Closet Makeover

I'm so excited about this post. The one big disappointment in this whole thing was that I didn't take hardly any before pictures. So you won't really get a feel for how bad my closet situation was. You'll just have to take my word for it.

So my closet has always been so small for a master bedroom closet. There is no way I could fit all of my clothes, shoes, and purses in it and make it look presentable. So most of my shoes were under my bottom rack of clothes & my purses were just stacked in between the shelves & on the floor. And there's no way Vince & I could both fit all of our things in it. It's just really small.

So the first thing I did to clean out my closet was to actually clean out one of my dresser drawers & move all my sweaters into my dresser. Most of my sweaters were just thrown on top of my closet shelves. My next step was to drag out all my purses and get rid of a bunch of them. I think I ended up with about 38 purses to take to Good Will. And here is where I finally took my first picture.


Vince then got involved and we decided that to really get the most use out of my closet, I needed to take off the closet door. It opened into the closet so the right wall was unusable. There was a box that was smack in the middle of the wall that Vince moved to the far right.


I also moved my shoes out from under all my clothes and put them on the shoe racks on the right wall. I gave about 45 pairs of shoes to Good Will. We moved a 2 drawer cabinet into the closet and bought a shoe cubby that fit on top of it. Since I get up before Vince does, I like to keep some under clothes & socks in my closet so I don't have to look for them in my lingerie chest in the dark. Well these were just sort of piled up on top of my shoes. Now they're nicely tucked away in drawers. And all my sandals/flip flops fit in the shoe cubbies.

My jewelry was stored in a plastic jewelry bag that hung on my door knob. Vince found this cool box at Home Depot & it holds all my jewelry perfectly. He hung it on the right wall just above my shoes.

I put all the purses that I kept in blue see through bins & put them on top of my closet.


Vince hung up a belt holder on the wall for all my belts. They were on a hanger taking up hanging space.


Then I had lots of miscellaneous items such as shoe inserts, finger nail polish, and more. We found a Martha Stewart cubby hole system with cloth drawers that fit on the rest of the wall on the right.

The light in my closet was horrible. It was a fluorescent long bulb that belonged in some abandoned warehouse, not a master bedroom closet. Just look how ugly this is. (Yes, the only before picture I have.)

I wanted to get a spot light system with 3 or 4 spot lights on it. Vince thought a dome light would be better. We just couldn't find one that we both liked until we visited the clearance section in Home Depot. We found a dome light with spot lights! It was 40% off too! Look how fabulous it looks! And it's so much brighter! Vince did a great job installing this new light.

While I was in the closet, I took out a few articles of clothing that I no longer wear & gave those to Good Will as well. So in total, I had 4 or 5 bags of things to donate. And my closet looks fantastic!

The only thing left to do is to hang the door back up, but it will open out instead of in. I can't believe how much room I got out of my closet by being able to access one small wall.

Chocolate Dental Cleaning

I went to the dentist today to have my teeth cleaned. Leah is my dental hygienist & does a fabulous job. She doesn't hurt me and has a gentle touch. Right before she started the polishing, I asked her what flavors she had. She mentioned traditional mint, strawberry, some other fruit flavors, and chocolate. Chocolate? That just sounded weird.

So I chose it. I just had to know if your mouth could feel clean with a chocolate taste. It was actually very pleasant. It tasted just like it, but right after she rinsed my mouth the flavor was gone. It reminded me of chewing gum. Once you spit it out, you don't really taste it anymore.

And the other strange thing is that is was dark brown. I asked her is she was polishing my teeth into a nice brown color. She said it washes away & it did. So I had nice white teeth afterward. And I made her & Dr. Beard pose for a picture.

As I checked out, I snapped a picture of the office manager, Jerod, but he made me promise not to put his picture on the web.

I got the only red toothbrush as I left. Leah told me Dr. Beard doesn't like the red ones because it reminds him of blood and he doesn't want people thinking of blood when they brush their teeth. Interesting aversion to red. I like red!

Baking Baking Baking

So over the last couple of months, my baking has really kept me busy. I used to have a week off here or there or sometimes two or three weeks off in a row. Now I hardly have three days off in a row. I have stayed busy non stop. It's been lots of fun using my fondant techniques. I am still working on perfecting them. Sometimes just when I think I did a great cake, I'll have a wrinkle on the next cake. But I still like practicing to make it better.

