The Week Where I Try To Enter As Many Contests As Possible {part 2}

It's back, the giveaway that sucked me into my computer for a week over the summer is back, except now it's fall & this week is busier than my summer week was. I was really wanting to participate as a person giving away things this time around but it came so quickly and I have a lot going on right now. So I'll just be trying to enter as many contests {that I'm truly interested in the prize} as I can, cross my fingers {><} and hope to win something! If you click on the button with the pretty fall leaves you can see the nearly 500 {and growing I'm sure} contests already up and enter some yourself, if I don't win I'd love if you, one of my readers, did! I can't believe I didn't see this yesterday, I could have had so many entered already! Ah well, that is done so I'll do my best with what I've got left of my busy week. One giveaway I wanted to highlight is Life, Love & Some Goldfish Crackers - cute title huh? Amber is giving away a copy of the book "A Busy Mom's Guide to Bible Study". I'm very interested in this book! My devotional time is pretty much non existent at this point. I find myself distracted by many things, tangible & not.

Another fun giveaway is being held at The Apronista. They are giving away a super cute reversible halter style apron. Oh & the site they have linked has SO many styles of aprons, bib, halter, gardening, half aprons - some are fancy enough they could be a skirt! Well, if they had a closed back they could. ;)

Masterpiece Monday {page 9}

Today I scrapped! I also contemplated some things that I can't share at the moment but trust me, you'd be very interested in hearing about. But back to the scrap! I had invited some gals over for a couple hours in the afternoon {read: baby's nap time} and one ended up making it. She had fun perusing through my larger than I realized magazine collection & albums to get ideas while I made some progress on my 'This Is Me' Journal and wow! am I behind! I started three & finished two journaling topics today. I'd really like to get back to scrapping at least twice a week during nap time or after the kids are in bed at night. First I need to print the nearly 500 pictures that are being held hostage in my computer {and that's barely through July and yes, I've whittled down, yes I have a problem}. So for now I have my picture less {until I print a few} project.

The first is 'My Ultimate Mixed Tape' - I had a paper with various artists written on it & can't find it anywhere. I really hope I didn't throw that out or lose it in the move, so frustrating. Likely I'll just sit down & write down favorite bands/artists over the last 20ish years so I can write them all down on the cassettes - it's what I grew up with. {My kids are going to think I'm SO old!}

This topic was about fears, something(s) that freak you out. Seriously people, I FREAK out.

This topic was to journal things you love today, whatever day you've done the project. I need to go back & do some more inking/embellishments but it's done enough to show.

Other topics worked on but not finished were: My Secret and Funniest Person I Know - these are still in progress. Thanks for visiting! For more masterpieces, scrappy or otherwise - click on the button above.

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Smart Habit Saturday - Starting Fresh

I have fallen off the wagon. I finally erased my Joe's Goals chart due to repeated flat lining. I wasn't keeping track like I used to and have struggled to find motivation to stay on top of my habits. I was considering stopping SHS posts all together because of it. But I have decided it would be better for me {and my household} to just start fresh. Between my husband being gone and moving I got overwhelmed & burnt out. Though I did a great job {if I do say so myself} at getting the house unpacked, purging & organizing my daily routine has flown right out the window. Things still get done but not as frequently as I'd like them to. So this week I'm going to take a look at my daily/weekly routine & rework it where needed. I'm starting back at the beginning for my first habit this week. I want to wake up to a clean kitchen each morning which means doing a quick clean up each night. This {for me} includes having an empty sink, floors swept, counter tops & stove wiped down. I'm hoping this will be a good start & will motivate me to pick up my other fallen habits quickly.

For more SMARTness click on the picture above & learn how you can share your own! Thanks for stopping by, have a great week!

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What's On Your Desktop?

My friend Melanie tagged me with this meme & I'm only a week behind on getting to it, not too bad since I haven't been blogging so regularly. The meme is to share a picture of your desktop. Thanks to some guidance from her & free {trial} software through e*snips I have managed to figure out how to participate. The wallpaper template I got from How About Orange, isn't it cute? It inspires me to keep my desktop free of clutter, so it serves a purpose also. Yes, I organize my computer & desktop - are you at all surprised? ;) I always keep my instant messenger up though, just in case hubby is able to get on & say a quick "hi, love you, miss you, xoxoxo, bye" or chat for a while. If you look closely at the task bar you can see I have a link for my Fort Campbell Wives message board minimized. It's a great board for us wives here to talk about anything & everything.

So, that's my desktop. What does yours look like? This is an open ended meme, please let me know in the comments if you're participating so I can take a look. Thanks for dropping by!

