One Very Ambitious Chicken

The Cookie Police

Persistence and I are making cookies tonight. She mixed them up while I sat on the couch and then I scooped them onto the pans while I sat on the couch and now I'm writing about them while I sit on the couch.

Actually I have to get up to take the pans out of the oven because no one else in the family is smart enough to figure out when the cookies are done. You can't just set a timer for cookies because each pan cooks differently and they must be taken out at precisely the right moment to be a tiny bit crisp on the edges but slightly undercooked in the middle. If it's not done right then the entire pan is ruined and can be fed to the chickens, I mean children, as far as I'm concerned.

I had the perfect amount of cookie dough to symmetrically fill three big pans and one small pan and then Stranger messed everything up by eating two of the cookie dough balls on the small pan. He didn't even try to look sorry when I accused him, "You ate TWO cookies???"

"Yes, I did. How many are you going to eat?" he replied.

"Twelve!!!"

But at least I have the decency to wait until they are cooked before I eat an indecent amount of cookies!

The real problem here is that my family grosses me out because they eat raw dough. They'll eat bread dough, cookie dough, cake batter, anything. Don't tell me you do it because then I will have to be mad at you too. I used to tell my kids that they couldn't eat the raw cookie dough because they could get sick from the eggs. If we only had our own chickens then we could know for sure that they were healthy and then we could eat raw eggs and raw cookie dough. But then we got our own chickens and it still makes me queezy. It's not like I've never eaten raw cookie dough before but watching other people do it is too much for me.

I think my aversion to it started when I first saw Stranger's (now passed away) Grandmother eating raw hamburger meat out of the frying pan. That was when I knew I was going to have problems in this family. (Luckily Stranger doesn't eat raw meat, just the baked goods.) Things are fine as long as the kids and I are cooking because I'm the boss and I can tell them to keep their hands out of things until they are cooked. But then Stranger shows up and he and the kids start ... I can't even type it, it is so gross.

Well, it's late and the cookies are done. I haven't quite eaten twelve of them yet so I need to get to work.

TAT Winner and Theme for Next Week

The thing I really meant to write about tonight instead of cookies was Talk About Tuesday. We had so much fun talking about purses last week that next week we are going to talk about shoes. You can say anything you want to about your shoes, which are your favorite, how many do you have, how many do you actually wear, how many are you going to get rid of now that you are blogging about them and showing them to the whole world, etc. I would also love to see photos of how you organize/UNorganize them as well. I have a very complicated organizational system for my shoes. No not really. I'm actually very shoe-handicapped but I'll show them to you next week anyway.

BTW, did anyone notice that I forgot to pick a winner for last week's TAT? I just did!

The winner will be ... Christy from The Crafty Conservative. Congratulations! Send me your address and I will get your extra small Organizing Bag in the mail just as soon as I get to all the others I have promised and not sent yet. I'll do it, I will! Just give me a minute because I have to go to the store to buy some little envelopes to mail them and at the rate I am getting around it may take a while. Or maybe I don't need envelopes. Can't I just wrap them in brown paper and call it good? That sounds like a better plan.

Talk About Bed Making

Welcome to Talk About Tuesday! If you are new, check out the Guidelines before posting. Thanks for joining us!

My Secret Recipe for Teaching Kids to Make Their Beds

Bed making has eluded this family for years but now, finally, all five members are making their beds every single day! You might call it a miracle but I call it years of calculated planning and patience. Here is my fool proof method:

• Announce to your husband as soon as you get married that you want the bed made. Ignore him when he says that you never made the bed before he married you so why should you start now.


• Nag husband about making the bed for a year or so and then give up and live with an unmade bed. Note: I sleep at night but my husband most often sleeps during the day so I could make the bed all I wanted when I got out of it but it was never made by the time I got into it.


• Try again a couple years later and give up again.


• Have some kids.


• Religiously make their beds every day because you can and they will stay made.

• When the kids are old enough spend a couple years teaching and helping them make their beds.


• Figure that eventually they will want to and be able to do it on their own.


• Get over that fairy tale and start nagging them every day to make their beds.


• Give up nagging and start threatening. Do that for a few years.


• Take away all their covers and make them sleep on a cold mattress.

• Don't do that last one but think about it really hard for a while.


