Osage Oranges

These green seed pods might be strange looking, but they are such a pretty color and smell so nice!



I put a bunch in a basket on our coffee table and they make the living room smell great.

Scrapbooking...

One of my favorite hobbies is scrapbooking. The problem is-- I do not look forward to getting all my supplies out and putting it away each time. I end up working on my scrapbooks less and less, and then I feel guilty for not using all the great supplies I've collected. A month or so ago I found a website called Scrapblog. It is so fun, and the best part is that it is free! Once you create an account, you can make as many digital scrapbooks as you want. Your pictures can be uploaded directly from your computer, or from a photo hosting site, like Picasa. The variety of backgrounds, stickers and themes is pretty amazing. A lot of the designs remind me of supplies I have seen in stores. There is a drawing tool, a huge font selection, you can add videos and sound, and shadows and effects to add depth.

I am so excited to try their newest tool-- printing!! Before, you were able to save your Scrapblogs on your computer or print them yourself. But now they offer printing and binding right from Scrapblog.com!

There are some limitations. For instance, you don't have the ability to copy and paste text from the Scrapblog Builder-- or spell check inside of the Builder. I also miss the texture you get from actual paper scrapbooking.

Organizing Thoughts

Who knew I'd have so much fun "studying" after college?? Well, this isn't exactly accounting principles or research for a 20 page paper. (Big Smile) I'm reading books about organizing, and the student in me just wants to take notes. So, here's to Organizing my thoughts.... haha, that one came from Ashley. She's sitting here playing Text twist working on her laptop. Here's what I'm reading today:

Bouknight, Joanne Kellar , and John Loecke. Home Organizing Idea Book. Newton, Conn. The Taunton Press, 2006.

Favorite ideas so far:

"The more often you use something, the more accessible it should be." 1

It is so easy to make a mess if you have move the box of pictures, in front of the bag of scrapbooking paper that is on top of the bin of supplies to ultimately reach the container of pens. Plus it takes so much effort and time to access that one thing, that there's no way you want to clean up the mess right then.

A couple of weeks ago we took a night to re-organize our storage room. The 5 of us have a monstrous amount of suitcases, off-season clothes and random things to store. So my thought was that we needed to put the things we didn't need access to waaay in the back. The plan started out pretty well... until we ran out of room. I labeled boxes and stacked lighter things almost 7 feet high, but there just wasn't enough space. If I was working with a client and had this happen, the next step would be to talk about donating some things. And if that wasn't an option, we would need to look at other storage possibilities (closets, backyard sheds, the garage, a storage unit). But my roommates didn't hire me to help the, and I don't want to ask them to get rid of things unless they want to. So for now, we have to move things out of the way to get to what we need.

"Never underestimate the power of a

good-looking label."2

This one made me laugh. I can just picture all of the times I've packed something away, then searched through every box in a frenzy because I couldn't remember which box I needed.

1 p.16"Home Organizing Idea Book"

2 p.16"Home Organizing Idea Book"

I love weekends...

This week was rough.  It was cloudy, I was grumpy and people were being insensitive and mean at work. 

But today... I got to work out so much frustration by organizing.  I have a friend who has an 8 year old boy who couldn't see the floor--or the walls-- in his room.  So that's where I came in!  I thought for sure that it would take me at least two full Saturdays to sort and convince him to part with things, but we are about 90% done.  I packed some unsorted boxes into his closet with instructions not to play with those things until after we sort through them.  haha, we'll see what happens there.  : ) 

I love organizing.  There's something I love about being able to take someone's overwhelming space and transform it into something they can love.  Instead of feeling tired and overwhelmed when I'm organizing I feel energized. 

Happy Labor Day!

I love Monday holidays! 

 

P.S. I have my new computer now, so hopefully I'll get into posting again.  ;)

Cool Brothers

New Series: Links

Here's a new series of posts of links that I think are great.

This is a great blog by a professional organizer. I love her page design and she has great ideas.

Complete_Organizing_Solutions

Update!

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately and I have started to feel like I had abandoned mine. Sorry guys! A lot happens and instead of writing about it, I feel busy and like I don't have time.

So here's a little update before I can sit down and write a real post:

• I stayed in TN for Easter, and we had a garage sale the day before. : )
• We threw a huge Birthday Party for one of my roommates, she loved it.
• I went to Rochester, NY with one of my roommates to visit a college friend of ours. It was tons of fun.
• I flew from Rochester to NC where the rest of my family was waiting. My Great Grandpa died and I was able to be there for the funeral. It was wonderful to see everyone, even though it was a sad time.
• Last Sat I went Garage Sale-ing with a friend all day, and then to a Casting Crowns concert that night.
• Tonight, an appointment with the nurse that's running the clinical study that I'm doing, and another fun concert.

Till another time...

Life as it is...lots of fun!

It's almost February, but this month has been really full of fun stuff.

After getting back to town, getting back into work was pretty hard-- and I had some big ups and downs with my job. But I'm trying to take on a new outlook. Work is work, and it doesn't have to be who I am or affect how I feel about things. Lately the tensions at work have been difficult for me to see past, and all of the issues just come up over and over again. So I've decided to realize that my life is more than all of the mess at work. I am going to work like crazy to do my best there, but after doing my best I need to leave all the work stuff behind. If people decide to get in an uproar over the latest situation, I should calmly face it head on and then forget about the stress and go home. (Easier said than done, huh?)

Let's see...um, last weekend was one of my favorite weekends. Friday night we went to a see a Bluegrass band. (Which, by the way, isn't something I would normally choose.) I love live music, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. We went to a gathering event with our church on Thursday and met some new people who invited us. Then we went to a movie on Saturday. Then Sunday a bunch of us went to a live taping at the Grand Ole' Opry House, called "How Great Thou Art." It was a collection of gospel hymns sang by popular country music stars, like Carrie Underwood, Dierks Bentley, Ronnie Milsap, Trace Atkins, Sara Evans, Loretta Lynn, and Vince Gill. It was a great show, and really cool to see all of those people live. Vince Gill sang a song I love called "Give me Jesus" and Charlie Daniels sang "I'll fly away"-- another song I love.

This weekend has been a lot of fun, since Ash's birthday was Thursday, we've been celebrating all week. Thursday we went to the Ringling Bros. Circus at the Sommet Center. (Which was WAY cool! ) Last night we had a ton of our friends over for a wild (just kidding) party at our apartment. We played fun games like "Psychiatrist," "The Question game," and a new one called "Wise or Otherwise" that is like Balderdash, but you use half of a famous/funny quote instead of a word and it's definition. We had Mexican sodas in a tub of ice, corn dogs, french fries, and cupcakes and other fun foods.

I'm learning to love busy weekends just as much as the quiet and relaxing ones! Ha, ha, the girls used to complain about not having stuff to do and I just wanted to stay in and hang out and watch movies-- but now I see what we were missing.

Happy New Year!

I've been to Michigan and back since last time I wrote. Christmas was great. It was relaxing and snowy and fun. I am so grateful that I got to take a few days off. I left for home on Saturday the 22nd and came home Sunday the 30th. The best part about being home having everyone in my family home. It's hard to take that for granted after not having it for a long time. I also got to see my beautiful Michigan girls, who I haven't seen in forever! Then Candlelight service at Church on Christmas Eve, after Steak and Shake and seeing National Treasure-2. Christmas day was relaxing and casual. I got some amazing gifts. For instance:

I didn't do anything big for New Year's Eve. I had to work all day and then it was kinda nice to just go home make dinner and hang out. Then yesterday, Amanda and Ashley and I took a road trip to......Chattanooga. : ) Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure: