A Little Green

Happy Earth Day! For the past six months or so, I have been trying to be better about consumption and trash. Do we really need all that we buy? and Can I recycle this? are the two main questions I've been asking myself.

In all honesty. I don't believe in global warming. I think the Earth changes and evolves. It did before we were here and it will after. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about how we treat it and what resources we use.

So two questions work for me.

Do we need it?
Can I recycle this?

And so here are some of the changes we've made in our family.

Magazines - I'm on a magazine diet. I haven't bought a magazine for at least two months. I don't really need it, even though I can recycle it.

Re-usable bags - I still struggle with remembering to take them into the store, but I love them and love not having 10,000 plastic bags in my house! Besides, I think that those darn plastic bags are a hazard!!! My mom ran over one over 20+ years ago. It got stuck on her brakes and caused a ton of damage. Me, I ran over one a few months ago. It got stuck to my muffler and melted off for weeks!!! I hate seeing them floating all over the streets and freeways!!!

Two Trash Cans - One for recycling and one for everything else. We actually fill up the recycling can much faster than the regular can. Now if only my trash service would give us a big giant recycling can, life would be good. We just have a little bucket.....which we overflow each and every week.

Re-Usable water bottles - I take them everywhere I go...and yes, they're both a #7. One of the stories I've heard is that they break down from dishwasher use...well, good thing I don't have a dishwasher. LOL.

I'm contemplating cancelling my water delivery and switching to something like a Brita water filter. Haven't quite decided on this.

And my newest task??? Meals to go! So far I've started with breakfast. I make my breakfasts for the week on Sunday and put them in re-usable containers. Each morning I heat them up and make a piece of toast. No fast food trash!!

Next up - lunch. I feel guilty every day when I heat up my lean cuisine....

What are some of the things you're trying to do?

The big tease!

Ok, so I left work this afternoon (Thursday) and what did I see? A big giant semi. Not just any semi. A SRT tractor and trailer that looks exactly like hubby's!! My heart skipped a beat. He's on his way to California. Could it be? Before my rational mind could figure out that it was impossible, my heart jumped and went pitter, patter. (I guess I still love the guy!)

Sadly, it wasn't hubby. I think there should be some kind of note in the computers at SRT. All deliveries to my work, should be delivered by MY hubby!! Or at the very least, they should not park in the parking lot by my car. That's just not nice.

April Stamp of the Month Express Postage

Hey, I was tired and grumpy from staying up too late on Sunday night, but I still found time to take some pictures. woo hoo!

Here's the card I made for our team swap, using the April Stamp of the Month. Since I have a teenager graduating soon, I have graduation on the brain and chose the graduation stamp from the set. You can pull the tag out to attach a gift card or money.

Weekend Update

My weekend didn't quite go as planned and I ended up forgettting to take pictures of my projects, so that's on my list of things to do tonight...

Instead I filled my weekend up with other things...

1) Josh is on the final stretch for his Eagle project, with no time to spare. Then we got the bad news from his MRI. He has a torn medial miniscus. Poor kid!! It kind of took the wind out of his sails and he wasn't feeling too motivated when he found out. He needed a little extra mom time to help him stay focused on the Eagle...when his heart was breaking because this probably means he won't be able to go to CIF for track...

But, we got a lot done and hopefully he'll finally get his project approved so he can get going.

2) I made a bunch of cute invitations for a party for our girls at church.

3) I got to visit with a friend who lives out of state.

4) I got rid of two boxes of stuff from the house!!!! The purging continues!!!!

5) I started reading the book "You on a Diet" by Roizen and Oz. Great, great book!! It's funny and informative and I am loving it. It makes learning about the body and how it works, interesting.

6) I haven't posted much on the weight loss front because my injuries have sidelined me. Good news is that, as of this morning, I am down 4 pounds from when I got back on track. Let's hope it wasn't one of those crazy scale fluctuations! Sadly, I have a few to go to get back to where I was..... that darn Easter candy and self-pity mode!

