Lets Get Organized!

The glorious days of summer have come to an end here, and I need to get super organized, and out of my lazy summer non-existing schedule. We talked about schedules before, and with fall here its the perfect time to get organized! Recently I found a fabulous message board

with tons of great people & very insightful homekeeping ideas. I thought I might play along(OK Work) with their "October Deep Cleaning & Decluttering" week! Also: to make your own fabulous homeade cleaning products and great recipes check out Sylvias blog! I will keep you updated with my personal home progress, and I cant wait to get down & dirty and really deal with this tiny house before Christmas arrives and more "Stuff" comes into the house. This year our Christmas will be super downsized, which I want anyway, and more meaningful, and relaxed. I will be on a mission to stick to that. With my husbands new job, and all his training we will have no choice, so its the perfect time to get "ReaL". Each year I pare down a little more & little more with the gifts, and decorations. A few years ago I decided I would only give handmade gifts, for Christmas but that flopped when i had no time to make any goodies for the shop! So if you want to share you favorite suggestions for having "A True & Simple Christmas" It would be most interested!

Oh yes, and I will be wearing one of these vintage aprons while I clean, just for fun! I also couldn't handle my procrastination any further and wrote out a daily schedule to try to follow. Now, I live a bit out of town so days that I have stuff to do, groceries to get or appointments, the schedule is no longer, or i will be trying to jump back into whatever time it is when I get home according to the time. This is super open & loose & I like it that way. Help for me to get stuff done-but no pressure if I fall away for a few hours or days. My plan is to jump back on & keep at it. This should help me be a more productive wife, mother, and crafter I hope!

Daily TimeChart (for days Im home only):

7:00- Wake up, Coffee on, Make kids Breakfast & Pack lunches.

7:15-Have bath, get dressed, get children ready for school.

8:00-Kids off to school,eat breakfast,Pack up any sold items,devotions,.

9:00-Watch my favorite Joyce Meyer Show

9:30-Make daily to do list & start cleaning, sewing, baking, or whatever the plan is for the day and figure out whats for dinner(I love my crock pot-throw everything in and leave for the rest of the day!).

12:00-Force myself to take lunch break, and baby naptime.

12:30 Back to daily do list(Savoring naptime)

2:00- Free time to put the house back together before all kids come home,etsy uploads &computer time.

3:00- Meet daughter at bus stop/ kids home school

3:30- Homework

4:00- Get dinner organized

5:00-Dinner time as family(Yes, They will be forced to eat together all at one table!Yeah!)

6:00- clean up dinner, bath kids, stories

7:00 Bedtime!- All my free time after that to do whatever I want!Yippee!

Have some good suggestions? Please let me know if you have a schedule for yourself, and home, I'm totally open to new ideas. I must go-my husbands coming home tonight from 2 weeks away and i want to make those favorite cookies!(Recipe below)

Open Invitation

Ok so I was supposed to update my link list last week & it still didnt happen. Dont get me wrong, I have been thinking alot about.Thinking about how I want to add so many, but I would need a million pages, thinking to scrap the whole list because i want everyone included, and its just too many to list and to many gazillion to read. Thinking how if I do keep it, that I would like my links to reflect special places to me, and special people to me, ecspecially all my regular sweet commenters because they are a huge part of my inspiration to keep going in this very ,what seems to be a competative blog world. On the other hand there is sooooo much genuine goodness,kindness, and more generosity than I see in my daily real life. All this is why I keep going on posting, even if no-one cares what Im saying? Right??

So many things to be grateful here, yet so much time wasted online too. I really need to set my priorities on paper. Basically I feel so blessed that anyone actually cares what I have to say! I really want to thank each & ever commenter because as I said before, Im not able to get back to everyone, with blogger, so if you ever think, boy shes a snob, I really do try! PLease make sure your settings are set to bloggers can reply to you! So I really want to encourage everyone who reads this to do me a huge favor, if you do read hear & care what i have to say, or just like creating & pictures-thats Ok! Just tell me who you are, I would love to see whos really reading here and send out an open invitation to stop lurking & come meet me! I might get really brave and post a big picture of myself or something crazy! LOL. So Im not sure what will end up on the link list so that is why you need to help me. I got through the whole pressure to blog thing & that was easy- If I have time I do, and if I dont ,I dont. That was easy-peasy. If i get pressure for stuff I just end up backing off of whatever it is,and just start to procrastinate. This is why I've decided to come up with a daily schedule. I must try to stick to it somewhat to get anything accomplished. Does anyone else follow a daily scheduele?this really interests me so please share!

So no post is complete without a few crafty pics

so heres a bag I made out of 2 seperate vintage tablecloths. One pre-printed & one hand embroidered daisy seafoam one, complete with drawstring top.

~blessings~

Repurposed Pink & Orange

Im so in love with making stuff with these vintage sheets + add that to making those reuseable shopping bags= happy girl.
Heres a little set I put in the shop, that has a fold up shopping bag that can slip easily into your purse or tote. I thought it was such a cute idea to roll it up with a ribbon & vintage button when I saw it in a japanese sewing book. Thats for me alright, super forgetful. This way you never have to use a plastic bag again!
That bag pattern didnt work for me, so I went back to my old original standard one that i made by taking apart a real grocery bag, I just cant get some of those directions. It opens up like a real grocery bag, and fits quite a bit of stuff!
I thought it would be cute to make a matching coupon/card/wallet for holding all those important stuff. My sister loves them to hold her passport, airline flying cards and the large pocket for her printed flight tickets. Dont you love pink & orange together? Years ago I would never have imagined myself in love with those colors until I started papercrafting with them.
Im working hard on my blog, so bear with me during my process-and it seems complicated to me because im not HTML savy in any way thats for sure, but I hope to get my new link list up & posted tonight! Thanks to Karen for all your great help!

~cheers~

Im Back with Cookies!

My its been awhile! Thanks for hanging in there! Do I get an excuse??? Please? Well schools in now & Im trying to create a little bit of a routine and I need to get it together! I have something for you though. An absolute school lunch staple- homade chocolate chip cookies! Im not bragging here, its not my recipe, but it took a million floppy batches, and alot of years to find this baby!!!! They are a family favorite, super chewy(cause Im not a crunchy girl), low fat (that's what it says), and NO fail! Heres the recipe:

Super Chewy Low-Fat Chocolate Chip Schoolhouse Cookies

1 Cup Butter/Marg

2 Cups Packed Brown Sugar

2 eggs

4 Tbsp. Corn Syrup

2 Tsp. vanilla

3 cups flour

2 tsp. Baking SODA

1/2 tsp. salt

2 Cups Chocolate chips (I prefer semi-sweet)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees . Beat marg, sugar, add eggs, corn syrup & vanilla, beating until very smooth. In a different bowl combine flour, BS, and salt. Add to the sugar mixture and mix,adding chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoonfuls, onto sprayed cookie sheet, baking for 11 minutes. They will look under baked when they come out, just let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes & remove to sheet of freezer paper(paper side up) or parchment. Makes 40 cookies! Enjoy!

Oh, and see, i did do something this week! A new redwork embroidery needle book has been added to the shop! Have a great week!