So Half Price Books had a coupon to get 50% off of any one purchase. I am slowly wanting to replace all of my paperback books with Hardbacks, or at least my favorites. Grant was a great sport, and he came with me to two different locations so that I could get these four books in Hardback  for a $15.12 total. I normally preorder books from Amazon, so that I get them on the day they come out, I don’t have to go to the store, and I get them for about 13-15 per book which is way cheaper than the $30+ normal price. I must say, that I am very excited about my finds. Now, there are some books that I probably will have to buy online or from Amazon,but this was a great treat. I would recommend any of the books below. Terry Brooks is my favorite author, and I finally own every single book in hardbacks of his series that I enjoy reading!!! I think I need to buy some sweet book ends for my shelves now that I have more to put on them.

So, here is the tale of our KitchenAid Mixer. I grew up with only using a hand mixer, mainly the Braun brand because it is German, and my mom is gung hoe about it. So, the first time I ever saw a KitchenAid mixer in action was when my mother in law Gail was making our wedding cake. Hers was an older model,but it worked great, and I was very impressed. I still had my hand mixer, but we registered for a KitchenAid anyway. Grant’s sister, mom, cousins, and aunts all came together and bought us a 5 quart mixer, and I was so excited.

This is the Mixer that we got in black. I was so excited about using it, and when I started to use it, I was very disappointed. Mine made some weird high pitch noises anytime I had it on. Grant assured me this wasn’t normal, so we went to Bed, Bath, & Beyond and exchanged it for the same thing no problem. That was mixer #1. So, mixer #2, this mixer worked great until you added any liquids to the dry ingredients. If you did, then it would start a weird grating like you were rubbing metals against each other, only they weren’t. So, back to Bed, Bath, & beyond for us. That was Mixer #2. Then we got the Mixer #3 the replacement. We both had high hopes for this one,but right after we got it, it went into storage while we were looking for jobs. So, it was in there for over a year.  During that time, Grant and I were able to house sit for the Amaros who had a Professional KitchenAid mixer. I used it and fell in love because it had a stronger motor it didn’t have any issues with the thicker doughs.

So, we are finally in our apartment, with our smaller nonprofessional mixer still in the box. I knew that we had discussed exchanging it for the professional series, but it is $100.00 more than the one we had. We figured we should save up, and do this sooner rather than later because otherwise it might never happen. Well, the hand mixer I had was dumb to say the least. It would mess up, I couldn’t make an icing for a cake I wanted to make this week, and that was the last straw. So, I talked to Grant about getting the Professional mixer. We called Amanda(Grant’s Sister) who had the original receipt thinking we would need it for this. She found it, sent it to us, and then we lost it… go figure.

We knew that she had used a 20% off coupon on the purchase and figured we couldn’t use one again when purchasing the mixer, but we decided to go look and give it all a try.

We got to the store, finally picked a color that we liked, “Pearl Metallic,” and went to pay. Since it was on our registry, they looked it up. Then they said it had cost $299.00 which was subtracted from the total amount of $399.00, then they let us use the 20% off coupon which took off $80.00. So our total was about $22.00, but I had a gift card for $25.00 from Christmas from my mother in law Gail which we used. So, we were able to upgrade to the brand new mixer that  I wanted without paying a cent out of pocket. THEN on top of that there was a $40.00 Rebate for this too, and today the 27th was the last day to purchase for this rebate. So, we made $40.00 for the upgrade. This was such a God thing; we didn’t need this new mixer. I mean I needed some form of a mixer, but I could have bought a cheap hand mixer or stuck with the KitchenAid that we already had,but it was definitely so exciting to get what I want without spending money since we are on the don’t spend money budget!

Here is our beautiful Mixer in its new place. I honestly haven’t baked anything with it yet, so I am praying that it works, and I don’t have to mess with exchanging again.

When I had first ever used a KitchenAid mixer, I was dissapointed with the fact that it never mixed well enough. I was having to clean out all the areas with a spatula. Well, now I know that there is a way to adjust it so it goes closer to the bowl and mixes better. So, if you have ever had issues that is something to look into. I am soooooo excited about baking with this, and I will be sure to post whatever fun recipes I come across with my new toy!!!

Spice Racks, something that most people don’t give a lot of thought about,but not me. I was thinking about how to have my spices for  over a week. Researching ways, Anthony was even nice enough to bring a printers’ tray from Houston with him that I could use. Well, the printers’ tray didn’t get used because the compartments weren’t like I wanted them to be. So pretty much, plan B.

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I have been working on organizing as much as I can when I am off of work. So my latest project was my kitchen cabinets.

My Cabinets were a mess,but when you just put stuff away so it isn’t in your way, it just happens that way. Mugs are always an issues, so I looked at a whole bunch of different options from mug trees to hanging from underneath the cabinet.

Sorry about the fuzzyness of the pictures, but our camera’s battery was dead. Just random appliances that just make it into our cabinets are sometimes awkward for storage.

Tupperware is always a hassle, so I was lucky to find a single solution for all of these issues at Ikea. Not my favorite look,but the shelves that I ended up using were made of metal where other store’s were plastic, and I just don’t want to mess with them breaking.

Sweet tea supplies,but be organized! ;p

After the shelves, everything cleaned up very well. I still had to stack some of my mugs,but that is because I have too many and am not willing to part with very many.

And again everything so much easier to find. Sigh, I am content.

I finally got under our sink orderly, and I got the “wow” from Grant meaning, finally you are done, and I don’t have to be bothered with it anymore.

I decided to do this to my laundry stuff, and Grant told me he wanted it differently, so we will see how our compromising works out.

Grant is so patient with me in so many ways. I was talking with a few girls from our young married’s group, and they mentioned to me that they are sometimes more depressed when they move in until their stuff is organized, and let me tell you that is how I am. The more organized I get, the happier I am.. poor Grant.I know I have a lot of shoes, and I can’t stand them all over the floor in the closet even if I do have the room for it. So, Grant and I got thinking about a good solution for this.

Another view of more shoes.. some of them are Grant’s…

The ugly black shelf is very versatile, we shorted it in half, and then put all of the shelves on it in good intervals for shoes.

Here you can see the finished product which = a very happy Jessica and Grant since I am not bugging him.

Some of my boots couldn’t make it on the rack,but it is better than nothing!

So, now our floor in our closet is clean! WOOT!