My $200 Thrift Store Wardrobe

After Jerry and I won our DietBet a few weeks ago, we agreed that we'd keep the money we won (not for paying bills or anything--something that we wanted). Our payout was $388 each, which includes the money we spent for the DietBet. Still, we agreed that we could each keep our $388 for all the work we did!

After losing over 50 pounds in the last 14 months, my wardrobe had dwindled down to pretty much nothing that fit me. I'd gotten rid of most of my "thin" clothes because I thought I'd never be able to wear them again. I even got rid of my running clothes because I thought I wouldn't run again!

One of my very favorite things to do is go thrift shopping. I don't just buy and wear thrift clothes because they are cheap; I buy them because I can find unique things, because they are worn in already (I hate stiff jeans!), and you truly never know what gems you might find. I find high-end clothes all the time. I found a couple of pairs of designer jeans this time, but sadly, they weren't my size.

I didn't have to buy business clothing, but even if you do, there is a ton of it. Lots of suits--including women's suits--dresses, skirts, blazers, etc. I just stuck with MY preferences.

The last few times I went thrifting, I just couldn't find much at all. So on Saturday, I drove up to Ann Arbor to the Salvation Army (it's absolutely enormous) to try my luck there. Ann Arbor is the home of the University of Michigan, and finding cute clothes there is much easier--college kids dump their stuff before leaving for home at the end of the school year.

I tried on a MOUNTAIN of jeans and by that time, I just couldn't fathom trying on more clothes. So, I picked some shirts off the rack and hoped they'd fit. I was really happy with the jeans I found, though, and even more so that they fit. I hate trying on clothes when everything is too small--it's so disheartening.

I spent a few hours there and in the end, my total was just under $200. I paid the full thrift price for a lot of them, but there were several that were 5 for $5. Including some seriously nice things!

I actually took the time to try on everything today and take mirror selfies (could I be any more vain? haha!). I just wanted to show all of the stuff you can buy for less than a pair of brand new high-end jeans. All of the clothes I'm wearing in these pictures came from that shopping trip, so you may see the same shirt twice with different jeans or vice versa. The point is, it was all included in that $200. And lots of them are great brands! I will be the first to admit I know nothing about fashion, but I've never been a "fashion person". I just wear what's comfortable (jeans and a cozy shirt).

So, here goes...

I can't remember if I posted this shirt yet or not, but I love it! (Also, see how many cats you can spot in all the photos)

I'm going to post side by side pictures just for the sake of space. There are a LOT of pictures! So I collaged them together when it felt right.

I thought the shirt on the right was a size small that was meant to fit very big, but when I got home, I realized it was an XL. Still, I kind of like it!

On the contrary, the shirt on the left is an XS but it's meant to fit large. I don't love the shirt on the right, so I'll probably donate it.

I just had to buy the OSU shirt; as you know, I love Portland and when I find an OSU shirt in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I just felt like I was meant to have it. I am not crazy about the shirt on the left, so I don't think I'll keep it. Thankfully, it was only $1!

I never wear gray running bottoms! It always looks like I peed my pants when I sweat. But they'll be good for running on the treadmill.

The shirt on the right is super heavy duty. Being cold 100% of the time, I'm going to love it outside this fall. And I think the purple and gray cardigan is super cute.

The jacket on the left is REALLY nice and in great shape. I got it for $1! I hoped that the kids would be interested in it, but that's SO not cool, haha. Oh well, I'll wear it! And even the Nike running top on the left was only $1.

Duck was so irritated that I wasn't paying attention to him. 

These jeans are MY MOST FAVORITE jeans I've ever bought! I love the placement of the rips and I especially love the rip where the buttons are. Not sure if it was intentional, but I like it!

I just HAD to buy these shoes for Riley! They were only $1, too.

When I saw this shirt, I just had to get it. It's a men's large, so I'll probably just wear it for pajamas. It's so perfect, though.

Yes, Friends, I bought a dress! I liked that it covered the spots of my body that I wanted it to. And my waist looks small ;)

I absolutely LOVE this shirt and these jeans. The jeans were straight-legged before and those look bad on me, so I added some dark denim to create a flared bottom.

This was an a different pair of jeans, not the ones above.

