JustaBlog

Doing

Do you ever feel like just "doing" something? Not normal, everyday life things. I see the eternal value of the "doings" of making breakfast, cleaning the bathroom, homeschooling and the rest of it. I value it. I feel my life full and important because of it. I do. But there are times I want to DO something....else. No no not anything outside the home or something that conflicts with my life choices, but something, ANYTHING other than what I should be doing. I want to make a blanket or sew a skirt. I want to make a cake (I did yesterday and I shouldn't have!) I am in "doing" mode. But NOT doing mode for everything else. I am not feeling like sorting through some of the unpacked boxes, or sorting toys. I don't want to catch up on my laundry or clean out the pantry. I want to make myself a purse or some crazy new craft I haven't done before. Or plan next year's garden. Okay that one should be alright. It's a "home" thing right?

I wonder what it is that often draws us, or well me, to other things. Is it simply laziness, lack of desire to do what we should be doing, just general procrastinating? In my case, that is highly likely. :) Other times I think it's because I find myself slipping away if I let myself. Now I am not one for "me time". I don't think getting away from your children and husband and home is necessary. I don't crave it the way many do. I get frustrated and send the littles to watch a movie upstairs with Dad, but not because of some sense that I need "me time". I am glad my heart is turned towards wanting to be with my family all the time. But at the same time in order to be a better wife, mother, teacher I need to be doing things that stretch my mind - reading, learning new things, my body - exercise, working outside and with my hands, and soul - spending time in the Word and with the Lord, prayer, etc. I need to be "doing" things other than the monotony I let myself fall into.

But then there's the question of whether I need to at times just find contentment in the everyday things. I am getting there. I am. I guess I need to truly learn to see the beauty in a freshly folded stack of clean laundry or a sparkling kitchen, in a happy husband when he comes home in an hour to that laundry monster bathroom cleared and swept. There is so much for me to learn about the things I do everyday. From homemade laundry detergent (Man I need to make a batch, it's SOOO much cheaper. Insanely cheaper) to how to make homemade sauerkraut, there is so much to learn, so many new things I can be doing just in my everyday life. Maybe I get restless because I am not really content in the everyday things. I want something more exciting, some "cooler" to show someone I've done, or just myself. Hmm... Now I am left feeling like I need to get up and go finish cleaning the kitchen and get started on the quiche and enjoy it. :) Though... maybe I'll start a crochet project tonight lol! Oh who knows. I'm just debating it all with myself.

You know, it all makes me think of Chautona's blog post. Hands down it is one of the most relevant posts to ME as a personality that I have read in a while. Don't you love when someone says something so perfect, so spot on that it makes you gasp for air almost. That post did it for me. I was that person for so long. Well not all of it, but a lot of it. I was the person who could give all sorts of advice on something, had researched it through and through and wasn't implementing it in my life. Someone who always wanted and felt like they needed a better method, a better recipe, more more more. Oy. Off to make quiche and pray about all that.

Quick like a bunny rabbit

I know I always say my post is going to be short, but hopefully tonight it is. I really want to still blog regularly. I have been so blessed by the emails and comments I received lately from those of you out there who have found some sort of inspiration in my ramblings. I don't count it as something I should be proud of, but something that the Lord is doing and changing in my life, and in turn inspiring others. I have been trying to get back to everyone but like all my emails right now, I am just BEHIND. I can't seem to find time for this computer right now. I've stared working out again, and started staying off the computer and somehow found that I was stealing time from other things.

Do you ever feel that way when you're on the computer? Or watching tv? Like you're stealing time from something else? That you're sacrificing something worthwhile to be doing it? I have lately. I have design work I'm excited about and need to do, but I either work when the children are up, and I hate that, or I work after they go to bed. By the time everyone's in bed, I get things ready for Clay's day and I get the baby to bed, it's LATE. Then I work out on the treadmill, do my weights and stretching, and it's REALLY late. So if I get on the computer like I am now, I have sacrificed waaay too much sleep. It's frustrating. What is the right thing to do? Who knows. Perhaps it's learning to schedule myself and my day better to give myself a couple hours everyday. Perhaps it's giving up those things. I don't know. For now, I just know that with the endless customer service emails from the download links I messed up in the move to the new cart, and lack of time on this computer I have fallen behind on design work, emails, all of it. So there are some emails that I still need to answer. Aja, I'm really wanting to get to yours so if by this time next week I haven't emailed you, email me again LOL!

