Archive for June, 2008

How on earth am I supposed to get my life in order with a barrel of monkeys running the place? Helloooo… I’m trying to Expose Myself here… act like you weren’t raised by a pack of wolves.

I attempted to organize Makena’s closet. Fortunately for me, the closet fairies arrived just in time to help. Ha.

The mess was moved to the bedroom. And yes that is a hammer and nails on the bed. I’m the queen of moving things around, especially pictures.

Then nicely organized in the closet. Everything has a place. It’s the virgo in me that forces me to use all white hangers. Has to match or it will drive me bonkers.

Not sure how long they’ll let me keep it like this but it’s worth a shot. I have cleaned out lots of toys so that all of her toys fit on this one shelf. With the exception of a couple of baskets for her baby dolls. New rule: If a new toy comes in the house, an old toy must leave. I just picked up this Melissa and Doug chore chart to encourage Makena to help around the house. I’m sure I could have made one on the computer but this was way easier. Makena and I have been having a battle of wills lately. I’m getting a lot of “no mommy, you do it.” Does she know who she’s talking to like that? Oh I know, it’s only going to get worse.

If you want to join in on the Exposing Myself fun, leave me a comment and I’ll add you to the list of fabulous ladies…

Adrienne

Anne

April

Courtney

Erika

Jenn

Katie

Kelsey

Ruth

Stitching Surgeon

Susan

I do think it’s important to set a deadline. This process could go on forever. There has to be an end in sight. My deadline is July 10th. We’ve got the garage sale on the 12th so that gives me a couple of days to breathe before I have to face my junk again. Until next time, happy sorting!

We just got back from a wonderful long weekend in San Antonio and I couldn’t wait to share a little piece of the past with you. As I dug through piles and piles of vintage toys, fabric, and you name it at an estate sale, I felt like I was unearthing the past. Having a nice conversation with Peggy. Learning about who she was. Listening to her stories.

I picked up a box of vintage stationary that I found in one of the piles. When I brought it home and was sorting through her treasures I found love letters from Peggy to her dear Roland. She touched my heart. I have to share an excerpt from her letter to Roland who was away working.

Dearest husband - I need you very much. I just wanted you to know your strength is with us even when you are away - and Carolyn, too, misses you very much. She was crying almost hysterically after her last bath and pleading “Daddy! Daddy!” the entire time. This is the first time she has been sick that she needed someone besides me - so it’s not only mommy but also baby that needs you so very much. So take care of yourself and come home safe to us. We love you!!!

Time goes by so quickly in some ways - it seems only yesterday that we were married - and we’re still the happiest couple in the world, aren’t we? Did you know that after 6 years - I still can hardly believe that you wanted me enough to marry me! I still live in a dream world - because you are so wonderful and smart and happy, I can hardly believe you’d want to marry me. But I’m surely glad that you did!!

A moment in time. Captured in ink. Saved in a little box. Found. Treasured.

I literally hauled out several bags. As much as could fit in my car. Her entire life. At a tag sale. I am honored to be able share Peggy’s life with you. Some of these items might end up in my shop but let me cherish them for a few days first. With my Exposing Myself series I’m not sure what I’ll be able to fit in the house. I will be honest though and tell you that since finding the love letters I might not be able to let things go as easily.

Do you ever see something and say to yourself I have to have that. Now! Today I had such an experience while I was perusing the blogs over my morning coffee. So there I was, going down my list of must read blogs when I came across this blog. And low and behold Erin, and Tracy, made camera straps for their cameras.  After seeing this a few places I had to make one. What a great idea and beautiful accessory.

I pulled out my favorite fabric and went to work. I am so not good with directions, no comment from the real life peanut gallery, or instructions for that matter so I found this to be pretty easy. No directions, no problem. You give me a pattern and I’ll fight with it for hours.

One puncture wound from the seam ripper and one broken sewing machine needle later… voila! A pretty strap for my camera. Perfect for our trip to San Antonio tomorrow! I’ll be traveling for the rest of the week but hope to pop in and bring you along on the journey. Vamanos!

Today marks the second day that I will be Exposing Myself. Fortunately, I’m in good company as we attempt to declutter and get organized. I haven’t exactly set a time frame that we need to complete this process. It’s really up to you and your schedule. Honestly I’m working as fast as possible to get it all done. I’m just over it. The mess that is. We have a garage sale scheduled for July 12th so it all has to be done by then.

