Wednesday 29 January 2014

Uff I want my home back!!!!

 

Hello there!! I am here with my first post of the week! For the last three days, I have been super busy. Countless trips to the market, and indefinite wait for the labor to turn up and do their work. Today is the first day in last four days that I am even able to work on my laptop to type this post.

Finally our wall panel and the crockery unit arrived on Monday. They were supposed to come on Sunday, but due to some reason, it got post-ponned. But still on Sunday, all day we were out to buy the accessories (hardware actually).

On monday, they arrived at around 3.30 pm. From that time, till 10:30 pm, our living area and the lift lobby was full of stuff. It was all mess and full of dust. It took them seven hours to assemble the panels. The TV is still not put on it yet. We are waiting for the electrician to turn up. ($%$#%#$%$#%). This is the mess that we are putting up with:

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The crockery unit is looking good as far as the design is concerned. But the color is too depressing. That is what happens when you try to finalize the color just by looking at the shade card. YES! that’s what we did. Even the color of the wall panel, we had chosen the grey color, just changed at the last moment. I asked my hubby to choose the color, so that I can blame him if it does not turn out good (wicked laugh)!!! The color that he chose has turned out awesome!!! And I have not stopped thanking him for that.

We will be getting the color of the crockery unit changed. The old wall unit needs to go and we still are in make-shift zone. The dining area is still a mess and the living area, since the TV is not up yet, we watched it by using two extension rods. Still a lot of stuff to get done. I really hope that this all gets sorted down today.

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Please do not judge me for these pictures. We normally do not live like this.Sad smile.

I am not sure if I will be back tomorrow or the day after. All depends on how much of work and market trips I have to make. That reminds me, On saturday we hit Ritu Wears for the winter sale to stock up on winter goodies for next year. The sale is really good. And we did get a lot of stuff for both the kids. In fact, for four kids. (My SIL’s kids included). So, if you one in your area, do check it out. And no!!! I am not getting paid to write this. I just really liked the stuff so just mentioned about it.

So, that’s it from my side today. Just wanted to let you know of my whereabouts. Hopefully, from next week, I will be more regular.

Stay warm!!!

sims!!!

Friday 24 January 2014

To Sell or to keep

 

I had mentioned in my new year’s post that we are waiting on some woodwork and sofa in our living/dining area. We still are waiting on that. For some reason or the other, all this keeps on delaying. It has been around one and a half month now that we have ordered for all this.

We are waiting for new stuff, but at the same time, we are getting desperate over getting rid of corresponding old stuff. We have a wall unit that at present we are keeping at the place of dining side board. The old sofa is still with us which can die any day.(Ha ha… really). Right now, I am sitting on the sofa half immersed in it(wink wink).

Although the sofa is in a bad shape, the wall unit is pretty nice. And we really want to sell that off. I had put it on olx and quickr some time back but did not get any offers. I did get some calls from interested buyers but I’ve had all no shows for this. Well, now that our new stuff is almost ready and can arrive any day, we just have to take decision on these asap.

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Weekend is here. And hopefully, we will start our next week with new stuff leaving the old behind. I am pretty much excited for this because this will define our space properly and the space would look organized too.

What are you excited for this weekend?

Thursday 23 January 2014

Why do we have clutter?

 

Chaos, Clutter everywhere… And you just can’t seem to control it. Has it ever happened with you? It has surely happened with me quite a lot of time. Why ? Really why does it happen?? I am naturally a messy person. There I said it. Some people when see something unorganized, or dirty, they will just clean it up, I just give it a look and tell myself , I will clean it or I will organize it. But that time comes only when we are expecting someone at home. But for past sometime (actually it is about a year now) I am trying to amend myself. I want to talk about this weakness of mine(having clutter around) today. May be talking(I mean writing) will help me too understand the problem.

After putting a thought about how the clutter gathers around, I have come up with the following issues:

1) When we enter our home, we head straight towards the dining area and dump all the stuff at the dining table, hang car / bike / house keys and get on with our tasks. There I said it. That is the foremost reason for the dining area to be cluttered.

2) I am working on laptop and suddenly remember something or see some stuff lying around. Being lazy that I am, I say to myself that I will pick it up , and then forget about it. Even when I get up, I either forget about it or even if I remember, I sometimes just delay it.

3) Sometimes, the clutter is when we cannot seem to figure out where the specific things go. Either there is an indecision among the probable spaces, or there does not seem to be a place for that. And so, the things just keep on lying around,

4) Even if some furniture pieces do not work well for the purpose they are being used for, we keep using those pieces just because we keep telling ourselves that we have spent so much of money in this piece, so we really should use this.

