Hey there drama junkies

I used to do drama. I searched for that crap like it was a prize egg at a Easter egg hunt. If I couldn’t find it I created it. If peace and order would start to pronounce itself I would spit it out like a bad taste. A piece of advice from a former drama queen? Run as fast as you can in the opposite direction from the first sign of drama. It’s like a virus if your around someone with it it’s pretty likely you might get it too. If your a drama junkie don’t hang out with other drama users. The first step in solving your drama junkie problem is admitting you have one. Yes, I’m kinda joking and no I’m really not. It can fill your life with real problems and our mouths are powerful weapons of creation or destruction. If you are tired and you want a little peace of mind start eliminating drama. First rule of drama elimination. Don’t talk about drama, the second rule is never talk about drama! Another words stop talking about people and stop participating in listening to others talk about people. No gossiping! If you have a problem this first step is a hard step. Third step: eliminate drama creators. It’s harder because sometimes it means life changes you might not be ready to make. Sometimes it simply means no longer arguing with someone and keeping your mouth closed or walking away. Either way hard step. If your a drama junkie good luck it’s a long hard road to peace but from a former drama queen: your queen of nothing and it’s worth the climb down off your imaginary throne.

Organizing a closet and life in general

It’s been a long uninsperational week filled with work and life. Last weekend the entire weekend was consumed by closet organization. We have to make room for Nicks stuff in my closets so that means a compromise on space. After all was said and done I ended up with leftover space even with his stuff added. Organization is both wonderful and painful for me. I could have never come up with the logistics of the plan but luckily Nick’s good at that mess. We hung double rows in the closet for clothes, gave a lot of old stuff to Goodwill and put all shelves in the second closet. Eliminated two dressers and replaced them with storage containers. Which I fought Nick on because I couldn’t stand the idea of loosing my drawers but it actually is better. Yes I’m admitting it. Everything has a spot and its very easy to get to and I like it. Then a week full if work and its left little time for writing I have felt drained and tired and uninspired but that’s how it is sometimes. Today I plan on enjoying life a little and capturing some sunshine to happy up my bones.

Picture of the closets before the doors were back up.
Organization station!
Here I used broom and mop hooks from target to hang up my necklaces and tank tops and smaller slips. It’s working our beautifully and this is my favorite part of the whole organized closet project. I kept the little drawers for panties, bras and a few stocking and socks. My everyday socks are in a container without the lid for easy daily access. My jewelry box is in front and much more organized without all my big long necklaces shoved in it, so now I can open and close it and find stuff fast.

How to get financial peace this year – Really

This is one of the scariest and easiest and hardest things I have ever done in my life.  Its also the best thing I have ever done to take control of my finances.  It gives you control like nothing else can.  Why would it be scary to do a budget?  I don’t really know but I felt dread and trepidation when I sat down to do the first one.  I put it off for days.  It was hard because even though I wanted to do this I could barely make myself.  This is stupid. I know it.  I did the getting out of debt steps and I did the saving money steps but when it came to a budget I had a metal road block against it.  The truth is I kept a pretty good running total in my head and I was conscious of my bills and spending but I just didn’t write it out or allocate every little dollar.  Its like I felt like I was going to be loosing some kind of freedom if I did a Budget.  Again, I know this is silly but these are things I felt.  If you want to fix your financial problems your going to have to do a Budget. The first two months I did it I had to write everything out and go over it three or four times and I had to change the amounts a few times I was scared I wouldn’t make it on what I allowed myself. But I did it every time and it worked out perfect.  I now have more money than I ever have.  I am saving money like crazy.  I always have more than enough and I seldom have had to make sacrifices. It is the single best thing that I have done for myself in years.  It hasn’t taken away any freedom but it has given me freedom and control and most of all peace of mind.  I know its boring and to someone like me maybe even scary but its the single best thing you can ever do for yourself.  I can now do my budgets for the month on the back of a napkin in 5 min.  I do it every time I get paid so bi-monthly or twice a month. If you want to change your financial life then this is it.  Start it now in the new year.  I attached a form to get you started it walks you through everything.  This is a form from Dave Ramsey who is amazing and if you are serious about changing your financial world I did his class and it works!  I’m debt free and my house will be paid off in July 2013.  Im not doing an advertisement but I am giving credit where its due.  This is a form from his class.  I hope it helps change someones life the way its done mine.

