Cleaning Your House

So this is really the first time in my life I (just me alone) am responsible for keeping a clean house. The cleaning gene runs in my family and quite honestly I didnt think I had it. Now that I have my own home (not a dorm or a crappy apartment) I am so proud of it I want to keep it clean. I really drive myself crazy sometimes trying to do just that because there are so many nooks that get dirty quickly or that I have overlooked while cleaning and I feel like I just find a new "dirty" spot everyday no matter how much I clean.

To help me not miss the nooks I made a cleaning list. It's pretty detailed too. I have realized that this list is not for everyone- I showed my husband and he said "I don't need a list to tell me what to clean I can just walk into a room and clean it." I find that funny because 1.he doesn't clean I do and 2.when and if he cleans he misses spots haha. But you might be like him and not need a list (hopefully you are a better cleaner). I like double checking my work by using the list and with a baby its so easy for me to get sidetracked so my list can help me remember what I was doing. I'm sure after cleaning this place for a few more months I will have this all memorized and be able to focus more on cleaning so I wont need this list.

The first page is the list. I went room by room and thought of everything that needs to be cleaned and stocked. The second page is what days I will do the cleaning and a list for things that need to be done monthly, quarterly, twice a year, and every year. I still have to figure out what to write in those spaces like cleaning the oven, garbage disposal, fridge and behind it, the fireplace, etc.

Click the picture to download the PDF

Simple enough I created this in Microsoft word and then I laminated it so I could check off the boxes with dry erase marker.

-Simply Yours-
Ally Marie

Build A Fire Pit

Ok so at our new house we have a large area off the deck that is neither grassy nor pretty. What happened was the previous owners carved a face in this large large large cork tree and ants started to invade the tree and the bottom bark was easily falling off so the tree didn't have many years left.....so we had them cut down the tree so we wouldn't have to mess with it and now there is a large spot next to the deck where the tree was.

As you can see there is a scary face in the tree (well I think its scary)

This tree was massive-gave nice shade which some days we wish we had :(

Initially I thought wouldnt it be cool to put a hot tub in the spot.....but then I realized our neighbors are kind of close and we dont have money for a hot tub right now. So then I went on pinterest and saw some posts about diy fire pits....and they looked really simple to do and I thought how perfect it would be to build one rather than spend money buying those little schady fire bowls that people use.

This project doesn't sound so simple-but I'm not doing it haha.
So this Saturday my husband promised me he would take care of it while I was gone with the baby..........

Before the fire pit- do you see my bunny :) by the way those hostas were already there
our house had lots of landscaping which ended up being a great bonus because
our yard looked great and all we had to do was pull weeds! 

 

This is what I came home to on Saturday :) - of course when I came home it was dark out and my hubby had a fire going but I forgot to take a picture of it, so here's one from the next day. 

Our plan is to enjoy this one this summer. We had the bricks so to save money we just used those. The extra bricks will border the whole thing so that people dont have to get their feet muddy while enjoying the fire (the side of the deck makes the prefect seat!). After doing this project we looked up fire pits online and found some beautiful propane fire tables that eventually we would like to get. Slowly I am turning my husband into a city boy haha now he is ok with a gas fire table lol. 

I dont think my husband would say that this project is easy because he had to level out the ground a bit and dig the pit out-mind you there used to be a huge tree there so I'm sure he ran into some roots. But I do think he would agree that this project is simple. This is short term for us so we didnt bother gluing the bricks together-but if yours is permanent you might want to do that in case someone trips and falls on it. Just a few bricks and a shovel oh and hard work is all it takes. We found the bricks were cheaper than getting fire rated pavers. 

Here's some pics I snapped with my favorite DSLR (for those who dont know what DSLR is its my really expensive camera)

-Simply Yours-

Ally Marie

P.S. We have enjoyed a few fires and we actually really love this pit and I dont think we will change it. It was free and works great! 

If you have questions on how to build this please post them in a comment below.

Home Decor: Love Blocks

So as I have said in other posts we just moved into this wonderful house and while the walls were all painted (so we didnt have to mess with that for now) I have been trying to decorate accordingly. I mean you cant have dark rose walls and a bright yellow couch-or maybe you can haha- its not for me. Anyways so far I have done many projects and I will try to hurry up and blog about them. Here's one of my favorites.

We got married 2 years ago (wow feels longer haha) and as a wedding decoration I got a pictures of our parents weddings and put them in frames with their names and wedding dates on them and displayed them at our ceremony. So we had 3 pictures- my mom+stepdad, my dad+stepmom, and my inlaws. After the wedding we had a small display at our apartment of some of our wedding stuff-including these three photos.

