Countdown Blocks

I really wanted to do some sort of 'countdown' for Mister getting back, and I saw the idea for Countdown blocks just before he left. There were a ton of other really wonderful ideas, but a lot of them involved candy (which I probably would have ended up eating before it was time) or small objects that I don't really want Little Mister getting ahold of. 

In the first week after he left, I tried to get out of the house as much as possible. Keeping myself busy and distracted seemed to help, and I ended up spending a lot of time in Hobby Lobby, which is the only craft store in our area. I found my blocks there right away, and chose paint colors based on some scrap paper I had left over from previous projects. The only problem I had was finding some kind of stand for the number blocks to rest on, as well as where I could write 'until daddy gets home' or whatever. They didn't have anything like that, and I basically had to put the whole project on hold.

A couple days ago, I went to Target looking for a couple things, and stopped in their dollar section. It used to be called the dollar section at least... Now it's just 'deals' or something like that. Regardless! I always look, every time I go to a Target, and I almost always find something that really is a great deal. This trip, they had these little wooden signs saying things like, "Home sweet home" or "Happy Fall!" They are pretty thin, maybe a half an inch, but they were wide enough for my purposes, and less than $3. I could finally get working on this!! 

I got home, put Little Mister down for a nap and got to painting! (I am really really bad about taking before/during pictures, sorry!) It actually ended up taking me three days total because I had to paint a layer, wait for it to dry, paint another... and after the paint was totally dry, I covered everything in a layer of Mod Podge to sort of seal it.

While that was all drying, I took the scrap book paper in three different colors and cut two squares of each for each block. I Mod Podged the paper on, Mod Podged over that, and then had to wait again. 

I tell ya, patience is not my strong suit. 

After everything was totally dry, [ie. the next night] I had to figure out a couple things. The first was how in the heck I was supposed to figure out the numbers for the blocks. Six sides isn't enough to put 10 numbers on... The second was what I was going to use for lettering and numbers. I have a very limited supply of stickers, and my handwriting is not something I want to put on display.

The stickers turned out to be pretty easy. I picked out the ones I liked best, stuck them on, then did one more final layer of Mod Podge. I actually love how it turned out. The numbers on the other hand, turned out to be much harder. Every single DIY blog tutorial I found only had the numbers for two blocks, which meant that I could only count down from 44, I think? Not great because I am still upwards of 230 days right now. I kept searching and searching and found a blog where someone had asked how to count down from 150, so I took that idea and ran with it, changing a number here and there to work better for me.

I came up with: 1,2,3,4,5,6 for block one, 1,2,3,7,8,0 for block two, and 2,6,7,8,0,5 for block three. The 6's get flipped to make 9. There are a few numbers that can't be made with these, like anything with two 4's, and I am sure there are other problems, but it was late, and I really wanted to get the project finished, so I gave up. Just like patience, numbers and I don't really play well together. 

This is the end result!

I absolutely love how they turned out. If I ever make these again, I am going to try to make sure the paper gets mixed up a little more. All of my 2's have the same paper behind them, so it's not as exciting to switch to 222, or 122.

Accomplished: Second Care Package - Halloween Themed!

Second Care Package: Halloween: _{sent 10/11/12}

This care package was so much fun!!

 Mister has made it very clear that he doesn't want a lot of 'junk' that he is going to have to get rid of or send home when the deployment is over, and he is trying to eat healthier, so he doesn't want a lot of junk food either. I will admit that this makes it very difficult to fill care packages, so I have to be extra creative, and i end up with a lot of extra room that I would love to fill up with snacks and cute stuff. Maybe eventually I'll just say too bad and send things anyway... If he doesn't want them, maybe someone else will, and he'll know I'm trying to keep him happy.
So, onto the candy-less contents of the Halloween box:
- He asked for these Tide Pods because that way he wouldn't have to lug detergent to the laundry area, he could just drop a tab in his laundry bag and dump the whole thing in.  They aren't very Halloween-y though so I thought it would be a good idea to make them a little more.. 'spooky'

- This isn't actually Super Scary Halloween Stories, It's the third of the three WWII books I bought him... I just wanted to keep with the theme!

