Project Status: Bathroom Medicine Cabinet

Project Status:  In Progress

Well, with the kids sick most of this week and last, progress is slowing to a crawl here on this little ol' blog of mine!  I am really slacking on all of the blogs, and this weekend has been brutal. So, to get a little "me" time in, when the kids were napping today, I took apart the medicine cabinet.  So relaxing!  ;)

I am not finished, but I got a really good start today.  Here's a picture of the current state of things:

I threw so much stuff out it was ridiculous - things that expired in 2004, one that expired in 1998.  Wow.  I took out all of my hair care stuff and lotions because it really is a medicine cabinet!  I will find a place for those elsewhere.  And I tried to group things according to use and how often they are used.  

The pain relievers are all together in one container, as are the cough remedies, etc... I placed the containers and then a row of bottles to keep the space in between standardized so that things just don't start to get jumbled again.  Creating a space for everything does that!  Or at least helps minimize the putting back where it doesn't belong.  Hopefully it will work!  Plus, I know we need a few things that I am saving spaces for.  

I am looking for a way to use the height of the bottom shelf...I know there are shelves they sell that hang from the shelf above it, but I need to make something since I don't want to spend the money.  Cheap Cheap! I'd like to label things as well.  Once I got into it, I realized that would help in keeping things where they belong and in finding stuff quickly.  

So, that's the status!

All the Motivation I Need.

I ask myself why I am trying to lose weight.

And this is what myself tells me:

Obvious reasons:

• Being healthy, feeling good, not getting Diabetes.
  
• Keeping up with the kids, having the energy to attain all the goals I want for all of us in this next year.
  
• Not feel embarrased in a bathing suit
• Not have to wear maternity clothes for the rest of my life (duh!)
• I want my strength back.

And with eyes as big as saucers, these are today, just realized reasons:

• My 15 year High School reunion is this summer. Whoa.  I do not want to be the one that when I walk away, everyone shakes their head and discusses how I "let myself go."
  
• Family Vacation this August, in the water constantly, I don't want to be mistaken for a water buffalo at the water's edge and be eaten by a freshwater crocodile.
• 10th anniversary trip this summer to somewhere hot, I don't want to feel frumpy and self-conscious, I want to feel hot!

Those last three are ridiculously powerful motivators, if only for extremely vain reasons.  But, I can handle that.  

I am signing up on the private weight loss blog I follow, called "Adios, Fatty", as a motivated-guest blogger/poster this week.  I am looking forward to the accountability from all her readers. If you are interested in her journey, she has lost almost 30 pounds so far and super fast, predictably 2 pounds a week like clockwork because she has done the math!  She's an animal!  I am sure she will let you in on the blog if you are interested.  Shoot me an email at ertelbear@gmail.com if you want to sign up for hers and I will let her know she has more readers!  She already has two other weight loss posters and I think about 15-20 readers, so I will be the third to sign up and post every week. The more motivation the better!

Project Status: Bathroom Medicine Cabinet

Status:  Take the Before Picture!

I haven't officially started this yet, but here's a before picture, and all the reasons it needs to change.

Here's the full cabinet, it's pretty shallow.  

This is one of the major annoyances of a shallow cabinet and an addiction to super-strength Motrin.  Yes, I blurred it out so that none of you junkies out there could fill our prescriptions and run away to Mexico.  It's for your own protection. 

After the c-section of the triplets, I got a bucket load of the stuff - it's great to have around for super-migraines!  The week after, Mike landed in the ER with a slipped disc - and he received his very own stash.  Not that I am bitter, but I got Ibuprofin 600s for my surgery - pulling 3 kids out of a slit in my belly... he gets 800s for his.  Hmm.  Is this a man's world?  I digress...

And this is our other collection.  Apparently we need 2500 band-aids.  In every size imaginable.  

And do you see the pills stashed everywhere?  We have problems.... ;)

Tomorrow I attack this shallow denizen of pain relievers and ouch-pads.  The bonus, if I get hurt in the process, I can finally use something in there.  Wish me luck.

Project Start: Bathroom Medicine Cabinet

I'm not sure when this got out of hand, but it is a.total.mess.

It's my job now to sort through and toss all the expired meds, vitamins, lotions, band-aids (do they expire? lol) and then reorganize in some fashion all the contents of this tiny cabinet.  We must honestly have about 600 Motrin pills in various strengths.  I guess we like the Motrin!  I will post a before photo tomorrow, when it's not the middle of the night and taking a picture would probably awaken Mikey.  Talk about a Last-Minute-Lucy!  