5) We buy things on a whim. Sometimes, it just so happens that we are out in the mall, and find something very nice in that shop, and we like it so much that we just buy it without thinking about how it will look in our home, how will it be used. Although now this happens very less, but the earlier collected pieces have this story on them.

6) Someone gifts us something that we get hesitant to get rid of.

7) We identify the things that we need to get rid of and then store them in the same place where other usable things are. Eventually we might even forget about them, or just again start using them or again spend time in taking out the stuff we once had sorted.

8) The place to keep things is not easily accessible. For example, if for putting something, I need to remove a table to open up the closet, chances are, I will not put away that thing.

I feel these are the reasons that our home becomes cluttered. And these are the reasons that we need to work on so that the clutter can be conquered. Now that the problem areas are identified, I can work on identifying the solutions.

Have you identified your problem areas??? Or are you a naturally organized person?

Wednesday 22 January 2014

A Thought about current situation in Delhi

 

For the last two days, the situation in Delhi has been bothering me… All I can see in news is the ‘Dharna’ going aound, Kejriwal declaring himself an anarchist. Blaming the center for causing this. I am not able to focus on anything and just want to blurt out what I feel.

I was a supporter of AAP during the Delhi elections. And somewhere still, I support AAP. But the way AAP is dealing with the issues is not what I had anticipated. When the AAP manifesto declared free water and 50% electricity bills, I was all ga-ga for it. But when they came to power, they gave subsidies on water and electricity. Well, I had not expected that… I wanted the prices to reduce by generating revenues. They might be having some plans or might not … But that is nowhere to be found.

It seems that AAP is just trying to impose its own views no matter what the constitution, or the national image, or the right way to go about it is.There is a total chaos on the roads of Delhi. Some of my friends who have to go to central Delhi (PTI building), are having a tough time while commuting. But AAP is not bothered about that. All it seems they are bothered about is that the Delhi Police did not listened to the law minister. Well, I ask, when AAP was not in power, they used to say that the Police is made to listen to ministers and that is why the corruption is evolving. And now they themselves are forcing them to go by what the minister says. They are on Dharna because they want to suspend the Police officers, but earlier they used to say that ministers should not interfere in the suspension or transfer of Police. Why such a u-turn? Just because it is them?????

AAP leaders say no to VIP security… But what is happening now? 3200+ security personnels are guarding the venue and the people on Dharna and that too in the week of republic day parade.. Do they have no regard for national days ?? And I do not understand , why Dharna???? When they were not in power, then they did this Dharna and Aandolan, that time it was understandable because they had no authority. But now, they are the power, they have the authority and they have the means. That time, they said, the Dharna is not effective, we should be in government, well, now they are the government, why Aandolan now?

They say that the home minister is not listening, and the Delhi Police is involved in rackets, Well, for stopping the corruption, they expected the common man to do minor sting operations and submit that to government so that the necessary action could be taken. Why don’t they practice what they preached. Leave common man, they have well experiences professionals who could do a sting operation on Delhi police personnels. They can take that proof to media, and to the court. There is no way homeminister could then deny what they are asking for. All I want to say is , that there are well within the law so many means to ask for what they want, but all they are doing right now is creating anarchy across the capital.

Moreover, I just do not understand why AAP is trying to go National. Why LS Polls??? They portray themselves as the honest party. But when they are asking for online membership, how they hell are they ensuring that the honest people are joining them. They are definitely not screening any criminals, hooligans from joining the party.How are they different than other parties then? They themselves say that they are inexeperienced in politics. Well, why plunge into LokSabha elections then? Gain experience by governing the captial right, Why be in such a hurry to go national?

The Dharna has been withdrawn now, but it really seems like a facesaver. Constant U-turns on AAP behalf is really not going in the favor of its image. All in all, I am just not happy with the way things are turning out in Delhi in regards to AAP. What is your say on this?

Monday 20 January 2014

15 minutes Organizing

 

Good morning !!! Hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was busy and exciting. Had to attend a family function on Sunday so, could not write my post in time. That is why, the post is coming a bit late today. Did you have organizing sprints this past week? Well, I did…Remember I had talked about getting in the process of organizing and promised a recap of listing what I did around my house in those 15 minutes. So, Without wasting another minute, here I go:

Monday : I forgot to take the before/after pictures. But I started with the kitchen. The counter was full of used/unused dishes. I started from the left, and moved on and one by one tackled the dishes on the counter. Mind it, I only tacked the counters. Ours is a galley kitchen, and I cleared both sides counter with only the necessary items remaining.

