Questioning Sparrow Morals

Just thought that I would share some random thoughts from a fabulous Saturday with the family.

1) I am slightly concerned about the moral values of the house sparrow taking up residence in our bird house. He came around house hunting with a little lady.

Today while the lady was out gathering goods for their nest I saw him fluffing feathers at a lady bird. Now it's possible that this was the same lady bird however if they have already found a house shouldn't they be past the feather fluffing stage in their relationship? Just sayin'.

2) I just looked at pinterest and now I want cream puffs.

3) I love picnics in the park. I wish I had a picture of the one we took today. An unfortunate incident involving a misunderstanding about the state of the security device of the door, resulted in my camera being left at home, along with my keys.

Aside from that we had a wonderful time at the park. The kids played, I laid in the shade. Then my Beloved took the kids on a treasure hike so I could continue lying in the shade reading a book.

4) On Friday, my girls new swimsuits came in the mail. They picked the same suit for this year.

The exclamations from Beloise were priceless, and included sayings such as:

"This is AWE-some!",

"OH, it's perfect!"

and

"I just LOVE it!

Beloise is particular about her swimsuits. I had a hand-me-down princess swimsuit for her, however after being spoiled with a Gymboree swimsuit last year she refused the most likely Target purchased princess suit.

To her credit the swimsuits at Gymboree are fuller in the bum and have a reinforced layer in that region. I probably wouldn't have noticed the differences if she hadn't complained. Plus they were on sale!

I hope that your Saturday was as thought provoking as mine.

~And So That's What She Did

Kitchen Organization Challenge: Reveal(ish)

First let's review the goals that I had.
1. Create a Lunch Prep Station for My Beloved
2. Spice Storage
3. Organize Freezer and Maintain a Freezer Inventory List

We'll start with the first one because that's the only one I really did.


1. Create a Lunch Prep Station for My Beloved
Here is the before picture:

And once I moved them to their new home here is how the drawer looks:

Much better and right next to the fridge. I didn't do anything different to the basket that is in the fridge because it's working just fine.

From here I deviated completely from my goals. Once I moved the baking goods and the pasta to make way for the snacks, then the baking goods and pasta needed new homes. So here is what I DID do:

Pasta Drawer Before: 

This is the drawer below where the snacks now live. I didn't really NEED to move these except for the fact that I wanted them to be where the snacks had been.

Pasta Drawer After:

It's not exactly complete in the beautiful and organized sense but it makes much more sense as far as the location goes. This cupboard is right next to the stove. 

Also you can see I use the term pasta loosely it's really more like pasta, grains, beans drawer. To be fair I am in need of quite a few of my normal pastas so this drawer will be a little more loaded after I do some grocery shopping, we'll see how well it holds up. I'm hoping to find containers for pasta. I had found some at Ikea but when I went to purchase them they were not as air tight as I would have liked so I passed on them.

Then there was the baking drawer where I wanted to put the snacks.

Baking Goods1 Before:

I moved the drawer under my other baking goods drawer, literally just pulled the drawer out and traded it the drawers. Then I pulled everything out and contained it, labeled it in my good enough fashion, and now it looks like this:

Baking Goods1 After:

Oh mason jars how handy you are. Thanks to you I spent $0, nothing, nada on any of these drawers. 

As I mentioned the drawer above this one is also a baking drawer and it was organized before. I didn't do much to it but I did need to add a few things to it that no longer fit in drawer 1.

Baking Goods2 Before:

Baking Goods2 After:

I am really pleased with my game of musical drawers. Things make SO much more sense and I love that. In a brain where logic and emotion are in a constant battle for king of thoughts, having a kitchen that works for me and not against me is one less stress.

I didn't spend any money on these drawers but I did buy two little baskets for my potatoes and onions. I stopped by Fred Meyer to see if they had some storage containers for my freezer. Instead I came home with these:

 They just screamed onions and potatoes. So being the obliging human that I am I granted their silent wish.

I'm still working on a freezer inventory. I think perhaps my best bet is going to be framing a check sheet similar to my cleaning list thus creating a dry erase surface with categories that don't wipe off. I think I might need to rethink the wall next to the fridge that houses my kitchen towels as well as my grocery list and cleaning schedule. So I'll keep you posted on that and the spices that I still can't decide how to handle.