(Sorry its cooked but you get the point.)

Monthly Cash Flow                                        Budgeted                       left over total

Take Home Pay   (other income)                            ____________

Charity                                            –            ___                                __                  ___

Food                                                   –            __                __                                            

Clothing                                           –                                                                                   

Housing                                            –                                                                                   

Utilities                                            –                                                                                    

Transportation                              –                                                                                    

Medical                                            –                                                                                     

Insurance                                        –                                                                                    

Personal                                           –                                                                                    

Recreation                                       –                                                                                   

Debt                                                   –                                                                                   

Ending balance needs to be zero:                                           $0.00      

That means allocate every dollar to something or some category – even if its just spending money or pocket money.  These are broad categories so you will probably need to add in stuff under each categories but this can get you started.

Christmas card hanger

I usually use thus thingamabob I made from a coat hanger to hold recipe cards over while I’m cooking but I have Christmas cards I didn’t want to just prop up on the mantle and these work perfect. You can make them in five seconds with wire cutters and scissors. I think one dipped in glue and then glitter would be cute for Christmas. Here is what it should look like.

Recipe Organization

So last night I wanted to make my squash pile recipe that my mom and aunt shirley and maw maw Bobbie always made so I got my iPad out and went to my blog and pulled it up (because by some miracle i remembered i posted it and i figured it would be faster than digging through all my paper recipes.) It was awesome, i put in “squash” and pulled it right up. I’m going to start putting all my personal recipes on here so I can do that when I need to cook something. Eventually ill have all my favorite foods in one place and organized. Organization! Finally!

Cords and organization and Cussing and Cleaning

I absolutely HATE cleaning this area of my house! It catches every dust bunny in a 50 mile radius and my vacuum won’t reach. The attachment will but I’m too afraid of sucking up a cord and electrocuting myself to actually use it! So what happens is when one day I drop something and I have to go fish it out of this little awful area I have to get a rag and paper towel and bottle of cleaner and pretty much a hazmat suit to go get whatever unlucky item fell into this pit of tangled dirty mess, then I cuss and throw wires and end up having to take a bath and repent. Maybe not that bad but today I decided to fix this crap once and for all. Here you go in case you have a corner of you house that makes you cuss.
I got Velcro from work for another project and remembered I had it stuck in a craft bag. Here is what I used but you could find some at a craft store. I like these because they come in perfect cut little squares.

Get out two sets, you may need more if they are light weight Velcro but this stuff is pretty good. If you use something else like strips then just judge for yourself based on the weight of the items plugged into you extension cord.

I used chalk to mark my spots on the wall where I wanted to stick my Velcro like this:

It kinda transfers if you can tell. Then I just stick on the Velcro to the wall and the extension cord strip and press them to together.

Now talk all the loose cords and tie wrap them together.

And then I cleaned up that little corner and made sure no wires were touching the ground so I can get my vacuum right up in there every time. I’m so glad I took the time to actually DO this….finally!!

Functional Flooring, CHEAP

This idea occurred to me out of necessity. We built an add on to our shed to keep our dirt bikes and riding lawn mower. It’s functional but had a dirt floor that made everything a mess and was always being drug indoors or getting caked up on our shoes. I priced garage type flooring online and from sears and it ridiculously expensive. Obviously I’m not spending $250-$500 dollars on an outdoor lean to that cost $100.00 to build. So I bought a roll of cheap roofing – $40.00 at Lowes and covered the area. It took 20min to put down and it’s perfect. I even have left over. It worked so well I pulled out my left over shingles from my house and painted them and layed them out to make an area for my BBQ pit. I love it! I also laid shingles and then covered them with ceadar chips to make a pathway that weeds won’t grow under… And underneath the fence so I don’t have to weed eat there anymore, i plan on covering that with cedar chips also. All in all it’s been a wonderful discovery. I recommend checking your local city website a lot of times you can pick up left over roofing and shingles for free or very cheap. Here are some pictures of different projects I have done with them.

