Quiet Sickness

I went shopping with my friend Christy the other day. She lives in a rual area and we took back roads to the shopping center. On one of the roads she pointed out this sign that she sees all the time and is always creeped out by it and for good reason. It's not near a hospital. It's just a quiet back road with some mobile homes and houses. Do they want you to put your car in neutral and coast down the road? I mean how sick do you have to be to have a government issued road sign like this on the road you live on? We should have rolled our window down and yelled "YOU'RE SICK!" This sign being out there is just so creepy to me I don't know why. If anyone reading this knows anything about signs like this please share. I'm very curious about it and wish I knew more. Actually I feel pretty bad for whoever is that bad off.

sleeping on the floor

James says that he wants carpet in our living room so he can lie down on the floor. I don't know what the big deal is with chilaxin on the floor. I brought in a heavy shag rug from our nursery and put it under our coffee table. Next thing I know...

old buffet

We have the biggest hunk of TV in our living room that you've ever seen. It weighs 350 lbs. We got it right before flatscreen TVs became all the rage. We're worried that with Jake getting bigger every day and doing new things like sitting up that one day he could pull it over on himself. We have a flatscreen TV in our bedroom, but have decided to move it into our living room instead. All we need now is some sort of entertainment center to put it on.

My husband James would much rather make something than buy me something for a special occasion. This Valentines Day he decided to refinish this old buffet that my mom wanted to get rid of. This post from "Life in the Fun Lane" provided some inspiration. I showed James what she did with those old pieces of furniture and we both loved it.

Here are the before and after.

my little snowman

On a rare snow day in Georgia...

Why Clean Bean?

One summer in high school me and my friend Christy decided we were going to make us some money! At that point we were really good at playing Tomb Raider, making fried rice, and pretending to throw up using Corn Pops in milk to freak my mom out. Since these talents weren't going to earn the big bucks we created and marketed a cleaning business called The Clean Bean. We taped flyers everywhere and got a couple of jobs. We only had one regular though. Every other week we would clean this woman's house while she was at work. She would leave the check on the kitchen table for $80. We would split that and were very content with our $40 every other week. We had no obligations, no ties. Oh, the life of a teenager!

Since our client was at work we were able to take our time cleaning. We got to know this family's life pretty well. It just happens that way. When you're cleaning someone's house you pick up on things. We really looked forward to seeing what was going to happen next in her daughters love life. Along the duration of this job her daughter met a guy, got engaged, married, and moved out. It was very interesting to keep up with her wedding plans. It wasn't all fun and games though, at least not for us. This woman would leave "traps" for us and sometimes we would miss them and she would let us know for sure! Little things that if you missed, like a little wad of paper behind the toilet, it mean't you didn't really clean. We were always on the look out for her "traps". One time this family had shellfish for dinner and we will always remember it as "Milly ate shellfish". The garbage can reaked a smell that is still burned into my nose. We wrote a song called "Milly Ate Shellfish".

Me and Christy have so many stories from our school days. I've decided to name my blog The Clean Bean because it's a part of me, my past.

Above are pics from the original flyer. I'm so glad that I saved it.

an unwelcome visitant

We found this in our front yard a couple of weeks ago. I thought it would make an interesting post. I was headed to the grocery store and was a little surprised to see this in our front yard. James thinks I backed over it and that is why it was there like that. He hit it with a broom stick into the neighbors yard. We didn't see it anymore after that day. I wanted him to take it to Noah's Ark (a refuge for hurt animals), but he wouldn't.

Bookshelf makeover

The project that I am currently working on is helping my mom makeover her house. She has spent the past 20 years raising me and my older sister and now taking care of her parents. Her house is stuck in the early 90's. A lot of the colors are shades of pink, burgundy, and light green. We are changing it up to shades of brown, blues, and gold. She is using what little free time she has now to start bringing it up to date and cleaning out. We are looking at a very large yard sale coming up in the next month! Here is the first thing she did (with my help). It's amazing how a little project like this will make you feel so good about your whole house. This is the first thing you see when you walk into her house from the garage and it's a really good first impression now. There's many more postings to come about this makeover.

BEFORE

AFTER