It's All an Illusion

I'm not a fashion conscience kinda girl, I'm all jeans and t-shirts. I do occasionally like to dress-up in "grown-up" clothes but I'm happiest in a good fitting pair of jeans. Every once in awhile I wipe my hands on those jeans. Yesterday I wiped my hands on my back side (there must not have been a clean towel in the house) I noticed something was stuck to the seat of my pants. I have kids. I assumed I sat in something.

I went to the bedroom to find out what the offending sticky stuff was and plan how to remove it. Nope, I didn't sit in anything...I had two vertical rips on my butt! One on each side, between the center seam and the pockets. I was pretty bummed, I only have 2 pair of "good" jeans. (My definition of good is they didn't come from the Stuff Mart.)

I don't know when the blue jean blow-out happened and I wasn't really concerned about it except the were my "good" jeans. Until this morning when I realized all the places I'd gone in those jeans. The grocery, the Post-Office, school pick-up and the laundromat. The humiliation doesn't end there, I was wearing Mickey Mouse undies. Yep, that shattered the illusion that I have my act together. Mom was right you should always were clean undies. Just never know who might see them.

Spelling Lesson ( and a little rant)

Sissy: Mom I think I should take Princess, 10 and Little Diva, 5 (the girls Sissy babysits) to the High School talent show.

Me: I don't think you should.

Sissy: Why?!

Me: Because I have things to get done tonight and I 'd have to drive you. (Sissy lost driving privileges...again)

Sissy: You don't have anything to do tonight. You're just going to cook dinner and clean.

Me: (Dumbfounded silence followed by blood boiling.)

Really? Isn't cooking dinner and cleaning up and helping Bean re-organize his Lego display and pick up from Karate party and balancing the credit card statement and updating the checkbook enough?! I have to play taxi? I think this falls under the heading of "you don't work". Yes, she has said that to me too. That was my Friday night.

It's nights like this that make me wonder where I went wrong. My adorable, loving, talented, funny child is well...the center of the universe. I wonder if this is typical or is her thinking I'm her personal servant going a little past "normal"? (Hey Mom? Did you check on... No, I didn't). I love being a Mom, I love my kids, I wouldn't trade my life for anything. I would just like my kids to learn the correct spelling of MOM, right now they spell it M. A. I. D.

Morning Coffee

As I fill this cup

To warm my hands,

Lord, let it remind me
To fold them in prayer.

As the fragrance of freshly

Brewed coffee fills the house,

Lord, let it remind me

To fill this home with

The fragrance of Jesus.

As the cream blends into the coffee

Darkness fades and a new flavor emerges,

Lord, let it remind me

That Jesus can shine into my darkness

And create a new life in me.

As I am filled with the warmth

Of this cup,

Lord, let it remind me

That only You can truly fill my cup.

I'm Stuck...

Yep! On Pinterest. I've become addicted to pinning. I've found a lot of inspiration! I have boards for craft ideas, quilts, gifts and just cute findings. Surprisingly, I have a recipe board! I cook only because starving isn't an option. So far the projects Pinterest have inspired are a baby quilt for my new niece, a mug rug, a cup cozy, a scarf organizer and a greeting card organizer. I don't really need any more craft ideas. What I need is more time to do the crafts.

I pulled out the kids scrapbooks and realized I'm "only" 5 years behind. That's more than half of the Beans life and Sissy graduates from high school next spring. It might be nice to have her scrapbook ready for a graduation party. A mom can dream *sigh*.

I have finished a couple of projects this winter. This baby quilt was inspired by Pinterest.

My first potato chip scarf, modeled by Sissy. It made its debut way back here.

Hopefully, with the help of Snapfish.com and my new friend at the scrapbook store in town, I'm going to get some scrapbooking done. I'm also still working on organizing the storage room.

Family Fun

Last Sunday we decided to take the kids ice skating. Well, I skated, Honey took pictures. He's never been on ice skates - ever. Both the kids did really well skating (translation: no trip to the ER). It was Beans first time skating, Sissy has been before but not often. I was surprised how quickly they caught on.

Skating was followed by Starbucks! It helped ease my sore ankles and warm my cold...toes! Next weekend is the art museum.

I Heart Organizing

I'm so excited I found this blog post! I've been looking for it all weekend! I knew it was floating around in cyberspace somewhere, also proves I'm not losing my mind...today anyway. I would have helped if I could have remembered it was on New Nostalgia but I couldn't even remember that much. Why am I so excited about this blog post? Because of the "Donation Station"! I have been looking for a way to organize my basement storage room, or at least reduce the chance of bodily injury while looking for other things. The biggest problem I have is organizing the things that come into the storage room and need to go out again, either to the Goodwill or recycle.

Here is the picture that inspired Amy at New Nostalgia. Isn't it wonderful! A place for every thing. My area isn't going to be as pretty, I get to hide it behind closed doors, but I hope it will be functional. Honey and I made a trip to Stuff Mart to get bins for my organizing project but the trip was a bust. They didn't have anything that would stack and be open in the front to put things in. I found this on Amazon with free shipping.

My plan is to have one bin for clothing recycle, one for clothing donations to Goodwill, the last one for stuff donations. I don't know if I'll be able to get my family on board or not. They may still just put stuff in the storage room but I'll have somewhere to put it until we'll be near a drop off location.

I'm pretty excited to get this project started, I'm tired of playing shuffle the piles in the storage room. The hardest part will be waiting for the UPS truck. Come back and visit for before and after pictures!

The Project One Year Later

I can't believe it's the beginning of a New Year! What happened to 2011? I know what didn't happen. I haven't been at the Stuff Mart! For the past year I've tracked my trips and how much I spent. I'm glad I did this little experiment but I'm also happy I don't have to track the trips any more.

What I already knew was that we went to Stuff Mart way too much and picked up too many "extras". What I wasn't sure about was if we could not go as often. I had also hoped to save some money.

Surprisingly we could go to Stuff Mart less, we cut down our trips by 100 for the year! In 2010 we went made an estimated 171 trips (no, I didn't count all the trips I averaged a 4 month period) this year it was 71! We also spent less, average $100 a month. Does that mean we saved that amount? No! We spent it at other places.

What I learned was we could survive without running to Stuff Mart for every thing we think we need. I improved my list making skills. The less time I spent in the store, the less time I wanted to spend in the store. Less time spent seeing things I think I can't live without but didn't need or want when I left the house. It is possible to run out of plastic shopping bags!

This year my goal is to cut our spending and stay within our budget. The first step is to track my personals spending. Honey got me a weekly pocket calendar for Christmas because it has Mickey Mouse on it. I'm going to use it to track my spending. I also am very bad about keeping the checkbook up to date, that is step two. So far today I spent $1.20!

Happy Saving!