iTunes: How to list your albums chronologically and not alphabetically.

I want to see albums by the date that they were created.  It was driving me insane to see them alphabetical.  I finally did a quick search on the internet and found a kind soul who said what you needed to do.  Here goes:

You want to add the date before the album title. 

Click onto the album art and from the window, choose Get Info.

Yes, you want to edit the information. 

When the window pops up, change the album title to reflect the date created.  The year is on the top right hand side of that window.  Click OK and you are set!  

I don't think that Hubs is at all disturbed by the lack of date organization.  It was killing me in an OCD kind of way.

I promise that I'll figure out screen shots soon enough.  Rome wasn't built in a day.

School is in . . . for the PTA Prez.

Oh, yes.  I am the PTA president for the next two years, unless they kick me out.  I mean, generally, no one wants the job, so I don't see that happening.

Last Saturday, I went to a state PTA conference.  Thankfully, they had 4 different regions, so I was able to attend at the school down the street.  The district conference is in October, and that is a must-attend for me and as many of my PTA peeps as I can get. 

The ladies will be coming to my house on Thursday to start getting those PTA wheels rolling.  I, in true Virgoian fashion, have purchased folders for all my peeps, so that I can have everything copied and organized for the meeting.

We will be accomplishing things, you see.

For several years before our current board existed, our PTA had some issues.  For the last two years, Patti the PTA past prez was busy doing damage control and being a cheerleader.  Now that she has worked on smoothing over the mess that was left for her to clean up, I'm on project, "Get everything compliant." 

I'm very good at pushing papers.  Just ask my husband.  That is why we have a slumbering child in the next room.  He said that if all that paper had to be pushed by him, she'd still be on foster status.  :S

We have to redo the bylaws.  Ah, yes.  If you are in Ohio, you should have bylaws restructured at least every three years, but those need changed (not an easy process) as needed.  You also have standing rules and those can be amended in a process not as long and painful as the bylaws.  Since they have found a copy of the bylaws, but not the standing rules, we need to revamp bylaws and construct standing rules. 

Why do we have to do this and what the heck are those things anyhow?  Well, they are a bunch of binding rules and basics for the organization and it is required to be a PTA in good standing to keep all those papers in order.

I do not believe that the PTA organization recalls that this is an unpaid position.

There are many things that we've tossed around about the year that we view as flawed.  This is the year to change them.  I feel like Barack Obama in the first presidential run-- change.  Yes, we will also be-- forward.  We will change and we will move forward.  There's just going to be a lot of trees involved in that forward movement.

Kay, my PTA partner in crime, called to give me calendar updates for the fall.  Kay and I are co-chairs for Book Fair.  We have a training workshop in October and a Book Fair in November.  I did realize that the Book Fair is the Thursday and Friday following the big crush week that I have for the open house at work, and I generally pull 12 hour days.  Calgon, take me away. 

Of course, I'm rushing into fall without mentioning the Membership drive that begins the first day of school through the third week of September.  I have to update the JBF website to include everyone (thankfully, I have all that set up and if they are renewing membership, it is a simple click).  I also have to construct the directory, build the books and distribute those and cards. 

I should mention that right after labor day, we have our Garden Fair.  This year's Garden Fair was seed sponsored by Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, so I'm truly excited to see what everyone has grown.  :)  That is a big part of that beginning crush, though. 

Add to that 100 Book Challenge and the fact that we lost our Leveled Literacy Intervention coach (LLI) and while we had a great system of working things, once again-- I have to figure out a new way of working with someone else.  I should be used to it, as almost every year I've done this, I've had a change of 100 BC coach.  Still, it makes me sad, as Ms. S and I really were two very similar people.  We loved the kids, loved books, loved gardening, organic things, environmentalness and she was one of the most excited folks about the seeds!  I will miss her so much.  We will not be receiving a new LLI K-2 tutor, so the existing tutors will need to absorb the kids that originally went to Ms. S.  Budget cuts.  Arrrggghhh.  Just pass the darned levy already!  22 million dollars in cuts and counting . . .

I digress.

I should round out by saying, I'm a little busy.  :deep breath:  And to think, they said that the president job was the easiest job.  Don't worry.  I didn't believe them.

Smiles in my day:
-  Lil Mak is home from the hospital (after having finally eaten something) and is doing well.  It was a big, bad virus and she's a little, bitty thing.  She needed some fluids to rehydrate her and she's good to go.  :)  Thank you for praying.
-  I was able to get my niece's birthday gift crafted (of course I forgot to take a photo), but I bedazzled a plain bag from Joann's and it looks marvelous.  K- told me, "Mom, if she doesn't like it, she can just sent it back and I'll carry it."  Shhh, I'm making K- a special bag of her very own for her special Christmas gift from me.  I was sweating it to get that gift done because, of course, I waited until the last minute.  My in-law's will take it up for me when they go this week, so I needed to get it dropped off.  :sigh of relief:  It is finished.  :)
-  Hubs has been stressed this week, but he has a much needed day off tomorrow.  That is a very good thing.
-  When you put a second run of clothes on the line at about 4:30 PM-- the time that the line is almost fully in the shade-- and they are fully dried when you go to get them later, you realize that it was very warm out today.  (96 F here.)
-  I got a new sprayer for the hose.  Now, that may not seem like a big deal, but mine was completely busted and this one is a wand with an adjustable, multi function head and a trigger sprayer!  It was on clearance, too!  :)
-  K- went to the bank and deposited some saved money today.  She was surprised to find that her savings has grown to $102.00 already.  I told her that when she saves, as opposed to spending and when mom has it directly deposited weekly so she doesn't forget, it accrues quickly.  (By the way, we subscribe to the half the current age rule for weekly allowance amount.)  She works and when she doesn't, allowance isn't earned or is docked.  That doesn't make her very happy.
-  The Olympics and athletes who are wonderful about not medaling (volleyball gentleman), losing a medal place (Aly Raisman) but not third place, and true happiness (Missy Franklin).  They are beginning to rinse the egos out of my mind of second place not being good enough with some of the swim team (being asked "what went wrong" as opposed to "congratulations!")

Have a wonderful weekend!

A day with my girl.

Thursdays in my house is cleaning day.  The last few weeks, Thursday has been less than fun for K- and me, often ending with K- losing privileges. 

At issue, 98% of the Thursday time, was her room.  It was an absolute pig sty and needed to be stripped.  My mother-in-law took K- on a train ride the other day, and that required K- to stay a night in order to be there for on time for the train.  That gave me an opportunity.

I was a mom on a mission.

I went through and gave the room a mom cleaning, as I had to consider that K- isn't going to clean like mom at the tender age of 8 1/2.  I figured that if we gave her a base to work from (believe me, I've done this before), she is now old enough to understand and to take care of that room.  K- and I did work on the desk together, weeding through desk drawers, coloring books, miscellaneous bits and parts and actually found that she does possess a desk top.  I swore that I saw it there before!  Since I have her desk top covered with a thick clear covering, I can slip something underneath it.  I'm embarrassed to say that it still has the ABC and 123 posters under there that I put there 4 1/2 years ago.  We've decided that we're going to use the fun green, yellow and white polka dot wrapping paper.  I realize that if it becomes too distracting, I'll have to change it. 