Once we moved into this new house I wasnt sure what to do with them. After all the photos in the frames were scanned in copies of the originals and in my handwriting I wrote their names and wedding date so it kind of looked a little messy. I mean my handwriting is legible but it just looked tacky-like I should have typed that info on the photo and printed it out like that. The frames werent all that great either. They were cheap dollar store frames that I used. So the three photos just didnt fit in our new house because we were done hanging cheesy frames and we were going for a more upscale look. I didnt know what to do. In order to get nicer prints I would again have to track down the original photos and I just didnt want to do that. So what I did was.......

I found this lovely project on pinterest here- and modified it a little. I must say I am happy that 1.all my parents are happily married each one time and no divorces and 2.that I have 3 sets of married parents because those 3 plus our own wedding picture makes 4 which is the number of letters in LOVE -nice!

Since I didnt take pictures during the project I will just post the final product

 

Here's what I did step by step (I love that show haha step by step)

1. I went to Pat Catans (a craft store) and purchased the closest thing I could find to wooden blocks.They actually had wooden blocks but they were way too big and cost somewhere around $3.00 per block. Instead I went with these smaller wooden boxes which were $1.00-something each.

2. I painted them with acrylic paint- it comes in the little bottle. Pat Catans actually had some on sale so it was like $0.77 each.

3. I scanned in the wedding photos and typed the information on them so they looked neater and I typed the word "LOVE" in word and printed everything out. I used an inkjet printer unfortunately the ink comes off easily when the paper is wet so you have to be careful. 

4. I cut out the photos and letters and modgepodged them on the blocks. This is the step where the ink started to come off the pictures a little. I used glossy modge podge :) **I had to only do one brush stroke over the photos because I realized the ink was getting messed up so I globbed up my brush and only painted modge podge once in one direction over the photos. Everywhere else was fine.

5. After the blocks were dry I did a second coat of modge podge around the sides. Then I hot glued the boxes together. I thought about not gluing their lids on in case I ever wanted to change the letters to "FATE" or some other 4 letter word but since we have little ones over all the time I thought it would be best to just glue everything so it stayed looking nice.

So my version looks a little different than the pinterest version. I feel my way is simpler :)

This project cost me about $10.00 and took about a day to complete (because you have to let that stuff dry!)

-Simply Yours-

Ally Marie

A simple mothers day gift

So this year (as some of you may know) was my first ever mothers day. Yes I was a little emotional because you only get one first ever mothers day. Anyways I really expected that my husband would make some craft with my newborn baby to honor me because I did just give birth to our son less than a month ago (April 16th :) ) with NO drugs....but we did just move into our house so things were unorganized and my only real wish for mothers day was to stay at home with my two favorite boys. Needless to say I didnt get some special craft so I decided to make my own since I am the crafty one.

With the moving expenses and well the hospital bills this year is a year of handmade gifts. So for mothers day gifts I went...where else...pinterest. I saw many ideas and I decided to go with the whole handprint flowers. I got all my supplies and then realized I was trying to get a newborns hand print multiple times (4 grandmothers + 3 mothers x 3 flowers each= a lot of handprints). So I changed my mind and instead I traced his hand once and then used it as a stencil to make the other flowers. Check it out.

This is still hanging on my fridge and its July :) 

All in all I really had no plans to make myself one of these because after I made 30-something cutouts of his handprint I was really tired....plus did I mention I was taking care of a newborn while trying to do this. Finally I caved and just made one for myself I mean I have to remember my first mothers day so this will help- honestly I dont even remember anything else that day because I was in new-mommy-forgetful-mode. Plus like I said before I knew I wasnt going to get a special hand-made gift this year unless I did it......I bet I could send my husband into my craft area and he wouldnt know what to do-hes better with tools :)


So this craft is much more simpler than messing with paint. The vase was just cut out of some scrapbook paper I had. I just drew the stems with pen and made sure to write the year somewhere on it (I think the back). It cost me nothing to make since I already had all the paper and if you only have to make one I imagine it would take about 5 minutes or less to make.


-Simply Yours-
Ally Marie

Eating Right

***I will have to update this as my lifestyle progresses***

So the other day I was on the app store for my android phone and I somehow came across this app called "Noom" sounds funny but let me tell you this is probably the best app ever! I use it every day.

What is it? It helps you keep track of your weight, workouts, and calories. Perfect right? I am constantly on my phone wasting time on facebook creeping on peoples profiles and into their lives (I admit it and I was addicted) plus I was posting too much information about myself so I kept trying to go through facebook withdraws but then I realized just how some smokers are addicted to putting a cigarette (or whatever they smoke) in their mouth, I was addicted to turning on my phone. I really found myself doing it every 10 minutes  I would check the time, the date, my messages, emails, and yes facebook....so when I came across Noom within the first day I thought this would be a great app for me because 1.I dont like writing down the calories I eat and 2.I would be more productive on my phone.

