Productivity Challenge Week # 3

 I would rather post photo's of my worn out lunch room lady bra's than show this mess but it's what's required to get in the drawing for Carla's cute prize!! This is my scrap/sewing room as you are looking in the door.

 And a view from the back side of the room.

 The closet is just as bad.

 DD# 1 is redecorating her dinning room and was ready to put this side board to the curb. I have it as far as the short hallway upstairs to possibly be added as storage to my "Room of Sin"

And here is where my fellow bloggers come in. This is the start of "The Traveling Sewing Box" I am putting together.

How bad is this mess? I think an award should go out to whoever has the biggest, ugliest mess to clean up this month, I would give you other ladies a run for your money!!!! I took the before photo's at the end of January after I knew this challenge would be starting. Since that time I have worked an hour or two here and there getting started on this craziness. I am NO WHERE near done, but progress has been made.

 My room had lots of problem area's that was making clean up a nightmare where the sewing came in. The scrapbook supplies are easy to keep up with and put away, not so much on the sewing. When I added sewing to this room I didn't give enough thought to how I was setting it up and how I would use the space. Basically I am a TO GO quilter/sewing goddess. I had thought I would do most of the sewing in this room but when I branched out to quilting the counter space was just not big enough, pins and carpet don't go well together and fabrics I had bought for quilts were getting mixed in with stash fabric. 

For the most part sewing goes on at the kitchen table, when I am finished with a quilt or project I throw it in the room (literaly) and pull the next project  out. With what I have learned about how I work from scrapbooking for so many years I think I have a handle on how the room needs to be organized and set up.

For the next week I will update the progress, some has already been done but lots more will be happening this week. I am also helping DD#1 organize herself  for going back to work :( 2 weeks earlier than we expected. It's gonna be a crazy busy week.

Now here is where you guys come in, as I am sorting and orginizing I have been asking around if anyone I know would like a little fabric, patterns or how to books, not to many takers I am sad to say. Over the weekend I ran into what I thought was a brilliant idea over here  http://hoosiertoni.blogspot.com/   Check out her post from Friday. I have started putting back fabric for my "Traveling Sewing Box" to give away to one of my followers from a drawing on Friday, I will get it in the mail Saturday morning. Here are the rules.

1.) Be a follower of this blog

2.) Leave a comment any day this week that you would like to have a turn with the "Traveling Sewing Box"

3.) Be willing to take what you would like from the box then add something from your own stash you have no need for and pass it on to one of  your blog followers.

How simple it that!!!! I wish I had time to make some cute blog candy but for now I am burning the candle at both ends so a "Traveling Sewing Box" is the best I can do.

Sunday Happenings

 The bonus challenge for this week was to write a letter or send a card to someone. I sent a card to a friend who needed a laugh earlier in the week. Today I wrote (typed) a letter along with a handmade card to my Senior Angle's DD, thanking her for thanking me by adopting her Mom (confusing I know) and to ask a few questions so I can do some good gift giving this year.

 Put on a pot of northern bean soup for dinner this AM. Everything except the beans were  preserved at home, chicken stock, celery, onions, Christmas ham bone.

 Duhh, forgot to pull out the rest of the ingredients when I took the first photo, garlic, parsley and carrots, most of the veggies are from our garden.

 Lazy me didn't check the mail yesterday, what a happy surprise when I checked today, the tags for the "Quilt of Valor" quilts came in!!!

An even bigger surprise was I ordered 12 tags, the company threw in an extra so I was thinking I had 13 tags. NOT!!! Come to find out there are 11 tags per package, I now have 33 "Quilt of Valor" tags, holy crap Batman. If anyone is intrested in making a "Quilt of Valor" pleas let me know I would be happy to send you a tag or 2 or 3 or.....

Week 2 of the decluttering No/Low spending challenge is complete and I checked off the extra bonus today!! My decluttering is going great, a lot of work but so worth the effort, thanks Carla for such a wonderful challenge. The No/Low spending challenge is not going as well as I would like but a little saved each week is better than nothing!!!

