Crafty Time!

Many months ago one of my favorite bloggers was redoing her office and posted about her wall art on EPBOT. One of the things she had done was frame some really cute note cards, but with a twist. I stuck the idea somewhere in the back of my brain and left it there until a friend of Nix's sent her this thank you card.

It is from the Bella Pilar line that Papyrus carries. I knew right away this would be the perfect test case for framing.

I found an inexpensive, shallow shadow box with a plain black frame. After the sale, a coupon, and a small gift card I had, it costs me a total of 99 cents for a 3 pack. (Score!) I went through my stash of card stock, and found a lovely peacock blue to use as the backdrop. I cut it down to 8 x 10 so it would fit the frame exactly. I also had to cut the card down the fold so that it would lay right.

Next came mounting the card. After I lined up the centers of the background and the card, I used adhesive mounting squares that can be found with scrapbook supplies or with craft tape. I wanted the card to "float" a little higher, so I doubled up on the squares to give it a good depth.

The whole project took me about 10 minutes and cost me $0.33.

I really wish you could see the dimension on this. It looks awesome! I may have to see if I can find the companion card that is in yellow and orange.

Everything is okay, but...

Any time something has gone wrong in our family, but no one is mortally wounded we get a phone call that starts, "Everything is okay, but..." followed by the story of what happened. The idea is that if you let people know out of the gate that everything is now shiny the bad story that follows will not be so bad.
Everything is okay, but as you know, this is the week of Valentine's so something unforeseen and stressful had to have happened to us. I've been keeping a lid on this year's excitement until I knew the outcome.
This morning I went for my first mammogram followed by an ultrasound. Remember, everything is fine. It seems that my body likes to form lots of harmless, yet very scary, cysts all over that area of my body. I found one and then noticed another, and another, and so last Friday I went to the doctor. She felt what I felt and set up the tests. She was a little more freaked out about them than I would have liked, and was certain at least one biopsy was called for. I have never been so happy to have a doctor be wrong in all my life. The test showed several points of concern, but all of them showed up as obvious cysts on the ultrasound. Those are annoying, but cause no real problems.
Please forgive me if I was a tad preoccupied, gruff, or just plain not around since the 11th. I had a few things on my mind and wasn't sleeping very well. Now I have 364 days to enjoy before Feb. 14th comes around again. Next year is going to have to work hard to top this one, but then again that is what I said last year after Rocky's wreck. Maybe I should start praying now.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

JD has been on a roll lately. I wanted to type out a list of a few of his more recent gems so that I would have a record of them.
*JD wants a hermit crab for his birthday. "They will teach me a little responsibility, and since they don't have fur, Dad won't be allergic." We couldn't argue with that, so next month we will be adding a crab to the family.
*He came home from school last week all smiles. He told me that he got to see the girl he has had a crush on since kindergarten. "That is why I have invisible hearts over my head."
*At bed time he waved his hand in front of me and said in a calm even tone, "You don't need to put me to bed until 9 o'clock." I replied, "Your Jedi mind tricks have no power over me."
*After he pulled his first tooth I asked if he wanted to put it under his pillow. "We both know there is no such thing as fairies so just give me the money now." This one threw me a little.
*JD went through a phase of asking who he was and wasn't allowed to marry. After being told his Aunt Becca was already married he asked, "If Uncle Bo dies then can I marry Aunt Becca?" Technically the answer to that is yes, but...
*We sent him to get his pajamas on, which is usually a quick task for him. After some groaning he came down with just the bottoms on and the top in hand saying, "This shirt is mocking me!" One of the sleeves was turned in on itself. While I was fixing it, Nix came down and pointed out that JD was shirtless. He replied, "It's okay. It is manly! I have a handsome tummy."

He makes life fun!

Holy Socks and Pretty Pajamas

Over Christmas I started to notice that my socks were starting to wear out and even found one with a hole in it. It has been awhile since I last bought myself socks. Since I mostly wear tennis shoes I tend towards the white cotton socks that come 12 to a bag at Walmart. I've been to Walmart a lot since I first noticed I needed new socks, I even went today, but did I buy socks? No, of course not. And, why? Because I'm the mom and whites are the thing I neglect.
I have noticed that most moms have one thing they neglect and one thing that is important to them to kind of splurge on. The thing you neglect is going to be the one thing in the house that you would never dream of letting your spouse or children go without, but for some unknown reason you forget to provide for yourself. For me it is socks and underwear, for others it might be good shoes, or a mom favorite, pajamas. I have only recently realized that you can in fact buy socks and underwear by the pair instead of by the dozen. It rocked my world.
This brings us to the splurge. Mine is pajamas. I use to be an old t-shirt and boxers kind of girl until I had my daughter. It struck me how much time I was spending dressed like a hag looking ratty and it depressed me. I didn't want to walk around the house caring for my child looking like I had been at a frat party the night before. So, I got a set of pajamas. It wasn't expense, but it was matching and did qualify as sleepwear. Now it is a standing request on my gift list. Each Christmas I love getting a new set of flannel pajamas. The kids have a lot of fun picking them out. My all time favorites are pink with penguins wearing purple party hats, or maybe the ones with the lawn gnomes. They are fun and they brighten things up, especially when I'm sick and don't feel like putting on real clothes. I think at most they run about $20, but to a mom like me, it is a luxury.
Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to go put socks on my grocery list.
I am very curious to know what everyone else's items of neglect and splurge are. Please share!

The Office

I'm so excited to have a new before and after to share! The office was a huge challenge for me in more ways than one. There were so many piles and so many drawers. I had gotten into a bad cycle of using what storage there was to just stuff and pile with no real system. There was a closet that you couldn't really get into because of all the stuff. Because I put a little of everything in there, nothing could be found.

Here are those horribly embrassing before pictures. I'm sorry if they are a little fuzzy. I was trying out the camera on my iPod with mixed results.

The first thing I did was empty the storage drawers I have and label each drawer.

After 8 trash bags, and two very large boxes to donate we now have

It isn't perfect, and I'd love to take a trip to Ikea to do it up right, but it is SO much better that I am content to just let the diaper box of gift bags be for now. Not only can I open the closet, but low and behold, it is the walk-in it was always meant to be. When we don't have extra guests I can roll up the air mattress and set up a fold away craft table that I've never had room for in this house before. This is going to make Rocky working from home a lot easier.