More stuff I've been working on...

I've been busy making stuff to put in my shop. Now that my craft room is clean, it's much more enjoyable to craft in there! Who'd a thunk it?? :)

Check out my Etsy store... the link is right over there ----> 

What I have been working on

Here are some new items I have been working on.

Goals are meant to be broken, right?

So I set this goal for myself to blog everyday. Well it's already been broken.

I have such a habit of that! Maybe I should make a goal like "My goal is to break this goal in 2 weeks". Now there's a goal I could keep. Or would I?

Hmmm....

We haven't really been doing anything around the house lately. At least nothing exciting.

I have been working on bows and hair clips. I'll post them here tomorrow if I remember.

OH! I do have a picture of Lilly from the other night at dinner that I think you will enjoy.

You're welcome. :)

Complete opposites - Wordless Wednesday

Can you spot the kid?

We have a speedway in our house and it is incredibly LOUD.


Can you see my little speeders?

I'm sorry, what? I didn't hear you. There is a race going on right now. 

There's one of them! Do you like her ripped up pants and mismatched stripes?

She stopped long enough to pick up her pillow pet and then it was back to the speeding.

I bet my neighbors just love me.

...And the after pictures

Now this is what I am talking about! I can't tell you how much better I feel just by getting rid of all that junk!

The only thing left that I have to do is shred a bunch of personal mail that I have been putting off.

That's it!

I had coffee and doughnuts for breakfast Monday and I think that's the only thing that kept me going.

I got rid of so much stuff that there is now an echo in here.

I like it. I think I'll keep that echo.

From the living room looking toward the back door

From the back door looking toward the living room

From the back door looking towards the dining room and kitchen

From the corner with the lamp looking toward the back door

From the corner with the TV looking toward the front door

Another view from the dining room into the living room

From my desk looking toward the living room and hall

So there you have it.

Better, no?

And it only took about 5 hours from start to finish and that includes the trip to the donation center.

Living room before pictures aka "Don't Judge Me"

A little warning about these pictures.

They are terrible. Do not call CPS or the show hoarders.

I am embarrassed at how bad they look - BUT - there is 3 rooms worth of clutter in these pictures. The kids room, the craft room AND this room.

I can promise you, the after pictures are going to be AWESOME!

From the dining room looking toward the back door

From the back door looking toward the living room

From the back door looking toward the dining room and kitchen

From the corner with the lamp looking toward the back door

From the corner with the TV looking towards the front door

And the after shots...

From the door looking into the room

Looking to the right from the doorway

Standing in the corner by the lamp looking toward the other corner

Standing in the corner with the sewing machine looking toward the door

I know it doesn't look all that much better than the before picture, but trust me. It is SO much better. There is more room in there now and that is always a plus!

Before we put the bed in here I had room for a large table which I took my pictures on, my ironing board AND my fabric bin. But now all that stuff is either hidden or in another room of the house.

So now I am off to tackle the living room.

Then after that will be the dining room and kitchen. The kitchen has so many dirty dishes piled in the sink! GAH! I hate that! I run the dishwasher at least once a day and before I can even Caitlin unloads it, there is already a sink full of dirty dishes. Does it ever end???

My guess is no.

Fresh bread, coffee and time-outs

Monday morning started out fabulously. I set my bread machine the night before so I could have some cinnamon bread first thing in the morning. Let me just tell y'all...Waking up to bread baking has to be one of the most happy inducing smells EVER! Let's not forget the coffee maker that was starting to brew my first cup of the day as well. My house had never smelled so good in the morning!

Once the kids got up and moving around, my house literally felt like a circus. No one woke up as happy as I did. Maybe one day they will realize what an awesome smell fresh bread and coffee is first thing in the morning.

Since they have been awake, there have been 85,634 fights with just as many time-outs.

Kicking, pulling hair, stepping on fingers and calling names all before 11am.

Can I go back to bed?

Lilly and her crayon lipstick

Spare bedroom/craft room decluttering!

I had big plans for rearranging my desk area (in the living room) that would allow me to work on my bows and sewing without it taking up any space in the spare bedroom. That didn't work out. It was too cluttered in the living room so I set up a temporary work station at the dining room table.

Uh... that was not the smartest idea I have ever had.

Oh what a mess it was. It was one of those messes that was SO bad, that when you heard a knock at the door, you only cracked it to see who it was. I took a picture with my cell phone to send to Chris and I think he nearly had a heart attack.

Y'all... it was B.A.D.

When he came home over New Years, I quickly shoved all my bow supplies into the spare room. Hey at least I could close the door and not look at the mess right?

Well until we have company at least. Which actually will be in about 2 weeks. Oops.

I don't have a before picture but this drawing is so dramatically life like that it's practically a professional photograph.

See... told you it looked real. Also please note the thickness of the walls is absolutely to scale.

Anyway, I have been working on this thing all week trying to get organized. I am to the point where I just want to throw stuff away or donate most of it. Which is a GOOD thing.

Chris is a pack-rat. I am kinda like a pack-mouse. Not as bad as the rat.. yet. I don't want to get as bad as the pack-rat. I do not want y'all seeing me on Hoarders anytime soon so tossing stuff out is a very good thing.

Y'all I had ribbon in my stash that was umpteen years old and guess what? It STILL had the plastic wrapper covering it. I never used any of it. Toss. Some crafter who stumbles on all my ribbon down at the Salvation Army Store is gonna be one happy person.

I have about 3 more hours of work to do in there but when I am done it is going to look so much better. I'll be sure and post an after pic!