- He didn't ask for them, but I have seen a lot of people recommend them for care packages, and what better way to Halloween the contents then to add a pumpkin?

And 'candy corn'

 

There were a couple other personal items, but that's about the gist of it. Hope he likes it!

Accomplished: First Care Package

First Care Package: _{^{sent 10/03/12}}

It was so much fun decorating the box! Thanks Pinterest for the idea! haha
I didn't get a picture of the box when it was filled, But I'll give you a rundown of what all was in it.

- Mister loves the smell of Yankee Candle's Macintosh candle, so I bought him a couple of these Travel Tins, and a couple of those hang-off-the-mirror car fresheners. Trying to keep his life non-stinky. :)

- I sent him a couple bottles of hot sauce, because man loves his hot sauce.

- We use Downy Lavender Vanilla dryer sheets, so I sent him a box... Hopefully it'll remind him of home.

- He loves history. Love loves it, especially WWII, so I bought him a couple [or three] books to give him something to read if he has downtime. Later I thought it might not have been my smartest idea to send him war books while he's off fighting one, so I asked him if he wanted me to send him. He actually sounded genuinely excited, so that was good.

- I also sent him a book Men are Better than Women which is pretty raunchy and could be offensive, but it's right up his ally as far as humor goes, so hopefully it'll give him something to laugh about.

- Last, but not least, I wrote him a long letter, and then a couple short ones that he can open throughout the deployment. I figured there would be times he wouldn't be able to call for extended periods, so I wrote one for that situation, I wrote one for if he was missing Little Mister, and scribbled it [left handed] as if Caden had written it. I wrote a couple for him to open on certain dates, just in case a package I send doesn't get there until after the holiday/event. I wrote one for our 'houseaversary' [the date we closed on our house] and just a couple others. I have another stack I am going to send with a later package. Hopefully he likes them as much as I liked making them.

Todays Accomplishment: Taming the Paper Monster

Being that My Mister is in the military, we have boatloads of paperwork documenting just about everything that he does. We have Orders, Household Good Shipment paperwork, enlistment paperwork... And then of course the copies of those, and then some. I'm pretty new to this, so I don't k now what to keep and what to get rid of, so we basically keep it all, just in case. It's a mess.

We have probably 15 different folders with different documents in them, but no idea what is in each folder, so whenever we need something, we have to go through every folder, every paper, until we find what we are looking for. It's time consuming, and very frustrating.

Along with all that, we have our standard paperwork. Our mortgage paperwork, insurance documents, warranty and replacement documents, etc. all of which just kind of... float around in our spare bedroom/office. When my mother-in-law gave us a set of bunkbeds, we had a place to set things out of our Little Misters reach so he couldn't destroy them, so the top bunk sort of became our 'catch all' for everything until he learns that everything he can reach is not something to destroy.

I have a box that I should be putting all these things into but I never got around to filling it, and what I did put in there is unorganized and confusing. If I want to have any order in my life, first I need to organize the smaller things. I knew what I had to do, I really had no excuse to put it off for as long as I did, but it was time to tame that Paper Monster!

When I bought the document box, I bought some regular green hanging folders to go in it, but I didn't really have any folders to go inside. I had a few odd files I had collected over the past couple years, but they had writing on them and were just terrible! I decided that would be my first order of Business. I needed some file folders!! I have always loved Target's selection of office supplies. Their 'green room' collection is so neat looking, plus, recycled!! How can you go wrong!?

So the Little Mister and I went on a little adventure to the local Target, and after a little bit of meandering, ended up in the office supply section.  Now I grew up in a town where there were three targets within about a 15 mile radius. If one of them didn't have what you were looking for, you were almost guaranteed to find it at one of the other two. Plus they were HUGE, so each of their departments had a ton of stuff! Here in my little corner of the world, we have one. And it's TINY. Their office supply department takes up one aisle and an end-cap. It's a very sad thing.

When I got there, the aisle had been picked clean, apparently back to school shopping is in  full swing, and I was late... The shelves had odds and ends, but nothing that I would want to consider using to manage my paperwork. The way I see it is that if I love the way it's organized, I will love to organize it, whereas if it's just plain and boring, I won't want to spend the time. Plain and boring might work for some, but unfortunately not for me.