Today was a spending day. One of my very good friends Son was deployed to Afghanistan last month, she received his "Mom can you send us" list this week. Before I could get my hot little hands on the list it had already been filled, people can be so thoughtful. His Mom was in tears that so many folks wanted to bring he and his fellow soldiers a little touch of home. Not to be outdone Mom and I went to breakfast this morning then on to Wally world looking for some things he and his buddies could use or want. I choose entertainment as my theme, lots of candy just like at the movies, popcorn and a pile of DVD's that according to my SIL's are stupid funny guy stuff. Since he has so many boxes headed his way in the next week or two I am holding off on sending my box for now, Mom also ask if I would send some homemade cookies along, are you kidding me. Girl get out of my way I need to get my apron on and get busy!!!!

Moving right along this post is going to get very long winded!! I was nominated by Mrs Thrifty to receive a Versatile Blog award!! Thank you so much Mrs Thrifty, you can find her cute blog here http://craftthriftandlove.blogspot.com/

The rules are I need to pass on this award to fellow bloggers, check them out from the list below.

http://midlifemommusings.blogspot.com/

http://lifebeginsatretirement.blogspot.com/

http://poortorichadayatatime.blogspot.com/

http://boomergirlsguide.blogspot.com/

http://o2bdebtfree.blogspot.com/

 The other requirement is I tell 7 things about myself you may not know

1.) I have been with my sweet husband for 39 years, married for 38 years.

2.)We lived in Germany when I was a teen and traveled around most of Europe, I was to young and dumb to appreciate it :(

3.) I love all things food related, planting, growing, harvesting (not weeding) preserving, cooking and best of all eating.

4.) My Grandmother is my hero, she has been gone for 32 years now but she can NEVER be replaced. She was left a widow with 8 children on her own living on a farm the youngest still in diapers. She lost her oldest son in WW2 just after her husband had passed. She stayed on the farm and brought her children up single handed, all went on to become successful productive men and women who built strong families of their own. At the age when she should have had her feet propped up she opened her heart and home for my sister and I when our Mother passed away. Oh to be 1/2 the woman she was!!!

5.) I have to create, no matter what, no matter how bad it might turn out, if I don't make a little something in the kitchen, yard or scrap/sewing room each day I don't feel settled.

6.) I have a heredity brain disorder that has resulted in reoccurring seizure's beginning 10 years ago. I am so thankful to modern medicine, prescription drugs and research that has allowed me to be with my children and husband for all these years. 

7.) I am not  a TV watcher other than the news, my dead dark secret is our DD's have me hooked on the trashiest show ever made, Real Housewife's of Atlanta, Beverly hills, and whatever else trash they put out. 

Sewing Bliss

 I was able to finish the first quilt DD#2 will have to pick from for her upcoming birthday. As you can see our winds were so bad today I couldn't get a good photo but this will give you an idea of how it turned out.

 I think this quilt is funky and modern enough for her to cuddle up with. It's what I concider a good lap size 56x75

 I used some leftover fabric from the front on the backing, just that little bit kept me from having to buy more fabric. Money saved!! There are not spots on the back of the quilt, that's just the sun peeking in!!

 I also finished up Tyler's Valentines pillows along with an additional set for our home.

I changed up the pattern a tiny bit by adding opposite fabric on each of the bands. NO COST was involved, I used leftover fabric from one of my new organized fabric bins.

With the wind chill tonight our temperature is hovering right at 0 degrees, so much for the 70 degree weather we have been enjoying. So glad the wood stove is back up and working, setting at the fire was a nice place to be working on the hand sewing to finish up all the projects today. It was great to just sit in a quite house, relax, and catch up on some sewing. I still have piles to do but for today 2 projects are off the list!! If it wasn't so darn cold I would get on the floor and pin baste the next quilt to be worked up, instead it's some hot carmel cider and the "Steve Jobs" book for me tonight. With Kara having the flu we are cancelling Sunday dinner, there is no need to expose the rest of the family. I am thinking a pot of bean soup and fresh bread will hit the spot tomorrow.  The girls can pick up a to go meal from me if they want a night off from cooking.

Mrs. Thrifty over at this blog http://craftthriftandlove.blogspot.com/ gave me the "Versatile Blog Award" today!!! Thank you so much Mrs. Thrifty, I will get on the post tomorrow and share all that was requested. May have to do 2 posts tomorrow!!

Pure Madness

Here is what I spent the morning washing.

