Personal Inspiration

My Personal Inspiration for the Day!

Today was overall a good day despite fighting a headache all day and my one year old having tantrums near the end. She had been well all day- very happy even- like she normally is. As normal children do, perhaps, she had her meltdown at grandma's. It was fine, though. She's perked back up!

Since we are getting ready to move into a new place we decided today to scour Lowe's. They had red mulch on sale for a dollar a bag, so we went and picked up 6 of them. We would have gotten more but the left over papers from last nights paper delivery too up too much room in the back.

Well, while walking around and collaborating ideas I happened to find a gold mine in the flooring area. 

I had seen a great idea on Pinterest (yes, I'm a Pinterest fiend. I need to put a button up soon...) to make stepping stones by personalizing them as mosaics. I want this to be one of my first projects for the outside along with getting stuff ready for gardening and just having outdoor plants. Yes, my renters are THAT awesome to us! Anyway, I found where the broken and tile on sale was on shelves in the middle of the tile center- pieces as low as a quarter. How could I pass this up for what I wanted? I even walked down a full isle and picked up 2 black tiles for .30 a piece. The best part: this Lowe's was selling BUCKETS of broken tile for $5.00. YES. $5.00!!!! all in 5 gallon buckets! Some were mixed a little, but each bucket had an inventory of what they included. The one I first liked was almost $20 worth. Great natural colors all around. After I noticed this on the paper on the bucket I looked over the others. There was a bucket worth $200- but only had one type of tile... and I didn't need THAT much of one color. The bucket I got was best for me. It was $98 worth of tile- 3 types- including MARBLE. So, needless to say, I probably don't need any more natural or soft browns for my projects for a while! I'll be sure to post everything once I get going and tweek the How-To a bit ;) Not to bash the blogger who originally put up the tutorial, but I really REALLY have another way of doing it and make them awesome.

The biggest problem we are having with the move so far: The electric provider DOES service the place we are getting- SECO- the renters know for sure, of course, because they have the power on right now. But the address they keep on giving is wrong and the number to the power box is not the one SECO has. Urgh. A minor setback that we need to fix soon with management to sort out. But nonetheless will get done. Who said everything was going to be smooth, eh? It happens and everything will work out. 

My lessons for the day:

Get pumped up about anything happening in your life. It may be as simple as a yummy meal you plan for the end of the week (I do this often) or a project that you are about to do in the coming weeks. You don't need to spend a lot of money to do this, but you can always shop around for items that you think you may need and look for those hidden deals you'll never notice otherwise. Try not to pay full price for everything and you'll likely get more excited about things. For instance, you need shrimp for that meal. It may be an extra stop, but scowering your local market ads you may come across a sharp deal that is lower then it's competitor's that perhaps you shop often. Maybe you want to buy a really nice new shelving unit for a room. Why not see if you can find something similar for cheaper- OR- make it yourself? Even at home improvement centers they can cut boards to the specifications you need. Doing a bit of homework, looking around and doing it yourself can cost you far less then buying it outright if you can. I've got a list going of things we will be doing together that will save us possibly hundreds when it comes time. Until then, I have a small list of things to do very soon and long term to work on as we can get the stuff. And we BOTH are excited about it!