Bag It Up

I've been having a difficult time keeping all the truck and business paperwork organized. I knew I wanted a new messenger bag to hold everything and make it easier to haul all the truck/business things with me. I've got binders, planners, notebooks, and an accordion folder that I've got to keep track of and together so I set out to find the perfect bag.

Because I accidentally have Amazon Prime (as in... I signed up for the free month trial at Christmas and then like an idiot I forgot to cancel it and it charged me $79 for the year...), I first looked there because I can get free two day shipping on tons of items. Being so close to Seattle, some things come the very next day! :D

What I had originally wanted was some grungy-looking military bag with worn canvas and leather accents that was slouchy, casual and cool. I wanted something that looked broken in and years of use just added to its charm.

There were many contenders but then I stumbled upon this bag and loved it immediately:

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It comes in a variety of colors and they are all rich and gorgeous. I had a hard time choosing which color because I liked them all. I ultimately chose the color above called 'Tide' and ordered it in the 'medium' size (I had to look at the measurements to even see what a size medium bag was). I let it sit in my cart for a few days while I thought it over and the price went from $65 to $55. Sometimes that'll happen, not usually, but I think I still would've ordered it for $65 anyway. 

Strangely, until I took this picture I hadn't noticed that the zippers and straps in the listing are black and my bag has a matching strap and zippers... ? 

Oh well, I still love this bag and I think I might like it better than the Amazon listing.

I love the polka dot lining.

There's tons of compartments to keep my wallet, checkbook, truck keys, pens, and car keys. 

So far I've only used the main part of the bag for our binders and things but the back portion has a cushioned partition for a laptop (which might be useful in the future). It's also got a velcro strap to keep it secure.

The back has another padded compartment that could be used for a tablet. 

I've already used it a couple times while we're out on truck-related errands and it's worked great. It's comfortable to wear and it allows me to have all our papers together AND my personal items so I don't have to keep track of all these binders and a purse.

Clean And Organized: Downstairs Visit

I got our command's monthly news letter last week and the ombudsman. The ombudsman, from my very limited understanding of Navy things, is the appointed spouse that conveys messages to the ship, has direct contact with the ship's command, and deals with issues relating to ship families while the ship is both in port and on deployment and generally is just a helpful authority for families. She wrote:

What I have learned is that everyone has their own way of coping with deployment. Personally, I ate junk food for two weeks. I also spent quite a bit of money on furniture. (Which seems to be a common deployment purchase. If anyone figures out why spouses seem to always redecorate the house, let me know.)

And I kinda laughed because that's exactly what I've done! (Minus the junk food part, I've actually been pretty good!) 

I've gone through everything in the downstairs part of the house which is basically all of Russ' and my things. We squeezed everything we had in our apartment into a large great room and a bedroom with a tiny closet. I don't really have anything upstairs besides some kitchen items. So essentially, I've went through everything we own since he left. 

It's been nice cleaning, organizing, and getting rid of things! The whole downstairs has managed to stay clean since Russ has been gone and I've arranged everything. That is not to say that Russ is at all messy. I, seriously, am the messy one. He keeps his mess contained to receipts and plastic bags he seemingly needs to hold onto- but that's it. 

Anyway, this was a long intro. Here's about what the room looked like just a few weeks ago:

The three shelves we bought at Big Lots about three years ago for $39 each. I still think they're really cute but the weight of our stuff was starting to bow the shelves. When we decided to have a yard sale, I thought it would be the perfect time to change them out for something more substantial. 

I searched Ikea, Amazon, Target, Walmart... for something that I liked that wasn't too expensive that would be a little more durable than our shelves we had now. I've always liked the Ikea Expedit, but for $199 it was difficult to pull the trigger on it. I've heard rumors that Ikea is phasing out the Expedit so I decided to jump before I'd regret it (and we hadn't bought anything for the tax return so...). 

But. I'm not gonna lie. Getting this home was a bitch. There's no other word to describe it. Me, Brayt and Mom barely fit with this monstrosity in my Jeep. I had four, 5' boxes crammed in there so tightly, Brayt's leg went numb from being wedged in the seat very uncomfortably. This beast is also very heavy. The box said to put this together with a buddy and since my buddy is out to sea, it was all me. I did it, obviously, but OMG I wanted to burn Ikea to the ground and dance on its ashes during assembly. 

