4 Priorities

It seems that everyone is touting having 4 priorities that you focus your attention on:

Zen Habits

Far Beyond the Stars

Live It With Less - The Big 4

So I have been doing a lot of thinking about my big 4.

Right now, I am concentrating less on what I ultimately want to do, and more on what will get me there, therefore my big 4 for the month of May is:

1. Get the girls' promoted to 3rd grade (they are due to graduate to 2nd, but their teacher agrees with me they would be bored in 2nd and do better in 3rd)- so far I have met with their teacher, who gave her blessing and recommended that I meet with the principal. I have emailed the principal and intend to call her tomorrow. I understand they don't have a history of skipping students, but I think my girls deserve to be in a class that challenges them.

2. Finish all projects in the home that I am responsible for and continue decluttering. I have finished all the pillows, curtains, and cushions for the den. I am waiting for my husband to help me finish making the covered buttons and once I sew those on, the den is done. I have cut and started sewing the kitchen curtains. I have cut the curtains, shams, and roll pillow covers for the bedroom. I hope to have all this sewn tonight. Then all I will have to do is paint our family tree painting. I am decluttering each day, never purging less than 5 items a day. Husband is collecting them all in the garage for an upcoming garage sale.

3. Get work in order. Ugh. This is the one I am dreading. Due to a family emergency and several doctor appointments last week, I have only been at work less than 2 days in the last 2 weeks. I have errands to run in the morning and intend to stay a little later each day this week to try to catch up.

4. Blog. I want to keep this blog up to date as much as possible, not just to track my progress on simplifying, but also to document my recent art projects, home projects, and general goings on. I have a tendency to start and not finish and I want to make this blog a priority..

Now onto sewing! The faster I get this stuff done, the faster I can get to organizing and decluttering, which is much more fun right now!

Vegetarian Daughters

New snack bag art! I forgot to photograph yesterday's bag.


I was giving the teen a lecture on social responsibility and if he was truly concerned with doing the right thing, he would go vegetarian since the amount of grain it takes to feed one cow could feed thousands of people, not to mention the environmental benefits and health benefits of a vegetarian diet. Apparently, the only ones listening were the twins in the backseat.

I was a vegetarian when I met my hubby, but got tired of cooking two meals every night so I finally gave in and became an omnivore (and in the process gained a bit of weight). So when the girls decided to give up meat, I thought what better motivation for me to jump start my diet.

However, I wasn't thinking about the school lunches. I do not trust that they offer sufficient nutrition for a vegetarian, so we have gone back to packing lunches. We went veggie on Sunday and haven't had any meat since.

It took awhile to figure out some good options for snack and lunch. So far we have had for snack:
1. Apple and juice box
2. Almonds and juice box
3. Cereal bar and juice box

So far for lunch we have had:
1. Mac and cheese, dried fruit, boiled peanuts
2. Cheese pizza, carrots and fat free ranch dressing, fresh strawberries
3. Blueberry bagel with strawberry cream cheese, grapes, yogurt

I am hoping this isn't just a fad for them, because I can see cooking two meals when it isn't just me that is eating the meat-free version.

Garage sales, sewing, and game night, oh my!

We got up early this morning to start off our garage sale shopping season. We love garage sales. This is the primary way I get new clothes for the girls and occassionally I get a nice find or two for myself. Thad usually gets a gadget or two as well.
We got a couple of things for the house:
This beauty, we intend to hang in the dining room. We have just the empty space for it.

These baskets fit so perfectly with our decor we couldn't pass them up. Thad thinks we should fill them with peat moss, potting soil and plants and hang them out front. I'm undecided.



Of course I found some books. And the sale benefitted a local library, so I was glad to oblige with some books for me and some for the girls.

Tris had to spend her hard earned money on this and a video game. They had great fun playing darts on the garage door once they figured out it was magnetic.

Tab was lured in by this marionette tiger.

We got several clothing items (great brands) for the girls this summer and this cute little bench to sit in front of their window. They can use it for overflow toys.


I got a beautiful silver tiny tea set that I just really wanted. The lady seemed upset to part with it for $5 but she finally did. I envision pretend tea parties with the girls outside this summer.


As part of my effort to destress my life, I finished a project that had been nagging at me. I finally sewed the cushion for our plowman's chair. I still have to add buttons, but it looks pretty nice. You can see it matches the pillows I made weeks ago that the teen is using to sheild himself from the camera.




Tonight consitituted our first official Family Game Night. I had bought Blokus for 4 players. We had a blast except Thad got mad at me when I kept heckling him even after I got out of the game. Hence the angry face. It was nice when the teen voluntarily joined in the game....


