under construction, please excuse our mess.....

i just wanted to say that i am in the process of transforming some things on the blog and it may look a little strange and out of sorts for the next few days or weeks depending on how easy the things i want to change actually are east to change.....insert laugh, possibly even hysterical laughing for being crazy enough to attempt this myself....hehehe!!!!  i will be posting pics later today (or it may not get done until tomorrow) of some of the projects that i worked on for spring while on vacation....as well as some just plain beautiful pics that i took of local scenery and greenery....have a great day and thank you for excusing my mess......... :)

heather

my day 1 of the organize challenge~junk drawer

so i am a little late in getting on board with the 21 days of getting organized with a bowl full of lemons....but better late than never, right....  ;0)   so the first day of the challenge, challenged us to tackle that lovely junk drawer.....i feel like my junk drawer is every drawer in my house lately, but i chose the worst one of them all and it's in my kitchen...no judging please....

my before....

all the contents...

i actually cleaned it out, but looking at this it really doesn't look much better....

don't judge me, i tried....all the batteries are not for emergencies like you might think, but they are for the addiction that hubby and son have to their x-box wireless remote.....they are sorted by whether they have been used or not too....not my system, theirs....lol....well, it's off to see what the next challenge will be for me in my lil abode.....
linking this post to a bowl full of lemons 21 day challenge....hop on over to see how others are succeeding...
h

Really not feeling 2011 yet.....

Okay, I am going to be probably the most honest i have ever, ever been on the blog before....so here goes....
thus far, 2011 has been one of interesting discoveries....let's just say that it has been nothing that i thought it would be and probably is the point....i feel God is truly shaping and refining our family (me) in this season of my life,not all the details are clear just yet, but there is that saying...."in God's perfect timing"  which yes, i know is very true!
ok, let's just start off with the fact that this year Christmas was very different and i mean in the way of spiritually and emotionally....not in the decor, food, gifts, family, etc...you get the point....but why it was so different is what has been very hard for me.  God has been really moving my family in a direction that at some point is going to be very uncomfortable to a lot of our friends and even perhaps family....we, as in hubby and I, have felt God moving us toward something different than what/where we currently are in at this point in our life....i won't share just yet, but let's just say, it will require some life adjustments....
i also, am struggling with the direction to go career wise since i will be finishing and graduating school in August....(it was July, but due to some changes in the program, it has been pushed out a month....i am not very happy about this either, but i can do nothing to change it)  I felt God leading me into a specific career choice when i went back to school, hence the reason i went back in the first place, b...your enemy the devil prowls arounf like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour...ut am not feeling that so much now...
there has been a lot of emotional stuff going on with friends and family too.....several deaths of dear friends and or their loved ones (some i will see in heaven one day, others i am just not sure about which breaks my heart), friends getting news they weren't expecting and learning how to cope and deal, and lots of family issues going on not only for friends, but my family too....it's CRAZY!  Actually, no it's called the DEVIL!  He is all about doing anything and everything he can to just feel so ick and guilty over our pasts, our present, or whatever he can to make us doubt God and His love for us!

...your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. resist him, standing firm in the faith, b/c you know what your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings....1 peter 5:8b-9

All i can say is I really am ready for 2011 to be over already....yes, i know that sounds bad probably, but it is how my heart and brain feel at the moment....to me it feels like 2011 is going in hyperspeed compared to last year...perhaps that's just me, but all the same, i want it to SSSSLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWW down or for me to wake up and it be 2012.  yes, i know that i am weird, crazy, insane...these are things i hear all the time, so it really doesn't offend me....lol......maybe it would do me some good to sit in a padded room for just one weekend and hang out....that would slow my life down, right?!?
So, now that i have depressed you with my first post of 2011, i will apologize for unloading on you!  I do have something that i am going to try and commit to doing and that is making a sorta resolution for the year...i do not make resolutions b/c i know that i will make the same ones i made the year before and by the time superbowl weekend rolls around, i break every last one of them!  I am going to make an honest effort at getting my house organized this year....(if you hear laughing and can't figure out where it's coming from, it's my hubby laughing hysterically at this thought)....see i used to be very OCD about organization and planning, but about 3 years ago the company i worked for was supposed to merge with another company, but at the eleventh hour it didn't happen....long story short, our owner closed our company and filed bankruptcy leaving almost 100 employees without jobs or even so much as a goodbye....i was crushed needless to say since i loved what i did and had been there for 7 years....anyway, i started working somewhere else where i really didn't need to be as organized or OCD about planning and guess what, my house went to pot....so, i am really gonna try to get back into the frame of mind of organization and planning again, but hopefully without the OCD part this time...(yeah right says the little voice in my head)....
so, i will leave you with this lovely quote from a movie i recently watched that gave me a lot of perspective about little of me and my life....

