InBloom

For about a week we had the most beautiful Bradford Pear trees in bloom on our street. They smelled incredible and were absolutely lovely. My neighbor called them Dogwood trees. ;)

The View

We are here in beautiful northern Arkansas and this is the partial view from the deck. I am constantly amazed at the stunning beauty of my creator.

Food Glorious Food!

I originally started this post with the intent of taking pictures of what my kiddos and I eat for lunches each day. Inspired by this flikr group (which I think is totally awesome) along with the vegan lunch box blog. Obviously I failed miserably at completing this task, because I started this blog entry almost 2 months ago. And my presentation leaves much to be desired. Oh well! Maybe it can give someone some ideas so I'll post it anyway.

Hm.... Back in the saddle...

I've been reading some blogs on simplicity lately and it inspired me. I've been feeling the pull towards living with less lately and these blogs were like some sort of mental lip balm. I feel better having read and been inspired to live a less-cluttered life with more time for what's important to me.

http://www.bemorewithless.com/
http://www.welivesimply.info/ (good family stuff in here)

I am deeply intrigued by people like this:
http://www.missminimalist.com/

Some questions I have for myself (and you if you'd like to answer them!):
What do I want to make more time for?
What does "living simply" mean to me?
Because what I think I'm finding out is that it's about mental and physical clutter. Having too much around you and being too busy or thinking about too many things (which I tend to do).

One thing I'd most definitely like to do is reduce the clothing items I own. I've already reduced what I wear to a 3" section of our closet and haven't really noticed much of a difference. I pretty much wear the same thing over and over and over. At some points, I will wear the same t-shirt for 3 days in a row if I haven't left the house (usually happens during the snow storms).
Some interesting ideas I read about as for clothing:
One woman suggested having something like this dress in her wardrobe, so it would function as several dresses.
The One Dress looks like another way to reduce the number of dresses you'd need in your wardrobe, and is way cool.
And what about this version of the infinity dress? Or the convertible top?
All of these items begs the questions: How many clothes do we need? What of self-expression in clothing choices? How much of a hold does the fashion industry have on me/you?

I'm sure there will be more about this later. I'm out for now!

I Don't Knit

Nor do I plan to pick it back up. So I guess I'll have to buy two of these, then won't I? Adorable!

Recent Reading

The Jesus Storybook Bible - I was looking for a bible that was aimed at my almost 4 year old's age range, and something she could understand. This is a bit verbose for her attention span, but the messages are spot on.

One Thousand Gifts - I LOVE this book. It's written in a way that makes me want to slow down. To think slow, to talk slowly, to act slowly. To embrace each moment of each day and live it for what it is. Awesome.

So the bottom four I checked out from the library:
Feeding the Whole Family - I was looking for a good family cookbook and I think I've found it. Not that I am lacking in the cookbook department... just cookbooks full of things my girls will eat. This one is pretty good and I've already tried several of the recipes out of it. It's a possibility I'll add it to my repertoire.

Crazy Sexy Diet - This book has hit the diet world by storm. The author battled cancer and learned about holistic health in the process. This is the best book on nutrition and body care that I've seen in a while.

Appetite for Reduction - I love the author of this cookbook and have two of her previous cookbooks. Usually she's not shy on using more caloric items in her recipes, though this cookbook is her answer to those who say her recipes aren't low-cal. So far everything I've tried out of it has been really good and needed minimal tweaking.

Fast Fit - I'm looking for a good book to tell me how to fit my patterns to my body. I copied a few pages out of this book to have as a reference. Maybe they'll help. Who knows.

I LOVE to read! Now go grab you a book and sit down and read it!

Recent Sewing

I've been sewing a little bit lately... ok, let's be honest. When am I not sewing? At completely random times throughout the day, I find myself sneaking into the sewing room (also the guest room) and making progress here and there on a project. When it's complete, booyah! I made something. And it is wearable, too. Even better!


I had tops for my two daughters that I fully intended to put applique's on. For whatever reason they ended up being dresses. Easy way to use up scrap fabric. The bigger dress has a tie that ties around the front, rocking the oriental look.






Are you tilting your head, saying "what does this skirt look like? The picture is too close." Yes I know, but hubby hasn't been home to take pictures of my creations this month. I had to hold out the point and shoot camera for this one. It's from the Amy Butler pattern I use to make the plaid skirt out of. This is an awesome pattern. My only gripe about this skirt is that I failed to look at where the large flower was placed on the last two tiers of the skirt. But that's minute, really. Love it. Now I just need some Springtime, please!


Once again, no one to take the picture for me... this is a stretch sweater knit that I banded with elastic and called it a day. Very easy to make, took less than 30 minutes from start to finish. I'm looking forward to wearing this one a lot!