Hopefully, this will be a quickie and I can devote more time to the other projects that need attention this week!  It will be nice to have done, though, since every time one of us opens it, a pill bottle jumps out at us, like it can't stand to be squeezed in there one second longer.  We then stuff it back in and close the door real quick like.  :)

So, the goals on this one:

• Sort cabinet contents
• Toss the expired or the bad
• Give away the extra to the most accident prone person we know
• Consolidate as much as possible (i.e., the 10 bottles of same strength prescription Ibuprofin into 1)
• Organize shelves by category
• Label?  Do we go that far? 

Favorite Things Friday

Yep, I missed it.  I got back to my computer this evening and realized I missed Favorite Things Friday! *gasp* So, I decided to post-date it, just to keep the continuity.  I'm anal like that.  

This week is a product I have used a lot, this week.  Unfortunately.  The cats have been throwing up like mad for some reason, and in the past, this chore took a while to get the stains out.  

Not anymore!

This baby - the Woolite "Oxy Deep" P.O.D. Cleaner - cleans the spots in literally seconds.  And that is why I heart it.  

If you have pets, this is a must.  Just sayin'.

Snag!

Monday was good!  It was my first day of exercising and eating well.  I was on track.

And Monday night, I started feeling a little under the weather.  Super bad headache and just plain bushwhacked.  So, I took a few Motrin and called it an early night.  Tuesday morning I woke up sick.  Really sick... And SORE......!  What timing! Curse you, Jillian Michaels!!

30 Day Shred Users have all commented that the next day after the first workout is unbearable pain.  Soreness, achy, can't sit down or do a flight of stairs without the ever-present agony kind of sore.  

So, I woke up sick AND that kind of sore.  It was a brutal day and an awful blow to my momentum and motivation.  Today is the first day the soreness has mostly abated and I can just deal with being sick.  And today is the first day I realized just what kind of sick I am.  Chest cold, at it's finest.  Can you beleive that I was that sore that I couldn't tell what was hurting from the sickness?  It's kinda funny, really.  

I haven't fallen off the healthy eating bandwagon though, just the exercising.  We actually had a good meal last night that I will be posting this week - the basic chicken, veggies and whole grain cappelini kind of meal... It was very tasty.  So, hopefully tomorrow, I will feel well enough to get up early again and exercise my patootie off...again.  

Check out some of the new healthy living blogs I have added to the sidebar.  There are some really great recipes, tips and motivation butt kickers on there.  I will be adding more as I start different kinds of projects, and then sorting them as they are all different kinds of helpful.  

Recipe Madness

Ok, so these will not be recipes that would be fit to file under "Recipe Madness", but the title made me chuckle, so there it is.  I'd like to share a few recipes I find or make up along the way on this blog.  You can choose whether or not they are fit for man or beast... if they make it here, at least I liked them...and since it's my blog, I can cry if I want to!  ;)

This is my only caveat:  I like a lot of "weird" stuff.  And sometimes I make combinations just to try them.  Sometimes I like them and others, well, those times I know why I never became a professional chef.  By the way, "weird" in our house is defined as something Mike doesn't like. 

Since I want to try and reduce the amount of calories I ingest daily, and also a few carbs along the way, I decided to go a little South Beach on myself and try a lettuce wrap sandwich.  I have had a few in the past (like a rosemary chicken goat cheese wrap!  Yum!) and they never fail to amaze me in the fact that I really don't miss the bread at all.  In fact, I like the refreshing crunch of the lettuce leaf instead.  Not all the time, of course, but if I skip the bread now and then, that's almost 200 calories I can either use somewhere else or skip altogether - a worthy sacrifice!

Today was the start of this new endeavor, so I came up with this lunch quickly after getting the kids settled in their own highchairs, munching on their own good stuff.  Can you believe my kids like prunes?  That amazes me every day...but, that's another story.   ;)  

What should I call this one?   Hmm.....

Avocado and Egg Lettuce Wrap

(that's pretty straightforward, huh?)

