A Year to Declutter

I don't know how we have managed to collect all the junk we have over the years, but after 15 years together, my husband and I have amassed a house jammed packed full of everything under the sun...in several shapes and sizes! Okay, I just made us sound like hoarders! It's not that bad! But, if we don't get our acts together it might be in a few years! To be honest, I think we are going through what many families are going through at this stage of their lives.


My husband and I have been married for 15 years; we have three children and have been living in the same house for several years. Being settled in one place exacerbates the amassing of junk! Let me tell you! In the beginning of our marriage we moved a lot. Every time we moved we went through everything and tossed junk or unnecessary clutter. Now, not having moved in a while, all that clutter is still in our house…and growing! I am even posting pictures of our mess! Ahh..the agony! I know it's painful to look at, just imagine living with it! But not for long! It's time to clean up!


So that you have a better idea of what I am talking about, let me provide you with a list of areas where we need to de-clutter. I have a walk in closet that we can only ‘walk-in” half way because half of the closet is jammed with several suitcases piled up against the wall. The closet is filled with clothing, some of which hasn’t been worn in years, other items being saved for when I lose weight (come on ladies, you know what I am talking about!! Those size 4 jeans you wore before the kids arrived that you swore you’d get back into! It’s not gonna happen! Toss ‘em!).  I have to be realistic. I am not in my 20's anymore and some of the clothing items I have from my 20's would be indecent on a mother of three!  LOL! I am much more modest these days!


My sewing area looks like a tornado whipped through and tossed everything around into a big heaping mess. I tried to keep it all organized, but when my supplies grew larger than the containers I purchased to hold them, it all just started spilling out over the sides and onto the floor. That means two things to me; one, I need to cut back on spending on craft items and two, I need a better system for organizing what I do have!


I have a laundry basket in the hall filled with socks that have not been matched up with their pair. Who knows where the other sock is, probably paired up with the missing pair to another sock! My son does the laundry and he just won’t pair up the socks! I need to come up with a better system!


My garage is a nightmare! I have a few boxes and large furniture items sitting out there waiting to go to Goodwill or the dump….who ever will take them. I have boxes upon boxes of decorations, keepsakes and other misc. items that I know I could do without. What I really want is a nice clean and organized garage that I would not be embarrassed to let my neighbors see every time I take out the garbage.

My backyard is a mess of moss, barkchips, mud, leaves and cypress tree needles. Nothing I plant will grow under the trees, so I have just given up...and it shows. It is embarrassing! I want a backyard I can enjoy and spend time in when the weather is nice.

Okay, I think you are getting the picture! So, what to do? I recently happened upon a website through a link on Pinterest. It’s Mysimplerlife.com and is an ongoing blog and instructional website on living simply written by a gal named Beth. On her site I found her month by month Declutter and Organization Calendar. There Beth has created a day by day list of tiny tasks you can do to get your house in order in one year. Here is a link: http://www.mysimplerlife.com/2011.htm. This idea struck a chord with me and I knew I needed to get on board and simplify my life!!

Visit My Simpler Life Blog

So, here is the good news; you can follow me and my journey to declutter and simplify life because I am going to blog my journey week by week here. I am doing this with hopes of inspiring others in similar situations as mine that you too can do this! In fact, why not join me, download the calendar and follow along! Comment as you do and let me know how you are doing each week. Maybe together we can motivate one another to keep going all 365 days long! Ahhh, that is a daunting thought! Let’s just take it day by day!

Stay tuned! I will start ramping you up for this after Christmas! Join me!

Are you on Pinterest?

About a month ago I happened upon a very cool site; Pinterest. If you haven't checked it out yet, I must warn you now....it is very addictive!I have been on Pinterest for about 2 weeks now and I just can’t get enough! Basically, the site is a treasure trove of the best ideas on the internet. From clothing, to kids crafts, to recipes and DIY home improvement ideas this site has it all! All posts are found and posted by its users and cataloged in your own customized Pinterest board. When you post, your ideas are shared with everyone else on the site, thus allowing you to build your own Pinterest boards with the ideas others have found on the web as well as your own finds.