And there you go! I did buy a few other things that probably totaled about $15, so this wardrobe cost about $180-185. Now the fun part is going through my closet and pitching just about everything! All of these fit really well, so I don't need to keep the too big stuff anymore.

Well, I've got to get stuff ready for Noah's birthday party on Thursday. It's a Christmas in July theme and I have so many ideas! (The mugs you notice in the picture with everything on my bed are all Christmas mugs--so I'm going to have those set out for glasses at Noah's party.)

I would love to see some of your best thrift items! Please email them to me so I can share them in a post: katie (at) runsforcookies (dot) com. If you happen to know the price you paid, please share :)

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Deep Thoughts With Jerry

Let me start by saying that "Deep Thoughts" is not meant to be taken seriously--because this post is by Jerry! (Although I have to take credit for the brilliant photo I chose above.) I had a post all planned today; I went thrift shopping yesterday and I had a ton of luck finding things. I was going to do a post about what I bought, but I haven't had time to take the pictures. So I'm going to work on that and hopefully post it tomorrow.

So, lucky us, we get to read an interview with Jerry. These are just silly ice breaker questions that I got from this website. The video of his worst haircut is a must-watch!

Q. What “old person” things do you do?

Jerry: Geez! The older I get the more I realize there are a lot of things I do that seem old, especially when the kids point them out. Dad jokes--they're hilarious to me and I crack myself up. Everyone else, not so much. I find myself saying or doing things that my dad used to do when I was young. For example, 'Are you going to drive the fucking car or park it!' when someone is driving too slow. Or, 'When I don't need it I'm tripping over the thing!' whenever I'm looking for anything and I can't find it within one minute. LOL.

I also talk a lot about the weather. When I hear there's a storm possibly coming in I tell Katie right away and I walk outside to view the conditions for myself. 

Q. Who is your favorite cartoon character?

Jerry: There are so many! I grew up a Looney Tunes kid. Screw the PC of it all, those were damn good cartoons and I still watch them from time to time to this day. From Wile E. Coyote and Foghorn Leghorn to Marvin the Martian and Bugs Bunny. I reference them all the time and they make up so many cool conversational drops. For example, when I get on a walkie talkie I can't help but say, 'Earth to Bugs Bunny. Come in Bugs Bunny.' 

Q. What is your guilty pleasure?

Jerry: I don't know if it's a guilty pleasure but I sooo love Cheddar and Sour Cream Ruffles. I can eat about a million and a half of those. 

Q. What are your favorite songs from your teenage years that you still rock out to when nobody else is listening?

Jerry: I'm a total 90's guy butI also enjoy a lot of the 80's... essentially I'm all over the place with my music loves. When the mood strikes I turn up some Hall and Oates 'Maneater', Spanau Ballet 'True', Reel Big Fish 'Beer', Counting Crows 'Mr. Jones', or Korn 'A.D.I.D.A.S.' just to name a few. 

Q. What did you get into the most trouble for with your parents as a kid?

Jerry: Katie and I came home early from my family reunion and we decided to paint my room at my parents house a "unique" pea-green color. We loved it so much we also decided to paint my parents living room the same color. Needless to say, they hated it. With a passion. 

Q. What dance move are you secretly awesome at?

Jerry: There is nothing better than seeing the surprise on people's faces when I bust out 'The Worm' at a wedding. I do it at all the weddings and it's a hit. 

Q. What commercial jingle gets stuck in your head all the time?

Jerry: Again, so many of these, too! I get the 'Limu Emu...and Doug' from the Liberty Mutual commercials. Or the 'We are Farmers, bum ba dum bum bum bum bum.' from Farmers Insurance. And 'Nationwide is on your side.' from Nationwide Insurance. Now that I think of it... all the insurance jingles get stuck in my head! 

Q. What’s the worst haircut you ever had?

Jerry: This is easy... it's the two times I failed miserably at cutting my own hair. I used a #8 on the clippers and went all over my head. After I put everything away, I noticed I had some strays so I busted out the clippers again and cut the strays out... and completely forgot the blade guard until after I swiped a spot on my head.

Q. If you had to change your name, what would your new name be, and why would you choose that name?

Jerry: Jerrick Damon. I've had the name picked out since I was a teen, and completely randomly, Katie and I went to the courthouse to legally change it. It was $500, though, so that was a no-go. I had created a wrestler on a video game and gave him the name Jerrick Damon. All my friends started referring to me as Jerrick Damon and they still do to this day. They even held signs up at our wedding referencing JD.