Stamp Room Organization

I have a new plan of attack. When you don't have time to stamp or create or take pictures of what you have stamped or created...whip out your camera and take pictures of things you've already done..

And so.... I give you pictures of my organizing projects from this weekend. I literally pulled the camera out of my purse and took these shots in less than a minute... Maybe this weekend I'll find time to put up my photo tent and take pictures of other fun stuff...

This is a portion of my Ikea shelving unit with a few of my buckets. The two that say CTMH paper have all of my Close To My Heart cardstock and retired texture paper, by color. I have a separate bag for each of the colors and I keep all the scraps in the bag. I have had them sorted alphabetically and by season in the past. Each way had it's benefits. Now that we no longer sell texture paper by color, my stash has decreased and I'm down to 3 buckets, from 5...the neutrals bucket is not pictured.

Current projects - I mentioned this in a previous post. I have bags with each of my current album projects and I have the paper, stickers, etc. for the projects all together.

And here are my stamps!!!! I am soooo excited about this section, mostly because it is totally done... There's a reason you only saw a portion of my other shelves...hahaha... it's still a work in progress.

I sorted the stamps like they are in the catalog. I had to group a couple of categories together...and some....had to be in two baskets...

Project Organization

I got a lot of organizing and cleaning done in my stamp room!!! It's finally starting to take shape.

I've been purging a bunch of retired items and non-CTMH stuff. You know..... you see a slab on sale and think it's THE most awesome deal of the century, but you only use a few sheets and then you get frustrated because it doesn't match ...or you don't like the rest of the patterns..... Well, my room was overflowing and bursting at the seams and I've finally decided to just purge it all!!!!!

I've been working on it for weeks, but it's finally starting to show. I took one of my empty buckets/spots in my shelving unit and turned it into the "Stamp Camp" cube. I put all the fun little goodies I've purchased for camp in the bucket and I started working on some goodies...

Which leads me to this picture.... These are little 1" squares of all 60 CTMH colors. It's a project for me and a goodie for the girls going to stamp camp in May...and that's all I'm saying for now....

I also made a cubby/basket for current album projects. I have three main albums that I'm trying to work on and finish right now.

Josh's Scout album - hopefully he'll be finishing up that Eagle soon, so I want his album ready for the ceremony

Josh's Europe album - want to finish it before he forgets what went with what.

Church YW album - I have a bunch of pictures from YW and a bunch of girly layouts I've done for samples....so I'm going to put the YW pictures on the layouts. Pretty smart eh?

So.. in the bucket I have a large ziptop (CTMH) bag with all the papers/stickers etc. that I pulled for the album and I have another ziptop bag with all the photos and keepsakes. As I've been cleaning and purging I keep running across items that will go with the albums and I just put it in....makes me sooooo stinkin happy! The organization makes it easier to feel creative. I know I can pull out the bags and immediately start scrapping whenever I have time... Love it!!

Happy Thoughts...

My shoe life has become quite dreary. Every day I wear my black tennis shoes to work and white tennis shoes at home. No sandals. No heels. Just black and white. I'm not sure why I still paint my toes.

Then I had to add the lovely black boot to the apparel. Now it's black shoes, black socks to work. White shoes and one white sock and one black sock at home. (Gotta wear a black sock with the boot, you know...)

I thought I was being practical and smart.

Today, I opened the drawer to get my black socks and I saw a lovely blue sock. Hey I'm wearing blue today. Why not wear a blue sock???? And so I did....

Little did I realize how happy that would make me. I love looking down and seeing that little bit of blue peeking out of my boot. It almost makes wearing the boot more fun. I think I may have to coordinate more socks for the next couple of weeks.

And... I'm thinking it's going to be my mission to find some cute shoes that my orthotics will fit for the summer. I didn't realize how depressing it was to wear black tennis shoes and white tennis shoes every day.... (Ok, so I have some black shoes that I wear to church, but hello..they are black and you can't see the painted toes!)