I went THRIFTING today. I love thrifting. Especially after months and months of staring at Inspirational clip outs I’ve hung on the wall to motivate my inner decorator.

I got some amazing deals.

This mirror was marked $5 but I wasn’t willing to pay that, even though I REALLY wanted to get this mirror (5 year old calls is a Meer-Air) for my daughters bedroom, as we’re redoing the decor and taking it from nursery to big girl this weekend.

So I offered $3, they said $4 and I said, I’ve got three. Then I paid and walked out a happy girl.

When I got home, I did this to it.

Then we went to another thrift store and there happened to be a bookshelf in the corner that caught my eye. It was for sale however I couldn’t buy it because they were using it for display. You can imagine my confusion. And then I said that outloud. No, really, I want to buy this bookshelf today. I’m willing to give you cash for it. How much is it?

Then she said, $20 … probably $14.99. And I pressed harder. NO, Really, I want this book shelf.

This is why:

She finally said I could buy it (for $20) and let me take it home, when I got it there I did this:

Better photos coming in the daylight. I was too excited about these not to show you tonight.

Some other great finds I had I took home were this awesome little cast iron skillet. I love cast iron, so much. But I only have one skillet that I use Every. Single. Morning and some times 2 or 3 times a day. This one is smaller but I think I’m going to like that for when the kids just want some sausage for a snack or I need a quick pick me up fried egg at 3 pm. (Only paid a quarter, even better!)

These “bar glasses” were a set of 10 for $6, I only needed six so I split the set with my mom.

And this SAHWEET stock pot (think LOBSTERS!) was marked five bucks, I paid two.

This light fixture is going in my daughters bedroom after I paint it and find matching globes for the lightbulbs. (Etsy here I come!) Now, I could paint this the same color as the mirror, or go with a an ivory … or even dark purple. I don’t want to go crazy with the color in her bedroom, as we’re trying to stay away from the childish theme … but shout out some good accents. Maybe this is where I incorporate yellow?

At the same store that I bought the light fixture we found some fun stuff but didn’t purchase, here’s a looksee.

These light bulbs were $2 a piece and I almost bought three of them to make a light fixture over our dining room table (when the kitchen remodel is done … and it hasn’t started yet, and won’t this year … so I was thinking way ahead) but then I talked to one of the men working there and apparently they burn more than 300 watts a piece … so, bad for the environment in a little dining room. I put them down, but they’re SO cool.

This filing cabinet is only $50 – I can see this in a crafting room. A room that I do not have. But if you do, you should totally make use of this!

Molly, my sister, found a potential new front door. I love it! I’m a sucker for mission type furniture – and those windows? In love.

Now, to round out the fabulous day here’s my inspiration for my daughters bedroom … and photos of the transformation are coming soon … but here’s a sneak peak:

What have been some of your favorite thrift store finds? What about the best steal of a deal?

My house is a little crazy right now – kids are hither and yon – naked from showers and baths, over taking laundry bins as their personal traveling systems and littering my hallways with dirty socks and pants.

My son learned the word Boobie this morning and then proceeded to pee on my carpet. My daughter, with a double ear infection and sinus infection, is sitting quietly reading her books … she requested that we keep the TV off this morning.

And we’re painting soon!

Can’t wait to show you the results. I’m off to tape the room.

Well well well.

I didn’t know I’d be crossing this one off the list next. So, here’s where I go in a couple different directions, but I promise to come back around and make a point.

On my way out to my dad’s place in the sticks, with a wonderful pull barn full of tools he was allowing me to use and learn on, I was thinking about why this skill was so important to me. Sure, it’s cool to know how to use a saw and build something, but I wrote this on a list of things I wanted to do in my entire life. It was bigger to me than cool factor.

I started crying on my way out to my dad’s house … oh the tears I’m shedding over this list! All wonderful, self exposing tears.

