If you’ve been around lately you probably already know my storage and organizational dilemma’s. I posted a few days ago about making a Jewelry Frame for my craft/library/spare room. Towards the end I did mention that everything but my bangles had a place to call home.
Well, today I got it done (Pats Back)
Like almost all of my ideas I found these while perusing through the pages of Pinterest! I swear you can find ANYTHING on there!…I’ll stop there before I get into an obsessive rant about it..
This shelf is so easy to make with just simple L brackets from Walmart ($5 for a pack of 4). I put them facing down because I wanted the books to appear to be floating. If you do this make sure your shelf isn’t too heavy (which it wouldn’t be if you are just doing the books) and use anchors for your screws otherwise it could rip out of your wall (No bueno).
….and stack your books on top!
Make sure that it’s nice and level (I took the picture at a weird angle but I promise it’s not lopsided like it seems).
Onto step two and the bulk bangle problem solver!
A paper towel holder. That’s it; that’s all. I found this at the thrift store today for a buck! (not bad ey?)
…………………..and viola!………………..
A Paper towel holder to hold bangles is a genius idea so, kudos to the originator of it!
(Side Note: Seriously, for a girl who can never find the time to wear jewelry, I sure do have a lot of it!)
I consider this my jewelry art wall…..now lets play dress up!! ❤
Here is a super old photo of Marianne and I on one of our birthdays. Marianne has the satisfied smirk on her face (left) and I look like I’m guarding my precious gifts with my life (even though she has the exact same ones).
First off I need to begin with a little song from a cool new band. (Me and my son being silly) I REALLY think they are going to make it big one day!
🙂 Hope you got a chuckle out of that.
Today is me and my twin sisters 28th birthday and because we cannot be together on our birthday I decided about a month ago that I would be on a birthday strike and not celebrate. Instead of celebrating I will pout all day and think about her and what she is doing…and secretly ponder what kind of surprises my amazing hubby (or fiancée but that’s annoying to say all the time) has in store for me this weekend. My personal strike means nothing to Wes because he is a true romantic and knows that sometimes when a woman says no she really means…..I love surprises!!!
This is what I woke up to…
It’s impossible to mope around the house when you wake up to this face and Happy Birthday onesie!
Here is a closer look of the bottom…..He did in fact have a special present. :Nuff said:
After Wes left for work I walked into the living room to this……Surprise! Even when you are almost 30, there is something about balloons and streamers that make it officially feel like it’s your birthday. (He also must have done this in the middle of the night, I’m a lucky woman)
Wrapped inside a perfect purple (my favorite color) bag was a Zumba fitness XBOX game I’ve wanted! Wes says I’m not allowed to open my card yet because it’s part of a later surprise that he has in store for us this weekend. I’ll make sure to keep you posted (I know the suspense is KILLING you…)
So my hubby pulled me out of my birthday funk but I really miss my twin.
My twin Marianne and I live on different coasts, she lives in Massachusetts and I live in California. We are incredibly too far away from each other and complain about it every other day. We are the kind of twins that would joyously live together our whole lives until we are old farts and can’t tie our own shoes. One day we will be together again every day, side by side bantering with our husbands like four farts in the wind, That is my wish.
Anyways, wanted to show you random photos of me and my twin that make me laugh and smile. That’s what I enjoy most in life aside from the beach , a nice slab of chocolate cake, Wes and my son (of course).
Marianne and I loved watching Pinky and the Brain growing up. Determining on the day we switch off who is who but obviously……I am the smarter and more calculating one (The Brain) and she is the dorky, awkward, not as cool one (Pinky)
By the looks of this picture (Marianne on the right) it might seem that she is ready to make a sneak attack! This is something we enjoy doing quite often. I can imagine her ejecting me off of this rocking chair and then running away with her chubby little legs!
I am on the left and hahaha I am having WAY too much fun! Marianne just looks like a schemer as usual.
Here we are being awesome….I am the one with upside down shades on, Marianne is rocking the backwards cap and we are both looking like boys. We were serious Tom boys, fishing, mud pies, rough housing, that was our thing…..
This is one of my favorite pictures. Not because we look like we love each other dearly, but because my collar is popped like one of those jersey shore Guido’s. I know it wasn’t intentionally done to be stylish but it makes me laugh. Marianne is going with the more conservative look by tucking her collar in but I like things a little more flashy! (Cue glitter explosion)
Oh god, look at this picture. We really look like boys in this one and on top of that we are wearing “wife beaters”. I think I am tickling Marianne in this picture but who knows….I might be gearing up to bite her face, maybe pinch her, maybe we are doing Eskimo kisses..that’s it. It’s an Eskimo kiss and I’m sticking to it! Most people don’t know what that is but we always did them as little ones. It’s basically when you rub your noses together. Another one of our favorites is a butterfly kiss, that is batting your eyelashes together.