Here's a couple of my boards just to give you an idea.


http://pinterest.com/blissfulmondays/diy-for-the-home/





 http://pinterest.com/blissfulmondays/oh-so-yummy/




If you never plan to complete any of the projects you find on here, or never plan to do anything useful with web ideas you find, this place can be an incredible time waster. However, I have every intention of using the ideas found here. In fact, I have already used several recipes, made items from ideas found here and have plans for the future use of many things I have found. This site really just shows how lucky we are to have the Internet! Can you imagine having to find all these ideas without it? How many books you'd have to find, how many magazines you'd have to browse through? Yes, the Internet is amazing and so too are the many awesome blogs out there where most of these Pinterest ideas have been generated from!

Here are a few awesome blogs I have found through Pinterest:

http://foodgawker.com/

http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/

http://www.imperfecthomemaking.com/

http://spice-is-nice.com/

http://mysparkle.blogspot.com/

And that is just to name a few!!!


Check it out for yourself! www.Pinterest.com

Re-purposing An Old Sweater

My daughter recently cleaned out her closets and bagged a bunch of clothes that no longer fit her, or clothes she no longer wanted to wear. I was planning on just taking the bag to Goodwill and dumping it, but curiosity got the better of me and I opened up the bag to inspect the clothes inside. I was saddened to see really nice clothes, barely worn, in my daughter's current size in the bag! Normally this would really upset me, but this day I knew I needed to just breathe and accept it….my daughter is a teenager and no longer wants to wear the clothes “I” pick out. I felt horrible just giving all these adorable clothes away, and passing them down to my other daughter was just not an option with the huge age gap. So, what did I do? I started cutting up a beautiful shirt and turned it into an adorable dress for my baby girl! I could kick myself for not taking pictures of that process, but I will post a finished photo of the dress soon.

Meanwhile, I am thinking, what else can I re-purpose? Then I went through my bag of old clothes for Goodwill and find a nice sweater. It was older and a little worn, but in good shape otherwise. I looked at it for a while and then it came to me….a pillow cover! I had a set of older pillows I bought at a discount store a few years ago. I never really liked the pillow covers on them, but being that they were down pillows, I just could part with them. I knew what I really needed was a better cover…and this sweater would do the trick!

Step 1: First, I needed to make sure my sweater was going to be big enough to cover the down pillow. Here's the down pillow with the old cover.

Step 2: I placed the old pillow cover on to the sweater and pinned them together.

Step 3: I carefully cut around the pillow, leaving about a 1/2" of additional sweater material for the seam allowance. My sweater had a line pattern, so I did my best to follow the lines to avoid an uneven look on my finished pillowcase.

Step 4: Place the sweater pieces, right sides facing, around the outside of 3 sides of the square with about 1/2" seam. Leave one side open for inserting the zipper.


Step 5: For me this step was salvaging the old zipper from the other pillowcase. If you are doing this too be careful removing the zipper anddo not let the zipper slide get near the ends of the zipper and become detached. In fact, if possible I highly recommend that you sew the ends of the zipper on either side together to prevent the slide from coming off all together! They are very hard to get back on!

 Step 6: Once you have your zipper ready, use your zipper foot to insert the zipper on the open side of your fabric. If you are unsure how to insert a zipper you can find a good tutorial at http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/3728/sewing-in-a-zipper.

Step 7: At this point I turned my pillow case inside out and sewed the corners of the unfinished side just up to the zipper to give it a more finished look.

Here is it all done! It is a nice addition to the other comfy pillows on my couch!

Hmmm...what to re-purpose next? Ideas?

Starting my Etsy Shop!!

Finished my last pre-ordered clutch wallet/purse! Wooohoo!