Extension cord organization (for free)

We are doing a barn make over slowly but surely. When I was cleaning out the clutter today I found all my extension cords and was so thankful that was one task I didn’t have to mess with cleaning up. Awhile back when we organized the inside of the barn we came up with this clever little idea to keep our cords neat and functional. Best part. Free. I took empty plant buckets and rolled the cords up in them. Start by taking the part you plug into the wall and sticking it through one of the water release holes in the bottom of your empty plant container. They are plastic so you can stretch the hole as needed and push it thru. Pull out enough so it will wrap around the base of the bucket on the outside about twice and tuck into itself. Then just start laying the other end of the cord in circles in the bottom of the bucket. Once you get started it will just kinda fall into place. Do this until your buckets full then cut a little slit on the top lip and put the other end that you will plug into you equipment through the little slit. It works like a charm, keeps things organized, makes using extension cords easy and … It’s freeeee!

Scatterbrain Day

OK so im having one of those days where there are a thousand things in my head that i need to organize and do and all these great ideas are bouncing around and its overwhelming. So I  think thats what i created this blog for is to catch it all.  Sort it out and stay on task.  A way to mange my scatterbrain.  So i have to get it all out and on paper. Its not in order of importance or what i have to do its in order of what pops in my head first.  The organizing it will come later.

* Planning a Birthday Party for my mother and cousin and sister – I have a lot of projects I want to do and a list as long as my arm of things that i want to try.  My mom and sister have the same birthday and my cousin Briannes is just a few days later. We will celebrate them all together. Mine and my grandmothers is later in the month.  October babies. My other cousin Brooke – Briannes sister – called to let me know the colors.  Yellow green grey reds and browns.

* Find Apps for tracking daily expenses and setting up a budget and tax organization app. – Me and my boyfriend are doing the Dave Ramsey financial freedom class and since im a mess i need something to track my daily spending and see my budget visual and daily.  Im the “free spirit”  Nicks the “nerd” so its hard for me and i want to research and find the best app.

* Dinner – Im thinking something easy like salad and chicken fajita meat to go on top.  That way tomorrow we can use the left over chicken fajita meat and make fajitas.

* Graduate Schools – Nick needs to be applying and getting ready to apply to all his graduate schools – I am helping with trying to narrow a few school down that have McNair graduate programs since he has been in the program and we thought it would be a good option.

*  Storage Shed Upgrading –  I have a storage shed that we also use as Nicks study\office.  We do little upgrades to it from time to time to make it better.  It is in bad need of a new door and i found one with the built in shades, really nice for 40 clearance and bought it this week because it was an amazing deal and the doors are the worst part of the shed.  We have insulated it but its a home built shed and the doors don’t fit together very good and have gaps and loose the most heat or air.  That is scheduled for Saturday – me and Nick will work on it but I have to go get the lock and door knob re-keyed because I went to Habitat for Humanity re-store and bought them for a dollar and they don’t match. I also have to paint them because they don’t match. But a great deal so who cares.

* Clean and organize for “New Furniture” –  Nick is moving his room at his parents from down stairs to upstairs to make room for his grandmother that will be moving in part time with Nicks parents.  This means getting rid of stuff and moving some stuff to my house.  My house is small and full of stuff so this means me getting a little more organized and getting rid of stuff.  Stuff coming in:  Corner desk his grandfather built and a book case.  This doesn’t sound like much but if you live in a small space you know it IS.  I will have to get rid of my BIG desk.  Its way too big anyway and then organize all the crap that’s in it. uggggghhhh. Bookcase: I don’t know!

* Start my wooden sign for my little cousin EMMA – way over due i have to start this tonight!

Then there is everyday life. Working out, tracking my food, work.

Ok, that doesn’t seem so bad now that I look at it.  See this thing actually works!  I think. I gotta go do life.

Eye Diagnostic Chart

Not too long ago I had a little black dot in my eye and was looking for something just like this.  Found on Facebook page for Healing Art Forms Institute.  Hope it helps someone else.