Remember this guy?

He’s my class pet at school and I’ve chatted about him once or twice. He comes to live with us over the long breaks, and he’s basically the sweetest hamster in the history of ever. I love him.

One Friday a couple of weeks ago, one of my kids when to get him out of his cage and suddenly, panicked, shouted that he wasn’t there. I came to double check (because, seriously, where else would he be?) and sure enough, no Sparky.

We spent a good chunk of that day looking for him, and I left the cage on the ground with some extra food overnight hoping to entice him back in, but no luck. Though, when I got back to work on Monday some of the food was missing, which hinted that he was still hanging around.

We looked for him on and off all day on Monday (and I sent an email out to all of the other teachers at our school, ensuring that pretty much the entire campus was searching for him!) with no luck.

But then I came to work on Tuesday and found this:

and immediately texted this photo to Corey:

My kids were completely thrilled to have him back, and we spent most of our morning making thank you notes to leave for our sweet janitor. It was a pretty fantastic start to my Tuesday morning, and it made the whole week a little bit better – we even spent more than a few writing sessions over the week coming up with creative stories about how Sparky spent his time while he was free! I’m so glad our little Sparky is home!

Did you have a class pet growing up? Ever have one escape?!

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So, this happened this weekend…

Boo.

We were out and about on Saturday, running a few errands before going to my niece’s birthday party, and after popping into a new thrift store that we had been wanting to check out we got in the car to head to the party and…it wouldn’t start.

We tried everything we could think of (which, really, wasn’t much – we have no idea about how to fix a hybrid engine), but no luck. The car just wasn’t starting. We had to call and have someone come pick it up so they could make it all better. Of course, the problem ended up being one of the very few things not covered by our warranty, so it wasn’t a cheap fix…but we were at least able to get it back last night!

In other news, our air conditioner is still (STILL!) broken from that one time this summer, and the air conditioner in our other car is broken as well.

Yeah, things just keep breaking, and I’m starting to get angry with the whole situation. I’m ready for stuff to just work again, but I don’t know if that’ll be happening anytime soon. We’re supposed to have someone come out to look at our home air conditioning (again) this week, so fingers crossed that it actually works this time.

And my little vent session is over.

What’s going wrong in your life lately?

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Fun fact: The very first post on this little ol’ blog was published on January 31, 2011. Which means that we just passed our two year blogging anniversary, and that calls for a celebratory post, no?

So, today I’m going to round up some of my favorite projects and posts over the last year. We accomplished quite a bit this year and if you’re new, this is a great way to get the Reader’s Digest version of the last 12 months! Let’s jump right in.

In February, I had an “Organize-a-Thon,” where I posted a new organizing project every week throughout the month (apparently, I get into an organizing kick at the beginning of every year!) – one of my favorite projects? I took our guest room from this…

to this.

So! Much! Better! It’s still looking nice and clean like this (though it has an extra kennel thanks to Hadley!), and I’m excited to see what we can tackle with this year’s Organize-a-Thon (oh, just wait – it’s coming!).

In February, I also did a quick tutorial of how I browse Craigslist – I’ve had quite a bit of luck over the years at finding good things, so I shared the knowledge after many of you asked me how I find so many great pieces.

Next up is what is still one of my favorite projects I’ve ever done (yours too, since it’s still one of my most viewed posts ever!) – my “Home Sweet Home” art that I did for the upstairs hallway. It still makes me smile every time I see it.

And, since I was apparently on an art kick this time of year, I also created some DIY silhouettes for the guest room – they’re still hanging in there, and I need to update ‘em so that Hadley can be represented too!

Later in the year, over the summer, we took on a project that I’m still so glad every day that we did – the chalkboard door in our kitchen. I absolutely love the dramatic pop of black in there, and the chalkboard is such a handy feature for writing our weekly menu or random notes as we need to.

Also over the summer, we took on my favorite project we’ve ever done. It’s by far the most popular post I’ve ever written here on the blog, and it’s the project I’m most proud of out of everything we’ve ever done. Our dining room chandelier has made such a huge impact on the entire house, and it still makes me giddy to look at. Love, love, love, love.