Isn't that always the case with Ikea stuff though? At least... that's my experience with it anyway. 

And all the cardboard left over. :(

I got the boxes at the bottom for $6.99 for a two pack. I really love the extra storage they give me. There's extra video games, an entire box just for card games, Russ' spiral bound Navy books, and other things that needed storage. I absolutely love it. I think it really makes the room look more 'grown up'- just ignore the various stuffed animals, please.  

I got this cute basket at Ross for $11.99 and I love it so so much. Our Ross always has awesome baskets for really cheap. The next door over at HomeGoods this basket would have been almost $20. 

I used our other cube shelf, that had previously housed sewing machine crap and some of Russ' work clothes in fabric bins, to put our books on. 

Below is Russ' wardrobe and some random shelves that house some craft supplies and a lot of Russ' computer/tech stuff. 

I'm really planning on getting a dresser to up our clothing storage capabilities. I've been considering either of these Tarva unfinished dressers from Ikea and refinishing them in the same or similar style of our nightstands.

Source $149

Source $99

Sorry for the poorly-lit photos...

After buying the first basket, I decided the next day to go back to Ross and pick up its mate. It's slightly bigger and was priced at $13.99. I placed our board games in there mainly because I had to find someway to use it after I bought it (that's what you're NOT supposed to do, right?). I usually try to only buy something if I know its purpose immediately but I knew I'd regret it and most likely would get a lot of use out of it. Plus, it's cute and now they match. 

That concludes our little tour- WOW was this long-winded. Maybe I should put a disclaimer at the top that you should only look at the pictures because this. was. wordy. 

Friday High 5

This has been an interesting week full of ups, downs, and empty wallets. Very empty. :(

1.) First and most importantly, I finally got to talk to Russ after weeks and weeks of sporadic emails only! I'm so excited and happy to finally get to talk to him, it really brightened my week life. 

2.) This picture I stumbled upon. I love baby sloths, they're so adorable!

3.) I finally got the downstairs organized and clean- a little tour next week of what I've been doing will be posted. It's nice to get some Spring cleaning out of the way!

4.) Bertha Mae (what we have lovingly monikered our food truck after my great grandma) is in the shop and being worked on! FINALLY! After weeks of being jerked around by a certain company that hates returning phone calls, we are now going forward. She should be done in about two weeks or so getting the plumbing and electrical fixed. We also need a new window because it's not up to code- it needs to be safety glazing or Plexiglas. Isn't that annoying? But, despite shelling out next to all of our tax refund it's nice to know that some progress toward the business is being made.

5.) It's getting warmer around here! It's been almost in the 60's all week. Yayyy! :D

Happy weekend!

Ingrained

I originally planned to make some artwork for over the toilet in the upstairs bathroom. My canvas that I already had on hand was the perfect size for the space. 

I toyed around with a few ideas before thinking about how cool it would be to have some abstract looking woodgrain art on the wall. The shower curtain has leaves and branches on it and there's another piece of art that has leaves and I thought woodgrain would go without being matchy-matchy.

I just did a general search for woodgrain art or abstract woodgrain and came across this stock photo that became my inspiration image.

My next step was to just loosely draw the picture so I had some general guidelines to follow but I didn't want it to be perfectly spaced at all.

Then I just used brown, green, and red paint to trace the lines and fill in spaces with color where I felt like it. It was a very easy project. A little time consuming but I love the way it turned out. 

So I placed it above the toilet in the bathroom before nailing into the wall and well... I didn't like it. The shades of color were all wrong and with the shower curtain being a busier pattern, it just didn't mesh well. 

I relocated it to an empty spot in the hallway across from Brayt's room and I absolutely love it there. It goes well with the Esher pictures across the hall without being too similar and competing. 

I really love the way this came out and I don't think you really have to have any artistic skill to pull this off. Just draw some lines and a few wood knots occasionally. Simple. 

I did paint the edges of the canvas to give it a finished look like a dark frame around it. I think it takes it from looking like an art project to something a little more professional.

