Sewing maniac..

I have wanted this book for so long, and I was trying to win it in a contest. But I did not win the contest. I thought I would be satisfied with just looking at the pictures.

But then....

My Mom shows up today, and says, "I saw this book and thought of you..."

Me: "Did you know how much I wanted that?"

Mom: "No. I just thought you would enjoy making those slippers.."

Me: "Yeah!! Thanks! MOM!!" (I'm a 40 year old sixth grader who is jumping up and down, at this moment!)

How is that Moms know exactly what you will like, even when they claim they have never knew! ?

Either way-- I think they think they forget what we tell them, and then it sits in their subliminal mind for a while, and then they "get a great idea".

And I'm not arguing at all about her "great Idea".. In fact, if I weren't so set on finishing up a bunch of projects, I'd jump right in and make something.

If you would like to read the author's blog: Betz White. She's quite the sewing woman.

Frugal Fashionista Friday

Don't do anything weird around here, or it's bound to end up on the blog.

Some of you may know that my husband is an avid woodworker. In order for little visitors to join him in the shop, they have to be "fully decked out" in safety gear. (Dress and T-shirt from garage sale $1.00)
My style is a little more "Boho" on this day. See the cool hat and fingerless gloves? They were a sweater last week. It's that crazy hat pattern that I designed but have no idea how to publish!

Shirt $3.50/ Jeans $1.00 and shoes: free Keen giveaway.

Even though JEN is letting us down by not having us LINK up, she has a good fashion show going on today. Have a happy weekend!

Blitz-It Friday # 29

Today was a big canning day. I have already made pumpkin butter once this year, and it was such a smash that everyone wants MORE... So, I've been blitzing little sections of my life around pumpkin butter making. (smash pumpkins.. sounds like I'm getting ready for that holiday)

Every so often I wonder: is it really cheaper to buy and cook up the pumpkins myself?

Well, they ARE cheap this time of year, AND sometimes even free, if you can get someone to grow them for you because all of your seeds went kerflop this year. Ahem..

Just incase you ever wanted to know how to cook up a bunch of pumpkins, I have a picture for you. In the 40 quart roaster, I have four pumpkins cut up with the seeds scooped out and skin still on. I added about a quart of water and let them cook on HIGH (450*) for about 2 hours.

After the pumpkin slices cool down enough to touch, I scrape the flesh into the food processor and puree it and return it to the roaster. I had 24 cups of pureed pumpkin when I was done.

Since two of the pumpkins were donated to my cause, I only had to buy 2 pumpkins. (yeah!)

And this is perfect for making PUMPKIN BUTTER, which is like a spreadable pumpkin pie for toast, rolls or other forms of baking.

As you can see, we have plenty of it! And I remember seeing pumpkin butter on sale for $7.00 a jar. So, I don't think I spent a lot more than $7.00 on my ingredients... so yes, it is cheaper to make your own.

What else? It is starting to cool down here, but not enough to deter the kids from wanting to play outside. Have I shared with you my time management with preschoolers idea? Basically, you have to take breaks and spend time with your children, even when you have a TON of things to do.

Life is too short not to wear a red hat, you know?

And stop and look at the cows.

Or light a campfire to burn leaves..

I wish I owned these cows. We should, you know. They come to the fence whenever we are out, even if we are burning leaves. They love us.

I feed these cows too. They love my stuff. It doesn't seem right to live so close to the cattle and not own them. Where is the justice? Where's the beef? Where's my business sense? I ought to be out there trying to convince them to switch to our field. I ought to be out there offering them a better pasture or something. No, instead they just look at my field, and I at them... and we eat moose instead.

Anyway, does anybody want to blitz with me this week? I confess, this blitz was a plodding kind of blitz, but it worked for this week.

-------------------------------------------

If you are new to blitzing, here are some other links on the topic:

Basically, blitzing is forcing ourselves to focus for a set period of time on hands-on tasks.

Read about the: one hour blitz and staying focused.

Also, blitzing with kids is a blast if you are an airchair general.

Glad you could join us! Now you have MANY choices about using the blitz. You are welcome to do/ try any or all of them.... and so many photos to choose from!

And for you guys who like to move slowly, try plodding.

Hard-headed woman

Have you ever been exasperated with your own tendencies that you've often wondered what it would be like to be someone else? You know, the kind, sweet, compassionate type..that everybody thinks of when they think of: sweet Christian woman?

