Bringing Home the Gold!

So I have this idea for a summertime mini-Olympics for our kids and some of their friends & cousins. I think it would be so cute for them to have a set of games they can compete in complete with team jerseys, podiums, medals, & trophies! What a fun time! It will take some organizing and some advanced planning, but what a fun way to teach sportsmanship, history, healthy competition, and active living!

Gifts Galore!

We have several friends who have children in the second grade this year. And for us Catholics, that means it is a year of Sacraments. The children will receive their First Reconciliation and their First Communion. I have been shopping at the local Catholic bookstore already this year to prepare myself since I am anticipating quite the onslaught of first communion invitations. What I need to do is come up with a traditional gift for these occasions – any ideas?

Viva Las Vegas!

Almost a year ago I was getting ready to travel west to Las Vegas. A group of ladies from our church all went to Vegas for a 4-day weekend in mid-November. I spoke with one of the ladies from our Vegas group yesterday and she was saying that they had made their Las Vegas hotel reservations for this year and they were getting excited about the trip. While I hope that they all have fun, I am glad I am not going. Once was enough for me!!

More on Houses

I have mentioned before that we are hoping and planning to build a new home in the not-so-distant future. I am so grateful for even the possibility of this journey! If you are in a similar position, looking to build or buy that is, and you happen to live in Arizona – check out Scottsdale real estate. Who knows, you may be on your way to a brand new home!

Sigh...

We have been working pretty hard around our home recently getting it ready to go on the market. We have a long list and a short list – the things we will do right away and then a list of things we will do if the home doesn’t sell after the first several weeks on the market. Some of the short list items are getting our bathroom updated, some power supply repair, and some painting. Wish us luck!

Music to my Fingertips!

I don’t know about you, but I love me a good pen. You know, the kind that just feels good in your hand and you feel like you could write with it all day long. While I love to type and don’t get the cramping when I type that I do when I write these days, I still find myself fawning over the amazing pens in the stationery aisle! I can hardly imagine how much I would drool over these custom pens. What a treat!

Mirror, Mirror

Today I was helping out on a retreat with a group of 8th graders at a local parish and one of the lady volunteers gave a talk on self-image. She held up one of those makeup mirrors – you know, one of those compact things. She mentioned that she carries it in her purse wherever she goes. Wow. I don’t even own one of those things, do you? When I think of those, I think of elegant older ladies and their brocade purses…I don’t know why!

Think Pink

I am such a sucker for the pink dyson giveaways - you are probably so sick of hearing about them! But I SERIOUSLY believe that winning one is in my near future! I figure I will keep entering these contests until I have enough saved to buy one and then maybe, just maybe I will have an "extra" 400 bucks to spend on something else fabulous!

Go HERE to enter the contest!

A New Home...

Just a little update on what has been going on with us lately:

We met with Mayer Homes yesterday and have decided to proceed with them and hopefully build and be in the house within the year....although we are waiting until our house sells in the spring, hopefully! So, it could be longer than 1 year from now, but it is SO exciting to have it on the horizon! We are building in a new subdivision nice and close to our parish and school where the kids will attend.

I have started a house binder of all the magazine pics & articles & swatches of fabrics for the "new" house but it always seemed so far off. Now that we have met with the builder and know we are doing this, we are getting excited!!

We will be meeting with them again in a few months to let them know which model we have decided on and optional upgrades. Then once we sell our house we will go ahead and sign the papers for them to build. They said it will take about 4.5-6 months to build the house but not longer so that is good. We might even be in our new house as early as next Christmas - one year from now!

We will also spend the next several months getting our house ready to sell so that will be an adventure to document!

Anyways, just wanted to let you all know what was going on with us!

Molly's Place

These walls have been silent. And so they will remain for just a few more days. Just wanted to pop in to tell you about a giveaway of a wonderful looking cookbook over at Molly's place.


Peace!

Mmmmm....salsa.

I love to garden. While I don't have a very large plot of land that I am tilling at the moment, I plan to begin my vegetable garden in the spring. There is something about being able to grow the fruits, vegetables, and herbs our family uses on a regular basis that appeals to me in a profoundly deep way. A garden of life - from whose bounty our bodies will be nourished. It resonates with the part of me that loves to bake, can homemade sauces & salsas, sew clothing, and heat our home with wood. It is a lost art I think, vegetable gardening. But in this day of the "organic-fad" what could be more organic than doing it all yourself?!?!?



