Hey guys! If you follow me at all on Facebook you’ve heard me mention “the scariest room in our house” several times in the last week or so. Well, now I’m ready to show you.At the base of our basement stairs, we have a small storage “room” that’s basically just concrete floors, a bare bulb and roughed in walls. It’s dark in there. Bugs like being in there. I hate going in there. I make hubby do it. No lie. Here are a few pics I snapped of the “before”:The view from the door. You can see a nice collection of wire hangers left by the former owner. We don’t know why. The middle of the room. Floor cluttered with tools, anti-freeze, and paint.The shelves to the left. Actually, these aren’t such bad shelves. Not the most well-constructed, but they’ll do to store plenty. We’re already discussing replacing them with something else.…

Y’all I was just puttering around on Facebook instead of doing laundry when I spotted this:What, what?!?! Downton Decor??? Are you kidding me? Can I get on a wait list right now? I must have ALL THE THINGS!What about you? Would you like a piece of Downton in your living room?

Y’all, it’s a new year! I have so much planned for this year…and I’ll be writing about all of that, AND catching you up on where the heck I’ve been (buried under laundry…seriously, you should’ve called out the hounds…), and how our Christmas went. It’s all coming soon!Before I get to all of that though, I have to share something I’m crazy excited about. If you’ve never read One Artsy Mama’s blog, you’re missing out. I’ll fully admit I do a lot of lurking over there. I don’t comment nearly enough (or at all some months, but man I should!). Anywho, my good blog (and irl) buddy Eva @ Tales of the Scotts tipped me off to it and it has been so helpful!One of my favorite parts of Amy’s blog is her Growing Your Blog series where she shares tips for making your blog more successful in simple, workable…

300.3Those four little digits make up an ICD-9 code for medical billing. But for me, it’s more than just a billing code. It’s what I have. I almost said it’s who I am, but that’s not true. I am a person. That little code is what’s wrong with me. (Even that statement is wrong. It’s not what’s wrong with me, it’s how my brain lies. And it does dear friends, it lies often.)So, unless you work in a medical office and do a lot of billing, you probably won’t know what that number means.300.3 is the ICD-9 code for obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD.I’ve known for awhile that I probably had OCD, but no one (even former therapists) had ever put it in writing before and made an absolute diagnosis. I don’t have a dedicated anxiety or panic problem like I thought. I have OCD.Here’s a word of caution though, and a plea…

This post could easily be named “We Aren’t Hoarders, I Swear”. I considered it, but then I figured you wouldn’t believe me and sense it was a cry for help. Let me explain.Here’s my coffee from this morning:I poured said coffee at about 8 AM this morning. This is exactly how it looked 12 hours later when I returned home. I managed to get two or three sips. Why?This:This is our basement. More precisely this is about a third of our basement. Here take a closer look:This is what the basement looked like this morning (though I took these pictures yesterday when there was better light). When we moved in we knew we wanted this space as our family room, and we planned on getting new flooring once we’d saved up (we’re still planning and saving, but we’re close!). But it quickly became a catch all for broken down boxes and…