But next month we are moving on to Linens and Loos. Which is good because both of those areas are a little overwhelmed in our house.

~And So That's What She Did.

Kitchen Organization Goals

Yo folks, iHeart Organizing is doing a monthly organization challenge and February is kitchen month. Now I am not usually a participator, it's just not my thing, but I do love me some organization and I thought perhaps, just maybe you would want to see what I come up with. So children's attitudes permitting here is what I hope to accomplish this month.

My kitchen organization goals:

1. Create a lunch prep station for my Beloved.
I want to move all of his lunch needs to one location making sack lunch prep uber easy. Here are a few of my inspirations.

For the cupboards:

ApartmentTherapy

 For the Fridge:

iHeartOrganizing

I have a bit of a start on this, but they are on opposite sides of the kitchen. That bugs me.

For the cupboard:

For in the Fridge:

In this box I keep lunch meat, sliced cheese, carrots, sting cheese and the small containers are for ranch, but this week they have fudge inside :). I haven't put the ranch ones in yet, but I will. I try to restock this after I grocery shop but sometimes it gets a little neglected. 

I would like to find storage on the fridge side of the kitchen for lunch prep. I have my eye on two drawers on that side. They currently house pasta and baking goods. I think the pasta could fit on the shelf that currently houses the snacks but I may need to get creative about the baking goods. I like things near where they are used but I can't fit everything on the stove/oven side of the kitchen.

2. Spice Storage

This is an on going issue for me. And one that I think if I can solve I might have a home for the aforementioned baking goods.

I previously housed my spices on a double tiered lazy susan in the cupboard to the right of the microwave. However, I decided that my cookbooks would do better there and so moved my spices to a drawer. I  labeled the tops of the jars and placed them in. I don't have photographic proof of this because as the spices were used the containers they came in were tossed and I often forgot to save the lid for the new container. Now when I need a spice I spend several seconds, sometimes minutes, searching the drawer for the one that I need.

Here are some of my inspirations for this project.

iHeart Organizing

Raising up Rubies

I've been thinking for some time that I need to go to universal containers but this scares me. Mainly because I sometimes buy a small container of a spice and other times a large container and what do I do if there is excess spice? I don't have room to store excess spice! And I keep a LARGE stash of spices, at least large compared with what I see in blogland cupboard photos.

Here is my spice drawer in it's current state of MESS:

My other concern with universal containers is they have to be easy to obtain that way if I buy something out of the ordinary it's not hard to maintain the cohesive look of the space.

3. Organize Freezer and Maintain an Inventory List

I have a confession, I have been coveting. . . for sometime now. . . I have coveted this freezer:

iHeart Organizing . . . yes again!
I can't get enough. It's become a disease. . . perhaps a disease of the heart? Probably just in my head though.

Wouldn't it be lovely to open your freezer and see this loveliness staring back at you? I've tried a variation but my boxes weren't large enough and they just over flowed and now I am stuck with this:

We have loads of frozen berries, vegetables, meat, breads, goodies and msg laden frozen foods for lazy days. Oh hey I think I just came up with my categories!

This? . . . well this doesn't bother me. Actually I love this! This is a freezer FULL of beef! It's just a little baby freezer, but when it's full it means I don't have to think to put beef on the grocery list. If I need it, it's probably in there. And I've re-organized it since this picture was taken. We had to use a bit before I could make each category easily accessible. Mmmmmm beef.

As for that inventory list. I did this once upon a time when I had more random items in the chest freezer. Now that it is almost strictly beef storage I fell out of the habit. So last night I defrosted some ground beef and seasoned up some taco meat only to find as I stowed the leftovers in the freezer, that there was a bag already in there! Seasoned and everything all I would have needed to do was thaw and reheat. Blast! Foiled again by my lack of a list. Well That Ends TODAY. . . well not literally today, but when I get around to the freezer project that problem is history.

Creative Organizing

I found this free printable and it's one idea.

I used to have a small dry erase board propped up next to the freezer and I kept that updated but that area is getting a little busy with my cleaning schedule, grocery list and hand towel so. . . this one is going to take some think tank juice to figure out. Perhaps I could place it under my grocery list on the clip board.

