I’ve just been going crazy lately looking at modern bedroom furniture. I just found a site, eRoomService, that has a great selection of platform beds, which I am partial to at the moment. I particularly like the Tokyo 801 Modern Platform Bed on the site, which not only is indescribably chic, but also appears to be completely indestructible, which would be a great thing, given what I’ve told you about the cat’s claws and the damage that they can do. It’s very minimalist. It’s minimalist to the point where if you had it in your room, your room would look clean just by virtue of its presence.

However, looking at our heating situation today, it looks like our savings is going towards a new heating system, not a new bed. Sigh. I can dream though, right?

I can’t believe how stupid I was about auto insurance for many years. Really, it was one of those things that I didn’t think about. Well, I didn’t think about it until my husband came home one day and told me that he’d purchased liability on a car for thirty bucks. I was absolutely incredulous. I had never shopped around, even though I had suspected that there might be cheap auto insurance in Texas.

Well, it turns out that there is. I switched insurance companies and saved fifty bucks a month! That’s a manicure and pedicure. Or eating a decent restaurant. It’s paying the gym membership for one month. So basically, by shopping around a bit, I get my gym membership for free. At least that’s one way to look at it.

It’s pretty easy to get auto insurance quotes. I went to a site called cheap-autoinsurance.com, entered my zip code, and found several companies literally at my fingertips where I could get quotes. How easy is that? If you have car insurance, even if you think your rates are reasonable, you should check this out. There is no way you will know for sure that you have the lowest rate unless you check. Since there is nothing to lose, why not? Shopping around definitely paid off for me!

I was talking to a friend of mine about web hosting last week. She has started a career as a freelance writer, and is setting up a website to showcase her writing. It turns out that she’s writing a lot about health and home topics as well! She wanted to know about website hosting and how to choose a hosting company. It was difficult to know where to start.

Even though I’ve had websites for years, I can see how it would be difficult to choose a company. Many of them don’t have their prices upfront where you can tell exactly how much you will pay right off the bat. This can be very misleading. It can also be a colossal waste of time. Everybody wants to know that they got a good deal, and how else to do that besides look at all the different options out there?

Well, it turns out that there is a better way, actually. Web Hosting Geeks lets you check out the prices of ten of the top hosting companies right on their front page! The first one that caught my eye was one called Fat Cow. I just can’t get over the name! It was number four on the list, and very reasonable. To find out the specifics about the plan, all I had to do was click one time and there was the information that I needed.

So, I need to give that friend a call and let her know about this site, because as far as I know, she’s still on a lengthy quest for the best hosting company. I’m sure this will save her lots of time, and you too, if you try it!

I have so many things that I need to do for my old fixer upper that at times it can be truly overwhelming. One thing that is a bit of a quick fix, though, is putting shutters on the outside of the house. I’m planning to do this right before I paint the house. I think it will add accents that will make the house look absolutely top notch. There are a variety of shutters to choose from, composite shutters are one possibility. Hopefully, I’ll get around to painting it this fall!

I was at this school inservice the other day, and we were doing this memory game where we had to memorize this big long number. It turns out that when you broke it down, it had the measurements from the song Brick House. 36-24-36, if you’re wondering!

So I’m wondering who the heck has these kind of measurements without having Breast Enlargement. Seriously. I’ve been on this low carb diet for what feels like forever, and I am slowly losing weight. Guess what item of clothing got loose first? That’s right, my bra! So, if I ever get a 24 inch waist (doubtful, at six feet tall), I’ll be wearing a double A bra or something like that. I would definitely want breast enhancement surgery at that point!

There’s a couple of other procedures I wouldn’t mind having. Botox is one. I’m getting the line between my eyebrows that makes a person look mad. It’s great for having my students take me seriously, but my peers always think I’m in a bad mood! And worse, my boss keeps saying that I look tired when I’m not tired at all! I think some eye lid surgery might fix that, because my eyes are definitely the culprit here. Other than those things, I look very young for my age, thanks to my genes and skin that tends to be oily. I never thought that was a good thing, but it turns out that people with oily skin get fewer wrinkles! There’s always a silver lining.

At any rate, if I decide to do any of these things, I’m going to go to people who have TONS of experience, like the people at MYA. They have over 25 years of experience and have done many procedures. I know that I don’t want to go to anyone new and be an experiment!

It’s the weekend, and as usual, I’m cleaning house after doing a whole slew of errands. It is absolutely unbelievable how much dog hair can accumulate during the course of a workweek. Dog hair (and cat hair) is a big reason while I’ll probably never have a bed like the one pictured above, which I positively adore. I’m totally loving the white minimalist look that the Polar Savoy bed has. However, my house has never been minimalist, and probably never will be, despite my best efforts.

