Room Cleaning

Several months ago I started putting together a 5000-piece Van Gogh "Starry, Starry Night" puzzle. I even created a giant puzzle board with that size puzzle in mind. (Although it will be nice for other, smaller, sizes as well.) And then it sat in my room for months. I have the stars put together and a bit of the streak in the sky, and the edges of course. It's a really great and hard puzzle.

I also have been practically hording my magazines thinking I'll do something with them. And I have looked at them but after that they just sit in a pile at the foot of my bed.

Those two things combined with my bed not ever being made caused me to declutter and clean my room this weekend. I am tired of things just being plopped down and laundry never being folded and then I can't walk around my bed because there is baskets and a puzzle in my way. When cleaning my room I made sure I had the three magazines that I will use (Success, Better Homes and Gardens, and Saveur) and then I recycled the rest of them. There were a lot. I don't know why I was keeping them for so long. I also put my puzzle away. But it took me like ten minutes to put it away because I didn't want to undo the work I'd already done. Therefore I had an idea to put the stars and stripes and moon into envelopes. Each element has it's own envelope and I labeled them so I'd sort of know what was what. I then put the edges on the bottom of the box and separated them from the rest of the puzzle by placing a paper over top of them. They took two layers to get in the box. Next in went the star-envelopes. And lastly, the bags of loose puzzle pieces that I had already sorted by color went into the box. To make sure I, or anyone else, didn't shake the box and made a sign and tied the box with yarn. It's awesome. lol. I did find one puzzle piece I missed on the floor so I put in a plastic bag and put it with the box. I couldn't put it in the box because it was already tied up. But I stapled the bag around the yarn. While all that was being done and I was straightening the rest of my room my comforter and sheets were being washed. I put a little bleach with my comforter to get it to be a crisp white. I had to dry it twice because it's so big. lol. My room looks so put together when my bed is made too.

I decided that I do really like the black and white contrast I have going on in my room. My bedding is white and my headboards are black iron-looking. My book shelves are black and my books on the shelves are covered in white. I have two black end tables in my room which I'm not sure what to do with yet. I like the color scheme so much that I decided to go with it and add my throw pillows back on to my bed with slip covers on them. I keep seeing quilts with a large word fabric and every time I see I love it. So I did some digging and found out that Ikea is the maker and beholder of the fabric. So I went on Saturday to Ikea and braved that maze of a store to the textile department to get my Britten Nummer fabric. I decided to get four yards because My original thought was to have that fabric be the back of a throw quilt. But I decided I could always go back for more later when I'm actually ready to make that quilt. Not all of my throw pillows are going to get a word slipcover. I want a pop of color so at least one will get a colored one. I haven't decided on what color to accent yet. It's either purple or green. I want to pull colors that match my painting above my bed. I think I'm leaning toward a nice rich green color because I like green a lot more. I haven't looked enough into the different colors from Kona to decide on a good color scheme for my quilt. One of those colors will be made into the slipcovers for that accent-accent pillow. lol. For right now I plan on getting a white sheet from the second-hand store and then (after washing it of course) creating a undercover-slipcover for all the pillows so those non-word pillows will still be white. I decided since my pillows are not white to begin with and the word fabric is a bit thin I would whiteify the pillows a bit before the words go on them by adding a white slipcover underneath the real covers. lol. It's maybe more work but I don't really mind. I think it'll make it look nice.

Weekend Activities

This past weekend our single's ward went on our super activity. On Friday we went up to Pineview Reservoir and hung out at the lake. There were five or six boats there, including our boat. They also had a water trampoline. It was a lot of fun. I was so sore that night. We had pizza and a movie at the church that night. The next day, on Saturday, we had breakfast at the church and then went up Provo Canyon on a hike to Stewart Falls. It was not a long, strenuous hike but since most of us were sore from the activities the previous day it was harder. The falls were very pretty. After the hike we went to Vivian Park and had lunch. And then, in two groups, we took tubes down the Provo River. That was fun. I don't think I've ever done that before. After tubing we had dinner and a devotional from the bishop at the park. I was very good about putting sunscreen on the whole weekend so I didn't get burned at all. Although I think my face did get a tiny bit of a sunburn because it itched on Saturday but it was fine Sunday.

On Saturday during the hike Colton and I talked about us. We concluded that our relationship wasn't really going past this point so we are no longer together. It's kind of sad because I think I'm more lamenting the fact that I'm single again then the relationship itself. Don't get me wrong. I like Colton. He is a great guy. I like hanging out with him and everything. But for whatever reason I was feeling no attachment to the relationship. I was neither for it nor against it. It just was. The first month was really fun and new but about the third was when I started to think this wasn't going to work out. Four months is along time though. And do hope that Colton and I can stay friends and still hang out.

After I read the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini and couldn't decide on what to read. So I borrowed a bunch of books from Colton. Most of them are short one or two day reads for me. I have already read two of the books I borrowed. Right now I am reading Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild.I think I'll read the other three books in the Shoes series before I move onto another book.