Tuesday : I had arranged my son’s dresser sometime back, but ever since I handed over the control to him, the dresser had gone haywire. He promised me that he will keep his drawers organized once I put them in order. So, on tuesday I tackled this task. My son and daughter share the 4-drawer dresser. First two are DD and the next two for DS. Once I put DD to sleep, I got down to work. One drawer has the trousers/pajamas and the night suits. Second drawer has all his t-shirts. I emptied the two drawers, gave three-fold to trouser and put them back. For shirts too, folded them and arranged in order. Easy peesy… and done. Since that day till today, the drawers are still looking the same. In fact, two days back, he got in organizing mode and he cleared off his room. Whatever extra stuff was there in his room, he shoved them in the living area for us to tackle. His motto has been – ‘ No entry to things which do not belong to me or little sis…’. Oh, did I mention he is 6 years YOUNG???? Here are the before and after pics of drawers….

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Wednesday :

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This was what was bothering me for quite some time. I want my kitchen paper towel and the aluminium foil to be on hanging. But I was just not able to get an easy and inexpensive solution. But voila, last week I found it. I bought cup hooks like these:

http://www.ffgw.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/c/u/cup_hook_brass_ch1b.jpg

Nailed them here,

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and yipee!!! I had a great solution….

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Thursday : The wall unit was collecting mess. I had got a folding table made over there for working. Although I have not really starting using that space for the purpose, because DD crib is still in our room. Her sleep pattern is not yet scheduled, so in the night it is convenient to have her in the same room as ours. But, that is no excuse for the place to be messy, right? So I cleared up the mess so, the place went from mess to beauty as is seen in the pictures.

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Friday : I did not do any organizing but I used the 15 minutes to layout the clothes for the upcoming function on Sunday. Made sure that DS does not create any fuss over clothes.

I wanted to continue ‘15 minute organizing’ for Sat. Sun. too, but could not. I will try to do that this week. Wish me luck!! Now it is your chance to show me your organizing skills. What areas did you tackle???

Friday 17 January 2014

Our Super Relaxed Winter Vacations Trip

 

In my blogging break for the last couple of weeks, along with the other tasks that were going around in our home, we also planned for a winter vacation trip. My son was real excited about this trip, as we were not able to go for a summer vacation this year because of the ‘Arrival of our baby girl’. We wanted to keep the trip relaxed so just planned for ‘Vrindavan and Agra’.

We started on the 4th of Jan. from Noida around 1 pm and took the Yamuna expressway. The expressway is really good, and we reached Vrindavan by 3 pm. We had planned to visit just one temple that day – ‘PREM MANDIR’ which was to open at 4.30 pm. We went directly to the market in front of ISKCON temple, stretched our legs, had tea, and shopped around a bit in that market. Then we went to PREM MANDIR at 4, and by 4.15, the gates opened. As soon as we entered, we were mesmerized by the beauty.

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Such vast area and so beautifully maintained. The actual building of the temple is surrounded by different scenes taken from Sri Krishna’s life. The stretch from entrance to temple building, on the left, had Sheshnaag, Yamuna and Sri Krishna dancing on Sheshnaag annote. In simple words, it was beautiful. Right in the front of the temple building, was the depiction of Goverdhan Parvat.

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Again beautiful depiction. On its left was an LED screen where the bhajans of Radhey Krishna were being sung along with their pictures.

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Just beside that, there was landscaping done with the 2014 welcome message.

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Along side there was the ‘Raas-Leela’ depicted.

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At the backside, there was canteen with really delicious food and the ‘Kulhad wala Doosh’ was so yummy that we ordered three more after having 2 glasses. The most awaited part was the musical fountain show.  In the evening, there was lighting around the temple, and it was really breathtaking as is visible in the pictures.

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The sheshnaag depiction had also come alive and the sheshnaag was now revolving.

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The Raas leela Krishna-Gopi were revolving too. All in all, we were all mesmerized with the beauty.

Finally, we left at 8 pm after seeing the beautiful fountain show, we continued our journey to Agra. Reached there by 9.30, stayed at a relative’s place, had dinner and off to sleep we went.

The next day was a break day. We had to make a few family visits during the day, but in the evening we went to the ‘Raja ki Mandi market’. Spent some time there, and I bought what I was looking for. Open-mouthed smile Shelf liners, was what I had planned to look for in that market, and I got beautiful patterns.

Next Day was for ‘TajMahal’. No words can describe its beauty. Lots of poets have tried so, so I will not even attempt it and will let the pictures do the talking.