• Mention again to your husband that you would like the bed made every day and couldn't he please just straighten his pillows and pull up the covers on his side of the bed when he gets out of it.


• Be amazed that he actually starts doing this. Most of the time.


• Wonder why all of a sudden he doesn't toss and turn and mess up the bed covers like he used to.


• Let your kids make a new family rule that any child who forgets to make their bed before they eat breakfast has to make everyone else's bed the next morning.

• Sit back and enjoy having children that make their beds EVERY SINGLE MORNING all by themselves without being reminded!


• Wonder why all of a sudden your children don't toss and turn and mess up the bed covers like they used to.


• Pat yourself on the back for having such an excellent detailed plan and the fortitude to follow through with it for 12 years.

Alternate plan in case you have a Lovely living in your house.

• When your child is three years old teach her how to make her bed.


• Make it with her for one week.


• Now that she knows how to do it on her own, ask her to make it every day as soon as she gets up.


• Don't be surprised at all that she does it.


• Hug and kiss her every morning when she runs to tell you how pretty her bed looks.


• Repeat every day after her nap.


• Mommy lives happily ever after.


• The end.

*Important - Please link to your individual Talk About Tuesday post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

What It's Like Being 38 Weeks Pregnant

• You're sleeping on the couch now because the bed is too hard and painful.


• Except that you sneak back in bed at 7:00 in the morning so you can hide from the kids when they get up.


• Because as painful as the bed is you still can't get out of it before 10:00 a.m.


• Except to get up to go to the bathroom 27 times.



• You stop going to the gym because you are lazy and you are starting to scare people.


• Your big stomach itches no matter how much lotion you put on it.


• Although your other babies have come a week late you dream that THIS baby will be different. It will be born two weeks early because it loves you and wants you to be happy.


• You hate anyone you know who has already had their baby.


• In the nicest way possible of course.


• You feel sorry for anyone you know who isn't as far along as you are.


• You want to tell your daughters not to ever let this happen to them.


• But you don't want to scar them for life so you tell your son instead.


• He promises he won't.


• You don't feel like doing anything except having a baby.


• Sitting around thinking about having a baby is driving you crazy.



• So you go outside and watch the chickens scratch around for three hours instead.


• While you're out there you discover that roosters have sex about 20 times an hour.


• You're happy you're not a hen.


• You're happy for your hens that there are 15 of them and only one rooster.


• You're even happier when your husband finally gets rid of the rooster two days later.


• Now you can spend hours watching the hens scratch in the dirt and peck at each other in peace.



• When you get tired of watching the chickens you drag yourself to the bathroom to take a bath with your three year old for two hours.


• Three year olds are fun to have baths with.


• They don't point and make fun of your body.


• They help you wash your hair.


• They are more than happy to get in and out of the tub multiple times to bring you things.


• They know how to keep secrets.


• Like about what happened to the rooster.


• Until their brother or sister asks them of course.


• Being 38 weeks pregnant is pretty miserable.


• But you are still counting your blessings.


• You aren't throwing up several times a day.


• You can complain to your friends so much that they start bringing you yummy dinners so you don't have to cook.


• You haven't had any other complications and the baby looks big (although not big enough) and healthy.


• You're not on bed rest so you can take your kids to the park so they can run around while you sit and do more of the nothing that you were getting done at home.


• In fact you can drive your kids to multiple parks all in one day.


• Then on your way home you can stop at one more park just for good measure.


• Now you're 38 weeks and 2 days pregnant.


• Didn't that go by fast?

Whole Wheat Sour Dough Bagels

Tammy, The Happy Housewife has gotten me hooked on bagels!!! Since finding her recipe and fabulous photos and instructions a couple weeks ago I can't stop making them! I was surprised to see how easy they are. Obviously my family can't stop stuffing their faces with them so next time I will be making a double batch. One batch the kids and I made into mini bagels which were oh so cute and oh so much work so we won't be doing that again.

I've adapted Tammy's recipe for sour dough so I'm sharing it here. If you want her original recipe and photos click here.

BTW I have been devoting my life to baking with sour dough. You can visit Breadtopia to learn more about all kinds of bread baking and sour dough especially. He has tons of great videos and recipes on there. You can also order a sour dough starter from him if you don't have a friend or neighbor you can get one from. I'm putting sour dough in my bread, muffins, pancakes, etc. It tastes great and makes everything very moist.

