We all have a dream apparently!

Modern Parebts Nessy Kids posted this one her blog.

I've been trying to figure out how to write this without sounding ridiculous. What I want to say is this: I finally did it you guys, I completely and totally organized my life! It took a lot of hard work and a lot of late nights but I now have a plan, routine, or system for everything. •I've compiled and categorized enough healthy, inexpensive and easy recipes that I have a 90 day dinner menu (complete with theme nights like pasta Monday and slow-coooker Thursday) and I have the grocery lists to match. •There is nothing in my house that we don't use. I've ferociously weeded out the clutter and sent it packing via Craig's List or Goodwill. •Everything I didn't get rid of is now beautifully organized into colorfully labeled containers. If you're ever visiting and you need something, just ask me - I totally know where it all is. •I now have a weekly schedule with time carved out for blogging, housework, play dates, park time, library time, and other activities we've been wanting to try but never got around to. •For those days we stay home, we've got a dependable routine that the kids can rely on. It includes stuff like art time, outside time, story time and bath time. •Remember when I told you C isn't really down with napping anymore and I was worried about ever getting anything done again? I completely solved that problem by putting together some genius quiet time kits (one for each day of the week so he doesn't get bored). They're crammed with busy bags, DIY audio books, and learning activities he can do independently. •I finally got our budget down to a science using a combination of the cash envelope system and mint.com. We're saving tons! (and while I was at it I updated our wills, life insurance, and retirement planning). •Thanks to evernote and some other handy apps, I will never again miss an appointment or birthday. (If something does somehow sneak by me, I have a birthday closet with pre-bought gifts and cards - thanks to the new budget and organization I now have the space and money for it.) •I also joined a gym and started exercising regularly (part of the new weekly schedule). The kids love playing at the drop off center while I'm burning calories. •I went through all 2,000 of my digital photos, edited them, imported them to yearly photobooks and backed them all up online. I've also caught up on my personal blog and am regularly contributing to it. •Last but not least, the hubs and I have a set-in-stone date night that we never miss and we've recently instituted family game night. Seriously, it's been a long time coming but today I stood in the middle of my living room, looked around the house and admired what I've accomplished with a huge goofy grin on my face. And then I woke up. DAMN. IT. Sounds good though, doesn't it? I should probably get on that. P.S. The top photo is from Martha. I bet she doesn't have cruel dreams like that - since she really is that organized. Also, I hear she doesn't actually sleep.

and I was so jealous...until I read on til the end and saw it was her dream as well. I'm determined, have added almost all of her items on *my* list to accomplish this year. I'm am making progress, one cabinet, one room, one task at a time. 2012 WILL be my year of becoming organized!

Agood start!

Craft Room Redo

I'm so embarressed to show the picture of what my craft room looked like "before". I'm one lucky girl, one who has a husband who not only encourages my creative pursuits, but one whose husband provides space for them. I am lucky because I have not only a kick ass sewing center that he created, but I have a separate craft room for the "rest of my stuff". I love paper and polymer clay and while I play with neither as much as I do fabric, I have quite a collection of both. Add their numerous accessories and I needed a separate space. In my defense, the craft room is our only non-public room and thus became a catch all space. Yanno, the empty boxes we might need to ship stuff in...someday, spare furniture, and anything else that needs to be hidden or put away...someday. Because the room became so stuffed with stuff, I couldn't and wouldn't craft in there, so I would stumble over things, grab what I needed, and then craft in my sewing center. I would box up the craft supplies, open the craft room door, and kinda slide it in so I didn't have to see the disaster. This is the end result!

Disgusting, huh? Well, I got a hair up my ass Saturday and said to myself, "Self, 2012 is your year of becoming organized and you look at this mess day after day". Self shook her head and replied, "today is the day!". Mark was at a class and I downed several cups of coffee, pulled courage from deep within my soul and into the abyss I went. I have to admit, it was like Christmas morning, finding all kinds of cool stuff I forgot I had. I also wondered simple things like why I had a giant basket of styrofoam balls of every size, or what the hell was I making that I needed a plasic pear? One of the promises I made to myself, and my husband, was for every new hobby I started, I would get rid of one. The time had come. I got rid of ten year old bottles of paint, so therefore, I might as well get rid of the painting things, yanno, wooden sleds, wooden boats, wooden oars that I saw and bought with the idea that I would paint them...someday. I hate that word now. Someday is now, I've seen too many people put off for someday and never get to travel or accomplish their goals. Not me, I tell you, my someday is now, today! I hunted out a big empty box, I sure had enough of them, they were the first things I cleared out of the room and what a remarkable difference it made. I started purging, purging, purging. I emptied container after container, drawer after drawer. Another box pulled out and filled. I have one small container of misc craft supplies and everything else is stored and labeled. I only had one "oh but I love this, I hate to get rid of it, it's so cute moment. A set of teeny tiny clay flower pots, and I kept them! Yep, I kept them. But wow, 5 garbage bags of trash, two giant boxes of donations, three boxes to mail goodies to friends and family and I sat in the middle of my room, dirty, tired, and hungry. But oh, so satisfied. Mark came home from class, stood in the doorway stunned. Wow, was all he could say. Then, as per his usual wonderful loving and giving spirit, he suggested we make an ikea trip and buy some cubbies. He knows how I love my cubbies in my sewing center, smart man, that he is. So he measured, and made thinking noises, measured some more and then made some suggestions. We made the 45 minute trip to ikea, god, I love that place, and got what we needed. Mark constructed and I took a nap, LOL. I woke to beautiful cubbies waiting for me to finish organizing. and the result...