A few friends have decided to join me in this venture. If you are feeling the urge to at least tackle one zone in your house, join us! Here is the list of groovy gals that are cleaning out. Check out their sites, they are going to post their progress and tips along the way as well.

Adrienne

Stitching Surgeon

Courtney

Ruth

Erika

Kelsey

Susan

Katie

You all know that I’ve been doing the kid room tango. Moving them into each others rooms, moving them out, furniture in, furniture out. A little back story for you… We went to Disney world and the kids shared a room. Since Makena’s finger incident we’ve had difficulties with her sleeping in her own room. Almost every night, around midnight, she would sneak into our bed. Maybe it was the crack they handed out at Disney but she slept in her own bed, for seven nights. So we got home and decided that the kids should share a room. Maybe she doesn’t like to be alone. Moved her into Keegan’s room. Furniture and all.

About a week later Keegan began crawling falling out of his crib. For fear for his safety, we needed to move him to a toddler bed. Makena sleeps in her great-grandmother’s full size bed. After a trip to Ikea, the kids room reminded me of the Princess and the Pea. Here is Makena all propped up on this huge bed and little Keegan in his toddler bed. I know they don’t know or care, but it made me sad. Plus the other issue that Makena had become ‘the boss’ when I wasn’t in the room with him. She was laying the smack down on Keegan on a regular basis. Keegan was destroying all of the books on the bookshelf. Makena was getting upset and yelling. A lot of yelling. My solution: move Makena back into her own space. This type of sibling angst should be reserved for the later years. Right?!?

Amongst all of the room rearranging I was able to get new ideas for decorating and organizing. My first problem is that the kids had too much stuff. I cleaned out six bags of toys to throw into the garage sale. After the sale, they can each go and buy one toy. Probably at a garage sale. Zero impact on the environment and zero on my pocketbook. You see, my love for garage sales and thrifting can get me into trouble if I’m not careful. It’s easy to buy too much, just because it is cheap. Then you end up with a house full a clutter. The trick at garage sales is to know what you are looking for. My eyes are always peeled for vintage toys, little people, dolls, trucks, books.

I wanted to show you Makena’s new space.

A place for her princess dresses. Before they were scattered on her closet floor. Now she knows where they go. Organized.

Another picture from my Faux-Toes friend Kristen that hangs above the bed. It’s a picture of Makena and her two girlfriends. Very sweet.

I’ve been wanting to get Chinese lantern’s to hang in her room for quite some time now. I always put a handful in my cart at Ikea and then end up putting them back because my brain can’t figure out how to hang them. Problem solved when I went to Kristen’s house to pick up the kid’s pictures. She had hung the exact lanterns in her daughters room. Aha! Inspiration! I am new to the American Girl scene. I picked up the doll in the high chair at a garage sale for .50 not knowing what she was. I thought she was a beautiful Native American doll. Come to find out, she’s worth $90. Tempting to sell…

Last weekend we picked up this Raggedy Ann doll at a garage sale. I think she’s a great replacement to the tons of other plastic dolls. I was able to bring her in and clean out about ten.

Makena’s bookshelf is now nicely organized and the good books are out of Keegan’s pesky reach. They even have their own piggy bank guard dog.

Speaking of books, if you have books you are looking to sell check out this site. You simply enter the ISBN number and it automatically tells you if they will buy your book and for how much. I have a huge stack of books ready to garage sale. Although they only bought four, and I paid significantly more for them at the bookstore (lesson learned), I was able to make a few extra bucks. My new rule is to either go to the library, garage sales or thrift stores for books.

Overall I think it’s important to simply clean out. I’ve managed to clean out about 3/4 of the kids stuff. Without the guilt involved. When there is too much stuff they don’t play in their rooms. Their spaces are now more manageable… for all of us.

Let me know if you want to join us in our quest for organization and I’ll add you to the list! Happy clutter clearing!

Ever feel the urge to peek in your friend’s cabinets? Just to see what they’ve got going on in there. Want to open those closet doors to look for skeletons? Peek under the bed? Uh huh. Guilty as charged. So my friends, thus begins the first installment of Exposing Myself.

I’m going to let it all hang out. Metaphorically speaking.

