No Chaos No Order

Category Archives: heart

Introducing my Some-Day-Perfect Sewing Closet!

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I started at this house with my own craft room. It never looked organized, but I navigated it well enough and always had my sewing machines (my Brother serger, my 1974 Kenmore, and my 1954 Elna on a treadle) out and ready to use. Here is one part of the room when it was organized.

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And here is a photo showing all of my unfinished projects piled up on my work table.image

Phew!  That’s a lot of stuff!

When I got pregnant, I thought a lot about how to organize our space. We’ve mostly been living like college kids with our computers and projects taking up the living room, but I wanted guests to feel comfortable – not sitting in a computer chair or a couch immediately behind a dining room table. I also knew with a crawling baby and walking toddler, we needed baby proof space for Robin to spend a lot of time in. Instead of turning my craft room into a nursery, I decided to make it our office and make the front room a real living room that is safe for Robin to play in. Either way, I had to drastically downsize my crafting projects and supplies.

I decided that I would keep out my scrapbooking supplies, since I anticipate doing a lot of scrapbooking about our family as well as a few, select sewing projects (snail trail quilt, doll cloths (when we weren’t sure about Robin’s sex), and yarn and embroidery supplies). Everything else either went to Goodwill or up in the attic.  Actually, almost everything went into the attic.  Someday I’ll have an even bigger studio and need all that stuff!

Warren and I moved our computers into the what-was-once-the-craft-room and my supplies were haphazardly crammed into the closet and a bookshelf. Here’s the sewing closet.  It is approximately 41″ x 21″ and 9 feet tall.

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Observe my office area and scrapbooking shelf:

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It’s all so MESSY!!  I’d like to sew a cover for my household notebook, but I don’t want to get into that closet.  And Warren keeps stepping on stuff trying to get to the window to pull the blind. Some day soon, I’m hoping next week even, I’ll be organizing these spaces so they function. And, after all the blogs I’ve been looking at, maybe they’ll look nice, too!

PS: Go buy something from my Etsy shop – I need the space!!  😀

Ok,so remember when I said…?

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Why haven’t I posted anything in the last few days? Because the camera in my tablet keeps crashing the whole thing when I try to take a picture! Grr… And as I described in too much detail just a couple posts ago, I am just not successful at blogging unless all the components are working. And they weren’t.

Anyway, we had two appointments this week.   …   It occurs to me, I wasn’t originally going to talk in much detail about Robin’s health here, but it really is integral to my anxiety, exhaustion, and efforts-in-organizing.  It impacts all of my four “focuses” (relationships, health, home, and heart), so I think will!

Feeding clinic was unusually short. Two of the three specialists were absent, yet it still took us an hour and a half. Robin tried thickened sweet potatoes and, after an initial gross-out face, he seemed interested.  Not eager, but interested. We talked about the pros and cons of putting in a g-tube rather than the nose tube. We also talked about when to do another swallow study (next January).  Even though the appointment went well, Robin has been showing increased  signs of reflux the last two days. Not fun for any of us! To do item: call Dr re: reflux meds

The eye exam went well and it was really easy – no forcing Robin still or touching his eyeballs! Did some vision field tests with a cute block and very animated assistant before she put dilation drops in his eyes. We waited a half hour and then the optometrist came and looked at his eyes. Retina and nerve fine, vision right where it needs to be (slightly far sighted right now), and both eyes working together and equally. He said about 50% of preemies end up needing glasses because one of their eyes develops at a different rate from the other.  So we’re not worried about retinopathy anymore, but we are watching for vision differences. We go back in six months and we won’t have to do the dilation again, so it’ll be even faster and easier.

Monday I finished the rain barrel and cut the wood for the changing table too small. :/ I have decided to ask my dad to put it together for me (To do: call dad re: assemble changing table)

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Belated {this moment}

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{this moment} – A [Sunday] ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. As inspired by Collecting the Moments … One by One and SouleMama

{this moment}

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{this moment} – A [Sunday] ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. As inspired by Collecting the Moments … One by One and SouleMama

Robin’s memorabilia storage

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Albums

Some of the odd-sized things to go in the box.

So, Robin is 7 months old and he already has two albums, a baby book, and a medium sized basket full of memorabilia.  I can imagine letting myself try to document every aspect of his life like an archaeologist — I’m pretty sure the Smithsonian will be ecstatic when they are presented with his cataloged life!  OR, I could try to be more reasonable for my own sanity and his.  I did some internet searching (what else is there to do when you’re tethered one-handed to a pump?) and was inspired by/used ideas from several organizing divas.  I used an accordion file in preparation for his entire school experience as DaNita did and printed Jen’s free photo sheets and labels.  HINT: Jen’s grade-level labels encompass 14 years, not 12, so you may consider getting a 16-tab divider or use separate files like she does if you want to use them all.  I also used an idea from Laurel to put it all into a single plastic tub for each child.

THAT was a shopping experience!  At my baby shower my hostess and guests created a lovely album with advice and extra pages for baby memories.  A 12 x 14 inch lovely album.  It was hard finding a lidded container that was big enough, but not too big.  Staples, Office Max, Target and the Container Store’s webpages didn’t have just the right tub.  I was delighted when I found this at Fred Meyers!  The 50 quart, Sterilite Shelftotes are a little taller and longer than anything else I saw in my area.  They aren’t super cute, but they were on sale!

Things are already getting crowded in the tub, though.  I am going to get a legal sized archive box to hold the preemie and hospital things I’m not ready to part with (mainly a teeny-tiny diaper and his first “micro” sized outfit).  But there’s enough vertical space I could put it at the bottom of the bin maybe.

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Now my only conundrum is:  Should I go buy two more, in case we go ahead and have more kids?!  O.o

{this moment}

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{this moment} – A [Sunday] ritual. A single photo – … – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. As inspired by Collecting the Moments … One by One and SouleMama

{this moment}

Mail-able Gift

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In a previous post (A Whole Lotta Not Much), I mentioned briefly that I like to make height charts for baby shower gifts. When I first started, guests (and sometimes the receiving mom) were perplexed and underwhelmed and I felt a bit disappointed. Especially amongst the adorable baby clothes and accessories! But, after repeatedly hearing from moms 3, 5 and 8 years later how much they and their kids love them, I am satisfied with this great gift.

I’ve always used wooden boards, but I now have some friends in other states and I don’t want to ship a board to them – particularly to Alaska! So I have experimented with one that should travel better. I used marine vinyl as the base and Sharpies to decorate it. Cutting the vinyl was easy, but I’m not sure if I think it looks cheap and tacky. And I did not realize that the Sharpie ink can transfer to other parts of the vinyl if you over lap them when they aren’t completely dry. O.o

Here is my first one!

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I like painting better than drawing…

{this moment}

Planning a “This moment” ripoff…

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I’m sitting in the quiet house, letting both my loves sleep a little longer while I search other mama blogs about household notebooks. One blogger mama, at Collecting the Moments … One by One, inspired by another (SouleMama) has been posting a photo of special moments each Friday. I like this idea very much! Especially in contrast to the chaos I’m struggling to master. It is all too easy to be wrapped up in coaxing order into our lives amongst the daily and hourly tasks that seem like chores, that I miss what I am really doing is caring for my baby! Being a mommy! Its sad that I need to consciously remind myself to be open to the wonder. BUT! If I need a reminder, I’ll use a reminder! So, I plan on following in their example and I will be paying attention to my family thinking not only how to manage my anxiety by organizing things, but to also see how things are wonderful just as they are right this moment. Except I’ll do it on Sundays.  And without text as their caption (and soon-to-be-mine) will explain.  😀

But, just because:

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