I can't stay idle long! I just have to be busy to stay sane! In the past I have spent my crafting time crocheting. And while this is my favorite hobby, it is also the most time consuming. It can take days, or even weeks to make anything worth selling and the rewards for these efforts are small. This isn’t to say I won’t make and sell crocheted items, as I do plan to do, but that my new hobby (sewing) is far less time consuming and thus has greater turnover of finished products. So, until I have a good size inventory in my Etsy shop I will be focusing on just sewing products like purses, diaper bags and baby booties.

Breastfeeding in Public

This past week a "nurse-in" was held at the Bridgeport Village shopping mall here in Oregon after a security guard told two mothers who were breastfeeding their babies that they needed to move to a private nursing room and not nurse in public. KGW News Channel 8 online writes, "the security guard told (them) to cover up, or go somewhere else to nurse." The two moms were seating next to a children’s play area, where I assume they had kids playing. The two moms quickly defended their legal right to nurse in public, as is their right in the State of Oregon.  The management of the mall quickly apologized to the women and stated that it is not their policy to prevent mother’s from nursing their children in any location within their shopping area and that the security officer was in the wrong…more or less.

KGW online also held a poll asking readers what they thought about public breastfeeding and these were the results as of 10/31/11 @ 5:00pm.

Poll:
Do you think breast-feeding in public is inappropriate?
Yes
35% 853
No
65% 1564
Total Votes: 2417

Are you surprised to see that 65% of readers do not believe that public breastfeeding is inappropriate? I find these statistics very refreshing!  That is 1564 people who understand that breastfeeding is not a ‘dirty’ deed, a shameful act, a sexual or necessarily a non-modest exposure of the body. Thankfully awareness of the needs to protect a woman’s right to feed her child through nursing wherever and whenever her child is hungry is growing!

Many moms opt to nurse discreetly. Meaning, they use nursing garments or cover-ups to provide a bit of privacy. There are so many products out there to assist with this. There is Hooter Hiders, the The Bebe Au Lait and the Breast Friend Nursing covers, and a slew of Boutique creations and sewing patterns to make your own.  Breastfeeding in public has become so easy  and convenient! For me, this is the way to go. While I do not have issue with women who choose not to nurse discreetly, I feel by doing so it is showing respect for people around you who are uncomfortable. And while their discomfort may be due to their own insecurities and issues of misunderstanding about nursing, for me, it still makes sense to try to ease what could be a stressful situation by taking a simple step to reduce the discomfort of these people. So, yes I will and do nurse in public, but I do what I can to reduce exposure.

For women who do opt to nurse openly (meaning exposing their breasts), I think it is important for them to consider their setting at the time. While they have a legal right to nurse openly anywhere, that doesn’t mean that they should necessarily always choose to do so. I think some woman nurse in all locations impartially just to make a point. And while I am glad they are standing up for their rights, I also feel that our rights are not given to us with the intention that we might use them to make others feel displaced. Am I making sense? Modesty goes a long way!

I have heard arguments that women should nurse in bathrooms, or in empty rooms or just away from all other people….all of which sound like hiding to me. First, bathrooms: nasty, smelly, germ ridden bathrooms. Would you as an adult want to eat there? Then why should you expect an innocent little baby to have to eat in the bathroom? Furthermore, very, very few bathrooms have a place to sit other than the toilet seat. Let's say you’re out to dinner, your baby starts to cry out of hunger and your dinner guests suggest you feed the baby in another room. Hmmm. Meanwhile, your drinks arrive, then your main course, your food is getting cold, and you are still trying to feed a fickle baby who is having difficulty latching on. Finally, you finish nursing, return to your table to find your meal is cold and everyone is just waiting on you to eat. Why was this mom just made to miss out on what could have been a normal dinner with family and friends? Because she had to feed her child or because some people at the table had some serious insecurity issues? We treat the mom and baby as though they were temporarily plagued with leprosy.

Anyway, I am glad these events take place because they help bring more awareness to the value of breastfeeding, and nursing in public. In the end, moms who nurse in public are nourishing their child in the best way they possibly can. We should be thanking them!  The more we see women nursing in public, the more accepted it will be. Women should not be embarrased using their breast for their God given purpose. I think somewhere in time people forgot the the breast was actually designed for something non-sexual. As a society we need to develop a much deeper appreciation for this God given gift and encourage moms to nurse wherever and whenever and never make them feel as though they need to hide when doing so.

