Donny and I never really go out, so it was a treat for his workplace to have a casino party. He had to work all day and I was still under the weather with some kind of respiratory issue, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.
First of all, I want to give a shout out to Kiss Nails. I’m not a fan of wearing acrylic nails because I have it in my head that my nails can’t breathe when they are on. So, because I didn’t want to have to take the time to paint my nails I just used the glue on ones and……
I think they turned out pretty good considering they were only 3 bucks at Walmart. I will say this, you have to be pretty careful with the glue. I glued my fingers together, glued the pad of my finger to the top of the nail and got a few air bubbles. I still don’t think they look too bad for my first time. Reviews say they can last as long as 2 weeks. We’ll see.
The night started off really windy and cold. Almost to freezing, which for us is COLD. No problem, the inside of the hotel was warm and we had BBQ catered by Bodacious Barbecue and it was so good. If you ever find yourself in Longview, you really should try it. Only the location on Mobberly Ave. It is the original and the BEST one!
After dinner the gambling tables were open.
I tried craps first. Not my game. I kept losing and didn’t understand it at all.
Donny was having fun at the roulette table. If there is ever a picture that epitomizes him, this one is it. It’s good to married to someone as goofy as I am.
We were all give $3000 in fake money. At the end of the night, for every $1000 you have you get a ticket. There are prizes with cups in front of each one. If you really want a certain prize, you can put all your tickets in that cup or sprinkle them around for a better chance to win.
Each couple can only win one prize. We really wanted the PS4, but so did a lot of other people. We didn’t win that, but Donny put one of his tickets in a cup with a lot of other tickets already in there and guess what we came home with?
I didn’t think I’d ever want one, but I will have to admit it is really cool and fun to play with.
For the people that didn’t win a prize, there were some leftover so it was rock, paper, scissors to see who would take what home.
Mike won his rock paper scissors.
Donny works with a bunch of good people. If you know any of our story, you know just how thankful we are for this.
And because we seem to never have pictures together I thought I’d include this one. Not too bad, Craig.
Hope you are having a good weekend too,
Stacy
Most of this is Christmas and Halloween that needs to get up in the attic.
Y’all, the holiday stuff is gone! I’m starting to be able to breathe a little bit better. Our plan for the garage was to set up the kids game table so when they have friends over they can just open the door, hang out and play games.
The trash pile. That feels good.
This is our donation pile minus one box in the house I hadn’t brought out yet. I think I’ll have to make a few trips. Totally worth it!
The deck box against the bricks holds our folding chairs.
SO much better!!!
My laundry closet even got cleaned out.
In our storage closet I put all of our electric tools together so now they are much easier to find.
The other side of the closet.
We still have the box springs and bed frame, but the fridge is going.
Hoosiers might be an old movie, but it’s still such a good movie. I am a sucker for feel good sports movies.
Nothing beats fresh sheets and a shiny house.
Father son bonding at its finest. Hannah and I are not “gamers” in the least so we did our thing in the breakfast nook.
Farkle is one of our favorite games. You don’t actually need the game in the box, just 6 dice and a piece of paper to keep score. You can Google the instructions. I lucked out and got this complete, never used game at Goodwill for 59 cents. Our cat Monkey is always right there in the middle of everything. Have you ever played this weirdly named game? It really is fun.
If I fits I sits.
I have been a Dallas Cowboy fan since I was very, very young. When I was 3 all I wanted for Christmas was a Dallas Cowboy football uniform. My mom kept trying to talk me into the cheerleader uniform, but I would have none of it. So here I am, as an almost 4 year old, wearing my prize uniform.
Even my son who is not a chocolate lover liked these. They are seriously good.
Okay, not exactly kitchen decluttering, I was gearing up for it by drinking my coffee and watching Charmed. C’mon, just the outfits they wear are worth the watch. Did we really wear this in the early 2000’s???
I don’t have a lot of counter space, so instead of taking everything out all at once, I was going to have to do it in “shifts”. I decided to start with cabinets in the far right foreground. Glasses and pots and pans. I figured I’d start with the easiest ones to give myself confidence that I could actually get the whole thing done in the few hours I had.
This is the before. Not too terribly bad, but I had some things I needed to get rid of.
Step one is to take everything out. I don’t think I realized just how much stuff was in that one cabinet. Can we say overwhelming? 
See how much better just removing the things you don’t use and only keeping what you love changes the whole look? Whew, first one down.
My pots and pans stay pretty organized. The potatoes and the protein powder just always bugged me. I never really had a place to put them so they always just got shoved down there. The worst was when I forgot there was a bag way in the back. Know how I found it? I literally thought something had died in my kitchen. Nope, just mushy rotting potatoes. Yeah, not a good place to store them.
When you take everything out, it’s the perfect time to crawl on in there and wipe out your cabinets. Mine didn’t look dirty, but my rag said otherwise. I’m super jealous of anyone that has those pull out racks. Lucky ducks.
No more potatoes!!!! I also put my electric skillet behind my strainers. I don’t know why I never thought to do that before. Now it makes much more sense. The Konmari process is to hold the object and see if it “sparks joy”. I think that’s a little weird, especially with something like a pan. I just knew that if I didn’t ever use it, it needed to leave. A good example were my 2 stainless skillets. Everything stuck to the bottom and when my husband used them I’d always say, why are you using that horrible skillet? Yet, I still kept them. They’re out of here.
I only have 1.5 sets of dishes. The ones on the middle shelf my husband gave me many years ago. I love them, but they are discontinued and I looked into replacing them. One salad plate alone was something like 30 bucks. I just can’t get rid of them so it’s kind of a puny set. I also love white dishes. They don’t all match, but they are all the same color, so they work for me. I’m not really picky about it. 
I just got rid of the black bowls, some plastic bowls and moved the popsicle pop things to the cabinet over the fridge because, well, it’s winter.
I really like mixing bowls.
The kids lunch stuff and serving dishes are now housed in here.
After:
Mixing bowls, baking stuff and plastic food containers.
The thing on the top right is my stand mixer that I absolutely love but am sad because it’s too big to sit on my counter and doesn’t fit under here. It just feels wrong to have it laying on it’s side like that.
I moved my chip and bread baskets down here with my small appliances and water bottles.
The box holds our grilling utensils. I had extra room, so it seemed as good a place as any.
I swear by the Dollar Tree plastic baskets. 
I use the plastic glasses for when I chop onions. Keeps the tears away.
They just seem happier up there rather than jammed into a cabinet.
Well, except for my cat who was freaked out because he hates change and probably thought we were moving again.
I only had to toss a few things because I go through them regularly. This was after I’d gone through them and separated them.
Using the pill box just makes it quicker and easier and you don’t have to remember if you’ve already taken them or not. Seriously, I have that problem.
My towels are not folded in the Konmari style. I use 2 washclothes a day. We go through the towels pretty quickly too. I find that if I can see everything, I’m good. Use what works for you.
I haven’t seen these in FOREVER. We used to come back from the pool and cook some up. I remember them being so good. I also thought Taco Bell burritos and McD’s chicken nuggets were delicious, so there is no telling what these are really going to taste like. It’s okay, they are still a happy memory.
Prepping to power wash!
Our house is weird because we are on a corner with the garage in the back and the actual backyard cut in half by this fence. We’re coming up with a few ideas. Hopefully I’ll have pics sometime in the near future.
The Funky Frugalista 