I'm in heaven

Gotta love it!

Mark even moved a floor lamp into my room and I spent a considerable amount of time carefully stowing and labeling. During my ruthless purge, I found some magazine clippings I had stashed away. Pictures of my dream craft/sewing room. I waved them in front of Mark and said, this was my dream room. The love of my life tossed the pictures in the trash and said, now you have your dream room and it's so much better than those pictures. God, I love that man!

Catching Up

I was going to do a post to catch up and decided to only include a few major events and then move on to the present! I deckared the year 2012 The Year of Organization, in both my personal and professional life! I work hard, I play hard and now realize that I need to actually schedule my life accordingly. That thought makes me feel old and boring, but hey, if it means accomplishing what I need and want to do, so be it! The big even last year was the wedding of my youngest daughter, Adrian, to a wonderful man. The wedding was a big affair and I pinched pennies for a year to give her the wedding she wanted. Success, if I do say so myself!

Wasn't she a beautiful bride?

A handsome couple if I ever saw one! My mom was diagnosed with cancer before the wedding and struggled to live long enough to see Adrain get married. She died a few short months later. RIP, Mom... We spent a considerable amount of time in Denver, watching our beautiful grand daughters grow up and fall more in love with their little girl personalities everytime we see them. Recently, we celebrated Ayla's 7th birthday and went all out, as usual, with an Angry Bird Party. Tabetha and I laugh hysterically every year making cakes for the two and this year was no different. The end result was perfect, in our most humble opinions, anyway, LOL

Party was complete with giat slingshot to knock down the walls hiding those pesky pigs, a pinata, and my fun loving son in law finished the day with the kids shooting soda rockets high into the air.

I have been slowly but surely organizing my house. Purging, cleaning, and consolidating. Our nex move is a short year away and I need to pare down. My loving husband has made me the sewing center of my dreams and I know this has added unneeded weight to our belongings so I will continue to purge and bring our household weight down to a manageable amount. But, oh my, isn't this worth it?

Yep, yep. Better and more pictures to follow! I will close for now with the promise to update frequently.

A New Year

How rude of me to not have posted on my blog for an entire year. And a year it was! My youngest daughter got married, my mother died, my grand babies continued to amaze me, we traveled and enjoyed California, and I created. What was there to not blog about? A new year, new goals, one being to blog frequently and share my journey! A year of organization, creativity, blossoming as a person, a human, a writer, an artist, and a healthy soul! Follow me, I promise a journey of adventure!

Slacker!

I will update my blog this week, that is a promise!

Happy New Year

To say I have neglected my blog would be an understatement! It's not that I haven't wanted to, or planned to, but I have struggled to manage my time appropriately to include all the things I would like. I work 6 nights in a row every other week and while I have a wonderful 7 day stretch off in between, I quickly fill those days with tasks, projects, travels, and chores! Enough excuses for one day? Yea, lets move on to more pleasant things!

I survived Christmas orders, both customs and 'in stock', managed to Christmas shop and actually mail packages to family in a timely fashion. No more last minute, have to overnight and pay exorbitant fees for me! Thankfully, my honey pulls his share and we tackled the task as a well oiled machine. Matching jammie sets were the in thing this year and I may just add them to the store. I also created a felt tool set as a custom order, Pops building an awesome wooden tool box, and we loved the end result so much, it, too, will get added this year! And! We actually decorated the house and put up a tree even after this Grinch said, bah hum bug early in the season. Christmas music certainly helped.


On top of everything else I normally do, I signed up for online writing classes this year, hoping to recapture my muse. I really would love to finish my novel this year and my brain cells needed a jump start. It worked, slightly, I do write again. I also started writing some occasional 'ramblings' to a small but faithful group of family and friends. Sometimes stories of work, sometimes a rant, sometimes just rambling. Thank you to those who tolerate these emails and a special thanks to those who provide feedback!

