Be Back Soon...

We are taking the month of October to unplug and connect as a family and with the Lord.  Be back in November.

THE FACES OF CLUTTER

About once a year we end up having a yard sale.  And every year it is always the same.  Pick a weekend.  Have a hard time gearing up to get motivated to fill boxes and empty the house.  But there is always a defining moment. 

The moment when the first item is tossed into the box that will not be coming back in.  Tossing leads to more tossing.  You start to see empty shelves and that is really when the ante gets upped. 

It feels fabuloso to fill up brown boxes of things I haven't been using.  The things that I don't 100% still love today get the boot. 

It forces me to look at my home with fresh eyes. 

If I see something and decide I really do still love it then it forces me to find a home for that thing.

Yesterday I headed into my kitchen and started opening cabinet doors and pulling open drawers and tossing things into my box with abandon.  It was in the middle of my kitchen decluttering spree that I realized some things.

I have problems letting go of my name brand clutter.

Talbots

Pottery Barn

Pampered Chef

Ralph Lauren

You show me a name brand label and I'll show you a girl who has a hard time letting it go.

Then you have the sentimental clutter.

Wedding gifts

Birthday gifts

Kids things that have good memories attached to them

The steal you found on that something at that yard sale

My wedding dress

Then you have the skinny version of you clutter.

All those cute little t-shirts that don't fit right now?  Mmm hmmm, yeah Kool-Aid t-shirt I'm talking about you.

 

I have found that if I have a motivator it helps me release some things that may otherwise be hard to let go of.  So, I give you my recliner I am working towards.

 

 

 

This chair is cute and comfy.  For years I have wanted a chair like this.  It rocks, swivels, reclines, and dusts baseboards on demand.  This beauty is my motivation to let some of the good stuff go so that I can have something better.  Every time I pick up something that is pretty but not useful to me anymore, I think of my purty chair and in the box the pretty something  goes.

Homemade Baby Food

You know how some afternoons you just decide you are going to go for it and try your hand at making homemade baby food for the very first time ever?  Yeah, that was me yesterday.

I didn't have a book or anything.  Just some fresh produce and a blender.  Have you ever seen Fresh Produce clothing?  Oh my gosh it is so cute.  And comfortable.  And probably healthy for you to wear.

I added a small amount of water to make my dish blendable and it really worked!

I liked being able to control what went into my baby food.  I did not peel the apples and tossed them in with the seeds.  It was so pretty to see red flecks of apple peel in the food.

After freezing them in the ice tray, I popped them into a freezer bag labeled:

 

September 2014

spinach, apple, banana

So how did the baby like her homemade baby food?

She was all smiles and told me she could not wait to try the Beef Bourguignon.

I'll never forget watching Anna Duggar make homemade green beans for her precious baby.  Boy did I ever think she was a rock-star mama who loved her baby a little more than I loved mine.  I mean, she was feeding her baby real green beans while I was feeding mine Vegetable Turkey Dinner made by some lady named Gerber.

 

I am thankful that I don't have to make my own stuff every single time, but it does bring me joy to serve good things to the people I love.

 

It feels so good to feed the people we love good things doesn't it?

 



Tonight the rest of us are having Pioneer Woman's Calzones for dinner with a spinach salad.  Mwah!

The Market

We have a new grocery store in town called the Neighborhood Market.  It took me a few times to decide if I liked it or not.  At first, I really did not want to try it.  I hate going to the Super Center.  Like, really, really, really despise having to go inside.  The people are rude, it is busy, it is generally just an unpleasant experience every single time.  When our nice Kroger opened I began shopping there.  It is also busy but the people are so much more friendly which is worth it for me, especially when I am shopping with babies in tow.

I am ready to make an official statement regarding the Market.

I love shopping at this store!

It is so nice.  Here is what I love about it.

It is small.  Small means there is not every imaginable organic option available.  It is less overwhelming for me.  I can get in and out in a jiffy.  The aisles seem shorter than the big Kroger and the Super Center.  I just whip up and down the aisles grabbing what I need.  There have been several times when I was in and out in 23 minutes flat having spent less than $100 for groceries that would last about 5 days.

It is cute inside.  There is a nice and warm feel inside the store.  Some call it new.  It is new but it also has a charming feel.

It is super clean.  I mean, it is immaculate.  And the shelves are always perfectly stocked and lined in neat little perfect rows.  For my fellow OCD friends you will find this aspect of the Market therapeutic. 

