Time for some NEW GOALS!

Well. We're here. And now, Daddy's here too. I need some new goals! After six weeks without my husband around, knowing he was headed home, I allowed myself to get quite sick. For 36 hours I felt pretty yucky... and wound up leaving the care of my boys in the hands of their Grandaddy and Great Grandparents for the day. I slept a lot but went to bed last night thinking "one day of being sick is enough!" Today, I feel better! It's AMAZING what a powerful tool our minds are!!!

Anyway, I realize that getting here took all my focus for so long, that now I need something new to focus on. I have to get happily involved in something while I wait for my home to sell... then I can get involved in house hunting. So, I keep thinking, and saying, that I'm going to work on my quilting patterns. I want to design and sell them. I want to work on the pattern for a Diamond Quilt I designed last year. I want to have it done in July. Okay. I'll get the pattern written and to my testers by July 30th. I think I can do it. No. I KNOW I CAN DO IT! :D

Suzy :D

PS: Listening to Country Radio in a small town I’m hearing some fun new/different stuff, like Brad Paisley’s “I’d like to check you for ticks”.

In a Rough-and-Tumble State, We're Here!

Well. For all the hulla-balloo, we've arrived! It still feels incomplete. My husband is missing and we also don't have a home or a clue when we will have one... our house was sold... or so I thought. Then, about three weeks ago, it fell through and we - make that I - had to get it ready and on the market. It went up for sale last Friday. Now. We wait. Life in limbo. It's weird how disconnected you can feel without a place to call your own... especially so with small children.


My Mom and my FIL drove up with me... a great help! But literally as soon as we got here, they both stopped helping me with my sons. Suddenly, we're all out of our element, and they are so excited to be with cousins and kin, there is unloading and unpacking to do, and two very wild boys. Things should feel better tomorrow morning after a bit of rest.

Suzy

Continuing Onward and Upward

643 miles down on our journey from Mesa, Arizona to Lander, Utah. We're in Price, Utah... we had wanted to go on to Duchesne or Roosevelt, but when we had my husband (who's currently at school in Canton, Ohio) call around, he tried 13 different hotels between Price and Vernal (our morning destination) and found ZERO rooms available. So, we found a Budget Hotel in Price that had two Queen Rooms, one of which accepted our two cats. We figured it was better to stop here than risk getting caught (after eleven hours of driving) with "no room at the inn!" It's an Old-School motel where you pull right up to the room... which is nice because there's less carrying of bags. Also, the rooms are remodleded inside, so it was a nice surprise for the $70 price tag. :D

There's an oil drilling explosion going on in this part of the country... the Federal Government has recently released lands in Wyoming for oil drilling, and so there's a "Boom Town" thing happening.

Anyway. We had a good day's drive with only slight grumbling from the five party members. Now, I should stop this and get the boys to bed, as well as myself. We still have six or seven hours of driving (about 315 more miles), plus visit time tomorrow. We want to stop and see my sister in Vernal, Utah... she just moved there the beginning of the month and the kids are wondering where they (and Grandma, who's traveling with me) is. So we want to show them that we will all be nearby (two hours away). My sister is living on the South side of Flaming Gorge and I'll be on the North side.

Time for bedtime stuff...
Suzy :D

FINALLY on the Road!

We're FINALLY on the road North to Wyoming! We left Chandler around 3:30 pm and arrived in Flagstaff about 7:30. Along the way, we stopped at Kohl's, for my Father-In-Law, a potty break, and pictures in Sedona.

Notice we took the scenic route through Sedona (much to FIL's chargin'... I wish I could describe the flames in his eye and the twitch of his lip when I mentioned my preference to this route! - it was HILARIOUS and kept my Mom and I giggling for hours!) Let's see, we drove around Flagstaff for 30 minutes looking for the hotel... we had a good day.

I really wanted to "play" more with my friends and family these past few weeks in Arizona, but with our home sale falling through, situations dictated that I spend a great deal more time preparing the house for sale. I feel good about what I've done and look forward to a quick, successful, profitable sale!

It will be nice to get to our "destination" and to see family and to see my hubby (Friday or Saturday) AND to see the horses! I'm looking forward to all of it! Now, to bed! My FIL's alarm is going off in seven hours and five minutes... who ever heard of an alarm clock on a road trip?! We don't even have anywhere we "have to be" at any certain time! :P I guess that's what we get with two "Generals" on the trip (me of my household and him of his family!)

