Thrifty, Practical Decorating

One of my favorite things I’ve made a priority in my home is what I’ve decided to call “practical decorating”. I’ve been doing it for years without really giving it a name, but after thinking it over and looking around my home for something worthy of adorning the pages of this blog, I began to see a theme throughout each room. Everything has a purpose. Everything is useful AND beautiful (to me at least). Here are some of my favorite examples of practical decorating from my own home:

We inherited some beautiful aprons from my husband's grandmother and I really wanted them to be visible as well as accessible because we use them almost daily. So, I hung them right on open hooks in the kitchen. They’re easily accessible, and add a beautiful pop of color to my kitchen! With aprons as vibrant as these, there is simply no reason to stash them away in a drawer or behind a pantry door. 

I actually first saw this idea in the IKEA showroom, but I love how it translates to my kitchen. My cookbooks sit on open shelves on the walls. They serve dual purpose as decor and once again, are easily accessible for every day use. Cookbooks for me, are much more than a practical tool but also sentimental. Gifts given to me by my grandmother and mother, and I love how I'm reminded of these things as I glance around the most common room in the house. 

Here’s another one of my favorites. I found a mail holder at a thrift shop, washed it, and hung it in my kitchen and use it to store produce. It’s once again, super convenient and adds the perfect pop of color! Plus, as a bonus, it frees up counter space since now all my fruit and veggies hang on the wall! 

Another one of my favorite things to display is art work from my very own littles. These are pieces my two oldest did in Preschool and Kindergarten. They each created their own versions of Van Gogh’s “Vase of 15 sunflowers”. I absolutely adore these pieces and they also adorn the walls of my kitchen! I love when the pieces on my wall have a good story to go behind them!

Jumping over to the master bath-I needed a simple storage idea for our wash rags. I found this adorable basket last year, and right away had the idea to hang it on the wall. Practical, and adorable! 

Another option I use a lot, is I decorate with pictures of my family. I have these three photos of my babies, all in mismatched frames, hung at the end of our hallway to our bedrooms. There’s nothing more important to me than my family, so it’s the perfect choice to look at and remember their younger years every time I walk down the hall! I've also never had professional pictures of our family taken. Ever. So, don't be scared off if you feel like you don't have "good enough" pictures to display. Some of the best pictures are those candid's that really express the love between your family! 

Back to the kitchen- I found these old cooking magazines at a garage sale a couple years ago, ripped out a page I found to be nostalgic and complimentary to my kitchen. I framed the magazine page and hung it next to the big windows in my kitchen. This is a super cheap option and so unique! 

When decorating, one of the first things I think about is purpose. I want it to work well with every day life. I also don't want a bunch of items sitting around getting in the way. Simplicity and practicality are probably the best ways to describe my style. Of course with a pop of color here and there! ;) Let me know your favorite ways to decorate with functionality! 

Libraries change Lives

Game changer you guys. Game changer. Utilize your library. If you aren’t a regular at your local library, you are missing out. Having an online account with my library where I can order things and put things on hold has been fantastic. Literally I can search for books by genre, by things my kids are interested in, or just search what’s new. I place a hold on the item I want, and as soon as it’s ready, I get an email. I can then use the DRIVE THROUGH yes, drive through to pick up my items.

We haven’t used redbox, we’ve been checking out old favorites and waiting patiently for our turn to view new movies for FREE! Recent examples  have been Spider-Man into the universe, Ralph breaks the Internet, and classics like Sound of Music and Andre. Here’s a tip-I literally check the “new movies” section every day or two. Even then, by the time I place a hold I’m usually 150th-300th or so in line. But our local branches are all connected and they have several copies so it usually moves fairly quickly. 

I’ve loved being able to look up science books and get several and then keep the ones my kids like for longer, and just return the ones that weren’t quite the right fit. It also is kind of helping them feel like a “surprise” is waiting for them at home. It’s also helping curb my habit of picking up treats or trinkets for them while I’m out and about because I’ve thought about them, searched for something, found it and brought it home, it helps curb my gift giving habit. Instead of buying them something, I’m pouring energy into finding something I know they will love for free from the library! 

There are also countless event and program opportunities through the library. There are classes and seminars on how to learn to do something, homework help, lego groups, storytimes for toddlers and lets not forget the summer reading program that will be coming up soon where your kids  earn free books and a t-shirt! They also have an adult summer reading program now!!!! 

Our library also has a resource where you can live stream some movies and audio books! What???? Yes! Move over Netflix. 