I did a little digging with no luck and was pretty much ready to abandon my 'pretty' paper organizing, but I finally found them. There were two sets thrown in with the binders at the end of the aisle, just waiting for me to grab them up. Unfortunately, the front set had a huge gash down the middle and the tabs were bent beyond repair but the second set was in perfect condition. I can't tell you how excited I was to get home and get started. Really, how can I get so excited about office supplies? First my binder, now file folders? At least I'm enthusiastic!

When we got home Little Mister went down for a nap, I pulled my new, spiffy folders out and then I started lugging all of the files and papers into the dining room. It was very daunting. I decided to start with the military documents because once those are out of the way, it'd be a cake-walk. For the folders with older documents, I went through each page and taped a piece of paper to the front of the folder, writing down each document that was enclosed, as well as how many pages they had. That got old fast... I think I got through two before I gave up.

I changed tactics and went through and sorted them by duty station. We were in Texas after he finished Basic Training, then he was in South Korea, and now we are here, so I took all the documents from Basic Training and before and put them in their own folder (which actually included all the folders I had lists for...) Then I took all the documents that had to do with the transition from Texas to South Korea, and put them in a folder. The next folder had everything from his time in South Korea, as well as his orders to Fort Campbell. I have one other folder left over for documents from this duty station, but it's pretty small as of now. I didn't use any of my pretty folders for the military documents... There are so many, and it just seemed unnecessary because most of them came with their own (boring) folders.

Going through all those documents took the better part of the afternoon, and Caden had woken up from his nap somewhere near the end, so I turned on a movie and tried to get him to watch it while I worked on the rest. (I say 'tried to get him to watch it' because he really has no interest in the TV, which is great, but makes situations when I need him to be distracted by something more difficult... haha)

This next step was much easier, and went by in about two hours. Apparently my documents weren't in as big of a mess as I had thought, it just seemed that way because they weren't organized and I could never find anything I was looking for. I started by figuring out what categories I would need. I knew I needed a section for my insurance policies, so I made one for the house, and one for the car. I figure I can use those two files for other house/car related documents too, but that will be for another time, given that we don't have any right now!

Our warranty documents, as well as receipts and product replacement documents have their own folder, as do all the documents regarding our previous moving shipments via. the military , which we really probably don't need, but it's nice to have a point of reference, so I am keeping them. Then I have a few more for things like taxes and certificates that Chaz gets through the Army, our personal documents, and other odds n ends. That left me with three folders for future documents, which is excellent. It's always a good idea to have some room to expand!

My next step will be to print the labels that came with the folders and then I'll be done and post pictures!! It's really such a refreshing feeling to know that the next time I need a document, I won't have to go digging through piles of paper. Plus, we get our top bunk back!

My List of Future Accomplishments

Since my Mister deployed, I have come up with quite a few ideas for how to keep busy, as well as some things that I want to do for him while he is gone. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the 101 in 1001 project idea, but I first came across it in 2009 and promptly made myself a list. Basically, you make a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days, and as you complete each item you cross it off the list. Now, back then I was even less motivated than I am now, so I didn't get far on my list before I lost it, and then just gave up on the whole idea.

My Mister will be gone for about 9 months which equals to about 274 days, and while I may feel like I have a laundry list of things I want to do, when I write it down it turns out to be pretty short. Well, short enough to accomplish in around 9 months.

So, without further ado:

Keeping Busy:

1. Attend FRG meetings when possible
2. Bring clothes to Platos Closet, Once Upon a Child, or Goodwill
3. Do at least one lesson for school a day.
4. Help my sister get her website up and running Success!

