The Unintentional Accomplishments

Wow, where does the time go?! It feels like just yesterday I was throwing my Little Mister his birthday party, telling myself that May was never going to come, and that I was never going to see my Soldier again. I know, Woe is me, right? It's definitely been an interesting few months. So hard to believe May is only two months away now! Less, considering March is almost over. 

I have been keeping ridiculously busy with a two year old running rampant in my house, the November-January 'vacation' to see family, and all the crazy things life has been throwing at me. The biggest of which was the homecoming gift of a bathroom that had been leaking for who-knows-how-long, causing the floor to rot, and a whole bunch of other fun, exciting things. Too bad sarcasm doesn't translate as well online... 

I also started taking some classes online working towards a Medical Office Assisting degree, which is turning out to be much more enjoyable than I expected, even though it has put all my crafty fun and home fixings to a stand-still. I still find time to do the odd job here and there, but it's really not as much as I wish I could be doing. 

So far the random bits I have successfully completed have been:

Painting the closet door in my living-room that was eating up all the light:

Making an Easter wreath:

Making the first of a set of kitchen art:

making a sock drawer organizer:

Re-finishing a piggy bank my sister bought my Little Mister:

Sanding and re-finishing the hutch in my kitchen. 

Spray painting the tins my wonderful mother sent me for my kitchen storage.

Making letter magnets for a friends daughter for Easter.

I will add pictures of each of these once they actually decide to upload from my phone... How many of these were actually on my 'to do' list I made when he left? Hahaha. 

I suppose some accomplishments sneak up on you when you're supposed to be doing other things. ;)

I look forward to sharing more with you soon. 

Little Mister Turned Two! I threw him a party.

 My Little Mister turned two on the 15th of November, so I threw him a birthday party the following weekend. It was the first themed party I have ever thrown, and it was so much fun. I decided to go with Dr. Seuss, because he asks me to read the books over and over again. It looks more... patriotic than Dr Seuss, but... It worked out.

I have been kicking myself for weeks now for not taking any pictures of the decorations and the food. It really looked pretty good considering I spend under $50 on decorating. Food, it was a little more, but that's to be expected.

Even though I don't have pictures, I will give you a rundown of the goodies.
I made a pennant banner in Photoshop and printed it and cut it out. I punched a bunch of red, white and blue circles with the circle punch my mom bought me, then sewed them together in alternating color patterns and lengths and hung them around the room. There were a couple other decorations that I didn't make, Walmart had a few good deals. lol.

For the food, I bought two large and two small glass plates, as well as two small candle sticks from the dollar store and spray painted them teal and red. They actually turned out pretty well, except that I am impatient and apparently don't actually know how to use spray paint... I was trying to go for a polka dot effect, and i used too thick of a layer of paint which ended up bleeding under the stickers...

 They look great from far away. :)

Here is the Birthday Boy getting excited to open presents.

And a cupcake. 'Mom, there is frosting on my hands. This is problematic.'

Despite what it looks like, he didn't actually eat the frosting... After this picture, he turned the cupcake over and just ate the cake. He definitely did NOT get his sugar-consumption-habits from me!

And here is the birthday boy the next day playing with his new Batman toy from his Grandpa.

I wish I had more pictures, but I'm no good at remembering to take them... It was a great party though!

I cannot wait to plan more parties. It was definitely a fun process from beginning to end. I made a budget and did a pretty good job of sticking to it for food and decorations, and the planning, the making, and the setting up was just so much fun. Even the food was a blast to make. I cannot wait to do more of this! [And share it with you, of course. :)]

Accomplished: Third Care Package - Christmas Theme..

This actually wasn't the third care package I have sent out... There had been a few in between Halloween and Christmas, but they weren't full of anything really exciting... just some things my Mister had asked for... Definitely not anything worth noting...

For my Christmas box, I really didn't have much to send... Mister told me he didn't want me spending money to send him things he will just have to throw away or send home, and he is trying to eat healthy, so baked goods, candy, etc. was totally out of the question.

I decorated the box as Christmas-y as I could... And Mister LOVES The Grinch, so I thought that would be totally appropriate. :)

These are those Mio drink flavor things... He said he liked them, and the Commissary on post has them for about a dollar less than everywhere else, so I make sure to include them in every package. And decorate them with whatever theme applies. :) Little Mister helped on the last one. <3

 This was a little USB Christmas tree from Target. 6 bucks, and all the lights light up and it was just adorable. I figure it would help him get into the holiday spirit.

This next one was completely free, just made up a little booklet out of tags with 27 things I love about him. It was supposed to be 30... but I ran out of tags... whoops!

And then I put in some letters. I knew I was going to be out of town and wouldn't have any ability to get him a new years package, so I just added a letter for him to open. Hopefully he followed my instructions. :)

Then lastly, I got these from the Dollar store. I don't even know if they worked, I just thought it could be fun for him to have some goofy guns. Plus, they were on sale 2 for 1, so I thought it was worth it. :)

That is it for my Christmas care package. I sent it out on the 13th of November, just to make sure it got to him in time, and he got it in just a couple weeks, so that was great. Geeze, is this deployment over yet? lol

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!