a little more about me...

here are some questions asked by a country girl here. so you can learn a little more about me :)

1. What is your absolute best asset?

physical: big blue eyes; other: my partner in crime

2. What is the best thing that has happened to you in the past week?

umm, my dog came out of heat so she's no longer wearing a diaper (easier to let her out of the kennel) and she had 3 excellent breeding sessions (keep your fingers crossed for puppies).... i guess that stuff didn't really happen to me, does the answer count anyway?

3. What do you usually use to mark a place in a book you’re reading?

the printed receipt from the library (too lazy to dig out a bookmark)

4. How many times do you hit the snooze button in the morning?

i don't set the alarm anymore but when i was my answer would have been 7 times (yeah, that's an hour)

5. What was the last thing you put a postage stamp on?

FOID registration and license plate renewal, it's a tie

snack pack

made these cutie little re-usable snack bags today. saw them on the internet about 2 months ago and then came across a tutorial this week. helps that i've had them in my mind to make for awhile and didn't have to come up with my own pattern. the first one i made with cotton linning. the last 3 i made with rip-stop nylon (seemed like a better choice for food storage).

mail pile

i consider myself to be an organized person. so much so that i'm probably on the fence of o.c.d. i have to have a place for everything and i like when the books on the shelf line up and the food in the pantry is categorized with lables forward. my closet is categorized and organized by color and my house has even been described by some as "meticulously clean."

however, there are a few areas that i just can't get organized. trust me, it drives me bonkers! but i've learned to just ignore those few things and then this is what happens....

mail pile

...and here (sadly, that is my napkin holder with mail in it instead of napkins...)

...and here

...and here.

i hate mail. at least 99.9% of it. i hate the bills, the statements, the adds, the catalogs, and even the paycheck stubs. mostly because it leaves me with piles of papers that i feel are too important to recycle but not important enough to file. so today i gathered up my mail piles and sorted. i ended with a garbage bag full of recycling and 3 folders of stuff to be filed. these folders will help me to sort the mail as soon as it comes in the door. no more sitting around on the counter!

how do you organize and file your mail? do you have a system that works? please share because even though i have good intentions, this system needs a little work still.

red dots

first, an appology for the lack of creativity in my blog lately. i've been working up a storm on all my halloween decorations and haven't wanted to reveal too many of the secrets before the big day. well, the hubby is getting sick of my halloween craftiness and i'm getting to the finish line on that decor anyway. today i have a goal to finish with the decorations (minus the food table) so that i can move on to my next top secret project, STUD october, or perhaps work on something that i can blog about imediately.

this brings us to the red dots. almost 4 years ago i threw a bridal shower for a friend and the theme was black-white-and-red. this was back when we were really broke. so my decorations were simple and i cooked up all the food by myself (with help from my mom). i bought fresh flowers the morning of the shower and made the cake myself (from a box). the only other significant decor from that party was what i like to call the "dot garland." so, when the party was over (after i left up the dots for another 3 weeks) i put the dot garland in a shoe box and shoved it under the bed. well, i'm really not sure if i put it under the bed in the apartment but that's where it was when i found it in the house today. i spent hours cutting out these paper circles and i couldn't just throw it away when the party was over.

**please ignore the fact that we lived in a tiny, 1 bedroom apartment and stored our bikes in the living room.

we have now arrived, almost 4 years later, to another party that can use this dot garland (minus the red dots). i riped off all the red dots and i will be hanging the black & white dot garland for my halloween party. i'm glad i kept it all these years.

when bunnies fly.

what happens when you don't dust your ceiling fan for 2.5 years and you leave your windows open all summer?

well, i've officially declared wednesday "Cleaning Wednesday." so i am going to spend all morning until 1pm cleaning on wednesdays. for now i'm just going to play catch up with the things i've been putting off since we moved into this house. eventually i will start to get into the nitty-gritty of things like wiping and re-painting all the window sills.

and don't worry, no bunnies were harmed during the cleaning of this ceiling fan.