I typically have a revolving relationship with the library and as a result have around 15-30 items checked out at all times usually with different due dates, so here’s how I keep track of it all:

There’s a basket dedicated to library materials in my living room. Everything goes in there as soon as we get home. When we are finished reading a particular book or we’ve watched the movie, it goes into a specific bag that hangs in the front coat closet ready for me to grab whenever I’m going back to the library to pick up more holds. I usually stop one way or the other once a week at the library for returns or to get more items or both. 

I also love that I get an email reminding me when items are due back. I get an email 3 days before items are due. This helps me remember to either make sure to read or watch the item OR to get online and renew it. 

This system has worked pretty well for us so far. Everybody knows everything from the library stays in the living room and we really pay minimal fines and have never lost a library book because of this. (Somebody reach over and knock on your wood desk right now for me) 

Bottom line-for this penny pinching family-the Library has been a lifeline. We LOVE that we have such a fantastic reaource that literally costs us nothing yet makes us feel so spoiled! What do YOU love about the Library???? 

Happy At Home

I always knew I wanted to be a mom and always knew I wanted to stay home with them. I had visions of happily teaching my future children everything they would ever need to know with smiles on our faces and laughter filling the house. I imagined matching bows in the girls’ perfectly combed hair and little boys who said “yes ma’am” and helped me take out the trash while skipping merrily down the driveway. 

You don’t even have to have your own kids to realize this dream would never be reality. We didn’t have to wait long after marriage because by the time we’d been married for a year I was 7 months pregnant with our first bundle of joy. A bright and bouncy baby girl made her way into our world and with her came my first dose of the reality of parenthood. 

There were smiles and laughter and giggles and even the occasional matching bow but there were also tears, so many tears. There were ruined outfits due to messy diapers and spit up and tired eyes and exhaustion. There was confusion and doubt and fear. So much fear. How was I ever going to manage to raise this human without completely ruining her? 

I had the privilege of staying home with my first baby, and then my second and eventually my third. I made this work by always baby sitting for one family at a time on a full time basis in addition to homeschooling my own children. 

Some days it felt perfect, it felt right. It felt like I was meant to be a mom and teaching them at home and like we would always have fun together, side by side as we discovered the world and each other. But, some days it was overwhelming. I felt like I was drowning in housework and homework and like I would never find myself again. I was busy all the time and felt like I had no time for myself. 

I knew I had to find a way to make it work. A way to salvage some joy in the mounting chaos that was life.. I realized I needed to figure out how to be happy at home. 

At first I thought I needed to redecorate and paint and love my environment. This produced more discontentment and so rather than being satisfied and fulfilled I was left feeling frustrated with not only my situation but every little thing started to bother me. And I mean EVERY LITTLE THING. Like the mail being laid on the counter in the wrong place, my husbands shoes kicked off next to the chair in the bedroom, the old couch  we still had from a yard sale when we were first married. I was going the wrong direction. I was growing more and more frustrated with everything and not finding any lasting peace or joy at all.

Eventually through a study I launched myself into through the Bible’s definition of the word “peace” I started to reevaluate what I had understood the word “peace” to mean. 

I thought that once everything was right in my environment, situation and other people changed enough, I could then be allowed to experience peace. However, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I noticed that in the Bible the word “peace” is actually described as something to strive for, to work for, to maintain. All of these are action words. Peace requires work, striving, and effort to accomplish. 

Peace needs to be achieved internally before it can be achieved externally. For me, internal peace is very much tied to my external environment. I feel the need to accomplish all my work before I allow myself to relax. The problem with this of course, is we all know the work is never really done. I was pushing myself to exhaustion and not finding any joy in all the in-between moments. I needed balance. Big time. 

I’ve been working hard on this for the past year. About taking a deep breath and sometimes letting the mess rest till morning. Sometimes the dishes sit in the sink. Sometimes the floor is just dirty. Sometimes the clothes sit in the laundry basket folded (or maybe not) waiting to be put away for a few extra days. I’m trying to learn to focus on one or two small things to help me relax and find some joy and peace despite not having everything all in order.  

The first one is that our house is constantly filled with music. If someone isn’t playing an instrument, then the other is singing. And if everyone is busy, we are definitely listening to music. Our favorite way is by using this speaker hooked up to Alexa. My husband got me this for Christmas and we all have been loving  it. We love to listen to music to get us going in the morning, to encourage dancing while we clean, or to calm us down after a rough day of school or work. Music is life in this house. 

