#95 Drop off Old Sneakers for "Reuse-A-Shoe"

"Every year, across the globe, millions of pairs of athletic shoes end up in landfills or disposed of in some other way creating a lot of waste.  Much of what we dispose of contains valuable materials that, with a little bit of imagination and ingenuity, could be reused.  With the pursuit of sustainability in mind, Nike created a program to recycle worn out athletic shoes and turn them into something new.  Old athletic shoes of any brand, are collected, processed and recycled into a material called “Nike Grind”.  Once SWALCO collects the athletic shoes (sometime after Earth Day each year) from our school, community and business partners, we transport them to Nike's facility to become "grind".  This material will then be used to create sports surfaces like basketball courts, tennis courts, athletic fields, running tracks and playgrounds that will be enjoyed by children of all ages, for many years to come. Now that's creative recycling!" 
-SWALCO 
www.lakecountyil.gov/swalco/Programs/Reuse-A-Shoe


Yesterday we dropped off some old and/or half-chewed (thank you, Nola Belle!) shoes to this program at our local drop-off point the Zion-Benton Library. If you have old athletic shoes, think about rounding them up and dropping off for a similar cause. Cleans your house, good for the environment, good for sport surfaces.  

This Year for Lent...Another 40 Days, 40 Projects!

So once again, my hubby and I are going to give up procrastinating for lent. We've made up a very long list of projects and tasks we've put off for too long, as well as some activities we've been looking forward to over the winter. Basically, it's a collective list of all those "You know what we should do..." conversations that we've been having for months. 


Lent this year runs from March 9th through Easter, which is technically 46 days, but the 6 Sundays during this time don't count and are, as I understand it, supposed to be like mini-Easters. But we aren't doing this for religious reasons, and truthfully, Sundays are really good days for us to get things done, so we will still be checking off projects on Sundays. Also, I'd like to accomplish 40 projects, that's the goal, but really I'll be pretty happy that we are just making progress and getting things taken care of. 


I hope you follow along during this time to watch our progress! If you look at the tag "40 days 40 projects" you can see what we were able to get done last year; it will also tag all of our "projects" for this year. 


So with that, I am very excited to get started...tomorrow. 

The Hudsucker Proxy

 

So hubby and I watched the Coen Brothers "The Hudsucker Proxy" on Friday night. It was such a fun movie!  The movie came out in 1994, so I can't believe that I hadn't seen the movie yet. The dialog and setting is highly stylized to fit the late 1950's era, which I loved because of all of the vintage clothes and decor. The dialog is also very fast pace. I wouldn't say there are many laugh out loud one liners, but the movie over all is very funny. Since it is now an instant watch on Netflix, I don't see any reason to not give it a watch. 

Also, there are a few connections to "Mr. Deeds" that are kinda fun to watch for: 

1) Source material. According to Wikipedia, the Coen bothers got there idea for the plot from such movies as "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" which is the same movie the ulta-stupid 2002 Adam Sandler movie. 

2) The Plot. Once you've seen both, the similarities in plot are very apparent....really too many to enumerate here. 

3) Cast. Both movies share Peter Gallagher and Steve Buscemi. Both have much smaller roles in the "Hudsucker Proxy" but both are there for sure! (And let me tell you, Peter Gallagher is looking quite young and sexy!) Also, I can't find out for sure but there is a Texas shareholder in both movies, and I think it may be the same guy. But I luckily haven't seen "Mr. Deeds" lately, so I can't tell for sure. 

Bathroom Facelift: Blik It Up!!

After painting the bathroom all white, we wanted to jazz it up a little...well I shouldn't say we, cause the hubby wasn't sure on this one. But after we got the decals up, he likes it and I LOVE IT!!

We got the decals from Blik at www.whatisblik.com. They came in the mail, and we had to wait for the new paint to cure, so we put everything up this weekend. They were relatively easy, but two people were necessary. They kinda go on like large stickers, but look much better than other decals I've seen before. They  basically look like someone more artistic than myself, painted them on the wall. Here's a few pics of this next phase of bathroom upgrade. 

And even in the shower...

Bathroom Facelift: Paint and Lighting

Since buying our house in 2006, we have painted every room with the exception of the bathroom...that is until we got the idea to give our tiny bathroom a little facelift. Now all of the rooms have been painted (some more than once!) For the first part of upgrade, the walls and ceiling color went from a green color (a cross between lime and mint, it was never my favorite) to a nice clean white. Check out the difference...

From the Hallway: Before

From the Hallway: After

Sink Area: Before

Sink Area: After

Shower Area: Before

Shower Area: After

Besides painting, we also updated the sconces next to the mirror. While all the other finishes in the bathroom (and most of our house) are silver, the previous sconces were gold. Yuck! We got these cute silver ones for about $20 each at Lowes.

Before:

After:

Controlling my mess of a closet! I need help!

So I just went through my two closets and two dressers this morning. I separated the clothes that I no longer want to either donate or sell at a garage sale; I organized drawers and closet sections into categories; hung up what need hanging and folded what needed folded. And, you know, the fact of the matter is that my closets and drawers are still overflowing.

Now I can make excuses, like "I have work AND casual clothes" and "I have summer AND winter clothes". But the fact of the matter is that, I have too much! I want to simplify my life and certainly my clothing. Any suggestions...

I need a dose of spring!!!

I am desperate for spring and summer, so I took a little time today to order some wild flower seeds to plant in a few months. All of the following wildflower are from American Meadows.

I can't wait!!!