Or perhaps inside my household binder or the recipe one. . . . hmm something to ponder. (No, Aunt D., I will not start a whole new binder for this list . . . I don't think.)

~And So That's What She Did.

Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax, of Cabbages and Kings

"The time has come my friend to talk of other things, of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. . . "

A few weeks ago our dryer decided to stop drying. . . 

on the first laundry day of the week. . . 

on the first load of laundry. 

Thankfully by fabulous sister-in-law happened to have an extra dryer laying around so we were able to catch up pretty quickly but in order to get the borrowed dryer into the laundry room my Beloved had to take the door off the hinges. So of course the girls assumed he was making a slide for them.

The hole in the laundry room door is a mildly amusing story. It was that way when we moved in. . . see how mild that was.

Really it has come in handy and we have thought about framing it out to look more like the dog door we use it as. We once had a Yorkshire terrier and she used it quit frequently since her food was in the laundry room. More recently Penny has been enlarging it for her own use.

My Beloved's parents and his sister, Aunt Nay, made the trek from Idaho for Suzanne's memorial. It was nice to have them here. Great to be able to focus on other things and know that my kids were in grand hands. Here's Grampy with Ham-Huck.

After the memorial we were all exhausted with aching feet. So we treated ourselves to a foot soak, apparently Beloise missed the memo about it only being for your feet.

Why not eat strawberries while bathing in the mop bucket?

On Monday they headed back to Idaho. Ballerina HAS to watch people leaving our house to see which way they go. I snuck into her dark bedroom to find her peering out of the window. Please disregard the giant pile of clothes by the window I had just gone through the girls drawers and haven't found a place for these hand-me-downs just yet. Also I believe that string is the string from my camera, that's been bothering me for a while. I couldn't figure out what it was . . . funny how I start to analyze pictures once I post them on here. ;)

Later that day it was nice out so we spent as much time out of doors as possible.

Beloise loves when her sister "reads" to her. I love to hear the story change every time.

Apparently we aren't feeding Dora enough.

Here are the baby chicks. . . not so baby anymore. They are nearly all feathers now.

Ballerina has been begging us to roast marshmallows so we finally gave in and blazed up the fire pit for the first time this year.

Yeah she just ate the marshmallow she was supposed to be getting for me!

And in case you missed my mug, here's one for you. . . 

FIRE!! See what happens when I try to pose for you!

Marshmallow face

This is rapidly becoming me new favorite photo of Beloise.

This is a regular occurrence at our house.

Like I said. . .

This crazy dog has her head on my foot. . . she's so sweet. . . we love her. 

Except when she rolls in pungent things and then wants to snuggle. 

Then we love her from afar.

~And So That's What She Did.

My 10 Favorite Things Countdown: Number 7 Cherry Blossoms

Hello my name is Jeny and I am a Cherry Blossom Addict. . .

It all started when I was expecting Ballerina, all I wanted for her bedding was cherry blossoms, but they were no where to be found. . . After much searching I did find some fabric and my talented Mother-In-Law came for a hot summer week and sewed in my dark sweltering house while my Beloved and I worked. It was a great visit and I am forever thankful to her for the bedding, curtains, and dust ruffle she created for our nursery. Then mere months after the birth of our baby, cherry blossom nurseries were popping up everywhere. . . .I was appalled.

Here is my Mother-In-Law with the top to the quilt, she took that and the curtains home with her at the end of the week to finish up and then she mailed them over when they were done.

Here's our little girls room all ready for her, minus the quilt and curtains.

Incidentally Here is a picture of what our bedroom looked like at the time. . . not much different.

Anywho, back to my obsession. It happened that when I was expecting Beloise I didn't really change my mind on what to do in the girls room since they would be sharing but my insane brain added birds to the branches of the cherry blossoms so now my obsession is cherry blossom branches with birds on them. . . 

And because misery loves company, I am giving away this cute little journal with cherry blossoms and birds on the cover so that you can be obsessed too.

All you have to do is leave a comment about your obsession I will pick one at random and announce the winner in one of Friday's posts.

~And So That's What She Did.