How Did This Happen!?!

Hi! I hope you are having a wonderful day so far! I am in the mood to tackle big things today, it is a new week and I have gotten through my to do list as it pertains to the main living parts of my house. Now it is time...time to move on to the room I have been avoiding, the one that I go to when I am holding an item that doesn't yet have a living space and drop it off closing the door behind me with a sigh of relief (a sigh that is tinged with the knowing that I will have to face it eventually) and go on with whatever I am in the middle of. So here I am looking at this room that I have taken a picture of and I am asking myself "How DID this happen?"

I have a small home. It is approximately 1000 sq. feet with three bedrooms, one and a half baths, a galley kitchen, a small dining area just off a small living room with a one car garage that used to be a carport. Our home is the perfect size for me and my husband. I don't know about you but I seem to change things around in our little space quite frequently. As our lives change our needs for what we are using our rooms for have changed with us. While my husband was going through college one of our bedrooms served as his office. Before I was a SAHW I worked for a company as an at home agent so the other bedroom was my office.

Now my office has become our office (he is currently looking for a new job so we don't expect him to need it for long),  and the way I have my work space set up his side I only use now and then. I have been given third bedroom to turn into a guest bedroom and I am super excited (we have lived here right at eight years) but when I look at this room right now I feel overwhelmed. Over the years I have come to realize that in our space less feels better. The end tables you see in this picture were in our living room but were taking up too much room holding a lot of clutter. I was going to donate them but have decided to re-purpose them to our master closet to hold some of my clothing. I have decided to donate the chair because there is just no room for it.

In the closet of this room is where our router and printer lives and for now that is the best place for them. This room has become the dumping ground for mismatched tools and things that probably should have gone straight to the garbage (my husband has a knack for claiming that he doesn't feel comfortable making that decision so he leaves it up to me, I am NOT falling for this!). I am envisioning creating a reading room with a sleeper sofa for company so that we don't have a room that we hardly ever use, that would drive me crazy! So I will do my best to post an update as I work my way through this mess.

Do you have any spaces in your home like this? A room, a closet, a sun room, a porch, a garage (crap! I have one of those too!). Let me know if you've found a way to organize it and keep it organized (herein lies the rub for me) or if you are in the process or just plain gave up (no judgement I promise!)

Thank you so much for stopping by and reading through a bit of my life, I appreciate you listening!

Wishing you sunshine and smiles,
Kim :)

Hesitant Shopper No More!!!

Hi Everybody!

There is an issue that I didn't think was an issue until my recent experience (which is what today's post is about) however said issue drives my husband crazy. The issue is this: I am a hesitant shopper. So what I mean by that is I will see something, really want it, and then have to take some time to think about it. I may take days, weeks, months, and yes sometimes even years before deciding to actually purchase the item I initially wanted. At home in the States this method has typically served me well as often times by waiting I will get the item at a good discount or will find an item I would rather have. While living in Ireland...not so much.

So what had happened was...I had been in and out of a great Irish souvenir shop called Carroll's Irish Gifts and had seen the cutest mug that was covered in photos of Dublin's iconic places and items in black and white while having a few items like the double decker bus etc. in color.  I would love to show you a picture of this mug but alas I do not have one. Every time I saw the mug in a shop (many places we visited had this same mug) I would think to myself "you are living here you do NOT need a mug". So I didn't get it and I didn't get it and I didn't get it.

Fast forward to our last night in Dublin and I had decided that I wanted that mug. We had company with us and since it was our last night in Dublin we wanted to go out for dinner and have Bangers & Mash one more time. So we went out and then after dinner I dragged everyone to Carroll's to get my mug but they were closed. There was a chance that another Carroll's that was close by might be open so I dragged everybody over there but that one was closed too. Grrr! Now mind you it was cold and windy and not pleasant at all! So I had everybody tromping through city center for nothing! The store has a website so I went online to find it and the store no longer carries that mug. I found another mug that I liked so I ordered it. It came in the other day and I was so excited! I found the scissors, opened the box, unwrapped the bubble wrap and discovered my new mug was BROKEN!!!

Unbelievable! So I sent an email to the store and they were incredibly helpful and attentive but because the item was so inexpensive and the cost to replace it and cover shipping just didn't make sense so they issued me a refund. No Dublin mug for me. :(

 Lesson learned! In the future I will not procrastinate if it is something I really want. I got the "I told you so" look from Jamie (let's face it I got that look every time I mentioned the mug incident). Almost every morning when I go to get my coffee I think about the absence of my Dublin mug and shake my head to myself. Why must I always learn things the hard way?

Wishing you sunshine and smiles,
Kim :)