2 red leaf lettuce leaves

2 eggs

4-5 thin slices of avocado (hass)

1 tbsp hummus (any kind, I used the classic)

Dijon mustard (to taste)

dash of Cumin (optional)

Using the smallest amount of butter possible, fry up the two eggs, breaking the yolk so the whites and yolks all cook together.  While they are cooking, mix the dijon mustard and the hummus together in a small bowl.  When at desired flavor, place the lettuce leaves on your plate and spread half of the hummus/mustard mixture around on each leaf. When eggs are cooked, place 1 egg on each leaf, on top of the mixture.  Spread the other half of the hummus on the eggs. Cut the avocado into chunks and add on top.  Sprinkle with cumin and wrap.  

Warning, they take a lot of practice and skill to eat without getting messy.  I haven't mastered that quite yet.  Also, I made this without mixing the hummus and mustard first, and this is why I modified the recipe.  The picture shows a big dollop of the mustard on top...and since I am a softie and Dijon can be quite like horseradish in the strength, I figured it would be better spread around a bit.  

I ate this with 1/2 cup of sliced strawberries and a big glass of water.  The dijon mustard and the cumin added a nice kick.  I liked this one quite a bit and will make it often for a quick lunch.  

Approx calories for the whole meal:  325

I walked this morning for 35 minutes, only burning 235 calories.  Boo!  Then, in the afternoon, I did 30 Day Shred, and doing some research, first timers to the levels might burn around 225-250 cals.  All that work for the same as a 40-minute run.  This is going to take some time to get used to!

Project Start: Lose 50 Pounds

God, that sounds hard.  It sounds like an impossible goal sitting on this side of it.  I have always struggled with my weight, typically "yo-yo"ing since I was a teenager, and always conscious and self-conscious about it, no matter how healthy I was at the time.  

I have come to realize that I have a medical condition, known as PCOS, that causes my body to go into a mode called "Insulin Resistance".  That is basically the step right before diabetes sets in, and why it is known as a pre-diabetic condition in medical circles.  What that means is that my body is shutting down the pathways to the cells that glucose would normally enter to level out blood sugar. So, my pancreas is overproducing insulin to force open these pathways.  Since the pathways are still opening, my body just works as normal, but one day, when my pancreas is overworked, it will shut down, and diabetes will be the instant result. It will look like to the outside observer that I didn't have diabetes one day, and the next, I did.  Scary thought, since you can't ever go back from that point. 

Right now, my blood sugar would register as normal, or in a healthy range, almost as if nothing was wrong.  But, my pancreas is working overtime, and every day I do not exercise or eat right is a day I walk toward the irreversible condition of diabetes.  That should be enough to get me going, right?  Well, it is not enough to just exercise.  It will be a huge step to just lose 10 pounds with this condition, but eating "right" is a must now.  And I say it that way because everyone has a different "right" way to eat for their particular situation.  

Doing a ton of research over the last two years about the kids' nutrition, I have gleaned much good information for myself as well.  And I can tell you that it is exactly the opposite of how I have been dieting/eating for health.  Low fat is not the answer, at least not for me.  

I have to stay away from processed carbs, sugar, bad fats.  Any of these foods will turn directly into fat because my system is telling itself to store the fat, since my cells are resisting the insulin. That is why it has been so hard for me to keep weight off.  A few years ago, I dropped 20 pounds over 9 months.  I was at the gym 5-6 days a week for 2 hours a day.  High intensity workouts and strength training.  Spinning, running, high impact aerobics - super high energy workouts.  I was burning almost 800-1000 calories every day, sometimes more.  I never cut back or changed what I was eating, only worked out more if I had a highly caloric day.  I built up an insane amount of muscle, but my weight dropped very slowly.  I should have realized it back then, but it was my PCOS that was preventing me from losing more weight faster. With how much I was exercising, I should have lost much more in that time.  After I fell off the exercise bandwagon, around December of that year, by February, I had already gained 10 of it back, and by summer, I wouldn't be caught dead in a bikini again.  It came back so fast and I never connected the dots. I worked my butt off and as soon as I stopped, I was worse off then I ever was before.  And then I got pregnant with the triplets!  Bad timing.  ;)

So, back story behind us (phew!), I need to change my eating habits and start exercising again.  I miss running so much that it hurts.  My peace, my quiet, and my aggression had an outlet - so many good feelings and thinking time - it is an incredible teacher.  Of endurance, patience, aggression, control and the ability to master different muscle use, I could go on and on!  