I am also staying busy with the cake pops. They're not my favorite to make because they are so time consuming. I mean they take forever. And almost every one of them cracks on the first dip. I've researched how to prevent the candy coating from cracking and have not had a lot of luck with some of their techniques to try. Mine still crack. I bought a type of wax shaving to use with the candy melts that is supposed to work well. I am also going to try to dip the cake balls after they come to room temperature. My only problem with that is that they may be too soft when they're not cold and may fall off the stick when dipping. So I'll keep trying to find out what can prevent the cake pops from cracking. And maybe one day I'll get faster at it. The end results are just too cute to not keep working on them.

Spring Has Sprung

All of my flowers are growing green sprouts. My daffodils, tulips, and other unknown flowers are in bloom. The roses have new growth on them and the weeping cherry tree just got its first pink blooms this week.

My car is also growing a yellow film on it. It's almost impossible to keep the car clean during this pollen phase. It's just everywhere and covers everything in about 5 minutes. I'll try to keep it clean some, but it will be difficult. I don't enjoy the pollen that comes with all the beautiful spring time flowers, but I do like all the bright green that I see everywhere.

Uncle Bill's Funeral

Vince's Uncle Bill passed away this past weekend. We attended his funeral yesterday in Greenville. It was a lovely tribute to a dear sweet man. The military saluted his casket, did the flag ceremony, and played Taps on the trumpet. It was so nice to see lots of family members and to meet some new ones. It seems like weddings and funerals always bring families together.

Uncle Bill's children Billy & Connie

Uncle Bill's brother & children

Montgomery, Alabama

I finally made it to see my cousin Rachel and her family in Montgomery, Alabama. I flew standby early on Thursday morning. I was able to get on both the flight to Atlanta & the one to Montgomery and arrived before 9am. We ate at a local restaurant for breakfast called Wagon Wheel Too. It was great southern cooking. The grits didn't even need salt.

Ravyn has a class project to grow a huge cabbage. She had to water it every day.

We went on a shopping spree for the day out and about town.



Cody was saying "cheese" under the hat.




We ate lunch at Red Robin followed by indoor ice skating at the local mall. I hadn't been ice skating in many years. I forgot how sore my ankles get. After about 15 minutes, I called it quits & let Pat skate with Ravyn. The kids enjoyed the carousel, but neither chose a horse to ride.

Cody was too scared to try ice skating. Rachel cooked us some fabulous fish for dinner.

On Friday, we went to the local zoo.


We had to pay $2 per person to go see & feed the giraffes. I made sure to get several pictures of it since we had to pay extra.



The weather was perfect all weekend. We packed some sandwiches for lunch & made a day of the zoo. They had a great picnic area right next to a huge playground. We then ventured over to Bass Pro Shops.




I wanted the $33,000 boat. We relaxed on it & took some pictures.

But I refrained from buying it. I fixed some chicken fajitas for an early dinner & then went to watch Ravyn spar in her karate class. She's a green belt. When we got home, I made cake balls.


On Saturday, we drove an hour to Birmingham to visit the science center/children's museum. We packed sandwiches again & had a picnic in the lunch room at the science center & they got to sample some of my cake balls (strawberry flavor). The center was huge. We spent hours there and probably still missed some things.




I thought this restroom sign was funny (right next to the pork & beans can).



I also thought this out of order water fountain worked so well.


We got to pet sharks and sting rays there, too. For dinner, we ate at P.F. Chang's. Yum!!! I went to bed early Saturday night so I could wake up at 3:30am Sunday morning. Pat dropped me off at the airport at 4:30am to catch the 5:30am flight. I didn't get on the flight and they canceled the 7:30am flight. The 9:30 flight was already overbooked before they canceled the 7:30am one, so I had no option but to drive to Atlanta. Rachel was nice enough to pick me up at the airport at 6:30am and we drove to Atlanta. I was able to get on the 11:05am flight to GSP.

It was a great trip & we had a lot of fun each day. Here's a video of Ravyn sparring. She's in the green belt.