Care Package #1

Russ has been gone and the time has come for me to get out some care packages! I've never sent one while he's on deployment and the last time I mailed him presents was when he was in school in Florida. Well, sending packages on deployment is slightly different because you really have to think about what will make it in the box or not and how long it could take for them to receive it. If they're out of the country (which being on deployment they definitely will be) there's also customs forms you'll need to fill out.

Pinterest had a ton of ideas for care packages but in the end I wound up not listening to any of them and just doing my own thing.

Yeah, I'm kinda a rebel that way.

A lot of the care packages that are pinned are absolutely adorable but I didn't think my husband would enjoy receiving a box with a bunch of lipstick kisses all over it or decorated with hearts and glitter. 

That's just not our thing. I was embarrassed at the thought of him possibly opening a box covered in kisses or a box that says "hey there, stud muffin" in front of the other guys. Now, don't get my wrong... our emails are as mushy and gushy as they come but we are relatively private people so I'll save the mush and gush for non-public displays.

I also wanted the box to cheer him up, possibly make him laugh because that's one of our favorite things to do together. We watch funny internet videos, laugh at memes and hilarious gifs, crack lots of jokes, listen to comedians in the car, and watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 or Rifftrax. 

That being said, I made his box an internet meme theme (for those not familiar, internet "meems" as it's pronounced is a funny or interesting picture that is shared over the internet among users that could be a picture, video, hashtag, etc.). Russ loves memes and he loves sharing them with me so I thought it would be a great subject for a care package!

Here's my first attempt with "you meme a lot to me!":

Because the food is SO BAD on the ship, I felt it was of the utmost importance to give him lots of his favorite snacks:

-Cherry Craisins

-Oatmeal Pies

-Jolly Ranchers

-Beef Jerky

-Siracha hot sauce (to coat all of the ship food to mask the taste)

-Gummies

-Warheads

-Pocky

-XBox Magazine

-Little Bites Muffins

-Mio

-Snyder's Honey Mustard and Onion Pretzels

Some other stuff? I can't remember now, but it was lots of his favorite things! I wish I would have lined the box but I'll get better at it once I send a couple.

Vintage Creep Show

Last week my brother took me along with him to go to the Fremont Vintage Mall and it had some pretty cool stuff in it. Unlike a lot of antique stores that have things that border on grandma-like antiquities, this store had a lot of things mainly from the 1950's and up. 

Strangely, I came out of the store with pictures of mostly creepy things. Isn't that the best part of going to places like this?

I couldn't even garner a guess at what this decapitated plaster baby head would be for. The tag hanging from its mouth almost seems as if it was caught by accident on someone's fishing trip.

Who. Would. Want. This? I can't even explain why someone would want to own some malicious-looking unibrow acne-freckle man mug. 

"Honey? What's on tonight?" 

"Oh, you know... my worst nightmare."

And who wouldn't want a toothless clown with a nesting bird on his head giving them the side eye while walking down a dimly lit hallway? I wonder if he has any balloons? 

A soulless green child stands next to a splotchy woman with a huge leg-growth. Perfect for my bedroom!

I found some extras from the best worst movie in existence, Troll 2!

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The sad clown hobo just doesn't know his own strength and mourns the loss of the clown he killed that is now resting at his feet.

When I first saw this picture I thought it was completely terrifying. 

Then, while sorting through albums my brother came across this and we realized it was a rendition of the album cover. Still. Completely blood-curdling. Hard pass. 

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This artwork was creepy yet morbidly awesome. It reminded me of a card game Russ introduced to me called Gloom. It has the same type of artwork... I'll have to look up the artist to see if they are both done by the same one. 

It's a card game in which you play a family and the object of the game is to make your family as miserable as possible (and ultimately kill them off) while you make the opposing players families as happy as possible. It's really fun because you have to weave a story around the events of the cards (example: "[person's name] was attacked by mice" or "[persons name] was charmed by ducks."). It's a pretty funny game!

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Even with such a goofy hat on she seems snobby, huh?

And here's some cool things I saw:

This picture was marked for $75... because it was the end of the month I offered $50 and got to take it home! I was drawn to it for some reason and think it's got a cool dystopian vibe to it... I plan to mess with the frame a little to change up the color but I love this!

I think this table was $250 but I thought it had a very interesting and pretty top. 