Basically, we've made the desk something that a 3rd grader would use.  We're still finishing it, but we're close.  We're going to clear the bulletin board, in anticipation of starting the third grade in the fall.  We've got the room nearly straightened around and I would love it to remain that way.  K- has become more responsible-- willingly taking care of her chores (trash on Friday and Monday, with cans to the street on Monday, dusting the floor, picking up, clearing dishes) and I just needed to give something as a model.  The book case has been rearranged and she knows to put things back on the shelf with its book mates.  (Junie B, Magic Tree House, Big Nate, Amelia Bedelia, American Girl, Star Wars . . . )  It's when the book shuffle happens that everything falls apart. 

I got a little tangential on that.  Really, I meant to talk about our trip to the zoo.  That's where I started.  I'm tired.  Truly.

In one of K-'s birthday card, there was a check and a pair of tickets to the local zoo.  I decided that today was the day to seize the opportunity to use the tickets.  It was sunny and a heat advisory day, but I packed (a little overzealously) a lunch, drinks, ice packs and sunscreen and we were off.  We found that the advisory scared all but the diehards away, so it was nice.  Few people meant that we weren't tripping over each other.  Everyone was kind and pulling together to keep the little ones safe and happy.  We ate, we looked, we applied sunscreen, we walked, we fed critters, we drank, we reapplied sunscreen and after about 2 1/2 hours, we were done and needed to go home to relax.  We enjoyed ourselves and what was nice is that it is a small enough zoo that it could be done in the heat and Hubs and K- visited there so often over the past many years (zoo pass), she knew everything and took me around.  It was great that it wasn't children climbing over children and when we arrived home, K- took a much needed nap.  (The heat took the energy right out of her.)  We worked on her desk a bit, she went to the neighbors to enjoy a movie and deer tacos (no kidding) and I continued the desk purge in her absence.  I took K- and E- to the library summer reading program this evening and once we arrived home, I had K- work on putting things away as I watered the extremely parched gardens with the sprinkler.  We have a goal to get the bedroom complete tomorrow, her homework will get done, chores handled, then we will be off to swim for a little while.

It's nice to not be that yucky yelling mom.  I sit back and think, "Do I want her to think of me as always yelling and harping on her?"  The answer to that is no.  Sometimes I have to remember that she is just a kid.  Being an only means that sometimes, I think that I expect more of her since there isn't any other child to compare her to.  I have to remember that she is 8 1/2 and as such, she is still very much in need of mama right there to mold and shape.

Smiles in my day:
-  Our zoo trip!
-  Having K-'s room now resembling a room and nearly complete.
-  Good sleep.
-  The laundry line.  With heat like this (down to 90 F at 10:20 PM), the laundry is drying quickly! 
-  My 4 o'clocks are blooming!  They are bloomed in the AM when I go out to water.  Kind of funny!
-  Sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen and NO! burns!  Hooray!
-  Though I hate to run it (I like the windows open), I'm thankful that we have a/c. 

Have a wonderful night!

While the kitten's away, the cat will . . . clean.

My little kitten stayed overnight at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Kitten K- will be riding the scenic train with Grandma today and since boarding was early, Grandma said that she needed her for an overnight.  That thought made a lightbulb glow-- I can finally plow through K-'s room!

(Isn't it sick how we think to spend our free time?)

K- wasn't home and Hubs had to work late.  I made a call to my favorite Chinese food joint (China food, as K- used to call it), ordered up Teriyaki Chicken with no onions thankyouverymuch and flew on past to pick it up on my way home.  Being certain to ask for my chop sticks (pork chops to K-), I split it in half (for lunch today), dug my sticks in, ate, got a can of Coke and started on my mission. 

Overall, I was pleased with how the new organization has gone with the American Girl belongings.  Girlfriend has far more shoes than probably K- and I combined (neither of us have tons.)  I tidied that up a bit, stripped and changed the bed, swept out the headboard cubby (broken crayons, tiny bits of whatnot and nothing that amounted to anything), filled it with a pillow pet, K- - The American Girl version and her Linus (the security blanket that can occasionally still come out), then onward to the biggest bone of contention- the book case.

My child has a love for books.  That is an incredible thing that I really don't like to argue about.  Each night, I try to clear the books away from her bed before I go to bed.  Still, I miss a night or two and wake up to a loud thunk in the middle of the night.  No intruders, just K-'s books hitting the floor.  The other night, I came to check in on her and she literally was asleep inside of a Big Nate book.  Her head was between the pages and she was sleeping on the back side.  I had to pull her head out of the book.  She takes books everywhere and like Rory Gilmore, generally has a book in her bag with her.  Still, her romantic nature for all of these books had led to a book shelf that had run amok in a way that was just a crime.  I cleared the shelf for probably an hour and a half with books flying and now, dare I say it, I have some spare space for the books that I know are with her (she took 3 Big Nates to Grandma's) and the miscellaneous books that might be squirreled away in my car. 

I'm onward to the desk.  Sitting here, I can't really determine which is worse-- the book shelf or the desk.  The desk is all kinds of tiny pieces and parts of bits of things.  That one may win.  Until then, I have an hour to hang laundry and to find a kid's desk.  Wish me luck.

Have a great day!

Tales from the Trenches: Readying for the street sale.




We're not selling the street.  It's not ours to sell.  However, there are many of us getting ready for our second annual street sale.  I've just spent hours measuring and pricing fabric I got stuck with after a business venture with someone went south.  Rrrr. 

I'll be out this week.  I'll be busy making quarters.  (Not minting them, but earning them for all of my hard work cleaning and bagging my items.) 

Have a great week!

Clip art credit to funtobeukrainian.com

Dishin' Dinners Day and Glaciation at the House of Bailey's Leaf

First, my dinner plan last went pretty well.  Unfortunately, the pot pie never came to be on Thursday.  The day just got a bit too hectic, but that is okay.  We always have this week.

Monday:  Leftover turkey tenderloin and stuffing.  We had this for Sunday dinner.

Tuesday/Wednesday:  Vegetable lasagna and green beans.

Thurs/Friday:  Chicken Pot Pie

Saturday:  Pizza crescents (saw a commercial) and chips.  It's a cheater day. 

Sunday:  I've yet to figure it out.

On to glaciation.  We have two freezers in our house.  We have the refrigerator freezer and we have the deep freeze in the basement.  Both had become a little crammed with what I was sure were a lot of things that just needed to see the interior of our outside can. 

Was that ever the case.

You see, where I have completely stripped the upstairs freezer clean (a couple of times a year), I've never done a full-on-at-once purge of the basement freezer. 

:Insert an admission here.  We've had the deep freeze since Nov 2002.:

Okay, now that you've completely shuttered in your seat, I come to promise you that I've ditched things on occasion.  It's just that I had never thawed it out to remove the glacial grooves that we had developing. I think that if I ignored it enough, it would go away.

Rest assured, it did not.

Hubs and K- were out at the "little museum" and I did some errand running ALL BY MYSELF.

Yes, it is true.  I was ON MY OWN. 

After I did all the running, including the grocery, I decided to tackle the beast.  If Hubs wasn't home, I wouldn't have him hovering.  If K- wasn't home, she wouldn't be yelling about what I was throwing away.

I took a laundry basket and started pitching things that were far past their prime.  I mean, I know it's a freezer and all, but it doesn't preserve things forever.  It did take a few laundry baskets to clear the yuck out. (A chunk of it were those popsicles in the plastic tube, because my neighbor bought them in bulk for a girlfriend and then the relationship went south.)  I boxed up our remaining food in Rubbermaid totes and took them to the driveway.  It was 22 degrees.  That was definitely cold enough to handle my frozen goods. 