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After spending about 3 hours there, we went to ‘Sadar Bazaar’ to enjoy the Chaat delicacies and to have more of shopping experience. In the night we came back to the hotel that we had booked for the next two days. It was an okay hotel, we had our dinner there and made plans to go to Agra Fort the next day.

It took us only an hour to complete the Agra Fort tour. We could have done this with The Taj, had we known that this will not take much of time. But then, we used the remaining time to visit my in-laws place. We have rented out the house but the store is still there with us. This is the first time, that I was visiting the place after renting and really had no idea what to expect there. My MIL started taking out the stuff that was all packed in there.

And you can’t imagine, from all the stuff, I got two beautiful dollies. I mean, from this

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I got these beauties ::::

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Ha ha, don’t worry, these definitely WILL come out to be beautiful.

The next day, was our return. We started early, because we wanted to reach Vrindavan Vaishno Devi Temple by 12. The Vaishno Devi Temple was amazing. Such big statue of MATA was there, and the temple too was beautiful. The landscaping was breathtaking and it also had a cave like the Vaishno Devi. We were not allowed to take the camera inside, so I can only give the outside pictures.

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The vacation was really relaxing as it was a much needed break from our home improvement stuff, school, and the routine monotony. I hope you also liked the pictures .. Do let me know…..

Thursday 16 January 2014

DIY Photo Wall Clock

 

 

In my ‘Document Storage Solution’ post, you must have noticed the huge clock on the wall unit. Did that make you wonder why and how that is there? I made that clock because you see, there is no other place in our master bedroom to put a wall clock.

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All the walls either have door or some opening, I could have hung a wall clock on the back wall of bed, but then that would have defeated the purpose. When I am sitting on bed, I should be able to know the time, tossing and turning just to take a look at the clock is just not me. And moreover, the wall unit was empty. We have no plans of putting TV in bedroom, so this place was basically shouting to get a makeover. I have seen some very expensive clocks photo clocks in Archies and Hallmark and online too, like this -

http://www.jabong.com/nextime-Photo-Frame-Clock-129147.html?gclid=CJOW9OvP_7sCFYcB4godN0YAjw

I definitely did not want to spend so much of money and still not be satisfied with the dimensions. Plus, I thought and was sure that I can make it myself for a much cheaper price. And, so I came up with this Photo Wall Clock. Making this is really so simple, that I was actually hesitating to put it in the DIY category Smile.

Following are the items needed for making this clock:

1) 13 CDs – Yep, the round pictures are set on a CD. I used the CDs lying on hand, used, unused doesn’t really matter. I chose the ones of movies, which we don’t watch and had bought just on a whim.

2) Clock Machine – I got it from a watch shop and chose the sweep machine which was expensive than the tick tick machine, but that is what I wanted.

3) 13 Pictures – I printed the pictures on a simple white copy paper (not the photo paper, because I wanted to stick it on a CD).

4) My initial thought was to have pictures of our son and daughter on the two clock hands. So, I made two cardboard hands and pasted their pictures, but the actual clock hands did not bear its weight and the hands kept falling down. So I just pasted red cardstock paper on the clock hands.

5) Cling Wrap.

6) Double Sided Tape,3M Picture Hanging Strips.

Procedure:

The procedure is really very simple. I printed the pictures on my home printer on a simple copy paper. The size I chose was 5” x 7”. I wrapped the picture on to a CD like this:

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It looks fine this way, but to give it a clean and laminated look, I covered it with a cling wrap. I did this for the 12 CDs for 1-12 on clock. For the middle, I stuck the machine on the CD and attached the two hands on it. I chose the picture in which we are a bit on the lower front so as to make way for the hands. I positioned the picture on the CD and made a cut along the radius so as to slide it across the machine on CD. I did not cover it with cling wrap. I measured the area on the unit, and chose the center point. But for putting the 1-12 numbers, I just eyeballed the positions, and placed the CDs with washi tape (temporary). Once I placed all the CDs, and was sure that the positions are alright, I used double sided tape for the numbered CDs for sticking. For the middle CD, since the machine was heavy, I needed to stick it real hard so that it could hold the weight. 3Ms picture hanging strips came to the rescue.

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This clock has been holding good for more than a month now. Functioning well and serving the purpose well.

And it sure is a pretty sight while sitting on the bed. One more good thing about it is, I have placed the pictures in chronological order and it sure reminds us of the beautiful times spent together at different places.

Overall, this clock cost me about Rs. 220 which is for the branded clock machine (Ajanta) that I bought. If you go for a local make, it will cost you anywhere from Rs. 100-150. and a tick tick clock machine will cost you even less. No matter what, this clock sure is a great deal for me as this is exactly what I wanted at a sure low cost.