They had tons of neat things to be framed like these vintage children's cards. They had flashcards and other game cards that would've been really cute framed for a kids room... I almost bought the kitten one for me though.

Russ would have loved this vintage Marvel card because Doctor Doom is his favorite!

I took this picture to show Russ what kind of display they had going- he would have enjoyed weeding through there.

It was a fun trip to the vintage mall and I plan to go back soon! Brayt found a large amount of vinyls he wanted so it was a successful shopping day!

How To Have A Successful Garage Sale

Don't be me. Ha ha!

We had a garage sale on Saturday and I really thought we had a good chance of making some money. We had some cheaply priced decor items and furniture (which is always a huge draw). I put an ad on Craigslist on Tuesday to run until Saturday, put out three signs to point the way to our house and then...

Crickets...

I even made free cookies! :(

Our sale was to start at 8 and our first customer didn't arrive until 8:30 and then she said she wanted one of the purses and she'd come back with money. I actually didn't plan on her returning but she did 45 minutes later and we made $12. 

Our only other customer was a man hauling a trailer and he walked up and promptly bought the shelf by the table set, my table set, and another nightstand we had in the back. I only sold my table for $15 because it's rough. So we made $21 more which brought out two hour total to $33... woo hoo.

I'm not too disappointed because one of Mom's friends bought three of my basement shelves, the goofy one in front there, and my two silver lamps, and Mom's busted tv stand for $65.

So yeah, not a great garage sale run but it's something.

I'm actually just glad we got rid of our big furniture items are gone and the garage is more spacious so I guess that's good, right? 

The downstairs is looking so nice since I rearranged everything. A little tour is in store for later this week!

Introducing... bakemydayseattle.com!

I'm proud to introduce our website at bakemydayseattle.com! I'm hoping to be updating more things soon on our 'news' portion of the site once we have some truck improvements to report on. I'm really excited to finally get this show on the road!

Counting the Days

With Russ gone, I've been trying to stay busy. That's harder now that I don't have a job and am trying to focus entirely on the business (which has been sloooooow moving since it's so hard for companies to return calls... but anyways). 

I decided before Russ left that it would be cool for him to see a snippet of everyday that he's been missing. I know it doesn't even begin to make up for the time he's lost at home but I thought it would be better than nothing. So, everyday I've been making a point to take a picture of something. It could be what I'm working on, what's happening, something cute, or just a snapshot of the day. 

So here it is:

1.) Russ' ship leaves on deployment day.

2.) I spend my time drawing schematics of the food truck.

3.) I spend part of the day sweeping and wiping down the food truck (it was quite dirty).

4.) I went to my first movie alone to see Veronica Mars (and it was AWESOME).

5.) I went to SeaTac to pick up Mom from the airport.

6.) Zelda and I take a self-portrait.

7.) I tried out a new chocolate chip cookie recipe and it is amazing and I've discovered our go-to bakery basic chocolate chip recipe. 

8.) I checked the mail and got our official Bake My Day LLC name registry from the state of Washington.

9.) Spring is coming but Winter is trying to hold on during its last day.

10.) It's the official first day of Spring and our little flowers are making an appearance.

11.) Mom and I have breakfast at a local cafe that's WWII & Navy-themed.

12.) Mom and I spend time reorganizing the garage and collect things for a garage sale.

13.) The three of us go to Ikea (on a weekend, we ARE crazy!).

14.) Double rainbow!

15.) Beautiful day for the first lawn-cutting of the year!

16.) My Ikea shelves are put together and lookin' fine.

17.) Mom and I begin to put together care packages for Russ and the sailor onboard that we "adopted."

18.) Gizmo lounges as he's prone to do.

19.) Brayt and I visit the Fremont Vintage Mall and it's awesome!

20.) Rainy Seattle.

21.) Ian squints at me lovingly.

22.) April Fool's Day special on National Geographic! 

23.) Our cherry blossoms are blooming in the yard.

24.) A self-portrait to start the day. (I still feel weird taking these...)

I hope Russ enjoys seeing a slice of life while he's gone. I'm contemplating putting these together in a book to print out for us to keep when he gets home. This is an interesting time in our lives that is worth documenting, I think.