Can I just say Friday was not a stellar day!!! Kara is sick with a UTI as well as tested positive for the flu, on top of that she developed an allergy to one of the drugs.... broken out in hives, dirty diapers ever 30 minutes or more and watching to make sure her breathing was OK. It was a LONG day around our house. At one point she went in the bouncy ball house to play but then wouldn't move, she looked up at me saying nasty, nasty. I am thinking crap another dirty diaper but instead it was the balls in the house that were the problem. I do remember Tyler telling me a few days ago that the little girls were being bad and spitting apple juice at each other...I took away their sippy cups but failed to check to see if they had made a mess. Seems the spitting party happened in the bounce house, everything was stuck together. GRRRR, the balls are now all clean, the house has been wiped down and 2 garbage bags of balls have been removed from the house, who needs all those balls!!! I do have the extra balls stored in the garage for now but I see in the near future they may well be headed to goodwill. I really am to old for some of this crap.

Hubby is headed out this morning for another adventure up north.  I think he is looking forward to getting on a job site so he can rest. Ha!!  For the past 2 weeks most nights he has a basket of stuff to sort that I am not sure whether is trash or treasure. 

The weekend will be full of lots of catch up sewing.  Valentine pillows for Tyler, hand work on a quilt, pin baste a quilt, working on quilting an additional quilt and a plan of attack in the scrap/sewing room for next weeks challenge.

I plan on working in a nap today as well as catching up on some blog reading to motivate me to keep on keeping on!!!

Week #2 Decluttering complete!!!

 This is the before shot of our PC cabinet

 Now for the after. I know it doesn't look like a huge change but there were lots of bits and pieces of papers that needed to be taken care of along with things that didn't belong in here. Took a little over and hour and as a bonus I found 4 pairs of reading glasses!!

 I love this cabinet, when it is not in use it looks neat and tidy in the living room.

 The folks finally got out today to do repairs on some chimney tiles and to figure out why our wood stove had smoke backing up on us. Over the weekend the boys did everything they could to get it going but the stupid thing just wouldn't work. At one point one of them went out back to check the chimney to see if any smoke was coming out at all, he swore there were 2 squirrels hanging out of the top gasping for air. Since cold beer was the beverage of choice for the boys over the weekend I didn't put a lot of weight to his observation. Well seems he was correct, we had 3 squirrel families that had built condos in the stove pipe. After 7 hours of HARD work the chimney company made all the repairs and rebuilt the stove pipe, a new chimney cap has been ordered and will be installed free of charge. We have a Vermont stove with a cook top, lots of cash was spent on this bad girl. Thankfully the company stands behind their product and instillation!!!!

 I couldn't stand not playing with just a little bit of fabric today so I cut up a quilt kit I had bought last summer. I purchased some extra fabric to use with it yesterday on sale. To my surprise the kit had enough fabric to make 2 baby quilts and enough leftovers to cut up some charm pack squares!! SOOO excited, the kit was pricey but now that I see I can get 2 quilts and maybe even 3 quilts from it, money was well spent. Of course I changed up the pattern a bit as usual so that helped conserve fabric. I tend to use a pattern as a suggestion not as it was intended!

Finished up the evening meal with a peach cobbler to use up the leftover peaches from dinner this week, all I can say is OH MY.

It has been another busy day working on more decluttering, cutting fabric for baby boy quilts, and the normal must do's each day. I also had Kara for the afternoon, poor baby has a UTI infection so she was feeling really bad, I hate to see sick baby's!!! Oh ya and a grocery store run before the sun was up good this morning, but that's another post. I have had my feet up after eating a small bowl (maybe 2) of peach cobbler and working on the binding for DD#2's quilt. I think one more night of hand work and this one will be ready to hang on the clothes line. A BIG welcome to all the new followers!!!

I have Kara for the day tomorrow so it's early to bed for me.

Decluttering the family space

 This is the mess I started with in our TV cabinet this morning

  Even more that wouldn't fit in the cabinet had moved over to the adjoining shelf

 Two drawers full of wires and crap. Loaded it all in a basket for Hubby to sort. The drawers are now cleaned out. Wires and such are in the garage where they belong.

 11 remote controls for ONE TV, what the heck. We are now down to the 2 that we need

 Lots of sorting and list making went on.

 The end results are DVD's that we like and will play in the equipment we have.

While I was working on my decluttering challenge I got the laundry caught up. I love doing my hubby's wash, he always has cash in his pockets, scored $39.00 today!!

Before I begin my post check out some blog candy Gill is giving away over here http://thatbritishwoman.blogspot.com/  I so would love to have one of the prints.