In Late July, I started to run again, on our treadmill in the house.  Not exactly the same as being outdoors, but it felt good.  I ran every day for a month, and then we lost Ruger.  So, my drive faltered, since he was so much a part of my morning routine, sniffing the track before and after, like he was wondering where I went on it... so cute.  Not to mention, that week, my knees ached so bad, I could barely walk the week that he died.  It was agonizing pain, physical and emotional. I always wondered what caused it and how, once I started again, I could avoid that pain.  

Having a nice chat with my doc this week, he and I agreed that I need to lose at least 30 pounds to start. Ok, fine. I knew that I needed to lose weight, but our conversation has me feeling like a bit of a loser. I went in with a torn muscle in my stomach.  A few weeks ago, I went outside of the garage to check if we had a package delivered.  It was a bitterly cold day, so I jogged quickly to get back inside.  Literally about 25 feet.  Before I got to the door, I felt a searing pain in my left side stomach area.  It burned like crazy and I knew I tore a muscle.  My doctor thinks it's a hernia.  From jogging 25 feet.  Wow.  That brought me to a new low.  

How fat do you have to be to tear a muscle jogging 25 feet?  How out-of-shape do you have to be?  Well, all of that is me right now.  And don't worry, this is not a "pity me" speech, so you don't have to leave me a comment to soothe my aching self esteem. :) I need this motivation, this anger at myself to move forward.  This is my "tacklin' fuel".  (Name that movie!) 

The other blow to my plan was his response to my question about the sore knees after running. He said not to even think about running until I lose 30 pounds.  WHAT?  But, I run.  That's what I do!  Now I have to walk??!  I need to run!  I felt like crying, like someone had taken away my most powerful weapon in the fight for all I want to physically be. It's just not fair.  (I know, wah, wah, wah.) 

So, my plan.

• Eat whole grains. Veggies. GOOD fats (olive oil, avocado, almonds, etc...). Fruits. Lean protein. No low fat foods, since they tend to bump up carbs to compensate.  No low carb diet, since all I need is a Low G.I. diet. Yummy, whole grain forms of carbs. Another post! 

• Watch my calorie intake.  The next post will show the calculator I robbed from another weight loss blog I stalk.  

• Plan my meals for the week, including snacks, until it gets to be second nature.  

• Exercise. Walk. Up a serious incline. Blech.

And if all goes well, I can theoretically lose 2 pounds a week.  It's been done!  I am inspired by the blog I am reading, unfortunately private, but she is a triplet mama and she is doing it.  She keeps losing 2 pounds every week, so I am encouraged.  

I would love to join the Y again, since I adored their facility.  I need variety with my workouts, and that allowed me to choose what I wanted to do when I got there.  Plus!  They have an hour and a half of free child care every day.  Woo hoo!  We live too far away and don't have a second vehicle right now...so it just isn't a financial option at the moment.  Remember?  No money!!  lol

So, tomorrow morning, I start to exercise, which means I have to get up earlier than the troops.

No more sleeping in!

Project Start: Determine if Muscle Repair is Necessary

I plan on starting two projects this weekend, to catch up a bit.  

This first one is something I really need to fix. Literally.  

My belly muscles were stretched so much during pregnancy with the triplets that during the last 2 months of the gestation (which were months 6 and 7), my muscles started to tear.  I remember asking the doc about it at one of the weekly visits, that my belly, in a stripe down the center, started to seriously burn.  And it got all prickly, so not comfortable. And he said, in a very calm and matter-of-fact voice, that it was my stomach muscle wall splitting in two from the over-expansion of babies.  

Fan.tas.tic.

And I still had two months to go!  So, as you can imagine, I probably did a bunch more damage as the kids grew.  After birth, I waited for the muscles to repair themselves, a notoriously slow process, but almost 2 years later, I still feel like all my insides are sore.  

Asking about it this week at a doctor's appt, my awesome doc told me that only a minor gap can heal itself, and if it was stretched too much, it might require surgery.  Oh, and he also told me that I possibly have a hernia too.  WTF?

I want to be able to do a sit-up again!  I want not to wince if the kids wrestle with me and they land on my tummy!   I want this fixed!

So, I am scheduled this month to get a CT Scan of my abdomen to determine the extent of the damage.  Project started!  Hopefully we can determine if surgery is necessary or if I can do some mondo physical therapy to cure my soreness and gaps in stomach wall muscles.  That just sounds so wrong.  