For those of you trying to eat healthier, baking with sour dough is not only worth the trouble because it tastes great, it's also better for you than quick rise breads.

The longer leavening process is one of natural fermentation, which includes organic yeasts and enzyme enhancing bacteria. These combine in a process that results in a bread that is easier to digest and contains nutritional advantages.

Read more at Breadtopia.com.

Whole Wheat Sour Dough Bagels

2 1/4 cup warm water
2 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons salt
5 cups wheat flour
1/3 cup sour dough starter

In the evening combine water, sour dough start and flour. Knead or mix in your mixer for ten minutes. Cover with plastic and leave on the counter. In the morning the dough should be doubled. Add the salt and honey (although I don't really think you need the honey since you're not using yeast)and mix until incorporated.

Divide dough into 14 balls. Take the balls and put your thumbs through the middle of the ball to make a bagel shape. You need to work the hole to 2 inches because the holes will shrink when they rise.

Allow the bagels to rest for 20 minutes. I ruined my first batch by letting them rest too long so don't do it! While the bagels are resting, start boiling a pot of water on the stove. Add honey or sugar (about 1/3 cup) to the water. After the bagels have rested and your water is boiling drop the bagels two or three at a time into the boiling water. Boil for one minute. Do not over boil or your bagels will fall apart. After a minute remove from the water with a slotted spoon and place on greased cookie sheet.

After the bagels are boiled you can brush them with an egg wash ( one egg white and about 3 Tbs of water) but it isn't required. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30-40 minutes or until golden brown. Sour dough takes longer to bake than regular dough so it may need to go longer.

Smart Habit Saturday

Welcome! If you are new to SHS find out all about it here: Getting Started with SHS. Click here to read more SHS posts. Please don't forget to link back to this post so your readers can find out more about SHS.

April Habit: Every day I am going to look through the fridge and pull out one dish or thing that needs to be cleaned out or thrown away. It will be so much easier to do it a little bit at a time rather than having big cleaning sessions in there.

Love this new habit!

How do you like a short and sweet SHS? Me too!

Have a great week!

P.S. - I am turning the comments off on SHS for a while or forever. Just because I feel like it. If you have a question or need help with your link please feel free to email me.

*Important - Please link to your individual SMART Habit post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

The Big Candy Wagon

Do you have entrepreneurial kids? Everything my kids make or do they want to turn into a business. They want to sell their drawings, their old toys, and their toenail clippings. Weeks ago they were into painting rocks. They painted dozens of them so they could sell them because there is a big market for painted rocks around here. We wish. It probably doesn't help that we sit around for family nights and talk about new businesses we're going to start. I guess we're just an entrepreneurial family.

My kids' first and most successful business was The Big Candy Wagon. It all started several years ago when I had a garage sale and made a pan of brownies for the kids to sell. They were hooked. They wanted to sell brownies on the street every day after that but I wouldn't let them. For one thing I wasn't interested in baking brownies every day and I also hated it when kids were camped on the road waving people down to buy Cool-Aide. Some people are so nice that they stop and buy it but I'm not one of those people. I want to yell at them, "Get out of the street! And while you're at it get a real job! No one wants your disgusting grape Cool Aide!"

Actually the reason it made me mad was because we lived in a neighborhood with lots of young families and my kids were constantly coming in begging for money to buy watered down sugar water from some kid or another. I was sick of it but I got my revenge.

I decided that if the kids were going to become little street vendors they were going to sell something people really wanted. Junk food. We took a trip to Sam's Club and loaded up on candy and soda. The kids set up shop in a big wagon with an umbrella and enough artificial colors and flavorings for an entire neighborhood full of hyperactive children. The customers came running.

All the kids had to do was have their Big Candy Wagon set up as the kids streamed off the school bus, which just happened to stop right in front of our house, and they made a killing. Kids either stopped right away to spend their pocket change or they ran home to find some cash. I'm sure most of the parents hated us but there were other parents who would stop their Mom Mobiles to buy every child in their haul a soda and candy bar. We loved those Mom mobiles!

In an hour and a half the kids could make $20-$30! Pretty soon I was even buying candy wholesale but sadly I had to shut them down. They refused to stop eating the inventory. I don't know what I was thinking. They were going to sell candy and not eat it? I tried everything I could think of to ration it but nothing worked. I also got tired of the neighbor kids breaking into our garage to steal candy. It guess it just wasn't meant to be.