This is a sponsored post.

Our Sanctuary

So if you are living on a budget and trying to impose some hard-to-maintain limits on your spending, I have a simple tactic that works for me:
STAY AT HOME.

You know, that 'stay-at-home' part of SAHM??!? What percentage of your time are you actually at home? Carpooling & chauffer duty aside, how much time do you spend in your home? For me, with my kids still young, this percentage should be fairly high. I don't need to be out galavanting every single day. And when I stay home, and make home the place I want to be, well, inevitably, we spend less money.

I would post a picture of our home, our sanctuary, the place we love to be. But my camera batteries have died and I cannot find the charger for the life of me. If I had a dog I would venture to guess that he ate it. I seriously have sat down to my computer several times in the last 3 days of searching wistfully yearning to type into a little google box: "where is my camera battery charger" and have it actually tell me! Or better yet, just search it in the images section and it could show me! ahhhh, the limitations of technology.

For other WFMW tips, check out Rocks In My Dryer.

And for my very favorite WFMW tipper of all time: check out this post at A Path Made Straight.





As for the 30 Days of Nothing, well...


It has been... well, hard.

It has been nothing like what I imagined it to be.

I guess I had very romantic notions of vast feelings of solidarity. Where are those? Instead, I feel isolated. I feel alone. I feel embarrassed to even say to friends that we as a family cannot (in this case, "will not") attend certain functions or do certain things with them that cost money. Not this month. I feel like we are forced into lying and covering up.... is that what people go through who don't have any money? The shame? They are ashamed of the real reason that they cannot do something so they make up a reason. Hmmm.... there is something there to be said for the way we have stigmatized the less-fortunate and made them to feel ashamed.

We had a day without running water. And as I crept to the bathroom to finally flush the toilet at midnight, I thanked God that I could. And you know, I reflected on the people who cannot. I do not mean those people in third world countries who simply do not have access to running water...as grave as that is. No, I reflected on those people in the cities where we live who for one reason or another do not have the means to pay for running water. They have the access but not the means. They wake up and can hear their neighbor's shower running, or their landlord's washing machine on spin cycle, or they see a neighbor watering his lawn....his lawn.... while they are in a drought.

The shame. It brings me back to the shame of it all. If they have no running water, their showers are few and far between at the Y or at friend's and relatives homes. They cannot maintain the hygiene that you or I take for granted. And when they present themselves to the world at this less than commonly accepted level of hygienic standard....there is shame. And lies to cover the shame.

It is here that we must acknowledge the dignity of the human person and help eradicate shame.

1700 The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God; it is fulfilled in his vocation to divine beatitude. It is essential to a human being freely to direct himself to this fulfillment. By his deliberate actions, the human person does, or does not, conform to the good promised by God and attested by moral conscience. Human beings make their own contribution to their interior growth; they make their whole sentient and spiritual lives into means of this growth. With the help of grace they grow in virtue, avoid sin, and if they sin they entrust themselves as did the prodigal son¹ to the mercy of our Father in heaven. In this way they attain to the perfection of charity. (Catechism of the Catholic Church)

We continue on. Our fridge is a little more bare. Our hearts are full. And we prepare for a week ahead of centering ourselves and making our own contribution to our interior growth!

Could this be you?

If you have ever been told that you grind your teeth at night, or you find yourself having to consciously un-clench your jaw while driving or typing and you have suffered from headaches and/or stiff neck then you may want to check with your dentist to see if maybe you have TMJ. I have TMJ. For years I suffered from headaches and no doctor could explain them to me. Then finally one time when I was at the dentist about 8 years ago, he diagnosed me with TMJ and went ahead and fit me for a night guard. I tell you, wearing that sucker helped my headaches and stiff neck immensely! So if you have a hunch this may be you, don't wait. Make an appointment with your dentist and he can help you through this!! You don't have to suffer because TMJ can be treated with the Night Guard

