I remember finding this little quirk in our new home. The guest bath faucet setup backwards. The hot being cold and the cold being hot. But I didn’t really mind. We never used that bath anyways. Never have had guests over that came upstairs.

Though there are times we wonder what else the builders did that was a little off like this. At times I swear that they hooked up our shower to our neighbors pipes, we live in a townhouse so we share a wall. Sometimes you get in and it’s like someone has taken an hour shower and sometimes the water is so hot you barely have to turn it on.

But back to that silly faucet in the guest bath which is now the kids bath. I worry sometimes one of the boys might turn on the water and get scalded but it hasn’t been on the top of our list to fix. Though at this last bath time, Zane did turn on the water for the first time, so now it is at the top of our list.

Want to see some more quirky little things in some other homes? Visit Pip at Meet Me at Mike’s.

Welcome to my home. This is what you see as you walk into my front door. And even though this may look like a mish mash of silly objects everything here has a story behind it.

Even that blank area above my curio has a story. We have just added this bookcase in the entryway so I don’t have everything placed perfectly. I think I want to add a phrase or verse in that blank space.

The curio itself is a little plate shelf we found. It was one of my first do it yourself pieces. I sanded it and painted it with some old left over house paint. It has beautiful curved glass in the corners that I love. I have to get a good hold of it as I open it because the latch sticks a bit, but I don’t get into it to often.

I have bunnies and unicorns and special gifts inside that curio. All my small knick knacks are in there. And even each of those pieces has there own story. I can tell you where I got most of those pieces and who gave them to me. There are gifts from a friend who went to the Ukraine. There are unicorns I have collected from a trip to a big swap meet or the time we drove down to California.

I have to say that my husband laughs every time we see Dodgeball and they enter the woman’s home filled with Unicorns. And I have to say I’m not that bad!

The desk that the curio sits on is all scuffed and worn but I love the look of it. And it is pretty special to our family as my husband’s late father built it himself. The drawers are hard to open and it is filled to the brim with junk, but it is still loved.

We were going to make shelves in the hole where your knees go to put our shoes, but I have too many shoes and we just aren’t good at getting to those  kind of projects.

When my mother moved she offered us any of her furniture that we may want and we of course took bookshelves. My husband collects books and we are avid readers. The bookshelf that houses our shoes is from our living room. I like the shelf with our shoes even though it’s not pretty, it’s practical for us. No more digging for shoes they are there in order and easily put back also.

You an see my purse set on top of the shelf and that is my newest favorite thing at the moment. It is my Miche Bag. It’s the perfect little purse for those like me who love to match there purse with there outfit, but hate moving everything over to the new purse or don’t have the money for a new purse. This purse has changable  shells that attach with magnets.

And lastly you can see that picture that is in the entryway. I think it’s a little ironic to have it in the entryway but everyone likes it there. That is a charcoal drawing I did when I was in college. It is one of my favorite pieces. I was just able to frame it to put it up and it ended up in the entryway.

So that is My Place & how about Yours?

This may be cheating for My Place & Yours, because yes this technically is not a photo but a screen shot. But my secret weapon is my Google Calendar. I love my Google Calendar. No matter what system I try I always end up back at my Google Calendar.

Now the above image may look like a colorfully garbled image but there is a system to it. I can look at each calendar individually or I can have a few open to sync everyone in the household or I can have the whole thing open but that is a bit overwhelming.

But let’s dissect my Google Calendar I maybe you too will run out and get one.

Let’s start with a blank calendar:

This is what your calendar will look like with nothing on it. Okay, let’s start adding things. One nice thing about Google  Calendar is that you can sync to other calendars. Google offers multiple holiday calendars you can sync to your calendar. I can also sync Google Calendar with my favorite online to do list Remember the Milk.  (I have the phases of the moon on my calendar, though I can’t find how to add this option anymore.) Let’s add those options:

You will see a little blue check next to the date. If I click on that and it gives me a drop down of my  remember the milk to do list.

I also have a calendar for birthdays but I will not be showing that for privacy to others. I found that you can download your friend’s birthdays from Facebook and upload to your calendar. The application to do this is called Birthday iCal. Very nice feature.

I also have my church’s calendar synced to my calendar so when they have events I would like to attend I can just add it to my calendar.

Let’s add my personal calendar, which is purple because I like purple (you can choose the colors of your calendars from a list of colors). This calendar is where I put my appointments, my events I attend, or things we do as a family.

I keep my work schedule separate to make it easier to add my schedule to the calendar and to be able to find my shifts faster. You can add all day events which are the bold blocks of color or you can add time frames. One other nice feature is you can make things repeat. This month I am working every Monday 10-5:30 so I told the calendar to repeat this through the last Monday in the month.

I also keep my menu plan on my calendar. I love this, it makes it so much easier to plan meals, make a grocery list and link to recipes (in the notes). I learned to this from simplemom.

I also keep a calendar for my online work. Right now I have mainly just the meme’s I like to participate in, but hopefully that will change soon.

And now let’s add my boys calendars. I have a calendar for my husband and each of my boys. If your husband has his own Google Calendar you can just sync it to your calendar and that way you will know when he has plans with the guys or has to work.

My last calendar I have is our routine. I have set up one calendar so that it shows our daily routine so I can make quick reference to it to see what we are doing today.

And that brings us to my full schedule. Which isn’t actually complete for the month. I still need to add date night, family day and I want to add a cookie making party with my friends. But this will be easily scheduled now that I have my whole calendar in front of me. I hope that maybe you to will try out Google Calendar.

If you already use Google Calendar, are there any features that you love?

Ah, how I love my little Acer One Netbook. I blog everywhere!! I blog downstairs, I blog upstairs, I blog while making dinner, I blog while at Starbucks to get away, I can blog anywhere.

But this is where I am a lot of the time. In our bonus/playroom while the boys play or fight or nap. I love this chair because I can curl up in it place my netbook on the overstuffed arms and surf, blog, or facebook.

Ah, how I love my netbook!

Find other bloggers Blog HQs at My Place & Yours . . .