Maybe soon, I can attempt 30 Day Shred. Wait, why do I want this??  ;)

And maybe I will look like this after those 30 days.  Riiiiiiight.  So not fair.  

  

Favorite Things Friday

Ok, new idea!  Everyone has their favorite things that make life so great...especially the little things that might get you through the day.  Why else would they write a song about it?  ;) Maybe it's a food, maybe a decoration, maybe it's a way about something or someone.  Something you walk by and it makes you feel happy, something you do and it relaxes you, and for whatever reason, it has become a favorite.  

So, what are your favorite things?  I challenge you to post on your blog about your favorites every week, join me on the Favorite Things Friday! Look around your house, your life and pick them out so you can appreciate those little things even more.  Or, feel free to leave a comment if you don't have a blog.  Let us know what you love in your life!

I start very simple this week.  Coffee and Tea.  I don't drink straight coffee, but have ventured into the flavored coffees a bit.  I am a Tea Girl, through and through.  But recently I have discovered this heavenly lift-in-a-cup.  General Foods International Dark Mayan Chocolate Coffee.  Yum.  Because my next goal is to start losing weight, I need to evaluate my snacks, and this one is a winner!  With only 50 calories in a cup, I can have an indulgence after dinner or before bed and not feel guilty in the least.  So good!!!  

The other is my favorite tea.  It's Madagascar Vanilla Red, rooibos tea, from Africa - full of antioxidants.  The rich vanilla flavor and smell is soo good, it doesn't need anything in it.  And that, my friends, is ZERO calories.  I have a cup with a bowl of fruit for breakfast and it is very satisfying.  I love all things vanilla, so this is a big reason why it is a favorite thing.  That and the lion on the front drinking tea all-civilized-like just cracks me up.

Continued Project Status: Bedroom Headboard

Ok, so I hit a few snags in the making of my headboard. 

First:  Lack of support from Mikey.  I can just see him rolling his eyes at my new project.  So, I have been trying to keep this monstrously huge "decoration" out of his way.  Not easy.  It's heavy!  

Second:  I have finished putting on the foam batting and the first piece of fabric, a nice camel colored suede.  It looks really pretty.  But, when I placed it behind the bed, against the wall, I realized that is is WAY too tall for our room.  It would look great in a room with cathedral ceilings, but that is so not the closet that is our bedroom. ;)  Since I made it to stand on two legs, all I have to do is lug it out from behind the bed, out to the effin cold garage, measure 4 inches off each leg, and use an old fashioned hand saw to shave off those dang inches.  

Sounds, easy, right?  Yet, it's still not done.  I think it's the cold.  No, definitely the weight of it. Ok, who am I kidding?  I am terrified of cutting my own hand off with the stupid saw.  There.  I said it.

Third: The embellishments.  I had planned on putting the first piece of fabric on and then putting another piece of burnt orange fabric as a wide stripe down the center.  I was going to use upholstery tacks to secure the fabric in this spot...since I suck, and I can't sew.  I thought it would be a brilliant and creative solution to the problem, and look great too!  

Well, the foam batting was thicker than I expected - I put 3 layers on, so it gave the headboard a nice, puffy look.  Which is not what I was expecting, but looks nice nonetheless.  Now that it is kinda puffy, nailing in the upholstery tacks will make a little well where each one is going in, and that will be unacceptable if the orange fabric is not sewn to the brown.  And the brown is already there, so no sewing now!  

The other problem that I didn't anticipate is that the orange fabric has this really cool fringe on the edges.  I loooove it.  And to incorporate the fringe, 2 pieces have to be sewn together.  And, as I mentioned before, I suck and don't sew.  I wish I paid attention in Home Ec!  *shaking my fist at myself in the mirror*

So, I have a plan.  

The plan is to wait for my beautiful and wonderful and gracious Aunt Roey to come up to visit next week and beg, beg, beg her to sew this for me.  She created a beautiful valance and crib decorations for the nursery last year (another post!), so I am hoping she will help us out again. She's awesome!  Then, I will have to modify my upholstery tack idea again, since I really would love to incorporate them.  

Here's the progress to this point...

Measure and cut three layers of foam batting.

Secure each layer with staples.  Lots of them.

Place the fabric, measure and cut to length.

Iron fabric.  This part sucks.  I hate ironing as it is.  The dryer is my iron.  Ever try ironing suede?  It sticks.  But it got done and I breathed a sigh of relief.  

