So Far

So far this summer we:

Have gone swimming a bunch.
Watched a ton of movies and SpongeBob.
Fed the ducks at the park.
Seen a Parade.
Walked down to see our local Fourth of July Fireworks.
Waited to watch the Space Shuttle to go up only to not be
able to see it for the clouds.
Laughed as Daddy showed off his new talent (juggling).
Celebrated our wedding anniversary.
Donated old clothes to Goodwill.
Been eating more sandwhichs and salads for dinner. Light fare for hot summer nights.
Done crafts with the kiddos.
Planted lots of color in the yard (mostly daddy).
Taken lots of photos.
Scrapbooked and crafted a lot (mostly me).


We are Planning to:


Go to the beach some evening.
Get a year membership to our local zoo.
Go to the Aquarium in Tampa.
Have a yard sale.
Make hand puppets with the kiddos.
Take Little Mister J to see his first movie in the theatre.
Go bowling as a family(anyone know if one night is better than the others for kids?).


I am sure I will be adding to my list! Hope you are having a fun summer!

Random

Alright, so , we have had an influx of afternoon thunderstorms here. The other evening Little Mister J, who is obsessed with policemen, firefighters and their automobiles, came into our bedroom( past his bedtime mind you) and told me "I am the Police and here to save you if you get struck by lighting, because that is what polices do." Awww, how sweet. He freaks me out sometimes because he will come running around the corner to me yelling "The polices are here!" and I think "oh my GOD!" Then he will tell me "I am the polices." Whew... not that the "polices have any reason to be a my house, but you never know.

On to other topics, I will be delivering at least 11 cans of food to our food bank this week after I do our weekly shopping. I will probably round it up to an even 20 though. I will also be mailing out the Card for Heros cards I made last month( I know, finally, huh?). I have been branching out creatively wise. I have been doing watercolors and beading along with scrapping and card making. I don't know why but my head is almost bursting with ideas! I wish I had more time to let it all out, but I work with what I have.

Hope you have an awesome day, I know I will.

Mimic

Good morning! So, the latest with Little Miss L, besides her being cranky alllllll the time lately is that she is turning into a mimic. She was at my mom's the yesterday and got on the phone and said 'hey' I totally thought that I was talking to Little Mister J because that is what he says to me on the phone as a greeting. Needless to say I start asking my 18 month old daughter if she has been going to the potty good all day and sharing with your sister nice. It was only when I heard 'ahbahchamacaeeeeeeee' that I realized who I was talking to. Then yesterday afternoon when hubby came home she came tearing around the corner saying 'hey' to him too. So, so funny! I mean she sounds EXACTLY like her brother, seriously!

In crafty news, I have been looking all over for Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist or Maya Road Maya Mist and can not find them anywhere locally. I would have to order online and they are like 6 or 7 dollars per bottle. That really adds up when you figure all colors there are of this totally cool stuff. So, I googled how to make Glimmer Mist and lo and behold I found a website (sorry, can't remember whose) that had a formula using either food coloring, alcohol ink, or Tim Holtz Distress Re-inkers plus rubbing alcohol, water and shimmer pearls. They turned out WAY better that I could have hoped for. I made purple and light blue last night and I LOVE it! Now, to just get more empty bottles and more shimmer pearls! If you want to know how to make your own leave a comment or just google 'How To Make Glimmer Mist'

Have an awesome day!

I Heart Hero Arts

Reminder, be sure to check our the Hero Arts Website and Blog this week. Great giveaways and a new look!http://www.heroarts.com/ , http://www.heroarts.com/blogs/club . You can also click on the Hero Arts link at the bottom Right side of this blog. Have fun and good luck!

Repurposing

I discovered a new way to make my crafting money stretch. You know the hard plastic wrapping that almost every single thing you buy comes in? Well, I learned that by cutting it into flat sheets ,whatever size you can manage from the particular package you have, you can then run those sheets through your Sizzix or Cricut machine and make your own acetate embellishments (think Heidi Swapp Ghost Hearts, Flowers, etc.). You may need to run the plastic through the Sizzix a couple of times to get it to cut all the way thru. Also, on the Cricut you may need the Deep Cut Blade. All of this is contingent on how thick the plastic is you are working with. You could also use the plastic that they make little "windows" in packaging with for a transparancy look. I have tried this out and my little acetate embellies are just the coolest, they turned out better than I thought when I first thought to try this. So, not only am I saving money by making my own embellishments, I am also doing a little something for the environment.

Have a good one! Leave comments if you have tried this out and let me know how it works for you.

Purging

I finally decided that I will never get back to my pre-kids size ever again and if I do my clothes will be crazy out of style, so I went crazy purging out all my too small, too skanky, too 'what was I thinking', too 'not even cool on a 19 year old' clothes. I mean even if I do loose some more weight, who wants to see a grown ass women in her thirties trying to still look like she is 20? I know I do not want to see myself looking like that and I hope those of you who know people who try to pull that off are a good enough friend to tell them to go change their clothes. Let's all have a little dignity no matter our age or size. My clothes that do not fit are so old that I found a pair of RED, yes RED, as in fire engine RED, Gap jeans. I wonder how long it has been since they made those?