Q. If you had to delete all but 3 apps from your smartphone, which ones would you keep?

Jerry: I would have to keep my MLB app and my Facebook app of course. It would be It would be a hard choice for the third. But I will have to say it's my Accuweather.

Q. What two things do you consider yourself to be very good at?

Jerry: I'm very good with movie trivia... I used to play 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon' at work all the time with co-workers and I nailed it almost every time. I even won tickets for a show from a radio station when I played it with them and stumped them. I even remember the name I gave them--Richard Belzer. 

I also consider myself very good at talking to new people. I never really thought about it before but I see new employees at work all the time and I can ease the awkwardness in the room with a simple wise crack or joke. 

Q. What is something you hate doing? Why?

Jerry: One word--DietBet.

Q. What is something you love doing? Why?

Jerry: I love playing disc golf because it gets me outside and I can have low-key conversations with people. It's stress-free and a million times cheaper than regular golf.

I can clear the water hole now; this was in 2009

I've recently started teaching Noah how to play; Eli's not really interested in it

Katie here. Hopefully you enjoyed Jerry's "deep thoughts" ;) He loves getting to take over the blog once in a while!

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VEGAN RECIPE REVIEW: Mac & Cheese Powder

Today's recipe review is a bit of an odd one--it's for a powder mix that you can use for things like macaroni and cheese. You know the Kraft boxed mac and cheese? I used to LOVE that as a kid! Well, this powder is supposed to be a replacement for that. You could also use it as a "cheese" dip. (I'm going to stop putting quotes around "cheese"--being vegan, there is no cheese in this, but it's easier than trying to figure out what else to call it.)

I actually got this recipe from a book by Sam Turnbull, who owns the website It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken. I've found that I like how her recipes don't use a ton of ingredients; nor do they use weird ingredients that you'll only use one time and then have the rest of it leftover. When I was at Barnes & Noble with Noah for his birthday, I spent some time looking through the recipes in the book and I found SO many that looked good to me. Just check out all the post-it tabs I used!

This recipe for the Mac & Cheese Powder is in this book, but it's also on her website (I wanted to try to find a recipe that I could link to). You can find the recipe here on It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken. (I'll link again at the end of the post.)

I did make another recipe earlier in the week for a queso dip but I realized it wasn't in the book. If you're a new vegan or if you just want to experiment with some recipes, I think hers would be a good start. You can find the book here on Amazon (affiliate link). As much as I love my Kindle, I would not recommend the Kindle version. There is a picture with every recipe and it's a beautiful book! She has a ton of recipes on her site, though, too.

Anyway, I was absolutely starving last night for dinner and I was on my own. I had no idea what to cook, so I started flipping through the recipes that I'd marked. The Mac & Cheese Powder was so simple and looked super quick and easy to make, I decided on that. And really, it couldn't be any easier.

To make the powder, here are the ingredients:

Nutritional yeast, flour, sugar, onion powder, garlic powder, turmeric, paprika, lemon pepper, and salt. I'd never used turmeric in my life until becoming vegan and now I use it all the time. I think it's used for color in this recipe (in a lot of recipes, actually). Simple enough!

The recipes says to just mix everything together and store in a container. However, I don't love the texture of nutritional yeast, so I ended up putting it all in the blender for 20 seconds or so to make it more uniform.

This is what it looked like before blending:

It doesn't make a huge difference, but this is what it looks like after blending. It was a lot smoother:

It made probably about 1-1/3 cups. I filled an 8-oz mason jar and had some leftover to make my macaroni and cheese as well as a couple of tablespoons that wouldn't fit in the jar.

Anyway, making macaroni and cheese with this was SO EASY. While I was measuring out the ingredients for the powder, I had a pot going on the stove for the macaroni. Once the macaroni was done, I drained it and set it aside for a moment. Then I poured some unsweetened almond milk into the pot along with 1/4 cup of the cheese powder. I stirred it over medium-high heat until the sauce thickened (which happens really quickly--probably three minutes).

Then you just add the macaroni back to the pot! I made a single serving of this, which was perfect for me when I had the house to myself and I was starving.