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1 Year Milestone

My little girl turned 1 on Saturday, she's getting big but still so tiny. She's still my baby & I suppose she {and my other child(ren)} always will be. I am so proud of her. She is walking around all over the place, drinking from a sip cup & enjoying eating more foods. Her smile & laugh is contagious and she gives the sweetest kisses {by request even!}. She says "dada, momma & bubu" and starting to mimic other words & sounds. She has so much fun playing with her big brother & I can already see how much they love each other.

So since her birthday fell on a Saturday I had her party the same day. I stayed up late cleaning the night before {easier to do when kids are in bed} and baked cupcakes & decorated that morning. I would have baked the night before as well but realized last minute I didn't have liners. In case you were misinformed, I'm not a baker/baked goods decorator and really not much of a cook either. Anyways, the decorations looked really cute {if I do say so myself} and the cupcakes even came out great! I've learned from past birthdays that keeping it simple is key for me, attempting to learn to make flowers with petals and/or write legibly with frosting last minute. The BEST part of the day was that my hubby called and was able to tell his daughter happy birthday! I was so excited. My excitement was quickly rained on when only 1 guest of 4 who RSVP'd showed up. It was still fun just disappointing. Lydia looked adorable in her party dress that had a little poof to it, wore her tiara just about the whole time {I was SO surprised!} and she had fun eating cupcake and playing with the balloons and her new toys. I was looking forward to having other little girls over for her to play with but I can wait until next year. We are having another party for her at my parent's house when I go on vacation so that will be fun as well. Here's a quick {blurry} look at her party.


The week leading up to her birthday was very emotional. When a milestone hits I think back to what has happened up to this point. There have been a lot of exciting things like my sister getting married & now expecting a baby, my best friend bought a house, my marriage came out of hard times - stronger than ever and my husband started an exciting new career. But there have also been a lot of sad/hard events. I'm further away from family than I ever have been, my husband is further away from me for the longest amount of time and I've lost my mom. So the party not going as I had hoped made me miss my husband, 'home' and my mom even more. Thanks for stopping by, I hope to be blogging {including reading your blogs} more this week.

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Faithful Friday {week 10}

I've been trying to think of something to write for this post all day and now Friday has almost passed. I don't know what the struggle has been. I'm sure lack of sleep due to all of the excitement {read: panic!} last night with the tornado warnings. I'm from California, we have earthquakes, I know all about duck & cover but a tornado? I think the hardest part of it all was being alone. Though my husband hasn't been through a tornado warning I'd have felt better with him here. He would have told me things would be fine & he would have known where the flashlight was - it's somewhere in that shed but I don't know which bin. By now he would have the whole thing set up and known. But we survived. The most we experienced was high winds & a thunderstorm. Not too far from my house a tornado did touch down several times but overall things were okay.

I've also got a lot on my mind. Tomorrow my daughter turns one year old. So much has changed in a year. My whole 'world' has been shaken & turned upside down. It's not all bad, sometimes we need a good shake in life - I think. But it's a lot to take in & look back on. And some of it is bad, some of it is hard and when I approach milestones like this it brings those things to the forefront of my mind. So here it is 11:03pm the night before my daughter's first birthday. I still have a lot of cleaning to do, should decorate so I don't have as much to do tomorrow since baking early is out of question {I forgot to get cupcake liners} and my mind is on overload. If you'd like to read more Faithful Friday's click on the button above. I hope you all enjoy your weekend. Thanks for visiting. I will have some fun holiday/birthday posts coming up soon.

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Talk About Tuesday - my junk drawer {follow up}

Last week I showed you this organizer I wanted for my junk drawer. Many of you had the same one or were inspired to tackle your own junk drawer. So of course I have to do a follow up post. I went to the store & for about $5 have one less space that irritates me! And I have to admit, I was freakishly excited about organizing it. When I got home from the store it was almost nap time so as soon as the kids were in bed I opened my new little piece of heaven and put the labels in place, referring to the pictures as best as I could. I know, does it really matter if the buttons go where the spare change should be and vise versa? No, but my OCDness wouldn't stand for it. The only thing that bugged me was the picture showed paper clips & there was no paper clips label. It really did bother me. Once the labels were in place I opened my scary junk drawer and started putting items in their newly labeled homes. Of course I don't have all the items that had labels and had some items that didn't have labels so OCDness was pushed to the side and my small stapler is sitting on a label for 'tweezers & clippers' and the paper clips are sitting on 'push pins'. But I'm okay with that because everything has it's own space. The organizer is smaller than my drawer but I left the rest of that space tidy as well. Calculators, phone chargers & cameras are each with their own. I'm sure my drawer could & will become messy again but clean up will {or at least should} be much easier. For more Talk About Tuesday visit the Lazy Organizer by clicking on the picture above. Thanks for visiting!