I've already told you how I tried to force myself into my version of a gentle and quiet spirit. If you have forgotten, you can go read it. I'll wait for you...

O.K. now you're back.

So, you know that I am trying to accept this business of being strongly opinionated, outspoken, passionate, articulate, and tenacious, but I always wonder if other people are sort of fooled. Like maybe they think that I am as sweet as the day is long. That I just look for babies to hold and flowers to kiss in the sunset. Well, I do love to hold babies and dance in the sunset, but if the truth be known, there are "softer" gals out there.

So, I'm talking to one of the elders from our church in a little conversation with my husband there, and he says, "there's a difficult situation (and describes it) and I got to thinking: I need a hard-headed woman.. and I thought of you"

You know that song by Cat Stevens, I need a hard headed woman?

First of all, I really did not know that song. Cat Stevens hardly knew me 1976, but it is nice that he wrote a song about me and all?

And how could I refuse the opportunity to serve the Lord when someone gave me such a compliment as this? And as you can imagine, it is going to be very challenging. Feel free to pray for me. Even a hard-head like me could be daunted by this opportunity, of which I'll spare you the details.

Why we are not worried about this gal.

How does your brain work: organizing

From all the great comments I got from the organizing post yesterday, I thought I would elaborate on the question I asked my organizing client:

How does your brain work?

I'm actually really impressed when a person knows themselves well enough to answer this succinctly. It's tough.

For the longest time, I dated everything by births of my children and moves. In other words, I thought: chronologically. I have definite markings in my brain about "historical time periods". Granted, I'm only 40, so the cobwebs will start to clutter over things as I get older.

I guess you could say I'm a LINEAR organizer, as opposed to a SPATIAL organizer. Am I getting too "high brow" on you yet?

Ask yourself this: If it's not right out in front of me, do I forget about it?

If you answered YES, you are probably a spatial organizer.

Linear people can use WORDS, NUMBERS, or to SEQUENCES to stimulate the memory.

The highly spatial person needs a visual cue: a color, a picture, a signpost to point to the items. Generally clutter does not oppress them the way it does a linear person. That's probably why linears are thought to be more organized than spatials.

It really isn't true. For example, today I realized that I "lost" $150.00 worth of grocery gift cards. I could not retrack my sequence of what I was doing when I lost them, so I am feeling disorganized about it. A spatial (visual) person would remember what they looked like sitting in the wallet. I do not visualize things in the wallet, I just remember the sequence of putting them in there. And WHY they are not there right now is still unsolvable.

Anyway, aside from that drama, I can tell you that the little boxes in my "dungeon" do not have the word "Brown" or "orange" on them. I love color, don't get me wrong. But I love words more. I'm a word nerd. And you see how I don't care that word is spelled ord and nerd is spelled erd. I like the sound of words, not the visual representation of the words.

So, for me, a WORD on each box and a number helps me more than some big picture. In Box 22, resides the vacuum parts and spare bags. It says "Vacuum parts" on the box. It's good enough for me.

A more visual person would have a color like: grey for all household cleaning objects. There would be a grey square on the outside of the box and a picture of the vacuum on the outside or a pictoral of some object that represented "household objects" and there would be very few words. Many words would seem like clutter to this person. So that is why we picked: Brown 1 for my friend.

It also explains why it is so hard to get visual/spatial people organized. They feel like they've lost control when they can't "see everything". They panic and think they'll forget about everything. Apparently, lists do not work for these kind of people either.

So, the best we can hope for is a smaller version of having everything out, and designing some sort of visual cues to help them remember how to get to their things. I will often get frustrated with visual people who live in my home, since I can't think with all of that stuff out. Well, they can't think with it all in and put away! So, we have clutter zones and non-clutter zones in the house.

My zones, obviously, are the non-clutter zones. And if I were honest, I could not say I'm any more organized than those who dwell peacefully in the clutter zones.

So, what's the point of all this? If you claim to not get any more done or be any more organized than those who live in a clutter pile, why are we doing this anyway?

Not sure. Obsessive compulsive disorder or something like that...

And.. you asked the question.

Organizing for a friend..

A friend had been asking me to help her organize for about a year. It has actually taken us that long to coordinate schedules, and they finally meshed last Friday.

