Growing up in Alabama, you had to be either an Alabama fan or an Auburn fan.

In high school, you were a sophomore, a senior, or a whole group of other labels that I’m choosing to forget.

Now there are more and more labels for the type of food people eat: Slow food, Gluten-free, GFCF, GAPS, Weston A Price, Maker’s Diet, Nourishing Traditions, and on and on and on.

But at home when it’s just us, the food is just good food. In our kitchen, we have two important labels: you are a maker or a taster.

Doug’s a maker. He gets mad when I sample the bacon in the midst of preparations.

Lane and I are tasters. We try so much cookie dough that we don’t want to eat the cookies.

It’s important to know and understand the two when cooking with someone else. And now, thanks to your countless cookbook recommendations, I have a full reading list. I can’t wait to get started.

___
© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
Makers & Tasters: Labels in the Kitchen

Early Sunday morning Daylight Saving Time starts, so if that applies where you live, you’ll get to set your clocks ahead one hour.

I love having that hour of light at the end of the day, but it messes up my sleep routine and I feel out of sorts for several days.

Prepare for Daylight Saving Time a little at a time. Go to bed a little early tonight, and tomorrow, Friday morning, wake up 20 minutes earlier than you normally do. On Saturday morning wake up 20 minutes earlier than that. On Sunday morning when your alarm goes off at the regular time it’s just a 20 minute shift instead of an hour. You could wake up feeling rested on Monday morning instead of dragging your feet over the lost hour of sleep.

I’m hoping that my kids who wake up with the sun will sleep an hour later now!

The night before last I didn’t sleep (or even go to bed) at all. The kids took turns waking up every half hour. By four in the morning I reached that crucial decision-making point of whether I should go to bed to get two hours of sleep or stay awake and push through ’til morning.

I don’t think there’s a winning answer to that question. I stayed awake, and it felt like the longest day. What do you do in that situation?

___
© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
Spring Forward a Little at a Time

Photo by Tazmany

Guests were coming over, so we hurried around the house doing a last-minute pick up. I don’t really need to explain, because I know you’ve done it too.

A skirt had been sitting on my hope chest for so long. For weeks, probably. As I picked it up to hang it back in the closet, it seemed so easy to put it away. It took less than forty seconds to get the hanger and put it back in the closet where it was supposed to go.

Why had I looked at that skirt for so long instead of putting it away sooner? I let it clutter up my bedroom instead of taking care of that one small thing.

Lots of easy things can make a real difference to your home. Short on time? Here are thirty more things you can do that take one minute or less:

2. turn on upbeat music

3. wipe crumbs off the table

4. take something to another room where it goes

5. reply to an email (one email, don’t get lost in your email inbox)

6. water a plant

7. file a paper

8. empty a trash can

9. check the toilet paper supply

10. wipe spots off a mirror

11. bring empty glasses back to the kitchen

12. put your plate in the dishwasher

13. start the dishwasher

14. cut a loose string off your clothing

15. swish a brush around the toilet bowl

16. hang the towels up off the floor

17. shake out the welcome mat

18. sweep the entryway to your home

19. check your calendar

20. toss the junk mail

21. put your bag by the door so it’s ready to go

22. toss old vegetables from the fridge

23. stack magazines and remove the old ones

24. throw dirty clothes in the laundry basket

25. rinse off the soap dish

26. add a couple things to your grocery list

27. plug in your cell phone to charge it

28. take receipts out of your wallet

29. close drawers and cabinet doors

30. put your shoes away

31. give someone a hug

Are you ready? Go!

___
© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
31 Things You Can Do in 1 Minute (or Less)

Photo: The commute where I prayed that my ‘92 Ford Tempo would get me to work and back home again.

Accustomed to the activity of college life, staring at a computer screen for eight hours in a cubicle every day exhausted me. I came home to my one-bedroom, single-girl apartment and slept. I slept all the time, for several weeks.

In my awkward business-casual attire, I longed for days when I could wear my overalls to class and my favorite pink Patsy Cline cowgirl shirt.

Making friends was slow-going, and new friends often moved away. What was the point of living somewhere where I didn’t have relationships? I wanted to run back to my college town where I still had friends.

I got used to cooking for one, freezing leftovers, and listening to the hum of the dishwasher. I bought a washing machine and a dryer. Most of my furniture was still garage-sale castoffs. I gradually started cleaning out some of the clutter I had brought with me in my hurry to furnish a home by myself.

