9 'Til Passover ... 10 'Til Easter

 

Weeks that is. To prepare for these two extra special holidays I am doing another Organizing The Home 'Challenge' .. I think it has been two years since I challenged myself, so I am definitely due. What I will be doing is picking a room (or 2 if I fall behind) and totally clean it from top to bottom and ALL the crevices in between in one week ** my sweet Husband will take care of the outside and cars .. thank goodness ** And all I will have to do is maintain the room with a quick dusting and sweeping and the day (or two) before the holiday just run thru the house and sweep/mop and wiping down dirty handles/knobs and a quick dusting and ... voila` .. ready to enjoy a beautiful holiday.  Now for me this a workable schedule - I just pick at a room for about an hour every night and by the end of the week it is clean. YEA!  For some, it might be more practical to spend a day or two doing a super deep clean .. either way the results are the same. Tip 1: make sure you have the items you need to do a good job - light bulbs to replace the burnt out one, batteries for the smoke detector and remotes, squeegee for the windows, steam cleaner for the carpets - it will make the job go by so much easier. Tip 2: you might want to break it down into chores rather than rooms - all the walls one week, carpet cleaning the next, windows the following week - tailor it to your cleaning style and needs.  And because I am super insane, this year I am including the purging part .. usually I just clean .. one thing I do to prepare for the Passover/Easter season is 'give up' something for Lent and it is usually the same every year - soda or chocolate or some other trivial thing - but this year I am going to go bold and give up my possessions. No not all of them =D  I am simply going thru my home and really examining what I use, what holds wonderful memories and/or that I truly love and if it doesn't fall into any of those categories then out the door it goes.  So that I can make space for new memories  =D  Good-bye guilt gifts - enjoy your new home elsewhere. And for those with children you might want to skip the purging until summer when the kids are out of school so they can help go thru and learn the gift of 'giving away ones used items freely'. Yes .. it is a gift to give away an item that you either no longer use or never used to someone who will use it and it makes a kid feel really great about helping someone else.

And if you were around during my last home challenge you will see that I am a slight follower of Feng Shui and in no way am I an expert (there are wonderful resources available for free at your library or on the net).  I say slight because even though I don't believe that my money or fortune will go down the drain if I don't keep toilet lid down - I do think that there is something to be said about too much clutter constantly surrounding you and being bad for your overall mental being.  I know that for me, when my home gets too cluttered or when I have accumulated too many items I get overwhelmed and it puts me in a funk *_* Since I have 11 rooms and 9 weeks there will be weeks when I will need to do two rooms - and this week they are the craft room and the laundry room - which both fall in the wealth area, which is located in the farthest left section of the home. They seem to be my catch all rooms so I will try to be diligent to really unclutter these rooms.  Clutter dams up the Chi and it doesn't allow the flow of good energy. This area is the 'wood' area and the wood color is green (great for me since my craft room is green) and the corresponding wealth color is purple (and also red to enflame the wealth in ones life) - example is a picture of purple and red flowers with a wood frame. Both of these pictures would be suitable.

 Anything with water (fish tank) or the corresponding color which is black are also good for this area since water nurtures wood - so the laundry room in this area is 'a good thing' =D So if you are a black wood frame freak like me, well this is the room to go crazy in. I am wanting to make a few large black framed corkboards so that I have an area to hang my patterns and material swatches (along with other ideas).  It's the laundry room that I am having difficulty figuring out how to decorate it.

So again the 'challenge' is simple - tackle a little bit a day and by next week-end you will have a super clean room.

Happy Birthday Princess

 

May this year be filled with

all the joy and love your

heart can stand

Another Blessing Indeed!

 

Madalynne Maria

6 pounds

1/19/2014 

They are always generous and lend freely;
    their children will be a blessing.

 Turn from evil and do good;
    then you will dwell in the land forever.

Psalm 37:26-27

 

We have been truly blessed
with another grand child.
At this rate I will have
a grand child a year =D

Catching Up ..

