from drab to fab

so, lately i have been reading a ton of GREAT home decorating blogs. i never realized how many great blogs are out there regarding home designing on a budget! i have added the links of the great ones i found to my following list (if you are interested).

i have been feeling so inspired lately because of these blogs, they really are great tools! there was a ton of awesome pictures about laundry rooms, and tonight as

i found myself wondering around tj maxx i definitely scored some great finds and my laundry room went from drab to FAB!!!

i really wish i would have taken a BEFORE picture but i was too excited to organize all my new stuff that i forgot to! i know most of you know what general laundry rooms looks like, messy, cluttered, ect. but here is my AFTER!!

don't you love it? super organized and stylish!

these polka dot storage bins were so adorable! i love polka dots, but i wanted them to not SO girly and i think this accomplishes it well! i am one for organization and the bins hold all my cleaning & laundry supplies perfectly!

so a few months back i saw something similar to this in the ballard designs magazine. it was on a much larger scale but i fell in love with the look of it! i thought this would be the perfect touch to the laundry room!

how cute does this look together?! this bucket was so adorable i just couldn't pass it up. i put the towels & toilet paper for our downstair 1/2 bathroom. it's definitely way more stylish then hiding them underneath our kitchen cabinet.

here is an up close of the bucket!

LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!

and finally, what inspired the room to begin with!! the laundry sign!

i love that it's a mirror, it adds the the charm i was looking for and it's just PERFECT!! :)

overall i am VERY happy with how it turned out! i am sure there will be tweaks here and there in the future. i would love to paint the room, and change out the standard shelving it's on, but for now i simple love it!!

and here is a teaser of my next project in mind!

this is a white board calendar that we don't use very much (as you can see by the month listed) but i have a GREAT plan for this little thing! don't want to give it away but it will be grand :)

hope everyone is having a great night!!!

geez it's about time!!!

i doubt that any of you have REALLY been missing by blogs that much, but i really have been doing a bad job at updating. i really do want to be better at this, because i really blog for myself more than anything else.

so, what's been good in my life lately? LOTS!! about a month ago, i got a 12% raise at work!! God is so good! when i got my promotion back in January they told me in 90 days they would "evaluate" my progress and give me a raise based on how i was performing, well i guess i have been doing really good and they decided to compensate me accordingly!! actually above & beyond since i walk in the favor of God! even my boss was shocked when she told me the amount of a raise i was getting. the coolest thing about it all is how the FAVOR of God is stamped all over this, because no one in the company is getting a raise this year, but not only did i get a promotion and a raise in january, i got another LARGE raise a month ago. talk about walking in the blessing!!! along with my promotion, we found out that our mortgage company had been doubling charging us for an insurance fee and so we got a refund and our monthly payment when down by $200!! HALLELUJAH!!! i think the most awesome testimony in this all is that a week before this all happened, scott & i were talking about how frustrated we were that with our bills and income that we weren't where we wanted to be and that it would take a raise for both of us to just be semi-comfortable and we were just really down about the whole thing, and not even a week later the Lord had rocked our world and completely changed our financial situation. He is a God of results!! His word and promises to tithers will not be VOID in our life but it will accomplish the blessing on our behalf!! He is doing big things in us, through us, and FOR us!!

this past saturday, scott & i celebrated our 1 year anniversary and i cannot believe how fast time goes by! our first year of marriage was wonderful, honestly if every year is good as this one, i know our life will great! we didn't have the typical "hard" first year of marriage. i think after dating for 5 1/2 years before tying the knot really helped us because there weren't many surprises, just adjusting living together and the differences in opinions, but really it was a GREAT year. i am realizing how blessed i am to have a happy marriage, to not face a bunch of challenges that come so standard in other marriages. the Lord really equipped us for each other and it's been a learning process, but i know the reason we are a success is because HE lives in us and is the centerpoint of our marriage. i mean don't get me wrong, we HAVE challenges, but it's nothing that we cannot ever fix or work through. i love being married to my best friend and i love seeing the growth in scott since we got married and his love and passion for the Lord. it really has deepened in him a way that i have never seen in previous years, and i am so in love with him for being committed to the things of God in his life, my life, and our life together. i cannot wait to see what the next year has in store for us, i know it will be good.

i think more now than ever before in my life i am content in such small little things, little joys, and little moments that i took for granted before. the Lord is really doing a work in me right now, molding and shaping me more into who He wants me to be in order to accomplish what He put me on this earth for. i have been challenged in ways that i have never been before, and i have given the Lord access to work in areas of my life that i have never let Him into before. it's been interesting growing in Him, i know that every day for the rest of my earthly life will be filled with growing up spiritually, but i think now my outlook on it has changed. it's not something that i feel is bothersome or hard to do, it's simply the Lord and i walking out life every day and it's the little change here and there. it's not attain perfection all in one day, but getting better at things every day little by little. i love learning with my creator as my teacher. i really love my life right now. i feel like in growing closer to Him that it has pushed me further away from other things/people in my life, which isn't always a bad thing, because he has blessed me by placing others in my life who have the same heart and passion for Him as i do. it's been interesting but i am loving every moment of this life!!