I also decided that I would like to learn how to decorate cookies. I don't mean throwing some frosting on cookies, I mean really decorating them. I tried and tweaked many a recipe and found a sugar cookie I was happy with and plan on making beach themed cookies for Adrian's wedding in May! I did a trial transport at Thanksgiving and was quite happy with the way the treats arrived.

We planned a last minute trip to FL over Thanksgiving and I'm so happy my aunt planned a mini family reunion. I saw family I haven't seen in years and it was wonderful to reconnect. I was also happy to spend the day with my mom and some time with Adrian, Brian and his family. Laughs are always abundant in my family and this trip was no exception.


Of course we saw the grandbabies as much as possible and enjoyed keeping them for a weekend while Tabetha and Jeremy celebrated their anniversary away and childless! I got my McDonald's fix for the year! Hope we have as much time or more this coming year with them. I know Mark wants to make a trip so we can ski at least once.

Adrian is training to run a half marathon and I would encourage everyone to donate to her cause!

I spent two days cleaning and organizing my sewing room, affectionately called the Toy Box, and now am craving the feel of fabric. I may spend this first day of 2011 sewing. It was a total disaster after Christmas production and needed some serious organizing. I still have a box of pattern pieces to sort and put away, but I think I need to feed my soul by sewing for fun first. Maybe some outfits for the babies.



Here's wishing you peace, love, and good health throughout the new year and here's wishing me better time management skills, a creative mind, and a peaceful year!

A Busy Spring

We've had a wonderful spring and I was very productive even if I neglected my poor blog! We're looking forward to the summer months and I'm anxious to tackle more projects. The highlight of the past months was the visit by all the children, 10 people crammed into our small California home, but we had a blast and I hope it becomes an annual event. We rented a 15 passenger van and it was a stroke of brilliance, if I do say so myself! We visited the usual tourist spots, ate, laughed, shopped, ate, and laughed some more. The kids hiked the John Muir woods while Mark and I stretched out in the van and napped, we're getting old and the kids flat wore us out!

Pier 39, love the family Picture!

All the girls!

Load em up!
In between keeping up with orders from the store, I volunteered to sew and donate two outfits for a great fundraiser. They were fun to make and I do love sewing for little girls!


A cute little monkey top!

With matching shorts

An infant size dress, love the pull through ties!

A friend's little one insisted she had a loose tooth so Nana had to make a tooth fairy pillow for her!


I have sewed outfits for the girls, tried my hand at bathing suits for them and they came out cute, I think anyway!


A paramedic in Virginia, who helped Jenna and I on numerous occasions is having a baby girl in a few days, how could I resist?



The matching bloomers are ruffled on the back!

Mark decided Nana's Toy Box deserved a real sewing center and first put up the 20 feet of counter space. He custom built the cabinets this weekend and I can just stand in middle of the room and be inspired! Now keep in mind, the sewing center is in what is supposed to be the house's living room so it's what greets people when they come in the front door! On a side note, it is NOT y craft room, only my sewing room! I still have a table of fabric that is "in progress" that we hid for pictures because it is so typical me, messy, LOL!




I have set a list of personal goals for myself this year and 1.) is to get fit and healthy, I hope to run a 5K and ride a 25 mile bike race by the end of the year. I found I actually enjoy running, doing a core workout, and riding my bicycle. I alternate between speed and endurance when I ride but I fail miserably at controlling my pace when running, I'm a sprinter and while I can run 2 miles, I'm half dead when I finish because my pace is so fast. Everyone kind of laughed at this old Nana when I casually mentioned I thought I could run to the stop sign....200 yards? Not only did I run to the stop sign that first day, I sprinted home. Every day I went further and now I stride with confidence, if too fast! Adrian worked up a core fitness workout for me and her and Brian answer my fitness questions, Jeremy answers my bike questions and now has me looking at racing bikes, and Jacqueline has been one of my biggest cheerleaders, eating healthy with me, picking me back up when I take a few steps backwards, and has turned me into a fruit and veggie person! Tabetha is there to advise on the health aspects, nutrients, vitamins, etc and we enjoy swapping our "Jillian stories". I have completely changed my eating habits, laugh when I splurge and have "a can of high fructose corn syrup", ie Sprite, gave up my 4AM biscuits of greasy bacon and eggs, and being so little, I watch my intake carefully. I have gained 9 lbs of muscle and an inch to my thighs! I proved my increased upper body strength this weekend when Mark asked if I thought I could help carry the cabinets in from the garage.... piece of cake!
I also decided it was time to find the muse that deserted me and finish my novel. To exercise my brain and help shake the cobwebs out, I started writing daily ramblings which I am fortunate to have an email loop of friends and family read for me. No perfection, no editing, just writing.... and boy does it feel good!