Really should be my sixth post, but here I am still at it. I fall off when Jon works, it is enough keeping everyone happy, fed, somewhat clean and alive, I know that 5 items per day will be there when next I have time.
So in an attempt to catch up on 5 items to be sold per day I have a few more than 5. Bringing my total to 12, I have 2 of teh silver lamps, and there are 3 ikea magnetic cutlery holders. it may be harder than I think. to cut 140 items.
Here are todays items:
Today, broken down mostly by kid’s activities*:
Sent son off to Polar Camp right after Breakfast
Creative Dance Class
Tap Class
Ballet Class
Jazz Class
Pump gas
Pick up Polar Camper
Scarf a lunch
Run a 5K (Raivens First!!!)
Drop son off at a bowling party
Off to the Post 5K celebration with friends, and supporting Ana’s fight again cancer
Screech home to meet bowling party drop off
Shower; throw on acceptable “going out” outfits on everyone (read matching shoes, pants in winter, etc) I even had 2 seconds for eye make-up.
Arrive one hour late to a surprise 40th birthday party…surprise we are here
Scarf dinner to take home oldest who is getting a migraine.
Get everyone in bed
Lie down for a second, greet husband through the slits in my eyes, all I could muster.
Dream of me at a rock concert….not quite a beach but I ‘ll take the mental escape.
*This post brought to you by caffeine, patience and will power.
Last day Of January and I am still rolling on the organization of this house that breathes life and excitement. When I wake up every morning I really want to take the house room by room, or at least one room at a day, unfortunately real life does not allow for that, so I am settling for small victories, as often as I can make them happen.
I decided to tackle Santanna’s closet, she is the lucky recipient of ALL her older sisters hand me downs , plus loads from a close neighbor friend who has 3 girls. Lets just say this closet is bursting on most days of all seasons.
Notice anything repetitive?? Yep those are the same plastic woven bins I used on my pantry reorganization. Each bin holds a certain grouping, for example there is one for socks/tights, one for jammies, one for leggings. I think I am going to figure out a picture label for her, since she is just learning to read, also I want to ask hubby to build a shelf to go on the side with the bins, to utilize more of the space, and have some shoe shelves, or maybe find some at a store.
As with the pantry I have a bag of garbage, a bag to sell on the garage sale and a bag of donation. Ahhhh, small accomplishments on large amounts of coffee and child compliance, life is pretty good….wonder how long this closet will stay this way????
Quite possible the biggest road block we hit in the day is the dreaded “what’s for dinner” question. Not so much that the kids are asking, but neither Jon nor I have made any plans for this meal. As a family we all sit down to this meal 90% of the time, it is not generally so much what the food will be but the experience, that being said, no one enjoys waffles or cereal or an afterthought meal thrown together EVERY night. So what we need is a plan, an organized plan that can smoothly get us through this meal.
Problems that we need to address: ‘The Rut” we need to expand beyond the same old recipes that we have as tried and true stand bys, “The Time” unfortunately with a family of 6 we often do not have a large amount of time to prepare a meal with loads of steps, and hoards of dishes in the aftermath, and lastly “The stash” Jon and I are known offenders of grabbing a few things from the store on most days of the week, this has provided us with a nice supply of staples that we can usually creatively come up with something that will pacify everyone hunger for dinner, but can also lead to waste in excess and no again no firm plan.
Jon is gone for 2 full weeks this month, which gave me the push I needed to detour all 3 of the above problems. I planned out 5 days worth of meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, including new recipes for dinner and shopped for all of the weeks needs, ( minus a few items that I will buy fresh the day of for a certain recipe). I brought the entire horde of groceries home and went to put them away in our pantry….
Whoa!! Where in the world was I going to put all these groceries??? What in the world was I thinking, whose stuff is this in the hallway pantry?? The cart was obviously in front of the horse on this plan….
First Problem “the Stash” aka the pantry was no in desperate need of being solved….I set to work immediately.
It took me 3 days, and 2 trips to target since they ran out of the certain bin that I needed, but I successfully made our pantry into an organized, planned evening meal, stash closet in an OCD fashion that I did not even know I was capable of executing.
Our pantry is in a hallway making it very difficult to get a good straight on shot without crawling into the wall, but I think you get a good idea of what is going on with the Stash:
Top Shelf: Food dehydrator, bread maker, small hand mixer and small crock pot, these are appliances that we do not use on a regular basis.