more than ever before

"Hollywood isn’t just liberal, it is fearfully liberal. It is easier in Hollywood to say you’re a drug addict or to pretty much anything than to admit to being a committed Christian," media expert and longtime Hollywood publicist, Michael Levine of Levine Communications


This morning I was reading this new article (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517277,00.html) about the backlash that Ms. California has experienced for taking a stand against gay marriage that cost her the title of Ms. USA. Everything that I have read about this situation has been so negative about her and criticing her for being closed minded, and not in touch with her generation. It is so sad that the Christian world view and moral standard is one that is silent and a minority. I am convinced now more than ever that our country is ready for a GREAT awakening. I am so sick of hearing all this negativity about having morals and standing up for Christ. I want to see the Christians of the USA stand up for what they believe in and shake this nation with the power of God. I think it is awesome that Ms. California took a stand and wasn't untrue to her beliefs to win a title. I think the above comment from the article I was reading is a tragedy. It's a tragedy that it is better to be so strung out on drugs or alcohol and that is socially acceptable in Hollywood, but to live a life filled with conviction and morality is one that is looked at with distain and brutally criticized. No wonder this nation has experienced since a moral decline since the growing generation looks up to the "rolemodels" in Hollywood. It really breaks my heart!

My heart cry for revival is our nation is stronger than ever before and I believe that most Christians out there are on the same page. Pray for our country. Pray for this generation. Pray for revival. I can't wait for it to come!!

stirring things up

God is really stirring things up in my life these days!! I feel like I am growing more and more every single day, but in a different way then I ever have before. I feel like I am being challenged more in my commitment to His word and to sticking true to the lifestyle that He has called His children to. It's a good thing to be able to prove that His word works! Scott & I have really been focusing in more on what the Lord wants us to do in every area of our lives, and our flesh is definitely being pushed out of it's comfort zone, but that is the great thing to be going through. Just follow the leading of the Holy Spirit is

Anyways, I guess this post is to say that God has some great big things coming my way and it is more important now than ever to really press in to what He wants to you to doing and just seeking Him more and more everyday!!

tweet tweet

I decided to sign up for Twitter. Not quite sure how it all works or if I am doing it right, but nonetheless if you want to follow me here is my profile!!

http://twitter.com/kimmydodge

my new favorite thing

So, after months of saving all my "fun money" I FINALLY have a new addition to my purse collection, and this one is a beauty!! I have been saving since December for a gorgeous Coach purse and I finally got to buy it at the store this weekend. To say I was ecstatic would be an understatement!!


ISN'T IT PRETTY???!!! :)


So besides this lovely new addition, I have a lot of good things to look forward to this week.
-Today it is going to be 60 degrees outside! Spring has SPRUNG!!
-Wednesday night I get to work with the kidlets in Kinderchurch, that is always a fun time. They sure are adorable and say the quirkiest things, but most of all I am blessed when I see their tender open heart towards to the Lord
-Friday is the first OFFICIAL day of Spring!! YAY!!
-AND Friday I get to find out if I get a new little niece or nephew added to the Dodge family....I am thinking GIRL thoughts!!

So, overall it should be a good week....what good things do you have going on in your life??

THE BLESSING

This past weekend at church Pastor Mac gave an awesome message on the tithe and our “bill of rights” as tithers using Malachi 10 as his sermon. It was a powerful message and it really spoke to my heart. One part that he didn’t really bring up but it was something that the Holy Spirit set off inside of me was verse 12 of Malachi 10 and here is what it says:

“Everyone of every nation will talk about how I have blessed you and about your wonderful land.” (Contemporary English Version)

This verse came alive inside of me when I read it! I was thinking to myself what it would be like to have every nation call me blessed, to have them talk about how blessed my life is! What an awesome thing! This just became so strong inside of me. I want my life to be so saturated with the blessing of God that people cannot help but stop and wonder what it is that is different about me. I want to be so overflowed with the blessing that it seeps into every area of my life, that each place that I go that it attracts unbelievers to Christ because it is so undeniably strong in my life. Your life would have to be so seeped in the blessing in order for all the nations to call you blessed. It would have to be shining so bright and I believe in the times that we live in now where the dark is SO dark, that this is a time where the blessing will shine like never before!! Thank God for the blessing that I have as a tither and a giver, it enables me to live this every day! I am supernaturally anointed to live a life filled with the blessing, where I lack for nothing, I fear for nothing, but I know that my covenant with Christ supersedes debt, lack, poverty, fear, and anything else that the devil can try to throw my way! Praise God for His goodness! It’s so great to be His child!