Monday, April 27

cookin'...

what to say...what to say...

Its nice out... dinner in the oven. Spanish porkchops tonight with a spinach salad.

The sun is still barely peaking out over the horizon and the wind is blowing. The flowers are blooming, I can see them from my spot here at my desk. Even the hibiscus this year are really out doing themselves and are quite lovely. Thats just the front yard, in the back the grass is freshly mowed, the citrus trees have all been trimmed nice and neat, weeds pulled near the rose bushes, which by the way are blooming quicker than I can keep up and have a huge array of color in that corner. We put fish emulsion on most everything and the flies were something horrible. The sand and water table came out from its sad little winter home on the side of the house yesterday and the kids had a wonderful time with it and Polenta of all things. They were cooking.

Speaking of cooking, again, I have a loaf of bread in the machine and I am very interested in how it will turn out, peanut butter and bananas were in the recipe. Yum!! Those two items usually equal a huge hit in my household.

I sewed a little bit yesterday. I had a few projects that were left undone that I tried to tackle. A few birds... a table scarf... and part of an apron... oh and a pair of little baby shoes.

Well... have a great evening...

Thursday, April 23

Reuse...



Thinking back to yesterday morning I realize what a nice time I had. Myla was my helper and we together loaded and unloaded the car. It was breezy and a sunny spring day.
Along with a friend we planned a morning at the park in celebration of Earth Day. The kids decorated all sorts of recycled items that are normally used in the kitchen. We had coffee cans, paper, celery, potatoes,apples, paint, markers... no specific project, just free expression.
It worked well I think.
My little one stayed for an extremely long time painting two large coffee cans. Treasure boxes for her and her big brother to put all their favorite things.
I was also able to sit among 'my' friends and did something for ourselves. WE made several body scrubs. All with the base as grapeseed oil and vitamin E oil. Lavendar, lemon, grapefruit, and vanilla were our smells and we used either brown sugar or epsom salt for the scrubbyness. I used the brown sugar and vanilla scrub (grapeseed and vitamin E oil) last night and it was heavenly.
My other favorite part of the morning was the fact that we used most all reusable/recycled items. The table clothes were reusable from our art stash. The art mediums were all items that were going to be tossed in the recycle bin.
Our jars that we used for our scrubs were jars from baby food, pasta, spices, jellies, and even yeast. It was awesome.
I even had lemons from our yard.
Fun times.
Its not the point of being an extreme activist, but there are a number of ways that I can lessen my families burden on our planet. I enjoy my efforts and am proud to say that I do care and I know that there are tons more that I could be doing. If each family had those same standards and practices the impact that we create together would be enormous.
But anyways... we had a great Earth Day. I even bought some marigolds at half price and some other lavendar flowering plant in honor... I just have to get out there and plant them.
Hope your week is sun kissed!!!

Tuesday, April 21

read anything good lately?

So it seems that I don't update often. Here I go.

Remember when I said that I was reading two books that were forever changing my perspective. Well the time has come when I have actually had the time to sit several different times and write a little something about these books.

The first book you mostly likely have either heard of or have read already (only b/c I was like 18th in line at the library. When it came available I had almost forgotten that I requested it), The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there was quite a bit of reading and not just a book full of patterns and instructions on different projects. Its her words. She has a child older than mine and hers out number the two that I have, so naturally my eyes and ears are going to be on high alert. And as it turns out, her advice gives the idea that she's 'just' getting you started, your family will dictate how you travel the journey. And its that sense of encouragement that I need. Her blog is just as inspirational if you want to check it out right over here. Not only does she represent a natural, youthful, creative soul but she also happens to be very contagious.

This directly involves (for me) the next book, Ready for Anything, 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life by David Allen. I first heard of this book while visiting the blog Pink Chalk Studios, one of my many ventures when I need inspiration in crafting.

My questions always seem to be how do I balance the rest of my life so that I can be open, creative and in the moment. I'm so busy that I don't always SEE the moments. In the other hand, I am very much in the middle of my families life. I love to volunteer with school or with our MOMS club. Besides being mom all day, I also run a office for a small business. I have lots of ideas and strategies, but have "a zero helpful system" in keeping myself in check. I have been utilizing some of his tips and I really have seen a huge difference in my attitude and willingness to keep it going. He also has the C.D. Getting Things Done, which I also got from my library after I was sucked into the first book. It really just drives home all the points from the book with his voice as the narrator.

"Uncaptured, unclarifed, and therefore unmanaged things that you have agreed to do own a piece of you and give you no rest. Naming your stuff gives you power over it. The best and most productive way to do your work is to be its master, not its slave."

I basically have been defragmenting my brain. I no longer pride myself in 'remembering' everything. I have been writing ALL ideas and 'to do' list that enter my brain. I have a separate folder for work and personal. And then they are organized within themselves. But anyhoo... it is rather 'freeing' to be able to release so much control. Its amazing actually. I have also been put to the test and been in charge of a couple different events and I managed through feeling great and that I did the best job I could have done.

And that is all I can do.

