all the coupons easily accessible and organized so we could just grab by category with out pulling out a holder. So this is what I did.


I took an old shoe holder that I had. One of the pockets was ripped (so I'll show you what I did with that later).

missing pocket on the top right

After wiping it out I made up labels with a category name and stuck them on the top of the pockets.

listed them in alphabetical order

Then I made up a list of all the categories and listed under some of them what particular items would be in that category. This I figured would assure that my husband and I were on the same page when putting coupons away.

this is where the missing pocket was

This is the finished product. I love it. It makes putting coupons away so much easier and finding them easier too. Now when we go shopping, we just put the ones we want to use and have matched up with the fliers in an envelope and take them with us.

I need your Help Please !!!

Hi Everyone. Tomorrow Nov. 2 is election day and I hope everyone will get out there and Vote. Starting Wed Nov. 3 I am asking you all to Vote again. Won't you Vote for our Kitchen to be rescued ? I have entered this contest and am asking for all of your support. You can Vote more than once and the first 500 voters on the 3rd receive a 25 dollar gift card and every time you vote you are entered for a chance to win a new Kitchen aid mixer.

Thanks for your support.Sears KitchenAid entry from Faith in Colora, MD: "View and rate this contestant's entry for a chance to win a full suite of KitchenAid appliances and more!"

Getting Started

Well this is my first Blog (on here). I have blogged on MS before but I thought I'd give this a try. Since I had to have an account now to comment on my sister and nieces blogs, I figured, What the Heck. Counting Down the days to Settlement, just 4 more to go and still lots to do. As exciting as it is, it will still be sad to go from my parents home again.(first time being when Ken and I got married over 15 years ago). We have been here almost a year. Hadn't expected it to be this long but The Lord knew what he was doing when he put us here. Ken being layed off all summer , car repairs, The plant where Ken worked closing down. Being here has been what we needed and my parents and even my brother (who lives here also,) have been a huge blessing to me and my family. Almost a year after selling our home, Ken has a new job and we are getting ready to move into our new home. I remember thinking it would never happen, but God knew the future.
God is GOOD!!!