As I begin this organization/disorganization journey I’m going to bring you along with me. To take a look at my mess. Maybe show some before and after shots. Or maybe just after… since it’s prettier that way! Now not every day will be filled with decluttering. Since I have ADD I have a tendency to bounce around. I might be cleaning out my closet and find that fun fabric I was wanting to make curtains out of. So we’ll see where this takes us.

Let the clutter challenge begin! We’ll call this Exposing Myself.

Does anyone want to play along? Need to clean out? Have a garage sale? Just have too much stuff all over the place? Are your closets bursting at the seams? If so, leave me a comment telling me you want to participate and I’ll include you on the list. You too can expose yourself without the shame normally involved. You can show us what you clean out. Organize. What you are able to create now that you are able to find everything. It will be fun and we will have cleaner, healthier homes in the end.

I’ll be posting links to other sites that I find to be helpful in this process. And if you feel urged to participate, please share your knowledge and found resources on your site.

Last week I tackled my kitchen and boy did I have a lot of things that I never ever use. It was time to get organized and create zones.

This is the baking/prepping drawer. Anything used in the getting food ready process goes in this drawer. Before it was all scattered around the kitchen, hidden in different cabinets and drawers. I probably walked twenty circles around my kitchen to make cupcakes. Now everything is all in once place.

The beautiful thing about this process is that I didn’t have to go out and buy anything. It’s not about spending money to make your life easier, it’s using what you have. Just using them in more functional ways. All of the plates and bowls got organized with these shelf racks and my spices got a new spin on the lazy susans. I had these lazy susans in my pantry, to hold a few odds and ends. Now I can find my spices without taking everything out of the cabinet.

I’ve struggled with the space above my cabinets for some time now. I’ve moved picnic baskets in and out. Cake plates have been arranged a variety of ways. My kitchen is not large so I don’t have a lot of room to work with. Storing the cake plates on top of the cabinets makes a nice display while making them reachable when I need to use them.

I hope you decide to play along. Once we tackle the clutter, we’ll have more time for our families and ourselves. Without the mess.

Per our previous conversation concerning keeping the dog out of the baby pool…

Any idea how to keep a golden retriever puppy out of the water table?  For a boy who is using it as his pool.  Fully clothed.  Ahhhh summertime.

The extreme room makeover is in full swing. There all piles everywhere. Furniture is moving from here to there. I have made a decision to move Makena back into her own room. She needs her space to play with her dolls, without Keegan the Tornado tearing through. Keegan needs his own space, to pull everything out of the dresser and off the shelves.

They are just at different stages. Makena likes to keep her things nice and orderly. Not sure where she learned that. And Keegan is fighting the toddler bed. We have enough challenges right now just with sleep time for Keegan to rattle the cage anymore. So this morning was dedicated to moving Makena back into her room. I’m that kind of girl. If I want something done, I do it. I’ve always been the type to rearrange on a whim. During my adolescence it was in the middle of the night which drove my mom crazy.

Now all is quiet. There are a few things scattered around the living room that I need to put away. Makena is playing in her room and Keegan is in his. Eventually he’ll wear himself out and take a nap. We are blessed that he is like this because Makena was not. She’d fight sleep time. Each and every time. Still does.

Yesterday I received a phone call from a friend telling me that our pictures were in. My friend, Kristen, is a photographer and I would have to say that she is not only one of the sweetest people I know but a most talented photographer as well. She captures what I have in my mind. She’s my type of girl! Check out her site and if you ever happen to be in Austin give her a shout, you won’t regret it.

The pictures are now hung above the piano with care. Some of these pictures were already up there, taken by my dad, another excellent photographer. The big one in the middle is my favorite. The perspective is priceless. A wonderful addition to the extreme home makeover.

Here’s the other that I just had to show you. The one of both of the kids was taken almost a year ago. Time flies. The one of Keegan squatting makes my heart melt. Will my baby boy always melt my heart?

I have a tendency, when I’m cleaning house, or cleaning out for that matter to stay in my pj’s. I have always imagined the Oprah show showing up with their cameras because someone wrote in saying that I need a mommy makeover. So today I decided to spice it up a bit with a little sparkle. I got this headband last winter at The Gap. I’ve only worn it to go out, until now. I think it’s perfect for decluttering don’t you agree?

I told you that I’ve been working in the kitchen and was able to find all of my recipes and get them organized. I had clippings from Martha’s Food magazine, the newspaper, my Mema, emailed recipes, blogger recipes, you name it. I had them all, stashed haphazardly in a notebook. When I would need that guacamole recipe I would dig and dig and finally, or not, find it. Most of my recipes are stained, depending upon what was on the counter at their time of use.

