Awesome Altus

Sometimes I like to whine about the town we live in. But they just ask for it sometimes!! Here's a pic from a few months back:

Can't Make this stuff up!!!

I've been having small town fever this week- gotta get out of here! What are your plans for the weekend?

Small Town Living- Almost 1 Year!

Grow where your planted


When life hands you lemons throw them right back make lemonade and all that good advice stuff.


Our move to Altus, OK was a big change for our family. We moved from one of the largest cities in the country (San Antonio, TX) to one of the smallest. I went from being a full time working mom to a stay at home mom in a town where the main thing to do with your kiddo is go to the same park everyday. Basically it was a culture shock.


We've been living here almost a year now and I've been reflecting on how things have been going.

A few shocking facts about Altus:

1. We don't have a Starbucks (Gasp!!!)


2. We only have 1 McDonalds (Double Gasp!)


3. Cows and Cotton are main sources of income (oh and the hot dog manufacturing plant)


4. The closest "Mall" is an hour away and you cant barely call it a mall


5. Even people in Oklahoma give us sad faces when we tell them where we live.


But what I've learned so far is that there are opportunities to be found even in a small town like ours if your willing to look. 


1. Hanging out with the Con-Man- we do lots of fun stuff together. It takes some creativity to keep him away from the TV all day but we figure it out and have fun.

Lake Altus at Quartz Mountain

2. Upholstery Class! I searched high and low while living in San Antonio to find somewhere that offered upholstery classes with no luck. Who would have thought I would find a place that offered here in the middle of no where!? Awesome!

3. Time to build a bed (and lots of other cool stuff)! If I were still working full time I don't think I would have been able to devote the time and energy to build Con-Man's big boy bed. If I had it would have taken me twice as long.

4. We've had some amazing travel opportunities through the Air Force. This being a small base we have better chances at Space-A travel than at a larger base. We've been to Seattle and California so far!

Seattle Mt Rainer

California Wine Tasting

5. We've made some really great friends both at our church and through the base. Everyone is super friendly and a lot of the military families are coming from similar situations as we are so we feel like we're in this together.


Even though I thought my life was over when we got our orders for Altus I think I've actually grown a lot- both in learning new skills, becoming closer to my family, and having some great opportunities. 


So I've learned that if it seems like life is throwing you a curve ball the best thing to do is to be positive and take it in stide. You never know what great things are lying a head!

New House Tour

Mountains of boxes, drowning in packing paper, stuff stuff and more stuff! Augh! How have 3 people accumulated so many stuff? (I swear having a baby doubled the amount of things we own.) I went through a lot of our things and gave them away before we moved but there still seems to be so much.

You never know how much stuff you have until you have to unpack it all and place it into a new home. 

With that said I do have a few rooms to share with you in our new house. And just a disclaimer: theses rooms aren't "finished" but I think are presentable to show you all.

First off, our living room! Bigger than our last one, bright and airy, high ceilings, gas fireplace- wow!

We're renting the home so there's only so much we can do. Our landlord recently replaced the carpet, I'd like to find a large rug to help anchor the space. I also need to hang our curtains, I'm using our old green ones for now, I might look for something more neutral, I haven't decided yet.

A big project is going to be reupholstering my orange chairs. 

The Hubs has warmed up to them, he even admits that they are comfortable and he likes them. But they do need new fabric. The orange is a little out there and is dirty and worn in some places. Still mentally preparing myself for this challenge. (Though I did see an auto upholstery place here in Altus, so worst case scenario I can see how much they charge...)

Another project for this room is the TV console. It used to be Con-Man's dresser in his old room. He now has a large closet with lots of shelves, so I decided to repurpose his dresser for our TV stand.

In our old house we had the TV hung above the fireplace. This time around I didn't want to drill huge holes in the walls since we're renting and the fireplace is taller in this house than in our last one. 

I'm hoping to sand some off the white paint and expose some of the natural wood to make the console look a little more sophisticated. That and some new hardware will finish off this project!

Next up is the breakfast nook. We have a breakfast nook! How cute is that?