We also went on a wonderful and relaxing vacation over the summer with my sister and her family. I’m a big cruising fan, and it was fabulous to take a week off, rest, and just enjoy ourselves. Sigh – I wouldn’t mind being back on that boat right about now.

In August, we hit the one-year anniversary of living in our house here in Austin. To celebrate, I took y’all on a quick house tour so you could see the changes we had made since we first moved in. It was fun to see how much our house had already evolved, and it’s also fun to look at those photos and see how our house has changed since then!

Shortly after that, we added a gorgeous, graphic stencil to our living room staircase wall. It made a huge impact in our living room and I’m obsessed with how it looks. And I still can’t get over how easy it was!

In September, we adopted our sweet, sweet puppy, Hadley. She’s changed our whole world (in a good way) and I am so glad we have her in our lives. Ranger and Cullen are pretty fond of her, too. And, um, seriously – look at how tiny she was!

And, last but not least, I can’t resist including the post where we talked about meeting the biggest blog-celebrities out there, John and Sherry Petersik! We had so much fun going to their book signing, and I’m still so excited that we got to meet them. They also happened to give us a shout out in their book tour recap, which was hugely exciting for us!

And with that, you’ve got my favorite posts from the second year of our little blog! There were a ton more projects and posts this past year,  but these are the best of the best (in my humble opinion). I’m excited to get started on year three of blogging, and I can’t wait to see what the year has in store for us!

What are some things you accomplished in 2012?

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Those of you who read Young House Love (everyone, right?) probably know where I’m going with this post. They issued a challenge last Friday to head to a thrift store with $20 in your pocket (just like in the song!) and see what you can score. They’re hosting a huge link party this week so everyone can share their spoils and we can all see what you can snag for $20 at thrift stores all over the country.

I was, of course, thrilled about the challenge and couldn’t wait to head out to our local Goodwill to see how many awesome things we could find.

We ended up finding way more than I would have expected for only twenty bucks, and I’m super excited about it. Ready to see what we bought?

First up, this cute little frame. It was a whopping $0.99, and I’m a sucker for a good frame with a fun, different texture. We’re constantly looking for new things to add to our gallery wall (and we’re starting to build one in our bedroom, so we’re even more in need of frames)! I don’t have anything to fill it with yet, but I’ll figure it out soon. All I know is I’m loving the rope-like texture on this guy, and the nice, natural color.

We also grabbed this little flower art for $1.99 – I love that it’s three-dimensional and, while it wasn’t exactly…pretty…as it was, I knew with some paint it would look fabulous.

And, as usual, I was right. We had some white spray paint hanging out in the workshop (don’t we always?) so I gave it a couple of quick coats and just like that it was looking modern, crisp, and super fun. I love it, and I can’t wait to find a spot for it in our gallery wall!

Next?

Um, yeah, I know that doesn’t look like much but this may be the find I’m most excited about. I recently read a blog post by The Nester about how to keep your pillows looking fluffy – apparently the key is feather or down pillows!  Our throw pillows are constantly looking pathetic, because we have dogs who do this…

…so, um, I’m always looking for ways to help out our pillow situation! We knew this would work for us, because we have one feather pillow on our couch and it’s the only one that consistently looks nice and fluffy, no matter how many humans or dogs use it. So, I walked through the pillow section at Goodwill and felt up all of the pillows – this was the only feather one they had and it was in a super ugly cover. Luckily, it was removable so for $5.99 I had a nice sized feather pillow! I brought it home, washed it, and replaced the ugly cover with one from a pillow already on our couch.

I’m unreasonably excited about how awesome this is. I can’t wait to replace the rest of our pillows!

I’m having a huge gold moment right now and I’m totally drawn to anything gold toned that I can put in my house. Love, love, love. These super simple little candleholders were $7 for both, and I’m obsessed. We haven’t put any candles in them yet because all of our candles are buried in the garage with our Christmas stuff, so I need to gather up the energy to track ‘em down. But I have a feeling they’ll look fantastic.

