Facing Our Fears

I am approached rather often about featuring products here on the old blog, and I am getting pretty selective about what I want to bring to your attention.  I love you, peeps, and really only want to bring quality products and causes your way.  So when I read the following story, I thought...now that's something we can all get behind!

Let me introduce you to Heather.  Here's her story:

My name is Heather and I am an 8-year survivor of mesothelioma – a rare cancer caused by asbestos exposure. When I was diagnosed, I had just given birth to my little girl and was told I had 15 months to live. I was just 36 years old. People that young aren’t supposed to get mesothelioma, but I did. When I was a girl, I wore my dad’s work coat all the time. It was covered in asbestos from his construction job.

After undergoing a risky surgery, which required the removal of my left lung, I beat the odds and created Lung Leavin’ Day as a way to commemorate this day that changed my life forever.  Lung Leavin’ Day is now used to encourage others to face their fears! One important thing cancer taught me is the importance of acknowledging these apprehensions that prevent us from living life to the fullest extent. Each year on February 2, friends and family gather at my house for a bonfire where we write our fears on plates and smash them into the fire.

In an interview she gave Heather said, "The main idea of Lung Leavin' Day is not to give your fears power in your life. It is to have power over those fears; to accentuate the positive, not the negative." (Read more here).

I love that Heather turned this tragic experience into a day for celebrating courage.  Not all of us have had to face down cancer (though many of us have, or will).  But don't we all have our share of fears?  Don't we all walk around burdened by too much worry over what might be, what could happen, and what the prognosis is?  This Sunday, February 2nd, is Lung Leavin' Day, when Heather smashes her fears into a bonfire.  I hope you will use it as an opportunity to smash some of your own fears.  You can start at this amazing website, which Heather has created so you can smash your own virtual plate:

I went and smashed a plate, and it was so much fun I am thinking about doing a real one.  Who's with me?

Pinspiration Thursday No. 4

Hello sweet friends,

I've got gardening on my brain this week.  I guess it's a perverse reaction to the freezing temps and snow here in NC!  Whatever the reason, rosemary is one of the few green things in the garden right now, so I'm featuring it in this week's Pinspiration Thursday, where I get off my rear end and actually DO something I've seen on Pinterest.  Here is the original, which I pinned to my Christmas Board:

Photo: All About You

I actually didn't want a wreath per se, but this pin inspired me to make these candle wreaths instead:

I simply formed the rosemary into a round(ish) shape, secured with gardening wire, and slipped it over the candles. They smell lovely and add a wintergreen element to my little vignette.  And because I don't feel like shutting up yet, here are way more pictures than anyone needs to see:

My favorite part of this shot is the swatches of color painted *everywhere.*  

And, to give you context, here's the long shot.  This is what you see as you walk in my front door.  I am vacillating on the dark wood of the chest paired with the wood trim in this room.  I keep thinking it will look better when I paint the walls.

My favorite part of this shot is the visible cat hair all over the floor.

Assuming I ever find a suitable color for those walls.  They're driving me mad, I tell you, MAD!  And now I will, finally, sign off.  Thanks for joining me for another Pinspiration Thursday!  See you next week!



P.S. I'm lovin' the Linky's at:

     

    

Just an Ordinary Day. I'm Grateful.

I have a birthday this week.  I'm staring down the barrel of my late thirties, peeps, and it's not a pretty sight.  And, I've had some headaches this week.  And, I've had a little bit of a cold.  If I was a baby I'd be all like, "waaah!" Then I would suck my thumb for a while.

But there's so much to be grateful for!  So I'm choosing that instead of a pity party.  Little things I am grateful for today:

a new spot to drop my purse on the way in the door:

More on the table and gallery wall, asap.  

weather so cold (and snowy!  I just saw a flake!) that I can justify wearing these:

and, in spite of the freezing temps, all the new life popping up all over the place:

this book:

Inspiring awesome conversations with the boys, almost daily.

 And for sweet boys who are so big yet still love to cuddle.  I got no pics of that one, but it's definitely the best.

Teaching Kids about Money (and a Cute Craft to Help!)

For quite some time now, Biggest has been really into "saving up."  He decides on (what else?) a Lego set, and then saves every scrap of money that comes his way until he has enough.  It's been a great exercise in hard work, patience, and handling money.  However, I've wanted a system to make it easy for him to save and tithe--rather than doing these things haphazardly, or in a bank account he can't see.