My kids still talk about that business. They're mad that we moved out to the country with no busy subdivisions full of greedy kids with pockets full of money. Now they're stuck selling chicken eggs for a few bucks but all the money goes back into buying chicken food. It's not a very glamorous way for a ten and eight year old to make a living.

Little do they know, in a few years when they're older they will be able to make a fortune moving sprinkler pipe, milking cows and slaughtering mink. Country kids get the best jobs.

Talk About Your Purse

Welcome to our first themed Talk About Tuesday! If you are new, check out the Guidelines before posting. Thanks for joining us!

This week we are talking about our purses. We want to hear all about yours, what works for you, what doesn't and we want photos. Pretty please! If you have something else you are dying to talk about instead of your purse we will forgive you.

Are you sure you're ready for this long post? This is how I organize my purse.

First of all I don't carry a fashionable little purse. I carry a Mom bag. My Mom bag used to be the Sweet Tomato but it got old and ragged so I bought the exact same bag in dark brown so it wouldn't show dirt and would last longer. You can find it here at bagsbuy.com. Don't pay full price because if you sign up for their e-mails they will send you 10-20% off coupons every week. I love their discounts and free shipping.


Like the Sweet Tomato, my new bag goes everywhere I go. You can read more about it here.

This is the inside. I keep some tic-tacs and unmentionables in the zippered pocket. It was a pain getting my cell phone in and out of the narrow cell phone pocket so I use it for pens. I use the clip for my patented key system.

The key system includes a very high tech baby link toy, connected to a springy thingy, connected to a key ring, holding my van door opener. It's easy to find in my bag and I can easily unclip it if I'm leaving my bag behind. The coil is great for putting around my wrist so I don't lose the whole thing which I will if it isn't attached to something and I can clip the baby link to a shopping cart or pocket or such. I am personally giving you permission to copy this very complicated system for yourself. You're welcome.

This pocket holds my MP3 player as you can see. The player goes under my pillow at night and in this pocket during the day so it makes it to the gym with me.



This side used to be one big pocket. That didn't work for me so I sewed vertically along the strap lines and made three narrow pockets. One for my water bottle, one for my extra small Organizing Bag that holds my credit cards, and one for my planner.


On this side one pocket holds a little notebook where I write down ideas, one holds my weight lifting gloves, one holds my cell phone and one holds my gym card. With only one thing in each pocket it's easy to grab what I want. Everything gets put away in the same place every time.

Inside my bag I have a smaller bag to organize more Organizing Bags. How exciting is that!

If I don't want to lug the big bag around I can fill this smaller bag with what I need and take it with me. I hardly ever do though because I just can't part with my Mom Bag.

The pink bag holds a bag for receipts, a bag for tissues and one for my camera which of course I had to take a picture of without the camera in it. You understand.

Another bag holds a little container of Play-Doh lotion. It's really just lotion in a tiny Play-Dough container but people seem to get excited about my Play-Dough lotion. There's an idea for you Play-Dough marketing people. It also holds a cute little leather measuring tape that I bought at Target several years ago, a comb and elastics for hair emergencies and a container filled with band aids, Advil, cough drops, safety pins, etc. I bought the container at The Container store. I tried to find it online for you but no luck.

One more extra small Organizing Bag with goodies in it. How cool are you when you're the only person at a Scout meeting with a pocket knife? Take that you unprepared Eagle Scouts!

See how nicely everything is contained in there? Nothing is getting smashed at the bottom of my bag. Love it.

One more thing I always have with me is a book in a medium Organizing Bag so it doesn't get wet or ruined. I keep sticky notes in the label pocket for bookmarks and marking things I want to write down later.

It all fits nicely in the Mom Bag with room to spare for snacks, a sweatshirt, library books, a knitting project (also in a bag) or anything else I want to shove in there. Pretty soon it will be holding diapers!

So now do you want to know how much this bag weighs? Today with a full water bottle and the two books that I'm reading and can't go anywhere without, it weighs 10 pounds 8 ounces which happens to be the exact weight of my first child when he was born. When this new baby is born it will be like carrying twins!

