When it rains, it pours.

What a CRAZY weekend! It went from being crazy booked ...to not booked because I was getting sick so I was laid up on the couch all Saturday morning trying to feel better. Then we get a phone call that Ciarra (Uber's niece) had been burned when a kid decided it would be funny to throw gasoline on a fire at a party she was at the night before and that she had been medi-evac'd from Pensacola to Shands in Gainsville. So we took off to see her (Gainsville is about an hour and a half from our house) she is doing pretty well. They were initially worried her lungs were burned, but they aren't. She now just has to deal with being 18 and having 1st and 2nd degree burns on her face. They are keeping her in the hospital until at least Tuesday to make sure that she wont need skin grafts. We are very thankful that it wasn't worse and very hopeful that there will be little to no scarring. So if you can also remember her in your prayers we would really appreciate it.

And once again with no good way so segue... I am really hoping these types of posts are over.

We did manage to get the garage completed... FINALLY!!! And I LOVE IT! (hopefully Uber loves it too... though I am not sure because I am so loud about the fact that I love it! )

The dark grey area of the floor is an 1/2" thick floor mat that is really comfortable to stand on while you are working or just hanging out.

You can now see where the flag is hanging...

This is the shelf we have been waiting on FOREVER it's from costco (lesson learned - GRAB IT WHEN YOU SEE IT... we have been waiting 2 months for this to be restocked... and they aren't great with giving dates because is has been supposed to be in tomorrow for the whole of the two months....) We looked everywhere else and no other shelf was this nice. It holds up to 2,000 pounds on each shelf, the shelves are wire so the dust can drop to the ground (I REALLY like that!) All of Uber's tools go on this shelf. I only took over the top one to store the extra shelves from the house and our xmas tree.

This work bench is AMAZING it is also a costco find and is SUPER heavy duty -8 ft long and is just pretty to look at.
Uber built the peg board and has it all framed out and pretty, which just thrills me to no end! I always loved seeing framed out peg board in magazines.

The cabinets are our old kitchen cabinets that the builder accidently destroyed (as far as being used in the kitchen goes) while trying to do a quick repair. They look great in the garage!

Getting the bikes up off the ground is great, it gave us alot more floor space. Uber built the little shelf by the door which is just adorable it holds all of his screws and nails in yummy jelly jars : ) I can't wait to hang cute things off the hooks!

Oh and note the hot water heater in it's cute blanket (I really dont think they help...darn you oprah... hahaha)

Ubers birthday gift which we will finally be getting more use out of now that the gargage is clean!

I hate storing things I managed to get all of our storage down to these containers and actually the top rack is all sports and out door stuff the middle rack is all christmas and the bottom rack is ... well packing popcorn because I hate tossing it so it is accumulating with a vengance... So I think I am doing pretty well if I could just part with the popcorn...

I hope you enjoyed the tour of the garage... sorry it took so long. I am off to bed now 30 minutes late... Uber is definately over it!

Where have the last 11 days gone?

I didn't mean to be gone this long! Actually I didn't mean to be gone at all. It's been a long week and I just haven't had the energy to post anything.
One of our preachers had a massive heart attack last Tuesday and unfortunately isn't going to going to recover from it. He is only 57 and is leaving behind a wife and two daughters. I am confident that he is in a better place, but I am incredibly sad for his family and especially his daughters who won't have their father with them when they graduate in a few months. It's been a very tough reminder of just how short life is and just how quickly it can change. Please pray for them.
Sorry to bum you all out. And since there is no good way to change the subject after that I am just going to move on. I have actually been keeping myself VERY busy crafting and I will be showing you some of it shortly ... but not just yet.
Meanwhile something I can show you. We have a bunch of Ubers old bachelor days art work still hanging around in the garage. I don't necessarily dislike it (well all of it) but it doesn't exactly fit with our current decor and can sometimes offend people ...ha... anyway this is what was in the frame before hand.
Mom and Dad had sent this flag to Uber it's from a race that is held every year at our favorite place to ski. I have been wanting to get it up somewhere but ...well where do you hang a big orange flag? The answer is in the garage!

I think it looks pretty awesome! Total cost $2 for the black foam core... loving that and the pop of color it is adding to the garage...which I am VERY hopeful to be showing you very soon.

Art Board Tutorial

I just thought I would give you guys a brief run down/source list on how we made the Art Board in Micah's room.... just in case anyone wants to make one of their own.

I thought this project up when we were in the process of moving and had this huge 4'x8' pegboard that once hung in our garage. We either needed to store or get rid it, as we don't have a garage in our new place. Really it was just too nice of a piece to get rid of. Uber made it with molding that I can't seem to locate more of - it's basically a picture frame molding that used to be sold at building supply stores... not sure what it's called or why no one here seems to carry it any longer. 

Mom bought the Martha Stewart Organizing Magazine to get us ready for spring ... and my move... and in it her people used a peg board in a kids bathroom which made me think how awesome it would be in a kids room.    

So we started with this already built frame. 

From Ikea we picked up:

The shelf - EKBY JÄRPEN/ EKBY BJÄRNUM - in the 7 1/2" depth

Bins - RATIONELL

Rail- GRUNDTAL

Paper - MÅLA

I just played with the heights for these until I was happy with the placement. Then we centered them and used toggle bolts to hold the the shelf and rail in place. 

The Grundtal Rail has screws on the ends of the bar so when the paper needs to be replaced we can just undo those and slide on a new roll. 

The bins are all held on by small pegboard hooks- this way they can be rearranged in the future if the supplies being stored need more space. 