At first I thought she was just being kind and honoring my "organizing hobby". After all, this family (from all practical appearances) has IT all together.

Whatever IT is, it's impossible to anyone to be completely organized in everything. We all need help in some way or another. As IT was, I had unbelief that this woman (who everyone I know looks up to) really needed help. But she kept asking and persisting.. so I went.

It takes a lot of trust to have someone in your home, helping you. I admire the humility of anyone who can get help when needed--in any area of their lives. We are all wired differently, and trouble spots show up in the weirdest areas.

I will say this. Some people who can find almost anything for anyone live with piles of clutter and old stuff. They are THAT with-it. If I do not have a completely cleared off surface, I can't even think. And even then, it's a lot of work!

Without giving a lot of details about her organizing adventure, I'm just going to share with you some of the questions I asked her. Let's see if they help some of you out there.

First, I asked her: What are the main areas of interest in your life? Family? local church? hobbies, business? etc?

Then, I asked her: How does your brain work? (She made it very easy for me! She said: COLOR)

O.K. then: What color do you associate with each of the main areas? For example: Green for Bills/ finances or ORANGE for crafts.. (You get the idea)

And then we set out to remove items and papers associated with these main areas that were non-active. We placed a color word (later to be replaced by a nice big colored paper) on a large bin. Each bin gets a number. So, for example we had (BROWN 1). Brown is a color she associated with family history. So, on a separate piece of paper, I wrote BROWN 1 and listed the items that she placed in the box.

When we were done, we had all of BROWN 1 organized, labeled and cataloged. Easy Peasy.

Is she done yet? No, but she has a great start!

And I learned this. Even amazing people need to get rid of their clutter, and then they can be even more amazing.

This is what I tackled this week. I'm linking up to Tackle it Tuesday at 5mfm.

Marching Orders

This weekend I was privileged to sit under the ministry of a man who devoted his earlier years to serving the Lord in Africa. There were many things that impressed me, but one of the things that both my husband and I talked about afterward was his ability to get so much done. He built buildings, started churches, carried supplies etc. basically by his own hands.

How did he get so much done?

I'm not entirely sure, but I believe it had something to do with the exhortation he gave us somewhere in the midst of his messages:

When you get up in the morning, go to your knees and get your "marching orders" for the day. Commit to doing the Lord's will and not your own.

So I tried it.

No great lightbulbs went on.

Maybe I should do it again.

So, then I thought: I'll just do what I know needs to be done. So, I got up and read my Bible while snuggling with Emily. She goes from lap to lap in the morning, as we are reading our Bibles.

When that was done, I got dressed and cleaned my room. Here again, nothing special. I always pick up the bedroom, make the bed, and put things away in the morning.

And it occurred to me that we as homemakers have it kind of hard if we are looking for some specific big revelation about what to do each day. So, much of what we have to do is right there in front of us. It generally involves: kids, food, laundry, and stuff.

But what the marching orders may be is something other than a specific command about what to do or not to do, but the spirit in which to do it.

There isn't much joy in loading the dishwasher, unless Jesus is in it.

Can I make my bed for the glory of God?

Will the ordering of my day reflect a joy in Him?

I think it can, and it should.. now that I've gotten my marching orders...

I am joining Nan from Moms the Word for Making my Home Sing Monday.

Going Scottish on a budget: frugal fashionista

You may or may not have noticed that we are going "Scottish" around here. I'm not even sure why. I just woke up one day in Scotland, I guess.

So, I've been finding plaids and designing hats to fill the "need" of being Scottish. Emily's hat was from a recycled skirt, a pair of jeans. How much did they cost? Well, I am not sure. You see, I was at this fill a bag for $1.00 sale, and I shoved all of the things I could fit into three bags. In the end, one of the bags was free. So, I am guessing $.10?? The material I used for this hat was also from the bag:
I even make our house-guests wear my homemade hats. Really, it's getting out of control around here... (Yes, the material for Bear's hat was from that same bag sale)
Emily's hat is also from the scraps from the sale. The hat I'm wearing is from my Mom. She says that I bought it for her. (I have no recollection of this) I made the scarf thingy, and the sweater? found in the lost and found at Gwinn High School back when my Dad was teaching (12? years ago)..
Jacket from garage sale from a few years ago ($2.00?), skirt from aforementioned bag sale, scarf: ditto, and the white shirt? ($1.00, thrift store)
Who needs to travel when you can dress up and pretend?
And yes, I have been doing "the Highland fling" for those of you who were wondering...

