Birthdays & Bookshelves

My baby boy turns 5 this Sunday! I think I might have a heart attack. I can't believe it.



So I've been working on planning a birthday party. My dear sweet husband made the suggestion to have a surf theme party. My son liked that idea. Do you know how hard it is to find surf themed things in the middle of winter? Thanks honey.

Anyhoo, here are the quickie invites I made. They're supposed to be surfboards, but hubby says they don't look like it. He's really racking up the points, isn't he? Now I need to find a limbo stick and luau-ish stuff.



Does anyone have any great ideas for surf/beach themed activities that the kids can do indoors?

And here is a sneak peek of the progress on the bookshelves in my front room.



I'm getting really excited about them. Hubby totally makes up for all that other stuff by building the bookshelves!

ETA: I almost forgot to weigh in on "The Secret." First, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I really am interested to hear everyone's take on it. After finishing it, I can say it does have a couple good reminders... think positively and be grateful! I know those are both areas I need to improve, so if nothing else, I'd say the book was a good encouragement in those areas.

Top "Secret"?

I've been listening to this on my iPhone. I know I'm about a year behind all the hype. I'm always behind on these things. I don't even watch Oprah (gasp!) (but before everyone disowns me, I will say that I at least have downloaded a couple of her podcasts). Anyhoo, I finally decided to see what all last year's hype was about.



So I'm wondering, what do you all think? Have you read/watched/listened to it? What are your thoughts? Is it all just hype? It's in my nature to be skeptical, but I'm trying not to be.

A Work in Progress

Remember this wall in my front room?



Well, hubby has had this idea of building a shelving unit on this wall for a while. And the project has finally started! Yay!



And although it takes up the whole wall, it doesn't protrude very far into the room, so it really doesn't take up a lot of space in this small room.

This is just the beginning, obviously. When it's done, it will have horizontal shelves of varrying heights with room for a smallish TV in the center section. And I'm trying to talk Mr. B into adding cabinet doors to the lower portion of the center section so we can hide all that ugly stuff that goes along with a TV.

The only down side is that my front room looks like a construction zone right now and is in total disaray. So pretty...



Is it considered a built in if it's an add on?

Me Again... Now What?

Well, I guess I'm making very small babysteps back to blogland. I had such good intentions.

I've been giving some thought to the future of this blog. I want to continue, but I just can't do it like I did before. Prior to my hiatus, I was spending too much time trying to keep up with this blog and had fallen behind on other "real life" things. I was trying to find time for projects so I'd have something to write about, then taking perfectly staged pictures, then editing the pictures, then writing about them, etc., etc.

I hate to say it, but my blog had turned into a chore. And the piles of unfolded laundry in my house had grown to monumental proportions. Part of the problem was that I wasn't accepting my limitations. I work 4 days a week, and when I'm not at work am juggling all the kids activities like soccer, ballet, piano, and soon baseball, and all that pesky housework that refuses to do itself. I don't have a lot of free time when I'm home, and I don't have any products or services that I can promote with my blog, so it just doesn't make sense for me to spend that much time on it... except that I like it and it's fun.

So I'm going to continue the blog, but it probably won't be as regular as it once was and while I attempted to have a decorating/crafty project kind of focus before, I think I'm going to have to change that too. I think my blog may end up being more of a mom/life/kids/whatever blog, with the occasional decorating/craft post thrown in (because that is what I love... well, that and shoes). Actually, I had already started moving in that direction out of necessity before Christmas, but now I can do it and not feel guilt about it.

So I hope you'll all be patient with me and my poor neglected blog.

And just because I can't stand the idea of another post with no picture, here's one of my Christmas trees (the only one I got a good picture of, unfortunately).



Stay tuned...

Remember me?

I can't blame you if I don't. Where oh where did December go? Well, I'll tell you... when we got back from San Diego I fully intended to get back to regular posting, but we had my husband's office party planned which we were hosting about two weeks after we got back. We were also going out of town again between the time we returned from San Diego and the time of the party. So when I was home, I was using ever spare minute to get the decorating done. I do a lot of decorating, and it takes lot of time.

