Just Call Me Twilight

I love nesting trays.  I do not have a lot of room for them in my home, but I have been wanting to add a few to help corral clutter.  So I started hunting.  I knew the look, the size and the price I wanted to pay - then I came to the hard part - finding my ideal.  Every store I went into, I searched them out.  They were either the wrong size, the wrong colours/designs or just way too expensive.  So, after quite a few disappointments, I decided to try my hand at making my own.  Well, not making my own (how handy do you think I am??) , just customising one to my specifications. I purchased unfinished nesting trays here .  They come in a set of three (large-medium-small), which allowed me to test out (otherwise known as  - make my mistakes) what I wanted to do with the smallest one, then perfect it in the other two.  I also got two pieces of scrapbook paper from the same place.  I first started ...

Source Unknown Autumn is here!!  The mornings are a bit nippy, as well as the evenings.  The afternoons here in Arizona have unfortunately been in the 90's.  The house has gotten so warm that I have had to turn the air conditioning back on.  That was a sad moment for me.  But I just know that the cooler weather is going to be gracing us soon.  Until then, this fireplace and sitting area are going to have to tide me over.  I love a rock fireplace.  This one looks like it has warmed generations of families.  The long sofa invites you to stretch out, cuddled in the throw.  I love the old tiled floor as well as the simplicity of the room.  Sigh - I just know that cooler weather is coming.....JCMT

In my perfect world, I would be able to clean the house every other week.  Well, that's not true.  In my perfect world, I would have a maid that would clean every week.  But, neither perfect world scenarios ring true, so I must keep plugging along.  I really do try to stick to the every-other-week cleaning schedule, but appointments, sickness, children or just life keep sidetracking me. So, I do what I can, when I can and I refuse to beat myself up for anything more or less.  This week, I knew I had to clean the house.  But I also looked at our weekly calendar and realised that that was a lofty goal.  What I did see were small pockets of time every day.  Enough time for me to clean one room.  So that's what I did.  Every day this week, I cleaned just one room.  Yes, you are right, this does make for a super long cleaning schedule, but at least I am accomplishing something. Today I had the largest pocket o...

  What a beautiful day it has been so far!  The weather is nippy in the morning, and warm in the afternoon.  If the weather was like this more often, I might actually like living in Arizona!!!  Youngest Daughter and I have made it to the gym, then spent the remainder of the morning outside, playing with plants.  I couldn't ask for a better day.  Here's wishing you a fantastic day and week!  JCMT

As what seems to be the case lately, this post is not exactly about a room.  Or a space.  It is a phenomenon that we don't seem to have here in Arizona, but can be found adorning barns in southern states.  I just love the little punch of creativity that livens up an otherwise drab exterior. Source Unknown   Source Unknown     via via   They are called barn quilts.  They are painted quilt squares fashioned on boards and then mounted on a barn.  The design can be as varied as any true quilt.  It can have family meaning, crop meaning, or just be a fabulous design.  The rule of thumb is that they should not be mounted on any structure that is under 50 years old.  What a fascinating design idea!  JCMT

The last few weeks have been busy.  Living in the car, commuting from one appointment to the next were my reality on some days.  Blogging, getting together with friends or just having relaxing down-time just could not be found on my agenda.  Oldest Daughter was on Fall Break all of last week.  Does it make me a terrible mom by admitting that I did originally dread her being home all day?  I thought I would have to devise activities to keep her busy, plan play dates or day trips to make the time pass faster.  But to my surprise, that wasn't the case!  I very much enjoyed her week at home.  We did have play dates, we did make some short trips, we did do art activities, but because we wanted to - not because I needed to fill up the days.  My girls and I - we had fun!  I would like to share with you some of the highlights from the past week.  I was fortunate to spend one of my eve...

A few weeks ago, Oldest Daughter came home from school very excited.  She had received a PE (Physical Education) Happygram!  Being out of elementary school for quite awhile, I wasn't exactly sure what a Happygram was, but it must be good news if it has the word 'Happy' in it! I was very excited for her since she obviously did something great to deserve this PE Happygram.  And as she is not the most coordinated or athletic gal, I felt that there was a bit more to be proud of since it came from PE.  So I opened the Happygram to read why my darling daughter deserved this recognition.  The explanation was fantastic and I was proud of her.  But then I looked at what was also taped to the inside of the Happygram..... Yep, that is a roll of Smarties taped to the inside of the Happygram.  Maybe this is my hang-up, but I feel that a PE Happygram should not be doling out candy as a reward.  This is a class that is teaching thes...

Yesterday was a hard day.  Not the hardest day I will have this week, but hard none-the-less.  The day started out innocently enough..... * Oldest Daughter has expressed her desire to ride the bus to and from school.  She has been expressing this desire for weeks before school actually even started.  But I resisted.  Until last week that is.  I realised that the reason I kept telling her no was based on my crappy high school bus riding experiences well over twenty years ago.  Since it's not exactly fair for me to project that onto her, I gave in.  I have been so proud of her and her independent spirit!  She loves riding the bus, and this particular morning warmed my heart as I got to see her pretty, happy little self waving to me from her seat as the bus drove off. *  After breakfast, Youngest Daughter and I headed to the gym.  I have now been a memb...