I need to start crocheting again. I suppose I won't feel like I'm wasting time in front of the tv if I am getting something done with my hands. That's how I started doing it in the first place. Sometimes I do my weights while watching tv. Well I do that a lot. But I miss the pleasure and simplicity of the repetitive looping yarn and pulling it through. I miss the way the Simply Soft yarn makes a blanket with so much weight. I love the way a blanket goes from seeming like it'll never be done, to a tad heavy and before you know it done! Something beautiful and practical. The best kind of thing. I want everything in my house to be both practical and beautiful. That's the goal. Except art I suppose. Practical? I guess it serves the purpose of making my house feel like home. That's important, which makes it practical I guess. Though right now there isn't any art on the walls. There are few things I struggle with more than filling up my walls. I either want them perfect with loads of great art and pictures or nothing at all. No middle ground, and I can't get them to that perfect place without that middle ground. Stupid perfectionism. Messes with my life every time.

Well I'll leave a quick picture before I go. I love that my children are friends. And Cassie is definitely the "nurturer". I have more pictures of her hugging Adric or cuddling Garrision that anything else. So here's a couple. I love this girl. Immensely.

Editing to add: I guess I should have noticed that the ONE day I didn't have a clean outfit for the baby (this was before I found my box of baby clothes and before Mandy gave me a bag of newborn clothes for him - which by the way he has grown out of most of them already!) I had him ONE DAY in this pink girl outfit. And somehow I manage to post it on my blog. Lovely. :) He'll get me for that when he's 15.

She's always taking care of someone. She's always playing with Adric and including him. She's always getting me diapers and doing her chores without grumbling. She's always flittering around like a fairy princess. She rocks. She's amazing. I love her. Immensely.

Well like I said, it's WAY too late and I need sleep. And... hey I've already done the ironing. I just need to make a grocery list for Clay and write him a sweet note for tomorrow morning.
Night all.

Quote of the Day

By Frankie Nathan:

"Life for Garrison is like a bowl of fancy assorted cashews."

For you

I saw that the Stand Up and Scrap contest goers have to use brushes this week. Here's a little gift for you guys out there! The "opening in it's own window" thing isn't working so this will be full size. Sorry it's so huge on the post lol. Right click it and save it to your computer.

   
Off to clean :) Time to turn and burn and get a million loads of laundry done. The kitties have been locked in the bathroom where the laundry gets done and I have fallen behind a bit by not wanting to scare them. They were so skittesh that first couple days. They're warming up now.
Later. Enjoy!

New Additions

I'm about to go do my second day of my Couch to 5K workout. I am working on convincing Clay to do it with me. We'll see. At first he said no way. But he seems to be warming up to the idea.

Anyways... so here are the newest additions to our family.

We've been fighting the mice since we got here. Living in the country you just need cats. Usually we have outside cats. And Clay has been putting off the idea of getting a cat for a long time. But HE finally saw a mouse. Nevermind my cleaning out the pantry, etc. to keep the house free of mouse evidence :) So it was time to get a cat. We went to the Humane Society. Who would have thought it would be closed Monday AND Tuesday? Clay stopped at the pet store to see if there were any cat flyers up someone in there had kittens they needed homes for. So we followed her (for 45 minutes when she said 15) and we picked up these two beauties. They said the black one was a boy and the orange one a girl.

So we drove home trying to figure out names the entire way. Frankie named the black one Rascal (which Clay changed to Rascal Cats) and I named the orange one Peaches. Though Frank wants to call her Peach. So we get home and find out they have horrible fleas. I freak (um.. I have a new baby!) SO Clay runs off to buy flea shampoo and Frontline medicine for them to deal with it. So we bathe them, they get Frontline on them and now I can enjoy them :) Flea free and clean, the way I like cats. And they will stay that way. Period. I told Clay we're going to wash them every week so I have cats that are used to being given a bath. We'll see if I follow through lol!

So during the bath we discover we have two GIRL cats. So they are Peaches and Pepper now.
They better catch mice soon.
Off to workout.
Night.

Sitting for a sec

Frankie's emptying the dishwasher, Cassie's cleaning the schoolroom, and I'm a tad frustrated so I'm sitting for 2 minutes before going about the rest of my morning chores. Didn't blog yesterday! Not even my little "I'm not going to blog but here's my daily habit post". I worked out for the first time since the baby's been born. Of course like anything in life with a new baby it didn't go as planned. The baby has been fussier than normal the last few days. I think he's going through a growth spurt and just hungry more. So at 8:30 I went up and got my workout clothes. And of course the baby woke up. Every 15 minutes he would wake up it seemed and I could never actually get started. I was all excited to workout, shower and be in bed early. Thank goodness for Cassie because once I started actually on the treadmill she would go down and rock the baby back to sleep when he'd wake up. So my early night ended up with me just finishing my workout at 11 o'clock! Goodness. But anyways, managed to do 25 minutes on the treadmill, upper body weights and ab work.

