weekend stuff

Weekends are full of toil when you’re waiting (for the second weekend in a row) for dissertation advise to sail its way back to your inbox. Relaxation’s futile, since with something like that hanging over my head (while time ticks away) I really cannot relax. Twitch twitch twitch.

So on my weekend, I just meandered around and did stuff. Like, I tried the baking soda/orange juice mask that has been all over Pinterest. (It was OK. Nothing spectacular happened.)

I also made more frozen burritos. Mr. N eats these for lunch.

My recipe for the burritos is: shredded chicken (from the crockpot–I make a pile and freeze it), enchilada sauce, refried beans, cheese, and salsa. Mash all that together, put it in tortillas, wrap the tortillas in saran wrap and aluminum foil, and you’re done. I got the idea from Pinterest; this is the third or fourth time I’ve made a batch. Mr. N likes the burritos at the gas station across from his work, and these are similar to those (but I hope a bit healthier).

While waiting for the burrito goop to warm up, I put up the new magnetic picture frames I bought from Adorama for the side of our fridge. Difficult to tell, but their finish is oil rubbed bronze (which matches our kitchen knobs, etc…I know I owe you guys the kitchen post too).

It seems that the stock photo stylist for these frames has a penchant for women’s hips. Three photos of that. Ok. (I will put my own photos in them soon, really, and they won’t be of thighs.)

I also went outside and did some shoveling. We received some snow on Thursday, but I had not yet shoveled it because it was so damn cold (well below zero). On Saturday it was above zero, so out I went. I wanted to get it shoveled because I knew we were expecting more snow with warmer temps. When snow falls at cold temps, it is light and fluffy and easy to shovel. When it gets warmer and snows more, all the snow gets heavy and hard. So, out I went!

“Hi.”

And there was plenty of the three Rs: Reading, Research, and Riding.

I also enjoyed nutritious meals, which mostly looked similar to this.

(Tip: adding Reeses Pieces to those low fat jello puddings really boosts the flavor.)

And, I organized our bathroom closet. We have one of those narrow, deep little closets (you can see it here). It’s well over 2′ deep, but is only 14″ wide…so naturally, it becomes a black hole of expired or given-up-on products. (You’re also only seeing 2 of the three shelves (and there is another 3 feet of open space below these shelves.)

My favorite is how I tacked my glasses case to the wall under the shelf. It is so nice to have this little ‘shelf’ for my glasses! I use them every day: why should I reach waaay back in to the back of the closet for them? This keeps them close and out of the way.

(Before, left; After, right.)

I was inspired by a blog post about throwing away 50 things. Sadly, I cannot find the link, but essentially this gal just picked one little spot in her house–a junk drawer–and went through it. Most of the stuff was crap; she was left with useful, organized things. In my case, I probably threw away closer to 100 things. I also relocated stuff we don’t use often (like all of the bottles that are in the back of the lower shelf), and put things we use more toward the front (so we will quit knocking the stuff in the front over with our sleeves as we try to contort our bodies enough to reach in to the depths of the closet).

If you looked at the link to the bathroom above this picture, you would see that we have no counter-tops, drawers, or medicine cabinet in our bathroom. (Pedestal sinks look quaint but they are NOT practical for your master bath!!) This and an above-toilet cabinet I bought at walmart years ago are it. As a result, I store my products in caboodle-type pencil cases from the Back To School section. The green one is hair supplies, the pink one is nail polish, the blue one is makeup. Then my earrings are in a large fishing-tackle box I bought at Home of Economy. They’re like ‘portable drawers’ for my stuff. hah.

I also want to point out that my husband does not like the lazy susan in the closet. I think it’s wonderful for such a silly deep closet, but when he turns it the bottles tip over. After he requested several times, I finally moved the things (like the toothbrush and toothpaste) off of it. So keep that in mind if you’re enamored by this and you have a man in your home (or if you just like to spin things with a lot of force, hehe).

I painted my nails too. And since that relaxation-guilt is too strong, I spent the nail-drying time doing research and making inter-library loan requests.

Did the laundry too.

Please tell me I’m not the only person with a laundry room that will *definitely* not be popping up on Pinterest? The fact that this picture is so dark makes the room look a lot nicer than reality. Hah.

Made some sandwiches. Yum.

I had to re-order our 2010-2011 photo album (which I will write about soon in more detail) because I stupidly ordered it without showing it to Mr. N first. As soon as he opened it, he found a damn typo on the first page.

After trying to color it out with black marker, I decided it bothered me too much and re-ordered it. I had to pay $65 for my error, but that’s a deep discount over what I paid for the first book. (I contacted Shutterfly to see if I had any options, since it was my own error, and the option they gave me was a sizable percentage off – I’ll take it!) Since I was re-ordering it anyway, I went through the whole book again and made a few minor changes to some other things that bugged me a bit.

And since it snowed some more, I shoveled some more.

And that was my weekend, pretty much. How was yours?