Projects

With Christmas coming, I thought it might be fun to talk about kids and the gift-giving that they do for family members. Our tradition is to give each child a dollar for every family member and take them to the dollar store one at a time to shop for each other. Sometimes one parent...
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A couple weeks ago, one of the slats broke on the much-abused vertical blind over my sliding glass door. (We Owlhavens wear things hard, especially the ever-busy little Owls.) As you can see below, the slat just ripped straight through the top of the hole. My first fix was just to move one slat...
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Not exciting, mind you.  But unusual.  This morning, you see, I was bitten by the cleaning bug.  Highly unusual, I tell you. Blame it all on my dear ultra-organized SIL.  Got home from her spic and span place after a birthday party last evening and felt very dissatisfied with my clutterbomb place. Much to everyone’s...
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In my 18 years of mothering, I have had my kids’ portraits taken a fair number of times.   As my family grew, I faced the dilemma of which older ones to display after getting newer ones made. I happened upon a solution that worked very well for my family.  On my stairway wall, I display...
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Playing with Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer again this week.  My tip has to do with soy milk.  I have several milk-allergic children.  For awhile we were going through soy milk like crazy, even though we didn’t serve it every meal.  After nearly going broke (that stuff is expensive!) I did an internet search and found this: SoyaJoy...
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With this big a crew, our house can go ’clutterbomb’ quick.  I have tried lots of things.  But sometimes the mess can just feel so overwhelming (like my laundry room at the moment) that it can be hard to find the oomph to prevail. I have read hints over at FlyLady, and though I know it is...
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Playing Works for Me Wednesday with Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer.  My tip has to do with canning tomatoes.  (See my post Owlhaven » This morning!)  For years I canned via the traditional route, ie, blanch the tomatoes, skin them, quarter them, and pack into jars. Very time-consuming.  Then I realized– light bulb!!–the...
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My most recent post is up over at Larger Families: Sanity Savers For Busy Households
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Providing background music for our trip, here are the 3 most recent additions to my hubby’s mp3 player MMHMM: Relient K  ABBA – Gold: Greatest Hits  Gold and Wax: Gigi  What’cha added to your play list lately?
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We have a corner in our back yard that is extremely challenging, to put it mildly.   We’d love to get something green growing there.   We started off optimistically with strawberries.  They lasted half a season before dying. We planted a poplar.   It died the second summer.   We planted a walnut.  It died the first...
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