For Christmas, my mom gave the girls a butterfly habitat. Hubby pulled it down to order the cocoons. Right after he sent off the request, the girls found dozens in the yard...

Today I was going to work on the craft room, but...

my husband had other plans.

He took off work early and invited me to lunch at Zaxby's. Yum.

Afterwards I did a little shopping- more on that later.

When the girls' got home from school, he took them to do a little errand and came home with these:



I can't yet tell who is who, but they have all been named. Carly, Shelly, Penny, Leonard, Raj, and Howard. And yes, Shelly is short for Sheldon. We love the Big Bang Theory around here. I'm afraid Carly is of iCarly fame, named by one of the twins.

Hubby is busy at work on building the coop:



I have wanted chickens for eons, so I am thrilled. I am afraid the Homeowner's Association will be less so. We didn't know we were part of a subdivision when we initially bid on the house and were dismayed to find out before it closed that we were officially, even though we are actually on the outside of the subdivision. Well, hopefully we won't start a war, though small battles have been going on since we moved in.

While the girls are busy driving both the chicks and my husband crazy, the teen is busy working on projects for the end of the year.



My shopping consisted of more yarn for shell afghan, embroidery thread to start embroidering panels for the quilt for the craft room bed, and some clothing. Since aquiring my mostest favoritest shoes of the decade:



I have realized how very little red I have in my wardrobe. I have realized that in order to wear these shoes more often without clashing horribly, I need to add some more red tops, or at least tops which go with red shoes, to my closet.

I have also found that while I did put a bit of weight back on since my massive (46 lb!) loss last summer, I am either too small or too big for most of my bottoms.

So I bought some bottoms, a red top, a red purse and wallet, a red mini-lap bag to tote this thing around, some red flip-flops, red headbands, and some tops for the girls. Not thrifty at all, but very fun! I think I went a little crazy!

Love to start, never to finish...

I am always starting something new- scarves, blankets, banners, etc., but rarely finish anything unless it is for payment. So in that tradition, I start a new blog. My older blogs all felt very specific, as though different ideas should go in their own blogs. One blog for work, one for art, one for family. This blog, hopefully, will attempt to combine all of my life into one cohesive reading and writing experience.

Hopefully this will be a fresh start for me in many ways. I am trying to make some changes overall and perhaps a new blog will motivate me towards a new me.

Now, about me: I'm a 40 year old mom to 3, one teen boy and twin preteen girls, wife to one fabulous hubby, fur-mommy to two cats and one Yorkie-poo. I work part-time (supposedly, ends up being more full-time mostly) as a 4K preschool teacher/director at my church. I love to crochet, paint, read, sew, camp, hike, and generally do anything crafty. I love children and would have 20+ kids if my husband would agree, as evidenced by my job and volunteer work. I used to be a Musical Theatre major in college and love to sing and dance. My dream job would either be a librarian or an artist. My favorite thing to do is to dream up new ideas. I am better at envisioning things than following through with them. I tend to be a jack of all trades, master of none. I have a propensity to be a workaholic, though nothing seems to ever get finished.

Current projects I am working on:

Weekly Bible Study: Sacred Romance



Bible Study with Girls: Self-made study on fruits of the spirit, this week we are starting on "love/agape". I found a great website that allows you to look up the original language for any verse, then find verses that use the same word. Helpful, since there are multiple words translated into "love." The website is www.searchgodsword.org.

Crafts with Girls: Both are learning to make potholders on a loom- they are finding this thrilling. Twin2 got a sewing kit which has pre-punched felt with yarn for sewing. It is actually on her level, though she finds the loom more fun right now.

Crocheting: I have started 2 afghans for my craft room. Afghan1 is a ripple using a pattern called "Warm Waves" from this book-


I am using the pink, blue, yellow, and green colors in this yarn-

Afghan2 is in brighter colors and uses a shell pattern from the same book.

I'll try to get pics up later.

Reading:

I just finished The Forgotten Garden. Some say it is overwritten, but I love her flowery, descriptive prose. The story itself was interesting, and the multiple timelines made it unfold in a way that heightened the mystery. It helped that I read it while we camped, so there were very few distractions.

Meal Plan for the week:

Tonight- Chili (canned with added ingredients made by hubby while I was hosting auditions for the children's play at church)
Monday- Homemade Chicken and Dumplings from scratch from Southern Living January 2010. New recipe for the week...
Tuesday- Leftovers
Wednesday- Mini-Meatloafs, Cheese Grits, Salad
Thursday- Grilled chicken, pasta, and a green vegetable
Friday- Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwiches (hubby cooks!)
Saturday- Chicken Tortellini Soup from cooks.com
Sunday- Hamburger Steak (hubby cooks!)