Saint Valentine's Day!

Happy Saint Valentine's Day!

Today is also ValenDine. This is an event a group of friends and I planned last year to help raise money to complete a renovation of the childcare room for the Cathedral. It was a night of fine dining, beautiful vocal solos and duets, entertainment from a string quartet, a marriage vow renewal ceremony and a blessing for engaged couples or singles. In addition, childcare is provided onsite at a reasonable cost. The event was a success, making all the planning well worth it.

The childcare room renovations were recently completed, and the room is so peaceful and clean. All that remains to be done is a bit of decorating in the room itself. I still hope to acquire toys for the room and organize them in the best way. Thanks to helpful friends, this will be completed soon, too.

Tonight, another group (a circle from our church) has decided to carry on ValenDine. It is my hope that it becomes an annual tradition. The marriage vow renewal was my favorite part of the whole evening, and it is why I hope this event continues to be a tradition. My husband and I are helping at ValenDine this year, but also hope to attend and enjoy the evening.

The Bleeding Hearts shown in the photo are just beautiful in my opinion. They are one of the first plants to poke through in the spring time and are an incredibly easy plant to grow because they require so little care. Bleeding Hearts would be a good addition in any Mary Garden.

Little Flower Quilt - Part 1

Our Little Flowers girls club has created a quilt(s) to donate to the Spring Festival at the Cathedral for the last three years. Each year's quilt is different, but includes the same flower squares. I was in on the first year, skipped last year, and am now again involved in helping to complete the quilts this year. The girls help by picking and cutting fabric for the flower squares. Moms supervise; do fine cutting and tracing on flower patterns; iron; cut alternate squares and borders; machine quilt and finish the quilt by binding. This year, the club is creating two baby sized quilts.

I offered to do the piecing, bordering, quilting & binding for this year. I'm so thrilled with how the first turned out. The girls choose such interesting fabrics and each flower reflects the personality of the designer.

Here is the first quilt...

Normally, I cheat and don't iron all my seams. I did this time to make it crisp.

This border fabric (the yellow with blue star flowers and blue dots) is from my Grandmother, Julia, who died when I was 8yo. I always enjoyed looking through her fabric and notions as a young girl. When she died, my mom inherited her fabric and notion stash. Eventually some made its way into my home and I have had so much fun incorporating some of her notions and fabrics into clothing for my daughter. I am glad to see the fabric used in this way, too.

Here is the second quilt top...

Each quilt has 10 flower squares. We were 5 short after each girl made her square, so a few made a second flower square. The flowers are ironed on and then stitched about 1/2 inch in from the edge. The edges are snipped - as if you were clipping seams for a curved edge - to create a ragged look when washed. This technique makes it really easy for the girls and they don't have to be as precise. It's very 'forgiving' in its final look.

These are a couple close ups. You can even see the clipped edges of the flower in the lower picture.

This is Angelina's flower.

The next step is to add 100% cotton batting and a backing. The quilt is then machine quilted and the edges are bound with fabric binding. Pictures to follow in Part 2.

Wordless Wednesday: I cried yesterday ...

Too Much Stuff - Part 1

NOTE: This post somehow got incredibly long, so if you don't have time or the need to read, please move on to someone else's more inspring post! I tried to declutter the paragraphs of their extra words, but didn't have much luck. Guess words and toys are just attracted to me!

Since we recently moved, it would seem logical that I would have gone through everything and left behind any excess. I THOUGHT I DID! Our stuff made it into four garage/book sales in the past year (five - counting the church's garage sale shortly after we moved). Larger items were given to friends and family. And, we donated at least the volume of a small (think Volkswagen Bug or GEM car) car in furniture, clothes, and miscellaneous.

I thought we'd pared it down pretty good...

Why then, do I find myself shrieking, I mean shrinking, at the sight of a toy covered floor. Where did all those toys come from?? When it comes right down to it, I have no one to blame but myself - if I and my husband didn't give the items, they are most likely from a suggestion I freely gave when asked. In my defense, I don't always suggest toys!

So, I have two issues to deal with

1) how to determine what we keep, and

2) how to determine what to let into the house from now on.

In this post (Too Much Stuff - Part 1), I'll address the first issue, 'how to determine what we keep' from the toy perspective. I'll tackle the second issue in a later post.

What we keep seems to present the most disagreement. I like FlyLady's philosophy on decluttering and choosing what to keep. While I haven't followed her for a couple years, her suggestions really helped me get the stream-lining started. I went through clothes, toys, games, kitchen-ware, books, linens and furniture while asking myself the following questions:

• Do I love this item?
• Have I used it in the past year?
• Is it really garbage?
• Do I have another one that is better? If I do have another, should I really keep two?
• Does it have sentimental value that causes me to love it or does it give me guilt and make me sad when I see the item?

If I'm helping the kids, other questions are included:

• Do you play with it?
• Is it educational or can you learn a skill from it?
• Would this be fun to have in the church's childcare room?

I add that last question because our kids spend about 2 hours per week at the church's childcare room. Sometimes its easier to let a toy or game go if they know they'll have the opportunity to play with it again.

My guide to how much/many of a particular toy to keep is that each kind must fit in a 22gal. or less tote - only two 22gal. totes are used for toys. If the tote starts to overflow; it's time to pare down.

These toys are kept in totes and are played with most often:

1. Legos - duplo (22gal. tote) and smaller
2. Thomas the Train
3. Dress-up
4. Fisher Price (22gal. tote)
5. Cars and HotWheel sets
6. Kitchen dishes, food and accessories
7. Dolls and clothes
8. Coloring books
9. Polly Pockets
10. Lincoln Logs
11. Blocks
12. Toddler

A toy box holds misc. toys (binoculars, balls, tractors, trucks, etc.) that don't fit the list. I've tried to keep close to this list and donate most 'other' toys. Toys are generally kept in one room. The exceptions are Angelina's girly toys (Polly Pockets, Barbie, Madeline and doll furniture) and Dash's smaller Legos, which are kept in their bedrooms.

You can't get me down, I'm ...

SUPER DOG!

Here I am in my SUPER DOG action poses ...

No rainy and cloudy day will stand in the way of AWESOME* fun for SUPER DOG!

*This is the latest buzz word for Graham; everything that's really fun is AWESOME!

February Rain?

View from the School Room Window

The rain started last night and continues today. It is damp and cloudy. The temperature is 34 degrees F; no sleet, yet. We have piles of snow all around the house, the driveway is lined by snow and it is raining. This weather is just plain odd. This storm is supposed to bring up to a foot of snow, too. On the bright side, I'll be grateful because it will cover up the dirty, pock-marked snow piles and make everything look clean again.

I'm glad to stay home today.

Looking out a rain spattered window, this is the view of our snow-lined driveway - soon to be ice peaks, I'm sure.