And, finally, one more find that you’re probably going to give me the side-eye for. But just trust me – I knew what I was doing.

I know. It’s awful. BUT, with a quick coat of gold (I know – I have a problem) spray paint, it looks shiny, fun, and amaaaaaazing. And for $0.99, I couldn’t resist it!

SERIOUSLY. Adorable, right?

And, just for a quick recap – here’s all of the stuff that we were able to buy at our local Goodwill for just $20. Not bad, right?

Did anyone else participate in the challenge? What can you find at a thrift store in your area for just twenty bucks?

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Okay, let me warn you – this isn’t going to be a post about anything groundbreaking, Pinterest-worthy, or even heavy on the DIY skills. In fact, it’s a downright ridiculously simple way to freshen things up in your house that costs exactly zero dollars and just a few minutes of your time. Yes, my friends, I’m talking about working with what you’ve got and actually changing out your decor every once in a while.

I’m the worst at this. If you’ll remember, I threw a bunch of milk glass vases on our mantel on the day we moved in and then proceeded to change absolutely nothing on that mantel for the first 17 months that we lived here.

So, so boring.

Putting away our Christmas decor, however, was a great reminder for me that it was time to switch some stuff up, and since our house was already in shambles and our accessories were scattered all over the place, it was already halfway done! So, rather than just putting everything back exactly where it was before, I took a few minutes to find some ways to switch things around and give several small areas in our home a new life.

I know. Not exactly newsworthy material here, people. But, I’m telling you – I have to force myself to remember to do stuff like that, and if I don’t, my house accessories never ever change except when I bring something new in. And that’s no fun. I can’t tell you how much of a difference it made (to me, at least) to change things around, and it has made me look at all of the little tchotchkes we have in a whole new light. I’m not completely convinced that I like all of the different vignettes I set up, but that’s part of the fun – sometimes  you’ve gotta live with it for a few weeks and then change it again.

And here comes the part where I stop babbling and actually show you what I changed. I know most of you probably don’t have my house memorized (gasp!) so this may not look like anything new to you, but trust me – it’s different! If you really care and want to look back, you can follow the links to see what the bookcase, the mantel, the entryway, and the kitchen cabinet looked like previously. Or, you can just keep scrolling and see what they look like now!

Let’s start in the living room – I didn’t change much in our bookcase because I still need it to actually, you know, hold our books (or at least some of them), but there are a few small changes.

You’ve already seen our updated mantel, but I’ll include it here again since it has been one of the most-neglected spots in our home since we moved in. This is one of the areas that I’m not 100% in love with. It needs some variation in height and a few things to soften it up (maybe some flowers or greenery?), but it’ll get there.

And, also in the living room is the console by our front door. This one was the most difficult for me, as I’m used to having a tiny little table here that doesn’t fit anything, so it was intimidating to have all of that blank space staring at me. I’m not completely sure about this one, either, but I like the idea behind it and I think it’ll grow on me.

We still need to figure something out about that way-too-small-and-hung-way-too-high mirror, but this is still a major improvement over what we were working with before!

And, finally, let’s step into the kitchen to check out our hutch. Previously, this was used mostly for decorative items with a few serving pieces thrown in for good measure (along with our fancy china that we never ever use) , but I’ve changed things up so it now houses some of our cuter drinkware (I got these beauties from Anthropologie for Christmas!), some cute bowls (also a Christmas gift), and all of our pitchers in one spot. It’s much more functional now, and I think it’s still pretty cute to boot!

And that’s my not-at-all exciting but completely free and totally refreshing idea for how to make yourself love your home a little more. I love to switch things up like this when I’m feeling like I want something new for the house but don’t want to spend the money – it’s a great way to remind myself that I have a ton of really great accessories already and I just need to utilize them better!

Do you switch up your accessories often, or do you keep things the same for a long time like me?

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