I have BIG plans for the rest of the house too. Decluttered by the end of the weekend!

Not clean, just decluttered.

Forget horses, my kids ride zebras - Wordless Wednesday

The kids at the Zoo

Lilly doesn't like smiling. Obviously.

Sophie will smile on queue. Always.

Caitlin being silly. I think she may have broken the zebra. Don't tell the zoo. Kthx.

Watch out! Momma's cleaning house!

I have a post ready for today but I didn't like that it was another whiny post. I need to stop doing that!

I'm working on de-cluttering the whole house. It is a disaster!

We have an abundance of stuff which is a big reason why I have been whiny. I can't see how blessed we are because we have too much. I resent the stuff we have.

Seriously, we have TOO much JUNK.

Throwing away and donating feels so much better than looking at the stuff piling up.

I can already feel a huge weight being lifted from my shoulders.

and that is a GOOD thing :)

Sophie chatting with the stick in the t-ball holder. Gosh I love that kid.

What's with all the inefficiency?

This is a truckers wife rant, if you don't want to hear it, feel free to hit the back button.

Today was just one of those days. Those days that I absolutely hate my husbands job.

He has been gone for a week and a half now. He was stuck in TN for a few days and then sent on a wild goose chase to find his new truck. The truck was in NC, over 6 hours away.

Luckily his new partner had his car with him so they were able to drive to the truck instead of taking a bus. They get to the truck and it obviously has been in some sort of wreck. Now they have to drive the truck somewhere to get it fixed before they can even accept a load. Not to mention they have an expired IFTA sticker. That means when his company finds out, they will have him drive all the way back to the terminal and pick up the stickers and paperwork. More wasted time

I will never understand how an industry that deals with time sensitive deliveries, has no concern for a drivers time. One department doesn't have a clue what the other department is doing. They have trucks and trailers just scattered around and don't have a clue where they are.

One department told Chris the truck was good to go, meaning everything was in order and once they get to the truck, they would be ready to roll. Another department said they had the truck flagged as needing work done before it could be put back into the fleet. Still another department said that the truck just had maintenance done but that it was still flagged for some reason as needing maintenance.

Why do they not have a program that allows them to bring up all the info needed on a particular truck. Why does one department say one thing and others say something completely different? Why is an industry that prides itself on being efficient when getting you your product, so inefficient in the way they keep track of their business?

I know I haven't been around the business long enough to know the in and outs of it, but I will tell you this. I worked in the mortgage business for over 5 years as a loan processor. The largest pipeline I ever had was somewhere close to 250 mortgages. That's 250 mortgages that I was responsible for at any one time. I ran a tight ship and knew EXACTLY where a piece of paper was in a file that was as thick as a phone book. I was efficient.

I had to be!!

Being inefficient wasn't an option. I have to wonder, is every trucking company like this? Do they not know what is going on between departments? How can a company survive with such inefficiency?

See, told you this was a rant. But I sure feel better after getting all that out.

Saturday with the kids

On Saturday I took the kids to the park for a picnic and some much needed play time. It was a GORGEOUS day outside and there was no way I was staying indoors!

I took my camera and made sure the battery was charged and do you know I didn't take one picture. We got to the park and started to eat when everyone decided they had to go potty. Figures. Luckily I had some diapers in the car so I slapped a couple on the little ones. I don't think they ever went in them though. Anyway we finished eating and then came straight home.

The park was packed and I don't think I would have been able to keep an eye on them both AND take pictures. We settled for our little neighborhood playground and they loved it just as much. Play time was cut a little short when Lilly got a splinter, but after all that running they were pretty worn out.

Back in December we drove down to St. Augustine to see the Night of Lights display they have. Oh my word it was packed. They had the main roads closed off so we couldn't even get close enough to take pictures. Lucky for me they keep the lights up until the end of January!

We decided to take a little ride down there Saturday night and look at the lights sans crowds and road blocks. This is definitely the way to do it! There was so little traffic, I was able to stop on the road and get some pretty good shots.

This was NOT one of them. :) I was going to delete this one but Caitlin likes how it looks, so it stays.

We were going to ride the carousel, but the sign clearly says no pets allowed.

Look Out Cat Woman

This is Lilly. Or as I lovingly call her, Silly Lilly. Here's why.

She cracks me up on a daily basis. Her sense of fashion is eclectic to say the least. I need to remember to take some pictures of the outfits she like to wear when we go out shopping. The girl marches to her own drummer that's for sure. I love that about her.

Drawing a dinosaur.

She's showing me how the dinosaur walks.

She is totally rockin' the cat eye glasses.

Random Foto Friday

I recently found a disk containing some pictures from my husbands laptop.

I found LOTS of pictures I had forgotten about. I thought I would share some today.

Aren't you lucky? :)

I can't imagine why I never posted this picture. Isn't it lovely?

Chris likes to teach the girls to NOT be scared of bugs. Cause I am a big ol' chicken when it comes to creatures like this. 

Welcome to Jacksonville. 

Good thing they caught up to her. I was too busy taking pictures obviously. 

The first picture was zoomed in. Here you can see how far she ran from us. She's a fast little booger. 

 

Some restaurant Chris ate at while on the road.

Sunrise somewhere in the U.S. 

Sunset somewhere in U.S. I think this is somewhere in KY or TN. I know I have seen this cross before.

How's this for random. I have lots of pictures to go through. Chris has taken lots over the past year, but some just are too blurry.