Feeding My Inner Interior Decorator:

5. Paint the closets: Master Bedroom, Caden's room, Bathroom, hall closet, front closet
6. Decide on paint colors and general 'themes' for rooms:
Master Bedroom:
Cadens Room:
Dining Room:
Living Room:
Bathroom:
Kitchen:
7. Paint every room: Master bedroom, Cadens room, Dining Room, Living Room, Bathroom, Kitchen

Craftyness:

8. Make bedding for the Master Bedroom
9. Pillows or pillow covers for the livingroom couch
10. Make some kind of countdown to count the days until Chaz gets home [Completed 10/25/12]
11. Finish making storage bins out of diaper boxes

For My Soldier:

12. Send one care package for each holiday Chaz isn't home for: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas/New years, Valentines Day, Saint Patrick's Day, Easter, Fathers Day.
13. Send one care package a month
14. Plan an awesome homecoming

For the House:

15. General Declutter - Donate or trash
16. Hang blinds in the Master Bedroom
17. Create a household binder
18. Get organized and stay organized

For Me:

19. Blog at least once a week
20. Make an appointment to get contacts
21. Put Little Mister in daycare at least once a month for a 'Mommy Day'
22. Work out, Gym or home, doesn't matter

For the Baby:

23. Enroll in CYS for Hourly Daycare
24. Swap out the crib rail for a toddler bed
25. Start potty training

Finances

26. Get at least $1000 into savings for emergencies
27. Pay off as much debt as possible
28. Spend less on groceries - save the extra for a 'rainy day'

So there it is. That rounds out to about one thing every ten days? I see no reason why that shouldn't be doable. I'll do my best to photograph the items that are photograph-able and post them on here so you all can see my progress!I look forward to sharing my accomplishments with you!

Accomplishing Order

I guess the first step to getting organized is creating order. So many things on my to do list have been put aside and forgotten because I didn't write them down, or I did write them down, and I put them in a 'smart place'. For me, it's always the 'smart places' that I can never remember... I can't tell you how many projects I have started planning for on some scrap piece of paper that ended up getting moved or thrown away in some hasty attempt to clean up before the Mister gets home. The more important it is, the smarter of a place I put it, the less likely I am to ever find it again.

My first goal was to make myself one solid place for all those thoughts, ideas, and bits of information that eventually need to be stored somewhere permanent. As it turns out, it takes me more than one try to figure out exactly what that means. I've seen hundreds of 'house binders' floating around, and thought maybe that would work for me. The only problem was that half of the dividers in all these house binders had no relevance in my life. I am a stay at home mom with a two year old, a husband who is getting ready to deploy, and no solid schedule to speak of. Still, I knew I had to start somewhere, so I took a few ideas and threw them around.

Binder attempt #1

I started with recipes. My wonderful sister gave me a recipe box for Christmas last year, but I have found so many recipes online, mostly through Pinterest, and it would be more than a little difficult and time consuming to put all those recipes onto the recipe cards, especially with my Little Mister running around constantly. Don't worry, Megan, I will do it eventually!

I decided the next best thing would be to take all my online recipes, print them out, then put them into a binder. I made a list of our favorite recipes, as well as a few recipes for things I knew I was planning on trying soon, and copied, pasted, and re-formatted them so they were all uniform, then printed them. It's really been a nice thing to have around the house, but I bought myself a 2.5 inch three ring binder, thinking it would be more useful because it can hold more.

It has been useful, and I can store a lot of things in it, but it's really inconvenient to lug around the kitchen or take up space on one of the whopping two counter tops we have. I did learn, however, that while having a binder was an excellent idea, this one just wasn't going to cut it for me. Onto attempt two!

Binder attempt #2

There is this small old binder that I have had for ages. It has moved with me since I graduated High School for sentimental reasons,  but it's never really served a purposed.  I though it might be perfect for my new house binder. I took the binder off the shelf and started looking online for free home management binder printables. I found a few I liked well enough, but when I went to print them, I ran into a really big problem. One that I should have thought about, because it's obvious. The binder is too small. The pages are only 5.5 x 8, so I had to re-size every page I printed off, which worked, but left very little room to write anything, let alone make a list.

I had a general idea for what categories I was going to have in this binder, so I decided to just make the pages myself. I started with some basic lists, things we want for the house, things we need for the house, projects I want to complete, and general home improvement information. I made up all the pages, printed them out, hole punched them, and ran into the living room excitedly to show the Mister.