The book says that you can’t keep magazines. You have to cut out what you like, put it in a folder, and then toss (recycle) the magazine. This didn’t bode well for my four year collection of Martha Stewart magazines that I recently picked up at a garage sale.

Scissors in hand I began to cut. And cut I did.

All recipes have now been cut out and reside in nice page protectors in that folder. I bought pretty page dividers to section the recipes and even have a section for party ideas. Being an old school teacher I love office supply stores. The paper, the organization material, I just can’t get enough.

Total cost for total recipe organization was about 10 bucks. Well worth the amount of money I will save because I can’t figure out what to fix for dinner and we eat out.

Father’s day didn’t go exactly as planned. It was 100 degrees in the Texas Hill Country so we all decided that it wasn’t ideal to go sit in a lavender field and have a picnic. Texas. It’s hot.

The deer around the lake keep us from having a garden, or any fruit trees for that matter. Maybe next year I can get a six foot fence up to keep the deer out. But for now, we rely on local farmers to provide fresh fruits and veggies.

So we moved the festivities indoors, grilled bratwurst on the deck, drank German beer, made homemade sangria and my Mema’s peach cobbler. I had the recipe to the cobbler in my recipe drawer and had never made it. I love it because it is written in her handwriting. Something that I treasure. Last week, amidst the organization whirlwind, I organized my recipes. In my next post I’ll show you how they all found a new home and became organized.

Mema’s Peach Cobbler

• Melt one stick of butter in a large oblong dish.
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 1 1/2 T baking powder
• 3/4 c milk
• Stir altogether and pour over butter.
• Top with 2 cans of sliced peaches, or fresh peaches if you have them.
• Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.

I even had time to update my Etsy shop with some of my vintage finds. Check it out.

Hello everyone.

I just wanted to pop in and say where did the week go? Is it really Friday already? Sorry I’ve been amiss as of late. You see, we’ve got some extreme makeover room editions going on around these parts.

About a year ago I picked up the Peter Walsh book It’s All Too Much. It’s all about controlling/riding oneself of their clutter. We just have too much. And as my love for thrifting grows, so does my pile of things we don’t really need. More importantly, we don’t have the space for.

Our house is a three bedroom, two bath lake house built in the 80’s. When we moved out to the lake, we lost almost 1,000 square feet of living space, but we gained so much more. It was really the best decision we ever made. We are now forced to use our space wisely. And being organized is essential.

Trash bags are beginning to pile up in the garage for one mamajama garage sale. I have even put some vintage things aside to list in my Etsy shop.

So far here’s our list of accomplishments:

• moved Makena into Keegan’s room - they now share a room. The main reason was sleep issues. She wasn’t staying in her bed. Since we’ve moved her, she stays in her bed all night long. She asked me when we were in negotiations “is Keegan going to keep me safe?” That sealed the deal.
• created a playroom out of Makena’s old room.
• cleaned out the kitchen - the waffle maker and fondue pot had to go. It’s all now organized into zones. Nice and tidy. I really love cooking now.
• cleaned out my master closet - probably a space I still need to revisit.
• took down my crafting space in our master bedroom. I know, I know… but it was just collecting clutter. I can craft in the dining room now and everything is nicely organized in my master closet. Turned that space into a reading nook with family pictures on the shelves.
• cleaned out the china cabinet - how many wine glasses does one family really need?
• cleaned out toys in the playroom - again, probably a space that needs to be cleaned out again.

So now as I’m getting organized, I’m watching my to-do list grow.

• paint the playroom - it’s currently pink. Suggestions? I’m thinking of a blue.
• Keegan is now climbing out of his crib so we are changing beds around. This weekend we are going to pick up grandpa’s twin beds from when he was a kid. There are two of them. Now I need to get mattresses. Anyone have experience with Ikea mattresses?
• make quilts for the kids new beds. This one, my friends, scares me.

All of this to let you know that things have been busy around these parts. As I watch the bags pile up in the garage I feel like I can breathe a little lighter.

Happy Father’s Day weekend friends. There’s a lavender festival in the Hill Country this weekend that we are planning to attend. A picnic in the lavender fields for father’s day. I’m thankful that my man likes this type of thing.