Bag No. 7...and 8...and 9...and

10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15!  

All totaled, it was a full carload of STUFF that I drove to Goodwill this weekend.

Maternity clothes, baby clothes, kids clothes, seasonal decor, small appliances, toys, games, DVDs, and more!

I'm trying on a new perspective when it comes to the accumulation of  things we own.  It all started when I read an article that despite searching for hours, I have not been able to find again.  But the gist of it is this...

YES, 

it is true that a penny saved is a penny earned.  I could continue to save these things for the day I may

Need them

Refurbish them

Use them in a project

Sell them in a garage sale

Post them on Craigslist

Gift them to a friend in need

HOWEVER,

the amount of time I spend focused on these things, trying to 

House them

Organize them

Catalog them

Keep track of them

Take them out

Put them back

Shuffle them around

Reorganize them

Worry about them

LEADS ME TO BE

Consumed by the space they take up

Overwhelmed by the sheer mess it all makes

Aware of how upset this makes my partner

THIS

is time and energy that I might otherwise use to

Love my family

Love myself

Love others

Love our home

Love the freedom the unoccupied physical space provides

Love the peace that the unoccupied EMOTIONAL space provides

So, the car got filled up.  

And it will be again, and maybe again after that.  

Lent is only half over...and I've got lots of work to do!

52 Weeks of Maeve

Of COURSE it was a no brainer that I'd make a photo album of Maeve's 52 weekly pictures.  I did a test run a month ago when Shutterfly had a great promotion (figuring I could gift that copy to someone who's a Maeve-fan.  Anyone interested?) and then once I saw all the things I wanted to change, I made a final copy and waited for another great promo code.  Today I got it!

I had a 50% off promo code, but it wouldn't load during the checkout process.  So I contacted Shutterfly's crackerjack customer service and not only did they give me a promo code that worked, it was a promo code for a FREE PHOTO BOOK!!!  Wahoo!!  It's my lucky day!

And hey, it could be yours too, because I think it may work for anyone.  The code is STORYTIME.  It works through March 25th (today) and is for a free 8x8 album.  

Here is Maeve's book.  It's not her official baby book, just a special addendum to it (you know, once I get around to making it...hopefully before she starts college?)  The last 2 page spread is my favorite.

ENJOY!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Visit Shutterfly.com to create your own personalized photobook.

A HOLI Lot of Fun!

Our Indian friends, the Kaushals invited us to help celebrate one of their most important Hindu holidays this week.  It's called Holi and it is a harvest celebration held in February or March.  One of the most fun parts of Holi in modern times is the celebration of human unity in which participants decorate each other in colorful powders so that everyone ends up looking like a rainbow, and race/caste/sex/status are erased for the moment.  This is a big deal for a country like India where a rigid caste system normally separates people from each other based on their level of social status.

Holi is also a big festival of colorful FUN!

A Holi Celebration at OSU

Powder in every color of the rainbow is sprinkled, smeared, splattered, smacked and tossed in every direction!  Here is how the powder looks in markets in India...

Source

And this is how it's packaged in the US...

A little goes a LONG way, let me tell you.  We were told to dress in clothes that we didn't mind getting ruined, but I figured I'd be taking pictures so I didn't dress Maeve or I for the fun.  Boy was I wrong!  Once the color-throwing starts, no one is safe!  In India they even try to trick neighbors out of their houses so they can color them!  We didn't need to trick the kids though - they were more than happy to join in.

Though Neeti (pronounced NEE-thee) did have to stage a sneak attack on one of her friends who had snuck off so as not to be caught in the colorful melee.  She recruited Jack as her accomplice.

He gave as good as he got.

But the "Most Colorful" award went to Neeti's daughter Ananya.

She had her own stash of powder but was nice enough to share with the boys.

Here are some of the results of all the Holi fun...

Our neighbor Jack D.

Ben, none too pleased that his dominant color was PINK!

Jack, who took the world's longest shower shortly after this picture was snapped.

Anita and Samir, our next-door neighbors.

  

Molly and her best friend Makala

Maeve...I told you, no one was safe!  She was not too thrilled at looking like a rainbow colored baby Clingon.

Yours Truly

Rohan

Keegan, Rohan, Maeve and Jack....the middle school boys are so adorable with the way they love Maeve.
She's like their little mascot, and they wait turns to hold her!

  

Jack, Shivam and Samir

The whole gang!

 We are so blessed to live in such a diverse city and have friends 

who are willing to share their culture with us!  

Now I just have to get Neeti to teach me how to make samosas 

and authentic curry and life will be complete!

HAPPY HOLI!

14 Months!

Oh Maeve, you are so stinking adorable! 

I've wanted to take your picture with this setup since you were born, and like many ideas that get shelved due to lack of time, it finally came back around and got accomplished!

Here are a few tidbits about you at 14 months old...

You give the most amazing, arms-thrown-around-the-neck-hugs

and smack on the mouth kisses

You walk, run, tumble, climb and crawl like a champion.  We have found you on top of play tables and climbing the outside of the staircase, in the bathtub and on top of chairs, benches and the fireplace hearth, just to name a few of the predicaments you've gotten into this month. We are now a completely gated community, and nothing is safe!