One thing I bought new was my Fiesta plates (six place settings, each in a different color), and I still use those today.

It was after I’d lived in this apartment for a couple of years that I started dating my future-husband Doug, though we only saw each other once in a while since we didn’t live in the same city. He was carefully vague about what he thought would be the future of our relationship, so I decided not to wait around.

I was ready to shed the temporary feeling of an apartment, and my rent was going up. Doug and I seemed to have different life goals, so I decided that we shouldn’t date. We broke up.

It was the early days of the housing bubble, interest rates were low, and buying a home was the thing to do. I wanted to feel established. I bought a condo by the lake (the second place I looked at), and even though it was dated, I had seen enough home makeovers on HGTV to imagine its potential.

A couple of hours after getting the keys, I remembered that I didn’t know how to do any of those repairs. I was short on funds, the condo needed a ton of work, and I didn’t know how to change a light fixture, much less repair the shower.

All those hours spent watching HGTV had failed me.

–To be continued. –

___
© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
Making a Home: The Single Girl Apartment

A mantelpiece is grand over a fireplace, but it just so happens to also be the perfect fit behind a queen-sized bed.

Let’s pull back the covers and I’ll show you how we turned this mantel into a headboard.

We found the mantel on Craigslist. It was originally in an old house in the nicer part of town, and the owners were renovating. The mantel was already painted white.

The gaping hole where the fireplace would be is covered with a piece of plywood, which is padded with two layers of felt and topped with linen. We wrapped the fabric around to the back of the plywood and stapled it with a staple gun.

Once the fabric was in place, we mounted the plywood to the mantel on the back using 3 L brackets on both sides and 4 along the top. The plywood only goes down as far as a couple of inches below the top of the mattress (the part that you see), not all the way to the floor.

Since we live in an apartment, we didn’t want to do any heavy installing to permanently mount it to the wall. It’s mostly held in place by the mattress and box spring, and a lone L bracket attaches the top of the mantel to a stud in the wall, to prevent it from tipping.

It’s a big space-spacer for our bedroom, since we don’t need bedside tables. We just set our drinks and books on top of the mantel.

The bed sits on a $40 metal frame.

The silver serving trays were inherited from Doug’s granny. They still have her name written on stickers on the back from times she took them to church suppers. They are hung on the wall with big plate hangers. If it’s pretty, then we want to display it. We wouldn’t want to buy wall decorations while something pretty stays stored in the closet.

Looking for more DIY headboard ideas?

Wallpaper headboard from Blueprint

French Inspired Fabric Covered Headboard from Centsational Girl

Door headboard from Martha Stewart

Grace’s upholstered otomi headboard from Design*Sponge

Lydia’s embroidered headboard from Design*Sponge

Burlap headboard with nailhead trim from Imperfect

___
© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
The Grand Mantelpiece Headboard

A budget doesn’t help you unless you use it. Much is said about making a budget, but what do you with one after you’ve got it?

Doug and I sat down together this weekend, since it was the end of the month, and we looked at our budget and spending. It didn’t take much time, because there shouldn’t be any surprises.

Here is what we discussed:

1. We didn’t go anywhere because it was so cold outside, so my gas expenses were down.

2. I think our food costs are high. Doug says to keep it the same, because he likes our food and we don’t go out often.

3. There’s a dentist bill I don’t like very much. Moving on…

4. With spring coming, what do our wardrobes look like? Can last year’s clothes make it through the end of this summer? Does anyone need shoes?

5. We made a decision that it’s time to replace our old car. Our old car is twelve years old, and our “new” car is eleven years old. We plan to buy one with cash and avoid debt, so we talked about what kind to buy and how much we can afford.

When looking at a budget, whether it’s for you or it’s you and a spouse, there are a few key concepts to keep in mind:

Add grace to your budget.

There are bound to be accidents and mistakes. How do you categorize them? We literally have a line item in our budget called Grace. It helps us to not be mad when one of us does something wrong. (Read more about adding grace to your budget.)

There will be expenses you don’t like.

Chalk them up to the “cost of living.” Acknowledge them, but don’t dwell on them.

Plan your actions for next month.

Your budget needs to be tweaked from month to month. What will you try to do differently, and what purchases do you plan to make?