And finally.... I feel good saying that

so Happy Earth Day to you... Myla and I spent our morning with friends decorating reycled items (painting) for the kids... I was able to assemble together a brown sugar, grapeseed oil, vitamin E oil, vanilla scrub... and then I made a salt scrub with lavendar oil and grapeseed oil... and THEN I made a lemon, grapeseed oil, vitamin E oil salt scrub.... very enjoyable morning!!!! We mixed these items in jars that we collected from the kitchen. I should post some of the pics...

Wednesday, April 15

April showers....

Just a few pictures from our little corner...

front yard


front yard


back yard


oh the little ones are growing...


it just looked interesting...


dinosaur bones...


lollipop kid


We even got a little surprise on Saturday... RAIN!!!!!



Rainy holiday!!!  Yay


Saturday, April 11

Just a little of our weirdness...

Do you see anything scary or out of place in this picture?




While I was cleaning today I stepped over this little guy with any notice and at the same moment it occurred to me that this would never fly in my grandmothers home. Pretend or not, it does not belong on the floor she would say. Especially all by itself in the corner just pretending to attack some unknowing creature. But in our home, I don't even notice them. I step over or kick them out of the traffic areas.

I have no idea if I have alarmed other guest before. You know, like they saw it and almost freaked out until they realized that it was fake and harmless. The enormous grasshopper isn't as scary, but this here tarantuala (could be wolf spider I suppose) can be quite intimidating to the unsuspecting person.

It made me laugh and go grab my camera. Notice that the little girl had to have passed it as well on her way to the 'front room' .

Thursday, April 9

BEWARE: excitement for the old...

BEFORE:


AFTER:

Have a look at my brand new filter grill thing. (is that the air handler? can you tell that I work for an HVAC guy?) If you look at the old slates, the new one has one continuous slat which gives you more air flow. (I think he said like 30% more) Anyways, I am just excited because the old one looked so dirty and there was no way to clean it, it seemed. My honey dew was going to try out our new hand held steam cleaner (it came with the Shark Steam Mop) and before I even plugged it in for him, he called for me and was literally wiping the paint from the vents with his finger. Immediately I was alarmed about the chemicals or vapors from the broken down paint and how long had it been that way? SO... I called my boss and he ordered this one... my hubby installed it. Isn't it nice??? Did I mention I was turning 30 later this year? I can officially be inducted into the "Your so OLD" category, right along with my early bedtime on the weekends and my new Air handler!!!

Wednesday, April 8

this little nugget...

was SUPPOSE to be in her room getting her rainbow shoes and putting them on. I was running around taking stuff to the car and rolling out the honey bun dough for our Spring party with our MOMs club... when out walked Mike Wasawski (with NO eyeball, don't be alarmed she didn't eat it). I laughed so hard and loud and couldn't resist running for the camera.



So this is my little nugget.

Tuesday, April 7

Twilight Release Party...

SO... because I have the best friends in the whole world, it came to NO surprise to me when I received an invitation in the mail for a Twilight DVD Release party. (The image in the upper middle with Edward and Bella was used for the invites. Totally exciting to open.)


I invited two friends to come along with and when we arrived I was in awe of all the detail...REAL apples had been cut out and a lit tea light candle inside. Beautiful. Exciting. This is were we ate mushroom raviolis...(does anyone know why? IF you read the book, THINK real hard!!) The quality of these pictures aren't the best... but it felt relaxed and had a casual elegant feeling) Then we stepped into the family room/ kitchen area and I was overtaken with the movie posters... it was AWESOME!!!! I felt like I was in a movie theater. Twilight Pictionary (homemade game, don't go looking in the stores) was a fun one played here before the movie started.

Before the movie and the games, we all just relaxed and enjoyed each others company. Many of us didn't know each other, but knew the host and/or had read the books so we all had something in common and a great evening of discussing favorites parts of the books and the movie. Great times.


(this was during Spring Break too!!! And I still have photos I want to post from that week)

... also mushroom raviolis???? Get it???? Her first meal with Edward when they were at that little Italian restaurant and he had just saved her in the alley from those gross guys...

Saturday, April 4

Living in the moment...

(these pictures on this post are from our excurion up north over Spring Break. I never tire of taking pictures when I'm in Sedona Arizona. It is one of the most spiritual, in its natural form, kinda places.)


Well its Saturday morning and once again I am 'SSSOOOO EXCITED'... later today I am going with a friend to an event with the author Stephenie Meyers as one of the speakers. (which if you haven't read HOST by her... go put a hold on it at the library, she is a wonderful story teller and I am just totally absorbed in this sci-fi, love story. There is this huge moment as the 'soul' is learning about AND feeling all of these human emotions for the first time and the bond between mother and child was overwhelming, I was crying on the couch and weeping) But, back to the event I believe there are like 10 maybe 11 authors attending and its actually a fundraiser for Stephenie's friend who has cancer.