The sheet metal was a bit more tricky- home improvement stores didn't carry a large enough piece so luckily Mum deals with First Coast Sheet Metal (no website but you could look them up if your local. I would recommend them) through work, so she ordered a custom piece cut to the exact size I needed with rolled edges- I am sure you could just look up a company in the phone book and have the same thing done. It was relatively inexpensive - around $40 which if you price out the smaller pieces sold in Home Depot or Lowes you would be up over that price and would still have to figure out how to cut it yourself.

I'm sure they could have drilled holes for us but I am not that on my game so Uber had to do it when I got the metal home and marked the back. 

He used a nail punch to dent the metal where he would be drilling

And then slowly gauged up with the drill bits 

The tear bar is a short piece of aluminum that I found in the metal section at Lowes.

The sheet metal and tear bar were all secured with a bolt on the front and a washer and nut on the back. 

The sheet metal serves a couple of purposes- smooth drawing surface, magnet board and can also be used as a white board. 

I used my silhouette machine to make these chalkboard vinyl labels (since I had vinyl on hand from the stair numbers) but Martha Stewart sells the same thing at Staples. I used a chalk pin to write on the labels so they can be redone in the future.

 And of course don't forget to secure the board to the wall so you don't have to worry about it falling over on anyone. We have ours leaning too - the bottom is about 6 inches out from the wall. 

I can not express to you how much I LOVE this project. It's really fun and I think it will grow with him. I have all sort of fun ideas for magnets!!

And no post about the boys room is complete without a picture of the boy himself- his dad taught him how the drill works.... not really something I appreciate....he is crazy about tools

Should an 19 month old be able to lift a drill? 

Well he can and he is very proud of himself.

Cause we are CRAZY....

So here's my garden. Previously all my plants were in the ground but this last winter we had so many freezes (and I forgot to cover them... oops) that all the plants but my jasmine died. So I moved them all to containers when I replaced them. It has worked out to be so much nicer in my small space since I can just move them when they grown too large for their spot.
unfortunately the bark has been driving me up a wall it tracks in to the porch area, looks messy and seems to get all sorts of garbage stuck in it...plus the bugs that crawl in it ... gag!

I also hate that the grill takes up one whole side of our small planting area. It's a large black sun blocking blob. We got a huge grill when we moved in thinking we would have all sorts of gatherings ... unfortunately that hasn't really panned out. I think we will be replacing it next year with a smaller one that we can keep in the garage (Florida humidity eats grills so this not cheap grill is already biting the dust) I am really thinking about making a list of all the things people who are moving to Florida need to know about Florida... I just thought people grilling outside their garage was hick-ish... Now I know keeping you grill inside keeps it from rotting.

So Uber finally gave into my pleading to do something about it and we got to work Friday. We cleared the mulch (reusing it in the beds behind our house) and Uber broke up the ground and got it all leveled out. We had to carry all of the extra dirt (actually clay) out by hand and dump it in some sand dunes near our house.

I carried all of these bricks... 340... from the truck... which wasn't close uber estimates it was a good 75 feet away.

Saturday we got up early to beat as much of the heat as we could and got to work.

I decided on a herring bone pattern. But turned on its side so there wouldn't be any diagonal cutting. Uber was very worried when I laid it out the first time on a diagonal... I was just trying to figure out the correct pattern.

The sides were too small for the pattern so we just laid it staggered.

Halving the bricks.

Here's me laying my half. I would say we split the work evenly on this project... which is saying a lot because normally Uber does most of the heavy work.

Uber doing the final sweep with sand.

I can't tell you how thrilled I am about this. I really wish it could be seen from inside the house.

Pavering around the corner allowed us to tuck the grill along the side. I love how you can tell how much space we have out here now. Before it looked so crowded.

It took us roughly 7 hours to get about 70 sq feet laid.... I think it was totally worth it... though we are both completely exhausted.

I think I may make this picture my screen saver I like it so much. Did I mention everything worked out perfectly with the pavers in the pattern I wanted? I could not believe our luck we started in the front left corner and it all laid out perfectly we only had to cut 4 bricks to fit in a few of the tighter spaces... this is of course not including all the halved ones... which there were only about 15 of, which is still not bad.

Uber finally picked all of my cherry tomatoes for me... I can only reach the ones on the bottom...

then he made me this snack... yum!

Hope you all had a good weekend. Im off to try a finish another project I have going... I have this list of old project that I was supposed to get done before Mum and Dad get here NEXT WEEK but I dont think it is all going to happen... oh well!

P.S. This is my hundreth post!! I wanted to have a give away but it just isn't going to happen right now... Hopefully soon though.

On The Other Side

Our pack out was exhausting but not bad as far as pack outs go. We were able to clean the apartment as space cleared which meant by Friday we were done. There were some last minute touch and go items that I wasn't sure we'd finish. There were some things I completely forgot. By Friday night we were ready to relax and try to enjoy our last two full days in Germany. 

I decided we should try out the V8 motel in Boeblingen. It was hilarious. We I chose one of the novelty rooms. It was comfortable, quiet and fun.

The next day we hopped on the train and made our way down to the Bodensee. We took the ferry from Friedrickshafen to Meersburg only to find out we were there on the busiest weekend of the year. After three and a half hours of walking and one more ferry ride into Konstanz we finally found a place to sleep, quite possibly the last room available. It was 9:30pm, the kitchen was closed, and we were hungry. We asked the waiter if he could make us a sandwich he asked if we liked fish and said the chef would not mind making us a plate. In other words, excellent customer service beyond our expectations and the food was fantastic.

A fun garage over looking the water

My dream home

The next morning we walked to Mainau and saw some gorgeous scenes. 

That night we were back in Stuttgart at the Movenpick, another absolutely wonderful hotel. It's right across from the airport so it's very convenient.
Kelly came the next morning to have breakfast with us, see us off and help us schlep our ridiculous amount of baggage (all essential, really) to the airport. So ends our time in Germany. When are you all coming to see me here?