New Stuff For My Bedroom

Guess what?  South Carolina is expecting snow.  Again.  I can not even explain how tired I am of having the kids home due to messy roads.  Though this time, two of three kids are sick, so they are home from school anyway.   But with the snow comes cold weather, and my house is constantly chilly.  I have banished the girls to my bed, and I have been thinking of ways to make sure they stay warm.

My first thought was looking for New Electric Heated Blankets.  I remember years ago when my parents had one, and it always kept us toasty warm.  I found a really pretty chocolate colored one, and I am seriously thinking about buying it.  Not only will it keep the girls warm while they are sick, it will keep me warm at night when they feel better.  My only concern is that once the girls see how nice and warm the blanket keeps them, they won't want to give it up.

Now, if you know me at all, you know that I can't add one new thing to a room.  If I am going to upgrade one thing, I need to make sure everything else is updated as well.  I don't think I have ever shared this before, but right now, there are no curtains on the one window in my bedroom.  I actually have a thick, dark blue duvet cover covering the window to keep the light out during the day, because that is when I sleep.  I stay up until after midnight every night trying to get work done, and then I am up again at 2 and 5 getting the hubs to work and the kids to school.  Once everyone is out of the house, I lay down and sleep for about four hours, and if the sunlight is streaming through the windows, I can't sleep.  The duvet cover works for now, bu eventually I want to get some type of blinds or shade for that window.

I found these shades online, and they are supposed to block out the sun.  I like that they are white, and not black.  I don't know abut you, but when I think about black out shades, I just assume that they would be black.    I am debating between these and New Roman Shades .  I think roman shades would be prettier, but these black out shades not only block the sun, but they can keep the heat out in the summer and the cold out in the winter.  That is a big plus for me, because that can help keep my power bills down.

Of course, if I am buying new shades, I need new bedding to go with it.  I found this New Bedding by Rose Tree, and I love the black and white. I'm not sure my husband will love it as much as I do, because there is a lot of black and white in the house already.  I think he might prefer it if I found something with a little more color.  Then again, if he doesn't find out until after I buy it, then he won't have a say at all.

I can be sneaky, right?

It's Cold In Here!

My house is freezing!  I just received last month's power bill in the mail, and is was $200.  Granted, we have had some cold nights, and a snowstorm, but still.  I hate spending so much money on heat during the winter.  We live in a double wide mobile home, which is not very well insulated.  I asked Junior about putting clear plastic over the windows to try and keep the heat in, but he doesn't want to.  He said it might be better to look into cellular window treatments, which will do the same thing as the plastic yet look a whole lot better.   So, I guess I will be doing some research online, and hopefully within the next moth or so we can have something on the windows to keep the cold out and the heat in.  Without something, I have a feeling our next power bill will be even higher.

Keeping The Heat Out

Right now, I have a sheet hanging over the big windows in my living room.  As much as I loved the sun and how it brightens this room, it also heats it up very quickly, and then the air conditioner runs non-stop.  Since hanging the sheet, it has been a lot cooler, and our power bill hasn't gone through the roof.

I wish I could hang something other than a sheet, though, because it looks horrible.  I was looking into Window Film and More and found a design I really like.  Check it out:

I would love to hang this film on my windows.  If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I want everything in my house to be black, from my appliances (which are) to my couches (which will be when we replace these old hand me downs someday).  These little rectangles will allow a little sunlight to come in, but I don't think it will be enough to heat up the room like direct sunlight does.  I read the customer testimonials, and every one praised the product, from ease of installation to the quality of the product.

If only they had an elephant pattern.  That would have been perfect for me. :)

A/C Fixed

Junior fixed our air conditioner. He ended up taking it out of the window, and taking it apart in the front yard. The problem was caused by cat hair. When we had Ginger inside the house, the outside cats would jump onto the back of the unit to see inside. I believe I have posted pictures in the past of one cat inside and one cat outside, staring at each other. Anyway, Junior was able to clean the unit completely, and now it runs like a brand new air conditioner. He likes it to be really cool, so I walk around in pants with a blanket around my shoulders. I like to be cool, but it is freezing in here.

Junior got the unit back into the window pretty easily, because we kind of broke it trying to get the unit out. There was a lot of prying with a screwdriver to get the unit out, and it brought back flashbacks of when we moved in. I thought back then that we would have to go with Sears Window Replacement because Junior and his friend were rough with our window. They had to slam it up to break the little hook things on the sides that kept the window up when it was open. The unit barely fit, and it took a lot of wiggling to get it in back then. This time, because the pieces were already gone, it just slid right in. I am glad the management company didn't have to do window replacement because I don't think they would have been too happy about that. Even though Sears Replacement Windows are reasonably priced, we probably would have been evicted the first month if Junior had broken the window.

It's all good now, though. We have (mostly) unbroken windows, and a working air conditioner. It doesn't get any better than that.