Tea Party by Tasha Tudor

Hi! Believe it or not but I have missed you. Grab your coffee or tea - this is going to be a long post - don't worry I will wait for you :D 

First is that I am sorry for seeming to have dropped off the face of the planet. I have been crazy sick .. right before Thanksgiving I caught an ugly bug that lasted about a week and the day before Christmas here it came in full force. I mean that sucker took me out for 3 1/2 weeks - ended up that I had bronchitis *_*  I usually don't go to the doctors but going into the 3rd week I knew I needed to go and this is how much I don't use 'western' medicine .. I ended up getting a Z-pack (antibiotics) and when I went to pick it up I had to have the pharmacist go thru it again with me  *.*  My ever so sweet husband jokes that I am a light weight and I guess he is right since ibuprofen is the strongest thing I take.  All I did was veg out .. and cough .. that it is feels so great to get out of the house and move around. Especially clean .. my craft room was the dumping ground during the holidays that I could barely walk in there. All I want to do is organize and declutter .. throw everything out and start off the new year on a 'lighter' foot. This leads me into my next 'project'.

I am going to do another 'Organizing The Home .. Challenge'. I have 10 rooms and there is 10 weeks until the Passover/Easter holiday. This year though not only will I clean the house (walls, windows, blinds) but I will go through my stuff to see what I can donate .. I am already looking around and thinking 'I don't need that' or 'I will never read that so why have it cluttering my space?'  I am excited and a bit nervous .. I am a 'collector' of just about everything .. I am going to need all 10 weeks.

I have yet ANOTHER big announcement but that one deserves it's own post. So expect the craft section of this blog to blow up with projects.

We have been eating (some what) clean since last summer .. which I think is why it took so long for the cooties to really get me .. but I have some recipes I want to share that are simple and super nutritious.  Positive changes whether it is mental clarity or adding a healthy green smoothy into your morning routine is what healthy living is all about.

There is not only going to be a book challenge but also a movie challenge. There are sooo many classic movies .. Casa Blanca, Gone With The Wind, Citizen Kane, On The Waterfront .. I have never watched. Now what kind of movie buff would I be if I have never watched these classic films? A horrible one that's what kind *_* I got done with 'Run For Your Life' so expect a quick review on that.

OK I am going to let you go now .. I have so much going thru my mind and projects to start that I am going to let you go so I can get started.

Glory!

"Glory in the heights above to God,

and upon Earth peace among

men of goodwill."

Luke 2:14



Gray Weather

I love gray weather ~ for some it puts them in a funk

but for me .... it makes my spirit smile =D

Run For Your Life!

No ... I didn't mean that literally :D  It is the title of my current book. It is yet another James Patterson/Michael Ledwidge collaboration. Last month I was done reading my last book and I wasn't sure what to start on; so back into my pile of un-reads ... or better yet not-reads it sounds better ... I searched high and low and found this treasure down towards the bottom. I don't ever remember seeing it before - funny how that goes. I read the ad on the top left - 'Detective Michael Bennett hunts a killer with an ego as big as all New York' and I had to giggle. Remember .. my last book was I, Michael Bennett (review below) and I took it as a sign. I am sort-of behind in my book reading schedule, so I have been pounding the pages pretty hard. So far I am enjoying this book and with any luck I will be done in time to read one more (maybe something in a different genre) before the end of the year ... leaving my year end book reading to 11.

As I said above, few weeks ago I got done with this book and what did I think? Well ... it wasn't bad ... not bad at all. I say it's a 3 or maybe 4 stars **** I don't want to ruin it too much for those of you who haven't read it yet so all I will say is it was a solid read. Enough twist and turns to make it interesting but not too many where you think this guy is a bumbling Barney Fife-type cop. You do have the basic premise of all good cop/bad guy books ... bad guy gets away, good cop chases said bad guy, bad guy targets good guy's family and friends and somewhere in there is a love interest. WOW ... I think I covered the book in one sentence ;p Well I am off to get another cup of cocoa - we will talk really soon. I have some holiday recipes I have been meaning to share.