Here we are FINALLY looking like little ladies in our brownies uniforms. We enjoyed Girl Scouts when there was camping trips and fun things involved but those meetings in the creepy church on weeknights were really dull. I remember causing lots of mischief and being separated a lot.
Fast forward a bit and here we are taking a picture in the car, you cannot see this but we are driving at top speeds. Looking through old pictures we actually did this a lot! We’re lucky to be ALIVE!
We thoroughly enjoy a nice cold brewski! In our younger days Budlight was our beer of choice (or any cheap crappy beer), now that we are more refined we enjoy Blue Moon with an orange slice, and wine, and……mixed drinks. Not all at once! I swear we’re not alcoholics….or are we? ::evil eye::
Here is a sweet picture of me and my beloved at a Cinco De Mayo party many years ago. We’re not Mexican but hey! If there’s Corona’s and a Pinata we’re there! At this party I hit Marianne really hard with a bat (maybe a couple of times), I was blindfolded and mistook her bony arm for the Pinata….I swear I couldn’t see her….:side eye..muah ha haaaaa:
“OW! Charlie bit meeeee!”
I always wanted to be the singer lead singer in a rock n roll band (as you can probably tell from the YouTube video)….Marianne would be my back up fly girl of course.
This is a short time in our lives that we wanted to express our individuality (obviously), we don’t even look like twins and we both hated it. Marianne didn’t have blonde hair for long and I’ve since grown my hair out never to cut it short again….
About 4 years ago we went on a family ski trip to Killington, Vermont. The 3rd day into our week-long vacation My ski got stuck in the snow and didn’t pop off and popped my ACL off instead! The very next day while everyone was out and I was in the cabin all on my lonesome, Marianne comes in on crutches! She tore her ACL too on the same knee…. Coincidence?
This is the first time I caught one of Marianne’s crazy faces on camera! I giggle every time I look at it. We like to make secret crazy faces at each other when we think no one is watching. I bet people actually do see these random faces and think we are weirdos. Are we weirdos? Yes. Do we care? No. (Wes is a first hand witness to these faces and he DEFINITELY thinks were weirdo’s haha)
She thought we were going to take a cute twinsie picture…little did she know. That’s a good-sized bite right there! I bet she has a red whelp for a long time after that one! hahaahaha.
Awww there’s the cute twinsie picture….This was when she was dating her now hubby, pre babies….just frolicking free in the streets of D.C.
Every year we have a big party for our birthday and we call it Crabfest. All of our closest friends, and family get together for crabs, beer, music etc. It started out playing drinking games in the back yard and turned into everyone kids running a muck instead…funny how times change and before you know it you’re an adult. It’s mandatory to take two group pictures, one regular (but very unorganized) picture and one crazy face picture. This is our last Crabfest and our last crazy face group picture. This was Wes’ first time meeting my family and friends (all at once) and I was pregnant (talk about throwing him to the lion’s den)!
This is the most recent picture of us! I was 9 months pregnant in this picture and delivered Adrian about 2 days later with my twin and Wes by my side (The Labor and Delivery Dream Team). She is the mommy of two and I am the mommy of one now. We will be reunited on August 3rd for our family beach trip in North Carolina I am counting the days (note the countdown on the blog)! That is when I plan on celebrating our birthday because I feel weird celebrating without her!
I love Pon and Zi ❤
I’m so incredibly lucky I am a twin. Love you Marianne and I hope you have the best birthday ever.
When I was growing up I wasn’t as lucky as my son to have a stay at home mom. I remember both of my parents working hard to provide for 4 daughters and that meant a lot of fast and easy dinners like hamburger helper and any kind of helper for that matter. It’s definitely not something I would ever frown upon, working all day, feeding a large family, getting all of us ready for bed and then trying to get a little sleep before the next day of work. Jeez Louise, I think my mom was secretly super woman sometimes. On top of that we were all sassy little brats running around fighting like wild hyenas!
It’s not the hamburger helper meals we had that brings a warm fuzzy feeling to my tummy but the momma’s cookin yummy stuff that I remember so well that was like…the stuff that cures all ails.
My mom made (and still does make) a lot of comfort foods that make you want to nap after eating them. That’s how you know its good, when you fall into a food coma shortly after eating. Stews, Soups, Chicken, Steaks…Just anything that you think of as comforting.
Yesterday, Adrian decided it was the type of day where he wouldn’t do anything unless I was holding him and if I thought he was napping…..guess again. By the end of the day, Wes was running late from work and I was completely exhausted. I was in the “I want my mommy” kinda mood……but wait……I AM the mommy now.
So that meant it’s time to do something my momma would do and that’s create a huge vat of chicken and vegetable stew!
Now if I would ask my mom for any of her stew/soup recipes she would say…”Chrissy, just throw some stuff in a big pot and let it simmer for an hour. If it’s too thin add some corn starch, if it’s too thick add some water.” Shes a home cook like that, she never measures, she only eyeballs it. Now that’s the sign of a good cook if you ask me!
