Brightening Up

So, I've been doing a little redecorating with springy and eastery stuff including some of the stuff I've gotten in swaps.
This is a picture of one of my bookshelves: You can see the Easter basket from Michelle, the stone easter egg, the pink bunny and the bunny in the striped sweater I bought at the estate sale last week, There's also the captured chick from Kim, my easter basket for me shaped like a bug, a white 'lantern' and a blue egg I bought years ago in high school. They were bought when I was in an anthropology class in high school and a few of my friends and I for a project had to go to a town that was x miles away with x many people living there. And since I always love to buy things, and I figured it was a good way to see how they treated outsiders, I bought those as well as a porcelain rose. There's also another blue egg with legs in there, that I'm planning on decorating for a hostess gift for my aunt who's hosting Easter on Sunday.
There's my Easter basket again, a green bunny rabbit I bought on clearance, a blue flower candle holder from Hobby Lobby, two pink candles (one from a swap), A smiley face creature (I bought it for a swap, and then decided the items I had put together were enough), an egg with Godiva truffles in it, those are also supposed to be in my Easter basket, and the matching bunny with a sweater to the one in the last photo. OOOPS, almost forgot the sheet of stickers that are for a future swap in my collage ATCs group.

Here are a couple bunnies sitting on my kitchen window sill.

Here is my shelving unit that you see when you come up the stairs. It's got a bottle I recently covered with dictionary pages with a Hawaiian looking flower sitting in it. There's the lamp finial that I bought at a garage sale last year, a frog, an angel from my friend, Karli. The plate I got in a swap is there, as well as a little red bear, another frog and a piece of rock with fool's gold on it. The sailboat is made out of forgeign Coke cans, I bought it in D.C. years ago. Behind it, you can see a feather, it's a pen, that my friend Kim made. There are two wooden roses that my Ex bought for me at the State Fair a few years back. There's also a metal platter with a ship on it (can you tell I like old sailboats?). And behind the bottle, there is another bottle with fabric roses, a couple metal roses, the porcelain rose I mentioned above and a purple pinwheel I got in a swap.

I collect roses that last forever, so I'm hoping to add quite a few more to my collection in the coming years.

This is the top of my old entertainment center, since I got my new flat screen TV, it doesn't fit in it anymore, so it's become another piece of furniture to decorate.

The green cup, and blue bowl I bought at the antique mall along with the two doilies underneath them. The white bowl I bought at the Octagon Art Festival last year. The bottle was from a garage sale, the bird from a local store. You can see the crocheted flower and card I got Sarah. There's also a pom pom caterpiller in there.

And here's where my TV would sit. The dog, ladybug, leopard, monster, and lion are all things I bought for Valentine's Day this year. The piece of rock is from Hawaii. The purple guinea pig, I bought here on Etsy. The picture frame is from one of my last swaps. The seahorse is also from Hawaii. The charm bracelets and necklace are from swaps in a Yahoo! group called the Sum of All ATCs. And the branch was cut off of one of our trees in the yard quite a few years ago, I grabbed it and varnished it, and it has been a nice decorating piece since.

Here are a few more shelves in the entertainment center. There is a cute flower candle holder from Hobby Lobby, the butterfly card from Whitney, a felt turtle from Jo-Anns, the white dish is also from Jo-Anns, and the bunny rabbit from the estate sale last weekend.

This is the top of my radiator. You can see a scarf I bought last year at a garage sale. The clover pin, green sundae dish, sugar bowl, pink depression glass glass, pink creamer, tiny bottle, and the pins on top of the clock were also bought at garage sales last year. The egg in the sugar bowl is from Sarah in a swap, the brown/gray bird is from a Christmas Swap, the mouse behind it as well as the bunny on the clock, the baseball bunny, and the bunny in front of the clock I bought at the estate sale last weekend. The little silver box I've had for years.

These little guys, I bought myself for Easter, they're called Squinkies. They came in little plastic eggs (you can see them in the blue bowl in one of the previous pictures), they are little tiny rubber animals, not more than an inch in height. I had wrapped them for Day 7 of the Easter swap I participated in, as Day 7 got sick, but I couldn't wait and opened them yesterday. I am having way too much fun with them.

And here's the rest, there were 16 in the container. I had thought they were $5, that was part of the reason I bought them, they were actually $10, but I thought they were way too cute by the time I was paying for them. I have no idea what I'll actually do with them, but who cares?

I was hoping to post my last Easter swap gift package today, but I got an email last night saying she mailed it yesterday and hopefully it will be here tomorrow. Now, don't get me wrong, I love doing these, but we were supposed to have them mailed by last Sunday (4/17), and she waited until the last possible minute to mail the package. I do appreciate that she told me, then I won't be wondering where it is, but I'll be really annoyed if it's not in tomorrow's mail.

In other news, I'm going to my aunt's for Easter on Sunday, I have filled some plastic eggs to hide, I've never done that before, so I'm really excited to see if the little kids are excited when they find them. I'm also thinking of taking a few plastic frogs to hide for them to find as well.

I'm trying out a new recipe to take (I always have troubles spelling recipe, it never looks right to me), it's essentially a green bean casserole with mushrooms and a bread crumb topping, I got it out of a diabetes cookbook from the library. Most of the time I check out cookbooks just to look at the pictures, so no I don't have diabetes, the chocolate cake on the cover looked yummy.

I'm also planning on making lemon bars and putting them on a cute Easter-y plate to take.

I'm also planning on going to a couple garage sales tomorrow, one started their ad with bakesale, so that's a definite way to get my attention.

I applied for a position at the library that will definitely pay more but be less hours. I was informed yesterday that they're doing interviews soon. It will be a position that won't interfere with my hourly work there, but like I said I'll get more $$$. I'm hoping to get it, I know I wasn't the only one that applied and there will be more than one person in this position, but I'm a little worried about the interview. Cross your fingers.

I've been a little depressed lately, I'm not sure exactly why, but I think because next weekend would have been my 4th anniversary with my Ex. I signed up to work on May 1st so I won't be at home by myself all depressed. I do remember thinking this year that May 1st would be on a Sunday, and my Ex would be able to spend the day with me. So much for that idea.

I'm wondering how long I should keep his Christmas presents, before opening some and keeping them for myself. There are a few hunting magazines that I will definitely be throwing away (or just taking back to the library where I picked them up), but there are a few things in there that I would have loved to keep for myself. There are some boxes of Oreos that will go bad some day and I'm planning on taking those to the library, so I don't have to eat them.

I've never been in this kind of situation, so I don't know how long you wait. I haven't heard from my Ex since he sent the text message over a month ago. I don't plan on calling him, his number's still in my phone only so I can ignore him if he plans to call me. I'm pretty sure I won't be getting any stuff back from him, and I'm ok with that, there was one thing, but I don't need it back. I'm also wondering how long before I can get rid of the TV he left here. I would love to stick it out on the side of the road, because it's taking up space in my closet, but I don't know if I'm allowed to. I figure I can wait until fall, if he doesn't express any interest in stuff by then, I can get rid of it.

Let's end on a happy note. Only 2 more days til Easter, I can't wait to get my last swap package, finish the 9 days of Easter, open my Easter basket, hang out with family and hide plastic eggs.

Have a good weekend everyone.