Chihuly was featured (still is) at The Frederick Meijer Gardens and I have a bit of an obsession with Chihuly – besides it being really beautiful, I want to learn how to throw glass (it’s on my Life List). I was probably more excited about spending a day at the Gardens seeing the exhibit than my kids were … until we got there.

See more about our Summer Jar fun!!

What have you been up to lately?

I had to pick up some booze from the grocery store in order to finally make some homemade vanilla and I had already run a couple errands that morning so I knew that just popping in and out of the store for this ONE thing would be OK. I wouldn’t be stretching the patience or my luck with 2 kids in tow.

Except, when did I ever think that my luck ran that far?

I was holding my son, two years old, through the store because my daughter, 5 years old, asked to push the smaller version of a grocery cart to which I said yes, she could.

Half way through the shopping trip my son decides that this set up is not fair and he loses his marbles. Literally kicking and screaming in my arms. The folks in the aisle infront of me stop, turn and watch as I pass with my five year old pushing a cart with the biggest bottle of vodka available and me holding my thrashing (and filthy) two year old in my arms.

There wasn’t blood. I hadn’t been hit or bit or scratched, so it wasn’t that bad right?? He did finally get his stuff together and we make it through the check out line.

He’s sniffling and I have to tell them both that, No, we are not going to be riding the Penny Horse today – I almost get out of the store (Vodka in hand) when I walk right into the exit door. Still holding my son.

Which means that I smacked his head into the exit door, while holding Vodka and trying to corral my daughter into following me more closely as to not run into traffic.

Which I stopped dead when he started screaming from the pain of getting his head smashed into a door. It was an accident!! And the vodka wasn’t for me (kind of) … I wasn’t going to be drinking when I got home (although, who wouldn’t have thought that after seeing me?).

People from a good 300 feet away turned around, stopped returning their carts or loading their groceries and watched me walk to my car with my vodka, filthy/hurt/screaming child and my daughter.

I got in my car after calming my son down and making sure he was ok and sat there.

Just. Sat.

I was in shock, stunned.

And then I called my mom.

I thought about taking a shot when I got home, don’t you worry, but I saved it for the vanilla.

My daughter has been waiting with bated breath for this one to FINALLY come up from the Summer Jar and I have to say I did a little rigging when it came to Crazy Bounce because it’s been so nice, weather wise, this summer that I didn’t want to spend a morning indoors if we could help it.

Needless to say that when the rainy weather showed up and the “right” ticket from the Summer Jar came about – she was very happy!

By the end of our hour there we were all sweaty and tired. Really, really sweaty and very, very tired.

There’s a crack in the door of the kids’ bedroom. Through it we can see what kind of mayhem the youngest is currenty getting in to … and he get’s into a lot of mayhem.

He’s supposed to be napping but has discovered how to climb out of his crib. Right now, as I’m taking sneaky photos of his shenanigans through the crack in the door, he’s standing on top of his older sister’s bed reading a book.

Then there was movement and I could no longer see him through the crack so I opened the door slightly to get a better view. I am so on top of this.

He’s pulling his “ki-ki” out of the spokes of his crib, still supposed to be sleeping, still unaware of my Private Eye capabilities.

OH NO! He spots me.

He gives me the “Mom, I can see you!” look and is slightly too believable in his disapproval of my watching him disobey nap time.

Wait a minute young man! This is too convincing! I’m the one who should be crossing my arms at you. But he’s SOOOOO cute.

And he starts to smile – which makes me weak in the knees because of his dimples. Wait. Wait ONE MINUTE. There was a nap that was going on in here. Well, sort of. How did we get here?

He’s on to me, he grabs his duck … he dashes!

IN YOUR FACE, MOM!

Touché, my son.

Wonderful things have been happening. I’ve been crafting and hosting and planning and scheduling.

More details coming this week.

In the mean time, please discuss amongst yourselves in the comments about the best month for the “Healthy Cooking Demo” and there will be a slight cost to this one to cover the food. September or October?

I’ll be doing a Holiday Cooking Demo early December as well. Dates and details will be discussed and released via the facebook page in November. If you have specific requests please share them!!

I’m ready to start creating things again, not just link to them. So here’s a few “How To’s” that fancied my interest:

Make a lightbox for photographing items. Great for trial and error food photography, natural light is ALWAYS better but if you have evening light or yellow light and it’s just not cutting it – a light box is a great alternative.

Good article on how to get folks to buy your stuff … I don’t sell anything, but the idea can be applied to anything you’re selling. Ideas, promotions, reviews? Play with your target audience’s senses. “Food for thought” so to speak.

Make a bird cage veil I’m not getting married but I love these veils. I love me some hats, although I don’t have any right now. This would be a fun addition to any hat that you could pull off with a “dressier” outfit.