I was very skeptical about this one, but I was really surprised when it actually resembled macaroni and cheese! I didn't expect it to taste like mac and cheese, but I hoped it would be good. And honestly? It was! Clearly, I like black pepper on my mac and cheese, but it didn't even need more seasoning. I thought it was delicious and creamy and it absolutely hit the spot for macaroni and cheese.

My favorite part, though, is that I have the powder on hand so that I can make it very easily whenever I need something fast. It has about a million less calories than traditional mac and cheese, too! Just for reference, I used 2.5 ounces of elbow macaroni (which was 1/2 cup dry). And I used six tablespoons (1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons) of almond milk.

Eli came home right as I was about to eat, so I asked if he would try it. It said it's not bad--which is a big compliment from Eli! I don't think he'd eat a whole bowl of it like he did with the vegan Truffle Mac & Cheese, but I'm glad he didn't hate it.

Noah's having a birthday party with his friends this week, and I think I'm going to try making the vegan chocolate cake for next week. (I'll make a back-up dessert as well, but I think it'll be fun to try a cake--let's hope it works out!)

Once again, here is the link to the Vegan Mac & Cheese Powder.

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Friday Night Photos

Crossing my fingers that this post will go off without a hitch...

Happy Friday! I don't have a ton of pictures today (most of my pictures are from projects that I'm working on and I don't want to share them until my projects are finished). But here are a few I do have. 

Remember the crop top I bought at Goodwill? A few people suggested I wear a longer top underneath it (because there is no way I'd wear it as is!). The only top I could think of that would look okay was this tie dyed tank top. I actually kind of like it! I wouldn't wear the tank top without something over it and I wouldn't wear the crop top without something under it, so it works out well.

The blue dress is pretty exciting for me--out of nowhere, I decided to try on my "Dr. Oz dress" (the blue dress that I wore when I was a guest on the Dr. Oz Show) and it actually fit! I didn't even have a problem zipping it. It's a size 4, so I never even attempted to try it on over the last few years. Can you believe it's been 11 years since I was on the show?!

Today I worked on some clothes that I wanted to alter or mend, and I had a pair of jeans that I loved but they were straight legged jeans--and with my enormous calves, I need flare jeans. So, I decided to try cutting the side seam and adding contrasting fabric in order to make them flare. Chick was loving helping me, as long as I threw him the scraps.

They kind of look like a big mess, but I really like them so far. I haven't finished yet (I'm going to put the dark blue denim all around the bottom, too, so the hem kind of ties into the flared sides. You can't really tell from the picture, but the holes in the jeans are patched from the inside with dark blue denim and lace over it. Anyway, when they're done I'll try them on and take a picture. I'm excited I'll be able to wear them again! (Now, if only I could be brave enough to cut into my very favorite skinny jeans.)

I wrote about this at some point before, but this is the mess I was dealing with in the garage. I got most of it cleared out and organized, but I need to figure out permanent storage solutions. 

Jerry picked this oak table up for super cheap on Marketplace so that I could mill down the boards like I did with that oak table last time. It's SUPER old, which is really interesting; when I was taking it apart, I saw all sorts of techniques that were done by hand when they would be done with special tools and jigs now (like pocket holes). 

The chairs are very small, which I think is interesting because people were smaller back in the day. My butt barely fits on them! And I honestly don't have a big butt.

Just looking at the screws was pretty neat--I've never seen them like that. I got the whole thing taken apart today, but I'm not going to be able to run it through the jointer and planer until I can get the goddamn blades set correctly.

This was totally embarrassing yesterday. I went with Eli to a doctor's appointment and I didn't realize until I was in the waiting room that I was still wearing my moccasins that I'd had on at home! (They are like slippers/house shoes for me.) I saw a couple of people stare at them, but I didn't want to explain. Ah, well, they were comfy.

I'm cracking up at Jerry with this lemon pepper tofu! This is when it was marinating; I didn't have a chance to take a picture afterward because Jerry housed them all. He calls them "tofu snackers" because I bake them until they get very firm--not the texture of jerky, but definitely chewy and delicious. Jerry has been asking me to make more every single day. I love it! ;) 

And finally, I plan to be just like this on my Friday night. I'm freezing and I really want to watch a movie. Starting tomorrow, Jerry is going to be off for a week straight! And I think we're going to start working on the deck--power wash, clean, stain, and seal. Yikes.

