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Monday, April 25, 2011

Tatertots & Jello Hosted Give-A-Way

Jen over at Tatertots and Jello is hosting a Word Whipped Give-Away.

My personal favorite is the Custom Family Rules signs.

Check it out and sign up!

Friday, April 22, 2011

Happiness is . . .

hearing your children say how happy they are to have clean rooms. Especially when they are the ones who did the cleaning. We had our carpets cleaned today. In preparation, I had the children pull everything moveable out of their rooms and dust. We cleaned baseboards. After the carpets were cleaned, (CLEAN CARPETS, YEAH, BABY!) they put everything back into its place. We are happy, clean campers here.

*P.S. Bubbie Boy wants to make sure that everyone knows that he moved his dresser out of his room all on his own. And he is 8.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

A List of Blessings

Several weeks ago I received a weekly sales email from CBD in which was advertised a book called One Thousand Gifts. I looked at it and even visited the author's website. For some reason, I decided that it is not a book that I wish to read. This morning, I received my daily email from Heart of the Matter Online and it contained a giveaway for this book. I read through the post, entered the giveaway and decided to join the blessings link-up. You see, the reflection on what I am thankful for calmed my spirit and made me even feel like my body temperature dropped a couple of degrees. In no particular order . . .

  1. A little boy who LOVES, LOVES, LOVES me
  2. A beautiful daughter growing into a lovely young lady
  3. A son growing strong and tall much sooner than I thought possible
  4. A husband who provides and protects
  5. Juicy, ripe, sweet strawberries
  6. HEALTH
  7. Music
  8. Encouragement from others
  9. Croaking frogs
  10. Singing birds
  11. The sound of water
Hmmm, I could get carried away and that would be a good thing. Maybe I will come back and add later. Probably I should.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Bathmats & Veggie Treasure Box

Please do not measure the accomplishments in my daily life by my blog posts. I have been keeping myself occupied during the last two weeks, I just haven't said much about what has been going on. But now . . . I have a couple of bloggy minutes.

So, I have this weird thing about bathmats. I do not like the cute rug type mats that have that strange rubber stuff on the back. When you wash those, you have to lay them out to dry. Then, if you are me, you forget about the mats and they end up decorating your back yard and disintegrating into nothing in the hot sun. In the mean time, you end up using bath towels to stand on when you are dripping wet.

Now, I do like the bath mats they have in hotels. Low pile, thick towel-like mats. Alas, those are too pricey for frugal little me.

What's a girl to do? I really do not like using out bath towels as mats on the floor. They are, after all, going to be used once again on our freshly showered bodies. Yes, they will be washed, but it is the idea of it all.

I thought I had come up with a solution. I was at Target and found these wonderfully colorful 100% cotton rugs that I thought would fit the bill. I brought them home and discovered they were very slippery on our tile. No problem. I am resourceful. I simply cut a piece of drawer liner to put under them. Problem solved. However . . . new problem—they were approved for spot clean only. Who, in their right mind will just spot clean a bath mat.

So, back to the drawing board. And am I ever so happy now! I bought an inexpensive towel from Wal-Mart, cut off the decorative edges, then cut two 18” wide pieces. The ends are already finished. On the cut ends, I added colorful bias tape. These work great! They add a splash of color. And the cost? Wait for it . . . $2.50 to $3.50 each. I have already sewn four, pinned bias tape on two more and will probably make at least two more. (We have three bathtubs/showers, and doing laundry . . . well that should be a post in and of itself.)

O.K., so one problem solved. Moving on to the next thing. Remember my Vitamix? I still love it, but I didn't love having to wash veggies every time I wanted to blend something. So I scrubbed and peeled, allowed the freshly-washed veggies to drain dry, then loaded the whole kit and caboodle into a large plastic container with a lid. Boy this little guy makes me so happy every time I pull him out of the fridge. I can whip up a soup or a salad in no time. Then I just pop the lid back on and put the whole thing away. Hey, I just realized that I am also saving myself the aggravation of digging through the fridge for all the bags of produce, then stuffing them all back in each and every time I need veg. Yea, me!!!