Knitting

When I was in 3rd grade, my maternal grandparents came to visit. I watched my grandmother knit and was fascinated. She taught me how to knit and the day that she left, I sat in school wondering how I was going to knit without a set of needles. I came home to find her set on the end table in the living room. Hoping, but being precocious, I said to my mother, "Mom, grandma left her knitting needles." My mother told me that she had left them for me. And so my love of knitting started. I'm not a fancy knitter, I make squares and rectangles. I don't make booties or sweaters, and I've never really had the want to do those things. I used to make squares and sew them together to form blankets, I made barbie blankets and scarves for my dolls. But since adulthood I've make only washcloths. My sister seems to love them so much that I try to make her as many as I can for her birthday and Christmas. So since my 3rd trimester, I've been trying to make as many washcloths as I can in preparation for those two holidays in December. I don't know how easy it will be to knit in the fall and winter, so the more I make now, the less guilty I'll feel for how many end up in her stocking and birthday box.

To this day I still use the needles my grandmother gave me to make my washcloths. This is the grandmother I named my daughter, Genevieve, after. We share the same middle name (as well as my mother and my daughter) and I've always felt a special bond with her even though I didn't grow up near her like the majority of my cousins. I get my red hair from her, and my nose as well. I also believe that I get my crafty side from her and my conviction in home-made things instead of store bought. I try to call her at least once a week, and have been sending her a card about once a week with a scratch off lottery ticket. She enjoys gambling and will take any excuse to go to the boats (she lives in IN which doesn't allow gambling, so they have 'boats' which are exempt from state laws).

Here's wishing you a wonderful Wednesday, I'm still waiting/wanting to go into labor.

Organization

Since I was young, I've always liked to have specific ways of doing things. I remember always wanting to be prepared, packing a tiny backpack (do your remember when those were in style??) with rope, snacks, water and matches when I would go hiking in my back yard. Since I lived in the woods with a swamp in the back I thought I'd need the rope and matches in case I got lost, and the snack and water also for those reasons. Packing for trips has always left me wondering why I brought so much stuff to riffle through when looking for my hairbrush or a specific shirt I know I brought. Even my 'purse' in HS was a giant bag that carried everything from band aids, to mascara, to an extra pair of underwear (yes, I did go overboard).

Since I got married, I've realized that my over-preparation was matched by my husband who, in his caring heart will opt for us to purchase more of something in order to accommodate others than for us to only buy what we need for ourselves. A good example is that when we bought our second car, he opted for a station wagon, knowing that it would fit more people in it as well as carry more cargo. This is why we bought a 6 passenger car before we knew we were pregnant, having it in anticipation of the second child as well as having room for when family comes to visit (once a year...).

So since I like to be so overly prepared, (and living in a 4 bedroom house with the best storage system in the garage EVER) I need to be organized in order to keep track of everything. So here are a few of my personal tips that you may be able to use to help organize your home so that you don't end up having to buy something twice just because you can't find it or didn't remember you had it.

Baby clothes

I started organizing baby clothes before my daughter (who is now almost 2) was born. We got a TON of hand me downs (thank you to everyone!) and since I had everything from 0-3 month to 18 months, I bought the tall Tupperware storage bins, used a piece of cardboard in the center to divide it in 2, and put one size on either side. I had everything up to 3 months out in her closet, but as Genny grew, I would take out the appropriate size and put the old size in the empty section, changing the tape to the correct size information. This has helped me save so much time and frustration, I can't even tell you.

So with baby boy, I'm doing the same thing. Currently I don't have quite as much as I did with Genny, so I just have one box with plastic grocery bags holding each size. I used a permanent marker to label each bag and also put how many outfits are in the bag. This will help me as he grows so that as I buy clearance items and add them to the bags, I can update the number of outfits and know which sizes in which I'm still lacking clothes.

I hope this helps you all! I know that once I realize an organization technique I can utilize, I feel a weight lifted off me because I know that I don't have to worry about at least one thing anymore.

*Another tip: I had all of my nursing bras, boppy, and 0-6 month baby toys in a tub also so that when I felt it was time to bring out the bras, I had the other items ready and didn't have to search everywhere for them.

Confession of the day: I wore lounge pants to the commissary today. I'm not typically the type of person who thinks this is OK, but I used the excuse that I'll be 38 weeks pregnant tomorrow. (but I still regret it a little...)

Cleaning and trying to have a baby

Today was motivated cleaning day. I sat down for about 10 minutes right after I put Genny down for her nap to eat some strawberries and sugar (thank you Kate for the idea!) and then I got to work. I swept and mopped the tile, cleaned up the dog throw up in my bedroom (that I found as soon as I went in there), swept and mopped the sun room, and picked up dog poop in the back yard. Thank goodness for a pooper scooper! We've had our two neighbor dogs over quite a bit lately (Kate and Jake landscaped their front and back yard so playing in their back yard isn't quite as acceptable anymore since we still have a crap-tasticly barren back yard in which they can roll around and dig all they want with out it looking much different). So needless to say the amount of dog poop back there is a little overwhelming when you don't get to it every week. I gave up after filling 2 plastic grocery bags full and decided I'd try again tomorrow if sleep doesn't beckon too convincingly. The goal is to get most of it picked up before the rain at the end of the week. Plus I won't be going back there anytime soon after the baby is born. Count in the vacuuming I did and all in all I did pretty well in the cleaning department today. Let's see how much more I can get done tomorrow...