I'm doing the Couch to 5K plan. THEN I'm going to run a 5K in January! I've always wanted to run in some sort of race. Though it'll probably be less like racing and more like doing the run and getting a tshirt lol. I'm SO not going to be a contender or anything. :) The 5K is at the Nashville Zoo! You actually run the 5K through the zoo itself! It even goes through some places not open to the public. Super cool. Now to recruit someone to train to go with me so I'm not alone in this race thing. My first attempt will be to get Clay to train for it with me. We'll see. He hates the treadmill. Anyway the couch to 5K plan is pretty neat as it slowly works you up to running the 5K. For example the first week is walk for 90 seconds, jog for 60 seconds for 20 minutes total. Of course in true Kim fashion I thought it was jog for 90 seconds walk for 60. But hey I managed that pretty well, so I'll stick with that.

Since I'm about to go do all my cards, I thought I'd show you my card organizing system. I recently read Sidetracked Home Executives. Now yes, flylady developed her system based loosely on their system but its definitely not the same. I can't do flylady as it is written. The main reason, when I do my zone work I only ever do surface cleaning and never get all the things done that I want in that zone. Just something about my personality. It's almost like I don't know what NEEDS to be done. On the SHE index card system I get everything done I want, including things throughout the year.

First I suggest finding a used copy of the book. I got mine for like $2. They're really funny, it's a great book and really it's always more motivating to read the book instead of just working the program. I think they're moved to recommending binders but I still like their old 3x5 system.

Anyways so getting started. You can either buy multicolored 3x5 cards or color white ones like I did (I just made due with what I had), an index card holder and month and number tabs. Now I didn't have money or those so I made my own as you will see.

Then, choose what colors each card will be. For example, yellow is daily chores for us, light blue is weekly, white is monthly, and pink is my personal things. Then, make an index card for everything you want done in the house, from the little things to the big things, from wiping the kitchen counters to cleaning underneath the fridge. Include things that need to be done only a couple times a year like getting on a ladder and cleaning the outside of your second story windows. Make cards for everything.
Here are some of our cards. These are the children's cards for whatever day I took this pictures. Looks like either Monday or Friday (as we do major cleaning like bathrooms that day).

Then organize them in your little box :) Ones that are only done every other month, etc go under the month titles (January, etc.) Then organize them in the numbers for days of the week. For example, Wednesday I clean out the pantry and fridge, Mondays and Fridays we do more of the bulk cleaning. Things like that. So if today is the 18th all the Wednesday chores are there under 18. If certain things need to be every other week, then put it on the right numbered day every other week. (Don't worry once this is done you won't do it again)

Now every day I pull out the cards on lay them on our coffee table. we slowly work through our cards. When the card is done, I put it back in the box. Daily cards just get put in the next day's slot. Weekly chores are put in the next week's slot. So.. if today is the 18th. I put today's week cards in the 25th when I'm done with them. Easy :) lol! Anyways, must to my amazement I am actually getting things like cleaning the top of the fridge done without spending 4 hours a day! I love it. I hope for us to get good enough that I eventually switch to a binder for chores again, but man this is working, so I'm sticking with it. I've done it for a few months now and the house has been cleaner than ever. Cleaner than when I did flylady for sure.

Okay off to actually DO these chores. Later! I hope to be more settled tonight and get some Zoo pictures up.

No blogging.

For tonight. But hey I'm still here. Honestly I have 5 minutes. I, of course, have a shirt to iron and an egg sandwich to make. But I'm exhausted. We went to the zoo and I'm tired. I'll edit the pictures and post some tomorrow. So while I started thinking I wasn't going to post anything at all, I decided to post quickly about my project last night. I decided to make some cloth napkins. I had some old fabric upstairs so...

I did learn a few things last night when sewing these.
1 - I am really not a very good seamstress
2 - Thinking that because you are on the last of 6 napkins doesn't mean you can go faster
3 - Going faster makes for many mistakes
4 - I LOVE doing things with my hands
5 - and even better, I enjoy making things we can use around the house, that have purpose.

So these were really simple to make. I cut them 16 inches square. I folded over a small edge around, and ironed it. Then folded again, ironed. Then I pinned the corners (okay this isn't how I did the first two, but this is the best way in the end) I pinned the corners and zigzag stitched all around.
Here they are. I made 6. YES it took me hours with all the pressing, and YES, it's only 6. I don't want to hear about it. I can't wait to use them.

