Remember When...

Do you remember when your sweet, angelic, sweet voiced, soft skinned baby turned TWO?

And your house became a wonderland of things to be explored.

And when little bit did not get his way he threw a fit? Hitting you, the wall, pulling his hair, whatever he could muster up to express his dissaproval?

Out of curiosity how do you discipline your two year olds.

Junk Room

Please tell me you have a junk room, closet, drawer or garage and that I am not the only one. Here is a picture of my "office" snapped Saturday morning. You know when company is about to come and you are lovingly telling your family to pick up? The mad stash and dash technique? There is a slight possibility this room looks this way because we're stashers and dashers. You quickly Windex surfaces in the kitchen and bathrooms and then lock "the office" door, spray Aromatique and open the door with a cheery smile on your face...you with me so far?
It gets out of control when everything doesn't have a place. When you don't tend to something right away and leave it for later. Clutter attracts clutter. Think about where your clutter spot is. I bet you anything it is the stuff that doesn't have a specific place in your home.

I prayed for God to help me tackle this monster problem area because it was overwhelming. The first thing Shane did was empty out the ENTIRE ROOM, closet, drawers and all. Only the truly necessary stuff that could find a home was coming back in.

Here's the closet that got emptied out completely.

We went to the Dollar Tree and got those white storage boxes for $1 each. Stack and use space vertically. Clearly label contents. Only handle mail once. File it (to pay later) or Shred it.

Did you know when you are organized you know exactly where stuff is exactly when you need it? Genius I say. Pure genius.

How do you decide what paper stuff to keep?

Before Picture:

Take Out EVERYTHING to start FRESH:

Be intentional with what you allow back in. If you haven't used it in the last 3-6 months throw it away. Do you love it? Does it truly make you happy? Does it have a specific place to be stored in your home? Don't be a hoarder. Simplicity brings peace to your home.

My next project: The Master Bedroom Closet.

My reward: If I keep my office clutter free for 30 days I am treating myself to a trip to Hobby Lobby to frame my awards and decorate my walls.

How about you? What do you want to clear out and what is your reward if you stay on top of it for 30 days?

Bacon

Bacon. The 6th food group. The perfect addition to pancakes with butter and syrup for dinner. BLT for lunch. Perfection on top of a burger with cheddar cheese. Heck, you can even have it for breakfast if your heart desires. How do you cook your bacon? Surely you don't still stand over a frying pan getting battle scars from the hot grease and serving up the curled up crazy looking stuff.

Have you been hearing of folks cooking bacon in the oven? It's something I've wanted to try and finally bit the bullet and just did it. You can probably tell from the font I'm typing with today that I'm a converted woman.

You know that broiler pan thing in the bottom drawer of your oven? The silver thing with the silver thing that goes on top with the slats? That's called a broiler pan and you can put the bacon right on top of that so the grease falls into the bottom. Or you can use wire racks placed inside a baking sheet.



What in the heck? How'd that potty training picture get into a post about bacon? Well, since we're sidetracked you might as well know our little guy wants to stand to potty like his big brothers. Nice. So he takes that pee cup thing out and stands to try to potty. You also might as well know we rented Cats & Dogs from Redbox and I can't stop calling him Mr. Tinkles. I know. Tell me about it.

I can get on board with beauty being painful. Sometimes killer shoes make an outfit and it is just worth it. I was however tired of burning the daylights out of my hands when I cooked bacon so I switched to the microwave method. You know, line a dinner plate with paper towel, place bacon on top, cover with another paper towel and nuke for 5 minutes.

Unpeel the bacon from the paper towel and tell the fam a little stuck on paper towel on the bacon never killed anyone.

I put on my big girl panties and tried the new method. How do you like me now? To answer your questions no, the grease didn't blow up my oven.

So, so good.