For more frugal fashionistas, go to Jen's Balancing Beauty and Bedlam.

Blitz-It Friday # 28 (and organizing drawers)

The Organizing Junkie is having her monthly round-up, and I am showing the drawers that I organized from the dining room. Keep in mind that I did this in a BLITZing kind of way.

Today I am showing the progress from one short blitz: organizing some drawers in the dining room.

Before: Everything shoved into the bottom drawer

After: All the fall tablecloths and cloth napkins--ready to go!
BEFORE: all of the paper plates, overflow utensils and tea..

AFTER: Utensils sorted, plates ready.. tea sorted and ready to brew..

See? this really is an organizing blog. And I didn't die from organizing a few drawers. I actually got an adrenaline rush just thinking about it.

How did I incorporate the PROCESS?

P: Plan of attack: The basic plan for these drawers is that the items in them are things used in the dining room.

R: Remove items: There were some toys, old tea, and out-of-season things that needed to be removed.

O: Organize into piles: Even though I had my entire dining room table filled, they eventually got into piles.

C: Containerize: The deep wide drawers themselves make good boundaries. The silverwear bin was also a good container for overflow silverwear. I also had a metal container for tea.

S: Simplify: I threw out a bunch of old tea that no one was using. I also removed all of the teaching placemats from the area. We can use those during other times--not for eating, though!

S: Smile! It's not just me who is smiling!

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The rest of this post is from one of my weekly blitzing memes. You can join us this Friday for a blitz, but do not LINK up here (now)... thanks!

Basically, I am including it because it will give you an idea of what blitzing is like! I do not want to detract from the link-up that is happening on the organizing junkie!

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But truthfully, I did not organize those today. I did blitz today, however.

I woke up tired. Do you ever do that? Uffda. I wasn't feeling that great and wanted to go for a nap. I put dinner in the crockpot, just in case I really was sick. But I needed to blitz. And today is laundry day. So, I reluctantly set my timer for 1 hour.

I started by taking the sheets off the bed--just so I would not get back in it. I started the wash load, adding a few other things in with it.

I sorted all the laundry and put them in little laundry baskets in the hall--just so my room would look neat.

Then, I put away any clutter and clean laundry.

By then, there was still 27 minutes left...

So, I cleaned the bathroom already.

I set up the ironing board and actually decided on what to iron..

I helped Emily put away her toys.

I put the sheets in the dryer and the next load in.

All of that in one hour. And wouldn't you know it? By then, I was so energized that I did not even want to take a nap. Instead, I called a friend and talked on the phone while I ironed: 8 things. Then I started making a few more hats! Then I started folding and putting away laundry. And I never did take a nap! Oh, well.. there's always tomorrow to be lazy.. So, how about you? Are you blitzing anything these days?
..

If you are new to blitzing, here are some other links on the topic:

Basically, blitzing is forcing ourselves to focus for a set period of time on hands-on tasks.

Read about the: one hour blitz and staying focused.

Also, blitzing with kids is a blast if you are an airchair general.

Glad you could join us! Now you have MANY choices about using the blitz. You are welcome to do/ try any or all of them.... and so many photos to choose from!

And for you guys who like to move slowly, try plodding.

Girlfriend wars?

On the way to our homeschool co-op, I heard a snippet of a radio program.. "the difficulties of friendships between women.. Oh, so difficult.."

I thought, "This is odd. Why should people who are Christians have difficulty with friends?"

So, I dismissed the thought. As far as I knew, this was just a little something in some circles.

So, I'm at the co-op, and I meet up with a friend and we start chatting.

"My daughter is fighting with a girl, what should I do about it?"

I remembered the radio program, and said in my heart, "Thanks Lord, for the heads up."

The whole thing got me thinking. Why do Christian girls need to fight? What's the big deal anyway?

Younger girls seem to fight over:

boys--one boy likes a girl one day and then likes a different girl the next..

friends--one girl is close to a friend one day and then a different friend the next..

stuff--one girl has more stuff, friends, popularity etc. and the other girls are jealous.

