Filing Binder

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Before Christmas I was asked if I was interested in trying out a new organizing binder. Never one to pass up a chance to try out a product that could help simplify my paperwork, I jumped on the opportunity- but knew that I probably wouldn't get a chance to really give it a test run until after all of our Holiday traveling was over.  So when the product arrived I set it on a shelf- figuring that I would decide how to use it at a later time.   Then my husband had surgery on his foot, and we became flooded with medical paperwork and stuff from his work regarding his medical leave of absence. Every day as I opened the mail, there was another stack of papers that I needed to hang onto. And every few days my husband was asking me about the location of some of these papers, so he could locate a phone number, an account number or a reference number.  Normally I'd store this type of paperwork in our home binder, but I like to keep the home binder at home- so this portable binder/folder combo was perfect to keep on our desk and hand over to my hubby when he needed paperwork for a doctors appointment or meeting.


It's one part accordion folder and one part 3 ring binder- designed to keep all kinds of shapes and sizes of paperwork in one place.

It worked great to corral a variety of paperwork after his surgery, and now that all of that noise has quieted down I think I'm going to re purpose it to get organized for Tax season.  If you're interested in trying out this binder, it's for sale on Amazon.com for $12.99  

Why you should change that lightbulb

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I read a list the other day of 60 small ways to improve your life over the next 100 days.


As a whole the list is somewhat overwhelming- because you want to do them all, but to do them all at once would be impossible. So where do I start? What do I do? I have so much of me to make-over! Don't let the mindset of, "If I can't do all of it, I might as well not do any of it," get you to give up before you even start.

I am going to try to re-visit this list periodically and think about what small changes I might implement for a short period- almost as an experiment to see what sort of small changes I could get to become habit. But for now #3 really stands out in my mind:

"Make a list of things around your house that you've been tolerating."

(Things such as unchanged light bulbs, holes in the walls that need to be patched, unorganized spaces that need some TLC)

The suggestion is to make a list of 100 things and tackle one each day for the next 100 days. I'm not sure if I'm ready for that kind of commitment (nor am I sure if I want to give my home that thorough of an inspection). But I love the idea of actually writing down some of those little tasks that we tend to procrastinate- and just trying to fix them instead of ignoring them. It doesn't seem worth the effort sometimes to pull out the stepladder just to change that one hard to reach bulb....but what if we had a little list that we could work through? Check, check, check.

Shall we take a few hours this weekend and get those tiny but annoying projects done?

Instagram Journal

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Almost a year ago I blogged about how I had started a daily journal. Over time, projects like these tend to fail. It's hard to write faithfully in a journal on a daily basis. I am proud to say that for the most part I have been sticking with it. And I've actually even complicated it slightly by adding pictures.



I have talked on here repeatedly about some of my struggles with keeping up to date with pictures. I have unfinished albums or scrapbooks of all degrees of technicality. What continually holds me back is that I am striving for this unattainable idea of complete continuity. I don't just want to put some photos into an album, I want ALL of the photos that I have ever taken to be in the exact same type of album with color coordinated journaling cards, inked with the same exact pen. (I'm just a little OCD sometimes). At that point, the magnitude of the task, and the cost of such a project, hinders me from any forward progress.


So what has finally allowed me to move forward is the idea of doing something completely new. I've realized that my albums will never have complete continuity because my life is ever changing. I scrapbooked before I had kids. I've streamlined my albums to fill in the gaps when I was the most busy. And what I want most at this time is an album that acts as a snapshot to what life is like right now.

Right now, I'm loving Instagram- so I've been printing my Instagram photos (using the app Postal Pix), and pasting them into a sketch book that I'm using as a journal. I don't write everyday, but I try to include a snippet from everyday once I actually sit down. So I'll journal about 2 or 3 days in a row- with the aid of the my calendar and the photos that I took during the week, I can usually piece together what our week was like. I don't take pictures every day either- but it's easy to find at least one picture every few days that I can paste onto a page. And when we have fun outings full of pictures, I snap enough to last me for days.

It's not perfect. It's not anything like my other albums. It probably won't last forever, but for now it's a way for me to record memories and keep up with the photos that I'm taking at this moment instead of worrying about perfectly scrapbooking every one of my kids' baby pictures. I'll save that project for after they graduate!