I have a problem. A candle problem. I love, love, love the coziness that a candle can bring to a room. I also love the freshness a good scent can fill the room with. It literally centers me when I have a candle lit. Give me a cup of coffee, music playing and a candle lit and I can let any amount of chaos take over my life. Lol 

This one is a fun one. We have no “fancy” dishes in this house. I love to use what we have and not save anything for special occasions. A Tuesday afternoon is a perfectly good reason to serve snacks in beautiful dishes wouldn’t you agree? The kids probably don’t care, but mommy Is happy when a pretty table is set. Even if it’s just family and just a Wednesday night. Anything to brighten up our table, is welcome at my house. Because it can’t help but brighten your mood to eat off of beautiful dishes, right? 

Maybe you don’t care at all about how your table looks, or if you ever light a candle in your house again. What small things do you do in your life to brighten up your day? 

Waste Not Want Not

One simple thing that has stood the test of time and been proven to save money, is the practice of using what you have, first. Always. Our great, great, great grandparents would roll over in their graves if they knew how we waste and replace these days. We have lost an appreciation for the art of making things last. It’s so easy to toss and buy again that we don’t often have a real reason to work hard to salvage something. However, this was one thing I intentionally set out to be better at this year. I knew this would be one that would impact our budget and our life more than anticipated. When I thought I needed to go to the store and buy something, my challenge was going to be to look high and low and use some creative thinking to make whatever I could, work. 

This has manifested itself in a myriad of ways over the course of the last two and a half months. On day 8 or something like that my child brought me a white-out cartridge in literally a tangled web of white sticky string, and I immediately began walking toward the trash can. But just before tossing the valuable office tool into the white bag of decaying nastiness, I paused, looked at the disaster in my hand and sighed a heavy “this isn’t really what I meant” guilty sigh. It took me over ten minutes to sort, untangle, tie and restring that red plastic white-out dispenser. But I tell you what, I’ve never been so proud of my diligence. It worked, I no longer NEEDED anything again. I had solved the problem, solved the need and my list for the store remained at a balance. 

The same idea has come into play countless times in the last ten weeks. We think we NEED  to buy shirts for the upcoming parties at school, but I used materials we already had in the craft room and they came together beautifully and kept our hands busy on a snow day. Using this practice once or twice doesn’t add up to very big savings, but a habit of considering all options BEFORE purchasing something new, will lend itself to a surprising amount of money left in your pocket! 

Even though I’ve been meal planning, and we aren’t eating out, there are still days where things don’t go as planned and still times when the refrigerator has a random assortment of food left and it’s taken some major creativity to create a decent meal. Last week, this looked like baking chicken breasts in a bath of marinara sauce, shredding some mozzarella and spreading it on the top and naming the conoction “pizza chicken”. It wasn’t too bad, actually. This weekend however, it looked like making one of my absolute favorite things ever, overnight oats! I had some strawberries and raspberries on their last few days. Slightly soft, and ready to turn. I thought about just tossing them, and then I remembered this awesome make-ahead breakfast or snack! You just put the oats in the bottom of some glass jars or plastic containers, (about 1/3 cup) pour 3Tbsp milk onto the oats. Top with a couple spoonfuls of yogurt, sprinkle of berries and a drizzle of honey. Let sit overnight and enjoy! These are so great! My son and I love these and will take for lunch even sometimes. Also, bonus, they’re just so beautiful! It was the perfect way to use up some slightly mushy fruit and make use of every dollar I had spent at the grocery store! 

What We're Reading This Week

Round two of "What we're reading this week" is upon us. I thought I would include what we're reading during our family devotion time in the evenings. This book is incredible. It's devotions based on science and how absolutely remarkable God's creation is. We've been doing this nightly since the summer and everyone loves it. We're almost to the end, but I'm keeping this one to go back through again in a year or two. 

You guys!!!! I had this book when I was little and I came across it at a thrift store sometime last year. I pulled it out and the kids are getting a real kick out of it. They love reading one or two of these silly poems after our devotion every night. Seriously-this is a good one to introduce your littles to poetry and rhyming. 

Lily's been working her way through Nancy Drew graphic novels this week. I think this is her second one since we left the Library yesterday. hehe She's decided she really likes mysteries and will continue to pursue this genre! I love when they find something they really like to read! 

This is my read this week. Its a tough one guys, I'm not going to lie. It's full of triggers so if you're prone to set backs, this might not be your book. I was studying psychology when I met my husband in college and I am truly fascinated about what makes people who they are. I'm curious about how others live, feel, and think. I want to know what makes people, at their core, who they are. Because of this, this book caught my eye. I never imagined I would relate to it as much as I have though. It's been tough to read at times, but also really made me think. This is a well written, fast paced book. I would highly recommend it to people who are confident it won't set them back in their own psychological health. 

Weston is a reader. Through and through. He read these top three books today during his snow day. This is a series he found at the library yesterday and they're an easy read and apparently funny. 

 This is the other series Weston has been really loving. I've been requesting them from the library and he will finish one in about 30 minutes as soon as I bring it home! He laughs out loud to these books and Lily usually reads them as well and they walk around quoting funny bits from them like you would quote a line from a movie! Love it!

Norah discovered Winnie the Pooh recently and we've been working our way through these stories. I'm amazed how still she will sit and really study the pictures and listen intently while I read. You can't go wrong with a good old classic like Winnie the Pooh! 

Crumbs

As I prepared for company to come over this past week, it always brings to the front of my mind the ongoing to-do list that comes with owning a fixer-upper. Of course, maybe that to-do list exists with home ownership of any kind. Anyway, when I host company, I truly enjoy it. I love entertaining and I love sharing our home with friends. I love hosting dinners and having an excuse to make lavish meals. I do find however, that I can let my joy be diminished by the small things I notice around the house. The bare foot prints all over my freshly mopped floor, the doggy nose marks on my clean windows, the fact that every closet I open seems to contain a surprise of some sort placed there by one child or another. I used to dedicate the day of company coming to a full on cleaning spree. However, now that I work outside the home, I try to spread the cleaning out over the course of the week so I don't feel overwhelmed all in one day with the cleaning and the cooking that needs to happen. But, here's the real deal. Life happens in this house every day. Every day spills, every day the dog goes outside and back in again, every day my three kids run around bare foot on my wood floors because heaven forbid socks stay on their feet for longer than 30 seconds after entry. Every day we eat, and get crumbs inevitably all over the kitchen and dining room. Every night we sleep and wrinkle our beds, every day we add to the bathroom contamination. Every. Single. Day.

Here's what else happens....Years ago, I used to be able to clean the house during nap time. In one fell swoop I could run around and tidy most rooms in the house while toddlers slept peacefully tucked in their little beds and unable to disturb anything. That cannot happen anymore and it leaves me in a bit of a conundrum. While I clean these days, the kids are walking, running, jumping through every other room in the house. They're building forts, they're playing with their toys, they're reading books, and in order to do the latter each and every book must be removed from the book basket, of course. We all have the same obstacles in our way, right?

And...here's what else. My children aren't just older and no longer nap, they're older and more independent and want to pour their milk, they want to get themselves a snack, they want to find it, reach it, open it, ALL BY THEMSELVES. And these are things I want them to learn. These are things they need to learn. But in order for three children to be adequately prepared for the adulthood necessity of pouring milk, they must also be responsible for learning how to clean up after said mess, are you with me?

This brings me to my realization as I scrambled around the house last week grabbing this and that and tidying and wiping and straightening, that I suddenly stopped. I stopped right there in front of the linen closet, took a deep breath as I looked at the crumpled sheets shoved onto the shelf and realized that it was okay. It was okay that the shelves weren't orderly and straight like I would have done it. Whichever kid had been tasked with putting the folded sheets away, had done it the best they could. It's okay that my windows had a few marks where my daughter had wiped them in her attempt to clean. It's okay that there are mysterious marks on my couch, and the chairs at the kitchen island and crumbs under my table where my son didn't quite reach while he swept.

It's okay, because we're all learning in this house every single day. We're learning as we spill and as we clean, we're learning as we dance around in our bare feet on the wood floor making all kinds of marks. We're learning as we cook, eat and share a meal and then proceed to clean it up. We're learning how to do life. The kids are learning how to pour, measure, cook and clean and I'm learning how to have patience, how to explain things, how to love them. I'm learning how to be a mom who recognizes what really matters. So come on over to our fixer upper-come on over and enjoy the marks and the spills and the crumbs and all the fun that learning through this life brings!

Unique, Frugal Valentine Ideas!

I love coming up with unique valentine gift ideas for the kids to give out at school. This year was no different. Even though we're not spending on extras, we found a way to come up with some cute valentine gifts for the kids' friends. I saw this idea originally on Pinterest, and it proved to be just as simple as it looked online! We found some paint sample sheets at Menards and bought some matching ribbon. We then used decorative hole punches we already owned to cut stars for the boys and hearts for the girls in my daughter's class. We cut them in half, saving the hole punched side to both cut off the names of the paint colors as well as make it a better size to be utilized as a bookmark!

We paired the book marks with some valentine candy and there we go! Cute, personal valentines that are adorable, fun and cheap! 

I also found this free candy huggable printable online and printed these on regular paper, cut them out, had my younger daughter sign her name to the back and taped on some chocolate hearts. They turned out completely adorable! So simple, so cheap and yet so personal! Love how these turned out!