Busyness, Etc.

EmAndAnthWedding (1)

Where do I start? 

I have been a slacker…..Only in my blogging!

Life is so wonderful, and hard, and awesome! Our family had a wonderful blessing on Saturday, January 30, 2016. Our daughter Emily, my Bonus Baby was married for time and all eternity to her sweetheart in the Jordan River Temple.

It was wonderful!

It was a blizzard.

It’s was very overwhelming and fun!

I have had my two son’s get married, but this is my first wedding for a daughter. Let me just say there is a big difference in what you do to get ready for a son to marry, as opposed to what you do to get ready for a daughter to marry. I have been sewing, and hot glueing and organizing for weeks and weeks for this blessed event.

It all turned out great!

Now that we have had our day with Em, I’ll share some of our preparations with you.

I have learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t in preparing. I’ll share some of the things I’ve learned. I will share pictures and fun ideas.

Watch for my next post!

St. Lucia Teal!

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I have had a red front door for many years.

I have loved it! It was time for a change.

This is a picture of our old red front door.

Sorry, I couldn’t find a better one. I’m sure you get the idea.

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I found this color called St. Lucia Teal. It had to happen.

Isn’t it beautiful!?! I love it!

I think the front of the house will look awesome when we get our flowers planted.

I will be thinking thoughts of my little missionary serving in St. Lucia every time I see St. Lucia Teal!!!

Lists, Calendars, and Binders!

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I have been frantically trying to get a grip!

I am always organizing and listing and calendaring each January as a new year begins. I honestly love it! I cannot function until I do it.

One of my favorite things about organizing my life is the fact that I (best case scenario) “Have a place for everything and keep everything in it’s place”. When I do, I feel calm and orderly. I can focus on what needs to be done, and not worry about what doesn’t need to be done at the current moment.

So this is what I do:

  • I usually buy the new wall calendar and my new planner early in the previous year. That way, as I make Dr. appointments and things that I plan for six months or so down the road, I can put the appointment information right on the calendar.
  • When I have a minute here or there, I start adding birthdays to the calendar on the upcoming year.
  • I go over in my mind what things we have discussed as a family we will want to put on the calendar. One example is that Emily will be home from her mission in 2014. We will want to plan all kinds of activities around that event.
  • In my LDS ward, I’m the Primary President. That means I’m in charge of the children and their teachers and leaders. I have two counselors and a secretary that I couldn’t live without! We meet weekly to discuss our primary. We want to be prepared for all of the upcoming events and celebrations as well as making sure everyone’s needs are met. So we start listing all of the activities and events, and plan a date for them to take place. We need to get them on the calendar for our ward so others know when they’ll take place too.
  • Right now I have several lists I’m creating and working on. One for Primary, one for my second job, working for a local dentist, and one for my family and extended family. We get together at least once a month, and I help plan those. Also, I am making a list and planning for our taxes. Because I do daycare, I will finish organizing my records so that they are orderly and complete. I will need to make receipts for those parents whose children I tend.
  • In each of the categories of my life, I have a binder. NO floating papers! I love it. Of course I decorate them and then I feel like I’m being creative too.
  • I made a binder for each extended family, my family and my darlin’s. I will keep papers that tend to get misplaced that have to do with these families is each binder.
  • One more thing I do, that happens as the year goes by is I will use a folder for planning a particular event. When my parents had their 50th Wedding anniversary I organized food, and kept track of those who were invited. We recently put a new roof on the house. In the planning stages I got quotes from a few different roofing companies. I kept the quotes and measurements and anything else we may need to get it ready in the folder. I even took a small piece of the roofing shingle to compare colors. In the end what I have is a record  that can stay with the house if we ever sell it, and we know how much we spent and how we did it next time we need to re-roof the house. I file that folder away in my file cabinet with other informative files.

That’s about it. I love to be organized. I am not always organized, but I love it when I am. I hope this helps anyone who is not sure what to do with all of their calendars, lists, and binders!

Happy organizing!!!

P.S. In case you notice the little colorful dots on my little Moleskine Planner and calendar, I have my daycare kids color coded. Each color represents a family/child. Then all I have to do if I’m tending them on that day is put the dot. Then I’m not filling up the calendar with information that takes up a lot of space. FYI.

Busyness!

I recently wrote a post about how busy things have become. Last Sunday, “Bonus Baby” spoke in church, before leaving on her mission. It was mother’s day and we had a house full of guests here to see Emily speak. After Emily spoke, we had 60+ people at our home. It was a fun and very busy weekend. Emily did such a great job on her talk. She is a sweetheart and I am so blessed to be her Mama.

This Monday is Riley and Janet’s wedding. We have been busily making decorations and preparations. One of my favorite things that we have been working on is a bench to put Riley and Janet’s gifts on. It started out as our old bed frame. For years my sweetie and I shared a full size bed. We’re not tall people, and a lot of that time my darlin was working graveyard. When I got out of bed, he was getting in bed. We finally graduated to a queen sized bed. I kept the frame for all of these years because I wanted to make a bench out of it. So with the wedding coming up, we decided it was a great time to make the bench. It is turning out so cute!! We’re not quite done with it. Here’s a pic

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We will be busily decorating on Monday morning so Riley and Janet can get married. Then Monday night we’ll have a reception for them. I am so happy for them. They are a very good match for each other. Every mother wants her children to marry a wonderful person. Riley is marrying a wonderful person. We love Janet.