Once that first party was out of the way, there were all the usual Christmas preparations to deal with. And shopping trips (because I have to drive an hour to go shopping). When I was online, it was doing online shopping. Then the holidays got here, along with out of town family. And then we went out of town again.

All the while, I kept thinking... I've got to do a blog post! But I never did. And the longer I waited, the more guilty I felt for not having posted. So I waited longer.

But here I am. I haven't falen off the face of the earth and there have been no disasters. I'm going to make baby steps back into blogland. I hope you'll be patient with me as I figure out the future of this blog and how to continue (because I really do enjoy it) and balance all the other stuff I have to do.

I'm Back from San Diego!

I really thought I'd be able to do at least a little update of my blog while I was on vacation, but it just didn't work out. So my poor little blog has been neglected for much too long! But now I'm back and I have lots of pictures to bore you with.

We didn't get to do all the things I wanted to do while we were there, but we did lots of fun things. Most of our activities were kid and family centered, and of course we had a day of shopping. And we spent quite a bit of time at the beach.

We spent one whole day at the San Diego Zoo. It really is a world class zoo. It's sister park is the San Diego Wild Animal Park, which we didn't have time to go to this trip but I've been to before. It's a great place that I highly recommend.

Here are a few pictures of our day at the zoo...

We saw a two month old baby giraffe (and some big giraffes too)



These guys were amazing. And they have the sweetest faces.



Flamingos. I kept waiting for Don Johnson to come by in a pastel blazer and white slacks.



This guys was pretty funny, but just a little scary. I'm glad there was a VERY thick glass wall between us.



The wildest animals at the zoo.



We also saw koalas, meerkats, panthers, lions, pygmy hippos (they were adorable, but I couldn't get a good picture) and tons of other unusual animals. We had a great day at the zoo.

I hate packing... but I love awards!

We're getting ready to leave town. I've got to pack for 5 people. Ugh. Which means I've got to make sure we have plenty of clean clothes to pack. Ugh again. And it's one of those weeks where we have a bunch of other stuff happening, so finding time to do all this is tough. But, we'll be going to San Diego for a week, so I'm excited about that. But for now, I must pack and do laundry and get ready. So I'm going to continue to be a bad blogger for a few days. I'm planning to do some posts from San Diego, because then I'll have lots of fun pictures to share!

In the meantime, I want to say thank you soooo much to Darla for this sweet award!



Thank you Darla (even though I know I don't really deserve it because I've been such a bad blogger lately)! I love your blog too!

Tis the Season: For Getting Rid of Toys!

Here's another thing I like to do to early to prepare for the holiday season... sort through my kids' rooms to make way for the new toys that will inevitably be pouring in by the truck load come Christmas day.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's house ends up looking like this on Christmas morning, right? (At the risk of showing you what a mess my house is on Christmas morning, I'm showing you pictures from last year in order to, well, show you what a mess my house is on Chrismtas morning. And because a post without pictures just seems wrong.)




There are always plenty of things to get rid of and this is the perfect time. It makes putting all the new stuff away so much easier.

I like to do the same thing with clothes, because they'll get lots of those too.



Of course, I find that it's best to do this when the kids aren't paying attenion. My kids (at least my youngest) never want to get rid of anything.


But by the time Christmas gets here, they'll never even know that anything is gone because they'll be so absorbed in all the new goodies.

Words of Thanks

I have nothing new and exciting to share with you from the real world. So let's get a little inspired today by these beautiful ideas for using words in your Thanksgiving tablescapes and place settings. I love words, letters and monograms. The dinner table is just one more perfect place for them.

A beautiful menu card (and look at the gorgeous dishes too)



Great idea for a place card



A monogrammed napkin ring



I absolutely love these candles!





How about customizing a napkin with fabric paint?



And making a tablecloth to match? I love this.



How cute are these messages on the glasses? Love it.



Fun with stamps.




I just love these ideas! Now I'll admit, I don't host Thanksgiving, so I won't actually be using these ideas for Thanksgiving dinner. But lots of these ideas could be used for other occassions and even small dinner parties. How fun!