I have written here before about parts of my childhood – the part about it that spoiled me, and (I have thought) taught me nothing. That was a wonderful time in my life where I let someone else take care of me, where I was allowed to be the child inside. Where I was pampered, coddled and cooed on. I went right from that to marriage and right from that to parenthood.

All my life my only goal was to be a mom. Marriage. Kids.

Done.

I got there so early and so eagerly that a few years later I was seriously wondering if this was it for me. Is this what I was made for? Am I really happy ONLY being a mom? Can I never have another dream? Ambition?

Let’s back up. Being spoiled and coddled didn’t teach me NOTHING. I have life skills, but I feel seriously lacking in that area … and it’s my own fault. I got through most of the last 10 years on my ability to charm. When someone asks me to “prove it” I clam up and start to doubt myself. When really, they’re saying to me … Jodi, you talk alot, but try to walk. And I get scared alone. Walking alone, by myself. I get anxious and nervous and all kinds of bashful.

And then I wrote this list. This list that says, very publicly, I believe in my ability to acomplish my dreams.

And I totally do.

So, folks, here’s my first steps:

I’m tired of living stagnantly. Believing the self-taught, torturous lie that I’m just not good enough to try those things. To conquer unknowns.

So cheers to the Life List ! Cheers to being raw and naked on paper, Cheers to putting to work the hands that spell my heart out in words and words and words a day to creating something I can touch and see! I DID IT!

*** I made these bookshelves from Knock Off Wood and I would like to, sincerely, thank her for her talent … I was all set to sign up for a Shop class this year and do whatever it took to learn this skill … then her site appeared, and my confidence with it.

Now I need to paint them:

Got opinions?

Since meeting with some of the other local bloggers and talking “shop” about blogging and coding and what not I thought I’d quick share this cheat sheet Aaron made for me years ago when I started asking questions.

Cheat Sheet

Enjoy!

I’m, by no means, a coding enthusiast but I do write in the “HTML” tab of wordpress because it’s how I’ve always written, in all the platforms I’ve used since beginning to blog … it’s just more comfortable to me. And I have some pretty rock-awesome access to people who know what they’re doing . Makes it fun!

The cookie monster was in our house recently.

These peanut butter cookies are gluten free. And there are only 3 ingredients. Oh, oh yes you can.

1 egg
1 C. Peanut Butter
1 C. Sugar

Mix well, plop by spoonfuls on baking sheet and bake in oven at 350 for 8 min, cool on wire rack.

Here’s the play by play on twitter, I only annoyed a few people with my rapid tweets … I think.

Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5, 6
Step 7
Step 8

This is my daughters bedroom about a year and half ago …

Since then we’ve taken her carpet up, she now has hardwood floors, changed her window coverings (and installed new windows) and added a locker to her room. A stand alone, vintage locker – painted white. If it were day time I’d take a photo to show you – for now, just imagine it.

This weekend we’ll be repainting her walls – and the wonderful wall decal of the dandelion is no more so maybe we’ll do a new one with the new paint. (It was a one time use deal)

Now. Please tell me what to do.

She wants her walls in the purple family, which is just fine by me – but it has to be muted. Think an elephant grey with a purple undertone. I want to do her room so she can grow into it for the next 10 years and not feel like she’s living in a barbie playworld. Also? I hate Barbie playworlds.

We need a rug, I’ll be repainting an old brass headboard for a new bed (so her brother can have hers, RIP crib) and I was thinking this:

Here’s one pallet I like:

Here’s another – I like the Ash Violet.

I like this turquoise for the bed frame (Gem Turquoise), or something similar …

However, Aaron, the husband, would prefer to paint the new headboard something along the lines of a very dark purple, almost black …

Only a little darker.

I like my idea better – with a punch of color like that in the room, but maybe that’s not making it “grow up” at all. So help please.

Feel free to link to things you think I should know, look at, buy. I buy paint tomorrow, so it’s down to the wire!

I used this recipe from Gluten Free Goddess , if you haven’t already been to her site in search of answers about becoming gluten free or how to bake some cookies – you totally should. She is my mecca right now.