Make Today Amazing (a lesson in wall decal application)

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I'm still continuing to work on my home goal of "hanging more stuff on my walls." And one thing that I've been wanting to do, but never got around to doing, was to put up some sort of a quote somewhere.  I wanted a feel good affirmation to hang near our front door, as sort of a "last thing you see before you leave" piece of wisdom. Initially this jumped out at me:

LuciusArt on Etsy

 But in the end I wanted something larger, more feminine, and without the word "Ridiculously" in it. So I decided to put my own version of the statement directly onto the wall.  I had a craft store gift card burning a hole in my pocket, so I decided to use it to get myself a set of Vinyl wall decals. This company makes all kinds of pre-determined quotes, (like this one I am showing here), but I went with a basic alphabet set so that I could write exactly what I wanted. DCWV HOME removable Vinyl Lettering The letters all come on one sheet, so the first step was cutting each one out and putting them together to see how it would look. I had initially planned to place them on a wall near the door, but after a bit of goofing around I thought they looked best directly on the door itself.  
 I taped the letters together and roughly placed them on the door to get an idea of how it would look.

 A look from a few steps back assured me that it would be perfect!
However, in order for it to be perfect, I knew I would need to put in a tiny bit more effort than just slapping it up there. I pulled out the heavy duty tools and used a level to make myself a nice even line to put the letters on. I was afraid to draw on the door with anything (because I didn't want to scrub over the finished decal to remove even a stray pencil mark), so I used removable tape as my level marker.
 Once I had a flat surface, I started working on left to right centering, and the easiest way for me to do that was to work outside to inside. I made sure that the beginning of "Make" and the end of "Amazing" were roughly equidistant to the door edges, and then I figured I would place the word "Today" in the center of the space remaining.   One painstaking letter at a time I applied the decal. (It applied surprisingly easily, I was just very very very careful because I didn't have any extra of some of the letters if I mess up!) And I put the letters up the same way that I just described- working left to right with Make and right to left with the letters in "Amazing."  A few letters later, I was done and I was in love with how it looked!So much so that I took down a few things on the wall next to the door that I was not really in love with and replaced them with a new painting of mine.  (Look at me, hanging stuff on walls!!!!)  It's amazing how two super small changes totally changed the space- and now I smile as I get ready to open the door and leave the house every day. Also, those decals are REALLY nice. They actually do look just like hand painted lettering- there is no visible border around the letters like you'd get with a cheaper repositionable decal. I'm obsessed with how it looks and I'm already trying to think of what I could write with the letters that I have left.      So there you have it, make your day amazing. And decorate your walls while you are at it.    

Easy Valentines Day Wall Art

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Decorating for Holidays isn't always my strong suit. I tend to fill my house with things that I enjoy to look at year round, and just make tiny tweaks to things as I get bored. My husband much prefers a clean surface to one filled with "stuff," so I tend not to buy holiday themed tchotchkes, no matter how cute they are.

But this year we've spent SO much time indoors due to cold weather and cold germs making the rounds through our family that I've whipped up a few quick and easy Valentines Crafts- more so to pass the time with my kids than anything else. And since they go on the wall, they technically aren't clutter.

Both projects were so quick, easy, and fun that I thought I'd share them with you.


Supplies: 

I honestly feel like once you see the supplies, these projects are pretty self explanatory- but in case you want more details:

I sketched a heart on the canvas with a marker and then attempted to evenly space the pushpins along the line. Then I tied the embroidery floss to a random pin to start and instructed my 6 yr old to zig zag back and forth across the heart in whatever pattern she wanted- looping the floss underneath the base of each pin. She did great! Honestly, I didn't do anything other than tie the knots to start and finish.




Supplies (part 2):  
This one is even easier. I sketched a heart in pencil and then used the eraser side of the pencil dipped in paint to randomly place paint circles inside the heart. My 4 yr old did most of the work, and then I went back and filled it in with darker paint at the bottom and white at the top to create a subtle ombre effect. I also added some blue around the edges to cover up a few "coloring out of the lines" mishaps with the eraser dots.


I've got to tell you, I bought a few value packs of canvases at the craft store before Christmas, and we're having a blast using them!

A New Parenting Blog (You'll Like It!)

