Show Us Your Life - Things you make

Today at Kelly's Korner she's asking for people to link up if they make or sell something. Well this is right up my alley! I LOVE making and creating new things, in fact just this week I've been super busy making a bunch of new products to get ready for a craft fair I'm doing in a couple weeks.

Here is a little sample of some of the products I make:

Fabric flower pins - these look beautiful pinned on a coat, shirt, scarf, purse or hat.

 I also have a couple smaller ones with hair clips on the back which look super cute pinned in a little girl's hair {or even a bigger girl like my daughter pictured here!}

Then I have these combo - hair clip / pins - these have both the hair clip and the bar pin on the back so you can choose how you want to wear it!

And finally, I have a bunch of these beautiful fabric covered notebooks. They have a ribbon to tie it closed, a pocket on the front for your pencils or pens and when you've filled your notebook you can simply slip it out and put a new one in - it will last you for years to come! This week I've been making more notebooks in some gorgeous new fabrics, so if you don't see one you like be sure to come back next week when I hope to have more posted.

Please come check out all the products at my Etsy shop - Ranunculusly Cute Creations. {And for a few more days, only till the end of April, you can save 12% by using the coupon code SPRING12 at checkout!}

Wanna do some shopping for Mother's Day? You should definitely click over to Kelly's post today to see some other amazingly creatively people!

I'm still here!

WOW, what a week we've had! Being intentional with my time is going well but for this previously lazy sloth, it's also exhausting! However, I feel so good about all that we accomplished last week and my energy is getting better every day. I didn't plan to take the whole week off from blogging, but life just seemed to get in the way!

School last week went great, of course we always have little moments of frustration or times when we have a reluctant little learner - but the fact that we made a schedule and stuck to it and got all the school work done was HUGE in my book! In fact, Monday and Tuesday we finished school by lunch time and were able to enjoy two awesome beach days in the afternoons. The weather was super gorgeous and we just couldn't resist! I'm not sure we've EVER had hot beach days this early in April before!

I have been doing well with eating healthy too. I joined the free site My Fitness Pal and keeping track of my calorie intake and exercise on there each day. It helps SO much to actually keep track of what I'm putting in my mouth! Of course, this does require planning on my part, including bringing a healthy salad with grilled chicken to the beach instead of a huge grinder, cutting up carrot sticks to munch on when I'm really hungry before dinner and bringing along healthy snacks when we leave the house. A little advance planning goes a LONG way!

I started and completed TWO fun projects this past week. You'll have to stay tuned for the after photos but here are the befores ...

We had a Balcony Girls tea party / breakfast here in our home on Saturday morning. What an amazing group of young ladies! We talked about authenticity and gossip. Love this group!

As I mentioned, we plugged away with school work ... my 8 wk - end of the year plan is working out fabulous!

Many times when the girls are working independently I can find myself going online and checking things out on FB - not this week! I've made myself more productive by doing my Bible study homework while the girls are busy. I'm trying to commit to only going online in the AM before the girls are up and in the PM when they go to bed - I am still not completely there yet - still checking in online every once in a while, not as much as before but I'm making progress. Still a goal to do ONLY the AM and PM check-ins.

As far as exercise, I did great, one of my best weeks! I took Thursday and Sunday as rest days, but worked out HARD every other day. I love that when I work hard I get more calories for my daily intake! I still make sure I stay at or under my daily goal, but at least with some extra calories I can still enjoy a treat every now and then.

So yes, it's been a great week. Perfect? No, of course not. Never will be. I'm just tryin' my best to live intentionally and work hard toward my goals. Life isn't always happy go lucky, every week doesn't always go well, we all have ups and downs. We had down or difficult moments this week too but I'm just choosing to focus on the positive changes that I'm trying to make in my life.

This week the challenge is all about 'Spirit'  -- Courtney asks us to commit that the FIRST thing we will read each day is God's Word. Some days I'm good with this, other days I go online before anything else. This week I'm going to commit and try to follow through with choosing God's Word first, foremost and above all else!

Have a great week friends!

Work vs. Laziness

Ok friends, I've had a lot of my mind lately so please bear with me as these thoughts COULD be all over the place!

Recently the Lord has been using MANY, MANY different people and experiences to show me what a lazy sloth I have been. I'm not going to go into how much I feel guilty and horrible about failing at motherhood because of my laziness, but just know that I have been convicted real good on this topic and have spent some time in prayer asking forgiveness.

I'm also going to point you to several links, hopefully when you have some time you'll get to read through them all. These are bloggers and friends and people who I KNOW the Lord placed in my path in order for me to learn this difficult lesson.

So yes, I have been lazy. I have made excuses why I couldn't/didn't exercise because 'my life is too busy as a homeschool Mom.' I have made excuses why my scrapbooks are 3+ years behind because 'my life is just too busy for that right now.' I make excuse after excuse after excuse ... YET!!! Yet, I ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS seem to have time to browse blogs, facebook, email, pinterest, etsy, etc sometimes for SEVERAL hours a day. I have allowed the internet {which can be a good thing} to RULE my world. See this post from Rachel at Finding Joy about how Social Media can rule your world.