Now that the purging was done, I still had to de-glaciate my deep freeze.  I decided to boil a pot of water and place it in the freezer with the door shut.  I placed the boiling pot on a folded up towel on a flipped over pyrex baking dish.  It took about two hours to fully work, but it loosened the ice jam up enough that I could break it away with a scraper.  I sopped up the water at the bottom with a big bath towel and wiped everything down.  Once it was all clean, I plugged it back in again.  Since I'm short (just a hair under 5' 1") it was no easy task.  I had myself all balanced with both feet off the ground.  It reminded me of my days in glass blowing.  There was a guy who thought that I fell into the big annealer that we had.  (It was cold, don't worry.)  All that was sticking out were my feet.  He ran across the shop, grabbed a hold of my ankles and was going to yank me out until I yelled that I was getting a casting set and I was okay. 

Back to the topic at hand.  The freezer is humming along so nicely.  I even think she thanked me.

To note:  My basement sink is still full of ice.  I filled it with the freezer ice at probably 5 PM.  It's 9:30 PM now and I've even run a couple of loads of laundry that have drained into the rinse tub!  That's some pretty thick ice!

My people were excited to go out to see the International Space Station fly by, so I mandated a freezer tote carrying session on our way back in.  We only had two boxes, but K- held the door open for us.  I let the freezer run for about an hour before bringing the things back in.

My oh my, I don't think that my freezer has ever been so organized!

It has taught me something.  I have vowed this year to be less wasteful.  Cleaning out the freezer was a pain in my behind, but it needed done.  Now that it is done, I can see everything I have, what I don't and I can fix meals accordingly. 

And thank God for cold days to allow me to do so!

Smiles in my weekend:
-  While the migraine on Saturday was certainly not a smile, I took an Excedrin Migraine and laid down across my bed with my fleece pants over my eyes.  K- came in at the end of her time out and asked what was wrong.  I told her and she said, "Oh Mommy, can I bring you a glass of water?"  I told her that I appreciated it, but what I would love to do was to take a nap.  She wanted to go outside to play, but I told her that she couldn't since I had to nap.  I asked if she wanted to lay down with me.  She got me a pillow and covered me up with a blanket and snuggled on in.  We slept for about an hour.  We would have probably slept longer, but someone was calling for the attorney in town with the same name as Hubs.  Darn. 
-  And yes, K- did play outside in the snow.
-  Getting a lot done today.
-  Taking back the enormous ball curtain rods to Kohl's and being able to get two rods at Lowe's on clearance for $4.99 each.  The original price?  $24.97 each!  Now that made me very happy!
-  Though our Ace Hardware was out of the $1.00 CFL's that they had on sale, they took a special order and said that they should have them in shortly.  How nice of them to do that!
-  The space station just flying on by.  Wow.  It took less than two minutes. 

Have a great day!

Nice folks and explanations

After giving our house the good cleaning that it has been getting in pieces parts over the last few weeks, but not all in one day, I decided to purchase things I thought I needed to properly organize the studio. (There will be after pictures.) I knew that I had roughly 45 minutes to get the job done. Because of the time, I ran to Super Wal to grab up everything I needed.

I picked up a table for the sewing machine. I figure that I can put it on the shelf when not in use (it isn't like I'm a seamstress or anything, but I have a hand-me-down sewing machine that I would like to use a bit more often than I do.) I was able to find dowel rods and cafe hooks for organizing my ribbons. There is no way on earth that all of the ribbon that I own (thanks to a hair bow/hair bow organizer business venture that went bust) will fit up there, but along with the mounds of material that I'm soon to learn to sew with, I'd like to have the ribbons up for easy access. I found organizer boxes marked down to 3.00 from their original 9.00 each. I bought two-- one orange and one lime green. I also bought a pack of build-them-yourself organizer boxes. In a studio, you can never have too many. It was three bucks for a set of three. Why not? (They are lime green, too.) I found some little curtain rods to hang my kicky little valances up on, even though my windows still lack woodwork. (Hubs will get to it someday.) I also bought a big bookshelf. It's tall. It's also 70 pounds. So, I got it heave-hoe'd into the cart. A gentleman came up and helped me steady everything. (I told him I thought I was Wonder Woman, but I walked away wishing I hadn't lifted it.) So I cashed out, spent a whole $90.00 (I have a business account, don't worry) and trotted on to my car. Crap. How am I going to lift this thing? So, I tried flipping the cart a few different ways, then a man came running across the parking lot. "Ma'am! Hold on! I'm coming!" So sweet! He was a truck driver, giving his rig one last inspection before heading off into God-knows-what kind of weather we're going to have. He got the bookshelf lifted up and deposited into the back of my truck. Then he made sure to unload everything else. I thanked him profusely. As I was leaving, I gave him a thank you toot on the horn and a hearty wave. See, nice and helpful people are still around!

I got home with enough time to enjoy running in and quickly using my bathroom instead of the overused facility at the Wal. I was also able to unload everything BUT the giant book case. I'll leave that for Hubs.

When K- got out of school, I sent her back in for her pencil box. (I forgot to remind her this morning.) We made plans to go to have her purchase her replacement crayons this afternoon after school. Mrs. H- was kind of wondering why I was sending her back for the pencil box and I explained what happened. She asked what child was involved and I told her. I also told her that I wasn't telling her as telling on the child, K- had made a bad choice and needed to suffer the consequences. I explained that she was using her allowance to replace the broken crayons, that I was taking her to the drug store where I was certain that the crayons weren't going to be cheap and she wasn't going to get out by buying generic crayons. I also told her how K- will now know what is a good decision from a bad one. All she could do was laugh. She did say that she would re-visit the conversation with the children on how best to treat our friends. K- also told me that if Z- asked her to break up her crayons again, she'll "snap the lid shut on my pencil box and I won't let her in." It's not that Z- broke them or will break them, but I'm glad that she knows it wasn't cool. End of story for her.

Hubs has a puppet program scheduled for tomorrow evening and it looks as if K- and I will be back-up puppeteers. He's afraid that the Armageddon snow storm that they are predicting will keep the volunteers at home, but the visitors still out. If I have to shovel my way there, I will but I may qualify as a warm body. I'm not the puppeteer, but I can fake it.

This evening is the building meeting for K-'s school. We get to see what they have an idea of what to build, then it will be open to the community to provide their input on what we believe should be considered. Politely opening a can of worms in some cases, but nice to have them involve us.

I'm hungry. I've forgotten to eat anything of substance today. I hate it when I do that. My brain is fuzzy. I think that I'll prepare dinner for K- and me early so that I can keep on with the organization before I leave for the meeting.

Smiles in my day:
- The nice guy who helped me!
- Providing Mrs. H- with what she needs as extra things and having her tell me, "What am I going to do without you next year?!" So sweet!
- Getting the studio organized so that I can create some work again!
- K- wants to build another igloo in the front yard, but the other only shrunk down to a giant lump in the yard. Basically, we have a bunny hill for the sled now!
- Clean coats, even though I have to go and turn mine the right side out now.
- Spaghetti and meatballs to warm up for dinner. Yum!

Have a great night!

5 1/2 hours of Jesus, an odd addiction to admit to and other miscellaneous information that you could care less about.

Folks, this is the first Sunday of the month during Festival Choir season. What does that mean? It means church in the AM from 9 - 11:30 AM. (Pastor was a little long-winded this morning.) Back to church for Festival Choir practice from 4:30 - 6 PM, then on to the monthly Leadership meeting from 6 - 7 PM. (That meeting ran over until 7:20 PM.) Y'all, Jesus is my man but yowza on the hours clocked at church today.

