Finding The Perfect Gift

A while back, I posted "finding the perfect gift" inspired by my blogger friend Martha. I thought I might share neat little things with you once in a while. This is my latest find . . . gingham dish gloves. Soooo important to keep your hands soft while scrubbing those dishes. Aren't they adorable!?? You can find them here if you are interested.

I also found a great little Mother's Day gift at Target (close your eyes Mom). It is a Shabby Chic pillow and it looks great in my living room. I'm going to have to part with it soon, though. Can't wait to see what my beautiful family is getting me for MD. :-)

I'm a Procrastinator

Yes, people, I waited till the last minute. Which really kills me because I always get things wrapped up in February. My tax prep bill last year was over $800 so I'm doing taxes myself this year. Shockingly easy with ProTax. I will never hire someone again, unless things get complicated with a business or something. Anyway, my kids are home all day because of a teacher work day so this will take 50 times longer than it should. Wish me luck. (p.s. I promise I won't use the library cards too much. They are just so much fun to make!)

I also have a question for all you computer people out there. I'm trying to put my picture on my profile. I copy the url from the server where I have my picture and put it in the setup page but it never shows up. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Thanks!!

Inspiration and a Cool Mom Resource

I know everyone does inspiration on Fridays, but I am doin' mine today ladies. The other day,

Vintage Pretties told us about "Rate My Space" on HGTV's website. The website is sooo neat, you've got to check it out. You would have to have thick skin to post a room on there b/c some people are *really* mean with their comments. I digress . . . I found this beautiful room done in colors I have been drooling over lately. I'm feeling a master bedroom redo coming on. But I'm not telling my honey just yet. I'm going to wait until the time is right. ;-)

I also found an interested little blog today. It is called Girl Talk, and it is a blog for moms about how to talk to our daughters about the dangers of drinking as a teenager. I'm going to have to go back and take a closer look later, but it looks like a great resource. My daughter is in middle school already (GASP! she's only 11!) so the time is here. Now I just need to find a blog about how to talk about what NOT to do with boys! Letting kids grow up is painful sometimes.

Oh yeah, and a quick story for you. Our neighbor has a cat named Cleo, and Cleo pretty much is pest control for our entire neighborhood (and possibly other neighboring developments). About 2 weeks ago, my son was playing with his friend who owns Cleo and they found Cleo's stash (ie, snacks saved for later). My son picks up a rat with a stick and puts into a hole (former location of a tree) in our yard and covers it up with rocks. He tells me about it, I ask my honey to get rid of it. Fast forward 2 weeks and I'm in the backyard with the dogs. They are "herding" the soccer ball, when the puppy peels off and gets busy sniffing the hole. When I finally get a clue and realize what he is doing, he has a big black thing in his mouth. I scream "drop it" and he takes off as fast as he can go, straight for the basement door and up stairs. Before he got to the staircase though, I hold up a treat, he drops the rat and I lock him outside. Dead crusty rat with legs sticking in the air on my basement floor. I go up to get a bag and my daughter and all her friends figure out what is going on. Next thing I know there are 5 girls and my 2 boys in the basement screaming and carrying on. My youngest son decides to play a trick on me . . . I go down the basement stairs, and when I turn the corner the rat flies straight at me from across the room. It actually bounced off my chest!!!!! Yes, I did scream. The funniest part was, the kids all said "oooooh, dad's in truuuuuuuble." Life with a 5 year old boy . . . a tiny glimpse into my life. Guess that wasn't a quick story. TTFN.

Work Room Redo Part 1

I'm trying to come up with a basic plan to redo the work room before I yank everything out. Knowing me, I will pull it all out and my poor honey will come home to an enormous mess in the bedroom. DivaDeb stopped by and gave me the fabulous advice to break each part of the room into sections for each purpose of the room (eg, sewing, crafting, scrapping, etc.). So here are the plans. If you want to see the actual room, click here. The scanner cut stuff off and I'm not going to be anal-retentive today like I normally am.