"ruin is the road to transformation"

so out of the ruins i will come, a transformed and new creation!

view of valley of a thousand hills in south africa....one of  my fav places!

Family Calendar

After seeing so many cute ideas for a central family calendar, I jumped on the bandwagon myself...I looked around my house to see what i could use and found a frame that one of my former neighbors gave me when she was moving.....it is painted brown, which I am thinking about changing to maybe white so that when I hang it against my wall it won't fade away......
If I change the frame color I will have to re-print this onto another color paper, but that is easy...so here it is....

Sorry it's in such a random color...my camera must be in a different color mode...i will have to take a look at that later....the nice thing about this is that it will work for any month since you use dry erase markers on it.....my kids like November b/c they can see when they are off from school.... :)  I will try to get better pic tonight and re-post, but for today, this is as good as it gets....happy wednesday :)
h 
I am linking to these Wednesday Linky parties...so go and check out what's going on in blogland....
Whatever goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts 
Show us what you're workin with at Me and My Bucket 
Make it Yours Day at My Backyard Eden 
Hoo's Got Talent? at Night Owl Crafting 

my pantry makeover....

ok, before you judge me for my before pictures, let me explain....the hubby and children have a horrible habit of grabbing something and never returning it to the same place!  Let me just say that never is not an understatement either :)  
So here are the before.....

As you can see, it's a disaster....no organization at all!

Here are the after, much better and look at her in all her perfection!  By the way, my hubby says it's a little to Sleeping with the Enemy for him....mmmwwwaaaaahhhhh, hhhhaaaaa, hhaaaa........i may resemble that remark just a tinsy bit.....

If you have children, no matter the age, hang a shoe organizer on your pantry door and put their snack items at a level they can reach so that you don't have to worry about them trying to climb to reach something if they are impatient.....i cannot take credit for the idea, i saw this on an old episode of martha stewart from several years ago...







i am linking up to Sugar Bee

Decorating, Organizing and Panicing

As I sit at my office this morning staring at the calendar, it hits me that I have not yet purchased a single Christmas gift....gasp! There are only 116 days until it gets here....a huge gasp at this point! Now while I am not the kind of person who runs out and purchases lots of gifts for every person, I do try to buy things here and there that I think my children or hubby would like. Apparently this has slipped my mind this year...laughing at myself for thinking holidays would be a breeze even though I am working full-time and going to school full-time....yes, I am a tad delusional....moving on to a more positive note. I have been totally inspired by Decor Chick's fall decorating tips decorchick.com ...check out what she's done...i couldn't believe how simple and beautiful these were, so I have made a few myself and am thinking I may have just solved my Christmas gift dilemma.... I also began my organization extravaganza as I like to call it. I must admit that I have been very slack in this department all summer, but with the kids now back at school I had to begin again...I started in my kitchen, which in hindsight am not sure why, but I did. I have decided to make the desk in our kitchen, that usually collects junk, into our homework/craft station. I am cleaning out the cabinet above the desk and putting back in it only school supplies and craft things that the kids will use most often. I got this idea from another blog that I frequent, but for the life of me can't remember which one it was. It isn't quite finished yet, but hopefully it will be by the end of Labor Day weekend. Speaking of Labor Day weekend...I have all these grand plans for painting an accent wall in my living room and possibly some of the furniture that is currently there, but am still on the fence about the furniture. Back to my rant about this weekend...I didn't want to worry about the kids or the hubby being in the house, but thanks to Hurricane Earl swirling our way, I think them being able to be outside is probably wishful thinking at this point....ugh! I can see it now, me and my wonderful surrogate momma S on ladders trying to paint my cathedral height wall with two kids wanting to help....insert speech bubble with Dennis the Menace covered in paint floating over my head....ahh, the price of living at the beach.... Ok, I have ranted enough for today, but I will have my pics up of before and afters hopefully by Monday, weather permitting, that is...laughing as I go!