In tidying the counter from whatever it is that decides to eat it on a regular basis, (meaning, the Hubs "trying" to put dishes away, bailing and just leaving them in growing piles for me to handle), I found that in reconfiguring cupboard space, I would move my cookie sprinkles. (In PA, you call them jimmies, I think.) At any rate, I have 18 different containers of sprinkles. Since I buy them at the bulk food store in Amish Country, the little clear plastic containers are only about 60 - 80 cents. I have school buses, butterflies, shamrocks, leaves, fish, dolphins (they are mammals, you remember,) dinosaurs, cows (K- and Hubs picked them the last time,) chicks/tulips/bunnies & flowers, non-pareils in mixed all season and holiday colors, bears, snowflakes, little cinnamon balls, large granule mixed color, purple, pink and red sanding sugars, and one other that frankly, I can't recall. Y'all, I think that I need a support group. My sister says that she suffers the same issue.

I'm bailing on Menu Plan Monday, because last week worked out to be a festival of wastefulness. It is sad. I made a pot of ham and bean soup that grew exponentially. Seriously, the entire neighborhood could have come over, had some and there would have been leftovers. We also had stuffed rigatoni one night that I used some Alfredo sauce on. I still had some Alfredo sauce left on the next evening, so I made some corkscrew pasta to stir it into. A hunk of that went to waste. Another wasteful thing was the sloppy joes that I made. I ate those for 2-3 days in a row. (I can't remember.) I made them open face with the cheese on top, just like we had in grade school. They were good, but K- wasn't interested. (Made me think of Lily, Rachael!) I know that I'll be going to the Russian Festival with friends either Tuesday or Wednesday evening. I'll get my pierogies on then. For Monday's dinner, we'll have leftovers of the baked ravioli that we had this evening. Outside of that, it is all a crapshoot.

Sadly, I received an update on Tiana and Michael's bid to adopt Bahati from Tanzania. The Tanzanian government placed Bahati with a Tanzanian family for adoption. Tiana and Michael were given a continual run-around regarding the adoption. Frankly, it sounded as if the country didn't want to be losing one of its own and I'm not surprised by their decision. Still, this is one more family that I know of that has tried to internationally adopt a specific child that they have chosen, only to have it fall through. My friend, Heather and her husband Ryan, tried to adopt from Haiti 6 years ago. They flew in, picked out a beautiful child named W-. They told her that she would be coming to live with them in the United States. Political unrest prevented them from being able to bring her to the states. The paperwork couldn't even be safely transferred to the capitol, as the director of the orphanage feared for his life. W- still remains at the Haitian orphanage today. So very sad.

Speaking of Heather, she is stressed out at the possibility of her family moving to Ontario, Canada in as soon as the next few months to the spring/early summer. Her husband expressed an interest in taking an 18 month position with his company and being moved around a bit. Problem is that they have 3 boys in tow. Moving around every 18 months isn't as easy as what it sounds. They have an adopted son that has some attachment issues. As soon as he'll get grounded and comfortable, they'll have to move again. E- is in the 1st grade and C- just started preschool. They all love where they are going. They have a great church where they are very active. I'm good friends with Heather and will miss her terribly. Sometimes, we have those mommy AAAAAAAHHHHHH! chats in the AM before I leave for work. She's the one I had to rescue one night over a mouse. We've shared some goofy things over the years. We still will, no matter where they live. We'll just have to get girlfriend using e-mail. No Facebook for me. Ack.

K-'s Farm Field Trip was postponed the other day due to torrential rains. It was rescheduled for Monday. I had to take the day off, as I had already promised to be a driver. I also committed myself to RIF day at school, so I work 1/2 day on Tuesday. I should have a fine, fine paycheck coming up. That's okay. I need to help with the book passing and I would rather be there on the field trip to corral kids and whatnot. We don't have busing to take the kids, so we are going by parental transportation. The neighbors are going with us, but other parents are taking the rest of the kids. They scheduled it for Monday, so as to get the field trip in before the new booster law comes into effect.

Here's more information than you want to know. Remember how I'm kind of Edward Scissorhands with the nail clippers? Well, I got a little over-zealous with the toenail trimming and left myself close to bleeding. Yikes. Didn't mean to do that. So, I have sore toes! Now I know how K- feels.

Oh, here's something else! Has anyone else noticed the prices at Sam's Club going up each and everytime you enter the store? I had a whole list of items to purchase today. We only purchased about 1/4 of what we put on the list. Laundry soap has gone up a couple of bucks/box. Purell has gone up at least a dollar. Zantac went up a few dollars. A case of chicken broth went up to the point that as long as I watch for it to go on sale at the store, I can get it much, much cheaper. Their whole chickens were 85 cents a pound, which is a great price, but there was only one package left and I was afraid that it was a walk around and dump, so I didn't take it. Microwave popcorn went up 3.00 from the last time I bought it. Goldfish crackers went up several dollars, too. The same with dish soap. I'm better off watching for it to go on sale. The good news? Boca Burgers went down to $8.15/box of 16. That is a great deal.

More miscellaneous drivel. My mother-in-law picked up a few cute outfits for K- at Walmart. I was surprised to see the tag that said "95 % organic cotton." Hooray! I went to put one of the outfits on her this AM and found a size discrepancy. It was a two piece set with a 6 as a shirt and a 7 for pants. K- is a perfect 7 and the 6 wasn't going to cut it. I was glad that MIL passed the receipt on so that we could exchange it. I did find the same outfit (different color), so we were able to switch without a problem. The lady at the service counter was surprised by the sizing, though. I couldn't have been the first person to ever have a sizing issue.

I hit the motherload at Target in their dollar aisles for treatie doodles for Miss K-'s 6th birthday Star Wars celebration. Completely by accident, but totally thrilled about it. I was able to get push up crayons, magnets, stickers, a dry erase board for K- (she loves them) and a flicky front journal for her to write in. (Have I mentioned that she is walking around drawing and writing all. the. time?) Also, I was able to find plates and napkins! Those are kind of hard to come by, so I was thrilled. I stock piled some 4th o' July sale paper products that I found, so the blue will go nicely with the branded Star Wars stuff. Hubs found Star Wars water bottles for all of the kids at a local discount store (for 49 cents each), so I do believe that the party needs are basically done. I found some Star Wars scrapbook paper at a local craft store, so all I need to do is to download a Star Wars font (I found a few!) and get working on the invite. (Her birthday isn't until December 20, but we are tacky and send the invite in with the Christmas card that goes out the day after Thanksgiving. Saves on postage. Besides, I work holiday retail and have no want to re-enter that world when I get off work. I'd rather be at home baking cookies. So, all party prep is handled and done by the end of October. It is a crazy Virgo thing, but it works for me.)

I'm all over the place tonight. Can you tell I had an Excedrin Migraine earlier? I had a hazy front headache and I had 3 hours of church this evening. I had to do something to keep up!