What do you say? Do you like my Photo Wall Clock? Have you ever made any clock? Please do share your experiences…

Wednesday 15 January 2014

Getting into Routine!!

 

Today is the last day of winter break. Schools open from tomorrow. It is time to get back into routine now . All these days, my son was getting up late and going to bed by about 11-12 pm. Since yesterday, I have been after him to get back into routine. For last 4-5 days, the weather seems to be opening up. And today being Makar Sankranti, The SUN has started changing the direction, so the days are getting a bit longer. Hey, before you started commending my knowledge, that I did not know this , just read it in the newspaper an hour back. But, today when I was sitting in the balcony, I could feel the difference. We got the sun for a bit longer in the balcony.

Although, it was a really nice weather in the daytime, in the evening, it has again started getting foggy. But sine the evening is foggy, hopefully it will be sunny in the morning.

Although my son needs to wear the uniform to school everyday, I still ask him to lay out his clothes for the whole week, which he wants to wear. That is because he is very fussy about his clothes. And sometimes, he can get so stubborn. So, in order to avoid all those clashes, I normally ask him on a Sunday afternoon to go through his clothes and select the seven different outfits for the whole week. For past two weeks, he did not do this because of (wink wink) relaxation time of holidays. But today, since we are getting into routine, he had to do this stuff. Five sets of outfits to avoid unnecessary conflicts over non issue.

Tomorrow is his Class Group photo day too. So, he is expected to be in complete winter uniform, no club dress. Hope he has a nice photo shoot and a memorable class photo. So, that’s about us getting into routine, how do you do this?

Tuesday 14 January 2014

Documents Storage Solution

 

Documents Documents everywhere!!!! One accumulates all kinds of documents all through his/her life , sometimes school related stuff, office related docs or house/taxes/insurance documents.  Enter our home, and you would find bills lying on the dining table. Insurance docs – you would find them in three different files. Tax documents – Again number of files. If we buy something for home, the warranty and manuals were put at different locations. Every time we had to go to Dr. for getting our daughter vaccinated, we would frantically look for her vaccination card. I can go on and on, but I think you get the idea.

One fine Sunday, I was lazying around, my hubby came and started searching for gas bill to use it as address proof for voter’s card. He literally went through seven files but did not find any. I spotted a green paper lying in the upper shelf, and said, check there, and lo, that was it… I don’t know what entered my head… But I started recalling all the amazing file cabinets that I had seen in the blogging world and fancied making them adapted to my needs.

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I Heart Organizing

But alas!!! Those solutions were just not for our household. Number one reason : There was no way to accommodate a filing cabinet in our house. I did not want to add new furniture just for the paperwork. But I really wanted to have all my documents in one place and all categorized. And then, the light bulb lit in my head!!!

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This is the after picture only. Sorry, being a newbie blogger, I forgot to click the before picture.

The picture above is of the wall unit in our bedroom. This is actually for the TV unit but we don’t want TV in our bedroom. So, this piece was just empty. And accumulating docs and multiple files and just random stuff. Sometime back, I had stored a carton of jars thinking that I will put it to a great use. And now, I found the great use. I made that into a document storage container. Move aside the hanging file folders which I had fancied for over a year to use for document storage,  I finally made peace with the fact that that solution is not for me. Instead, I found that these files and folders are what I need. I pulled out all the folders (hidden and displayed), and one by one, I started going through each folder. I took out each document, decided whether it was to be purged or kept, categorized and went on to another document and folder. It took me sometime, but really this task was overdue since long. Finally, after about 2 hours, I had each document sorted and kept in like piles.

Here are the IN PROGRESS pics:

All of it had finally come down to eight broad level categories, and within them, there were about 36 sub-categories. I rushed to the stationery shop and bought these…

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Then labeled them with washi tape. And inserted the documents and put all the folders in this box. It was functioning, but I wanted it to be pretty as well. I had one plastic cover (normally used as shelf liner) lying at hand, which I bought just because I loved it. I covered the box with that and I got this beauty.

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Now, I had made it but I wanted it to be functional for my hubby as well. I took the document box to him and handed him a paper. I asked him to file it properly by identifying on his own. I wanted to evaluate the obviousness and ease of this system. And I was elated to see that he had no trouble finding the right folder and right file and he was able to file the paper correctly. Happy Organizing dance!!!!

 

Once more – This is the pile of folders that I started with .. and endless documents lying all over the house.

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And this is the end result

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Love it. And this system has been functioning well for over 2 months now. I love the sight and the function it offers. Has it ever happened with you that you were drooling over some solution for a long time but finally made something else for youself and loved it even more? I would love to know about it!!!!