I've been thinking on this for days now, and it's funny how the Lord plops many different things in front of me to solidify this conviction. Here are a few:

Take time to live intentionally  ---- hmmm, guilty there, I'm certainly not being intentional with my time when the internet is sucking every minute and ounce of energy out of me!

Jessica's post about laziness in our generation because of the internet. And I quote: "Watching that show has made me think a lot recently about how hard previous generations worked all day long (I’m talking physical labor). They didn’t sit around during naptime spending two hours on Pinterest. They worked hard and then earned the right to relax."

Mindy's post about how days with her Grandma make her realize how much harder the previous generations worked. How they ironed and cooked and cleaned and took care of their home and families. Mindy says:
"i thought about how, as home makers...i truly believe that many of us have gotten lazy...and that we don't take our job seriously enough. after all...it is one of the most important and rewarding jobs on the planet."

Yesterday at church the message was amazing ... guess what it was on? WORK! You guessed it! Once again I was convicted and challenged to take a good hard look at what I'm doing with my time. The message really showed me that no matter what job you do, being a stay at home Mom or a business man on wall street - you need to take your job seriously and work at it WITH ALL YOUR HEART, as working for the LORD, not for man! {Colossians 3:23-24}

God created us to work, He gives us each unique talents and abilities to do the job He's called us to. It's up to US to do that job well, whether we get paid or not!

My final 'conviction' if you will came in the form of a little study on discipline that I'm doing right now. I mentioned it last week, it's the 5 Disciplines in 5 Weeks challenge from Courtney at Women Living Well. This week, would you believe it, the challenge is about TIME MANAGEMENT! How fitting ... wow Lord, you really know how to beat me upside the head when you know I need it!

So what does all this mean? Well as much as I LOVE the internet, pinterest, etsy, blogs, facebook, etc. It means I've got to get control over those things and not let them control me! I'm not sure yet what that means or how it plays out just yet. But just know that I will be praying about this and figuring out a better way to use my time.

The other thing it means is ::::: I need to get my BUTT moving and GET BUSY again! Stop being lazy and making excuses and START finishing those projects around the house, keeping up with my house, working hard on teaching my kids instead of just handing them the school books and letting them figure it out alone, scrubbing those nasty corners that have gotten yucky, exercising and moving my body, cooking and prepping healthy meals, doing those fun things with my kids that I always say we should do, working on those scrapbooks and crafts that I never seem to have time for, reading all those books I say I can never get to, on and on I could go! There's so many GOOD things in my life that I need to do and want to do - it's time to start DOING them!

Okay, deep breath, prayers for discipline to carry all this out and ready, set, GO!!!!!

Yard Salin'

Today the girls and I went to a couple really neat tag sales. One was held at this big high school and one was at this Baptist Church. Both sales started yesterday {I think} and they were offering an additional 50% off EVERYTHING today. Woohoo!

Here is some of the fun loot I got ... 4 woven placemats {brand new with tags on}, 13 wooden quilt hoops and this little yellow wallet {for my daughter} and she only charged me $1.50!!!!! total!

The quilt hoops were marked 25 cents each and the placemats were marked $2 so this was a steal! I am so excited to turn those quilt hoops into something beautiful! {and I kid you not, quilt hoops were one of the things I was most hoping to find when we headed out this morning ... ppl just don't use them anymore and I usually find them at yard sales, but I LOVE them and can't wait to make pretty things with them!}

Wire basket {that I LOVE!} $1 When I saw it, I knew exactly what I wanted to use it for ... see picture below ...

See?? Doesn't it look great in my bathroom with the washcloths all rolled up in it?

The next great bargain was this salad bowl set. A HUGE glass salad bowl with 6 small bowls for ... wait for it .... $1.50!! I can picture making trifle in the summer in this bowl and serving it in the glass bowls on the deck to company! haha!

My youngest scored some roller skates for $2.50 ...

not perfect but great for playing in the driveway ....

I got a wreath for 25 cents! Already picturing a pretty summer wreath I can make with this!

And another item that I had a vision for ... Bamboo shades, one natural colored and one is a fun, bright orange. I seriously was looking for this exact thing recently but not wanting to pay full price for them. I have this vision of using these to decorate on my deck for the summer, hard to explain until I figure it out myself. But rest assured I WILL post pics when I figure it out. Oh and I only paid 50 cents for each one!

My girlies also got some silly little things with their own money. I try to give guidance about what to buy or not bother buying but also like to let them make their own choices with their own money. Oh well, I'm sure my Mom felt the same way when we were kids! LOL

Hey Jessica, aren't ya proud of me?!

Spring Break

Most of our friends went to sunny, southern locations for Spring Break this year. We were just going to be staying home and at first I thought we might just do school but in the end we just had some relaxing fun around here. Now get ready for a super-duper picture heavy post! =)

Monday we didn’t do much, we went and got our groceries for the week, then the girls just enjoyed playing outside for hours. Hubby got to golf with his friend and then we grilled steaks on the grill that night and enjoyed eating out on the deck for the first time this year and playing basketball in the driveway together.