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It can be tough to jump back into writing on a regular basis after taking such a long vacation from it. It is especially difficult when you cannot think of anything to write about. I usually write about the fun projects the kids and I are working on or parenting in general. Unfortunately, things have been getting rougher and rougher around here with both kids. I know that some of it has to do with their reactions to the stress I'm feeling. No matter how much you try to hide something like this, it still shows. And, with my oldest, I am honest. He gets a simpler version of what's going on because 1) I don't believe in lying to him by saying that everything is going to be OK - it may not, and 2) if things do get bad, I don't want it to be a shock to him.

As for Little Guy, I am having a terrible time. It's as if he wants to constantly argue with me over everything. He'll ask for a flavor of juice that he knows we don't have, then whine and cry and throw a HUGE tantrum over not getting it. He wakes up in the morning telling me, "Today, I not gonna listen to you, Mommy!" All of the rules get broken all of the time. Not only the silly ones, like pick up your toys. The serious ones, too: no touching the electric outlets. He's thrown Hot Wheels at the TV screen, tossed my coffee mug down our wooden staircase, he runs off when we're on walks... into busy streets. I gave up on cooking and washing dishes with him because he's managed to cut me with a paring knife when I told him to please put it down (he put it down with force on my hand!) and he's broken a ton of dishes by tossing them on the floor just to see them crash. I feel that there is more than his reaction to stress to blame for this sudden change in behavior (no, he hasn't had any vax!)

Anyway, just when I thought I had no where but a physician to turn to (I really don't want labels such as "ADD" on his medical chart - especially at only 3 years old), I heard that a new blog is starting up that may just help me with these and many other parenting problems I will come across. The blog is written by three mothers who have a total of 17 children, ranging in age from 1 to 16 (and one on the way!). And, these aren't just any moms - they are moms who have the same parenting philosophies as I. They "...ascribe to Attachment Parenting, Gentle Discipline, & Natural Family Living philosophies; each in our own way. We wanted to create a place to share our lives as "crunchy" Moms with other similar-minded Moms." Their blog, Grateful Moms of Many, is scheduled to launch on April 1, 2012 and I, for one, cannot wait! On the site, you will find articles on many topics, including pregnancy & birth, breastfeeding, multiples, special needs children, schooling, discipline, frugality, crafts, recipes, mental health, and generally the unique challenges that moms face in daily life. It sounds like the PERFECT mom blog to me!

I really love how these three moms (Sasha, Nic, and Michelle) met each other. They were all on an Online Due Date Club - you know, where expectant moms can commiserate with other women who are at the same stage of pregnancy. Once their children were all born, the three moms stayed in touch via a private Facebook group. Though they all share similar parenting philosophies, they also believe that every parent does what he/she feels is best for their children. You won't find judgment on this blog, only support. And, with the years of experience that these Moms of Many have, you can almost bet that all kinds of interesting things have been encountered. That leaves me feeling as if I can find the help I need with my own kids.




If you can't wait for their April 1st launch, you can head over to their Facebook page, Grateful Moms of Many. There are already a few questions posted and the community there feels wonderful - lots of great ideas being generated and no judgemental attitudes.




 Oh, and I almost forgot! To celebrate the Grateful Moms of Many's blog launch on April 1st (you know what day that is, right?!), there will be a special giveaway with a nice little prank-like twist! April Fool's! So, don't forget to go check it out - I'll give you a quick reminder post so you don't forget. :)

Tuesday's Giveaway Linkup {4/10}

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Welcome to Tuesday's Giveaway Link Up with your hosts Aimee @ Classified: Mom & Karen @ Tots and Me & Alicia @ McCrenshaw's Newest Thoughts!

This link up will be posted Monday at 7 PM est. and run all week long! Make sure you stop in as often as you can to list your latest giveaways.

Here is how to use the Giveaway Link Up



1. Post your reviews and/or giveaways, as many as you have, be sure to add the end date (family friendly please)



2. Help spread the word about the giveaway link up by grabbing our button, Tweeting or posting on Facebook. (Not mandatory- but it helps get more exposure to your giveaways as well!)



3. Take a moment to enter any giveaway that strikes an interest to you!



If you would  like to follow the three hostesses, we will gladly follow you back! Simply leave us a message to do so.





Thank you for linking up with  Aimee @ Classified: Mom & Karen @ Tots and Me & Alicia @  McCrenshaw's Newest Thoughts!