Suzy :D

Cheap Art Paper for Kids

I’ve just decided that buying “art” paper for our young children is a TOTAL RIP OFF! I went to my local newspaper today. I was able to buy a roll of plain newsprint, 27” W to like 4’ W for TWO DOLLARS a roll! This is a HUGE roll! Also, it comes to mind that perhaps wrapping paper is a total rip too!!! Anyway, you know how we buy little tablets of “art” paper or rolls of “fingerpaint paper” or other things? Our young kids just want to draw / paint / color… they don’t care how expensive the paper was! I can think of all sorts of things do let the kids do with this… I can cut it down into “standard” sizes, or cover floors / walls / tables with it and let them go crazy! It can also be a temporary drop cloth for their projects.

Just thought I’d share with you… use you local newspaper as a resource for cheap art paper for kids!

Suzy :D

PS: I think I may buy some of this and take it to my son's school... I'm sure they'd appreciate it too!

Why Hosting a Yard Sale is A Bad Idea for Me.

As I sit here exhausted and in pain, I am telling myself that I must remember why a yard sale is a bad idea for me. I know myself. I'm a bargain shopper extraordinaire. A "Penny Vice" I've been called. I try to get EVERYTHING for a bargain, and then want to make money when I'm finished with it too. I know that FLYLady says to just "let it go" and "bless someone else with our stuff", BUT, I'm preparing to move over 900 miles and I just have SO MUCH STUFF to unload! Certainly (I erroneously thought) I can have a yard sale and make a profit too.

Now, at the end of the first day of the planned weekend sale, I sit starting at a pile of cash. Did we make money? Yes. Could we have made more? Yes. Could we still make more? Yes. Was it a lucrative venture? Perhaps. Was it the best use of our time and energies? No, NO, NO!!!

I've only spent a week preparing. I started out by spending about an hour making flyers to invite the neighbors to participate. Then walked around with my neighbor handing them out (staying up past my bedtime and continuing a cycle of exhaustion). Then what? Oh. For a week I cleaned this place and that spot looking for things to sell off. I was completely inefficient in my cleaning adventures as well as constantly "stressed out". I moved things to the spare bedroom, then to the library, then to the porch.

Once on the porch, a friend picked up on my overwhelmed spirit (not a hard thing to sense by mid-week) and came to help me price and make signs. She even brought the supplies for this. (Tonight, in my “SHEness” I found some NEW supplies hidden away that would have worked just fine). We then spent FOUR hours together working on these things. (So I moved everything again.) Finally, this morning, we all got straight out of bed, hardly stopped to eat, forgot our normal routines (the house looks like a whirl-wind right about now) and ran outside ... to move everything AGAIN. I sat out in the "beautiful" morning... with pollen and dust and, oh, temperatures approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit!

By the time I staggered inside I was hot, exhausted, and had a sinus headache. Here I am eight hours later and I still am exhausted and have a headache. I've taken more medicine today than in the past month... I suspect rest and water will be my best solutions.

During the yard sale, I did stop to write some lists of things I need to do for the move... over seventy came to mind off the top of my head. I have more lists for actually selling the house and moving, this is just the "get ready" list. Am I overwhelmed? YOU BET!!!

After this exhausting morning, we decided to load up the extra stuff and donate it, when it cooled down. We didn't get to wait that long. A HUGE dust storm blew in and we were running around in the street gathering things that were blowing around. So. Now my living room is full of all the stuff that we quickly brought inside. We have to move it AGAIN... to the truck then take it AWAY!!! How many hours have I spent? What is my time worth? We have about $130 in cash from today. But, we are still all exhausted and feeling ill. Hardly a fair trade.

My sons sold some toys and books. They sat outside for about two hours. They had fun. They made $30. I think they're efforts were worthwhile. I may allow them to set out their table another time. I however am FINISHED! My husband and I are too susceptible to the heat to be purposefully sitting around in it all day. Not to mention the dust and pollen and how miserable it's made my head.

I write this not to complain, but to remind myself the *next time* I get the brite idea that I should have a yard sale... it's just not worth it for me!

FLYLady is right. I'd be better off just blessing someone else and getting it out of my life!

Suzy

One Step at a Time

I had a good day. It's been a long time since I've been able to say that. I did have a bit of a stress in the evening, but, I contained it and moved on, so that too was good. I was relaxed and at ease and was kind with my children. We went out and did some things; we had some friends stop by, and I stopped to sit and RELAX and ENJOY them. I send my husband pages throughout the day, texting him what we're up to and how we're doing. He was happy when he got home because ALL of them were positive today.

Also, I started to lay the binding out and decided not to worry about it. If a corner has a seam, I'll either stop and fix it then and there, or just deal with it. I got the fabric under the presser foot just as my son got up from his nap. Tomorrow, I've laid out sweats and a comfy shirt to wear (if I have jeans on, I tend to do too much, and even though it was a good day, I have big circles under my eyes and I need to rest). Anyway, tomorrow, I'll see if I can start to (and maybe even finish) sewing the binding on my hubby's twin-size Christmas Quilt.

It feels good to be relaxed and at ease.

Suzy :)