Actually I don't carry everything in the bag every where I go. I pack it up with my books, projects and what not before I leave the house but I unpack it when I get into the van. That way when the kids are in art class or we stop at a park I can read or knit while I wait. When we get home I pack it up again and take it all in the house in one trip. It's fabulous. If you are a tiny bag woman you don't know what you're missing!

Anyone who participates in TAT this week will be entered to win a free extra small Organizing Bag. You have until Wednesday to link up. Now let's see what's in your purse!

*Important - Please link to your individual Talk About Tuesday post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

A Few of My Favorite Things

1. Climbing up and down a ladder in the middle of the night when I'm nine months pregnant to get to the smoke detector on the twelve foot high ceiling in our entryway because my husband doesn't love me enough to be home to do it for me.
2. Staying up all night listening to a smoke detector that won't shut up regardless of the fact that I put a new battery in it.
3. Taking the smoke detector down and running it over with my van a few times so I can finally get some sleep.*
4. Trying to eat an entire pineapple in one day.
5. Not being able to eat anything salty for three days because I have a crippled tongue.
6. Scrubbing every metal thing in my home with steel wool until it shines and my fingers bleed. I may not feel like doing anything else but apparently I can't survive without clean cookie sheets, sinks and drinking fountains. Shiny metal is really important when you are getting ready to have a baby. Baby clothes, car seats and cribs? Not so important.
7. Reading 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and finding out I could be 5000 times more effective if I exercised initiative, was smart, aware and sensitive to others.
8. Deciding that learning to be satisfied with my ineffectivness is easier than trying to change my lazy, incompetent and selfish personality.
9. When Daddy Drill Sergeant comes home just in time to make the kids clean up all their messes and send them to bed so I can be ineffective, lazy, incompetent and selfish in peace and quiet.

* #3 May not have actually happened but it would have been one of my favorite things if it had.

Smart Habit Saturday

Welcome! If you are new to SHS find out all about it here: Getting Started with SHS. Click here to read more SHS posts. Please don't forget to link back to this post so your readers can find out more about SHS.

I'm picking a new habit. I haven't been able to meet with my new bookkeeper yet because of tax season so I still don't know what I'm doing with Quickbooks. I don't want to start going through receipts and recording things until I can meet with him to get everything set up. Otherwise I will just waste a lot of time trying to figure it out by myself and probably do it all wrong.

Instead I'm going to try to keep my fridge cleaned out. I spent some time today cleaning up after a wayward cucumber. It was not pretty. Every day I am going to look through the fridge and pull out one dish or thing that needs to be cleaned out or thrown away. It will be so much easier to do it a little bit at a time rather than having big cleaning sessions in there. I hate those. Even when I make the kids do them instead of me, I still hate them.

Have a great Habit week!

If you are new and you want to catch up on last year - Smart Habit Saturday 2007

*Important - Please link to your individual SMART Habit post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

How To Be A Lazy Kid

• Don't drag 50 pound bags of salt down to the basement when you're four years old just to show your parents how strong you are.
• Because then you will be in charge of dragging salt down to the basement for the rest of your life.
• Don't tell your Mom you're going to run down to the gas station that's 1.5 miles away and that she can pick you up on her way to the gym.
• Because then you will be getting yourself to Scouts and any other activity within a ten mile radius and no one will feel sorry for you. Even if there is a blizzard outside and you choose not to wear a coat, hat or gloves.
• When you are helping your Dad put shelves together don't tell him you could do it all by yourself.
• Because then your Dad will be taking a nap on the couch while you are putting the rest of the shelves together, all by yourself. Even if it takes you until 10:00 at night.

P.S.

• Don't insult your Mother by telling her you would rather die than let her cut your hair just because she's not an expert and it takes her a little while to get it even.
• Because then your Dad will take you somewhere to get your head shaved and you and your Mother will cry about it for months until it grows in enough that she isn't embarrassed to be seen with you in public.

Talk About Tuesday Winner

I forgot to pick a TAT winner yesterday so Jen, from Confessions of a Wacky SAHM, you're it! Send me your address and I will get your Organizing Bag in the mail.

I'm going to give away another bag next week so make sure you participate in Talk About Tuesday with us. Also, don't forget to send me your organizing photos. I know you have them so don't be shy!