Scary junk drawer before.

De-junked drawer after, notice the top tray - it slides.

& here's the organizer without the top tray.

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Masterpiece Monday {page 8}

So nothing scrappy from me {again} this week. I apologize to everyone for yet another post about my new house and the process of moving in but it's what I've been doing lately. When my life gets back to normal, so will my blog - I promise! So yesterday I finished hanging the rest of the pictures/art in the main living space! No more frames cluttering the table. Of course I still need to hang Michael's artwork, frames in our bedroom & get some pretty stuff for Lydia's walls {though I did hang her 'yard sale find' shelves last night}. But I'm glad for the progress & will probably do Michael's stuff today, and tackle our room throughout the week. Is it just me or is that usually the last room you do? It has turned into my 'storage' space, holding things until I know where to put them & is just a mess at this point. I think it has a lot to do with hubby being gone & me not using the room much. Anyways, here's a picture of my dining area & the paintings I hung there. The two paintings of beach scenes I love! I need a new frame for the larger one, the one that was on it fell apart. The large print in the middle is okay but I want to paint the frame & try my hand at some Trading Spaces type of artwork. I left space to the right on purpose, my step mom found a Van Gough for me & I want to look for another painting/print to put there. I'm also sad because I had a framed print with three Van Gough's {Starry Night - my favorite, a cafe one & another one} and I have no idea where it is. I don't know if it got lost in this move or the one out here but I'm really disappointed by it. The other picture is a revision of the photo collage I did. The larger collage frame is now on another wall & I added another frame with photos of Shawn & two of his siblings along with a Willow Tree sculpture and a quote on canvas. I'm trying to have a picture of everyone in our immediate families - which is a lot of people so I'll continue working on that and probably add another frame or two or four. Have a great day! Thanks for stopping by. Click on the picture to see more Masterpiece Monday!

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I Had It Coming

Thursday night I took some time to check my e-mails & message boards thinking the kids were happily playing together. Well, as you can see they were happy & playing but it wasn't quite what I had in mind. Now I'm sure Michael did most of the playing {read: damage} but Lydia was holding a ball of yarn as well. I got off the computer to put Lydia in bed and this is what I found. Once I got her settled I came to assess the mess and found more than I had expected. Yarn was strung & twisted around the dining table, into the kitchen & back around the table again. Why do I have two spools of yarn you wonder? I've never shown off any fancy crochet or knitting work or other things that yarn may be used for. See, it really doesn't belong in this house. I did attempt crocheting a couple years ago. My friend, Patricia, from church makes beautiful ponchos and a few of us thought it would be a good thing if she taught us how to make them ourselves. One gal already knew the art & joined us while she would work on her blankets. Now this would have been a very good thing - if I had had any skill with yarn & needles. The furthest I got {without messing up horribly} was making a simple chain - that I could do. When it came to the next step I was all thumbs. I'd be focused on my work, show her what I had done & even she couldn't figure it out. It was way too much work & very little to show for it. So I gave up, stashed my yarn & needles away with the thought of future attempts. Like I said that was two years ago. I haven't picked it up since. The only reason it was within my children's reach was I had tried selling it at the yard sale. They {and I mean Michael} must have gone digging through a box and found the new 'toy'. So I picked up what was left of the ball of yarn & did about 20 laps around through the kitchen, sometimes only going halfway, untangling & turning around to wind it up some more. Fortunately there weren't too many tangles but I can tell he definitely had fun. And I am certain his sissy wasn't too far behind leaving a trail of yarn herself. I can't remember even half of the messes I caused for my parents but from what I can remember I'm sure I'm in for it. Between poopy prints through the house, attempting my own haircut, gum in the hair, insisting that if the round brush can be rolled into the hair surely it can be unrolled {it can't - don't try it!}, drawing on things I shouldn't and who knows what else - I've got it coming. So far my kids have painted with poop & Michael has drawn with markers where markers don't belong. If only messes of yarn was the worst of it. Sorry for the blurry photos - my digital is on the fritz. Thanks for stopping by - I'll be posting a Masterpiece Monday tomorrow {redundant, I know} and for Talk About Tuesday I have a junk drawer follow up - I'm sure you're on pins & needles in anticipation. ;) Hope you had a great weekend! Oh and those boxes you see in the first photo was leftover from the yard sale, you'll be happy to know they aren't there any longer, the mirror has also been moved to my bedroom & well, the table still has frames on it but I'm working on it.

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Smart Habit Saturday {week 1 October}

I am finally ready to jump back into SMARTness. I really need to get back into a more regular routine. I've gotten a lot accomplished at the new house and am excited about it but I really need to get back on track with the daily maintenance of things. I need to make adjustments to my schedule and plan would like to start planning out a week or two ahead of time. It's really easy for me to become a hermit, especially with hubby gone, so if I schedule things I'm more likely to get out of the house. This week I'm sticking to my same habits, not adding anything because it's been a while. The one habit I've done very well at (though Joe's Goals has flat lined) is organizing one space a day (or more!). I'd like to keep that one going as a regular thing, not just result of moving and unpacking. Click on the picture to visit the Lazy Organizer & other SMARTy pants out there.

On another topic, I'm so very excited about the fall season! We're finally out of the 80-90* temps and cooling down. I'm sure it will get colder here than what I'm used to in California, but that's fine by me. I love dressing in layers and wearing sweaters and scarves. And I eyed a cute pair of boots the other day so I think there's a little shopping trip in my future. Today we are going to a fall festival just off post, but it is a post sponsored event. There will be hay & pony rides, bouncers, souvenir photos and free pumpkins to decorate with the kids. We are meeting up with another friend and her daughter so having the company will be nice. I'm sure the kids will have a ball. I'll be going to another pumpkin patch & decorating party with my mommy group in a couple weeks and our community office is hosting a Halloween festival so that should be fun for the kids as well. I ♥ fall!

I want to say thanks to everyone who has left me such wonderful comments recently. I really do appreciate the encouragement & support. I'm going to try doing better at responding to comments in the comment section myself. I'm so glad that so many people were inspired by my de-junk drawer plan and wish I could invite each of you over for lunch or coffee & give you a tour of the new house. I am really excited about it, can you tell? :P

I hope you all have a great weekend, thanks for stopping by. Check back this week for a post about payback & boo!

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Feeling Like Home

Just short of two weeks later & part of the house is photo ready! I have never moved this quickly in a move - ever. So I'm really excited about it. I started hanging pictures two days ago & am just about done in the main space, still have one wall above the dining table to figure out. The bathroom is always the first room I do because it's so easy, hang a shower curtain & put up a couple things - voila a finished room! Having one space complete usually motivates me to start on another space. Hanging pictures or art is one thing I've never felt I was very good at. It just never seems to look right. After browsing the internet, gotta love google, I found some helpful websites (listed at bottom of the post) & figured out some things I was doing wrong - wrong for me anyway. I was hanging stuff too high, putting lots of space between items and not trusting my eye. (Disclaimer: I don't think there's a 'rule' or only one way to do things, it all comes down to your own style/preference) Oh and in the picture above, Michael is hammering a nail in the wall - a real nail with his wooden toy hammer. Sorry for fuzzy picture, I'm hoping to get a new camera soon! So this is the bathroom. It's not yellow looking like that, I forgot to open the window to let in some natural light. To the right is the double vanity with lots of storage underneath (still need containers to keep things tidy), the open doorway - that goes to our bedroom (I took the picture from the hallway) to the left is the shower & linen closet.

This was the next grouping of pictures I hung. Before these were much higher above the buffet & more spread out. Now they are at eye level - so you can actually see the prints & tell the time. I'd like to do more with the buffet itself since I don't really use it to serve off of, I thought a floral arrangement would be nice but I'm sure it will likely stay like that unless there's clutter stacked.
This is the next photo grouping I did. One of the websites suggested laying out things for a collage on the floor before hanging them up to avoid having 1000 nail holes in your wall. With two little ones I couldn't put them on the floor but my table worked just fine. I added a couple more this afternoon and can see that I need to make a couple adjustments with frames that are too close. And I'm not sure that I like the collage frame with the rest, it may be too busy, so that's probably going to find another home. But overall I really like how it looks. The weaved yarn thing hanging & small embroidered owl (you can't see it well in this photo) my stepmom picked up at a yard sale & everyone laughed that I liked it. I like how they add texture & a pop of color in the frames. I've got pictures of almost all our immediate family. Still need to get some pictures from people, change out some pics & add a couple frames possibly but it will be fun when it's all done.
This is a snapshot of the main living space. The photo collage is on the wall behind the couch but there's 3-4 feet between the couch & wall so the TV wouldn't be 20 feet away from the couch. I still need to arrange the frames on the TV unit but it's better than when they were stacked up. Oh & I also hung up some photos on the wall you first see when you walk in the house. I'll have to do a video tour & see if I can figure out how to upload the video to the blog. I can give you a silent tour because my camera doesn't record sound. There's still plenty I want to get for the main space like curtains, a recliner (for my hubby), a large plant to fill the space (& keep the baby from the power strip) between the TV unit & computer, and some floating shelves but I'm happy with how it's coming along so far.