And it seems like the older girls seem to have more grown up versions of what happens when they are teens, except it involves cup size and waistline, opportunities and retirement plans, and granite countertops and vaulted ceilings.

You THINK we would grow out of this as we get older.

I think it was in the THIRD grade that I realized the "popularity" concept. There wasn't just kids at school, there were "popular" kids that everyone wanted to be around. Suddenly everyone who wasn't "in" felt "out". And then there were groups of "in" kids and "out" kids..

And as soon as there's something intangible that everyone wants, then there's desperate grasping for it. All of these young people seem to forget decency, order and normal ways to make friends. They forget that every person has value. They forget that just because more than one person wants something, it does not mean that they should want it also.

The Bible says: where do wars and fightings come from among you? from your lusts. (my paraphrase James)

A lust is simply wanting something that you can't have. We think of lust like sexual lust, which may or may not be a part of the third grade mentality. The lust that most women have involves something less tangible than a sexual thing. And these young girls learn it well.. lusting to be popular.. lusting to have nice clothes... lusting for approval from their peers..

And it's this third grade mentality lust that causes kids to do dumb things like:

hang out with kids who do not like them, in order to gail their approval,

wear immodest clothing

try dumb things like drinking and drugs

and participate in pre-marital sex

In the older woman, the third grade mentality takes on new forms, but they are just variations of the teenage problems.

If our kids are fighting with other kids, we may want to ask the question: what do you want that they have? or what do you have that they want? Can you share it? Can you share your friends?

And if it's a boy. What are you doing with boys at this age anyway?

You know, I've never laid down laws for my children about dating. We have just talked about it since they were young.

We've talked about marriage, not dating.

Don't date (courtship) until you are ready for marriage.

For my boys, I have said, "Are you ready to support a wife?" The answer is "no" (I think they were 12 when I asked them) "Good. Then don't think about girls until you are.."

For my daughter, it is a little bit different.

So, I asked her, "Let's say someone came to us and said, I'd like to date your daughter.."

She said, "that's fine. But they are going to have to wait until I'm 23 or so."

Let's see. She's 15, and that's probably a good place to be when you are 15. She is a pretty gal, and as sweet as the day is long. Thankfully, she's oblivious to the second glances she gets from the godly young men in her path. And our boys? I think one of them makes it his goal to be as rude as possible to girls, just to avoid the issue. The younger boys? Not sure yet. I can say this. I doubt girls are fighting over them at the moment.

Parents! Resist the urge to give in to their lusts! Don't let them play the popularity wars. What a blessed, uncluttered life you will both have!

And ask yourself, as a parent, do I have a lifestyle of lusting over what I can't have? Am I modeling this third grade mentality or can I be content with what friendships and things that I have? Can I be content when all the "cool people" are doing something and I'm sitting at home picking my nose? or trying to reach out to the unloved?

Peanut butter makes me friends

So, I'm packed to the gills with groceries, and I swerve my cart into the next available aisle. Suddenly one of the two mammoth jars of peanut butter that I was storing on the undercarriage, goes flying out in front of my cart and lands at the feet of an older gentleman.

"Thanks.." I say, as he hands me the jar, "You know, there's only a few things that can cause a complete meltdown in my home, and one of them is lack of peanut butter!"

He laughs, "So, how many kids do you have?"

Me: "Five!"

Him: "I bet you eat a lot of spaghetti.. and chicken... and tuna.."

Me: "How'd ya know?"

Him: "We had five also--five in four years.."

He looked to be about 65 or older.

Me: "Wow! that's pretty good. We only had four in five years, and then the little one.."

Him: "Why'd you wait so long to have the little one?"

Me: "We were in the military and moved a lot, and I was Huuuuuuuuuaaaaaahhhhhhh" (making a face with my eyes rolled back in my head and tongue out)

Him: "Oh, my grandson is in the military. I just went to visit him, and I didn't want to leave! I'm so proud of that boy. I never served in the military, but both my son and grandson have"

Me: "You know ,when we were in the military we were dropping more babies than bombs, and they were cheap too!" (My husband was a bomber pilot before civilian life)

So, I proceeded to tell him exactly how much each child cost us.

Our first baby was $36.00, and that was because I stayed in the hospital for almost five days.

Our second baby was $18.00.

Our third baby was $9.04.

Our fourth was free. (I'm not really sure why?)

