Things to do, Things to do....

We had my daughter's birthday party here the other night.
It was so much fun. We made "designer"T shirts for the movie and ate hamburgers off the grill.
Since I have three teen boys, mostly we have boy parties around here. Lots of shoot'em up video games with lots of shouting and (pretend) fighting. I hate the "boys will be boys" argument, but it is in their natures to to wrestle and shout and compete. In ten years time that will transform itself into protection for their families and the ability to compete in the world.

But, when we have girl parties, we go all out around here.(not that we don't for the boys, but they want different things, again that boy/girl gender difference thing) SO...
We (hubby(isn't he a great dad??) and I) went to see the premiere of Eclipse at midnight with 9 preteen girls. Now, the Twilight movies aren't my cup of tea, but you have to love a character who says, NO! I won't have sex with you before marriage, even if he is a demon/vampire/soulless creature. I grew a little soft spot for Edwaaaard that night. Just a little one though. And then, after the movie, we had a sleep over.

I am glad that I have gotten to be the mother of both boys and girls. I have learned so much about both genders that I never would have believed if I had not had both. And, I am glad that I had more than one boy because my boys are all really different in personality.

Anyway, I had just gotten my sewing area cleaned up and all ready to sew on when the party happened and now, everything has been shoved onto that desk (since it was a clean area, of course) and I have to start all over again. That seems to happen a lot around here.

But, I did get the sewing pegboard up. It looks fantastic. I am still working on the pegs though, so no pics yet. But it isn't quite ready to show the world yet.

I also got the materials for all of my upcoming projects at Home Depot. I got the boys' tub scraped free of yuccky old caulk and am going to be adding the new sealant and fix the floor in there and fix the surround.

I have guests showing up tomorrow afternoon, too, for the 4th of July, so I have to get all of that sort of stuff done too. I have about 800 irons in the fire at any one time. I wish sometimes that I was the kind of person who dilligently does one task at a time, but I suspect that it is not in my nature either.

Well... off to get some coffee and get started on my projects. It is chilly and cloudy here today after a few days of sunshine. We are supposed to be cloudy/rainy until the 5th of July. You have to love God's sense of humor. He is good in all things!

Have a great day- whatever you do!

Been reading a lot of designer blogs

I love summer! I actually have TIME to do things that I want and all right...need to do (ok so housework is in there too, but only 15 minutes at a time:)

So, I was blog hopping and found all these great blog sites and am totally inspired to redo like my whole ENTIRE house. I am loving this great yellow color on the walls with big white baseboard and black accents. So beautiful, calm and elegant. Actually, the pic is from the Target website... Target, who knew??? Love, love, love it!

Anyway, one of the blogs (can't find the link...) was about accomplishing ten things in ten days. I am going to take up that challenge, but have to halve the list because, of course, I am 5 days behind everyone else, but better late than never!

Here's my list.....

1. Finish the peg board sewing organizer! (My first diy project of the summer)

2. Organize sewing desk and get the rest of my room cleaned up (its too trashed for words right now)

3. Chalkboard paint the back of the front door. Add frame. (I am forgetful and hope this will help!) (Have to find a big frame too!)

4. Sew 2 skirts for my daughter on newly organized sewing desk:)

5. Closet makeover.

Here's my rest of the summer list...

6. Get garden cleaned up (copper tape for slugs)

7. Make 4th of July fizzy drinks and deck out the deck and front of the house in style

8. Make tippy pots decoration for the front of the house (sooo cute) (14 in. pot and 3 8's)

9. Revamp sewing chair

10. Baseboard for the house.

11. Big mirror redo in my bathroom (show and tell blog inspiration)

12. Paint bookshelves, add hidey curtains (dropcloth covers and skinny tension rods)

13. Paint the sewing table

14. Curtains for the bathroom?

15. Kids bathroom floor, toilet seat and the bath (3/4 round and plumber's goop)

16. Spray paint the shoe baskets. (hee hee, no more day glo yellow!)

17. School stuff, math thing with Karen, reorganize files, and color code....

and so much more.....

Oh and time to play and just relax and enjoy summer and my hubby and my kids.

Well, no time like the present. Better stop blogging and get started!