Have a great weekend! xo

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Give me a break!

Once again, I’m having issues with blogging. Last time, I couldn’t upload pictures to Blogger; today, I can’t even get my internet pages to load! Something is either wrong with our internet (not likely, because I’m using my phone via wifi). So right now, I’m typing this on my phone. And you know how fast I type on my phone? Well, with one index finger—so the answer is slow AF. 

Since I really don’t want to work on this all day (typing out the readers’ tips from this week about saving time). Hahaha, how ironic! My time saving tip: You can save time by typing on a keyboard instead of a tiny phone. Well, I can anyway ;)

So, I can’t really write today, but I didn’t want to miss posting. So, here are a few of the random facts that I’ve missed posting for the last month! (I hope these upload at a normal size—I can’t resize them on my phone.)

 

Those were the ones I found most interesting. The one about talking to yourself is especially interesting because I never really thought about it, but I do that. Even as I’m typing, I can feel tiny muscles moving at the top of my throat and back of my mouth. 

Anyway, forgive the post—hopefully I can get all this stuff figured out! My computer is 8 years old, and for a blogger, that’s about 5 years too old, haha. I’ve been setting aside money every month for a new one, though! Maybe by Christmas :) 

Have a good night!

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Wednesday Weigh-In: Week 60

I feel like I'm on a roll again. I had another good week, and I can't even describe how good it feels to be back in control and not worrying to much about the scale. I was hoping I'd still be under 144.4, so my BMI would still be in the "normal" category instead of overweight.

Again, I stay very busy working on projects--I have too many going at the moment, and I really need to finish them before I move on. However, Jerry is going out of town soon for a couple of days to visit a friend, and while he's gone, I want to do something as a surprise for him. It's a pretty big undertaking, so I don't know if I can do it myself. I need a lot of time and (I'm hoping) one of my brothers to help me out.

Meanwhile, I'm still organizing garage stuff. I can't wait to get that done that so that I can start building things again! Right now it's just about making the setup as efficient as possible and take up the least amount of space possible.

Anyway, my weight for today...

Woo hoo! I was at 143.2, down from 144.4 last week. That's quite a bit compared to my usual losses.

As I approach the 130's, I'm kind of haunted by the fact that I still haven't been running. (Which is why I chose that blue shirt in my mirror selfie.) I took time off of running because my knee was acting all wonky, but then I just used reasons/excuses for not doing it. I *really* don't want to start back at square one for my fitness, so I need to get back to it as soon as possible.

I was pouring sweat in the garage this morning and the last thing I wanted to do was go for a run. I think I'm going to have to do it first thing in the morning to get it in, but that's hard for me. Still when I started taking running pretty seriously in 2013, I had no problem getting up and running 10 miles--regardless of the weather. I think I just need to put my big girl panties on and do it without thinking about it.

I was thinking of doing some sort of contest here about running (or walking) a certain number of miles. I can buy a few of my "favorite things" as prizes to give away. If I get enough interest, I'll see what I can put together! I think it would be motivating to me as well.

I do have a 5K next month that I'm running (slogging?) with my blog-reader-turned-friend, Jen. She invited me to stay for a weekend at her cabin up north, and while I'm totally not an outdoorsy person, I thought it would be a great way to step out of my comfort zone. I've turned into such a homebody and I haven't traveled to visit a non-family member since 2019! (Not my fault--have you seen the airline prices?!)

I think I'll pick one of my very easiest 5K plans and follow that. I'll be slow as molasses, but hopefully I can do it ;)

Here's to hoping for another good week!

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Transformation Tuesday #79

Well, I think I finally caught up on sleep! I tend to go weeks and weeks without sleeping more than 2-3 hours a night and then one day, I'll sleep like a rock for a LONG time. Last night, I was in bed at 7:45 (yes, for real!) and then I didn't wake up until 6:30. So, I should be good on sleep for a while. Yay!

Thank you so much for those of you that submitted your Transformation Tuesdays photos! I mistakenly thought Sunday was Monday and I sent a reminder on Sunday. Either way, I am happy to have some posts to share!

Here goes...

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A couple of years ago I had made a blanket for my husband’s cousin’s new baby.  We called it the “Bridget” blanket because we put her name on the top of it.  Well earlier this year her mom asked me if we could make a “Marilyn” blanket because Bridgets older sister Marilyn kept taking off with her blanket because she liked it so much. Marilyn loved her new blanket, so hopefully Bridget will be able to keep her blanket from now on lol.

