luxe chandelier

My sister and I are 9 years apart.

When I was a teenager I used to get annoyed with her copying my ideas and following me and my friends around all the time. My parents often reminded me that she looked up to me and I was her role model. One day I got so frustrated to the point where I made a copyright sign on a poster I made and explained to her that she’d get in deep trouble if she copied me now. Good times when she was gullible and easy to fool!

The hardest part was when I was away at college for 5 years and missed out on her growing up from age 9 to 14. When I came home for the summer, she would sleep in my room all summer long even if it was on the floor or on an uncomfortable cot. She just wanted to be in the same room even if we weren’t doing anything together. While I would be on my laptop she was watching shows on Disney channel. I’d drag her to the pool with me and to the store to rent movies.

We even order Shirley Temples everywhere we go. We both love smoked oysters with RITZ crackers, cream cheese and sweet pickles. Another food obsession of ours that we take after our Grandpa is pickled herring with crackers. We’re both picky when it comes to food except for smoked oysters & pickled herring.

She’s lucky she was able to stay up late all the time since I’d let her. Our parents’ bedroom was all the way over on the other side of the house. Although I had tricks for when I needed to get her to bed but couldn’t. When she didn’t have her hearing aids on, I would stand outside her room and pretend to scream for Mom & Dad. It for sure worked for a while!

When we moved back home after I graduated from college, things were different. Tyler was living with me and we both had to look for a job so there wasn’t time to play or hang out. Also my sister was at the age where she was going out more and on MySpace a lot. Every time I tried to talk with her and see what was new, she would always say, “nothing much”. That was always the end of our conversation. I found myself sometimes lecturing her because I didn’t want her to do some of the things I wish I had not done. Please do not tell me I sound like a Mom already!

When I ask her to hang out these days she tells me I’m too old to hang out with. I don’t know if it’s just me but if I had an older brother or sister that was 25 when I was 16, I’d definitely want to hang out with them sometimes. I’m hoping that she gets out of this phase soon and we’ll be able to have a better relationship where we can actually hang out and have a conversation that doesn’t seem like I’m interviewing her.

I have had to learn to accept that she’s not that little girl who follows me around anymore. She’s not my mini-me anymore. Life goes on.

Thank you for participating in my giveaway – I wish I could make you all winners!
Here it goes with Random.org after putting all the entries in an excel worksheet…

and the winner is…

Shannon, congratulations!! Your 2nd entry (tweet) was the winning number!
We would love to see what you do with the chalkboard decal when you receive it.
I will be e-mailing you so look for it!

The flowers are blooming from all the rain we got over the past few weeks and the temperature’s rising to the 80s this week. Just a perfect way to start Spring by cleaning and organizing literally everything in our house.

Trust me, it wasn’t all joy & awesome! I had no problem throwing things away while on the other hand…Tyler had issues. Some things he never sees only when we clean and still wants to keep them. I got caught a few times trying to throw some things away and he later found out. I guess next time I shouldn’t use a clear garbage bag!

We have more snacks than things to make meals with. We have our canned goods stored in a pull out drawer on the island in our kitchen. This way we can keep our pantry closet more organized and to the point where we can still see everything.

This cabinet is rarely opened! Tyler and I don’t like wine or beer except for mixed drinks. Now the only thing we really need to do is get a proper wine opener for our guests. It’s embarrassing to let them use our cheap wine opener from college. Believe me I’m stocked with wine stoppers since that was our wedding favors and we had more than enough to take a bunch home ourselves.

Finally this is more organized, I forgot to take a before picture of this. I guess I was too excited to get this organized! I forgot we had another small bamboo cutlery tray that we weren’t using so I added it in. It’s easier to grab what we need in seconds than scramble through the drawer.

Tyler’s giving me his famous sign where he shoots himself the head and blood splatters out on the other side of his head. Whatever! He does that sign all the time when he doesn’t want to do something. This closet in one of the guest rooms was the worst to clean and organize and we didn’t want to go through it. That closet is now pretty much empty since the majority of everything else like our Christmas stuff went into the garage.

This is my side of our closet! It seems like I have more clothes in the after picture. Maybe it’s because I had a lot of laundry to do and I still managed to throw out a lot of clothes I haven’t wore in years. I still can’t give up my t-shirts that are sitting on the top shelf at the end. I’m saving them for the days when we’ll paint and do landscaping. We’re going to add a shelf on the bottom for our jeans/pants because it’s not fun trying to reach the top shelf for something I need.

Look at all these clothes we’re getting rid of!!

Spring has officially started for us…

Now…what about you? doing some cleaning too?