We are in the market for a new bed, though. I love the one that my grandfather made, but it’s an odd size, and is not quite a double. My husband and I have been sleeping in it for over a year, and it has been quite crowded. We’re looking into getting a queen.

There are many leather beds that I really love over at the site Time 4 Sleep, but I’m afraid that leather is out as well, although it would fit in nicely with the decor of the house. You see, we have a three-legged cat who claws her way valiantly up the bed every night. I can envision the claw marks on the leather as I write. They are absolutely beautiful, though, with a variety of looks to choose from.

More realistically, I’m looking at getting something like their Meadow Eco bed, which is a wooden bed with a earthy, yet minimalist feel. It looks positively indestructible. Looking at these beds has definitely convinced me that I need to at least get a minimalist bed, to tone down the feeling of chaos that the rest of the house has. Perhaps eventually I’ll get the look I want, even if there is quite a bit of hair covering everything.

Sitting here in Galveston, sandy from the beach, it is hard to imagine that next week I start back to work! The first two weeks are a combination of teacher inservices and workdays. The students will actually return on the 24th of August. This summer has simply rushed by like a runaway train. I’m not ready to go back yet!

Well, I suppose I should take that back. I’m getting ready. I’ve already ordered some new materials for my classroom. Books are a huge priority for me, and I’m always looking for good Math Intervention materials for the teacher I mentor, who teaches math to kiddos who are usually three or four years behind the district’s curriculum. One good thing about being a small disciplinary school is that we are free to do what we need to do in order to help students catch up in reading and math. Often, when they spend a semester with us, they have made over a year’s gain during that time. It is very gratifying, which reminds me of why I like my job, and will try to have a good attitude about returning next week!

Okay, so yesterday, we got the news that our house had been broken into while we were on our beach vacation. I wish that I had bought one of those shot gun safes, because out of all the things in the house, the shotgun is the thing I’m worried the most about getting stolen.

They never come by when we’re home, thank goodness, so I probably don’t even need the shotgun around the house anyway. But it does seem wise to put it in a safe. The gun is not the only thing that needs to be put in a safe though. I’m sure a few other things would fit in a shotgun safe, like jewelry, small electronics and other valuables. WestCoastSafes.com has a very large selection of gun safes, some of which have a charming retro look that would look good as decor if you’re into a rustic or antique look. And they’re huge, so the chance of anyone getting it out of the house is pretty much nil.

There are some other things I’m going to do as well. My mother suggested putting electric wire around the fence that was climbed this time. This is the second time they’ve went around to the backyard, which is locked down like Fort Knox, but nevertheless climbable. Cameras are another option. I need a big-time deterrent. I’m going to have to check out the price of a serious security system if we’re going to stay in that house.

Have you ever considered renting a Rocky Point condo? Until this point, I hadn’t really thought about it. However, I looked at the map on Oceano-Rentals and realized that you can experience the Sea of Cortez, a beautiful blue sea renowned for its excellent fishing, while hardly having to leave the United States. Seriously, this vacation is a pretty short drive from places like Phoenix and San Diego!

Of course the prices in Mexico tend to be better than here in the United States, and this sounds like a good way to take advantage of that. If you go to Oceano-Rentals website, you’ll see that there are a variety of accommodations to choose from. There are also user testimonials so that the property you are considering is acceptable.

I just love this idea as a possibility for next summer. Every summer, I plan to go to Mexico, and every summer, it seems that something comes up where I don’t go. Rocky Point is so close, however, that there is really no reason not to go.

Right now, at this very moment, I’m chillin’ in a hotel room at a beach in Texas. We’re having a great time, but it was interesting trying to change clothes in the little tiny bathroom this morning so I could have some privacy! A condo in Mexico would be both cheaper and larger, and that sounds great to me! That, and the scuba diving!

I would like this post to be full of photos showing the great strides in improving my home that I have made over the summer. However, that is just not going to happen. I have two days left at home before school starts for the fall semester. If I get really motivated, I may finish painting the bedroom door that I started a year ago.

I think part of the reason I haven’t done as much as I should have this summer is because the list is just so overwhelming. Every single room of the house has something that needs to be done to it. Since I’m in the kitchen a lot, I’ve been thinking about replacing the old sink and putting in something new with a sprayer and more modern hardware. So I’ve been browsing kitchen sinks while I could have been actually painting the cabinets underneath the sink, you know? Although, the cabinets are somewhere near the very end of my list.

In terms of priorities, what needs to happen are the things that are not fun. A corner of the roof needs repairing. The entire house needs to be rewired. I would like to have central air and heat. I need to paint the entire outside of the house. There are rotten boards in the back that need to be replaced. This is the stuff that is never really mentioned in most decorating magazines, or if it is, it is glossed over. The magazines show everyone having great fun choosing paint, fabric, tile and fixtures. The truth is all of that basically comes last.

Really, I just can’t think about this anymore!