Opportunistic Grocery Shopping

I am working on becoming a "hounder". That is someone who gets stuff free by stacking coupons and being an ubershopper. Sometimes you can even have the store pay you. Money Saving Mom has a lot to say about this. You should check out her website.
However, there is one draw back to this kind of shopping besides the time that it takes (well, two or three drawbacks really)
1. You have to plan really well and know your coupon stash/what's on sale/and what coupons a store has so you can stack them.
2.You have to buy things that you might not buy otherwise, for instance eggo waffles for $.47 a box, not a food we normally buy because we make our own (but if they are free or close to free, who cares?)
3. You can't really meal/menu plan this way because you never know what is going to be on sale and if it will match with your coupons. I find this frustrating a bit as I am a menu planning kind of girl.

So, as with anything slow and steady wins the race. It is fun though to get really good deals on things and there is that sly moment of shopping victory when you feel like you are sticking it to the man by being a really smart shopper.

Anyway, off to Target to buy dog food!

Summer's Coming

Have you heard about the 2010 Summer grow along? This lady started a group, we are all planting the same plants, and will do things with the plants. For instance, planted peppermint, so will be making recipes with peppermint. We also planted thyme, chamomile and edible marigolds. I am still on the hunt for chamomile. I am going to go to some of the local garden stores tomorrow to see if I can find some. She will send you an email every week if you sign up too!

It has been wet, chilly and raining to beat the band here this week. I know that summer is coming, but we are having a wet wintery throw-back. Maybe it will be nicer next week.
We have these funny bank commercials here, along the lines of the (insert your weird job here) we salute you. But it has to do with things that are peculiar to the pacific northwest, so socks and sandals guy is one of them. But really, living here, you can almost see why people do that.
Yesterday, went to my daughter's track meet, and it went from pouring down rain, to sunny, to windy/blustery to sunny again. All in about 45 minutes. My sandals that I wore to the track meet were not a great thing to wear. If I had had socks, I might have just put them on!

Anyway, have plans to sew this weekend, a new nightgown, and finish the skirt I am working on.
I have a lot of school stuff to do too, before the end of the year. I also want to continue working on my blog. But it will be nice to have just a relaxing weekend. Summer's coming!

Times- they are a'changin....

I keep making changes to my blog, when I can fit them in. Usually at night or in the wee hours of the morning.

Tonight, I added the flowers to my title. And changed the fonts of all of my blog. I am self taught, so everything looks a little wonky, but I am pretty proud that I can do this.

The wind is blowing and blowing outside and I need to get to bed, so night y'all!
Keep learning new things!

A background investigation

I learned how to add a background to my blog page! Don't you love it? An old dog can learn new tricks!

Next, I'll learn to download and add photos, and after that the world is my oyster!

I feel strangely powerful right now.

Thank so much to Chocolate on My Cranium for the tips. Love, love, love her blog!

Ho hum Mother's Day

My hubby made a mistake and it happened on Mother's Day. Poor hubby!
So, I rolled with it. The mistake was like this, see? We have a science center membership and when they get the newest IMAX movies in, they send us an email so we can see them. Pretty cool, right?
Well, poor hubby got the email and didn't think about mama's day. He got tickets for us all to go see Ironman 2 on a Sunday. So we did. Left a little after 12:30.

It took us about an hour and a half to get there because of traffic. Crazy, busy traffic. And it is a GORGEOUS day outside, GORGEOUS! The likes of which we get here in the NW about 2 times a year. GORGEOUS! And what are we doing? Sitting inside watching a movie. Sitting inside watching a very bad movie that is all hoochie mama dancing girls and lecherous self centered arrogant guys and things blowing up. Scarlett Johannsen wore, musta been, 6 inch heels. She walked funny in them, and you know that was some guys idea of sexy. Get real! Dude, next time YOU wear those shoes. Seriously!
It took about another 2 hours to get home, so most of the day was shot by the time we got home.
But we grilled turkey blue cheese burgers for dinner, so all was forgiven.

But, really, that's what real moms do. They go to movies they hate, wipe noses and hineys, clean up barf and every other bodily fluid with no snarky remarks, dash to the store last minute because even though she could command a battlefield with the precision and preplanning her home runs on, her loving child "forgot" at the eleventh hour, she will watch umpteen baseball/soccer/track-meets/football games in the rain/snow/sleet/sun and smile through them all because that's what moms do.

Happy Mother's Day to all you had-to- go -see- Ironman -2 -mamas out there. You rock more than Ironman and you don't even have to wear the suit!