Roman Shades – the house we’re building will not have window coverings when we move in and they tend to be very spendy for an entire house. I haven’t decided yet if we’ll get a standard blind or shade for the bedrooms and then curtains on top of that – but I’m collecting some different DIY ideas for them nonetheless.

A huge wall sign – I’m tickled with this. We’re also going to have very high ceilings and tons of wall space. I can’t decide where I want a sign like this (different saying) but I know I want one.

Another light box, with tutorial on editing photos. All you Etsy shop owners … it does not matter what kind of camera you have – you still MUST have great shots of your products if you want a sale. This should help.

Shelves cute idea for a shelf in a bathroom, laundry room, mud room … garage even.

A hat. See? I love the hats.

How to frame canvas – now if only I could decide where to get my photos printed ON TO the canvas, I’d be golden. Ideas?

Moss garden, I’m always smitten with these, no matter where I see them. I honestly don’t know if I’d do this, it seems like maintaining something like this could be a hassle – but kudos to those who do.

Keg! Ahahahahahaha! I love this. Such a great idea for a summer (adult) bbq. Although, you could do this for kids too – just make something sans alcohol. A great addition to any outdoor festivity.

Baby’s breath garland is breath taking.

More window covering ideas and, albeit, more roman shades.

A new way to use those old shutters you keep seeing at the antique stores. This probably isn’t a new idea, but it’s new to me. I love seeing shutters as part of a design, it’s cottagey and old and junkish – all of which I really love. But I’m not a huge fan of non-functional things. I don’t need more ideas for ways to separate a room or where to hang photos – but organization? Yes. Yes, that will do.

A lighted canvas CUTE IDEA! I’d make one of these for each of the kids’ bedrooms … they’d say “Night Light”. Irony. Oh, how they’ll never get it.

A succulent wreath now this I could pull off.

DIY chandelier, knock off. Smart people are interesting.

It’s true … I collect ideas, tons of them. If you ask Aaron what the most annoying part of living with me is I think he would be quick to answer (and I’d be correct in answering for him) that it’s my ability to collect things. Mostly paper … and all important, of course.

I really love having ideas. I don’t know which love language this fits into but I absolutely LOVE it when someone asks me for an idea. It makes me feel valid. Like I have information that is valuable beyond when to start feeding solids to a child … the debate on cloth vs. disposable diapers, formula vs. breastfed. All important content for a beginner conversation or distilling trust in a new friendship that began in the bottle aisle of the grocery store. However, and I don’t know why I struggle with this so much, but I do; it’s beyond important to me to be something other than “just a mom”.

I’ve actually been thinking a lot about this lately how I’m soon to be 27 (a month away!) and at one point in the past 5 years I just kind of stopped trying to be whatever it was I thought I might one day be.

I never thought past the life dream of being a mom and once that happened, I thought I had arrived. But where? It’s been a prickly path for me to travel, not one that I knew I was going down and not one I ever really had direction with. I just walked it.

Here I am. A mom. My prayers answered, a happy home I made. I quickly learned that it wasn’t the end-all for me. That I could admit to myself that there was still a coal burning inside of me for something else. Not greater. Just different.

Then I made a Life List which is something I’ve been doing for a very long time without ever knowing it. We made lists of things I wanted to do before getting married and systematically checked each one off. I made a list of things I wanted to do before having kids, check check check.

For some reason I believed that giving birth to new life meant mine would just stop.

If you read over my Life List you’ll see that a good 30% or more are focused on my children. Wanting things for them, watching them in happiness, and it dawned on me recently that although, yes, I want those things in life, I also want a life of my own.

Inclusive of my family, but my own. I want to make a mark bigger than their footprints.

Which brings me to my collections of magazine clip outs in organized folders. (!!!! Yup, me! I organize my ideas. Fancy that.) I have “Gardening ideas”, “House ideas”, “Ideas for travel”, “Things to see”, “Things to do”, “Craft ideas”, “How-tos”, and general “Housekeeping tips and ideas”.

I’ve decided I’m drawn to ideas and inspiration in this way because with each clip out, with each page – I see myself in a different light than if I would go over and look in the mirror right now. I see creativity and beauty with my hands, I see potential and fruition unfolding. I see that I can wear these house slippers, finger paint and still escape to the “some day” without losing myself in the “today”.

So, with that. Shall we?

These branding irons are only $10!

# A great hostest gift for a bbq or birthday bash.
# A great father’s day gift.
# Stocking stuffer for the meat lover (or veggie-grill master)

I clipped this for the closet door idea – see that cork board? We’re building a house and the basement will be left unfinished. One of the rooms in basement will be a playroom, the other a guest bedroom or office for the time being. I also think I could LOVE that kind of door/wall space in my laundry room. All of which we get to customize and specialize once we move in.