I am going to have a TAT theme for next week. Talk About Your Purse. I want to hear all about your purse and I want to see photos if you can post them. What is in it? How does it help you stay organized? How much does it weigh? Yes, I just weighed my purse. Wait till Tuesday and you will find out how it weighs in and you will be astounded. I don't have these big muscles for nothing!

P.S.

I finally went to see my midwife today and this baby is measuring at 7 pounds. 7 Pounds!!! There is no way it's going to get to ten pounds in the next month. What a disappointment!

My midwife says I am the very first woman to ever complain about not having a ten pound baby.

What can I say? We have high standards!

Born To Tumble?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm wasting my money paying for Persistence to be in tumbling lessons. It's not like she's going to grow up to be a cheerleader right? How is tumbling going to help her in life? Don't tell me it teaches coordination because she already has it and she always has.

Then I catch her doing things like this...

And this...

And climbing 30 foot light posts to rescue someone's kite.

And then I think I'll keep her in tumbling.



Although there's got to be a more useful skill she could be learning. Rock climbing? That doesn't sound extremely useful either. Fun but not useful.

Why does it have to be useful? Because I want to invest in things my kids can use for the rest of their lives. I think tennis and golf are great sports because you can play those till you're 100 years old. Tumbling, not so much.

How about martial arts?

Design An Organized Craft Room

I know I told all of you that I spent an entire month organizing my studio/craft room/office and I did. Yes, it is pretty clean and organized. So you are wondering where the photos are?

There aren't any. Because it may be organized but it's not cute. I haven't gotten to that part yet. I still have a desk made out of 2x4's and a sawed off piece of old laminate furniture. There is a filing cabinet holding one side up. Sounds pretty doesn't it? There is a dresser in the corner holding the kid's craft supplies and a storage shelf with plastic bins holding my sewing stuff. It's nothing to get excited about.

Now that we have our pantry cabinets installed I am trying to figure out what I want in here. Since I can't get my behind off the couch and couldn't think of anything better to do I spent last night browsing photos on the internet and the thought occurred to me, "Wouldn't it be great if someone had a blog post that linked to all of these so I didn't have to hunt them down?"

So here you go. A few links for your enjoyment all the way from simple to grand and frugal to costly. Now you can drool in the privacy of your own home. Feel free to add more links in the comments if you know of any. (Be sure to check out all of them because I might have saved the best for last.)

• Cottage Magpie - This is almost exactly what I had planned for my studio. Very functional.
• Aim True
• Monica Crowe - More Ikea
• Stamping For Sanity - Stamping room
• Fuzzy Noodle - Knitting Room
• Posie Gets Cosie
• Soule Moma - She's got quite the fabric collection!
• Tara Anderson - Fun color and containers. Check out all her flickr photos
• A Bolota Doce - Something simple but beautiful
• Jig A Bug Baby
• Norma Valentine - Would love to have this cabinet in my studio
• Xixstar - Very cool antique Drawers for storage
• Scrapbook Superstars - Got shelves?
• Two Peas In a Bucket
• Celt Song - Something more subdued
• Christmas Notebook - Amazing custom cabinetry. I want it all!
• Heather Bailey - Most of us can't even dream of being this cool. Thanks for the link Mrs. Organic!

Do you see a dominant theme in there? Blue anyone?

One of these days I'll break down and show you a photo of my amazing desk. It's quite a sight to behold.

Talk About Lazy

Welcome to Talk About Tuesday! If you are new, check out the Guidelines before posting. Thanks for joining us!

Considering my lack of energy and blogging ideas I thought I would ask all of you for help for a while least this blog turn into The Lazy Complaining Pregnant Woman instead of The Lazy Organizer. How about if you send me your organizing photos since I don't have any of my own to post? If I post your photos I will send you a free extra small Organizing Bag! Is that a good deal? Would you do that for me?

If I get hundreds of photos then I obviously wouldn't be able to post them all and I would go broke mailing out that many bags but I will post my favorites. I'm thinking before and after pictures would be fun or any creative, new, or beautiful organizing idea you have or even an organizing product that you love. So many of you are so creative that I'm sure you have great ideas!