Secure first layer of fabric with staples.  A lot of them.  I started on top, in the middle and worked my way to the sides.  Then I folded and secured the side corners.  Smoothing out the fabric as I went down, I secured the rest of the sides.  Then I pulled as hard as I could on the bottom and stapled that.  Yep, that's Little B helping his mommy.  

Then, I placed the headboard behind the bed.  Yikes! And then, I tried to place the orange fabric. For now, it is staying with pure static cling!  

That means this project is officially shelved for two weeks.  But what is two weeks when it wasn't ever getting done before?!  I can't wait.    

Project Status: Bedroom Headboard

Status:  Frame Complete!

I went over to my wonderful father's workshop to start building this new headboard of ours.  He helped me to make it and also made me partially work on it too.  Something about ownership...hmph.  I am no good with wood, and I never will be.  But I am good at making smart ass remarks to annoy the crap out of him, pushing him to the the edge several times.  You can only imagine what I was like as a teenager!  At least my mom was laughing!

Here are some pics of the progress:

Me giving Dad the thumbs up to officially start the process.  And to make myself look like a complete dork.

You can see what my smart ass remarking was doing to him!

Yes, we need glue...lots of it.  

Me + Power Drill = Never a Good Thing

Assembling the frame

Mom couldn't stop taking pictures of him!  She must love him or something....Or maybe I got my smart assing from her.  I don't know.

Complete outside frame

Building the inside around the cushions

Putting on the plywood backer

The finished frame - woohoo!

Now it's my turn to take it home and upholster it.  Thanks, Dad for all your help.  Have fun in Vegas!  You'll need the vacation after the afternoon with me. I know this.  

Project Start: Bedroom Headboard

Always learning, I discovered that the best time to start a project is on the weekends, not just on Saturday - it's just way too limiting!  So, I start Project #2 today.  

I am excited!  There are many projects I would like to complete this year in our bedroom - the place where the magic happens...you know, SLEEP.

So, I want it to be comfy, cozy, peaceful, zen.  Right now it's almost an empty shell with a bed and two dressers.  It's not very big, I think 10'x10', so it's a challenge to change anything.  We repainted and bought new bedding 2 years ago, and then the kids happened.  Goodbye, forward progress, on this little project!

I started on this particular idea as soon as we said goodbye to the old waterbed (my adolescent waterbed, btw).  I loved that thing.  Always warm, and undulating...so nice to sleep on.  But, when Mike came into my life and started hogging the covers, he also moves a lot at night, which caused me to feel as though I were lost at sea in a tiny rowboat, trying to get a few zzzzs before I woke up the next morning exhausted and seasick!  It was nice for one, but not for two. So, the year the three kiddos decided to announce their upcoming arrival, actually a few weeks before we knew about them, we decided to go out and get a real, bonafide grown-up bed.  Woohoo! Though, I was dismayed to find out that grown-up mattresses don't come with grown-up bed frames.  So, we have this squeaky little cheapo metal frame that really only holds the bed up.  

That said, I have been longing for a headboard, some kind of atmosphere around the bed for...well, years now!  And this blog will kick start it into gear.  It's gettin' done this week, baby!

This project will be hard to show what I am looking for in the before, only a picture of our bed and the empty wall behind it.  I don't have a program to overlay my drawings on top, so you'll have to wait for the reveal...

All the stuff I have been collecting for the room is sitting idly next to the bed. Making it look like a mess.  I had been looking and collecting for a while, and now I will get to shop from our very own house store.  Free!  Well, now it is - it wasn't two years ago...  

So, I would like to:

• Put up an upholstered headboard
• Hang the very cool Asian-style picture I already bought above the headboard
• Create a flowy canopy from the ceiling down around the bed
• Make and hang practical shelving (out of ancient barnboard from our...you guessed it - barn) for our needs
• Decorate the rest of the room

First, I will start with the headboard and work my way down!  This project requires the help of someone who knows how to work with wood (not me.), so I have asked my loving father to pitch in on this one.  He agreed only if I plaster his face all over this blog because he's an attention seeking diva.  But really it was only if I make him an apple pie.  Thanks for offering your help, Dad!

Oh, did I mention he is "donating" the 2x4s and plywood necessary to create this monster headboard?  For the cause?!  He's the best.  

I am soooo looking forward to this one.  I'm giddy.   

As always, no money, very little time - get creative!

Have you made a headboard you would like to share?