Thanks for stopping by, I'm hoping to post more photos soon.

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Helpful sites:

How Do I Hang Pictures?
How To Hang & Display Your Pictures
DIY: How To Hang Pictures
How To Hang Pictures & Displaying Art

Talk About Tuesday - my junk drawer

The Lazy Organizer has started a new blogging carnival of sorts, you can read the details of Talk About Tuesday here. I'm going to try keeping my posts focused to organizing/household type of things - may just motivate me to keep organizing & decorating.

This week I'm talking about my junk drawer & my plan to take it down! I get so frustrated trying to sort through the misc hodge podge of items that don't seem to have a 'home' just to find a pen or tape or whatever it is I'm looking for. Regular readers know that I've recently moved. I decided to approach the move with the goal of purging items and getting more organized. I think The Lazy Organizer & The Organizing Junkie have rubbed off on me. I was at Wal*Mart looking for drip pans to replace on the old stuff & somehow ended up in an aisle full of all sorts of containers (wonder how that happened? :P ). I was a little overwhelmed & very excited about it all but showed some restraint & decided it would be best to measure my spaces first & evaluate what my needs are. Anyways, back to the junk drawer. I found my solution! (Still need to take measurements to be sure it will fit.) Isn't it fabulous? The best part? It comes with directions - sorda. Can you see the outline of scissors below the scissors? It's fool proof. I'm figuring that if I have something in my junk drawer that doesn't have a picture I need to find it a home outside of the junk drawer, or put it in a spot where I don't have the item that matches the picture. Like I don't have those tiny scissors & 20 little spools of thread. I can't wait to show you a picture when it's actually in my house. I found this picture on Organize-It, you can also order one online.

Click on the Talk About Tuesday banner for more chat.

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Catching Up

Yes, I am back. I didn't post right away because honestly I was overwhelmed by the over 200 e-mails I had, catching up on my message board and reading what all (or most, sorry if I haven't made it to you yet! I will!) of you have been up to. Oh & the e-mails, mostly notifications to the freecycle.org site I signed up with, blog reader subscriptions, message board updates & some e-mails that somehow made it past my SPAM filter notifying me that I miraculously won some lottery in the UK!

So the move went pretty smoothly all things considered. There ended up being 3 trucks, a trailer & my SUV to move things over and it was all done in 2 loads and finished in about 3 hours thanks to the 6 people that showed up to help me out. Oh & we were even brought lunch mid moving so it was great. I've unpacked most things, still have a few boxes to go through and will be organizing & decorating soon - I hope! I'm having a yard sale on Saturday, it's a post wide thing so there will be a lot of people out shopping. So far I have about 4 good size boxes of stuff to sell along with a few larger items.

The new house is great! It's all newly renovated and painted nice - still have grocery store tile but all housing on post (here at least) does. My kitchen has much more counter space (though much of it is still cluttered) and good cabinets (minus the pantry cabinet without shelves but I'll get that fixed soon). I have a separate laundry room which means it's no longer in my kitchen & I don't hear the machines going, plus there's more storage space because the room is large enough. We did lose one hall closet but the bedroom closets are larger so it's not such a loss. The main bathroom has a doorway to the hall & master bedroom, double vanity & good storage. The second bathroom is between the kids rooms so for now I don't have to clean that often & I won't be kicking squeaky toys out of the way when I take a shower. I don't have photos of the house to show you yet but soon!

As you can imagine I've been missing my husband - a lot. (The picture above is taken of us the day he left - before all the tears). I have talked to him a few times, received a couple of e-mails and even got to instant message a couple of times. He is doing well and has arrived at his final destination in Iraq. I appreciate the prayers, encouragement & support that you all have shown. There have been a few times when I've especially missed having my husband here doing the things husbands do. Like when I was cleaning at the old house (all done by the way) and the wheel popped off of the lawnmower and wouldn't start up after replacing said wheel. I kicked the fence! I know that I am capable of doing some 'man' work, I just don't enjoy it. I did learn something over the weekend though - rewiring a dryer isn't as hard as it sounds, no wire stripping and/or twisting copper wires together. I had to buy a new plug for our dryer because ours was a three prong and the outlet is a four prong. Below is a post all about it if you are interested.

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