So, yes, I gave birth 4 times for under $100.00.

Well, I had this fella laughing so hard. You could see it in his eyes. He only remembered the good things about having a big family. He loved the memories of eating spaghetti for dinner and malt-o-meal for breakfast.

When I told him that I make my husband eat oatmeal for breakfast and drive our donated car to work, he laughed even harder. (Yes, someone actually gave us a car)

I didn't need to ask him if he had any regrets about having such a large family, because there obviously was just joy when he remembered his big family. He may have (in his younger years) possibly had to give up a fancy car or a decent vacation, but no one is taking away his memories now. or his children.. or his grandchildren...

So, all the money we have goes to the grocery store and music lessons at this stage of life. So, we're not building a 401K, we're building strong minds and bodies and spirits in a few precious souls. What could be a better investment than that? And something tells me that this fella would agree.

And it's all because a giant peanut butter bucket rolled ahead of me into the aisle.

Scrappy Crafts/ scrappy 'tam.

Well, it's fall, and I'm feeling creative. And when I feel creative, I have to make something. So, I have designed a HAT pattern that I am calling "the Scrappy tam", as in those expensive tam 'o shanter hats you can buy here.

So, I really am designing a pattern, and I would like to sell it. In the meantime, I am making my sample hats as I tweak my pattern.

I am calling it "the shabby tam" because I use all recycled materials--even the lining is recycled!

Denim: I love working with denim. I love mixing and matching denim with other fabrics. I was at a "fill a bag for $1.00" sale a few weeks ago and picked up some great denim.

Also, I found several plaid, wool skirts! So, in Emily's hat above, I used a plaid wool and denim. The only bummer is that I broke 3 needles sewing through the layers. Unfortunately, this is not a tutorial, but I plan to sell the pattern very reasonably. But, you can get a taste of what I am doing by these photos.

Nathanael is wearing a plaid wool and a blue wool from a skirt.

I was able to line it with the lining from the lining that naturally came with the blue skirt.

This is a denim on denim. I purposely frayed the edge of the stripe to give it a scrappy look.

Works for boys also!

So, I really enjoy working with scraps! It has inspired me to design my own pattern. This is my contest entry for the Sew Mama Sew Scrap Challenge.

And this is also my Tackle it Tuesday post! Thanks for joining me!

Reporting in live from Emily's house

It's Monday morning, and I'm reporting in "live" from Emily's house. That's right. The lil gal has her own "house". It's the least we could do since she doesn't have her own bedroom.

I'm sitting on the other end of that table. The view is gorgeous out the window.. a few changing leaves and blowing branches on a blustery but sunny day.
The rest of the living room looks a lot like a normal living room, but her little area is her play space. She can "be with" us while doing her own thing. Thankfully, she let's us come and visit once in a while. So, she's generous enough to let me blog here. I am graciously acknowledging my sponsor as "Emily's house". No goods or services were exchanged for this advertisement. (Just in case you were wondering...)

Well, I feel like I'm a little out of sorts this week, since my high school senior, JAMES was so busy on his college stuff that I didn't get to use my computer at all yesterday.

I have a dear friend who helped me put together a transcript for the kid. We used her son's transcript as an example to follow, since I didn't have a cluebird. (What is a cluebird, anyway?)

So, then my dear husband asks, "What is this Kelley II High School you have listed on the top?"

Me: "I had to come up with a name for our school, and that's where we live: off the second subdivision of Kelly road."

General complaints from various people...

"Aww.. that's a dumb name.."

"Couldn't we come up with something better?"

and from son who is younger than the senior: "I am graduating from a different high school, then"

Me: "O.K. well, what do you guys have in mind?"

Child from kitchen: "The Morells have Windy Acres Academy. Now, that sounds good."

Me: "O.K. so you want something like No wind in the valley High..?

Or "Recycled farm land school of higher academics.."

or how about "mushy marsh of much learning.."

Incidentally, this was making "Kelley II" sound much more attractive at every minute, which is exactly what I wanted.

Jamie: "All of the high schools in our area are just named for the streets they are on like: Auburn or Jefferson.. "

Will: "So, what do most people name their home schools?"

Me: "Generally, they decide on it when their children are four years old. They don't wait until they are writing their transcript and application to the Air Force Academy.."

Will: (laughing) "I guess we just never thought about it."