Just two days after the wedding, Emily will leave on her mission. (That was part of the reason for having the wedding two days before, so Emily wouldn’t miss it.) We will drive to the MTC in Provo and drop her off. Then we won’t see her for a year and a half. Ouch. I’ve done this before, but I never get used to dropping off a missionary and saying good bye for a time. The hardest part about this one is, she is my baby. My baby grew up. We used to tell the kids when they were little that “growing up” was against the rules. It was fun to get their responses to that. They’d say something like, “But mom, I have to grow up!”

She did it. She broke the rules, just like the others.

My church calling has been quite busy. I am the Primary President in our ward and I absolutely love it!! I have meetings every Sunday with the children in our ward. We sing and learn together. I love the be in Primary. I meet with my counselors and my secretary each week for an hour or so. We love the children and the teachers who serve with us. We feel very blessed knowing that Father in Heaven is helping us to do our best.

After the wedding, and Emily leaves, things will calm down quite a bit. I think I might have too much time on my hands. I know there will be tears. I know I will miss my “Bonus Baby”. I also know she will do an amazing job on her mission and will bless many people. I am happy when my children have amazing opportunities. This is how I feel about being the mother to a missionary.

I’ll just keep doing what my mission president taught me.

“Bloom Where You’re Planted!”

Life is good!

Waste Not, Want Not!

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These are my patio chairs. I have had them for quite some time. They have seen many family parties! They have also seen better days. The sun has done a number on them. I finally turned them over so the under side would be on top and all of the sun damage and wear wasn’t as obvious.

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If you look close here, you’ll see tears on the seat.
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And in this picture you can’t miss them.

 I wanted to buy some new chair cushions, but that is not an option. We are sending our “Bonus Baby” off on her mission in a week and a half, and our “First Born” is getting married two days before that. My money is ear marked for other things.

Then I had a thought…”I could just cover them!” I went through my fabric. I had didn’t have enough of either of the fabrics I chose to cover all of them, so I decided to put one fabric on the front and the other on the back.

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I laid the pad out on the fabric and cut around it leaving a few inches for seam allowance.

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I cut 24 inch strips to make ties for the pad cover.

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Oh, and I used the velcro piece from the original pad and attached it to the underside fabric. I figured, why not?

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I pinned front and back together with the tie in place. Then I sewed it up like a pillow case. Turned it inside out and put the original chair pad inside the cover. It was a little work getting it in, but I just did it like I do when I’m putting a pillow into a pillow case.

Once it was in I sewed up the end kinda like a present. The straight part with the machine, and the angle parts by hand.

I think they turned out great!!!
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DSC05389I didn’t spend anything. I used what I already had. Neat!

The Monstrosity!

In the movie “Two Weeks Notice,” Lucy’s mom is complaining about the new “high rise monstrosity” that is going to be built near their home. She says it will, “Block out the sun.” I love that movie!

Recently when I was in the market for a larger hutch for my kitchen, I found one on the internet. I watched for many days to see if the price would come down. I was a little concerned about the size, because the measurements were bigger than others I had seen. I called and asked the person selling it if he was sure about the measurements. He said they measured it twice. I kept going back and forth in my mind. Should I do it? The deal was sealed when he came down $25 more on the price. I knew I wanted to paint it, so I knew there would be more money spent on it after I got it. I told my darlin, “Let’s do this!”

As we got it his truck I said, “Are you sure we don’t need a trailer?” He was confident we could fit it in the back of his truck, (keep in mind the truck has a shell). We arrived at the location where it was,

stepped into the garage where it was being stored, and the first words out of our mouths were,

“Wow, it really is kinda big.”

I still wanted it though. “It has so much character,” I said. We started to load it. Oops, too tall. Oops, too wide. Finally we were able to make it fit by unhooking the shell, shoving the hutch in and then rigging the shell so it wouldn’t come off while we drove home. We drove around 50 miles one way to pick it up.

We made it home, brought it into the kitchen, and just stood there, looking. “It is huge!” I said. “It’s a monstrosity.” my darlin said. “Do you think it will block out the sun?” I said. Remember, “Two Weeks Notice”? We laughed and decided to move it back out while we decide what to do with it. Should we resale it? Give it away? Use it in the garage for tool storage? Cry?

I called my friend Sydney, who is a home decorator extraordinair, to come see it. The boys hauled it back in, put it in place, and Sydney said, “I think it will work. It is a little big for the spot, but part of it is you’re not used to it.” I totally trust Sydney.

I made a goal date for having it painted. I knew that my sweetheart would be helping me, actually doing most of the work, and we got started.

 

You can see here how big it is!

And here is the finished product!!

I love it!

I am so glad to have it. It has so much storage.

So now, it is lovingly referred to as, “The Monstrosity.” 

I paid $175 for it, and $50 for paint.