Our little sweetie, Gracie …

She likes to think she’s the ‘Neighborhood Watch’

Tuesday I decided to make a special breakfast, yummy homemade Whole Wheat pancakes with fresh strawberries! Mmmmm, the girls were surprised and excited when they woke up!

 

I have been LOVING these gorgeous tulips my family gave me for Easter! And yes, we did use fancy stemware for our special breakfast!

That morning I had the girls work on writing out the Fruits of the Spirit … they had been fighting and arguing a lot in the days before and I wanted them to take time to reflect on how they should be treating one another. It worked wonders as they got along the rest of the week!

My hubby took the day off work and we went out to lunch at The Olive Garden, which is one of the girls and I favorites!

Then we went roller skating and met up with some friends there … we skated for almost 3 hours and it was SO.MUCH.FUN! What a good workout! Later that day we checked out a new frozen yogurt place near us and it was so delish! Then we came home and hung out, playing outside some more and relaxing.

On Wednesday the girls went to spend the day with my Mother in law … she picked them up and they were gone all day and hubby was gone to work all day so I cleaned ALL day. It felt so good to get so much done around the house! I also did my exercise and then went to pick the girls up at church after Awana that night. When we got home my daughter had this little patch of hives on her arm, so I gave her Benadryl and sent her to bed.

Then she woke up around 3 am with most of her torso and back covered in HUGE patches of hives. We were out of Benadryl at that point so my hubby drove to the drugstore and got more {so thankful for him!}. I never did get back to sleep that night, was just worried about my girl and restless.

On Thursday morning she was worse, the patches were now covering most of her body so I took her in to see the doc who really couldn’t do much for her – she advised doubling the doses of Benadryl and trying cool baths.

Unfortunately we didn’t do much else that day – my daughter was so uncomfortable that she really just laid around and the rest of us didn’t do much either.

So, while the girls were playing, watching TV and relaxing I decided to get the rest of our school year planned out. I was inspired by this post by Alicia at LaFamille … I figured that the rest of our year will go SO much better if I have a PLAN and get it all down on paper. I’m actually super excited to finish our year now that I have things all penned out.

Friday morning I got up early and got BUSY! Got my bootcamp video done first thing in the morning, got showered and dressed and ready for the day. I felt great and know this is what I need to do EVERY day!

 

We had a quick doc appointment that morning, then I took the girls shopping. They each had money to spend and I had promised we would go. They wanted to go to Five Below, Claire’s and Justice and it took FOREVER! My girls love to shop but they take forever making decisions! Guess I now know how my hubby feels about shopping! LOL

We came home, ate lunch and played outside. It was GORGEOUS out! I sat on my swing and worked on more of my planning and doing my Bible study homework.

I am loving sandal weather!

My youngest bought these fake glasses at Claire’s – she loves them, she’s worn them ever since she bought them! She is too funny!

I got my camera out and decided to look for some beauty around the yard …

Even the weeds look lovely … just so nice to see things growing again!

The girls played in the creek, always a favorite. Mud and water are such a draw for kids, right?

      

When my hubby came home from work we grilled burgers for dinner and played baseball in the yard. Then we had a campfire and made SMORES, our first ones of the year!

This morning I had to take another pic of my tulips … I love, love, love fresh flowers!

Today I decided to be intentional with my time, it was spurred by a couple things I’ve read lately and I have A LOT more to say about this topic later, but for now, let me show you all the fun we had today!

Hubby works on Saturdays, and many times the girls and I sit around with not much too do. They usually watch cartoons all morning and I usually sit on the computer all morning. TODAY though, I decided things would be DIFFERENT! I got my workout clothes on, packed a healthy picnic lunch and we headed out …

{I like to use a laundry basket in the car to keep everything organized … }

 

First stop – the library! We LOADED up on books and movies that will last us a good week or maybe even two!

    

And I love it when my ‘read’ bin is FULL!

  

Then we met a friend of mine at a local park so I could run/walk with her and my girls played on the playground. We did about 3 miles and it felt great! Then the girls and I sat on the grass and had our little healthy picnic, it was such a beautiful day!

After that we hit a few tag sales. There were a couple big ones at a school and a church where I got some AMAZING bargains {more on that in another post}.

Then we headed home …

at home we washed my car {can’t beat a FREE car wash, it’s fun and good for the kids to see the results of hard work!}

NICE and clean!

Then the girls decided to read their new books so they set up chairs outside and laid in the sun.

I made them a fun snack and brought it out to them … you can tell we’re at the end of the week and running low on groceries cause it’s a mix-mash of stuff! LOL

My healthy snack was an apple and a piece of Muenster cheese …. yum!

Did I mention that I’m super happy it’s sandal weather?!

And my last photo … my daughter found these daffodils for me, sure they’re almost dying, but still add a bright spot to my kitchen and a smile in my heart. =)

 

It’s been a WONDERFUL week, we did some fun things, we did some relaxing, we enjoyed the weather and time together. No, it wasn’t Florida or Myrtle Beach – but we’ll do those things another time. I think we still had a pretty good week overall!