Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Time for a New Clock

Shortly after moving into our previous home, I found a great deal on a wall clock.  It was $6, at the grocery store, and served us well for many years.  Every now and then, we would switch out the battery when it stopped keeping accurate time, and it would continue to run like a champion.  A few times, it got knocked off the wall and after about 5 years, it was being held together with masking tape.  When we moved, it took another hit and the time-keeping mechanism pooped out.  So I went to Hobby Lobby in search of a new part, but the new part cost more than the clock did in the first place, so I decided to put my old wall clock to rest.  You can sort of see it in the top left of this picture:

P1160068Since then, I have been keeping an eye out for a decent deal on a new clock.  The other day while I was at Hobby Lobby {hmmm…I’m seeing a trend}, I was making my way to the paint isle when I glanced down.  I was inadvertently in the clock isle and there was a really great clock with the most beautiful chippy rusty turquoise finish I had ever seen.  In fact, a few months earlier at the Parade of Homes, I had admired one just like it. 

P1170361But the tag said $199.00{!} and it was broken.  I started to walk away and then thought maybe I would just check to see if they would give me a deal on it.  I took it up front and the girl told me that usually the highest amount they could give off of an item was 60%, but she would check with a manager to see what they could do.

P1170362 I went and got my paint and then went back to the front register where the girl told me that the manager said that in this case, they could do 80% off.  For a minute I thought she had said 18% off, because no way were they going to do 80%. 

But they did!

Naturally, I could not leave the 80% off clock at the store, so I bought it.

As I was checking out, the girl looked at me skeptically and said, “So, how are you going to fix this?”

P1170364I said that I wasn’t going to fix it, that I would probably just remove the broken piece, and then left the store—kind of quickly so they wouldn’t change their minds.

P1170365 When I got it home, I thought that the best way to remove the broken piece would be to unscrew it, but it was filled with plaster, so because I am lazy and didn’t want to chip it out I started to look for another way to remove it, and lo and behold, there was a nut underneath it in the back that I easily unscrewed in about 7 seconds.

P1170366 After the broken piece was off, I decided that I liked it even better than if it would have had been unbroken.

P1170464P1170465  Hooray for Hobby Lobby!

This post was not sponsored by Hobby Lobby, I just love a great deal!

Thursday, January 24, 2013

January Visiting Teaching Message

This month’s message is on sharing your testimony and on missionary work.

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I especially liked President Uchtdorf’s quote about testimony--

“The Lord…entrusts a testimony of the truth to those who will share it with others.”

Sometimes, I get nervous when it comes time to share my testimony, but I want my testimony to grow, and I certainly want to be someone that the Lord can trust…so I will be trying to bear my testimony more often, and put my fears aside.

For this month’s handout, you will need 2 sheets of paper.  You will also need 2 candy bars. 

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Print the message, and the tag for the candy bars.

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Cut the labels, and tape them around the two candy bars.

P1170443 I used some twine to tie the candy bars and the message together.

P1170440 Happy Visiting Teaching!

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

mmmonday {Spicy Salsa}

When I was younger, my family would come home from church on Sundays and pull out the Pace Picante Sauce.  We would add cheese to the salsa and warm it up in our new {giant} microwave. 

After I was married, we would buy Tostitos Restaurant Style Salsa.  It was delicious.  We would eat it cold, and it had a great flavor.

When we lived in Saratoga, we found a great fresh salsa made by Rico in Salt Lake City.  We usually got the mellow roasted, but when we were feeling extra crazy, we would get the Poco Loco. 

With the Rico salsa, we were forever changed.  We realized that we loved fresh salsa—sure it was a little more expensive, but we couldn’t go back.

Now, if you’ve followed along for a while, you know that I love a good deal {cheap or free}.  It pains me to pay too much for something, and salsa is no different.  A few times, I tried to replicate the Rico salsa with very bad results.  It seemed as though we were destined to have to run to the store for our salsa fix for the rest of time.

And then.

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I found this recipe.

I tweaked it a little and {heavenly choirs singing}

It is so good.

So good that I may have eaten the sample I put in the dish to photograph for this blog post, when I realized that my camera battery was dead and I had to charge it for a minute…even though it is 7:30 in the morning. 

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And it is waaaaaay less expensive.

So here you go—here is the recipe.  Free yourselves from grocery store salsa!

 Recipe-Spicy Salsa copy

Friday, January 11, 2013

How to Save $850 {Subway Sign Art}

Subway Sign Art Houston

This one from Restoration Hardware is my favorite.

Any guesses how much this one costs?

$850.

That's dollars, not pennies, folks.

I'm not kidding.

So I decided to try to make one.

When it comes to the things I put on my walls, I'm a little weird.

I want to look at things that mean something to me--things that I love.

So I made my subway sign art using the names of the places or streets that we have lived.

I started with this thrifted art,

P1170028Then painted it with chalkboard paint, because that is the only black paint I had on hand, and also, I was considering a chalk dust look.

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Next, I printed out the words I wanted on my sign.  I messed with font size for a while, till I found what worked best.

P1170045 To transfer the letters to the sign, I used this tutorial and it worked like a charm.

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Next, I used a white pen to fill in the letters.

P1170195 I painted a clear varnish over it, {which completely erased all signs of my chalky look}

blog photo …and I’m done!

blog photo2 copy

Windows live writer test

I’m checking to see if this works.

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Monday, January 7, 2013

Hello

Hey guys,
I've spent the last week dealing with issues with my blogger account.
For some reason, I can't get it to upload pictures.  At all.
I hope you will all bear with me until I figure this out!

Kathy

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