De-Clutter Your Home in Three Easy Steps!

Hi, Everyone!

I hope your Christmas was fabulous and that you are looking forward to the New Year with excitement and hope! So, are you making New Year's Resolutions? New plans? A new resolve to get fit, lose weight, get organized? Ah-h-h, yes, get organized! No matter how hard we try, it seems that clutter can consume us. It's a constant battle, isn't it?

Today I'm going to give you a system for how to de-clutter your house in Three Easy Steps! Wow! Three steps! We can do that! Now you might be wondering why *I* know how to deal with the clutter at *your* house! Good question! Well, let's put it this way - if you are planning a super fun party for New Year's Eve, and you want to invite your ten most fun-loving, witty and carefree friends - hm-m-m-m, I would NOT make that list! Nope! But - if you want someone to help you clean your house and get organized - that would be me! So let's get started!

Step 1: Grab a large basket or plastic storage bin, go to one end of your house, and start walking. Pick up and put into the basket everything - I mean everything- that is not in it's proper place. Yes, dirty clothes, magazines, toys - everything!

Step 2: Carry your basket to the living room and dump everything out on the floor. (If you have lots of clutter - probably do, we've just been too busy with the Holidays to keep on top of things - you might have made several trips to the living room to dump your basket. It's OK! Once you start this system, your loads will get smaller, I promise!) Now sit down in the midst of your piles and start sorting. Sort your piles according to the proper room where the item really belongs. So you'll have a pile for kitchen, master bedroom, Susie's room, Bobby's room . . . AND you'll have piles for laundry and trash, too!

Step 3: Take each pile to it's proper room, and put the things away. Right now! When you get to that room, you will be tempted to stop and do the dishes, make the bed, check your email - DON'T DO IT!! Just this once, just for today, you are to focus on putting that clutter away! Don't stop until you have found the proper home for everything you put into your basket.

Done? Now, go walk through your house again. How does it look? Better, doesn't it! Yay, you! You just de-cluttered your house in Three Easy Steps!

If you do this simple trick every day, or every week - you decide, it's your life and your house - you will get your clutter under control! Feels great, doesn't it?! Congratulations!

My pictures for today are pics of my "crafting bedroom". My happy little corner of the world, where I create. It's all dressed up for Christmas in these pictures. Hope you enjoy them!

Have a great week, a Happy New Year, and God bless!

A Little Christmas Planning!

Hi, Everyone!

It's only three more days until Christmas - hope you are ready! And if you vow next year to be more organized than this year, I have a little project to show you. It's a Holiday Planner! Now everyone has been making these little cuties - except me! So I finally made some this year, and here is one for you to see. Instead of using the pocket folders, I made mine from a standard file folder. It's small enough to tuck into my purse, but large enough to hold all of my lists! I hope you like it!

May you all have a blessed and joyous Christmas! God Bless you and your loved ones!

Hi, Everyone!

It's almost Christmas! Hope you are all coming along on your preparations without too much stress! We decided to give our grandchildren money this year (how tacky, huh?!), so I made these little money cards. They were quick and easy, and I think they're kinda cute!

And if you're looking for a new cookie recipe, here is my all-time favorite! My Mom used to bake these, and whenever we took our sons to Grandma's house, they devoured them! So, although they are *correctly* called Ginger and Spice Cookies, at our house they will always be called Grandma Cookies! They are dee-licious with a cold glass of milk or a hot cup of tea! Enjoy!

Ginger and Spice Cookies

1 ½ cups margarine 2 cups sugar 2 eggs, slightly beaten ½ cup molasses 5 cups flour 4 tsp. baking soda ½ teaspoon salt 2 tsp. cinnamon 2 tsp. ginger Additional sugar for rolling the cookies in. Cream margarine. Add sugar and continue creaming. Add eggs and molasses. Beat well. Sift flour with baking soda, salt, and spices. Add to margarine mixture. Mix well. Shape into balls about 1 ½ inches in diameter. Roll in sugar. Place 3 inches apart on baking sheet. Bake at 350°about 15 minutes. Do a test cookie – sometimes you need to add a little more flour.

What I Really Want for Christmas Is . . .

Hi, Everyone!

Each year, Ken and I ask his Mom, "What do you want for Christmas?" Every year she smiles sweetly and says, "What I'd really like is . . . a new garden hose" or "a good flashlight" or "a new rug for the back door." Dutiful son that he is, he heads off to the home improvement store and returns with the requested item. "But honey," I say, "This is your Mother, the woman who gave you life! You can't give her a garden hose for Christmas!" "But sweetie," he says, looking bewildered, "it's what she wants."

"Well!" I huff. "That's not a real Christmas present!" And off I go to the mall, where I spend hours shopping for the perfect Christmas present for my sweet mother-in-law. Like, a pretty piece of jewelry to go with the dozens of other pieces she already owns. Or, a beautiful crystal bowl to cram into her too-crowded china cabinet. Or a darling pantsuit identical to the one (unbeknownst to me) that my sister-in-law is also buying for her!