KGW Article: http://www.kgw.com/home/Breast-feeding-moms-stage-nurse-in--132862418.html

Healthier Baby Food, Made By Mom

Baby E is almost 5 months now! Hard to believe, but true. Out of curiosity I tried to feed her a little of the freshly pureed squash I had just finished before freezing it. She was cranky and hungry and I thought to myself that it might not be the right time to try solids. Baby E made it clear right away how wrong I was! She loved the squash!!! She devoured the squash! What a thrill to watch your baby eat for the first time!

My plan had been to start feeding her in a month, but now I am thinking, based on her reaction, she's ready for solids now. Lucky girl, I just finished preparing two trays of pureed baby food from scratch. I decided to start making my own baby food this time around after reading about exposing babies to processed food early in their lives and how that process flavor helps develop their pallet ...or lack thereof.  Many people in the know stress the importance of allowing our babies pallets to develop with food as fresh and natural as possible with the hopes that they will be more inclined to make life long choices for healthier, fresher foods instead of process foods.

All this aside, it just makes me feel better to make my baby's food. I know exactly what went into it; there is no question as to preservatives, over processing...yada, yada, yada. I know this isn't for everyone. Let's face it, it does take a little time to do. But if you can spare 30-60 minutes every week, you can easily make your baby's food too. It's super easy!!!

I started with freshly picked apples I got from a farm that does not use pesticides. I peeled, cored and chopped these and placed them into a pot with a steamer tray, and a little water. I steamed them for about 20-25 minutes, then placed them into my food processor finely pureed them with some breast milk and some of the fluid from the pot I just steamed them in. Cooled and poured into my food storage tray and placed it in the freezer. That's it! Done!

This process was so easy I decided to go ahead and process an Acorn squash I had as well. I peeled the squash, cut it into quarters and removed all the seeds and pulp from the center. I baked the squash for about 55 minutes at 350 degrees in the oven. At this point I still was not happy with the softness of the squash and chose to take an additional step and chop and steam the squash for about 10 - 15 minutes longer.. Perfect! I then pureed this, added some breast milk, powdered formula, and liquid from the steaming pot. Oh, sweet perfection!!

So that was it...the squash was done, cooled and ready to go in the freezer and my little Baby E started to fuss. I crossed my fingers and spooned a little of the heavenly orange concoction into her sweet little mouth. To my, and her delight, she LOVED it! She ate way more than I thought she would and filled that empty little belly of hers! Best of all, I feel so good about what went into her little body! All natural and healthy! Yeah!

Doesn't that look yummy? It is...yes, I tried it! Can't feed it to the baby unless I know it taste good first! I plan on coming up with new recipes as time goes on, so stay tuned!! :-)

So Easy DIY Clutch Purse

I am a small purse kind of girl. Why, you ask. Because if I carry anything bigger than a wallet I fill it up with receipts, wrappers and anything else that fits in it that I don't feel like carrying! Can you relate?

Due to this all too common habit we women have, the clutch purse has become an excellent choice to lug around our necessities. Just as with my diaper bag (http://eolababy.blogspot.com/2011/10/amazing-lucky-baby-diaper-bag.html) I took my time finding the "perfect" pattern. I settled on one I found at Tipnut.com. (http://elily00.wordpress.com/tutorials/wallet/). I loved this patter because it filled every need I had in a purse; a place for my credit and bank cards, a place for cash and change, a place for business cards, and my tiny lip gloss and even a place for my cell phone. Yes, it fits all that in a little clutch! The pattern did not call for one, but I added a strap for added convenience.

It took me a total of about 5 hours to make this clutch. That's it. And it was SUPER easy. If I can do it, so can you!! Definitely use medium to heavy weight interfacing as often as possible to add strength!!

And here's another. Sold this one already!