House Remodeling In Progress

Right now my house is a mess, we have had a guy here fixing the drywall problems that the previous owner caused (he didn't tape the drywall together) in our sunroom and family room. He has been working on it for 2 weeks and will be next week also. We are leaving for DC next weekend just for a night. I promised my youngest brother we would go for his 20th birthday next Saturday. The Painter will start painting in 2 weeks. First we are having the Kitchen, dining room and living room upstairs and hallway stairs going up and down all painted. That will take a few weeks because it's his side job so he won't be able to do it everyday. After that we will have our family room and sunroom painted, I haven't decided on the colors yet for downstairs. I want to change it all around and make everything nice and new looking. I don't know how many more years I plan to live here, at least until the boys are done with school which would be 4 more years since Graham starts 9th grade and Gage starts 11th. Wow time flew by :(

I received the rest of my chairs yesterday from Allmodern.com I am a little disappointed in some of the finishing on them, I am not sure if they are spray painted, but the Charcoal Gray one I received that came straight From Emeco had a very noticeable flaw in the finish so they are sending a replacement. The green chairs match my paint choice almost perfectly, they also had a small amount of discoloration but not so much, they gave me 10% back. As much as the chairs cost ($260 each) I expected perfection. I love the fact they are made with 111 recycled Coca Cola plastic bottles, that to me makes me feel like I am heading in the Going Green direction that I am aimed for. I have so many things on my mind about what I want to change, my future,etc. I have to take one step at a time. I have everything I want right now but I long to take care of animals, mainly rescue farm animals. I am going to start out by volunteering at Happy Trails, a Farm Santucary in Ohio, it's about 45 minutes away. This will give me time to really think about what I want for my future. I am willing to give up the fancy clothes and numerous vacations we take every year to stay home and care for animals that will love me and that need my love. I am realizing what is really important in life and I don't want to let these thoughts go away without doing something about it. We only live once and I want to make a difference.

When I was on Fab.com looking around I found this skincare line called Sprout Skincare and everything is made with natural products, you could eat it if you wanted to, no chemicals or anything. I took the time last night and made the Face and Body Scrub. It actually came out very well!

 For the Body Scrub, the ingredients said Shredded Coconut, Coconut Oil and Sugar, I put these in a food processor and just added a little more of the sugar and oil until I got the consistency of body scrub, it smells amazing and works very well, I tried it this morning.

 For the facial exfoliant it said Almonds, Sea Salt and Oatmeal. This one I ended up putting some coconut oil in it and still couldn't get the consistency right until I put alittle in my hand with water and then rubbed my hands together and rubbed in all over my face and it was perfect! My skin felt so soft and my make up went on so perfectly.

I stand by my Pure Coconut Oil, this works wonders for blemishes, cuts and dry skin. There is no build up either. One day I went back to using one of my other body lotions that was Bath and Body works and it left a build up on my skin, you would think the coconut oil would break you out because it's an oil but if I don't break out from it, no-one will, it's amazing stuff and you can get a jar of it at Trader Joes or Amazon and many other places for less than $8 and it will last forever if you use it just for your skin/body/hair.


This morning Tom and I went out to my mom's house to pick some fresh vegetables. We came home with Green Tomatoes, Red and Yellow onions, Peppers, Corn and Eggplants.  Her garden is amazing! It's So big and beautiful and has so many different kinds of flowers and vegetables. A lot of hard work has gone into this, pretty much day and night everyday so far this summer.

My mom volunteers her time to helping Club Pet in Transfer, PA, a non kill shelter. She spends her weekends cleaning the pens for the dogs and helping out. This weekend she took a dog from the Trumbull County Pound so the rescue could make room for him and that way he wasn't put to sleep. He is such a sweet dog, his name is Mooney, heartworm positive and starting treatment tomorrow. I hope he finds a good home. We think he may have been abused because he gets scared when you first try to pet him then he loves the attention. I really hope someone adopts him!