I had thought today's decluttering would be quick and easy, NOT!!  I spent so much time sorting unopened DVD's hubby has received as gifts over the past few years I was ready to pull my hair out. The duplicates were moved to the hall table and are being sent to various homes that will enjoy them. I have put all family members on notice NO MORE DVD's for hubby!!!! 

We also had piles and piles of VHS tapes, I can't remember how many years it has been since we got rid of our VHS player so we had no need for the things, however they were favorites of our big girls when they were our little girls :( Whats a Mom to do? Load up the ones that were not so special and begin an Amazon search for the ones I knew I couldn't find around town. BINGO, we have the entire set of "Shirley Temple", "Little House on the Prairie" and the original "Little Woman" on there way. This purchase was sooo not in the budget but I pulled from some mad money and made it happen. After much sorting and list making I loaded up all the VHS tapes and headed to Goodwill before hubby got home and would want me to store yet something else that was useless to us in the attic. The back end of my car was loaded down with last weeks clean out and an additional 4 bags of tapes.

On the way home I spotted a Blockbuster that was still opened, all the rest have gone out of business. With list in hand I went in to see if I could find any used for sale or clearance DVD's on my list. YA baby I found a bunch 5/$20.00 and a few more that were new marked down to $7.00. I was on a quest (spending spree) to find even more so Wally world was the next stop. I did find some in the $10.00 rack and a few at full price, you can guess what happened next, yep they all came home with me. We still have a bit of a list I will be replacing but I am holding off until I help DD#1 clean out her TV cabinet, I know Tyler has taken many home with him. I had a bad feeling about this decluttering challenge from the get go, that it would cost me some dollars...and it did today. I am OK with the spending, we had the cash to lay down and our little ones will enjoy the same wholesome movies their Mommies grew up on, money well spent

Have any of you ended up spending as you have been working the decluttering challenge? I know I am probably the odd man out but I feel really good knowing our family DVD library is all tidy and will be complete once the big old box from Amazon arrives.

Monday Happenings

 I hit Hallmark this morning after the boys cleared out to find something for my Senior pal. I had $18.00 in reward dollars burning a hole in my pocket. First off as always was the clearance isle, scored a mini Christmas tree and a singing gingerbread man for next Christmas at 75% off. The coupon won't work on sale items, bought 3  cards for $.99 @ which qualified me to pick up the talking dog for $14.95, in addition the book "Angels All Around" will be great for another month of gift giving. Total spent $19.60, saved $39.18!!

 I now have everything I need to send my senior pal a nice Valentines gift.

 All this fancy candy came from a local shop that was giving away Valentines baskets with a receipt from Gymboree last week of $100.00 or more. DD#1 was using up her bucks for winter clothing so she scored a basket of goodies to share with me. Lots of fancy chocolates at $.0 cost.

 I did get in a few hours of free motion quilting while the boys were away. I might just get it finished tomorrow!

A few Daffodils have already appeared.

I am DOG tired tonight after a full day of keeping the boys fat and happy. They will all clear out in the morning so things will get back to normal. I will be sending them to bed after they have a bowl of homemade ice cream and some SC peaches I canned last summer. We have enough leftovers from tonight's dinner that should keep me from having to cook for at least two days!! Yepee more sewing and decluttering time for me.

Along with picking up a Valentines gift for my senior today I finished off Hubby's gift. We don't go all out for each other just a little something to show we care. He will be up north for Valentines day so I put a bag full of his favorite goodies together using CVS reward dollars and coupons, cost was under $5.00 out of pocket. I still need to finish up the big kids later in the week, just a few more GC's.

It's been a long time since I went on a shopping spree, the old rush of getting lots of deals felt pretty good!!

We will be dropping some cash mid week on our chimney, we need some repairs to upper tiles and for some reason we can't get a good draft to build a fire in the wood stove. The fireplace and flew for the wood burning stove both have caps on them but the boys saw a squirrel peeking his head out of the chimney gasping for air when we tried to light the stove. The tile repairs we were aware of, the cost will be $150.00 but whatever the problem with the chimney should be on the company since they were the ones who did the instillation at a pretty hefty cost I might add!!

Hope to catch up on all the blogs tonight I haven't had time to read. You guys are rocking the decluttering challenge it is amazing how a challenge can get everyone in a cleaning frenzy!!