i can see clearly now.

I love my dog. I really do. But one thing he does that drive me ab.so.lutely bonkers is that when he wants inside from the yard, he goes crazy: dancing at the door, wiping his nasty paws all over the glass. Sometimes he'll sit at the door and wait patiently, but this is a rarity... luckily, I have my very own squeegee to erase the mess.

Did you know how excited I was when I saw this at Walmart months ago?? It was only a few bucks, and I was beyond ecstatic. I don't even think I put it in the cart; I just hung onto it until we checked out. R didn't share my enthusiasm, but I know he appreciates clean windows.

Anyway, so I broke that out today, with Dex by my side watching every swipe. I know it won't stay like this for long, but for today I can feel good about it. ;)

Don't mind the tattered deck, also compliments of Dex.... sigh...

Okay, now I'm off to clean the linen closet like I said I was going to do this week. More soon!

the zero-waste home: really...?!



Sunset Magazine, sunset.com


So I want to clean and be organized... but these peeps are REALLY neat & tidy. Yowza. A must-read article; would be interested in your thoughts. Can you even imagine going to these lengths? I really can't... you certainly wouldn't have to worry about tidying up when company came over, though, which would be nice...

the organized year.

I constantly wish that I inherited my mom's cleaning gene, because she is an organization guru... You ask her where something is and she can tell you to a T, and miraculously, it's always there. I don't know why this didn't fascinate me before, but now that I'm a mom it's amazing I can find anything on a day-to-day basis. It just happens that way! If you're not intentional, everything falls. So. I've decided I need to finally get a grasp on organization and just do it.

So with that, I'm going to commit to organizing our home this year, bit by bit. And I'm going to post about it. {Eeek! Good ole accountability!} I was debating about posting all of this on my sidecar site, HealthyBecause, because I think being orderly is healthy, but as I don't really have any projects going right now here, VP is where it's at. So here we go.

Step 1: Identify problems. I've noticed that it's my tendency to not finish home or craft projects. Let's be honest. As soon as I get bored or tired, I justify walking away and leaving it as it is for who knows how long. Sometimes the justification is, "I can't figure this out, I need to think about it and come back" {and then won't} or "How long have I been doing this? Time to start something new..." {and I will}. Why is this? Am I too ambitious in the beginning? Most likely. Am I not patient enough to wade through learning a new skill? Often. Whatever it is, I'd really like to get over it. We were going to "redo" our bedroom, and we got as far as painting it a new color, but nothing else really changed. More on that later. So I'd like to take unfinished to finished this year.

Step 2: A new perspective. I grabbed my camera yesterday and snapped pics of all the areas I want to organize. I feel like I see them everyday, but looking at a picture on the computer makes it different somehow. I'll share these with you as I go, as embarassing as they will be.

Step 3: Inspiration photos. For the last couple of weeks, I've been mostly googling around for inspiration pictures. Imitation will be the route I take to begin with, and I've found some really fun photos... Let's start there to whet the organizing appetite:

I love an organized bookcase. I have two that aren't really doing much except taking up space; hopefully I can make them functional and appealing to boot.

I looove the gray and white kitchen... But we have honey-colored wood in our kitchen, along with cream-colored cabinets. Not sure gray would be the best choice...

How cute is this? Maybe for Liv's drawer someday?

I also love this bookshelf. Would be easy to make... and could be a great place for baby's library books. {Seeing is remembering to return them :)}

Step 4: Pick a place and start. This week, my goal is a small one {as much as I want to start with the kitchen! See?? Over ambitious!}. I want go through and organize the upstairs linen closet. Here's a before picture.

Dum dum dummmm...

Baby's First Christmas

what it's all about.

My friend Alison kindly gave me a little gift this year:

You open the ribbons on top, and it unfolds into this:

"The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." -Romans 6:23

Isn't that clever? She said she didn't have a sewing machine, so she hand-stitched all of it. How sweet is that? And a nice surprise, because I didn't even know she had an interest in sewing or anything like that. I like surprises. I look forward to putting it out every year and showing it to Livvy as we teach her what Christmas really is all about. This year she just chewed on the ribbon a bit. :)

I've found this year to be somewhat simplified--with a new baby, I just haven't had the time or effort to do a lot of the things I normally do. But paring down has been refreshing; I've only put out about half our Christmas decorations, I've only made a couple batches of cookies, and I'm going to be creative with wrapping this year, only using what I already have on hand. I've been thinking a lot about new traditions we can start with our little family, and how to keep the focus on Christ instead of being consumed by busyness and shiny, sparkly things {as fun as they are!}.

I've been reading through some little Christmas books I've collected over the years, and appreciated this entry from David Jeremiah's The 12 Ways of Christmas, taken from the chapters entitled Wonder and Reflection:

A good place to start this year is to spend some time reflecting on the wonders of the true Christmas story. Raise the questions, study the Scriptures, give thanks for what you know, and pray about what you don't. Wonder and marvel at what God has done....

In the darkness with only the twinkling glow of the Christmas tree lights, it's fun to sink into a chair, hand curled around a cup of cocoa, and ponder the ageless wonders of Christmas....

How wonderful to reflect on the timeless story of Jesus, keeping it in mind and pondering these things in your heart {Luke 2:19}.

Amen!