Also? Let’s be honest, here. This, first try, loaf didn’t look as pretty as I was envisioning.

But it tasted just fine. I think my issue was the size of pan I used. Her recipe calls for a 1.5 pound loaf pan, and really? I have no idea what that means. I just grabbed one of the 3 (two of which are Ikea pans … and probably weird 8 oz pan sizes or something) loaf pans I own and went for it.

I have a Fearless Kitchen. It’s liberating. I encourage you to forget the rules and add some cinnamon. You’re SO allowed.

Now. Baking gluten free is scary if you’re new to it. There isn’t one flour you can frivolously throw into the mix and get something to rise or not taste like stone. So get to know your GF flour mixes first.

I’ve used Pamela’s Baking Mix with wonderful results. We make our pancakes and waffles with this religiously and LOVE it. Pretty sure you can use it to make breads, scones, cupcakes, birthday cakes, muffins etc etc as well.

I just bought some Red Mill All Purpose GF flour to try out – a trusty GF friend said she felt this mix held up better to an egg replacer .

That’s as technical as I’m getting. If you have questions as to what the heck I’m talking about, leave them in the comments, I will respond to them all.

So – let’s make some bread. For this Tutorial I followed the recipe to a T, I do not have a bread machine so I used her instructions farther down on the page to tell me how to prepare the dough manually. But because those instructions were farther down on the page then the actual recipe, I compromised and came up with this so I wouldn’t get lost:

These are the “wet ingredients” you’ll need:

And the “dry”:

I started by proofing my yeast like so:

Add 2 TBSP Honey to 1 1/4 C warm water …

I missed, oops! But once it’s in the water you’ll have this.

Now stir to dissolve the honey:

Add 1 TBSP Yeast to Honey/Water mixture and stir it up, then forget about it …

Now in a clean bowl we’re going to mix the dry ingredients together – we’ll start with the Sorghum Flour:

You need 1 Cup of this bad boy.

Now we’ll add the Potato Starch, not to be confused with Potato flour.

1 Cup of him, too.

Check your yeast at some point, it’s starting to get happy.

Next, to your dry ingredients, you’ll add the Xanthan Gum. Weird.

2 tsp of it.

Then the Millet Flour:

1/2 cup of his badself

Aaaand the sea salt. Her recipe says “fine sea salt” but I had coarse – throw caution to the wind people! DARE YOURSELF TO UNFOLLOW RULES. Sorry, something came over me.

About this much is fine. The recipe calls for 1 1/4 tsp.

Stir up the Dry Guys

How’s the yeast?

Vondervil!!! Now add the proofed yeast to the dry ingredients

Add 3 to 4 TBSP EVOO

Then the 1/2 tsp white wine vinegar.

In another clean, small bowl quick whip up your egg replacer – 1 TBSP Egg replacer with 4 TBSP warm water until frothy.

Add your “eggs” to the rest of the dough batter

And mix it up, stir stir stir

Until it looks like this

Find yourself a 1.5 pound loaf pan then oil it, WELL. I must have skimmed on the oil part because that’s half the reason my loaf fell apart – I couldn’t get it out of the pan. So … Liberal use of oil.

Plop the batter into your loaf pan

Use a wet finger to smooth out the top of the dough before you set it in a warm place to rise for one hour.

Ready to rise!

I put my loaf to rise underneath a towel on the preheated stove since my kitchen is uber drafty. No chances here folks. I need a warm nest for that bread.

An hour later – here’s the difference:

Bake at 350 for 45 min to an hour. Just knock on the bread, if it’s hollow, it’s done. Cool on a wire rack.

We had BLTs for dinner that night. YUM!

Seriously. I only allow myself to check One Pretty Thing every 4 or so days because every time I do this is what my browser looks like:

All those tabs open? And even more hiding in a pulldown menu … I just can’t wait to show you.

So here it goes:

How to make paper food baskets – We’ll be doing some Life List #89 this week in our house, as I get crafty and rock my kids’ world with a St. Patty’s day house. These baskets are going to be perfect for delivering goodies to the neighborhood that we all make together.