Photo Epiphany

Good morning, Good day, Good afternoon, Good evening and Good night. This should be a quick one today. So, I took a ton of pictures of the kiddos this weekend. Seems I got more of little miss L than mister J though. After taking some pictures of the kids together in their mismatched clothes (their clothes matched just not one kid to other make sense?). Anyway...I had a total photo epiphany, and I know that I and everyone else who takes photos has heard this before but...I changed them to black and white and Holy Amazingness (not a word, I know), They looked FAB! It just finally clicked. I do not need to do any cropping, retouching or erase all the toys and clutter, just put it in black white and all is beautiful and soothing. I might even start to wear just black and white all the time it looked so good. Ha ha. Crazy humor. This was so easy and the results were perfect to me they ended up looking like portraits. Zoomed in their faces, blurry background. Awww, I get the warm fuzzies just thinking about it :) .

Have a most awesome day. It will be a hot one here so I will be busy making sure my face does not melt off.

Laughing

So, this week has been filled laughter. Of course, I am only laughing to keep from crying. Nothing major bad has happened I am just feeling extra stress from everywhere. Had a rough few days with the kiddos and their tantrums and craziness. Work I do not even want to talk about. Let's just say I have had my work cut out for me. I am just thankful to have a decent job, I need to put it in perspective, a lot of people do not. It is weeks like these that I wish I had never gone back to work full-time. I think if I was home during the day the kids would not act out for attention as much in the afternoons, I would not be so tired and short fused with them, my eye would stop twitching.

Anyway enough grumbling, all is good because today is Friday and I have the next two days off. I need to get ready for scrapbooking next weekend and start putting together the stuff I want to work on. I finished the cutest heart shaped mini with pictures of just Hubby and I. I made it out of Martha Stewart wedding coasters (yes, the kind you put cups on) that are brown and pink hearts. I just glued two back to back added some pink, red and brown embellishments and rub-ons and wallet sized prints of our photo's. Easy-peasy.

Have a great weekend :). Leave me a comment if you would like and thanks for visiting!

Critters

So I am going out a limb with this post. I may be making myself sound like a bit of a redneck. We have a new addition to our strange menagerie of critters. For those who do not know we already have two cats, a hamster, a snake, a tarantula, and a scorpion, we had a turtle, but alas we had to let him go in the pond cause he was HUGE! And, it just was not right to keep him in a little 20 gallon tank any longer, sorry I digress. Our latest addition, wait for it, wait for it...is 200 or so (yes 200) baby crickets! You see crickets are what the tarantula and the scorpion eat. So, apparently the last time we purchased crickets we got a hot mama looking for a safe place to lay some eggs. I know, am I luckiest girl in the world or what? Anyway, so last night we had to go out and get a special food for them. Well, I do not want them to starve and if Hubby can "grow 'em big and fat"(his exact words, kid you not!) then we will not have to buy crickets for awhile. So, financially, if this works out, we will probably break even, if not then we are in the hole about seven dollars.

That's all for now. Hope you have an awesome day! Feel free to ccmment. I like comments, it is like getting mail that is not a bill :)

Realization

So, reflecting back on this past weekend I have come to the Realization that I lead a pretty boring life. I get up, go to work, get the kids, go home, cook dinner, put everyone to bed, then I go to bed, repeat. On the weekend I get up, go to Wal-mart or Target go home, clean the house, cook dinner, put everyone to bed, then I go to bed, repeat. Not a very exciting life at all. But, who needs excitement anyway? I believe it is highly overrated. I have two small children and that is really all the excitement I am programmed to be able to handle. So, to wrap this up, I apologize if this blog seems repetitive. That is just the way my life is. Have a good day.

Less

Oprah was very profound yesterday. She was challenging families to consume less. Less food, less money, less resources. She was also challenging them to unplug and get back in touch with each other. We are in a very technology based world right now. It seems that no one can be without there cell phone, computer, TV, video games etc. Our kids are growing up zombies in front of the TV. We do not talk to them and if we do it is to tell them to be quiet. The family dinner has been replaced by the fast food drive through. We are a world that is so in touch we are out of touch with the people that should matter most, our family.

Without even realizing it we have been doing the Oprah challenge for awhile now. We have not had cable in our house for (gasp) two years now. We try to do all our running around for the week on one or two outings. We do not have a home telephone. We eat at home more often than not, and we always TRY to eat together as a family. I take my lunch to work instead of doing fast food. We try to eat organic foods when it is feasible (economically). We do not buy bottled water, we have a Brita pitcher at home and hubby and I each have a Nalgene bottle to take to work. We have no furniture that was bought new, everything was either given to use or bought second or third hand. And no, my house does not look like a college apartment, it is quit comfortable and clean. well, except when my kids spill on the floor. On the weekend I try not to text,Twitter, blog, surf the net, watch TV. We only have one car and although it is 14 years old, it is quit good on gas(I love you Saturn :) ). We play with our kids more and get more done around the house since we have started this.

Now, by no stretch of the imagination am I preaching, we are far from perfect on this. we still consume and waste more than I would like. I still make my weekly pilgrimage to the craft store. I still end up throeing out food, drink 8 Diet Coke cans a day, use paper towels and paper plates more then we should. I come home some days after everyone being gone and all four TVs are still on WTH. However, we are working on it. I feel we have taken large strides from where we were to where we are.

What are you doing to live a life with "less"? Have a great weekend, sorry for the rambling.