Along those same lines are these tackable tile panels? Either way, whatever you call them, they could be a great addition (and an easy burlap DIY) to a small office space, wall or even back of a book case.

These Ikea shelves turned dining room bar area are genius! I am in love. I could also see this in a living room for a reading space (the bottom shelf acting as a bench) or the media console. I love seeing ordinary and functional turn into something surprising, yet still ordinary and still just as functional.

This outdoor picnic space took my breath away when I first saw it in the magazine. The bamboo poles are only $9 each from the website here, I’m sure if you looked at a flea market (we live near Shipshewana) or even your “one stop” grocery store at the right time of year, you can find them cheaper. Maybe the tiki poles are on sale or half off? Buy them, chop off the lantern and a pole you’ve got!

The drop cloth the magazine described is hard to find on the home depot website – I couldn’t find a tan workforce drop cloth, only blue – but there are still plenty of options for the drop cloth … which would multipurpose themselves as curtains when you were done with your outdoor picnic.

Those are the ideas I’ll explain and cover for now. What do you collect? Are there people like me out there with their manila folders of clip outs?

Printables

For those of us who love to date our spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend … or even a good friend. Have a little fun with it.

It’s a zoo in there! Numbers have never been so messy. Or smelly. Or really, really cute.

A little message a little blessing. Print and remind yourself that you can.

Back to School routine cards for the organized child. Or the mother. Either way … this back to school stuff takes organizing and I’ll take all the help I can get.

Days of the week! I remember being very confused about the days of the week and there’s no telling if something like this would have helped me … but since our daughter likes to talk about days in advance – this might be a fun exercise for her to learn the days in accordance with the “how many more sleeps?” question we constantly get.

Paper Chains are such a fun way for my kids to figure out the motor skills it takes to use a scissors. Plus they’re cute when all finished and even worth hanging some place other than your fridge – which needs to be cleaned off any way.

Make Stuff

Basket Pendant light – I’ve linked to this before and am currently on the hunt to find the right basket so I can make this for the new place. Have I mentioned lately that I love the Internet?

Wizard of Oz party ideas. The shoe, people! The SHOE! We love a good party in our house and are very excited to be planning the very first we’ll host at the new apartment in a week or so. Eeeee! Invites and everything!

Ribbon bunting small, cute and very whimsical.

Spruce up a wall with this how-to on painting a lovely dimensional pattern upon one.

Shell chandelier or is it? YOU GUYS!!!! THE INTERNET!!! Um, I’m pretty sure I know a bedroom that will be wanting this light in a few months … MINE.

How’s that recycling thing going for you? Yeah, we’re on and off the bandwagon too. It’s HARD to keep everything neat and tidy when there are so many papers and boxes and packages. It’s ridiculous. So, instead of wasting it or using this as wrap (which is a great idea) you can also make gift bags out of newspaper … or any paper I’m assuming. FUN!

How to make a ladder game. Outdoor games are so this season. Play one.

I’m still addicted to mustaches, let’s not be mistaken … however, these airplanes are calling my name – a centerpiece!

Make a headband that looks like you spent $35 on it from a craft fair or that trendy boutique. You’re so on top of this.

Keep a color journal. Wow. This is so inspirational for me. I love it. I can’t wait to make my own.

An easy and budget friendly photo booth maybe for a wedding or grad party? Someone in your life just turned 80? Yes, that. Definitely remember ALL of that.

I have these two sticky-notes that I taped together and put on my fridge almost a year ago when all these really hard health changes started happening for me. The eating radically different, checking blood sugars, going to three different non-traditional doctors for answers.

I was really struggling with getting myself on board with everything. I wanted to keep eating the pasta and bread. I wanted SO badly to keep the ice cream. I was all for it on the outside but my mind was fighting me, tooth and nail, to the death of myself to me. Finally.

It reads …

“Jodi – you
clean for guests
and take care of
your house –
what makes
you and your
body different?
You’re the house
of the best part
of you. Bless it.”

That small piece of paper, taped and ratted at the edges, has been tossed around – thrown into piles, moved and moved and then moved again and I can’t throw it away. I’ve looked at it probably 20 times almost tossing it and then I think, No! This one blessing that I gave myself, this one reminder that kept me from getting more sick when it was at it’s worse deserves more than the bottom of the land fill.

So I keep it.

Some days it shows up in my purse when I didn’t put it there, or in my computer bag when I’m having a crappy day. Some days it’s at the top of my pile of “things to do” and other’s it’s just resting on my dresser. This twenty-nine word reminder to love myself has thousands of reasons written between the lines of why I need to keep reading it, keep remembering that I was the one who wrote it and I’m the one who needs to read it … over and over and over again.

I Am The House Of The Best Part Of Me.

I Will Bless It.

Here’s your little reminder … if needed (A free printable art-poster … from your’s truly)