Not a lot to do in here, it's pretty basic. I was thinking about changing up the light fixture. There's nothing wrong with it, its nice and recently updated. I'm feeling that something more contemporary would look better with the furniture though. I can't do anything to drastic since I don't actually own the home. We'll see what I come up with.

I used our same dining table, but while visiting my fam. in Houston I swung by Ikea and picked up some new dining chairs.

I really like them, it's the Jules Guest Chair. They're actually an office chair but they work perfectly as dining chairs. (And cheaper than most of the actual dining chairs Ikea sells!) They are easy to clean and really sturdy. 

If your wondering what happened to my other dining chairs they are chilling in our "Formal Living Room" along with a mountain on empty boxes waiting for me to find a dining table for them. Another project to think about.

Also in the breakfast nook are these architectual wall hangings. 

I found them in New Orleans a long time ago and have been carting them around just waiting for an opportunity to display them. They are mismatched but I love the crusty rusty look of them. They are the backs of old aluminum gliders and they were the last 2 the guy had- he sold them to me for $10 each. Not to shabby.

Other than that the room is finished besides maybe some sheers. And the room feels a bit empty, so maybe a buffet or console would be nice to finish it off.

So- onward with the tour! We now have a formal living room! I honestly don't know what we'll do with all this extra space but I'm trying to make the most of it. 

I used the couch that we had in our old sunroom and the rug from our old living room. the coffee tables I made are in here along with another old architectual piece I had. This one I found back in Houston while still in high school. It's one of my favorite finds ever! This room is finished for now, it's basic but I think it looks nice.

Our bedroom is semi presentable so I thought I'd show it to you.

The shelving is old Ikea shelving I've had since college. It's two pieces, one piece use to be in our office but we have the space now to keep them together again. It's needs some styling and pizazz, and some way to control those cable wires but it's good for now.

My favorite comfy loung-y chair is in here! Yay! And of course our bed~ and I am the first to admit that I am not good at making beds and I am ok with that. So don't expect perfection here:

Oh- but some exciting news! While getting our bed all set up the Hubs actually mentioned he would like some new bedding. OMG! I thought I had imagined it but it's true. He, like myself, is tired of our old bedspread and mismatching sheets. So stay tuned for a change with that.

Something I wanted to try in here is a wall stencil. I won one in a contest from Made By Girl and haven't used it yet. 

I thought it would make a good accent wall for behind the bed. Can't wait to try it out.

On top of all these projects I wanted to give Con-Man's room a more "Big Boy" feel since he's two now, a guest room and an office to deal with, and I'm starting a little veggie garden. So much to do I'm not sure where to start. 

Hope you enjoyed the tour for now, sorry for the long post. How have you dealt with unpacking and rearranging in a new home? How do you organize all the projects you want to accomplish?

Our New House!

We're leaving San Antonio today. The moving van has come and gone and we are headed south to visit family in Houston and Baton Rouge before heading up to our new house Oklahoma.

Con- Man was a big help with all the packing

With all the excitement of moving, building a coffee table, fixing up the bathroom, ect. I realized that I have never showed pictures of the house we found in Altus, OK! We never actually made a trip up there to house hunt; we decided it would be best just to rent since we may only be there for 2 years.

I told the Hubs that if the Air Force is forcing us to live out in the boonies with not much to do we need a nice house to live in. Turns out housing in Altus is really inexpensive (Score 1 for living in the middle of no where!) So one morning I happened to hop online and find this beauty up for rent:

It has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, a formal living and dining room and family room. I was sold and emailed and called the owner right away. Lucky I did because later on the owner would tell me that 10 other people called her later that day asking about the home (we noticed while we were house hunting that there is not a lot of housing available in Altus; so I was super excited to get this one.)

I'm picturing our giant LSU flag right here. (Gotta let people know where you're from right?)

Nice patio in the backyard. I'm trying to come up with a temporary solution to make some shade back here. I hear it gets into the 100's pretty regularly in Altus and I dont think there are any trees in the yard.

And the kitchen! Bigger than what we have now, I'm excited to have a bar counter. I'm envisioning many meals being cooked in here. Yum!!