And here's the edge, should you want to make some. Clay and I are working towards using as little paper towels as possible. Between cloth napkins, kitchen/hand towels, and some rags I'm going to make using an old towel, we should so pretty good. The edge (no commenting on my sewing skills)

Okay that's all for tonight. But I'll leave you and the family members out there who want to see the baby doll with a picture of him trying to smile at his Daddy today.

If you build it, He will come.

I was recently reminded to live in the day. "Each day is all we have - all the tomorrows and yesterdays are just in our minds.  If we truly live each day as it happens we make good memories and will be content with what is to follow." the wise Miss Rhonda said.

I needed to hear that. It's so easy to get caught up in yesterdays and tomorrows isn't it? Especially when you start having dreams of change. I know the kind of life I want to live and the many MANY changes that need to take place over the course of my lifetime to get there. And I keep getting emails from you blogfriends about how you wish you could live a country life or have a garden or.. whatever it is. It could be something totally unrelated to what I'm doing. Anything in your life. Dreams. But we don't have a million tomorrows to worry about, just now. Oh that good Field of Dreams saying. It's become quite a part of our culture hasn't it? But it's GOLDEN. If you build it he will come.

Start NOW with those things in your life you want to change. You want a garden? Walk outside and find a great place in the yard. Can't afford it yet? Measure and plan it out, write it down and put it in the new garden journal you're starting. Call and get a quote for a fabulous load of topsoil to be delivered. Call down and find out how much the pavers would be to line it the way you want, or better yet spend a day hauling rocks out of the woods. No seeds? Too snowy to plant? Order seed catalogs. Start gathering compost and putting in in a pile out back until you can afford to build a nicer compost bin the way you've wanted. That's what I've been doing. All of it. I want a garden. Do we have the raised beds we're going to build? Or money to do so? Nope. But it doesn't mean I'm not leaps and bounds closer to my garden. And you know what happened today? Clay my hubby after working on one job, drove across town to his other job to pick up wood palettes for my compost bin, without telling me :) HOORAY! If you build it He will come. Make that dream active TODAY since that's all you've got.

Can't wait to get started on the new compost bin tomorrow. Already got a nice pile going . Nothing like a gigantic watermelon to start the new compost bin with a bang. Though chances are when I go check tomorrow the chickens will have eaten most of what's out there. Great!!

And to close with a picture as I try to do... Okay Gramma, I warn you now to look away since I think you will hate this picture. It is of a SPIDER. Every single night we have this large garden spider who builds this huge web on our front porch. Clay leaves the light on outside so the spider is in the perfect spot to pick off the moths that swirl around the light. Every morning, the web is GONE! Every night she's back spinning it again. I love it because the spider doesn't actually get in our way. She sleeps during the day and takes her web down so it doesn't bother anyone. She can stay forever under those conditions. She IS huge and the children love love to go out and look at her. They squeal every night that they see she's still there. So.. here's our lady. Funny we havent' named her yet. If I thought she was a boy I'd name her Big Bob (the name I called all BIG spiders growing up "Mooom Big Bob Big Bob! Come kill him!!") I guess she needs a name. Any good ideas? Anyways...So I will make everyone else have to scroll down while Gramma, just close the blog here for now as there won't be anything else interesting in this entry.
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Maybe I'll just call her "Lady" While fierce, she looks like a lady to me. And I have noticed less moths since she arrived. Lady and I can coexist for now.

Night.

Oops

So I forgot to leave with a picture as I often do. So here's the matching shot to Country Hands. Coincidentally it's Country Feet :) That child. It's so hard to keep clothes and SHOES on him. Then he comes in with feet like that and obviously needs a bath like the picture suggests. I swear he must have feet of leather too running full sprint across the gravel road. And BOY is he fast. Adric is hands down the fastest child of ours so far. He FLIES, without shoes on the ground riddled with rocks. It's amazing.
Now to keep those shoes on him. It's a task for sure.

That dude of course had a bath tonight and is sound asleep. I can't wait to check on him before I lay down like I always do. Sleeping little people are gorgeous :)

Nuttin

Okay so it's late, I need to get up early and once again need to iron that darned shirt. Tomorrow IS going to be ironing day. Friday is supposed to be the day anyways. So 8 shirts to iron tomorrow. Maybe more if I'm up to it. I'd love to do all his shirts. I'm too tired to blog. So I leave you with two bloggy eyecandy bits. Shabby chic, country style, bloggy bits. They inspire me to see the usefulness and beauty in objects I wouldn't normally and I can't wait to hit a garage sale sometime soon. Gotta start saving those ones out of Clay's jeans this coming week for some Garage Sale money :)

http://moderncountry.blogspot.com/

http://deardaisycottage.typepad.com/daisy_cottage/2007/08/index.html

Night.