Time has passed, and this morning as I was cleaning the kitchen, I thought, "The kids have been asking me what I want for Christmas, and I don't know what to tell them, because I don't need anything. I have a closet full of clothes, drawers and drawers of table linens, and a craft room stuffed with supplies." Then it dawned on me! I know what I want for Christmas! It's something I really want, and something I really need! It's a . . . new sponge for my mop! Yes, I have become my mother-in-law!

And speaking of inspiration, the card I'm posting today was inspired by a swap I received from my good friend and Swappers' Anonymous Sister Paula (scrapshappen). You can see her card here. The plaid paper on mine isn't Stampin' Up - it's some I had in my stash, and I'm trying to use up my "stuff"! (so I can buy new "stuff"!) I love this layout, and I'm sure I'll use it many times. Thanks Paula thanks for the inspiraton!

I hope you all have a great week! Enjoy your Christmas preparations! I hope you can take time to ponder the beauty of life and the wonder of the season! Till next time, God bless!

This Takes the Cake!

Hey, Everyone!

Betcha wondered what happened to me, since I haven't blogged for, oh, about seven months!

Let's try it again and see if I do better this time! So, I hope you all had a lovely spring, and delightful summer, and a simply wonderful autumn (my favorite time of year!)

Now Thanksgiving is past (but my stomach still hurts from eating too much!), today is the first day of Advent, and soon Christmas will be upon us - hard to believe this year has gone so fast. I hope it's been a good one for you!

Here's a tasty little recipe for you to make, in case you didn't get enought sweet desserts for Thanksgiving. It's called Almond Butter Ooey Gooey Cake, and believe me, this dessert is not for the faint of heart! If you are only mildly attracted to sweets, don't even try it! It is absolutely ooey, absolutely gooey, and if you love sweets as much as I do, you will think you are in heaven when you taste it. So here you go . . . and try it at your own risk!

Almond Butter Ooey Gooey Cake (from The Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Bryn)

Crust:

1 pkg (18.25 oz) plain yellow cake mix

1 stick (8 tablespoons) melted butter

1 large egg

1/2 cup sliced almonds

Filling:

1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese at room temperature

2 large eggs

1 tsp almond (or vanilla) extract

1 stick (8 tablespoons) melted butter

3 3/4 cups confectioners' (powdered) sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the cake mix, 8 tablespoons melted butter, 1 egg and almonds on low speed for two minutes. Pat the batter evenly over the bottom of a lightly greased 13 X 9 inch pan. Set aside.

For the filling, place the cream cheese in the same mixing bowl that was used to make the crust. Blend on low speed until fluffy. Add eggs, almond extract and melted butter and beat on medium speed one minute. Add the confectioners' sugar and beat on medium speed until well mixed. Pour the filling over the crust layer. Bake the cake until it is well browned but the center still jiggles when you shake the pan, 45 to 47 minutes. Cool, cut into squares, then serve. Enjoy!

And here is cute little cake box I made for a Convention Swap last summer. This can be used as a gift package for a small gift, or fill with candies for a sweet treat! The template is on the Stampin' Up website, if you'd like to try making one yourself.

Hope you all have a great week!

The Year of No Holidays!

Hi, Everyone! Did you wonder where I've been all week? I haven't gone far - I've just spent most of the week in bed with bronchitis! Now, let's see, I missed Christmas and New Year's with the stomach flu, Easter with a bad cold that I never really got over, and now today is our 10th wedding anniversary, and I've been in bed with bronchitis! So I'm calling this the Year with No Holidays! But hey, I'm not complaining! Not when I have sweet sisters who have been enduring surgery, radiation treatment and chemotherapy! Now THEY are brave, not like me the whiner!

So, onto a more pleasant topic, like, uhmmm, how about gas prices, huh?! Just paid $3.84 per gallon - how about you where you live? It just makes me more determined than ever to combine trips and decrease my miles as much as possible! Last year I only drove a total of 3,778 miles, and the year before my total was 4,300 miles. This year I'm going to try to keep it under 3,000 miles! It does help that I can work from home - I'm a lucky girl!

Here is a fun little card for you to look at - I made it last weekend. It's simple but cute, and makes me think of alternative modes of transportation! Although it would be difficult for most of us to make our rounds in a sailboat! So here's hoping that your life will be clear sailing this weekend, may the wind always be at your back, and may the Good Lord watch over you until we meet again!

My Husband, the Fix-It Man

So I always wanted one of those fancy schmanzy grind and brew coffeemakers, and my sweet husband gave me one for Christmas this year. And I love it! Until the other day when this little spring popped out of the basket, and I couldn't get it back in. The spring goes around a little pokey thing, and the pokey thing goes into a hole in the basket, and that's what lets the coffee drip into the coffeemaker. So I showed the problem to my hubby, and he immediately said, "Oh, it looks like you've lost an O-ring." An O-ring??? Isn't that what made the space shuttle explode?? And I have one of those in my coffee maker??? Wow! This IS a fancy schmanzy coffee maker! Anyway, he took the basket and the spring and the pokey thing out to the garage, came back, and voila! Everything is back together and working now! He is so-o-o-o smart, isn't he???