They sell Wal-Martish things.  You know what I'm saying?  Toothpaste, shampoo, baby wipes, Benadryl, etc...this means I can have the smaller grocery store experience, the lower prices, and get the things I usually had to go to the Super Center for, all in the convenience of this one stop.

Did I already tell you it is waaaayyyy less crowded than the big grocery stores?  I really am enjoying this factor and have noticed how it takes stress off of me when it is more calm inside the store.

The only cons I have found are regarding the meat situation.  There is no deli at The Market, so it is Oscar Meyer or bust.  I also have a thing with Wal-Mart meat.  As in I don't buy it.  Here is how this is playing out.

I'm going to the Market once a week for the main grocery trip run.  This includes breakfast and lunch fixin's as well the other ingredients for the recipes I'll be making that week.  After about 5 days I go to Kroger for meat, more produce, more milk and bread.  This week we are having left-over Italian Beef Sandwiches, Pioneer Woman Calzone's, Train Wreck, and we're grilling burgers one night.

Here is a picture of my Market trip yesterday.  If you haven't tried it you may want to give it a few shots.  If you are like me it may take a trip or two to really decide how you feel about the Market.  It has officially become my main grocery store and I just absolutely love shopping there!

And to address the elephant in the room-No I do not go get a shake at Chick-fil-A when I am done shopping and sit in an air conditioned van reading a book before I go home.

FULL DISCLOSURE

If I may, I need to be completely honest about a few things.

I talked in English class and passed notes and generally did not pay attention. 

You need to know that up front. 

You may also want to know that I love to over-Capitalize random words that I feel are Important.  There is something in my DNA that feels strongly about capitalizing many, many words that say your average Joe may not feel the need to Capitalize.

I thought about trying to write on my blog in all lower case or all caps so that you wouldn't catch on to my problem, but with auto-correct and what not it would have been too time consuming and/or confusing for my brain to process.

You may also be interested in my over use of the comma. 

Oh comma how I love thee.

Generally speaking I also over use the hyphen and ellipsis.

I have absolutely no earthly idea what to do with my semi-colon friend but I have found him useful in emoticon winking.

As long as you are good with all of This, and oh how I Hope you are, then we should be good.

My Commas Anonymous support group assured me that if I just got it all out on the table it would diffuse potential frustration on everyone's part.

Oh, and I am homeschooling my children.

Awesome.

NOTHIN' BUT CLASS

I am running a super classy state of the art operation over here.  I really am.  I am impeccable with the details because the details are what matters when are opening your home.

I really want you to feel welcomed from the moment you arrive.  In fact, I want you to feel so welcome that I will grab paper and crayon and craft a personal note just for you and tape it to the front door.

I will even include instructional ways to enter my home so that you do not get injured in the process, because I am telling you, it is the details that matter.

p.s. use the pot holder
p.s.s. nothin' but class

I care about you so much that I will put a pot holder on the door handle that heats up to a gazillion point eight degrees thanks to the western sun.

Today I just wanted to make sure you know what you are getting into if you choose to hang with me.  I like to give tips on what works and I always try to keep it a little bit on the ghetto side.

WHERE WE DO OUR LESSONS

We are all loving our new school year. We ordered our new material and began at the end of May.  That was not an overachiever move on my part, it was a "we had a really slow-rough-didn't get too much done" year last year so when I was up and running from the baby we were all ready to dive right back in.

And by "we were all ready to dive back in" I mean-me! 

This is our fifth year of homeschooling.  Five years.  The beauty of another year is that God continues to build layers of what He wants our days to look like.  I am feeling more and more confident in my ability to step out and teach things that are not listed on paper that someone else planned for me.

It is liberating for sure.

We have had such a tailor made learning experience so far this year.

I have not felt like a failure!  Neither have the boys!

My comfy chair is where much of my teaching takes place.  Kids piled on couches under blankets.  The little guy usually sits at the dining table building Legos so his hands can be busy and he can listen while he builds.

Since reading out loud together is a majority of our learning experience, it made all the sense in the world to move the book basket to the fireplace.  It is so much more comfortable for us all to settle in for some good stories when we are in the living room.

The disciplined studies which include the English-y and math things happen at the kitchen table.

Where does your family do the majority of your lessons? 

When you think through your schooling needs don't be afraid to think outside of the box.  When I moved most of our school books to the living room it made it so easy for me to grab a book and share a lesson with the kids.