400 degree oven for 10-20 minutes (depending on how crispy you like it)

Our Old House

1200 Square Feet of sweet memories. We brought 2 little boys home to this house. I started my business while living in this house. I developed a huge love of cooking in this house. We had truly amazing neighbors in this house. Lots of late nights playing in the driveway. Lots of opportunity to downsize so there would be room for the 5 of us. It was a sunny and cozy place to live. We made lots of sweet memories in this house.

My First Day Of School

Hello Everyone, My mom is letting me do a guest post because today was my very first day of school. I woke up and my mom let me pick out anything I wanted to wear. I chose my shiny clothes because they make me look awesome. My mom fixed me waffles and I got to pour the syrup all by myself because I'm in Kindergarten now.

This is what my desk looked like. My other teacher besides Mommy is Mrs. Bere. She has a pretty bob haircut and today she wore a tapestry print sweater with her black skirt and the biggest silver Omega chain I ever saw. It was beautiful.
You all know my Mommy, Mrs. Bugs & Sunshine. She wore pretty gold earrings with sailboats dangling from big anchors. They were flashy. Look at my hair. My Daddy fixed it for me today.

This is Mr. Bugs and Sunshine. Yesterday he played baseball with me and my brothers and we chased each other all day. Tonight we get to watch our favorite show together. It's called Wipeout.

My baby brother got his hands on my crayons and my worksheet my Mommy had laid out for me all nice and neat. Mommy says God is teaching her to be laid back and less of a perfectionist so she said everything would be O.K. even though my very first assignment ever in my whole entire life for Kindergarten that can never be retrieved again was marked with scribbles from a two year old.

This is my other brother. He's 5 but he doesn't get to start school yet. Lucky.

Before my Daddy left for work we all prayed that God would bless our year and help us honor Him and learn lots.

This is my Mom in her denim jumper and seasonal sweater vest. Even though it did not light up or require a battery pack I still liked it but my big brother said she looked horrible. Mommy was freaked out when she saw the ginormous slit in her skirt that was an attempt to be the perfect modest Christian school teacher attire. I hope she doesn't get fired for being racy on the first day of school.

After school we loaded up the bus and met Daddy, Nana & Mamaw at the Cafeteria for Happy Meals. Some woman looked at my Mommy's pretty dress up and down and my mom died laughing. I guess being a teacher makes her very happy.

This was the best day ever. I learned what sound I makes and did a fantastic job.

Thanks for letting me share my first day of school with you!

Hi

Hi, It's Bugs & Sunshine. Can you hear me? Testing 1...2...3...Do you read me? Will this Power Blog be shut down? I sure hope not-Are my 3 faithful readers still out there?

Our Modem bit the dust. My man was out of town. He tried to talk me through installing the new one. It had nothing to do with color or fabric so it seemed as if he was speaking to me in Russian.

Here is a pic of one day when my sister fixed my hair. She's good.

You can imagine my delight when I realized it was Eat More Chicken Day at Chick a few weeks back. You better believe we whipped out some costumes and went to have dinner that Friday night.

We are in transition at our house. We've had a lot of travel, interrupted schedules, single parenting due to us traveling separately for our jobs this summer. Our house is chaotic right now to say the least. We are drinking a lot of coffee and trying to get back on track one day at a time. Now we are gearing up to start homeschooling on the 16th.

I almost bought a denim jumper on clearance at TJ Maxx for $10 because I knew you'd be proud but just couldn't bring myself to spend $10 on a joke. Instead I went to Starbucks and got a breakfast sandwich and a mocha. That was the right thing to do wasn't it?

So here' my question today. Juniors section.

Are we too old?

I'll never forget when I got stuck in an outfit in the Limited Dressing room in my mid-twenties. Haven't stepped foot in the store since.

Can we still shop in juniors (assuming we won't get stuck in the wrong size and have to be rescued from the fitting room).

They have some cute stuff right now but I don't want to look like one of those middle aged men driving around in a bright red sports car so that when people see me in a ruffly cute outfit they go, "Uh-Huh, that poor bus drivin' soccer mom, she's goin' thru the mid-life crisis, Bless Her Pea Pickin' Heart."