Gender prediction

Well, according to the Chinese gender predictor, I should be having a girl around the beginning of next year. Do those things even work? Apparently not since it predicted wrong for 3 out of the 4 I've already had. Here's to hoping though. It'll be our 5th and final kid and I'm SO glad I'll be done with this pregnancy thing soon.

Because you know what being done having children at the ripe old age of 26 means? It means when I'm 46, it'll be time to party, and I won't have to bring my depends!

For sale

I'm selling my antique wood chandelier. Works great. Chippy off white paint. $150.00 Pick up only.

For rent

Well, we still haven't rented our house. We had someone lined up but didn't close on time so we're on the hunt for someone else. If you or anyone you know are looking for a place in San Tan Valley, please pass the word on.

Here's a link to the home tour to see pictures of the property.

Thanks for reading

Foodie blog

I was deciding what to make for dinner the next week and called my friend Jen for some inspiration. I don't know if you guys get sick of the same stuff but I am in a cooking rut. She told me to go to her in laws blog, they have a lot of simple (I'm all about the 5 ingredient dinners) recipes. And I found exactly what I was looking for.

If you want to try some new recipes, head on over to Becoming Betty. Look at this delicious treat!

A peek

So if you've been reading my blog, you know I just moved into a house and have been debating about linens for my master bedroom. I ended up making a ruffled bed skirt and loved it so I decided to buy a plain white duvet from ikea so the main focus would be on the dust ruffle. It doesn't hang over as much as I like but it'll do for now. Especially with a $19.99 price tag. I also bought twin sized flat white sheets there for $1.99 and made my ruffled king sized pillows out of that. I took pictures when I made the pillows so I'll do a tutorial a little later on that.

As soon as I paint the awful camel tan a beautiful bluish gray from Behr called pensive sky (the ENTIRE house is painted that color, by the way). I'll post picture of the whole room. For now, I thought you'd like a shot of the progress.

A-1 Auction

The day before we moved in I was browsing the pictures from A-1 auction in Phoenix. If you've never heard of them, I'm not particularly surprised. It's kind of in the ghetto and a huge pain to get a trailer in and out of. But they had something last week that caught my eye. So me and my sister Tara, from junkrestore took a trip in and gave it a go. Here's their website if you're curious. They usually update pictures on Tuesday night for a Wednesday auction.

You pay $100 as a deposit and whatever you buy comes out of that. It's actually really fun but the competitive side of me gets a little crazy at auctions. I just set myself up with a limit and say I WILL NOT bid more than this. I walked away with 3 things, two that I specifically went to get, so I consider it a success. Here they are in all their glory.

I got this amazing farmhouse table. Which is why I'm getting rid of my old table! It's a little rough on top, but that's the way I like it. I'm going to have to do something with the top though because I know I won't like cleaning ramen out of those grooves.




An antique shoe rack. This baby now resides at my new front door. To house all my mismatched flip flops.



The third thing was this huge vintage map of Arizona. Caleb likes this one because he can actually use it to scout out new landing zones. I couldn't fit it into my pathfinder on the way home so we tied it to the top. I swear we were actually getting some lift from it driving down the freeway. I told my husband we'd be landing a little later than usual. I don't think he got the joke :)



We also stopped by a great store in Phoenix called Modern Manor. I'd been wanting some old giant letters and knew from a previous trip that they had a bunch of them. So these were my mothers day present I bought myself from my husband. Thanks Caleb, how'd you know just what I wanted?

Change of plans

So are you wondering what happened to the 8 projects in 8 weeks idea? Turns out things don't always happen according to plan. But in a good way. I was going to do 8 projects in 8 weeks to keep me sane while my husband was away for military training. Turns out he's not going. Not yet anyways. He can't leave for training until the next "fiscal" year because Arizona doesn't have any more money. I know, blows your mind that the government doesn't know how to budget huh?

But you won't find me crying. I am happy to have him around for at least a little longer. And he was here to move us into our new house! I'd also like to give a big shout out to everyone that helped us move. My husband was cracking up when some of the younger boys asked if a rusted piece of metal or old beat up wood went into the trash. He looked at me and just said to them "run for your lives!"

I'll still be doing tons around the house. I hate the paint on the walls so that'll be the first to go. But with the hubs still here, I'll just have to postpone the 8 projects until he has to leave again.

I'll leave you with a picture of the "poor man's sprinkler". My 3 year old rigged this up while we were bored waiting for the new house to close. Genius I tell ya.

For Sale

I have this curvy french dining table for sale. Chairs not included. $150.00 Please e-mail me at nikki_grandy@yahoo.com. Local only, no shipping.

Also, I slashed the gray ruffled headboard to $100. I just want it out of my life.

All white bedding

My husband and I need a new mattress. So I'm doing all the necessary research to buy a bed and my bedding for the master bedroom. If you've read any of my previous postings, you know I want all white bedding. Here's my predicament...

I heard that a lot of king sized bedding you get runs a little smaller. And I like my bedding big. Like if my husband rolls himself into a giant burrito in the night, I'm still covered, BIG. I usually buy the next size up from whatever bed I have, so for a twin, I buy a full, etc. Well, what's one up from a king? And if most bedding is shorter, I know it won't be what I'm dreaming of. Which is this image (from Pottery Barn)...


And a whole lot of this (from apartment therapy)...


And can any of you guess how much bedding like this would cost me if I just bought it from Pottery Barn? $624.00 not including shipping.

Being the cheap-o that I am, I've decided to buy inexpensive bedding from Ikea and add the ruffle detail to make it my kind of romantic. To make my ruffled duvet and 2 king shams, I'm looking at spending a grand total of $28.00. And that's even the nice, 310 thread count sheets. I haven't priced out a quilt in any of my usual discounted places but I'm hoping to find a king sized one at Homegoods that I like for under $40. So total I would probably still come in under $100.00 The only problem is making it out of the king sheets won't allow for that nice big overhang on a king sized bed.

So I'm considering buying a queen sized bed. Is that stupid? To get a smaller bed for the sole purpose of making the bedding look amazing? I just feel like this fluffy goodness would be so much easier to achieve with a smaller bed. Plus, finding bedding for a queen is so much easier, cheaper, and it allows me to snuggle a little more with the hubs.

What would you do? Splurge and get the pottery barn bedding and king bed, or go with the queen and make your own bedding?

Also, do any of you have all white bedding? If so, I would LOVE to see it in real life instead of "glamor shot" catalogs. E-mail me at nikki_grandy@yahoo.com and I'll spread your love!