1 Load a day Challenge!

First off... yes! I have a camera again! My dear hubby gave me my camera on Friday! I will have no presents under the tree but I don't mind a bit!

Now to my challenge.

I hope all of you are with me on this one, I need support!

I pledge to do one complete load of laundry every day until the new year.

Wash, dry, fold, and put away!

I am a self proclaimed fly baby and have been following the popular "FlyLady" for about 5 years now. I receive all the e-mail about the dreaded "Mount Washmore" but I have continued to do my laundry in the crash and burn method. This means I do all my laundry on Monday... usually ending just before the put away part is finished. I have all intentions of doing a load a day but I'm burnt out by my marathon of laundry on Monday and the little voice in me says "There really isn't a full load here, let's skip it". So about Thursday / Friday I do another marathon of finishing putting away from Monday and catching up for the weekend... cause we are too busy to do laundry on the weekend! Such a vicious cycle!!!!

Finally somehow the flylady's mantra "one load a day keeps the chaos away!" sunk in this morning (as I was hunting frantically for socks for the family).

Today I am doing one load completely. I will finish folding and putting away the stuff from last week but I am not doing all 5 loads today. One load, every day... ONE LOAD!!

Join me on the challenge. We can beat "Mount Washmore" one load at a time!!

I will be posting every day when I finish my load... comment me when you finish your load too!

Good Luck!

About the picture: This is my lovely wash area in the basement. My old kitchen table makes a great folding table... when there is room on it! How embarrassing really, but I've seen it worse. Now that it's here for the world to see it's harder to avoid. It's my goal to have this area under control by 2009!!

Thank goodness!

Favorite things 6-10.... prayer!!!! My Hubby called just now! Thank you god! Now I can kill him for not telling me they were going out for drinks after work as a part of their christmas festivities.... wow, didn't I predict that??? Weird, really weird!

I'll feel better when he's safe and sound here at home but my blood pressure is slowly returning to normal.

Have a great weekend everyone. Kiss your loved ones and make sure they know you love them!

My favorite things:

I'm sitting here not freaking out that my hubby is over an hour late from work and not answering his phones! I am posting as therapy to take my mind off things.

Top 5 favorite things right now (no real order):

My new cell phone... I'm finally in the 21st century! It's awesome, mp3 player, camera, touch screen... too much for me really but hubby brought it home for me when I was sick, so thoughtful!

My Christmas decorations... I've been told by the kiddos that it looks like Christmas puked in here! I love it! Every space is decorated. My favorites are my angels in my hutch, my garland on my stairs, my Santa's on my mantel, and the candy cane lights hubby hung up last night outside. Who am I fooling?? I love them all!!!

The villain in the musical "Melton the warm hearted snowman"... why? She's none other than my Sunshine! She's really getting her lines and getting the voice right, finally! It took a while, she kept smiling and screaming her part. I taught her a trick. If you squint your eyes you can sound angrier... she said "oh that's what you do when you yell at us!" I said, "ssshhhh... don't let out my secret!"

*still freaking out and trying to bring my thoughts back to this post*

My babies... who aren't really babies anymore I guess... they are so fun and creative, smart and opinionated... very passionated as well. They have the ability to get on my very last nerve one minute and pull at my heartstrings the next. I love them with all my heart!

Christmas cards: I cherish them!!! I make a year in review at shutterfly (the only service I have found with 9 picture capability) and my friends and family always complement me. I wait patiently everyday for the mail to arrive too! I love to get cards in the mail! It's great to receive the photo ones of the families we may or may not see so often. I have a picture frame / photo album I put out every year with all my picture cards. It's great to see how much each family has grown! You see how quickly time flies when you look at that book!

I was going to do 10 however, I just can't sit here anymore. I'm going to fold some laundry and try calling him again. God I hate this!!!! Please pray, I'm praying he's fine... he's fine right??? I'm sure he is and he just went to a bar and forgot to tell me and now he can't hear his phone... yeah, yeah... he never does that but I'm sure that's it!!!

AAAAHHHH.....

Yes, that's a big sigh, feel that bliss? I'm feeling well, the house is almost decorated, the trees are glistening with ice thanks to an icestorm which blessedly isn't as bad as the one we had in 1998. I wish it was snow but I can't deny it's beauty.

God blesses us in mysterious ways and I am grateful. Take a minute to count your blessings today, what are you thankful for??

too busy to be sick!

This weekend was chock full of events. On Saturday, My Sunshine had a Christmas concert for the coats for kids celebration at Shaw's. That afternoon, My husband and I took the kids to the Maine State Ballet's Nutcracker. Sunshine's birthday party was on Sunday. Sounds like a perfect weekend, right??

It was looking that way until my body added a kidney stone, a full blown kidney infection with a 101 temp, and a trip to the express care to the mix! Yeah, what perfect timing!! I am prone to kidney infections and my right kidney is dysfunctional. However, I haven't had one for years, and let me tell you it's making up for lost time! A KIDNEY STONE TOO...What a doozy!

I have to say my husband was great. I crawled out of bed for all the festivities and crawled right back into bed after they were over! Saturday wasn't horrible, it entailed a lot of sitting which made it livable. We also went cruising for Christmas lights. There are some wonderful displays out this year!

Sunday I stayed in bed most of the day. I was hot and cold, and achy... a total mess! My husband and the girls got the house ready for the party. Not like I would have but better than I could have at that time. (PS: Whatever you do, don't go in the back room! It's going to take a month to clean out! LOL!) Around 2 o'clock 15 8-9 year olds came bearing gifts and ready to party. A couple Tylenol and I was ready to do my best! A mom of one of the party goers stayed and helped out. I had a lot of crafts and games planned and couldn't have done it without her!!!! A huge thank you goes out to Angela!!!!!!!