Lower 2 Shelves: Each of these has 3 green plastic bins, each bin has a designated food, from left to Right: First Shelf: Soups/broths, sauces/dressing, pastas, Second Shelf: baking mixes/cake mixes, canned fruits and veggies (we don’t buy many of these, most of the time we buy fresh), rice.
Bottom Space: Kitchen aid mixer, large Crockpot and water bottle hoard. We use these appliances at least once a week, and the kids can grab and fill a water bottle anytime. With all our activities I need these to be easily accessible for them.
The dinner plan is in full effect with these clear bins, I can fit 6 across the top of my second from the top shelf. I have clips on the front of everyone. This is where I clip a dinner recipe and then I put all the dry ingredients needed for the recipe in the bin. Simple I just grab a bin and there are the ingredients and recipe I can either use fresh ingredients I have or pop to the store the day before or morning of and dinner is set.
Here is another bonus to this project, I realized that some of the food on our shelves had expired, that is waste that I am going to try and avoid with proper planning. There is an over flowering box of items ready for the spring garage sale, and a small grocery bag of items to donate.
I guess marshmallows do expire??!! Who knew!
All for sale!!
Donation!
Happy 2013 everyone!!
Each New Years Day I feel a sense of excitement, like I have been given a clean slate to a whole chapter in life. This New Year that I can start how I like, navigate how I want and look back upon with a sense on of contentment.
I am not a big resolution maker and completer , however in 2010 I made a resolution to run a race very month for the year and I ran my first marathon, I have not given up on that resolution and still attempt to run at least one race a month and have run a total of 4 full marathons since. So was it really a resolution or a new life habit?
In 2011 I made the resolution to buy thrifted clothes for our kids, I buy so many clothes from consignment shops, donation hubs, and other places to sell on eBay that I thought this would be a snap, and found that for the most part I was successful but that certain sizes, and styles that my kids like were harder to find and that often buying new items at certain sales was cheaper than some of the thrift stores that I strayed from this resolution. I still embrace thrifting just found that exclusively shopping in this matter was not a best fit for our family.
I did not resolve anything specific in 2012, I just wanted to embrace more social activities for Jon and I and for the kids, it seems like an obvious addition to life that should not take much effort, but I am constantly surprised at how quickly a day in our life go by and how quickly those days become weeks, and we have just been going through the routine. We actually added more play dates, and sleepovers for the kids, not much but I feel like we made a great improvement from the last year and that this will also carry over into forth coming years, so another resolution turned life habit.
This year, this 2013, with its clean white page turned new, I really hope to accomplish more domestic tasks.
• I really want to tear out the carpet in our upstairs living room and replace it with hardwood to match the rest of the floors on that level. It was very inexpensive carpet to begin with and with 6 people and one 150 pound dog pounding on it every day it is in sad shape.
• I want to become electronically organized; I have 2 main emails and 2 that I have set up that I use very rarely. Some teachers contact me through my work email some through personal. Many emails I get are junk and I just need to take the time to unsubscribe. I think to this I also want to add a fresh new set of passwords, just for security.
• I need to organize so many things to help our life run more smoothly, I think all of us can feel this at some level. I am thinking paperwork, charging cords, etc.
• I have had 3 computers crash entirely on my in the last 4 years, we have 3 external hard drives 2 of which contain thousands of family photographs, I really want to organize and archive these in a better manner.
• I want to leave a few blank spaces for additions to this list.
Ultimately I want to end 2013 feeling more in control of the “clutters” in our life and more prepared for each day. Again this seems more of a new life habit.
Any of you have plans for new life habits or resolutions??
I posted earlier this month about the struggle for cooperative holiday photo taking…I deemed one worthy of processing and sending to friends and family…I wanted to share it with all my friends in the blogosphere as well, hoping all … Continue reading
It’s that time of year, everyone that was on top of their sh*t got their family pictures taken in October, even November with lovely fall colors, amazingly pulled together outfits, and perhaps with that angelic yellow light from behind, or maybe it was photo shopped in but really whose judging?
Last year we did a photo shoot in late November/early December, I wanted a little snow in our picture, it turned out lovely.
This year I had a whole shoot in mind, but time slipped by, outfits and accessory got to be more work to find and pull together for 6 people than I had imagined, I worked 80 hours at the hospital in the span of 3 weeks, normally I am home….on so go my excuses.
So, no well-planned photo shoot for us this year, just me, my Cannon 7D, all 4 of my favorite players, and some natural light streaming from the windows full of crisp wonder from a fresh layer of snow.