There were a few other pictures in the ad but I wasn't sure how the current owner would feel about me posting her furniture all over the internet. So I'll give a full tour later on.

I'm excited to start decorating it and have some ideas already in mind. Since we're renting there won't be any huge renovations like the kitchen or bathroom we did in our old house, but I'm already thinking of how to use the stencil I won from Made By Girl, how to rearrange our furntiture, mentally preparing myself to reupholster those orange chairs, and wondering if I should give Con-Man's room a more big boy feel since he'll be 2 soon.

Hopefully all the uppacking will go smoothly and we'll be all settled in in no time!

A Sad Departure

No we haven't moved to the big OK yet, that's not for another month. What's so sad is that I sold my Mid- Century Lounge Chairs this week. 

(Moment of Silence Please)

I have been torn for a while about what to do with them. They were on my list of what to keep and what to give away with the pending move. It was a hard decision and I made it kind of spur of the moment. I listed them on Craigslist in the morning and by the afternoon they were gone.

I really enjoyed lounging in them after work, or reading a book or magazine at night. Good times. I even felt kind of Mad Men-ish sipping wine or some other adult beverage while sitting in one of my chairs. 

What finally did it in for me was that I've heard from people living in Altus now that the main thing they do is go to each other's houses for dinner and movies (since there is nothing else to do there....). So I want to make sure I have a comfortable living room that people want to hang out in. The lounge chairs are comfy enough but don't have a head rest or upholstered arms. So I'm seeking out some alternatives.

What also helped sway me was that I only bought the pair for $35 and was able to sell them for a lot more than that. A lot a lot. 

I'm glad they went to a good home, the girl who bought them was super excited to find a pair in such good condition. All good things must come to and end- and now I have an excuse to furniture shop again!

The hunt is on!

Have you ever had to part with a piece of furniture near and dear to your heart?

House Hunters: Altus Style

Someone asked me today if we had gone house hunting in Altus yet. 

My answer? Nope, and we probably aren't going to. We've talked it over and we're probably going to rent in Oklahoma. I'm kind of bummed out about this but it makes the most sense. We're hoping to only be there for 2 years, and lets face it- Altus isn't exactly the real estate mecca of the world. So we don't want to be stuck with a house we can't sell.


But that doesn't mean I haven't been looking.  Most of the homes for sale are new construction. The town has grown recently (21,000 and growing!) and new homes have been built. It seems to be mainly military families buying and selling these homes.

The other side of the coin is older homes- seemingly from the 70's and 80's era. Possibly from when the town experienced a growth spurt at the time. And from what I can tell from the interiors most have not had any updating to them.

I don't have a problem with houses like this- they intrigue me actually. Looking at the pictures gives me all sorts of ideas on how to update and modernize them. But- since our stint in Altus is short all the hard work wouldn't really pay off.

There is a historic part of town. I saw two house for sale in this area. They look cool and are inexpensive for the size. Which surprised me because homes like this in San Antonio cost a lot more. It seems like most people don't live in the older part of town, most have been moving to the newer areas.

Can you tell which one is my favorite? The interior looks like it needs some help. Hopefully someone will buy it and give it some love. Sadly it's not going to be us. 

We're most likely going to end up in the new part of town.

I'm kind of freaking out about moving to a new construction home. I've gotten so used to living in our 1930's cottage house I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. How will I know if the mailman is at the door if Gracie can't run under the house and bark at him (our house is pier & beam). Because our house is pier and beam it tends to shift with the changing weather. How boring will it be to always come home and not have to jiggle and shake the lock a different way each day? And what will I have to worry about with new non- leaky plumbing? And how can I dream about tearing out walls if the home already has an open floor plan?

Seriously we've put a lot of hard work into this house and we love it. We installed the insulation in the attic, replaced all the lighting, had cable run, painted all the walls, not to mention the kitchen remodel. And besides all the hard work this is where our first child was born- Con-Man! 

We've learned a lot and grown a lot in the short 3 years we've been here- no matter where we end up living in Altus I know we'll have even more good memories to share when we leave.