If you want to participate then email me your own original photos along with a paragraph explaining them and your blog or website address if you have one so I can link back to you. I will keep all the photos that I get so if I don't post yours right away that doesn't mean I'm not going to use them. Oh and I don't want to be a snob but I'm going to open this just to people living in the US for now until I see how much shipping is going to cost. If you live somewhere else you are still welcome to send photos for me to use but you don't get the free bag. SORRY! Unless you want to pay the shipping I guess. How's that for a compromise?

Thanks for your help and I hope we can have fun with this!

To kick things off how would you like to win a free bag right now? Anyone who participates in Talk About Tuesday this week will be entered to win one free extra small Organizing Bag so if you have anything to Talk About then leave your link. I'll pick a winner Wednesday morning so you have until then to enter.

What are you talking about this week?

*Important - Please link to your individual Talk About Tuesday post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.

I've Hit The Wall

The pregnancy wall. The one where you have no desire and even refuse to do anything until the baby is born. Usually it sets in the last couple weeks but I still have 4-5 weeks to go. That's a lot of weeks of not doing anything.

I don't feel like reading or organizing or cleaning (when do I ever?) or cooking or knitting or quilting or talking to someone on the phone. I don't even feel like being on the computer. Just typing this is getting in the way of my busy schedule of not doing anything.

The same thing actually happened to me last weekend. Maybe I just have a weekend problem. That doesn't sound very good but it's true that it hurts to sit down at this point of the pregnancy and I've been known to keep a pillow handy. I never really had a sitting problem with my other pregnancies so most of you probably don't know what I'm talking about even if you've been pregnant yourselves.

So what do I do all day? Lay on the couch and play with my three year old Lovely and make my older kids do stuff for me until they run away and then it's just me and the Lovely. We snuggle and tell each other how much we love each other and how soft and warm we are while we rub each other's backs. Then we talk about the baby that needs to come out of my tummy so it won't be so difficult for me to get up to come see how she made her bed all by herself. We talk about how when the baby is born Lovely is going to teach her (she's dreaming about a girl) how to walk and how she'll hold her hand so she doesn't get run over by cars. We are very worried about our baby getting run over. We are learning that you don't scream or run around when the new baby is sleeping (I'm going to try really hard not to) and you don't kiss or touch the baby until it wakes up. Then you can hold it and play with it and read stories to it.

There is nothing like a three year old to get excited with you about a new baby and hang out on the couch with you for 4 weeks until it's born.

Smart Habit Saturday

Welcome! If you are new to SHS find out all about it here: Getting Started with SHS. Click here to read more SHS posts. Please don't forget to link back to this post so your readers can find out more about SHS.

My grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

Ether 12:27

That is one of my favorite scriptures. It gives me hope that I won't have these weaknesses of mine forever.

April is my month of getting financially organized and apparently learning to bake with sour dough because it seems that I'm spending every spare minute babysitting my sour dough projects. Today it was sour dough pancakes, muffins and pizza. Tonight I'm starting on a new sour dough bread recipe because the last one was terrible. I used to think I had to be organized and prepared to bake homemade bread because it took several hours from start to finish. That's nothing! Sour dough bread takes days!

Anyway, if I hadn't spent all day baking I definitely would have worked on our new budget. Except that I'm not really going to make a budget. I just want to keep track of our spending so we are more aware of areas we can cut back. Even though I already know the area where we need to cut back. Eating out.

We have already cut back a lot since I've been doing better with meal plans but Stranger works out of town and that is a big eating out expense. I need to teach him to start packing some of his own meals. Or he needs to teach me. Or something.

My Mom spoke to a homeschooling group this week about being Rich On Any Income. It is a book that she took a class on years ago and it motivated her to start budgeting. What perfect timing for my goals this month!

My first assignment is to go through all our credit card statements and figure out what we spent in each expense category last year. It's going to be a big job so we'll see if I can get started on it tomorrow. I'll try my best to stay out of the kitchen and not play with the sour dough too much.

I have inherited Quickbooks from my MIL that I'm going to start using for my business and home finances and we have a new toy to get our receipts organized. I'll share more about that later.

Have a great Habit week!

If you are new and you want to catch up on last year - Smart Habit Saturday 2007

*Important - Please link to your individual SMART Habit post instead of your home page or else my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will have to spend time fixing the links. Here is how you link to an individual post if you’ve never done it before: Right click on the date at the bottom of the post you want to link to (or the post title depending on where you blog) click “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into Mr. Linky.