Your teeth are just KILLING you.  I can see the lump where your right, top eye tooth is coming down, and it's a beast.  If it weren't for Motrin, we wouldn't get any sleep at all.  As it is, you're awake and screaming the second it wears off.

Whenever you are teething, you get a wicked stuffy nose.  Whenever you get a wicked stuffy nose, you are prone to gagging.  Whenever you gag, you vomit.  Therefore, whenever you get upset in your crib and start to cry, you gag and vomit.  Luckily, you usually stand at the crib railing and vomit on the same place on the rug each time.  So we now own a new Bissell Spot Bot and have learned to put a towel on the floor when we put you to bed each night.

You still loathe your crib and refuse to go in it for naps.  So you nap in your swing from 11-2 every day, and will likely be in it until your feet drag on the floor.

You're not a huge fan of food.  Frankly, we don't know how you are growing with what little makes it into your mouth.  You refuse to let us feed you 95% of the time, you eschew purees in pouches, and throw most solids on the floor or hide them under your bottom in the highchair.  Your 'favorite' foods, if only the ones you refuse the least are string cheese cut into bits and yogurt.

Youre not a huge fan of drinks either.  It's taken us until now to get you to drink a 4oz bottle of milk, only because I started lacing it with vanilla instant breakfast.  Any other beverage gets thrown on the floor after two sips.  We've got quite the collection of sippy cups!

You say BABY perfectly and repeatedly.  Other words that have snuck out when you weren't paying attention and that haven't been repeated are Benny, shoes, Jack, wash, and all done.

You can hum the tune to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, which is amazing because your brother Ben did the very same thing at the very same age!  

You love "Old McDonald Had a Farm" and know the sounds that all these animals make;

Dog (ah ah ah)

Elephant (brrrrrrr)

Monkey (ee ee ee)

Cat (ooow, oooow)

You LOVE books and would be content if someone would read to you all day long.  Lift the flap books (rip the flap books?) are your favorite.

You love your babies and rock them and feed them, and give them their Motrin after you've had yours and sneak off with the dispenser.  You put them in their carriage and take them on walks.

Two things that never fail to calm you when you're fussy; playing with water and getting dragged around in a laundry basket.  Every time you see a laundry basket, you want a ride!

You are really starting to understand us!  When you were fussing this week I asked you "Do you want a tubby", and you ran across the room and threw yourself into my arms!  

When we forget to lock the trash can you love stealing trash out to play with, and putting toys in.  

When you fall and hit your head, you repeat the incident in slow motion to show us and then rub your head and pretend to fuss.  Sometimes you do this when you didn't actually hit your head, but you just thought you might!

You LOVE playing with Jack, Molly and Ben.  Your favorite 'game' is "I'm gonna get you!" when someone pretends to chase you and you run away and laugh like crazy.

You're still nursing, but only before bed and during middle-of-the-night wakeups.
(I don't think it will be long before we are done, and though I'll miss it, I sure will be glad to have my hormones chill out for the first time in two years.)

The most important thing to know about you at
14 months is that we all still love you to pieces!

Bag No. 6

Technically it's a box not a bag.  But it's filled with hand-me-downs from Maeve and headed for her baby cousin Anna Katherine!

Bags # 4&5

Odds and ends (thousands of them it seems) from the basement.  The tip of the iceberg, really.

If you give a Republican a Cookie

In a feeble attempt to explain the difference between Democrats and Republicans after Molly asked the question, I related the old story about giving a man a fish versus teaching a man to fish.

If you give a man a fish (Democrats), you feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime (Republicans).

Now of course I know that that doesn't boil it down very well and the issue is much more complicated than that but for their little minds I figured it did the job.  I asked them if that made sense to them and Ben chimes in with...

"Totally mom! I know a story just like that!  It goes like this...If you give a mouse a cookie…"

I tried not to drive off the road giggling!

Bag No. 3

I'd just cleaned the laundry room a few days before, but it needed something deeper to get it back to a state of being more help and less hindrance.

This is some of the dysfunction we started with...

So I spent part of Sunday

- Checking expiration dates on medication and tossing any that were expired

- Tossing any cleaners that we don't use regularly

- Getting rid of empty ribbon spools (you'd  be surprised how many of those I have!) and other crafty odds and ends

- General decluttering

And now the space has been restored to functioning well for us 

(and thank heaven for that because without it my ship is sunk!)

I designated these two green bins for the two things that consistently clutter up this room because they have no other place to go - Mail & Gifts and Returns.  

Nothing is worse than buying a gift and forgetting where  you put it.
Now i know where to put it and where to find it!

As for the 'Returns' bin, I used to shake my head as an unmarried twenty-something, that my mom would let something she bought (but that didn't work out) sit and fester, rather than returning it for her hard earned cash.  She kept her stash in the dining room and eventually gave it away to charity.

NOW I TOTALLY GET IT!!  

(Sorry Mum!)  

By the time I get the time to take something back, of course I can't find the receipt or it's past the date when I could return it, or the moon is in the wrong phase, or they changed the rules two days before...it drives me bananas, which is why I'm trying (and failing, but still trying!) to keep this bin from overflowing.