In another spectrum, in response to what my hubby said about my excitement level yesterday, a little switch clicked for me and I have decided to take my mother-in-laws advice from her new blog and start counting my little 'excitements' or my 'blessings' each day. I'm even going to give them there own little 'tag' so that I can find them easily on here if I need to be reminded. I AM excited a lot but don't even realize it normally, so if I am counting them then hopefully I will be conscious enough to spot them all without them being overlooked. And not for just myself, I love to hear others' good news and share in the joy WITH them, and this is a blessing to me.


Somewhere I read that when you laugh that you should add just a little bit more to that laugh and enjoy it to its fullest, basically the advice was 'Laugh Harder', laughter is a gift, don't waste it by only doing it 'half hearted'.




One more bit of insight that I found this week was from a person who is dear to my heart not only for his days on the sitcom Family Ties and the countless movies that I bring back my childhood, but because of his battle living with Parkinson's, which some of you know and there will be some of you who do not and for that all I can say about the disease Parksinson's is that it is heartbreaking. My father in law is one of the most admirable men and he had to deal with this every moment of the day for the last years of his life. ((man... that was intense, this was never my intention when I started this part of the post, but there's no way around the heart wrenching feeling)) back to my point of this.....I think it was the Todays show and they were interviewing the one and only Micheal J. Fox and one of his answers was reguarding his 'everyday' life which of course envolves his wife and his young school aged children, but his comment was that one of the things that he says to his children all the time, (especially when dropping them off at school) is, "Choose to have a great day".


Fabulous advice I think.


hope your weekend is what you wish it to be...

Friday, April 3

Spring into April...

I finally did it! I mean what was the hold up, its just Paypal. (It scares me for some reason) Way way back some months ago I found this wonderful and talented mama who was creating a simple downloadable book for you to share with your family. A workbook. A family workbook. Clever I thought, but PayPal scared me away from the actual purchase so it never happened. Because of this it was still caught up in my mental 'to-do' list, or maybe my mental 'want' list. I'm not sure because my mental ram has been all jumbled so I am sure that it could have been filed in the wrong spot. Anyhoo, another mama who I just admire (for all her truthfulness, intelligence and creativeness) jumped aboard and began posting about the truly awesomeness of this book, and well I was, for a lack of a better word "Jealous" with a capital 'J' that she did it before I did, when I had clearly saw it so many months ago and I had been a wimp and not followed through on my intention. Well, NO MORE.
(this is my mission statement in more ways than one)

Last night I printed out 35 pages (yikes at the amount of ink) from the April edition of Book of Days. You can see a small peep of it here. I haven't read through each page just yet, but am so giddy with all the adorable illustrations that I can hardly contain myself. When I told hubby that I was so excited, his response was "You are ALWAYS so excited". (I'm taking that as a compliment; even though he didn't react like he was bursting at the seams as I had been.)

I hole punched the pages and put them in a 3 ring binder as it suggested and am ready to jump into the month of April. I hope to have oogles and googles of pictures of two excited children doing and participating in our new adventure.

Today 'Toe' (this is just the pronunciation of his nickname, we do not call my son a name from one of his appendages, his little sister calls him Toe Toe, that means mom and dad do to, and for me it has evolved into just 'Toe')anyways, will be going on his FIRST field trip! They are going to the zoo and will of course be riding the bus!!! Which the first thing he said about this was "WITHOUT SEAT BELTS"... I write that in caps because he was very loud when he stated this fact. With that said, imagine his gigantic smile with a little hint of mischief because he knows that Mama can't do anything about that!!! I'm not really that worried unless I over think the what if possibilities. Which even as I type this I am reminding myself to STOP thinking of these things and let him be big and let myself enjoy it with him. So, Ganga there is a huge weight on your shoulders to be praying with me ALL day that my sweet little man makes a safe return home.

Hope everyone chooses to have a Great day.

Thursday, April 2

Ready for Anything...

WOw... I feel like it has been forever since I have updated here. I know that there are a few pictures, but if you know me I live for chatting and well... that has been obsolete here.

Besides our awesome spring break it seems my life has sped up in fast forward from this little time in space (my blog). I mean, you guys have no idea about my spring cleaning bug that has taken over, my shelf and pictures that are finally being hung over the couch... you don't know about the two books that are simutainously changing me and how I view the world and my feelings of being overwhelmed with work and home life and how to balance the two since I work from home. (wow that was a long thought) I don't want to feel like a failure. I know that I AM NOT, so why stress myself out with the intrusive thought? Right?

Right. And I, for the first time in a long while, have the feeling of contentment within myself. I am a high energy, spordiac person by nature, add the details of life to the mix with a cup of joe and I can be one stressed out chicken running around in circles and not sure of what to complete next.

I am creative. I have always been, no matter the medium, but how do I organize my life in order to feel comfortable with 'undone' checklist and allow my juices to flow and pull those suppressed artful ideas from within???? By clearing my physic ram! What the hell is that you say??? Well, you will just have to stay tuned b/c I have to go help 'Her Pieness' (this is another nickname for the little butter colored haired girl that steals my heart)
(wow another mouthful, I must be having withdrawls)