Smiles in my day:
- K- reading a book with me tonight. It was filled with sight words, so I decided to give a stab at seeing how many she knew. She surprised me!
- K- picking up after herself and putting things away in the right creature home. Goodness sakes alive. She finally got sick of losing the things that she didn't tidy. Oh, and we got sick of confiscating the items and keeping them in our bedroom. The fix that came to me last night? I put everything away where it belonged and labeled the items with a post-it that said, NO. She knows the word NO and I told her that if it said NO, she needed to earn that back. I told Hubs that her having to look at what she lost will help to encourage her to pick up after herself, and will remind her that mommy and daddy aren't joking when they take the stuff away.
- K- was angelic this evening when I was at church. Hubs worked out and K- was on the next concrete pad over playing with Play Doh, drawing, writing in her journal, playing with dress up, Little People (still!), Hot Wheels, Barbies and babies. He said that she was good at picking everything up without being asked.
- The laundry basket is empty. Everything is laundered and hanging to dry. I have a basket of our clothes (Hubs and me) that needs to be put away, but K-'s clothes and the towels are put away. I'll deal with our clothes tomorrow after the field trip.
- Hubs cleaned out the refrigerator, did all the dishes AND! put them away! :)!!!
- Getting back to Festival Choir practice. I missed two weeks in a row (I normally don't miss at all, since I sing by listening and not so much by reading music.) Several people asked where I was and a few of them said about how I was very missed. It is good to be missed! I didn't think people cared so much! We're singing "Forever Gloria!" It's a nice change. Dale always does a great job. He asked us how the seconds (soprano) were coming along. I told him that we were limping along nicely. He said that you are never supposed to tell the choir director that you are limping. I told him that I was in church and I couldn't lie! :)

I think that I've exposed all of you to enough babbling for this evening. Have a wonderful start to your week!

The 23rd Psalm of School Supplies

School supplies are my addiction;
I shall want them on sale.
They lead me to park far out in lots.
They leadeth me beside the sale endcaps.
They restoreth my diminished supply:
They leadeth me in the paths of the sales ads, for the comics needn't matter.
Yea, though I walk through the aisles of Staples and Walgreen's, I will fear no empty shelf: for there are rain checks;
Thy crayons and thy glue sticks they comfort me.
Thou preparest a kindergartner before me in the presence her schoolmates:
Thou payest my bill with quarters and pennies;
My drawer runneth over.
Surely sharing with family and those in need shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will be well stocked in cheap school supplies forever.

The drawer.

Peeking inside said drawer. The pencils, the highlighters, the many, many boxes of cap erasers!

The folders, all 1 cent a piece over the last few years.

Spiral bound notebooks.

Crayons. A box that doesn't fit into the drawer anymore.

Liquid glue and glue sticks. Again, it had to break away and form its own state.

Folders.

Pens.

Amen.

Smiles in my day:
- Getting the laundry done AND put away all in the same day.
- Making a sock puppet with K-.
- Hubs getting home early yesterday.
- A clean bathroom.
- Rain to keep our garden growing. One of my tomato plants is taller than me! Too bad I don't have heat to get the tomatoes to turn! (An AP report today said that NE Ohio is experiencing probably the coldest July in 109 years. A positive note is that energy consumption is down 34% because of it.)
- A trip to the local children's consignment store didn't pay out tons, but it did pretty much cover a stainless steel drinking bottle for K- for her lunch. No juice boxes here! We also have a stainless steel thermal food container (to send nice, hot food) and cloth napkins. We're trying to cut waste in our child's lunch! Look!

Don't forget to stop by my Blog Hop giveaway post. I have a $10.00 gift card for Target up for grabs!

Wow Wee!-kend

Wow folks. I'm tired. When last I left you, it was shaping up to be a steady paced weekend. It ended up being pretty busy.

Friday took us out visiting to my sister's house. They are mourning the death of Merlin, her 18 year old loyal companion. Bless his heart, he has been her faithful companion through 2 failed marriages (I have to say that they weren't her fault, she suffered from a bad pick of men), moving multiple times including to Maryland, two separate homes in Pennsylvania and several places in NE Ohio. For years, he was probably the only constant thing in her life. He saw her through the ugly times and onward to times of celebration.

Here's her man. Rest in peace, ole boy.

When visiting at my sister's house, she mentioned that she was scheduling a family garage sale. Now last time a family sale was scheduled, I had done it and they decided to move it when I was in Wisconsin on vacation. Folks, it never happened. This sale has been confirmed. Many people are involved and we all need to unload of things and having extra pocket change isn't going to hurt. Our garage sale money is going into the kitchen spiff project. But, as a result of the pending garage sale, I threw myself into purging the linen closet. It's something that I've wanted to do for a while (as opposed to just straightening it), so I dove right in. Of course, I forgot the before pictures, but just enjoy the afters, 'kay? We'll start with my slumbering child. Friday was chilly and a bit rainy. She decided to snuggle in for a nap as I was doing my Virgoian organization. Hey? Could you ever guess our flu medication of choice? Since there are three of us, K- goes to school, I work retail and Hubs teaches nature programs to a variety of ages, it makes sense to stock up for flu season. (We've found Oscillococinum cheapest at the Vitamin Shoppe. The last time we purchased it, we paid $4.40/box. It can range from $9.00 - $15.00 per box.)

Saturday morning started with Hubs announcing that he had a volunteer picnic, but "You don't have to go." I told him I wasn't a volunteer, that I was a wife and that was just a part of the deal. "Nah, you don't have to go." As he repeated that a few times, it kicked in that what he was really saying was, "For the love that is all good and right in the world, come help me please!" I announced that K- and I would be happy to come and Hubs' response was, "Well, it is kind of far out." (25 miles one way.) I told him it wasn't a big deal. "Nah, you don't have to come." Geeze, man! Two minutes later, he handed me directions. When we arrived, Hubs had just arrived. The man didn't know where to start. Regardless to the fact that the pavilion was posted for a program, someone had used the pavilion previously and filled the garbage cans to overflowing. I emptied those last. We got the tables dressed with some lovely picnic table cloths. We set up a beverage station, dessert station and a place for main meal food. We got the frozen food down towards the grill, the ice cream shuttled over to the dessert area and just in time. Hubs' boss, co-hosting the event with Hubs, arrived just as we got the finishing touches handled. Folks started to arrive and we were really hoping that there would be a child to play with K-. As luck would have it, one of Hubs' volunteers had her granddaughter for the evening. K- and S- were just months apart in age and played well together. S-'s grandmother wanted to just farm the kids off to the playground and have them be on their own. The playground, on the other side of a big set of trees and I couldn't see them. Besides, I told her that I wanted to go up and scope out the playground. (As a disguise for me not just wanting to send my child up unattended.) She said, "Oh yes, well we don't want to send S- home broken. I guess I should check and make sure it is safe." I told her that I didn't question the safety of the equipment, but what came to my mind was stranger danger. "Oh yeah." So, the balance of my evening involved watching and providing for 2 girls, as the grandmother had decided that she was out. She didn't know me from Adam, yet didn't even check on S-. Oh well. I kept both kids safe. It was all good.

Sunday came with a pingy-poke in my side. I admit that I pretty much knew what the pain was, but was used to a mid-cycle pain to be in my right (if it was to occur) as opposed to the left. I decided to take some Advil for it, and to go just the regular church service (skip Sunday School) to get the pingy-poke to go away. Hubs came out and suggested that we go to the Cleveland Zoo after church and I didn't want pingy-poke to be in the way. As it turns out, it subsided by early afternoon so it was what I thought it was and we had a really great time. I admit that I was concerned about the potential of all that walking with a pain in my side, but I'm glad that I didn't have to worry about it.

We had a really nice time and K- was picked to be a program helper. She was one of 6 kids picked to hold a really giant boa constrictor. She had such a great time doing it. (Can we say, Naturalist's kid?) She was able to pet a hedgehog, get an up close and personal look at a giraffe that found a child's bubbles to be interesting. (The giraffe was within 2 1/2 - 3 feet away from us.) K-'s favorite thing? There was a flamingo that was sitting on her nest. She seriously loved it so much, that we visited it three times!