Fortunately, my dear friend Blair motivated me and asked me to make money jars for her girls, and then I just got on a roll.

This is just so easy.  Blair saw something similar online, but we adapted our design to our needs, and used my Silhouette to make paper and twine tags for each set of jars.  You can easily do this without a Silhouette, using craft-store tags and stickers, or even have your child help make the tags.

The idea, of course, is that all money gets separated in the 10-10-80 method: 10% to savings, 10% to giving, and 80% for spending.  This way, even a young child can watch his "bank account" get bigger (until we take that cash to the actual bank for deposit to his account); he can also take ownership over giving out of his jar.

For my boys, I made tags to match the colors in their rooms, and laminated them for durability.

For Blair's girls, we made adorable tags and didn't laminate them.  Obviously the design options here are limitless!

I was so excited when Biggest got really into splitting up his birthday money.  We practiced counting money, and had a great conversation about why we believe in setting aside money for tithing.  Then he insisted on going to his old piggy bank to split all that money up too!  Proud mama.  This is just a beginning, but is definitely helps to have a system in place, and it's even better when the system is cute!


P.S. Lovin' the Linky's at:






Milk and Cuddles

Pinspiration Thursday No. 3

Hey friends!

So this week's Pinspiration Thursday is all about ovens, specifically cleaning 'em and making stuff in 'em. Mine had apparently *never* been cleaned by the previous owners of my house, so we recently ran the self-cleaning cycle for the first time, but we were left with the problem of dirty, disgusting oven racks.  Enter this pin:

Photo: One Good Thing by Jillee

It promised an almost effortless way to clean our oven racks, using the bathtub and dryer sheets.  Well sure, why wouldn't I try that???  So I did, to...hmmm...mixed success.

Here's the Before:

And here's the After:

As you can see, it got the racks brighter, but it certainly didn't clean them up entirely.  And it required quite a bit of rubbing and scrubbing on my part to get even this moderate improvement.  Also, doing this put marks in my bathtub that scared the doo doo out of me until I got them out with some serious elbow grease. Admittedly, my racks were filthy.  Anyone have any other ideas for me, or is it back to Pinterest?

Moving on...

We did make this deliciousness this week, in our moderately clean oven.  The original Pin:

Anyone know the original source?

And my version:

It was yums.  We also made this one this week, but I am a stinky blogger failed to take a picture of ours. We did love it though!  Try it with rotisserie chicken--yum.

Photo: Sweetly Fit

You can get the recipes by clicking the pictures above or visiting my Eat Healthy! board.  It's all part of trying to cut out the pre-prepared, chemical laden junk from my family's diet.  See you next week for more Pinspiration!

House Progress

It's slow, but it's happening:

progress.

I've chosen a paint color for our Master Bedroom (Silver Strand by Sherwin-Williams):

Can you see the swatch of it there by the window?

I'm playing around with paint colors in the Family Room:

Must. Paint. Over. Yellow.

I hung curtains in Big Boy's room:

And am coming for LB's room next:

We hung a gently used light fixture in the breakfast area (thank goodness, and thanks Mom for donating your light fixture!):

Cannot wait to paint this room!

And I gathered every can of white paint the previous owners left us:

And turned them into a method for identifying the different paints around the house:

Phew!  I've been really inspired by the Nester lately...this post in particular, but a lot of what she has written since their move.  I'm going to follow her lead and show you more progress around here, since dramatic "before and after" shots take so stinkin' long.  So, see you soon!

Pinspiration Thursday

Hey gang,

Yesterday I showed you my baby's Star Wars-themed birthday party.  Today I'll show you which of those fun crafty decorations started out as pins!  Hint: it's not just one!

The Pinspiration:

Photo: Kara's Creative Place

That Mommy's Version:

The Pinspiration:

Photo: 320 Sycamore

That Mommy's Version:

A note about this project: I followed the tutorial at 320 Sycamore exactly and got pretty darn good results. My paper bubbled a little because of the kind of wood I used, but its not very obvious in person.  Here you see the lights flashing, so you can't see all of ours (by the way, they are red because my son wanted his to be his favorite color).  Okay so on the lights: I had a set of 30 and they didn't reach all the holes!  I ended up using a set of 100, so if in doubt buy the larger strand of lights.

The Pinspiration:

Photo: Here Comes the Sun Blog

That Mommy's Version:

Black tablecloth, white splattered paint, and vinyl letters cut with my Silhouette.

Be back next Thursday for more Pinspiration!