Smart Habit Saturday

Well in my efforts to live this week with buying nothing extra and embracing a mindset of simplicity, I have found myself taking stock of what we own and I have been experiencing the urges to de-clutter & organize!! I am not new to de-cluttering, not at all. In fact, it is something I do all the time. But this is different, I have grown detached to so many 'things' we own in light of my somewhat new attitude about stuff. So my decluttering is more thorough and perhaps, one might say, more brutal.
Which brings me to my SMART habit Saturday. In my home, I really like everything having a place. It makes tidying so much easier when you don't have to think about where to put things as you go. So, once you have established a place for everything, you can implement my SMART Habit: the ONE TOUCH RULE. Simply put things away in their designated place right away every time.
It is not easy, and I am not perfect at this, but it does keep your house clean and organized. This past summer I created an organizational method for our toiletry items in our linen closet including a nail care basket. Well, I can tell you that using the organizational method and implementing the habit of putting things in their space has cut way down on any frustration my husband or I were experiencing over never being able to find the nail clippers when we wanted them!
This habit saves my time: no more precious minutes wasted searching for some mundane item.
It saves my money: No more buying duplicate items because they cannot be found.
It saves my associations: My husband isn't irritated with me because he can't find something.
It saves my resources: I am able to focus more clearly on what we have and de-clutter things that don't have homes.

For more SMART Habits, join us over at The Lazy Organizer.

It's all in how you look at it...

My bathroom lighting gets really, really hot. That & I always look like I am sick when I look in the mirror. I think it is high time we replace our bathroom lighting but to be quite honest, I am not sure which to buy first, the light fixture for over the sink (as all the rest of the lights in the room are can lights) or all the towel racks, etc. All I know is I want them to match. I very much like the look of the brushed silver look - you know, where it's not too shiny but still looks fabulous?!?!
Well I recently discovered lightingshowplace.com and oh my heavens! They have bathroom lighting out the wazooo!!! And I have learned that what I thought I liked was nice & all, but oh my sally there is a whole world out there I have never, ever seen before, and y'all it's gorgeous!
Seriously, if you are at all in the market - go now. And don't drool on your computer!





This is a sponsored post.

Saving for a DYSON

I am not going to lie. I would love me a Dyson vacuum cleaner. I don't really care what color although I would not prefer yellow. And my husband, well, lets just say he is of the $50 vacuum cleaner mindset and to even suggest that a Dyson be anywhere on my wish list is, well, ridiculous. To him.
To me, not so much.

So, I signed up with another company that will pay me to blog. It's called payperpost and I am excited to save for my Dyson with all the money I will be making blogging!!!




This is a sponsored post.

Free Raleigh, NC Getaway

I have always wanted to vacation in North Carolina. It brings to mind a sort of southern hospitality-meets coastal charm ideal. One day we plan on bringing our kids & having a week long Fall Getaway in the Carolinas. Wouldn't you like to do that too??
Check it out: a contest where you can win a FREE Raleigh Getaway !!


Click on over today and YOU can win the following:

-One night accommodations for two at the Courtyard by Marriott Raleigh Crabtree Valley
-$25 gift certificate to Bloomsbury Bistro
-Free VIP admission for two to Rum Runners
-2 tickets to the North Carolina Theatre
-2 tickets to the N.C. Museum of Art’s Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism
-2 tickets to Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences


Wow!!! Dinosaurs, Theatre, & Trace Adkins in Concert....oh my!

Good luck!



This is a sponsored post.

30 Days of Nothing

Today we begin our month-long fast. 30 days of Nothing. We have not 'stockpiled' and we have not bought things in excess in order to make this month more comfortable. We will be using every.last.canned.good in our cupboards and we will be making things from scratch.
We will go at least one day without electricity, another without warm water, another without meat, television, radio, etc. (In some cases these particular fasts will be more than one day long). And I am fasting from Target altogether. (Which if you knew me, you'd know how big of a deal this is!!)
And finally, we will be taking regular fast-days from the internet. On Mondays I will check in here and update you on how we are doing. Other than that & the blogs I get paid to write, I will be fasting from blogging throughout the week. And other than essential emails, I will be fasting from the internet as well.

So I leave you this week to ponder a few quotes on poverty:

The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance.
It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy.
- Mother Theresa

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty. - Mother Theresa

However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. ~Henry David Thoreau

If we are suffering illness, poverty, or misfortune, we think we shall be satisfied on the day it ceases. But there too, we know it is false; so soon as one has got used to not suffering one wants something else. - Simone Weil

And since today is the Feast Day of my patroness, St. Therese of Lisieux, I leave you with this final quote:

We who run in the way of Love must never torment ourselves about anything. If I did not suffer minute by minute, it would be impossible for me to be patient; but I see only the present moment, I forget the past, and take good care not to anticipate the future. If we grow disheartened, if sometimes we despair, it is because we have been dwelling on the past or the future. - St. Thérèse