Ahhhhh, sounds magical right? Well here is what will NOT be sent out on my cards this year:
Avalon was obviously having the best time….you can see here that she is mortified that no one else is having fun.
Santa’s tassle is blocking Santanna’s face. Avalon, again loving every minute, and eyes on me, please.
Ok so this might not have been the best idea, someones head got bonked, eyes of madness oing on , and again Avalon just not feeling her cooperative mojo.
Ok… lets try single pictures, just a head shot, that won’t be too hard right?!?
ALriiighty Season’s Greeting from our family to yours,
Love, Jon (attention getter, prop man, not pictured), Sarah (behind the camera, also not pictured), Crazy laugh guy (who was apparently snacking), the
Pouter age 8, Squishy face and the Joker.
In all honesty I can’t help but laugh when I look at these, the best part about pictures is that when you look back they mean so much and are great memories, of small teeth, hair styles, chubby wrists that are now gone, and memories made, out of the 395 photos I snapped I did get 1 that I used for the photo card and 1 head shot of each kid that I am going to make into wall canvases, but please tell me that others of you have these amazing moments stored on your hard drive as well??!!
This is a holiday that I appreciate, the world slows down a little, we can spend time with the ones we love, there is thought and care and old time traditions passed around tables that may frequently not be full of laughter and chatter. It gives us a moment to breathe before the blur of real life picks back up no more than 24 hours post pie ala mode or whipped cream depending on your preference.
As much as aI love slowing down I have to say there is not a day that I take what we have for granted. I am so thankful to be a mom to 4 wonderful healthy children, as well as being given the opportunity to stay home and enjoy them every day. I am thankful for my husband who saves other peoples family members everyday to provide for our family and that he empowers me to stay home and nurture our children. Our little drop in this big pond connects to so many ripples that are friends and family who we are so fortunate to be connected with. Thank you! And enjoy the slow down today.
I do not want to prematurely claim this project to be awesome since at this very moment I have it in the washing machine with my fingers crossed that is will not crumble 🙂
My family is participating in a local Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving with some friends and when I saw this shirt on Pinterest, I though how cute it would be for the kids to have a Turkey shirt:
The tutorial for this shirt can be found at cookinwiththejohnstons.com
Super cute right, it got my mind turning, then I remembered all that fabric I had thrifted last year and posted about here, and thought, ooh I can make one of those.
Lets segway for a second; I think there are two kinds of people, those that go to craft shows and buy cute things and artfully decorate their home, then there people like me that go to shows, and scour Pinterest and think, I can do that….. although this is not always true, and it is in no way is a discredit to original ideas and artists, I think we just really think we can do it. We are literally in the mindset that if you can do it so can I.
Ok back to the shirt, I can make one of those……with my 5 previous hours of experience on my sewing machine, of course I can make a Turkey appliqué shirt, hellooooo I have a Pinterest account….geeez.
Well, I did it, and I love it, however, it was not as easy I thought and I definitely had to separate myself and the sewing machine (she is going to need a name) me to reassess my strategy and the machine for poor behavior.
I will post the steps as to how I made my shirts once I have pulled it out of teh dryer and I am certain that it survived.:)
It seems to me like all we ever get in the mail are bills, magazines, political propaganda (which I think is over now, thank goodness), and an occasional party invite.
In my sometimes old fashioned nostalgia I encourage our kids to send letters to friends or family. Santanna is especially fond of making letters and pictures for her little friends. Who does not like to receive a fun piece of mail personally addressed to them in ink??
Our friends daughter, who I wrote about previously who is battling brain cancer, is getting an overwhelming amount of mail, letters and packages, guess who feels a little left out/angry about not getting any mail? Little sister Elsa. So, her mom grudgingly asked if we could help a girl out and send some snail mail Elsa’s way. I think we all know how hard it can be to actually ask for help when you need it right?!
This got me thinking, we needed to blow up this girls snail mail box, how many pictures was Tanna willing to color?
Then it came to me, a puzzle letter:
Here is what we did:
2. We put the puzzle together upside down. This is harder then you think wihtout picture clues.
3. I helped Santanna write a letter and she drew whatever and decotared whatever she wanted in Sharpie and Crayola markers.
4. I included instructions with the first envelope.
5. Then we took the puzzle about, mixed it all up and I got out my postal scale for mailing packages and we weighed each one equal to/less than an ounce. For this puzzle it was about 5 pieces per envelope.
I am so excited for her friend to get this, she is going to be thrilled, plus it gives her something to look forward too.
I think I am also going to do this when the big kids are at camp for the summer.
What we wore today
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