-Katie

Katie, it looks fantastic! What an amazing and thoughtful gift. Someone gifted me a knitted blanket for Noah with his name on it and I loved it. I'm sure you put a ton of work into it and it definitely shows! The colors look great together. Thanks for sharing!  -Katie

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I decided to get rid of the patio table and chairs we had--we rarely ate outside, so I gave the set to my brother and we got this cute settee set. My husband stained the deck and put the furniture together and I styled our new outdoor space with pillows, foot rest poufs, and plants. I also installed Edison lights to plug in when it gets dark--just to make the space bright. Looking forward to spending some time on the deck reading!

-Lorri O’Dell, Syracuse NY

Lorri, oh my gosh--the first thing that caught my eye was the stain on the deck. I am SO overwhelmed at the thought of staining ours, which needs it badly, but yours looks amazing. The second thing that caught my eye were the foot rest poofs (which I would totally use to sit cross-legged on, haha). I've never seen those before--so cute! What a huge difference; I bet you're going to love reading out there this summer :)  -Katie

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Not a huge transformation… I tore out the carpet and stained the hardwood floor on the inside of my closet. The color looks a bit red in the picture, but it’s not that over the top. We’re getting new carpet in the rest of the master and I wanted to get that taken care of! I had to wood fill around an odd strip/piece of wood, and I think it’s fine for being on the inside of a closet. 

Sarah

Sarah, that is not a small transformation at all--it looks great! Even thought it's "just a closet", it always helps when we feel good about our own space. Getting new carpet in the master bedroom will be fun! Walking around on new carpet is heavenly :)  -Katie

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I have wanted to get the exterior of our house painted since the day we bought it, and we were finally able to get it done. I hired a painting contractor in March and his schedule was full for 2 months. Then, it rained for 6 weeks about every other day. We had to have a dry stretch. And just like that, it was summer and 100 degrees. I felt so bad for the painters, having to paint in the terrible heat, but that’s the way the cards fell. I knew all along I wanted a shade of blue, and intended on going with a “safe” blue. But when I saw a navy home on Pinterest I fell in love. I felt like the navy would play well with the little bit of red brick we had, and it’s a very colonial architecture. It was worth the money and the wait.

By the way, this is vinyl siding. We learned that every paint brand offers a vinyl safe formula, you just have to specifically ask for it.

Before: Sage Green
After: Benjamin Moore Hale Navy

-Valerie, Owasso, OK

Valerie, I'm stunned--what an amazing difference! The house looks so much more modern and welcoming. The bolder blue color choice was perfect. LOVE it!  -Katie

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Thank you again for sharing your transformations! It's so much fun to see what you all can do. So please send me some more for next week. I have a SUPER busy weekend, so I won't be able to come up with any transformations on my own to share--and I'm relying on you! ;)  So just send a before photo and an after photo to me at: katie (at) runsforcookies (dot) com, and include your name and a description of your transformation. Can't wait to see what you have to share!

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Do You Know Your Partner? (A Fun Date Idea)

 Jerry and I have always loved the fill-in-the-blank books for couples. Generally, you either answer questions together or you each have separate books to fill out and then you compare answers and it's a great conversation starter. Also, it's very funny to read the answers!

When we were at Barnes & Noble for Noah's birthday, I found a book called "Do You Know Your Wife?". It asks questions about your husband/partner and you fill in the blanks. Then you have him score it, and then we went over out answers. We found the "Do You Know Your Husband?" book on Amazon for cheap, so we decided to get them both and make it a date to chill out and fill out our books together.

Book for women to fill out; and book for men to fill out.

The questions were fun! There were several things that I thought I would I would know instantly; we know pretty much everything there is to know about each other. But questions like, does he put on his shoes by putting on both socks first and then shoes, or put on a sock-shoe-sock-shoe?

Here are some example pages. Jerry marked his answer with an X and I marked mine with a checkmark--because we have to make everything more confusing than it needs to be, of course (eyeroll)

This is a page that I filled out (with the black). I got #97 wrong.

Another one of my pages that I wrote about him

I lost half a point on this because I didn't know the dog's name. And for some reason, I didn't picture him reading comics in the paper. We don't get the paper, so maybe that's why!