A budget isn’t supposed to make you feel trapped or constrained. It’s not there to make you feel bad. It isn’t something you use to pick fights with your husband. It isn’t someone standing over you questioning your every expense.

It’s a planning tool, and it’s yours. It’s there to put you in the driver’s seat so you don’t have to wonder where your money went at the end of the month. It’s there to help. Use it.

___
© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
You’ve Got a Budget, Now What?

The first home that I made for myself was when I was a college student twelve short years ago. I lived in a blue house on Gorman Avenue in Waco, Texas.

The house was old, built in the ’20s, and it was divided into four apartment units. My roommate and I shared the apartment on the upper right with big windows surrounded by trees that when the leaves were green made me feel like I lived in a treehouse.

The rent was $350 a month, which we split, and for $175 each we got a big apartment with hardwood floors and run-down charm.

There was no dishwasher, no laundry, and of course no central heat or air conditioning. My bedroom had an air conditioner window unit that didn’t work at all, and the other bedroom had one that worked too well, so depending on where you sat in the apartment you could either sweat or freeze your buns off. The heater was an old gas unit that roared when I turned it on in the mornings. The old plumbing had a rag stuffed in it to stop leaks. The plumber just shook his head.

The kitchen had glass cabinet doors, a pile of dirty dishes in the sink because we had no time to wash them, and a wide staircase outside the screened back door. I loved living there. That neighborhood felt like a different era. We sweated in the humid Texas summer, ate $2 burritos from down the street, and sat on the back stairs when it rained. I had a life-changing moment the day I realized that if I never owned more, I could be content.

Our neighbors were an eccentric bunch. One man wandered up and down the streets talking to himself and asking for cigarettes. The neighbor on the other side of the fence liked to mow his grass while wearing a bandana on his head and little shorts. The old men who lived across the street sat on the porch all day and yelled Good Morning at us when we left for school.

I always had full days at school but I came home whenever I could.

My roommate watched Days of Our Lives weekdays at 3:00 p.m. with a Diet Coke. The screened windows would be open to catch the breeze. Our couch was a garage sale find for $10, and the pink chair was $5. (Small town garage sales are the best!) The coffee table was $5 as well. We often rearranged the furniture at two in the morning, because what else do you do?

That home was where I wondered who I might marry someday, where I panicked over career paths, and where I dyed my hair to see if I would look better as a blonde. (I don’t. And always do the small test section first. And be sure to rinse it out when the instructions say, don’t just leave it in there because it seems like it hasn’t worked yet.)

We thought nothing of inviting thirty people over for dinner. With the small table commandeered as a buffet, our friends found places to sit in our apartment with plates of spaghetti balanced on their knees. We went to Kinko’s to print fliers to pass out to anyone who wanted to come over and watch the football game with us.

With some close friends, I’m the second girl from the right.

It was good to have friends, and we dropped by each other’s apartments with ease and welcome.

Back in those days, my cell phone was as big as a one-pound breakfast sausage, and I never used it because the network coverage wasn’t built yet. Home internet access was another luxury no one had. We had to talk in person, and it was no problem because we saw each other all the time.

Home was a place where I could grow community.

Then I graduated, got a job, and moved to a town north of Houston, and suddenly…

I was completely alone.

–To be continued. –

___
© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
Making a Home: The Beginning

As I browsed through online articles about organizing, I came across a “quick and easy” tip that would help you to be more organized.

It left me, frankly, troubled.

The advice was clear: you should make a catalog of your stuff — specifically, your books, music, and movie collections. Then if you want to know what you have, you can look at your list. Keeping such a list could help you remember and prevent you from buying duplicates of a book or a movie that you already own.

Dear readers, if you need a catalog of your stuff to remember what you have, then you have too much. A glance to your bookshelf should be enough of a reminder of the books that you own.

If you’re thinking about buying something but you can’t remember if you already own it, don’t buy it. If you do own it, it’s obviously not useful or memorable enough to justify buying it again. And if you don’t have it yet, it wouldn’t hurt to wait a couple of days. Don’t let an interesting hobby of reading books, listening to music, or watching movies turn into a habit of buying and owning.

There might be a couple of instances when a list could help. Maybe a list of the stuff in your attic, since you don’t go up there much. Or maybe a list to help you remember what’s wrapped in tin foil in the bottom of the freezer. Even for insurance purposes, a photo of a collection will generally suffice.

