Happy Dancing...In Secret ;)

~Stitching News~

Hooray, after some marathon stitching last night and a bit on break 'secret project' is finally done! Big happy dance!! Now I can get back on rotation with Summer's Magic and Guardian Angel ;) Last night I did my Flylady 15 minutes in the craft room. I took a big bag that had been a catch all for unbobbined DMC's and sorted them based on hundreds. I got those put in the appropriate 'duplicate' ziplocs (for now) and tidied up some stuff that didn't belong in the room. Along the way what did I find?? More unwound thread. I guess I'll put them in a pile while I go through the rest of the room and then do another big sort and then inventory ;) I also located my pattern for Terri's Stocking, which will be mine, and made a shopping list of DMC Perle's that I required where I was putting an order into an ONS sale. We can't get them here in town anymore, or atleast until Michael's opens...of course then and only then does one have the urge to do Shepherd's Bush patterns which alot surprisingly are on that coarse linen!

I also ordered some goodies for my birthday, like Heart In Hand's Family Medley and the corresponding button pack and Bent Creek's Wedding Row. The Wedding Row has about three potential locations in the house, the Family Medley will be going by the door (where my two bunnies have been since Easter where I can't find the picks that go back there!). I'd like to have the Family Medley up throughout the year and then have the seasonal medley's rotate on a slot slightly lower beside it. I also got my SB Witches Moon out of the basement to take to the framer's at lunch. It's been done for almost a year now...it should get a chance to hang up for the big holiday ;)

~Back to School~

Oh my, last night I openned Alex's backpack to check out his first homework assignment of the year and almost cried...tears of Joy! There were two duotangs, so I was scared, but the first was a true godsend. There in writing was the homework expectation for the year 10-15 minutes per grade level (which wasn't the case with the first week of school last year, read and do interpretive drawings of poetry...yeah my kindergarten boy could handle that...in 3 hours) and there was the WHOLE week's assignments, now I can go to the gym guilt free and also know when days are going to be a bit longer. Having a 6 year old has enough 'surprises' let alone the mega amounts of homework he was being dumped with last year. And there was a note saying that if for any reason homework was incomplete to write a note. I only did that once last year and felt like I was a bad parent for giving him a pass once so he could play outside with some kids for once...and that wasn't without doing a half hour of homework before hand! Tonight it's meet the teacher night and I should be able to recognize Alex's as she'll be walking on water ;)

~In The Kitchen~

Do you ever have those flashes of brilliance...one that would make life alot easier?? Since we've been getting BACK on the flylady wagon and getting ready for our annual turkey dinner it struck me that maybe we could be applying the same approach we do to that dinner to throughout the week. At Thanksgiving Matt has the potatoes all peeled and cubed when he has time on Saturday and they sit in the fridge in water until we need him. The bread is all made and cubed for the dressing, onions chopped at our leisure and all in the fridge waiting until show time. Even the spices are premeasured out and ready to go. I think I scare people when they show up and my hair isn't sticking straight up and the kitchen isn't a disaster. Well...back to the other 364 days of the year. Why wouldn't that work for everyday. So last night I set aside 15 minutes for chopping, measuring and prepping and now I have tonight's and tomorrow's suppers taken care of and no mess to worry about for the next two nights. Now if we do a little bit here and there over the weekends suppers should be even smoother! We do choose healthy and if possible low maintenance recipes but even this should make things easier ;) I'm looking forward to our baked ziti tonight :)

~Simple Things To Make One Happy~

We live just outside city limits and for some odd reason they think it's appropriate to ask us to recycle but only pick up our stuff once a month...so you can imagine what our bins look like after a month. In the last year the city has put a couple of depot's up for apartment dwellers but none of which were on our route, until now. I was so excited when it clicked that I could drop my recycling off while Alex went to Gym and Swim, no more piles in the basement and really...if we were doing that we could go down to ONE container instead of two huge ones. I must be getting old and boring to have some revelation like that be soo exciting ;)