They gave us a free kids meal coupon for Bob Evans, so Hubs decided that we would do a rare meal out. K- opted for the grilled cheese sandwich with fruit, Hubs got chicken and noodles and I had the barbecued chicken knife and fork sandwich. Folks, my sandwich wasn't all that. It was okay, but definitely not a repeat. Still, it was a nice time to spend together.

We got home, had a bit of decompression time then set off to weeding and lawn maintenance. K- and I weeded the driveway (with me doing the front beds before she came out) as Hubs was mowing. Folks, I'm embarrassed to admit that the one corner of our driveway was a mat of weeds. (We had some weeds here and there, but that corner was horrible!) Seriously, it looked bad. K- and I pulled at those for over an hour. Hubs came up and told us, "Oh, I'll help you get that done in a few minutes." The man brought out a spade. Oh, it worked like a charm. Seriously, I need to remember that, but let's hope that we don't get the carpeted corner of grass and weeds again. Unfortunately, our grass was a bit longer than what we prefer, but Hubs pulled two 12 hour days this week and worked until 9 or better for 4 of the 5 days that he did work. Mowing just wasn't in the cards until today. I would have provided an after picture, but we were working with the outside lights because the sun set on us.

Officially, I'm tuckered. As is the norm, my side of the bed has laundry for me to put away before settling into bed. And now that I'm thinking about it, I may take a few Advil to offset some weeding soreness.

Smiles in my weekend:
- K- being chosen for the zoo program.
- Spending the day with my people.
- Having my side pain be nothing more than a blip on Mother Nature's radar.
- Tomatoes and peppers are getting big!*
- My pink surprise flower is a surprise all right! It is peach.*
- That I have a home, a wonderful family, a husband who is a great provider and a bed that looks so inviting. So many folks don't have that.

Have a great Monday, my friends!
* I have photos, but I'm too tired to transfer them over! Another day, I promise.

The Weekend of Many Things

We had much to do this weekend. K- and I went to our Dragonfly/Damselfly program on Friday morning. On the way back, we cruised past Kohl's to purchase some school uniform pieces. We had $30.00 remaining in consignment store cash and a 15% coupon. Between the sale that they had and the previous two monetary helpers, we got $82.00 worth of school uniform clothing for her for $11.00. I don't think that was a bad exchange!

On our way from Kohl's, we dropped by the grocery and made it home in time for our friends to show up for their play date. It was a warm day, slated to be 90 F, so I filled our little pool up before we left so it could heat up during the day. We were celebrating E-'s birthday, so we had root beer floats for everyone.

Saturday was a crazy day. We had Aunt Arlene's memorial service an hour away and K-'s last reading class at the same time. My friend, Kim, took K- and let her hang out with them for the day while we went. We really had a nice time. Quite a tribute to a wonderful woman. I learned so many things about Aunt Arlene that I didn't know.

- She was a seamstress for Richmond Bros.
- She had a cake baking business from the early 1970's - 1991.
- She worked two jobs at one time. One job was at Richmond Bros. and another was at a drugstore.
- Uncle Gene was called off to the Korean war when they were newly married. He was gone for 3 years.
- They had the first new car on the street. They bought a Ford.
- They had the first TV on the street. Hubs' dad talked of how he would go to Aunt Arlene's apartment (just above their place) and watch TV when she wasn't home.
- She had quite a collection of hankies, which her daughter Jackie was busy handing out prior to the service.
- She kept a calendar of all birthdays and special people that she had to contact. I told Bob, her son-in-law, of how Aunt Arlene used to call me several times a week when I was home by myself after my hospital stay with Bailey. None of them knew it. Not even Hubs' mom and dad. She would call to check in. We'd talk some days. I'd cry my eyes out others.
- She entered a bathing suit contest at Euclid Beach and placed in the top ten.
- She took belly dancing with her friends! :)

Oh how we'll miss Aunt Arlene. She truly was a one of a kind lady. To tell you that she did everything with all of her heart is not exaggerating. If I can be only 1/2 the woman that Aunt Arlene was, I would be happy. Don't worry, I'm striving to be all that she was.

Saturday evening was a little long for me. Know that a lesson was learned that perhaps eating 1/2 a head of cabbage (I made cabbage and noodles) and chasing that with 1/3 of a jar of Corn and Black Bean salsa results in intestinal devastation. Apparently, my stomach was churning so loudly that it was keeping Hubs awake. I returned from my middle of the night bathroom stay only to find the bed vacated. Hubs couldn't take it!

Given my continued intestinal burbling, we opted to stay at home today, rather than have a long family day out. I told K- that she couldn't play with E- until she had all of her toys taken out of my vehicle. She filled a paper grocery sack, a reusable grocery sack and a collapsible canvas picnic basket full of toys. That's not counting the American Girl wardrobe box that was out there, too. The next portion of her task was to actually put the items away in their proper creature homes. (Yes, that is what we call it.) She did the hoof and haul. Hubs told her that if she worked hard, he would help her. When he came out, he checked with me to make certain that she was holding up on her end of the bargain. They tackled the basement play area together. I tackled her bedroom. Though I didn't think to do before photos, I'll give you after. Keep in mind, her bedroom is all of 10' x 10'. I moved the two shelves with all the dolls up as far as they could go and added the lower shelf. All those books were on the corner of her desk, which ended up just crowding the desktop up and making it a convenient place to dump. I changed her hairbows over to a larger board. By the way, K- has been making her own bed and she is doing a rockin' job, I believe! Here is her desk. Previously, we were under the suspicion that there was a desk top there. Look! I found it. Getting the books off there (they were where her learning kit carry all is now) has made such a huge improvement. If you look through the doorway, you'll see I have more laundry to put away. That was another job I tackled today. And yes, I realize that we need to clear out the bulletin board. Rome wasn't built in a day. But hey! I figured that I would show you the nifty thing that hangs above her bulletin board. I used to have it sitting on the desk, leaned against the wall. Hubs' co-worker from his other park job brought this back for him from Costa Rica. It is all handstitched and needed stretched. I handled that several years ago and have had it hanging in K-'s room ever since. A crooked picture, I realize, but this is her dresser/armoire. K- calls the armoire part her "panty closet." This wasn't bad. It just needed dusting in a severe way. The other corner. Why not show you all the corners of her very petite room? And now it is all organized! Hooray! Hubs rewarded K-'s hard work today with the Slip and Slide. She loves that thing!

Smiles in my day:
- Going on a hike with my people. We found Touch Me Not pods to pop. We walked through the herb garden. We listened to a Bard Owl call several times. It was at 7:30 PM, so that was much earlier than what we would have expected. Hubs even tried to call back. We did hear Hubs' favorite bird, the Wood Thrush.
- Getting one more room tackled.
- Learning lots about Aunt Arlene.
- A good sermon today on prayer.
- Laundry on the line.
- A decluttered truck. Thanks, K-!
- A beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Sunday Miscellany

Hodge-podge day here at Bailey's Leaf.
1. Praise out for Harper's family. She's home!
2. I've taken a few Lipitor and didn't have my liver fall out. Is it wrong that I chased my first dose with a small bowl of ice cream? I mean, Rome wasn't built in a day people.
3. I'm getting the swing of this thumb splint, again. It's been about 9 years since I was saddled up with 2 months worth of hitch-hiker thumb. (I lacerated a tendon when cutting glass when I was tired. A surgeon had to whip-stitch it back together and I was not permitted to bend my thumb for 2 months, for fear that I would rip everything apart.)