Me: "I think what we want to avoid is it sounding too hokey pokey like

Don't hide your light under a bushel school of zealots..

Fire in my heart revival school..

Jamie: "Do people actually DO that??"

Me: "Yes, they do it all the time. That's why I think we are going to stick with:

Kelley II High School

Whattaya think? Good 'nuf?

I'm linking up to: Making my home sing with Moms the Word.. Go there for other weird stuff.

Weekend Crafts: crayons reinvented..

I can not take credit for this original idea. It came from the Craft Apple. Go there for instructions. But it was sure a hit!

If you have old crayons, this is a perfect craft to get the scraps used up and make something beautiful at the same time. First, you gather up the crayons. Peel off the paper and break them into smallish pieces. We broke our crayons into three pieces. If you have those very large kindergarten crayons which don't break easily, you have to pound them with the back of a spoon to break them up.
Target has the bakeware that has cars or butterflies. You could use any type of cake pan that is oven proof.

You bake the cars for 250* for 25 minutes or so. Don't stir the crayons as they start to melt.
All the variegated effects are nice! I even tried mixing soap blobs with crayons. They were a little harder to get out.
So, you could make little soap cars too. I think I know what we are giving out for gifts this year! Oh, and what about chocolate nut cars? or jello cars? or playdough? or. or..sculpey?

And I'm just getting started. Of course, you could always make cake or muffins in there also.

Naw! Nothing is really cool unless it is repurposed, eh?

Blitz-It Friday # 27

These photos may or may not have anything to do with what I am going to talk about. They are just some more photos from our trip up north, and for the moment, organizing-daughter has lost her camera (again), so this is all I have to show for my all-day blitz.

So, you'll just have to imagine me conquering a very messy bathroom. The hair needed a "dip", so my frugality took over, and I did in my own bathroom. Turning your head into a dip cone, is fun and all, but it makes everything chocolate brown in the meantime. And I really can not remember the last time I cleaned the bathroom, so.. like... yeah, it was THAT bad.
And THEN.. I got cleaning behind the bed, even. WOOO WEEEEEEEE the dust bunnies were living large between the bed and the wall, all nestled up on the floor. I dusted the ceiling fan. You almost needed a respirator after all of that dust got going. I turned ON the fan, just to make sure to share wealth. I guess you had to be there.
And the laundry. O.K. I think it was 6 loads of laundry today. Right now, I still have three of the loads looking at me, but I know they'll be there in the morning. Unless, of course, some crazed robber needs to come in and steal a pile of clean, unfolded pajamas or something. Maybe they've been reading my blog and KNOW I do all the laundry on Thursdays, and have read this great laundry post... and are just waiting to have all of my mismatched socks.
Jo-snazzer and Than decided to make homemade apple cider. We have an entire laundry basket full of apples from my parents' tree. They put some of them through the juicer (remember the one I got from a garage sale for $20.00??). After juicing them, they strained off the bits and pieces and heated it to 160*. Jo also made bread all by herself. She's getting good at that.
So, I guess you could say that I worked hard today "gave 'er" as they say up north.
Speaking of UP north, don't you love the drama of getting a family photo shoot? (As the gun points toward the word shoot..)

And what parent would let their child STAND UP in a canoe? Duh.

And No I did not LET HIM do this. I found out about this by viewing the photos. We are all about good decision-making is this family. Yeah, that's us.

And I model it so well, you know. I think I've had band-aids on three different fingers this week. I can't walk into the kitchen without cutting or burning myself. I get a sliver once a week from the garden or other things. I find blood running down my hands and half the time I have no idea where it came from. Do you think I am trying to move too fast or something?

So, then I talk about blitzing--just getting a lot of work done in a short period of time. But sometimes no work gets done at all, and it's just nice to have a little play time.

And that is important too! Did you do something you'd like to report on? You can link up if that makes you happy.

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If you are new to blitzing, here are some other links on the topic:

Basically, blitzing is forcing ourselves to focus for a set period of time on hands-on tasks.

Read about the: one hour blitz and staying focused.

Also, blitzing with kids is a blast if you are an airchair general.

Glad you could join us! Now you have MANY choices about using the blitz. You are welcome to do/ try any or all of them.... and so many photos to choose from!

And for you guys who like to move slowly and do not have a hand full of band-aids, try plodding.