Love your neighbor gift tags. Which will also be perfect for sending some Pay it Forward treats to the folks who share our road. (I consider this a #89 situation because both my kids love to be in the kitchen and delivering goodies … something we don’t do a ton of. So decorating the heeter out of some fun paper crafts and walking around is a grand gesture I’m showing to them, but also teaching them to show others.)

Paper banner tutorial instead of saying “Wonderland” I’m going to make one for “St. Patty’s!”

Free printable origami paper Nautical style. This is just cool.

Journaling labels For the organizational wit within us all.

Printable stationary AIRMAIL! Too cute. As I write this my daughter is writing messages to her dad on this paper for his out of town trip coming up. Messages like “I love you”, “I miss you”, “Have a great day!”

Cupcake toppers, place settings, etc these downloadable adorable’s have so many potential functions. I’m thinking of using these as cupcake toppers for my son’s 2nd birthday in May.

Glitter labels I don’t know anyone who has this many bottles of glitter to label but I don’t doubt that these people exist either. I would use them for sprinkles for cookie decorating, myself.

Printable Blog Calendar KEEP ME ON TRACK!

6 months of calendar pages that are fabulous.

I’m energized just looking at all these free possibilities for so many fun projects.

Now I just need to whip this up so I have a place to store all my goodies.

Whew!

I’m waiting for these books in my Paper Back Swap que to become available. (No affiliate links, promise)

Barefoot Contessa – A friend has this cook book and I used to stand around in her kitchen just staring at it. I hope it still has that affect on me if it does come available.

Comfortable with Uncertainty – This was a book recommended to me by Jill Tanis a while back, I think it’s one of those books that stares at YOU and when you’re ready … you will look it in the eye. I’m not anticipating this book as much as I am dreading it … but either way, I’d love to have it on my shelf.

Diabetes: Fight it with the blood type diet – I’ve been doing all kinds of reading about this online and have it on my list to reserve this from our library. This’ll be one of those books I go back to again and again, make notes, dog ear pages … so I can’t wait for this one.

The Guernsey Literary Potato Society came highly recommended from a friend who loves books and eats them for breakfast, she has impeccable taste. And reads hella-fast and those really daunting 6 inch books. I’m inspired.

Gut and Phycology syndrome this one, again, came highly recommended by a different friend. I’m interested in reading this for a number of reasons, not sure I need to own it though – I’ll see what the library has to offer me first. Still, Food and Behavior tickles my fancy.

Healing with whole foods Mmmmm. Doesn’t that just sound delicious? Another recommendation. People, if you like to read, ask your friends for their latest great finds. It’s like a crazy escape to knowledge.

House Rules Jodi Picoult’s latest book. I love her books, have read them all. I plan to keep that tradition alive and well. Can’t wait to dig in to this one. I generally devour her books within a week of reading before bed.

In Defense of Food – this one made the news a couple times … which maybe they all did or do, but I don’t often notice books because I don’t often watch news or read it. We’ll talk about that later. Reading the back panel of this book, though, got my attention. I’m excited to read it and come to my own conclusion.

Is this your child? Another recommendation from a friend … differences between food ALLERGIES and food SENSITIVITIES. And what that all means.

Juicy Pens, Thirsy Paper by SARK. I am in a SARK phase right now, cannot get enough. And infact I have enough to keep my busy for about 2 years by her.

Junk Beautiful – I saw this one in Menards tonight on my mommy/daughter date picking out paint colors for the room-redo later this weekend. I wanted to buy it so bad but thought I should check Paper Back Swap first. A no go, but I’ll still wait to see if it comes available. Drool worthy, folks. So so drool worthy.

The Last Song – Hummmana, Hummana. I love Nicholas Sparks. Also, like Jodi Picoult, I’ve read every single one of his titles published and I’m an avid stalker on his “About Me” section on his website. Yes. Yes I am.

The Makers Diet – another recommendation.