4. K- found someone's purse in the Target family bathroom. She was excited to be able to have us turn it into the customer service counter. Never once did she ask what was in it. Never once did she think, as I did in the back of my mind, that someone might think that we had stolen something out of it. Turns out that as we were walking down the main aisle, a mommy with a child in the top of the cart were flying through the store towards the service counter. I only hope that it was her purse and that her heart attack of leaving it behind had soon faded.
5. It's another caffeinated day in the neighborhood. (Oh, I'm writing this post on Friday afternoon.) Occasionally, I get the migraine that accompanies-- um-- other portions of life. It's been bouncing around the right side of my noggin and in and out of my eyeball. Oh, I can't tell you how motivating that is.
6. It's supposed to hit 40 or better today, but it is almost noon and 25 F. I'm not completely sold on that whole warm-up. It did warm to 38 or so. Just enough to make that driveway a solid hunk of damp, slick ice.
7. My brother's transmission is in, but not finished. I got up bright and EEE early to drive over, get my niece and drive her to school. Aunt Amy woke up at 6 :20 AM to do it. I was rockin' the jammies and my oh-so-sexy hair wadded up look. Hubs commented later on it. Apparently, I was more attractive than ever. [Insert much much sarcasm here.]
I mean, really-- I have no idea what he is talking about.
I thought it was an incredibly good look.
8. K- took a light saber to school on Monday as a show and tell and one little boy went home and told his mom that "he thought that it was just the coolest! It lights up and makes sounds, Mom!" It was funny to hear her telling me about it while we were waiting for the Kindergarten meeting. Of course I went and told Hubs, who has beamed ear to ear since hearing that.
9. My vehicle is so filthy. It really is red. A really red red. You couldn't tell from this. What you can tell is how gross our weather has been. They have cut back on salt useage, well-- they say that they have. I can tell you, the inside does not look like the outside. Yikes. I think that I might try to resolve that today. (Back to writing on this Saturday morning.) See! I told you that it was red! Only $9.00 for a wash -- eek!-- but I just couldn't stand the filth any longer. The outside faucets are shut off right now, but I don't think that I would have wanted to do it myself anyhow. Well worth the investment, I think!10. At the continued writing of this post, Mom is on her way to have her blood work drawn. She said that the blood pressure medication that the prescribed did help her headache, but she is lightheaded. She wonders if she needs just a little bit more.
11. Now I wonder if my mom has suffered from an allergic reaction to tetracycline. I can't help but to notice that all of the symptoms that she had are on their allergic reaction listing. Just sayin'. By the way, she is beginning to feel a little better now that she has stopped taking it. She did have the ordered work-ups done today (Saturday) and we'll know more on Monday.
12. Do you know that laundry doesn't do itself? Yep. Mine is in a big bucket in the livingroom longing to be folded. K- has asked to watch "Rory Gilmore" which I may very well have to do. (Can you see her twisting my arm?) Must sweep the floor first, though.

13. I'm going to start making those baby items for my sister out of the 10 yards of fabric that I purchased at 7 AM at the day after Thanksgiving Day Sale. We were at Joann's and a few yards here and a few yards there ended up as 10 yards. Babyson thing will have a whole lot of handmade burp cloths, changing pads, nursing pads (for my sister, of course) made out of the tonnage of material. Oh shoot. I'm sure that there are other things I can make, as well.

14. I'm happy to report that I'm absolutely crazy and insane. I have gone through the "gift shelf" and I have nearly all the gifts that I need for kid birthdays and kid Christmas for this next year. Literally, I have 3 more gifts to purchase and I'm good. (I'm doing a WFMW on this in about a week and a half.) 2 are on hold to purchase closer to the birthday since my nieces tend to run in and out of what's in pretty quickly. Don't have a heart attack. I love clearances and follow my rule of 5.00 or less pretty religiously. But again, check back on February 18. I'll give you the scoop then.

15. You can get away with character band-aids when you have a kid in the house. My hands are horribly dry, cracked and now one finger is bleeding. I have Tinkerbell wrapped around my finger. It'll make people giggle. At least I think so!

Works for Me Wednesday: The Sock Drawer

I am convinced that to look into someones sock drawer is like looking into their medicine cabinet. It is a very personal space that typically involves some very expired items.

My sock drawer lives in this:
We figured that if we were going to take the footprint space for a substantial piece of furniture in our very small home, we were going to make the most of the floorspace that it took. This is the Amish made oak armoire** that we purchased about 6 years ago. It has decent sized drawers. See:
This gives me the opportunity to basket some of my things. You see, this past fall I decided to purge all of the items from the sock/underwear drawer that I didn't wear. I couldn't stand the drawer anymore. I ditched the itchy lace bras that I never wore. (And they dug big rub marks into my skin!) I tossed the uncomfortable undies. I flipped the socks that sagged, bagged and otherwise just didn't work. I decided to roll my pattern socks into knots (Heloise tells you not to do this as it stretches socks out according to her) so that I could stand them all up and still see the patterns. (I'm ignoring Heloise, can't you tell?) I have my athletic socks in one basket, trouser-type in another. I have a separate basket for underwear only. I have the thicker socks, some sachets and my bras towards the bottom. Voila. Works for me. And yes, I do keep my drawer just like this. Call it crazy Virgo organization.

Don't forget that Bloggy Giveaways is having its carnival next week. For more information, click the button on my sidebar. I'll be giving away a handcrafted bow organizing board. Come on back on January 26 to drop your name in to win! I'd love to see you again. Don't hate me though, it's US only. Sorry!

This is an example of the bow board that I will be giving away. This is K-'s board that we have used over the last year. Don't worry, you'll get a fresh new one. I'll even kick in a bow to start you out!

** We purchased our armoire at Pleasant View Furniture in Dundee, Ohio. It cost half of what the pressed wood pieces at the local furniture stores cost, and that was with shipping included! It was much larger than the stores were offering, too. The piece was made on site by their son and we've had subsequent pieces for our bedroom made from them since then. They are lovely people and truly the lowest furniture prices that we can find. If you are on the hunt for good quality handcrafted furniture, stop by to see Leroy. He'll be working by gas lamp light and heating by wood burning fire place.

Don't You Love It When You Find Deals?

I had a list of things to do today. It started with last night. I got off work a few hours early since my portion of the inventory count was done, and I had been stuck in two of the worse counting areas-- the dusty, old basement and outside. My partner and I were given the green light to go home. My allergy attack thanked them. So, I landed home much earlier than I expected. I answered a few e-mails and decided that I would get to work. I was on a mission. I had to go through K-'s toys without her present. I tried to be diplomatic and do it with her here, but after the 10th time of hearing, "No Mommy, I still play with that," I had to do it when she was off in other places. I gathered up a box of toys to drop off at a friends house and a paper sack full of McDonald's Happy Meal toys and a few other small things that I knew my friend couldn't use.