Sunshine had a great time. We didn't get everything done and they were a bit ummmm... lets say active???..... but they had fun and that's all that matters.

Now I'm looking at a war zone of a house. Party aftermath, The laundry is piled up, etc.... My hubby did keep up with the dishes which is a blessing!! Am I going to do anything about it? NOPE, not today. I got my babies on the bus now I'm off to a long nap. Hopefully I will be refreshed by the time they get home from school. Right now I feel like dog doo doo. The antibiotics seem to be working but I'm still not myself and I hate it!

Tonight I have my mom coming down with a cake from Hillman's Bakery in Fairfield. They make the best cakes!!!! We are going to order take out and watch Sunshine open her presents on her "real" birthday.

I might be sick but the special events in my kids lives only happen once, sick or not! I'm just making the best of it and counting my blessings.

Sunshine's crafty 9th birthday

I'm busy preparing my Sunshine's 9th Birthday. It's always fun to juggle birthday and Christmas and I feel it makes this time of the year extra special! Every year I try to come up with something fun for her. She's had a cookie swap / decorating party, princesses dress up tea party/ McDonald's / Chuck e Cheese / and a Surprise party! We rounded these out with family parties as well.

This year we went to her list. Yes, she has a list of party ideas all the way up until she is about 20!! LOL, I don't think she's going to want to go rollerskating for her 21st birthday but you never know!! It is a good guideline for ideas though, and I never stifle creativity!

The idea of a craft birthday came from wanting to make clay pots. Not a plaster fun time type place where you paint ceramics. She wanted to go throw pots on a wheel with 20 of her best friends! I convinced her that we would enroll her into a pottery class however, it would be hard to do with so many people in 2 hours.

I used my brain to find a suitable (cheaper) alternative. We will have a craft party at home! I bought a pound of Sculptey clay. It dries in 15 minutes in your over. PERFECT! I have never used it but it was in with the polymer clays and the directions sound easy enough.

They will each receive a pre-cut piece of clay. I will give them the option of making an ornament or a pinch pot. I purchased glossy acrylic paint in Christmas colors and glitter... got to have glitter! In my mind it looks amazing... I hope it comes out OK!!

We will also be making snowmen out of mini terracotta plant pots (I bought kits at AC Moore for $0.60 a piece) and window clings with puffy glitter paint. I think that combined with sculpture freeze dance, cake and presents should take up the 2 hours I have planned for the occasion.

What is sculpture freeze dance you ask?? Good question! Sunshine made it up. The children pair off in teams of two. One is the sculptor and the other is the clay sculpture. While the music is playing the sculptor shapes the "clay" then when the music goes off the kids have to freeze. Yes, we decided both partners have to freeze. They will take turns being the sculptor and the clay. Again, in my mind this sounds perfect! If it doesn't go as planned there is always regular freeze dance.

To add to the excitement, I am making a cake (it's cooling as we speak). If you remember correctly I'm not the cake baking mom. It will hopefully look like an artist's paint palette. I baked 2 9-inch round cakes. (confession time, they may be a little over done but now I have no fear of salmonella from all the eggs!)
Tonight, I am going to attempt to put them together then cut it into the shape of a paint palette (thus taking off the burnt edges... Ha Ha!). I will then frost it with white and then pipe colorful circles for the paint. I will add a new paint brush for accents. Sounds easy right?? Hummmm.... there is still time to call the supermarket bakery if I fail ;)



I am planning on having a large table for the crafting and an 8 foot folding table set up with sheets of wax paper with the child's name on it for their crafts, and the other crafts prepped.

This is my timeline:

2:00 Kids arrive
2:15 start clay pots
2:45 Clay in the oven
kids start snow men and clings
3:00 take that clay out of the oven before it looks like my cake!!! put outside to cool quick!
3:15 start the painting of the clay sculptures
3:30 cake
3:45 presents
4:00 sculpture freeze dance til parents come!

That of course is a guideline. You never know how much time they will spend on each project. If we finish early then they can play in the playroom if we finish late most of the parents understand that!
OK... I have now idea now that I realize I need to add cooling time to the clay. Hummm... I guess I will do presents and cake then paint??? We will see!!!! Getting nervous!

Wish me luck! This is going to be one crazy, fun, festive weekend!! I'll write on Monday to tell you how it went!

I feel like it's been a long time....

I was on a roll for a while now, I'm just so busy I haven't had time to write. Ideas come to me when I am not ready then when I have a moment to spend on the computer they vanish!

Things are well. Thanksgiving was full of family, friends, and fun, just as it should be. I think I did everything I wanted. I even got to sneek out to see Twilight (which was AWESOME!!).

Now I'm getting ready for Christmas! I can't say I'm completely ready for this task but I always say "fake it til you make it"!

On Sunday, my lovely neighbor brought over Christmas boughs which are now overflowing my flower boxes and a basket by my door. I set out this morning with my trusty pruning sheers in hand to find bittersweet berries to accent the greens. I couldn't find them at first but once the frost melted they were easy to spot! My girls thought I was crazy since I kept pulling my minivan over to look through the brush on the side of the road. I gathered enough for all the flower boxes, basket, a swag for the door, and more!! Each girl held a bunch and were so happy to help! It was a fun morning!!

I also added a few of the many pinecones that have fallen from my trees. I think it looks amazing. I'm excited to set up the lights... then the outside will be complete.

I wish I could take a picture of my creativity but again I'll complain that I haven't gotten one yet. We have gone a few times to pick one out but we get so nervous! It's really a problem. I am going to go right now to sign up for a membership to consumer reports online. It's the only way I can be sure we get a good deal!!!