Another year flies by

Back to school for me is really the best time to start something new.

 

 I have the most amazing family. I have been blessed with  three beautiful, healthy, smart daughters and a successful and hard working husband who has loved me for the last 20 years. My life is good. But, I am a mostly stay at home mom and wife and summer is a blur of 90 days  of cooking, entertaining people, planning and vacationing, and cleaning up after all my fabulous family. I should have made my kids more responsible but to be honest when you stay home for a living, everything you teach them to do for themselves is working you out of a job. So I do most of the busy work at our house. And I really don't mind. I do complain about it, but I really enjoy having these people to care for. And I do know how lucky I am.

 

 

Recently however I have been anxious. My oldest is now a sophomore in college and I miss her terribly sometimes. She just left last week and already the dinner table feels too big without her there. I started this blog a two years ago to channel some of the restlessness and join a community that I had been looking at from the outside for years but then I filled my days with unimportant busy work in an effort to avoid the reality that regardless of what I do with the days, time is going to keep going. I cannot have this family this way forever. It is going to change and evolve and that is not something I have control over. I need something to fill my life when all of my kids are gone but I also need something to separate my days and inspire me to love the next phase of my life as much as I have loved this phase.

 

 

 Maybe it is this blog!

DIY Drawer Organizer

I mentioned yesterday that I had a bit of a fit on my kitchen. For the last 4 days I have been feverishly organizing my kitchen in an attempt to regain control of my life. Today we are finishing off the junk drawer. I started by doing a mock up of what would go in the junk drawer and laying out the boxes. I started with the long boards on the front and back and I just kept them at 24 inches which is how long they were. My design was plotted using left over small blocks from the other drawers so I only had a few other cuts. I used an arm saw.

 

Next I took out one piece at a time and gorilla glued and brad nailed it in place. I labeled each joint so I would know how it went together A to A and so on.

 

Once all the pieces were secure I put it in the drawer. Notice my fancy clamps also known as butter knives that held everything tight until it dried. It took about 2 hours to dry.

Finally I put it all our junk from the original drawer. I know it is still a junk drawer but knowing where things go and having a space for everything will hopefully encourage people to put things back. 

 

 

This project took about 6 hours for all 6 drawers but I am no carpenter and I was changing laundry and doing carpool in between so it could be done in less and I spent $22 on all 6 drawers the ones from yesterday and today and $10 on gorilla glue.

 

On a scale of 1 to 10 for happiness I would say these are an 8. I got to build something, I got to organize, and it is a tangible project I can check off my list. Thanks for coming by to see my little project. I had 34 page views yesterday!

Have a safe and happy weekend!

 

 

 

I just couldn't look at it one more minute.

Have you ever been doing something so mundane like, trying to empty the dishwasher, but find that you just can't handle the mess anymore. This was my kitchen last Saturday night at 6:00 PM.

I ask my kids to unload the dishwasher. I think it is good for them, but lately they have been a bit laxy dazy on the placement of the dishes. It bothers me, but I usually let it go. On this night however, I could not handle it one more second.

Remembering that I need pictures for the blog I snapped a few before pics. Please don't judge me.

 

 I started just emptying every drawer and realistically questioning how many vegetable peelers one family needs.

 

 Then I washed down all the drawers and cabinets which made me feel like we live like animals. Then I  headed to Pinterest for some ideas for a solution to this problem.  I found so many ideas but this was one of my favorites. Now I have drawer fever too. Here are the symptoms.

Aren't they fabulous! I cannot tell you what a difference it has made in my level of happiness. It really is the little things that drive you mad or make you smile. I am particularly proud of the knife drawer. I just cut the slats with a miter saw. I saw one like this in the custom cabinets at Home Depot where I went to get the wood. The wood  is 1/2 inch x 2 1/2 inch  poplar on sale for 75 cents per 24 inch board. I spent $10 on all the wood. But I am going to get more today to do the last drawer in the kitchen, the junk drawer!

Stop by tomorrow and see the junk drawer ( please tell me you have a junk drawer) and some tips I learned in the process!  Have a great day and find your Happy!

Fun and Funky chair slipcover

Still plugging along the techno nightmare of actual blogging. I thought I was an educated woman with an ability to learn new things but wow have I been humbled by the amount of new there is to learn.  The projects are really the easy part. The sharing is hard. Enough about me and my old dog/new tricks  debolical let's talk slipcovers!

 

I had the opportunity to redo a family favorite chair into a more fun pieces for a living room redesign.

 

The family loved the size and shape of the chair but a living room redeign meant it had to get a face lift. They chose a lively and bright floral to set the chair as the accent in a fun and fresh living room.

 

 

The pattern continued from one piece to the next so you get the full pattern.

 

Here is the chair after.

 

Since it was a slipcover it was important to keep the seams trim but since it would be used by 4 kids I wanted it to stay in place. I decided to use 1/4 inch elastic on the back side of the piping seam

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It worked well and hasn't slipped off once.Snug as a bug in a rug!

 

 

About me page done!

I am a mostly SAHM. I own a small custom sewing business and I teach Pilates and Senior Exercise classes. My main job used to be caring for my 3 beautiful baby girls, organizing play dates and taking trips to the zoo. I really miss those days but they were very time consuming.

Then it was driving those same three beautiful girls to school, to practice and friends houses. I was the PTA mom and the average Tuesday was spent holding the hand of one of the most beautiful people on the planet. It was a wonderful time but still really time consuming.

Now, my girls are older and one is away at college. I am literally working myself out of a job. I am married to my handsome college sweetheart for the last 19 years and we live in the suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri. For me the great thing about being a SAHM is the freedom to pursue other hobbies and now I finally have the time to share them.

My favorite number is 3.

My favorite color is green.

New Year's Resolutions

I love a fresh start.

 

 New Year's resolutions on the other hand are like failures that haven't happened yet for me .

 

My history of 41 years with myself tells me that I have very little follow through with the concrete.

 

I have failed at lose 20 pounds about 5 years in a row now, run a marathon two years in a row , and take a photo every day literally lasted 9 days last year.

 

This year I am going to go with an abstract goal .

 

I am going to up my standards in all I do. Try harder, love more, give more generously and have more fun.

 

I am at a place in my life where anything is possible. My family requires less time as the kids are getting older and after being primarily a stay at home mom for the last 18 years I am ready to do something that shares my skills with others.

 

 I am a list maker and organizer by nature so I will have many of those this year I am sure, but for today and for my resolution I am going with this: