In my lifetime "todo list"

I stumbled across this article and it made me think of some of the things I have wanted to do in the past, but for whatever reason didn't accomplish it.   Now some of those things, I changed my mind about because, they sucked, or were to flighty and I have moved on lol.   But one that has never left me, that I have always wanted to do since I was a little girl is ride a motorcycle.  

I loved them, when I rode them as a kid, it was in the days before the states helmet laws.  Which in case anyone is wondering  the mother in me will never ride without one because whenever I see somebody riding without one I have a mini-episode inside!   That being said.  I Declare in front of the Internet that I will start my motorcycle license safety course, and mark that off my list!

Valentine Baby

I have a valentines baby!   Which means romantic night out with the hubby with all the other celebrating couples is out.   Am I sad...  not too much! Why?  Cause I have a Valentine GIRL baby!  oh yeah!   What used to be a day of looking forward to a movie and dinner, is totally different!  The new schedule of the day means heart shaped pancakes, cupid cookies at school, heart shaped pizza for dinner, and heart explosions,  And birthday planning for the weekend.  

The black lined eyed hard rockin' teenager that despised valentines because of the pukefest of pink would have never guessed in a million years that I would ever be excited about putting hearts on millions of cupcakes and figuring out new ways to incorporate hearts in everything no matter the birthday party theme!  But that's okay she was a little stuffy anyhow!  

My kiddo chose science for her theme this year, but that will never stop the hearts sneaking in here and there...  muwahahahahahahaha   ha!

http://www.birthdayinabox.com/party-ideas/guides.asp?bgs=89

Projects in my not so distant future to do list!

So first is this clever way to recycle a cup into a bag holder.   I am thinking this would be convenient way if you are not a sewing kind of person, or next to the back/garage door if you use these for picking up after the dog... ewww!

http://www.myrecycledbags.com/2008/06/24/recycle-a-cup-into-a-plastic-bag-keeper/

Smart, recycling, and a fast easy project to do!


Another fun project is this blanket made from sweaters.   I like the randomness of it, it reminds me of the crazy quilts my mom used to make when we were little.  Not like the planned crazy quilts typically seen today.   This one also doesn't require backing which to me sounds a whole lot easier.  http://funessa.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/recycled-sweater-blanket-part-two/

Lately I have learned to knit, and having a lot of fun with it, however I like to look for alternative fun stuff to knit, not just scarfs, hats, and baby booties...   branch out a little.  I found this cute monster pattern at the KnitPicks website  http://www.knitpicks.com/cfBlog/post.cfm/gift-idea-toys.  

S

Make Something Cool Friday!

I am making this recycled sweater sling purse.  The pattern is so easy to follow on this site that I hesitate to even call it a pattern!  

This one is my favorite...  I am not crazy about the flower so mine will be without it.  The instructions are here.  http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2010/11/re-purposing-sweater-into-sling-purse.html 


I found a fantastic grayish turquoise wool sweater in the mens department at the local thrift store for only$2, and bought a magnetic purse snap for $3, and use some scrap fabric for the liner but generally you can buy a yard of a matching fabric for $1-$2.  So I will have a fantastic purse 



There are a ton of other cute bags at this link including a making them out of grocery bags, pillow cases, oilcloth, and videos too...  http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-make-sew-tote-messenger-laptop-bags-craft-tutorials-sewing    and what exactly is a squidoo anyway




*UPDATE*


Here is some pics of my re-purposed sweater sling bag (whew!  thats a mouthful)  The project took me 1 morning to do and it was really easy and I love the instructions, simple straight forward and lots of pictures!
  

Financial Freedom for the New Year

Start the new year with financial freedom! These are the tools that David and I used to become debt free with a 5 year plan to pay off our 30 year mortgage! 

We may have drove a really ugly truck for a while, however that sacrifice and others have changed our mindset forever, and soon we will be mortgage free to. This is by far the best decision we have made for our family.  One that has freed us from being a slave to the lender.

Most of the information is free, he has books as well and his radio show on KMJNOW from 11a-2p or you can live stream it  at the Dave Ramsey web page.

What an amazing freeing feeling we have to be cash only, save to buy new car with cash, investing, build a retirement, debt free college for our kiddo, and build a legacy for our daughter that she may never know debt. These were concepts that were always foreign to us, however now this is our reality.  Our income didn't change but our ideals changed.  

Today begin your journey.  This can be done at ANY income level... BE FREE!

http://www.daveramsey.com/category/tools/

Appleworks conversions....

I made discovery, now I realize that I am late to this party.  However, when our old Mac finally died we discovered that the Mac mini was pretty cheap, and since we had all the perifials already, we just got that instead, and decided to fix our old Mac in a few months for our kiddo.

When we did this it was an easy decision, because we have had many computers over the years and love them, but a several years ago we bought a Mac, and WOW is pretty much all I have to say.  Computing life has been way easier since then.   Now after we got our mini home and hooked it up, I went to open a few files, only to learn that the new system no longer supported Appleworks or couldn't open them.  PANIC   WHAT  shock!   How could this happen.  My first thought always goes to a I should have thought....   before my video failed!

I hit the internet and only found weird answers like.... "if you are using .cwk then you are a dinosaur"  and many more.   I mean who cares if I am a dinosaur.  I was an Appleworks addict, it did everything and a lot more than my Microsoft Office Professional did, and it was free (and prior to our Mac I lOVED the MS Office products)!     Now calling me a dinosaur, or old, or even archaic does not fix my problem.  I believe in share and share alike...   Which is why I am not a fan of tech forums, it seems that the only people who generally respond include weird little snippets like the one abouve.   I mean really people lets get creative here, is it possible to answer a question without all that.

So I made some copies of a .cwk file and began experimenting, and only 5 minutes later I found a solution to most of those files.   First off, you can get the new programs Pages, Numbers, and Keynote at the App store for about $20 each.   I bought them separately because I don't need a presentation program, so I only purchased pages and numbers.  The first item I converted was a spreadsheet, I right clicked the item and then selected "get info"   scrolled down to "Open with" and changed it to Numbers, then closed the "get info" box.   Then double clicked the file, and it opened in Numbers with no problems.   I was shocked at how easy it was.  I did the same thing with letters or other word processing (archaic phrase... yes I know)  but used Pages instead of Numbers.

For the files that were created using the Drawing feature of Appleworks use EazyDraw or  Intalgio   I have not tested these yet, as I have not had an immediate need for it.  But there are a quite a few recommendations for it.

So there you have it, a fairly easy change over from Appleworks.  So I think we can relax and breathe now!

Thanksgiving Memories

Yesterday was one of my favorite Thanksgivings,  we got to hang out at the hubbys house and visit with family.   We played board games for hours!    I felt like any moment the ghost of Norman Rockwell was going to appear painting us!    This was seriously a top 5 Thanksgiving moment.

Another one was the year we were making dinner and the pan I used was not deep enough to hold the turkey  We tried to pull out the Turkey and some of the Juice fell out in the oven and instantly flames shot up everywhere.  My mother-in-law grabbed a fire extinguisher but we yelled "NO SAVE THE TURKEY" which, in hindsight sacrificing the house and not the turkey was not the smartest thing to do.  Well during this commotion my husband calmly walked over and threw flour on the fire...  there was puddles of gravy everywhere.  It was awesome and we still laugh about it every year!

So there you have it folks... my recipe for oven gravy!  thats a freebie.   I hope everyone enjoyed there thanksgiving too!

Being an entrepreneur is fantastic.   For me it is the ultimate in creativity, multi-tasking, and control (or lack there of).   In my experience the road has been great/terrible/diverse.   I would recommend it to anybody.  One of my hobbies though is creating and deciphering business/marketing plans I don't know why and I am not sure I can explain it.  The artist in me cringes at that idea, however when I see an idea or a spreadsheet I get all warm inside with anticipation...  its weird I know.

Which sort of leads me to what I have dying to blog about all day.  Today I saw 2 great examples of entrepreneurship, one was a couple of kids who were in front of there house selling koolaid for .25.  There were in there cutest little "I'm an awesome kid" clothes.  Now my favorite was when I pulled over to buy some, not because I was thirsty or even like super sweet koolaid but because if these kids were outside not playing video games or on a cell phone, I am going to support it.   I bought 2 for me and my kiddo and as I was paying for them they looked at me grinning and said "do you have anybody else you would like to buy for, we're saving up for christmas"   now regardless if I believe that it was true or not, that was just good marketing.   I could learn from this...  

See a need or tug a heartstring, know your customer and fill the need.  They saw me, a mom, who pulled over on a busy road to buy a 2.oz sized cup of koolaid for a quarter.  Of course I will, anything else do you have a tip jar.    LOL

Now my other favorite thing is business names. Yes they should be creative, or funny but they should at least be pertinent...   Now what I mean is if you name your business Jane Doe LTD.   Thats great but what do you do are you a cleaner, seller, artist, what do you do.   Your business name doesn't tell me that.   Now if your name is   "Buzzkill Pest Control"   I am going to literally LOL   When I saw this I thought seriously at the notion of switching purely because of the name, because how awesome is that.  Here this person used a word typically used in a completely different setting and transformed it to a business name that is both creative and pertinent.   Now anytime I hear/read the word "buzzkill"  I will only think of this pest guy and the great story of today...  Thanks Buzzkill guy your awesome!

tap tap tap.... is the blogger still here?

Well yes... and no.   I have been on hiatus so to speak, concentrating on my illness and treatments, and wondering why my hands are starting to make new shapes and fingers going in new directions!  Learning how to write with my left hand since holding a pen and typing takes forever and hurts!  

I gotta tell you learning, how to write is incredibly difficult, I have a whole new appreciation for children.  Which is basically what I am doing.  It is difficult to start over with anything I feel even less competent sometimes.  I think the key is not giving up and try not to project my own insecurities on other people.  And to not let other people's judgements define me.

Anyhoo... my apologies for dropping off the map, both on the blog and in life in general.  Which brings me to today.

Christmas, Ass, and books... wait what?!

Is it too early to talk Christmas... well its hot so any vision of coolness makes okay right?!  So today I was reading my daily group of blogs, and one by Jon Acuff  had cracked me up a little specifically a reader comment by the name of Jennifer:

Jennifer June 21, 2011 at 11:57 am #

I’m so glad someone finally made fun of this.
“I felt like there were two possible reasons to call your wife your bride. The first is that it’s biblical. Isn’t the church called “the bride of Christ?” It’s not called the “wife of Christ.” So using “bride” could be a throwback to the Bible. So maybe saying “bride” is like answering the question, “What Would Jesus Do?” He’d say bride. OK, I get that.”
The Bible also calls donkeys “asses,” but when I tell someone about the cute donkeys I pass every morning on the way to work (Yes, in Brentwood, TN) I don’t say, “Hey, make sure the next time you’re driving down Cloverland you check out the asses.”
It’s just not right.

 I couldn't help but to think of Christmas time, when they put up the lyrics on the Church wall and you see a line like this:  “Where ox and ass are feeding”  I still giggle thinking about it.  Luckily I am not alone, there are many children who giggle with me as well.  Any who, I wanted to share one of my favorite blogs, and  a particularly funny response to it.

John Acuff is a writer, his most recent book is Quitter.  I really enjoyed this book.  While I waited what seemed like forever (I pre-ordered it) for the release date.   Somehow I had it in my head that it was going to be a step by step mechanized book on how to start your dream and quit your job.  You know Chapter 1, Day 1  open book, close your eyes, realize dream.... 

But really it was a realistic view at not only finding your dream but also how to get there without sabotaging your life, which consequently not only ruins your dream, but also your day job.   So I recommend that you read this book, it helps shine a light on your path... kind of like a flashlight, hey maybe it should be titled the flashlight book!