With my mother in mind I browned some chicken thighs (3 thighs I had thawed out at the time) then took them out and shredded them up, added some peeled diced potatoes (about 3 large), 1 diced onion, and I had a bag of frozen mixed veggies that I threw in there with it (if it’s the big bag use half). After cooking for a few minutes I added a cup of milk and then enough water to cover it all. Bring it to a boil then simmer for 30 minutes. If it’s too thin do what my momma says and add some corn starch (about a teaspoon)! Should thicken right up!
One slurp of this and it always makes everything allllll better doesn’t it? I’ll make this kind of stuff for Adrian like my momma made it for me. I hope he remembers it as fondly as I do….
BTW: It’s around 280 calories per serving with 12 servings a pot! Til next time!
I’ve recently been coming up with a bunch of recipes that are low cal and mimic my favorite foods. Pizza being in my top five; I couldn’t imagine living life without its cheesy goodness! The photo above is the finished product of one of my favorite’s, BBQ chicken pizza. Because I can only have 1200 Calories per day I count everything on www.MyFitnessPal.com and these recipes are 400 calories or under! The best thing about it is that pizza possibilities are endless and if you copy the secrets to making it low cal ANY pizza you can think up will be under 400 Calories!
Make sure you have low-fat, whole wheat tortilla shells. I used whole wheat medium-sized tortillas and they are 130 Calories each but you can find tortillas that are even lower calorie than that. I started making these healthy pizza’s on English muffins (same calorie count as a tortilla) but my friend told me about the tortilla idea and i never went back! Plus, I like eating English Muffins for breakfast not lunch/dinner.
Cover your tortilla with a tablespoon of sauce. Depending on what kind of pizza you are making a tablespoon of sauce can range between 40 calories to about 5 calories! The BBQ sauce I used for my BBQ chicken pizza was 30 calories (per tablespoon) and the marinara sauce I use for the pepperoni pizza was only 10 calories. Spread the sauce over the tortilla with your measuring spoon like this…..
this is the BBQ Chicken pizza in the making….one for me, one for my hubby.
Next add your toppings but this is where you need to make sure you measure! A 4 oz piece of chicken is 200 calories or more so that alone can make this meal go overboard! I had some left over chicken that I chopped up into really small bites. I measured mine in about 1/2 a cup and put the rest on my hubbies pizza (cause he’s tall and skinny and doesn’t need to count calories ::sigh::). Next I added the cheese which is low-fat skim mozzarella. Use 1/4 of a cup at 80 calories.
The blurred one in the back is my husbands which has more than twice the toppings of my delicious and healthy one in front!
Bake for about 7 minutes at 400 degrees until you can feel the edges are crispy!
I cut mine into 8 mini slices and it’s just perfect! The BBQ Chicken one is only 370 Calories but I’ve also made a Pepperoni (Turkey pepperoni) pizza that is only 270 Calories!
Considering that a single slice of delivery pizza is an average of 280 Calories I’d say go for this if you are having a pizza craving and live without the guilt of ruining your whole day! I promise it’s MEAL sized not snack size!
What an awesome weekend. After some nice hot coffee, playtime with hubby and littles early on Saturday morning it was off to Walmart. Walmart has a way of filling my cart with unneeded (but impulsively wanted) junk and by the time I escaped I was out a hundred bucks! I just wanted some damn chicken!!
I grilled up some delicious buffalo chicken for Wes (one of his favs) and we had good grub and watched the UFC fight!
Go Silva!!! BTW, what was the deal with Forrest walking out of the octagon and then coming back and interviewing Tito like that? I guess he thought he was going to automatically lose the fight cause it was Tito’s last fight and didn’t want to take his glory…….unsportsmanlike in my opinion.
Started out on Sunday working on my green thumb which, currently isn’t green at all but it’s getting there. I have some potted plants that I bought and never replanted them, so they were sulking in sadness. After, re-potting them they looked a little happier, they had more space and some yummy soil to hang out in. I met a little friend too…
named him George, He looks like a George doesn’t he….
Wes and I took little butt butt to the Oceanside Pier in the afternoon….
I can’t wait for him to be big enough to actually enjoy the beach! We stayed for hours and I got a little pink (Ohhh yeahhh), the joys of having untannable Irish skin! To end our beach day I cheated on my diet and had some ice cream (It was worth every single fattening calorie).
Oh weekend, why do you have to leave so fast? Next time, stick around a little longer! I kinda like you.
If you feel anything is lost and cannot be found, fear not if you have a rug rat, they are finders of all lost things.
Beware
~Christine Kay
Adrian’s First Birthday
Planning a small get together with family and CAKE!! Cant wait for our little man to smash and eat his first cake! :)03/19/2013
Time flies by too fast when you have a little one. It seems like yesterday that I was still pregnant! So excited for my growing little man, he's getting so big. :)
….and stack your books on top!
This Life After Single 