I would show you a picture of him with the basket and the O-ring, but that would be kind of boring, so instead I'll show you a mini scrapbook page I made yesterday. I'm participating in a "Bible Verse Challenge", and each month we challenge ourselves to make a scrapbook page featuring one well-loved Bible verse. This is mine for - uh-h-h, February - I know, I know, I'm already behind schedule!! But I hope you like this picture - the Bible verse I chose is "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age" - now isn't that a nice promise to hang onto? It's definitely one of my favorites! I love how this page turned out, and I can say that because the design isn't my own! I got it from a very talented stamper named Laura Fredrickson - she is awesome! So I hope you enjoy it, and have a lovely Sunday!

(And watch out for those O-rings!)

Love and blessings,

The Little Flower That Tried Too Hard

Hi, Everyone! Happy Friday! I hope you're having a wonderful Friday and looking forward to a fun weekend. So far I have nothing planned for this weekend, and that's the best in my book! A two-day blank slate - woo-hoo! I wonder what I'll do . . . ! Remember how fun it was to get out of school on Friday afternoon, and know that you had all day Saturday and Sunday to play? What a terrific feeling!

Last night I decided to make another flower card, but I wanted to "dress" this one up a little bit. First I made the basic card - too plain, and I wasn't very fond of the colors I had chosen. So I added a little bling with a rhinestone in the middle of the flower. H-m-m-m, still not right, so I added glitter. Now the rest of the card looked too plain, so I added a row of tiny flowers along the bottom. That poor little card! The more I tried to dress her up, the sillier she looked! Have you ever had a situation in your life in which, the more you try to make something happen, the worse the situation gets? Yup, me too! That's when I need to step back, take a deep breath, stop fussing and picking at it, and give it to God. Then I need to let it go, and enjoy the beautiful day I've been given! So when I look at this gaudy little gussied-up flower, it will remind me to keep things simple, don't work everything to death, and relax!

Enjoy your weekend, and God bless!

Sunshine and Flowers!

Hi, Everyone!
I hope that whatever you are doing today, you are enjoying beautiful spring weather and sunshine in your soul! It was a perfect afternoon to spend in the back yard, working on my work "stuff" while Ken dug a new garden plot. Our lettuce and swiss chard are doing so well that he has decided to give them their very own personal garden, and he is creating another plot for tomatoes and carrots. The grapevine grows several inches a day, and the orange tree is full of teensy, tiny little green orbs that will someday hopefully grow into big, fat juice navel oranges.

In celebration of this beautiful spring weather, here are a couple of flower cards I whipped up. And see, that little spring lamb had to get in the picture, too! One card says, "Time spent with friends is time well spent" The other says, "May your day bloom with happiness". And so, friend, it's been fun spending time with you, and may the rest of your day bloom with happiness! Until next time, God bless!

Happy Tax Day!

Hi, Everyone, Happy Tax Day!

I hope your income taxes have long been completed and filed for another year, and if not, well, you'd better jump off this blog and get going on them! Only a few more hours until the filing deadline! Why, ours have been filed for . . . forever! . . . or, uhmm, at least three or four days, now! And good riddance, too!

And on to happier topics, here are some cards I've been "working" on lately. I just love the Boho look, and I can't stop using these stamps! So if you are in my family, you will probably receive one of these cards some day, 'cause, well, they're just so, so pretty and fun to make! I especially like the sentiments - some say, "You make my life a beautiful thing", others say, "Always on my mind - forever in my heart". And that is how I feel about all of you! You make my life beautiful, and you are always and forever in my heart!

I like the "Wanted" ones, too, because they can say, "Wanted" " ... to wish you a Happy Birthday", "to wish you well", "to say congratulations" or whatever you want to say!

And speaking of congratulations, the news is out! It will be another little baby boy for Jay and Julie! Now that just makes my heart dance, being the Mom of two boys myself! I'm so happy that little Jack will have a brother! Hugs and kisses to you guys, and the new little fella, too!

So to each one of you, I send my love! Keep coming back - and hey, add a comment if you wish!

A New Beginning!

It's been a beautiful spring day, and it's time for a new adventure! Join me as I explore the world of blogging, stamping, musing and learning! We might take little side trips into the realms of knitting and embroidery, and we will certainly visit the children, share our spiritual journeys, and enjoy some vacation travel from time to time. Today was a lovely day, and I carried my work (my work work, not my stampin' work!) outside to the patio. I made phone calls and sent emails, wrote reports, soaked up some sun, and delighted in watching the kitties prowl in the myoporium, chasing lizards and butterflies and little buggy flying things. Periodically I hopped up to move a load of laundry from the washer to the dryer or fix a snack. But primarily it was an outdoor-working type of sunny, happy day! No time for stamping, though! But maybe tomorrow! Until then . . . thanks for stopping by, and God bless!