Here is my major dilemma, which is why this place is a mess in the first place: I have boxes and boxes and books and books of photos, which need to be put in scrapbooks. The books of photos are those old yucky magnetic page books, all different sizes and shapes. I need to take the photos out and put them into nice scrapbooks. I'm afraid to take all the photos out and put them into boxes, but I also think it just looks like a complete mess the way it is. I need you scrappy, organized people out there to give me direction on this. I simply can't figure it out on my own, and it is giving me a great deal of stress.

Thanks!!

Menu Plan Monday

Every Monday, I'm an Organizing Junkie hosts Menu Plan Monday, which is just what I need, since I tend to make up my mind at the last minute and go to the grocery store every day. Aaaand I shop on Mondays anyway because I like to do my Grocery Game coupon shopping that day.

So here is the menu for this week:

Monday: Tacos

Tuesday: Salmon with Brown Sugar Pepper Blend (from Wegman's)

Wednesday: Breakfast Night

Thursday: Chicken Tettrazini (did I spell that correctly? I'm too lazy to look it up)

Friday: Leftovers

Hmmmmm, that was really easy. Why didn't I do this before? :-) Hope you all had a nice holiday weekend!

Blogger Potluck

Shabby in the City has graciously invited us to her blogger potluck, and as usual, I am a little late to the party. But I'm here, and this is the recipe I have made for you all. It is a great recipe, because you can make the crumble topping ahead of time and keep it in the freezer. This crumble topping recipe actually makes 6 cups of crumble (enough to make the blueberry peach crumbles recipe 3 times!) You can also use the crumble topping as a topping for fruit pies.

BTW, aren't the library cards cool?!! Inspire Co. shared this in a recent blog entry (thank you) . . . just stop by here to make one for yourself.

30 Day Organizational Challenge

I **REALLY** hate doing this, but I just can't help myself when a good challenge comes my way. I'm an Organizing Junkie is having an organizing challenge this month, with some great prizes.

I'm throwing my hat in the ring, and posting pictures of the room I need to straighten up. It is my workspace. And I hate showing the world my greatest mess. But I do need some motivation. When we moved, I unpacked and organized the entire house, and this is the last room. I have come a long way. I really wish I had pictures of this room full of boxes (I had some, but lost them in the bad-hard-drive-incident). Can you believe it actually looked worse than this at one point? I need to get this room to a place where I can actually function and get things done, and enjoy my surroundings too. I have a gazillion pictures that need to be scrapped, and all kinds of other crud that needs a special home. Wish me luck!

Here are some of the questions Organizing Junkie wants me to consider when reorganizing my room:

1. What do I want the purpose of my room or area to be? A workroom for me only. For scrapping, sewing and crafting.

2. What do I need in or near the room to serve that purpose? I need a sewing work table, and a separate scrapping work table. I also need storage for projects and supplies.

3. What can I remove from the room? junk. And all the pictures that still need to be hung up in my house . . . they can go on the walls!

4. What problems do I see with the room? Mostly, thousands of pictures that need to be put in order and then in books.

5. What organizational tools might solve those problems? Bins and baskets. I also think I need special container for each scrapbook and the pictures that are going to go in it.

6. What habits need to change to solve the organizational problems? Actually finishing my projects, and cleaning up after myself!

7. What kind of a budget do I have to create the organized room of my dreams? I give myself $50. Hopefully it will be less. Probably will be more.

8. What kind of a time line is necessary to organize the room? I need to set my deadline for the end of April so I will be motivated to finish this room.

9. What is my plan of action? Read the complete article with descriptions of each of the questions here. I will have to get back to this question. Haven't read the article. My kids are home from school right now and I'm in a hurry.

10. Who can I ask to help me with this? I will do this project myself, and my family can help by getting their chores done so my house doesn't look like a hurricane blew through when I'm done.