Maintaining a catalog means sitting at your computer typing it up, formatting it, and updating it regularly. This is not true organization! Why keep a list of stuff when you can just look at your actual stuff? The list will keep you busy, yes. But productive? No.

Every effort to organize should start with the question, “What problem will this solve?” Please don’t make lists of your stuff. Let’s make sure all of our endeavors are worthwhile.

___
© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
Don’t Try This at Home: The Organizing Tip that Won’t Help You

In our two-bedroom apartment, Lane (age 3) and Tom (5 months) share a bedroom. We call it the nursery.

If it looks big in the photos, it’s because we kept the furniture to a small scale to save space. (For example, Lane has a toddler bed instead of a twin.) We wanted to maximize the open floor space so there could be plenty of room to play.

Our home is grounded in shades of brown — wood, leather, baskets, and linen — and the nursery has its share of brown too. We balanced it with white curtains and bedding to emphasize the light that pours in the southern window. The kids’ toys and accessories provide the bright colors without being too much.

Colorful outfits on wooden hangers announce who lives in this room.

In the center is an iron mantle I found at an antique junk shop. It had an amazing patina, but rusty bare iron isn’t well-suited for a nursery, so we had to paint it. I’m still not sure how I feel about that.

If you’re counting, I have three mantels, but no real fireplace. (The others are the one in the living room and the one we use as a headboard in the bedroom.)

In one corner is the play kitchen, and it’s set apart from the rest of the room by a heavy brown sewing cabinet I bought at a flea market 10 years ago.

Over the years the sewing cabinet has been storage, a diaper changing table, and most recently, a hiding place. A couple of years ago we put a light, a bench, and a secret shelf inside.

The dresser is a Craigslist find. The kids’ clothes fit in the dresser, which makes their closet available for general household storage (the back room).

We turned vinyl rain gutters into book shelves. They can be cut to any length, and these are mounted on the wall behind the door. It’s an efficient way to use space that would otherwise be empty.

Details

The simple chandelier is a single lamp cord with 11 small glass balls from CB2 suspended around it. I made it in 20 minutes, and the instructions are here. Total cost: $30.

We made the bed canopy by hanging a pair of sheer curtains from IKEA on a big embroidery hoop. I wasn’t sure if it would last, but we hung it up about a year ago and it still looks nice. Total cost: $8.

There’s no fancy toy storage here. The shelves are just two boards and a couple of brackets. The baskets are from IKEA.

Lane uses the top shelves and Tom gets the bottom shelf.

We keep only half of the toys available at a time, and the rest of the toys go in a storage box in the back room. It would be better if this box wasn’t see-through.

The dollhouse is the first thing kids are drawn to when they come over to play. Doug built it for Lane from a kit. The furniture is from my vintage Little People dollhouse.

The magnetic boards are great for a child’s room or a homeschool classroom. They are found at IKEA also.

Under the crib makes a nice reading spot. We pile a bunch of pillows and blankets under there to make a nest.

The much-loved cardboard robot was shared here.

~ The End ~

___
© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
Lane & Tom’s Shared Nursery Tour

When we desired a new light to go over the dining table, I wasn’t thinking about making one. Then I remembered designer Jean Pelle’s instructions to make a chandelier at ReadyMade.

A chandelier would be much nicer than our old light fixture.

The original design for the chandelier used porcelain sockets and coiled string. We used galvanized pipe and IKEA.

Materials

• 18 4-inch glass bubble balls from CB2 ($2 each)
• 4 cord sets from IKEA ($4 each)
• 20 gauge floral wire ($1)
• fishing line ($1)
• galvanized electrical conduit and fittings ($12)
• 4 25-watt clear bulbs ($1 each)

Total cost: $70

Method

1. Use scissors to cut the floral wire into 1.5″ lengths, and then bend a small loop.

2. Tie fishing line through the wire loop, and push it into the hole in the glass ball. Now you can hang it.

3. The cords run through the pipe and join at the top.

Is the light off-center over your table? No problem, you can extend it as far as you need. You can also paint it. We like the industrial look.

(Don’t be confused by the change in wall color. Our lease says we can only paint one accent wall per room, so the ceiling and other walls are apartment-beige.)

4. You can see how the lamp cords come out the bottom. Start tying the glass balls to the end of the pipe.

5. Keep adding more until you think you have enough.

And that’s it! We like it, so we made a smaller, easier version for the nursery too.

___
© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
DIY Glass Bubble Chandelier