This is one that Jerry filled out. The top one probably should have been wrong. I'd totally try to fix it first, but get frustrated and then have Jerry help me when he wakes up.

Jerry answered this about me. He thought I would only donate a kidney to him, but I'd donate to pretty much anyone. Also, I used to love grapes but I've been into pears lately.

I'm not a flower person at ALL. Is there such a thing as an orange daisy? Daisies aren't my favorite, but I don't know the names of flowers except roses, daisies, carnations... and that's probably it! Haha. 

Jerry guessed all of these right except that I don't know how to jumpstart a car. My dad showed me, but I don't feel confident enough to do it. I can't remember if you plug the red or black in first. So, I kind of know but I'm not the first person you should ask.

BAHAHA, I didn't even know I had a school song in high school.

This one made me laugh because we are opposites on the one about underpaying. If I saw a mistake, I would totally point it out. Jerry probably wouldn't. So I filled in the ____ Ask Katie. And of course, he checked that box! Hahaha.

After we finished filling them out, we "graded" each others and we laughed at comments or questions that we got wrong. It was so much fun! Definitely different from the usual watching TV before bed. There are 100 questions each, so it takes a little time to fill them out.

Here is a link for the books, if anyone is interested (these are Amazon affiliate links, which means that if you buy through this link, I may get a small commission for it). They're super cheap...

Do You Know Your Husband? by Dan Carlinsky  $5.95
Do You Know Your Wife? by Dan Carlinsky  $3.90

There is a point system in the book to see how well you know each other, but we didn't go through to check out the points. We just have fun filling them out and chatting about our answers.

I wish we'd saved all of our fill-in-the-blank books throughout the years--it would be super cringy to read though them! Haha.

Doing this book kind of made me want to pay more attention to the little things. Sure, I could tell you how fast he drives, what his favorite pet is, or that he enjoys doing housework, but I can tell you his shoe size or his favorite TV show or even his favorite place he's ever visited. I'm going to really start paying attention and asking more questions. Maybe we need to find a list of off-the-wall questions to ask each other!

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Loose screws

That's a lame title for this post, but I couldn't think of anything else.

Yikes! I'd thought it was about 2:00 right now, but it's already 5:30. I've been trying to work on condensing everything down in the garage so that we have more space in there (my power tools take up a LOT of space). I want to get rid of the big metal tool box because even though I have it very organized, it's a pain to open and close five or six drawers to get the things I need. And since I love to organize, I started work on it today with enthusiasm!

Yesterday, I went to Lowe's to see if I could find a good organizer for screws and bolts and things like that. We also needed some deck nails and weed killer and a couple of other things. I put everything in the cart and as I was walking to the front, the power went out in the whole store. I waited around for a little bit to see if it would come back on, but no luck. So, I had to abandon the cart and leave. I went to Hobby Lobby next door and found so many containers for cheap--perfect for what I needed them for.

I went out to the garage at 9:00 this morning. Jerry is off work today, so I figured I'd work in the garage until 1:45-ish, then when Jerry wakes up, I'd go inside and take a shower so we can hang out. I got everything set up on the floor to sit down and organize, it looked like this:

Well, at about 5:00, Jerry came into the garage and when I learned what time it was, I was completely shocked. Normally I would have cooked dinner by then!

Instead, I was surrounded by THIS:

And that was after I'd already done a ton of work. I feel like it was a million times messier than it looks--and it looks very messy! For all the time I was out there, I really didn't get very much done. I did get all of the screws organized in this handy container. I love that all of them are in the same place! I just have to flip it over and the rest of them are on the other side.

The white paper on the lid is a sticker sheet that I am going to use to label each compartment. (I only did it in pencil today because I'm sure I'm going to have to move things; also, there are a couple of screw sizes that I need to replenish, so I saved room for those.

I have so many unfinished projects right now, this is the last thing I should have started today! But I feel like I need to do one thing before I can do another, before I can do another, etc. They all tie in with each other.

Anyway, that's all I've got for today. I need to go cook dinner--I'm starving!

Please send me some Transformation Tuesday submissions so I can post them tomorrow :)  Just send a before photo and an after photo to me at katie (at) runsforcookies (dot) com. Include your name and a description of your transformation. Thanks!

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