Here's my boo bear Quorra <333  

June is Adopt a Cat month and I will be sharing my adoption story of my furry girls!

adorn your android [may 2014]

The above picture is my home page.  Clock widget is Zooper.  The remote widget is Smart Remote [I exclusively use this for my tv && receiver].  The folders contain pretty much the same apps as the previous layout post.

Calendar widget is still the same.

Bookmark widget, work app folders, and the realtor app [looking for a house!]

This is a note I wrote from a quote I found in Oprah magazine.  I find it inspiring as I purge old stuff && simplify my belongings.  You can find me on cocoPPa with username emileeblogs

spring cleaning [list && tips]

It's that time of year again!  The flowers are blooming, the temperatures are rising, and your allergies are making it hard to get out of bed...  [just me?] It's the time of year we all take on the timeless tradition of "Spring Cleaning".  Spring cleaning is the perfect way to prepare your home for the summer season.  Your home has been closed up for months and months to keep out cold temperatures, and now we can open the windows and let your home breathe!  Spring cleaning can actually mean deep cleaning or it can be de-cluttering.  I for one usually take this time to do both.  Today's list is focusing on the top 10 things you should be doing seasonally or quarterly.  Things that we tend to forget about because it isn't on our daily/weekly/monthly check lists.  

I live in tornado alley so my spring cleaning has a little more purpose to it other than just a yearly ritual.  I work hard to make sure my home is organized and void of any junk and misc that I don't need.  I have this fear of my home taking a hit by a tornado and having to clean up all my "junk" while on display for everyone.  

||off topic for minute...||

My hometown is Baxter Springs, KS.  Recently my hometown took a hit by an F2 tornado.  Ripped right through the business part of town, and destroyed many homes as well.  It has been a very emotional week for me as people post pictures on Facebook of what I used to call my home.  Luckily, there were no deaths and minimal injuries.  I want to take this time real quick to plead with you to please pay attention to the weather.  Living my whole life in Kansas, I'm very veryyy used to hearing tornado sirens.  Some seasons they go off weekly during tornado season.  Just because nothing has ever happened, doesn't mean nothing will ever happen.  Please treat every threat with the seriousness that it is.  Be prepared.  Have a game plan.  I know the sirens seem to "Cry Wolf", but it could be that one time you ignore it, that your life is changed for forever.

Spring cleaning can be good for the soul.  It can bring a feeling of peace && freshness to your life.  In today's post I'm going to share my favorite spring cleaning tips && tricks.

||1} Take the time to clean your dryer duct work [I do this in the Spring && Fall]. Only YOU can prevent house fires.... caused by lint. Pretty Handy Girl has a great step by step tutorial for this.

||2} Change your air filter! Those rectangles of fiberglass can get prettyyy gross. If you have a reusable one, CLEAN IT! Start your Spring/Summer season off with clean filtered air.

||3} Clean your stove drip trays. One of my favorite ways of doing this is using ammonia. I remove the drip trays, pour a little ammonia into the tray, then lay paper towels on the tray. This soaks up the ammonia, while also keeping the ammonia on the full surface of the tray. Then place them in a ziploc container for several hours. The burnt on gunk literally rinses right off. This is a stinky project, but very effective.

||4} Clean your ceiling fans. I keep an old pillow case around that I use for this purpose. Spray your fan blades with dusting spray [I prefer Pledge Dust & Allergen], then put the blade into the pillow case. Pull the pillow case back off of the blade, while wiping the blade with the inside of the pillow case. This is very helpful for keeping dust bunnies from falling all over your floor. All the dusty gunk stays in the pillow case.

||5} Deodorize your drains
||6} Freshen your mattress. All you need is baking soda && a vacuum. Sprinkle baking soda on your mattress, leave on for a minimum of 30mins, vacuum it up with an upholstery attachment. You'll want to flip your mattress at this time as well. I would do it before freshening the mattress. Pin a piece of paper to the bottom of the mattress or the edge telling you when you flipped/freshened it.

||7} Freshen your bathroom towels
||8} Wash your shower curtain && curtain liner. I wash my shower curtain liner in the washing machine with vinegar. I throw in my cleaning rags with this load, the rags will rub against the liner in the washer and scrub it clean.

||9} Wash your bed pillows. I do my linens once a week, but only do my pillows quarterly. Inspiration for Moms has a wonderfully written step by step instruction on this.

||10} Change out your "scents". This is the time to move away from warm spicy winter season candles, and bring in light fresh scents. I am incrediblyyy anal about this. I can NOT have warm spicy scents when it's warm outside. It's a no. As I'm typing this I have the B&BW Snap Peas candle burning <333

I hope this helps inspire you to tackle the job! Don't look at it as a chore, look at it as blessing your home && welcoming Spring! Turn on some fun music of your choice and go to town. You'll be so happy you did!

What's your spring cleaning ritual?  Share in the comments below!

adorn your android [march 2014]

I haven't done one of these since I got my new phone. I jumped ahead on my calendar widget so that it didn't have too much personal info on it, so that's why the month is wrong. I plan on doing a post soon about my new phone, but for now here are my screens for this month!

Find me on cocoppa! 

[Cocoppa name: emileeblogs]

xo Emilee

.pallet project [shoe rack]

I brought home a shipping pallet from work several several months ago with the intention of doing this project I found on Pinterest...

However, after I got it home I realized that the wall I wanted to hang it on wasn't flat, and the way I wanted to hang it wouldn't work.  I toyed around with putting it on the wall behind my bed, but couldn't shake the image of it falling on me in myyy sleep!  So this thing has just been hanging out with no purpose in my foyer.  [Sidenote: I live in a loft style apartment overlooking the downtown business district.  I have a large marble staircase that leads up to my apartment.  At the top of the marble staircase is a large foyer before you enter the actual apartment.  My apartment is the only one up here, so the foyer is mine to do with as I please.  I felt like you needed this visual as I describe this project.]  I've just had it on the floor leaned up against a wall.  I've tried adding frames to it like the above picture, but leaving it leaned against the wall.  In the end, I didn't like it.  

I'm in the middle of my Spring Cleaning prep && organization, so I told myself I HAAAD to find a use for this pallet or I was going to purge it.  Well, I found a purpose...

Now keep in mind this is still a work in progress.  I'm going to stain it to match the wood trim in the foyer.  My foyer is about 10ftx10ft, so I have plenty of room for this pallet.  This will also help my family keep their shoes out of the apartment, for a cleaner home.  I'm pretty pleased with the idea.  I'm using the pallet for something actually functional and not just for decor.  I've already declared 2014 as the year of the "purge".  I have toooo much stuff... So being able to use this for something actually useful fits right in with my purge plan.  I was able to throw away the ugly over the door shoe organizer that no one used because it was in another room out of sight.  I threw it away because I truly didn't have any other purpose for it.  After I came up with the idea for using the pallet as a shoe rack, I searched "pallet shoe rack" on Pinterest, && apparently lots of people have had the same idea!  It was fun looking through what other people have done with theirs.

I'll keep you updated on the project as I finish things up with it!

xo Emilee

organization rules to live by

This is a cute image taken from Real Simple magazine. Pin it, screen shot it, etc. Keep it on hand for a reminder. You can even put it in your household binder && planner.