He politely paid attention while I explained what it was, very proud of myself for all the work I had put into it, and he even helped me think of a few ideas for each section which I diligently wrote in. Seriously, he is so supportive of my crazy, spazzy moments! Over the next couple days I would think of another random item and write it down in the notebook, and I felt so happy that I finally had an organized place for all my ideas!

And then I stopped writing in it. 

Once the ideas were out of my head, in the notebook, and the notebook was put away, I hardly thought about it again. Not really ideal for something I was planning on using constantly, definitely not a good fate for such a pretty binder! I guess it was time for attempt three, and time to find a new plan for the mini-binder.

Binder attempt #3

I basically set this binder thing out of my head for a few weeks. I wasn't thrilled with any of the options I could buy from my local stores, and I didn't want to buy anything online in case the image was different than the actual item. Eventually, we went to visit my dad over a long weekend, and one thing I love about visiting my dad, aside from obviously seeing my dad, is that he lives in an area where there is tons of variety. Shopping, food, entertainment, whatever you want to do, there are multiple options. There are three targets within 15 miles, Office Max, Office Depot, and Staples, whereas the town I live in has one office supply store, one target, and a whole lotta not much else.

Needless to say, I planned a trip for me and my Misters to Staples. I'll admit, I am a sucker for Martha Stewarts collections, and Staples carries them! I knew I would find something there.

Well I wasn't wrong! I fell in love with these binders the second I saw them. Unfortunately, the price sticker I saw said they were $14.99, which is ridiculous, but I knew it was something that I wanted, and I would use it if I loved it, right? so I bit the bullet and grabbed the blue one. Thank goodness when I got to the checkout counter I found out that the price sticker had been misplaced, and they were only $5.99. That is much more acceptable. I should have grabbed a black one too, but the Little Mister was getting very tired, so we decided it wasn't worth testing his patience.

I can't tell you how excited I was to get back home! I didn't want to leave, because I love my dad, but I was seriously excited to get working on my new binder inserts!! I got online, looked on every page I've seen offering free printables, and found a few that I liked, but none that I loved. Don't get me wrong, there are some excellent  free printables out there, I just couldn't find any that I was going to be 100% happy with, so I decided to go ahead and make my own again.

It is still a work in progress, and some of the pages still need a little work, but I am ready to show this puppy off.

I am truly sorry about these pictures... All I have right now is my phone, and no photo editing software on this computer.





The first thing is a calendar I found at the $ store, which just makes me so happy. Saving money, and finding something that has colors that will match my binder? Win win. :)


After my calendar, I have Birthdays and Anniversaries. [not pictured]





Followed by my Cleaning Schedule



My Weekly To-do List



A list of our favorite meals - I always try to have the ingredients for these in the house, that way if I don't have any ideas for dinner, I can just whip one of these up.



My Goal Sheet, which I changed from 'Weekly Goals' to 'Goals' because most of mine are longer term than just a week.



My favorite page: The Project Planner

And that is followed by my Bills sheet. [also not pictured]

I laminated a few of the pages so I could take a wet-erase marker (dry erase wouldn't come off for me) and check things off, write things in, etc, which really makes life easier, and saves some paper! It is still a work in progress, but so far I am so happy with how it has turned out, and I have been able to keep working with it now for more than just a week, so I have hope that this one will actually stick!

 I hope to keep using this binder, and as I use it, I plan to figure out exactly what it is that will help me to stay organized in each of these categories, and I would love to share my success with you! I would also love to share the pages I have created, so if you are interested in them, please view or download them! Here are the links again:

Birthdays and Anniversaries
Cleaning Schedule
Weekly To-do List
Goal Sheet
Project Planner
Bills

Do any of you use a binder to organize your lives? Have any ideas on what a truly useful binder should contain? I would love to hear your thoughts!

The biggest accomplishment of the new house!

Before my Mister got deployed, he really wanted to do some work on our den. It's basically going to be our 'rec room', which he will be calling his man cave. Unfortunately, it is also where our laundry is, and it's the door we use to come in and out of the house, so it still had to be functional for every-day life. He basically told me when we moved here that I could do anything I wanted to the rest of the house, as long as he could decorate the man cave, pick paint colors, approve or disapprove photos, furniture, etc.