This isn't the best place for it because it gets in the way, but for right now, it's the only place I've got other than the floor.  And I can't put them on the floor because I've got a toddler who is more than happy to empty them seventeen times an hour for me.

The disaster of a medicine cabinet is now organized the way we use things instead of as one big jumble. 

 I used bins from the dollar store (that didn't fit until I MADE THEM FIT, which involved cutting off the edges and covering them with duct tape - it's not perfect but it worked in a pinch).  And then I labeled them with my standard Beth Mallett label.

Why is it my standard label you ask?  Because I always have two things on hand in large quantities; the free 4x6 photo paper that comes with my printer ink and packing tape from the post office (because I consistently forget to bring it when I need it and always end up buying more.  And not for nothing, but it is seriously the best packing tape money can buy.  Never tangles, never flops backward and sticks to itself - it's truly the KING of packing tapes).

So I made a 4x6 printable in a bunch of colors that I can use whenever I need to label something, and then I stick it on with a length of packing tape that virtually disappears to the naked eye.

Hmmm, I should post that printable here.  I wonder how to do that?  I will go find out and post it soon! (and by soon, of course I mean, possibly never, or maybe tomorrow.  It's really anyone's guess!)

I stuck some more labels on my apothecary jars in the other upper cabinet.  They look pretty, but they're kind of a pain to use.  But since anything on the top shelf is kind of a pain to use when you're 5'2"...they might as well look pretty, no?

The green basket is Maeve's bath essentials.  Because in a house with two tubs and three showers, she gets bathed in the laundry room sink.  What can I say?  It works!  She can play with cups and buckets until her fingers and toes get pruney, and I can get my laundry folded.  It's a win-win situation.

The green box is full of all the little laundry doo-dads that would otherwise clutter up the space; stain stick, stain spray, an old toothbrush for scrubbing things, a bleach pen, a tide pen, and of course, a few treats for the laundress as she toils away (right now there's some Aldi granola bars and some trail mix that has nuts which I hide in here because of Ben's allergy.)

This faux-antique shelf is getting too cluttery for my liking, but I haven't yet decided what to do about it.

(pssst!  See that Yankee Candle plug-in?  "Autumn Leaves".  Everyone who comes in my laundry room comments on how amazing it smells, and I agree.  Nothing like actual autumn leaves, the scent is just the epitome of fruity, happy, deliciousness.  You can thank me later when you buy one and people start commenting on your house being delicious!)  

So anywho, back to the clutter zone.  The bottom shelf is where I stash all my different pens and markers so that Molly won't swipe them. (she's NOTORIOUS - No art supplies are safe when she's around)
(buckets and labels are from the Target Dollar Spot)

And the top shelf is where I keep our collection of beach jars.

I started keeping them in 2010 when we made our first trip to Lake Michigan and I couldn't believe that the 'sand' was actually perfect, teeny, tiny pebbles.  It was so cool I saved some, and the rest is a dust collection history.

(oh, and holy water...no self-respecting granddaughter of Anne O'Dwyer would be caught without it)

Someday I'll figure out something absolutely FABULOUS to do with all of these bottles and jars, but for right now they can hang out with me while I wash, fluff and fold.

Then we have the cleaning cabinet, with it's double layer of security (one yellow, one pink)

In all honesty, I'm a dish-soap-on-a-washcloth cleans everything kind of girl, so these are just the specific-task cleaners that I use for specific tasks OR that I am afraid to let go of because I can't get more (like the leather conditioner for the couch)

My DIY gift wrap station

(This is where the empty ribbon spools came from)

Underneath this is Pajama Central where each Mallett kid has his or her own section

(That way, when they take off their clothes and throw them on the floor because they somehow believe that laundry walks itself to the washing machine despite what I've told them to the contrary...at least then I don't have to walk far to put them in the washer.)

See, here's my professional drawer-emptier getting ready to go to work!

On the wall is Jack's

Karate gear rack

L to R we have his sparring gear, white gi, brand new green belt, black gi and on top his bo (staff) and bokken (sword)

And hiding behind the door is the cleaning tool rack and my bag of other bags.

This is one hard-working laundry room!  What I would give to take some square footage from someplace I don't need it, and put it in here! 

And of course, because it is such a hardworking zone, it looked like the pictures above for about fourteen seconds after I took these pictures.  Thank goodness for iPhone cameras - at least I captured the moment while it lasted!

Moving On...HURTS!

It's March 2014, and yet my blog banner still read 2013...all because I am having such a hard time letting go!  Oh how I loved that banner!  What a fun, albeit out of our minds crazy, year 2013 was.

And oh how much I loved these images.  But despite the pinch it causes my soul, it's time to move on.  Well, technically, time already moved on (it's punctual like that).  I guess it's time for me to catch up!

Someone's been raiding the pantry!

The security system (aka, the elastic band around the knobs) failed this morning due to human error, and someone managed to get herself in there to get a snack.

The last remaining box of chocolate covered peppermint candy cane Joe Joes from Trader Joe's.

The girl's got good taste!