My first week using Noom.....what has it done for me? (or what have I done for myself rather) Well I have kept track of my exercise, step count (pedometer), and calories this entire week. Its funny how instantly I ate less because I was sickened to realize how much I do snack and the things I snack on. So for a whole week now I have been eating less food :)
I also have a better understanding of the food I eat. According to Noom you should take the calories per serving divide it by the grams per serving and if you get a number less than 3 then it is really a good food for you.....if its over 3 you should really limit how much of that food you eat. So Noom has a lot of foods categorized for you already (good stuff is GREEN, ok stuff is YELLOW, and red stuff is BAD) and each meal you should eat about 50% green, 30% yellow, and 20% or less red. So I have been eating less, eating healthier, and working out more. For me its very rewarding seeing the progress I have been making- Noom has lots of charts to show your progress :)

At the end of week one I have lost about 5lbs.....and most people would say thats water weight but I dont feel like it is either way its getting me closer to my goal.....I hate to admit it but I need to lose 100lbs 95lbs :(

So if you are fed up of being fat, unhealthy, unhappy, whatever just like I was I think you should try Noom. Even if you think you eat well I urge you to just try it for a week I bet it will help you eat better.

Its so SIMPLE! It really does all the work for you (of keeping track and graphing....not the work of losing weight haha but that would be awesome if it could just take the weight off you with one use)


-Simply Yours-
Ally Marie

Here's the app if you want to check it out!

Check back for updates.
Update Week 2- Down 5lbs total :)
Update Week 4- TBA

Welcome

Welcome to my newest blog Simply Simple by Ally Marie (-thats me!)

I say my newest blog because yes I have many others, one for my professional photography, one for my family photography, one for my classroom, and I'm sure I have created another at one point but I have forgotten about it.

Anyways Simply Simple is a blog about simple things in life. My friends and followers on pinterest know I find a lot of great tips and I am constantly pinning them.....so I thought why not try some of them out and then blog about it. So this blog is about simple pins I have done (recipes, workouts, tips, cleaning, etc.), things I simply think up, and other simple things I find on the internet.

What do I mean when I say SIMPLE? Its funny because sometimes things can be complicated but I will try my best to make them simple-if I make any sense keep reading :) Not everything in life can be simple really but I will try my best to post about simple things. Now that I have said the word simple a bunch its starting to sound funny....you try say "simple" 20 times in a row ha.

Who am I? I am Ally Marie (duh thats what the title says although it would be really funny if my name was Steve Hill {thats a random name I thought of} and then I tell you this is by Ally Marie but then its really secretly by Steve Hill...haha....well I promise its by me Ally Marie.) I have a wonderful family- my husband and my almost 3 month son....more will be added later I'm sure haha. We just moved into our first home together and I have spent hours on the internet and pinterest trying to get ideas for decoration in our home. Also I have tried my hardest to take on the role of mom and wife-meaning I am constantly cleaning, shopping, and making meals....I also bathe and take care of my son (not my husband haha he can do that himself). Oh and I finally am getting into a schedule with the baby so I now have some (just a little bit) time to work out.....so this blog is about all of that. I dont really have any free time to start this new blog but with the invention of smart phones I can blog when I'm doing other stuff like laundry, feeding the baby, working out, cooking, etc.....you get the idea: basically I am a busy mom but I have lots of information I would like to share with people so I am finding time to blog about it.

I have to specify that my last name is not Marie.....when I was born my mother (like most) gave me a middle name and really my middle name has only ever been used on really formal documents, at graduations, when I'm in trouble, and for a short period of time (like a month) when I wanted to be a singer Ally-Marie. So I figured in my 23 years of life my middle name has only been used a few times so why do I have one? Well now I'm not going to go changing my name but I am going to use my middle name on this blog....I should be using it for something right......I mean I got it because my great grandmas first name was Marie so maybe I could honor her a little by using it in this blog (she was pretty simple she happily lived through the great depression).

By the way I am almost graduated from college and someday soon I hope to be a teacher so I will also blog about educational stuff too :)


So I hope you enjoy my blog and appreciate the time I have put into it. Please feel free to comment on posts to let me know what you think-you dont have to have an account to comment!

-Simply Yours-
Ally Marie


P.S. I promise anything I blog about will not be stolen from other blogs or websites- I will always link the original site in my blog!