I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine. Someone who's been with me through thick and thin...literally. May I introduce, my dear friends, my Fat Jeans.

These babies were the best. And when I say the best, I mean  they were extraordinarily comfortable. They hid the old muffin top like a champ and darn-it, if I wore the right belt, they almost made me appear to have a butt! I loved these jeans. Until it happened. You know what I'm talking about. It's happened to all of us at one time or another. Male and female. Young and old. The tell-tale sign of wear.... the unsightly hole.

It can be in the knee, the crotch or the butt. It doesn't matter where, it hurts all the same. Then comes the decision: do I repair or start new? Start new, and you have to deal with the time and effort to really break them in, wear them down and make her conform to your non-Barbie contours. It takes work. OR you buy those crappy iron-on patches that fall off after two washes. There IS a third repair option though. One that's not so fun, but  promises new found life for your dear old friend.

We've all seen it on Pinterest, those cute sewn-on patches that make your pants look like high end distressed jeans rather than Grandma's sewing bin quick fix. Ahhh, but then you have to take out the old sewing machine and that's just so much work...Suck it up ANG! Really, I can do this.

Online you can find a variety of Tutorials on how to do this. People use woolly fabrics, plain old cotton fabrics or old cut-up jeans. I imagine you can use whatever you'd like. The possibilities are endless. I chose something I already had- a denim iron-on patch.

Thread is another decision left solely to the taste of the seamstress. This seamstress chose blue. Unoriginal, I know.

Then I zigged and I zagged all over that butt hole...

 I scribbled....

 This is way easy and lots of fun!

When I was finished, my hole was all closed up and lookin' fine.

Outside

Inside

Now, no one will say, "hey, I see your underwear" anymore! My muffin-top will be reigned in where it belongs and my butt will say to the world, "here I am, right here... Wait, look closer. CLOSER! I'm right here!"  Alright forget what my butt just said.

New Office for officy things

Did you miss me? I miss this. But guess what? I'm back. I'm trying to get back to the things I enjoyed before my fourth baby was born and my hormones turned me into a sniveling mess. SOOOO, I'm going to blog three days a week. Hold me to that promise okay?!

I feel badly because I owe some of you Meal Planner Monday!! Particularly since I started planning healthier meals for my family on a budget! I promise to get you my best and most frugal meals, both good for your wallet and your appendix hole.

But before I get back to that, here's what I just made for my new home office. It's pretty kick-A if I don't say so myself. My inspiration came from the Young House Love. They created a beautiful office desk, that looks like a custom $$$ built-in!

I built my office desk using a lot of the same resources they did at Young House Love. HELLO Habitat for Humanity Restore! I love you! Have you been to one? It's freakin' awesome and when you purchase through them, it goes to a great cause.

At the blog Young House Love, they were able to find cabinets at their Local Restore for a $1 each. What the WHAT? Seeing that, I couldn't bring myself to buy anything for more than $20 a cabinet. SO, I went on the hunt. I called local thrift stores. I called Custom Kitchen Companies to see their inventory of used kitchens. I check craigslist everyday. All this with no luck. You know the problem with trying to find kitchen cabinets is that people want to sell the whole set. BLAH!

Finally I tried our local Habitat Store. I didn't try this first because it was 40 minutes away home and I needed to find babysitting. Do you know how hard that is to do with four kids? You know the drill. But alas, the stars aligned and I was able to pull together a trip to Norristown, find babysitting (Thank God for grandparents!) and get there the day of their 25% OFF EVERYTHING sale! I win! I purchased four cabinets originally $10.00 each for $7.50 each. I bought all those knobs for 75¢ each. I also found two cans of  Minwax stain in ebony for the custom built counter top for 75¢ each.

And I used the Tutorial  from  Aubrey and Lindsey's Little House Blog to construct the desk counter-top. I use the word I, as if I actually did this myself. My Husband did the constructing and I sanded and stained.

The lumber and the hardware cost $54.67. The whole project cost...drum roll please...$94.39! Gotta love that! And I do.