My day began with getting K- up and out to school. I knew that I needed to change the school bulletin board, but do it without her knowledge. I dropped her off, went by my friends house to drop off the box o' toys, flew by the Goodwill drop off, then back to school. I was able to get the bulletin board done with enough time to return some slippers that I bought that were too small. I was returning them with the intention of getting K- a cute shirt that I saw at the freestanding JC Penney. (It is the only real store in the plaza up the street. A Goodwill is next to it and Joann's is around the corner.) I ruined a shirt of hers with stain remover. Removed the stain and color in one fell swoop. But, she got the shirt for Christmas, wore it once and I felt horrible. I was able to make the exchange. Since Goodwill was next door and the coupon from my toy drop off was still very warm and burning a hole in my pocket, I decided to see what I could find. OH SWEET HEAVEN! I cashed in.
I admit that I spent 16.00, but I don't think that I did that bad. I bought a beautiful zip up sweater for K- that looks brand new. The blue shirt has lots of sparkles and seems hardly worn, as well. (I am kind of a thrift snob, I buy the stuff that only looks new.) I found a few pair of Nikes for her and since that is the only brand of tennis shoe that fit on her skinny feet, I'm happy to run a mommy refurb on them. (Run them through the washer, hit with scuff cover if needed, use mink oil or saddle soap to keep 'em nice.) I found shorts for Hubs. We only buy shorts and pants for work for him at the thrift or Goodwill. With what he does, he just ruins them. The shorts were on sale and with my coupon, they were 80 cents a pair. I even found myself a pair! I did buy K- a few pair of pants in the next size up. I also found a yard of fabric that I thought would be enough to recover my hideous couch pillows, but it isn't even close. I can use it on something else. That was only 80 cents, so it isn't a loss. I did find an item for a gift for next Christmas. They had a gorgeous table runner from Target-- in the packaging and in perfect condition-- for $2.00. It is tagged $19.99. (Of course, my discount made it all of $1.60.) I haven't had a good thrift day like that in a long time! A great part of it was that I was able to hit JC Penney and Goodwill, and be back at the school in one hours time. Now, that is a real good shopping day!

We're off to the dental unit in just a bit. K- and I have simultaneous cleaning appointments. Our dentist is 25 miles away, so it is a bit of a haul to get out there. We love him dearly, though and aren't willing to change to save on gas. Here's to hoping that we are cavity free!

Works for Me Wednesday: Fire Box Updating

Let's face it, none of us want to think of the real reason that we should all have a fire box. It is a scary thought, but an important item to have. I update ours on a regular basis, but have had an overwhelming need these past few days to include all of our digital photo disks into the box. All of K-'s life has been chronicled by digital photo and I really don't want to lose that.
So, I decided that my Works for Me Wednesday would be our fire box and what we have in it. Here goes:

1. Updated copies of our insurance policies. I switch those out when the updates come in.
2. Birth certificates. K- and I have been adopted, which means that our local copies of our birth certificates have been destroyed. We have to file to Columbus to get new ones and that would take some time. Since it took almost one full year to get K-'s the first time, I really want to make certain that this is safe. (BTW, I was adopted at the age of 15 by my step father, thus resulting in a legal name change and a new issue birth certificate.)
3. Social Security Cards. I don't know about you, but I really don't like traveling to that office if I don't have to.
4. Savings bonds. We've collected a handful of savings bonds for K- from a variety of occasions. We'd like to keep those safe!
5. Marriage License. We'd like to think that is important!
6. Warranties. Extended warranties for the rings on my fingers and the car. We also have one for Bailey's stone.
7. Tercel title and memorandum title for the new RAV4. Because, well, we don't own it yet. When a company crashes into your already paid-in-full car and totals it, you get blue book for the totaled car, a pittance for pain and a car with a car payment. Sounds fair, yes?
8. Yearly property re-appraisal. Why not save the paper that says that my house is worth $9000.00 less than it was last year? Oh, it sounds super to me!
9. Gift certificates. The ones that we give as gifts, generally, but we have another one in there for stone that I have yet to pick out for the front walk that we still don't have. Don't worry, it's on the to-do list.
10. A stack of new $2.00 bills and a couple of $1.00 silver certificates that I've been collecting since I was a kid.
11. House purchase paperwork. Yes, we've been here for 9 years, but I still have all of the paperwork for the mortgage and all that. I kind of thought that should go in there, too.
12. A stack of digital photo CD's. I learned from the neighbor that you can store so much more on a CD-R. I sat a couple of evenings ago for a good couple of hours and transferred all of the photos that were on our computer onto a CD-R to store into the fire box. I will be transferring photos from the old disks to the more compact CD-R. I also plan on purchasing a little CD book to keep all those disks organized. At least they will be happier in there than the quart-sized freezer bag that I currently have them in!
13. Adoption paperwork. You know, the stuff that states that K- is legally our kid? Yup. That's in there. We worked hard for that stuff!

So that's it for us. We're keeping our paperwork safe. Hope you are, too!

Edited to add:
A master prescription list-- a must for those with many life saving prescriptions!
Shot records
Passports (I admit I don't have one.)
Child safe kits (Fingerprints, DNA sample, hair sample . . . I'm getting more info from Jamie at Mrs. Sour Britches to see exactly what she has.)

Obviously, there are many other things that can go in here. These are just a few more items that came to my attention today. Be safe, my friends!

Works for Me Wednesday: American Girl Wardrobe Box

My in-law's bought K- an American Girl doll for Easter this year. It was very generous of them, as K- would have probably gotten the Target Our Generation knock off from us when the time did come. So we have the Little K- doll, as K- has named the doll after herself since it is the doll that is supposed to look like her anyhow. (K-'s doll has green eyes, but the only one I could find like her online had brown eyes.) We also have accessories and clothing. We needed a better way to keep track of Little K-'s stuff. So for K- and my two nieces, I made them American Girl Wardrobe Boxes for Christmas.

I purchased three extra large raw wood trunks from the Flower Factory. They were about $6.80 each. I did an acrylic staining to the boxes (one each of pink, purple and green) with the 50 cent acrylic craft paint that I purchased from Pat Catan's. I decorated the front with some printed canvas type material that I traded a friend for. I know that she purchased it at Joann Fabrics on the clearance. The larger rectangle I left print side up. The smaller rectangle that I personalized with round type stickers was just the printed material reversed. I fringed the edges before I glued all of it down. I continued to decorate the front of the box with the pre-painted wood cut-outs that I scored at Walmart for 47 cents each and the clearance rack rhinestones that I purchased this summer. (Ignore the sticks. Just keeping K-'s name private.)

I also glued the rhinestones on top of the screws on the big ole latch on the side.
On the inside, I lined the back of the box with the print material. I used Aleene's Clear glue to adhere the fabric and all of the other items to the box. Hubs cut some shelves for me from particle board that we already had. I glued the tight fitting shelves in with little side slats. These flat little sticks came from Walmart craft department for 77 cents. (A big pack.) I used Tite Bond glue that we already had. It does not dry clear. I did not know. Oh well. I electric stapled the elastic in for both the accessory box and the hair brush. I had some Sticko's stickers that I used to decorate above the hairbrush. It was a blank spot. It needed something. They were 99 cents at Pat Catan's.
I purchased little clear accessory boxes to tuck into the depth of the lid. I found these boxes at Walmart in the fabric department for $1.97 each. They'll be perfect for holding little hair accessories, socks and the bracelets and necklaces that I made for the dolls.

A little personalization on the back.

In the end, I figure that each box cost me about $11.50. That's a bargain! I admit that I used a lot of things that I already had on hand. I checked the American Girl website and their trunks start at $75.00. They are absolutely beautiful wardrobes, but none that I could afford. Making a handcrafted gift for my little girl meant a whole lot more to me. I hope that she enjoys it as much as I do!

Next week: I'm on a bit of a bloggy break. I'll be back after Christmas!