Decorating for Fall

At the beginning of each season, I shake things up around our house. Most of our decor stays the same from season to season (like the bookcase in our living room or the set-up in our bedroom), but I love switching our bookshelves and the entryway chalkboard. I try to do things a little differently every season, which is tough when I'm working on limited funds.  It forces me to be creative, that's for sure!

Here's the bookshelves on our living room wall (to the left of the kitchen).

DIY Plastic Bag Organizers

As you saw in my last post about organizing the skeletons in our closets, I DIY'd plastic bag organizers to hold all of our plastic grocery bags.  Here's a refresher of what that grocery bag situation looked like before.  Yuck.

Skeletons in our Closets

I had gotten sick of our closets being disheveled; I felt like I was being ambushed every time I opened our pantry door.  We had a few problems to tackle:  

• The cleaning supplies (mop, broom, vacuum) had been in the Man Cave closet since we moved in and didn't quite fit there anymore (well, actually ever).  I tried to move them to our pantry, but they fell over every time I opened the door.
• Our collection of plastic and reusable shopping bags made it difficult to close our pantry door.
• Our tailgating supplies, which stay in the shed in the off-season, needed to be easily accessible for football season.

I started with the pantry, since it was the most offensive of the closets.  Here's how it looked to start.  There's the mop and broom that made an appearance every time the door was open.

What's the story, Morning Glory?

The weather has cooled down a little in the past few weeks, especially during the evenings.  By a little, I mean we're out of the 90s and into the upper 80s during the day-- but the evening temperatures have gone from the 80s to the 50s.  And with those cooler temperatures, our morning glory has come out in full force.  It's been so beautiful to see.

Here's a reminder about how Ms. Morning Glory started out.  We wanted something to cover up our brand new pergola, so we chose the medium-growth Ipomoea tricolor 'Heavenly Blue.' 

Preparing for Emergencies

In honor of National Preparedness Month and after the past few weeks of tropical storms, hurricanes, and earthquakes on the east coast, I thought it was an appropriate time to talk a little bit about how you can prepare for a weather disaster in your own house.  Part of my full-time job is emergency preparedness (I'm responsible for creating the emergency plans in our buildings and for carrying out those plans in the event of an emergency), but I am by no means an expert (check out NOAA, Ready.gov, the American Red Cross, or The Weather Channel for comprehensive information).  Here are some of the things I've learned about preparing for severe weather.

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Sticking It Out

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I thought I'd pop in to let you know my post schedule is changing slightly.  I've been aiming the past few months to post every Tuesday and Thursday (some weeks that worked out better than others).  But since my job revolves around school calendars, my work schedule is in full swing.  I work a ton of nights and weekends, so any time at home is spent either having quality time with Mr. Great Indoors or doing laundry/cleaning/you name it.  So from now until I get a little break, I'll just be posting once a week each Tuesday.  Hopefully that means more thought-out content than it would be if I were hurriedly posting twice a week.  Thanks for "sticking" with me.  (Get it?  Post-Its? ...)

Do you have a crazy work schedule at any point during the year?  Any fun plans for Labor Day this weekend?  The only way I can recall which holiday begins and ends the summer is to remember that my birthday is in September... so my mom labored with me in the month of Labor Day.  :-)