I’ve got my work cut out for me, don’t I? All this reading. All this fabulous reading.

Any others I should add to my list? Who’s your favorite author? Or the best book you’ve read lately?

Last night I spent some time clicking around from site to site and I found some gems. Some days I totally “get” the internet and have a blast wondering down the so-called-aisles of spectacular and some days I wonder why I even bother.

Yesterday was not the ladder.

Printable Easter cards for kids, adorable. You have to create an account with Scribd in order to download them, but I have already linked to some sites where you need this same ability. It’s a straight up link, I’m not getting a referral or a kickback for saying that. FCC, how am I doin?

Fluffy fun Easter bouquet – Oh my goodness I have so much yarn as I used to crochet like a madwoman … so I’m doing this. Can’t wait to have my daughter in on this fun.

Feed Your Soul, free downloaded art – so I want to share this with you because FREE ART is amazing and these artists are even better … but I also don’t want to share this with you because it’s so amazing. I want to keep it for myself and decorate my walls with splendor and pretend I spent a fortune on amazing original art. I digress. Check it out, you will not be disappointed.

Gift bags from envelopes – A) This is genius. B) Who doesn’t have a drawer full of misc. office supplies that makes you cringe but not clean out because it’ll one day be useful? Now it is. You’re welcome.

Eggcelent Eggs – decorating Easter eggs with the kids is messy, but very fun. Except your left with brown eggs because they didn’t understand that using ALL the colors at once doesn’t automatically guarantee them a rainbow egg. Also? You can buy brown eggs, so thanks kids. Now you can “pre decorate” the eggs with Awesome and let them dip to their hearts desire. At least now you’ll have brown eggs that kick ass.

Make your own gallery, template – Wow. I plan to use this template on my kids’ art. So so so much finger painting and coloring and writing of their names for the first time … I want to keep it all but it doesn’t feel right sticking it all in a box to hand to them once they’ve graduated college. Now I can enjoy it too.

Se7en – this is just a cool website I stumbled on … we have a very eager 5 year old who wants to know/learn everything and this site seems to (at first glance) do quite a bit of sharing in those terms. She’s a homeschooler mom of seven + 1 … I’m excited to dig in the archives and figure out some experiments we can do together.

Make your own Ampersand (&) – I’ve already emailed this link to half my family and they’re all planning on making it soon. My mom will be making one to put in there soon to be brand new bathroom at the cottage. This is the new shower curtain for said new bathroom, so the Ampersand will go swimingly with it.

Mini-wreaths – Ok, so I would need to spend some money for this one, but the butterflies wreath is just adorable. And if you’re into Dumpster Diving I’ve known people who can find AMAZING stuff in the dumpsters of Michael’s, Hobby Lobby etc … stickers like this even. So if you wait for it, you might be able to pull this one off for free. I’m just saying.

Easy felted flower – I have buttons and some felt that I bought while I was pregnant with my son to make booties that I never, ever used. Huh. 2+2=ACCESSORIES! So excited to try this one. I might make some small add on’s for hair clips for my daughter. She’s kind of fancy like that.

Headband tutorial, bows – Awesome. I’ll try this for the little fashionista in my life as well.

There you have it for today. Get inspired, people. Start trying something, then come back here and tell me about it – I want to hear about your adventures.

I’m working on an Easter Round Up as well – I’ll be going off of what I plan to do for the dinner we’re hosting, but it’ll be difficult to divulge all the information because I have some surprises up my sleeve and my guests read this site (Molly! Mom! Erin! Jill! Hi Sisterlie’s and Mom!) so I’ll have to be stealth about it. However, if you have some Easter ideas – please let me know and I’ll add them to the list. Or an etsy shop you want me to link to, maybe your’s or your mom’s, bestfriend’s, boyfriends’ sister’s?? I’m all over it.

In the meantime – you can stock up on your Easter candy now thanks to Savvy Chic Savings for the heads up on coupons this week/month.

I think Easter is my Christmas. That’s fair warning, right?