I grudgingly agreed. I am a bit of a control freak, but I figure, what's one room when that gives me free reign over the whole house!! He picked out paint colors and told me his ideas: Tan walls, dark brown trim, and our folding doors would be the same with the inset tan and the border dark brown. I've never seen that combination before, so I was very nervous, and really wasn't into the idea... At all. We went to the home improvement store, looking for colors, and he made his choices. Holmes cream for the main walls, and  Cowboy Boots for the trim. I still was not sold on the idea. I am much more into the cool colors, blues, greens, etc. Both of these colors were very... yellow. But I had agreed to his choosing the colors, so I bit my tongue and said "okay, lets do this."

We also decided to take out the carpet, because let me tell you, the previous owner had dogs, and those carpets did not smell like roses.

Here are the 'before' pictures. PLEASE excuse the mess... We really didn't like the room, so we used it more as storage than anything else, so... yeah... Mess. :)

Our first step was to prime the walls: (My brother in law came to visit. He was 'helping')

Then we started in on the painting:

Little Mister trying to figure out what I was taking pictures of...

Then the carpet got ripped up and new floors put down:

And finally, the trim got painted, the doors got put back, and the room got cleaned!

It turned out WAY better than I thought it was going to. :) I actually kind of love it.

We still have some work to do on it. Mister wants to put a rug down, get rid of our blue couch and replace it with some recliners, and change the fans to something a little more... manly. All in due time, I suppose. I also want to do something to the fireplace and mantle, but I have no idea what, so it'll have to wait.

How about you? Have you had any projects that you weren't crazy about in the beginning, but turned out to be great? I would love to hear about it!

The First Accomplishment

I'm a slob. I'm a slob, I'm a slob slob slob!

The first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one, right? Well I admit, I have never been one to clean much. Ever since I was little, I always cut corners and did the bare minimum, so I never really learned good cleaning habits. My husband was in for a nice surprise when we moved in together, and ever since then, I have been trying my best to make the house look like I've been cleaning, when in reality, I just move the mess from one area to the other. [FYI: He has never been fooled]

When I was pregnant, I literally accomplished nothing but eating, napping, and watching TV. Bones, I think was the kick I was on at the time, but that is neither here nor there! I didn't have a job, I didn't cook, the Mister would get off work, and I would just then start thinking about dinner plans, most of the time we wouldn't have ingredients anyway. I made absolutely zero effort to make our apartment a home. My habits really hadn't changed much from then to now.

Recently however, it's really started to hit me. I don't know if it's because we bought our first house this past year [*celebrate!*] or the fact that my little bundle went from making only the messes that I allowed, to throwing toys and food anywhere and everywhere, all the time, but I had a revelation!

I need to get clean!

Not just clean, I need to get organized, I need to get motivated, I need to accomplish something! Not just for my sake, but for my husband and my child! If I am sitting at home all day and the only thing I get done is finish another season of something on Netflix, what could I possibly say for myself? What kind of habits am I teaching my brilliant little man? Nothing worth repeating, that's for sure. On the days that I do accomplish some small task, who do I have to share it with? Of course my husband will listen to me and be proud, but really, how many times can can I expect him to tell me he's glad I got the house clean when we would rather that just be the normal state of things, not a special occasion!

On top of that, my husband is just about to leave for a deployment, and I am going to need a nice, streamlined system in place in order to keep my head. I am going to need projects to keep me busy, and I am going to rely on those moments of pride and success when I see another project I have been meaning to do for months finally crossed off my list. I want letters to my husband to be filled with things like, "Guess what I accomplished today!" and "Remember how I wanted to do this forever? Well guess what, It's finally done!!!" Unfortunately, while I can send letters every day, I know he won't be able to read them right away, and I can't expect a constant stream of letters back. I know better than to expect that much communication. As much as I would love it, it's just not practical.

That, my new friends, is where you come in. I want to share my accomplishments with you! I want to hear about your accomplishments! A new recipe you tried that everyone loved, a new way to clean your windows that really didn't leave streaks! Anything and everything that makes you feel good, no matter how tiny! In return, I will tell you all about the transformation I am undergoing! From clueless new mom, to house-wife extraordinaire!

I look forward to sharing more with you!