I put some effort in to trying to go into labor today. Kate from next door had her baby on Saturday, and even though I've felt ready for a few weeks, just seeing that tiny baby boy makes me want one! And since I'm getting one within the next few weeks, I can quote Veruca Salt by saying, "I want it NOW!" Of course I probably shouldn't quote her exactly, because I want him now, not it. Anyway... I drank some tea that Kate gave me that's supposed to help thin the cervix, I went for a long walk (I made sure to walk up hill as much as I could since I heard that helps) and then I came home and tried out some pressure points that are supposed to help induce labor. I had false labor the other day from all the exertion I put on my body going to the dog park with a 70lb dog who doesn't get into the car on his own and a 2 year old daughter who I carried and chased around the whole time. Here's hoping for REAL labor!

I had a surprise visitor just now, a coworker who was dropping off a baby gift for baby boy. Bridget is a coworker who only works 2 days a week, but she's a great asset to DMG every time she's there. She's the kind of worker who is always looking for things to do to stay busy. I enjoyed working with her over the past year and getting to know her. She has 2 children and I get all of her hand-me-downs from her daughter. It's such a blessing to get all the clothes and toys she gives us. I actually end up sending most of them to my mom for Aaralynne to wear first, then she sends them to me for Genny. It's a nice system.

Non-scrapbooking

So I'm a creative person. I like making things. From scrapbooks to washcloths to sewing projects. Granted, I don't have any training in almost all of the projects I tackle, and most of the time I do end up creating something that looks like a 3rd grader made it, but I've been thinking in recent months that I'd like to share these other aspects of my life through this blog. Not just keep posting stamping-only blogs. So here is my first non-scrapbooking entry.

I've been a sewing MACHINE lately! When I first found out I was having a boy, the gender-neutral theme of the nursery went right out the window. I went to Jo Ann Fabrics and picked out some boy-themed fleece for burp cloths. I just started making the burp cloths in the past few weeks, (I'm now 37 weeks pregnant) but for Genevieve I used cloth diapers for burp cloths, and since I'm using almost all of my cloth diapers for actual diapers, I didn't want to confuse which was which. So here are a few of the burp cloths I've made, I know they're not perfect, but since they're not gifts, I didn't see the point in spending any more time on them when I have so much else I'd like to get done sewing-wise. The one on the left was the first one I made, so there is no binding.

Also shown are some little bags I made for the diaper bag, the striped one will be for baby boy, and the flowered one for Genny. These are small bags that we'll keep pacies in so we don't mix them up or lose them. I put a stamp pad next to them so you can judge the size. I'll be making larger bags with the same pattern for the kid's individual items in the all-purpose diaper bag. This is an organizing technique that I'm trying out to ensure we always have what we need for each child. We can put appropriate snacks, toys and books in each bag so that when baby boy is crying I can grab his bag and get what he needs instead of routing around in the diaper bag for 5 minutes. Let's hope it works!

Cards of the day

Here are a few cards I made today. I have a nice big container of all my extra cards, but unfortunately not many are blank. The majority are Happy Birthday cards with a few Thank You's in there too. I've been writing my grandmother more and ran out of cards I could use to send her. So I chose some nice bright colors, Kaleidoscope DSP, and a retired set called A Little Birdie Told Me. Use these layouts to make your own cards to send to someone you haven't spoken to in a while. There's nothing like getting a card in the mail to brighten someones day!

Don't know where to start?

Ever come back from a vacation thinking, "These pictures are going to be great in my scrapbook!" But then you go to start the pages and think, "How do I start???" Here is a solution I came up with recently while scrapbooking my Yosemite pages:

Use the map. When you scrapbook the map of the destination, you get more than just a giant item to scrapbook, you get the names of the places you went as well as their locations. So when you're telling your friends, "We went on this great hike, but I don't remember the name of the trail" All you have to do is break out your scrapbook and there it is!

Happy scrapping everyone!

Helpful Hint

Do you have YEARS of scrapbooking to try and catch up on? Here's a tip:

• Gather pictures from 2 or even 3 separate years. (it may be good to space them out a few years... Example: if you have a 10 year old child, grab some pictures of when he was 6 months, 3 years and 7 years old)
• Choose your page layout
• Then use the same layout for all the pictures, just with different paper.

This will save you agonizing time spent on trying to find layouts, plus it will never be noticed in the long run since there will be so much space between the pages!