Craft Blog Update

So I couldn't really get used to wordpress, so I ended up moving my craft blog to blogger. The new address for my craft blog is:

http://livelovedreamcreate.blogspot.com/

Hope you like it!

I have a couple small organizing things to post about soon and need to upload pictures from my son's 1st birthday party, but I may be posting those over on the craft blog, since it involves a few crafty things I did.

Sorry I haven't kept up with this much, I am really hoping to get into the swing over organizing and decluttering this summer. We are planning a garage sale for June, so I definitely need to get to work!

Yay for Spring

Our utilities are split into our electric/water/city all on one bill, and our gas (heating/water heater) are on another bill.

In the winter our gas bill has been over $100/month. This past month I have tried to keep our heating/ac off. I was quite proud of myself for making it through a 90 degree day and I still didn't turn on the ac. Having central air has definitely spoiled me as I grew up in a house with only a swamp cooler. So I am going to try to go for windows/fan/being outside before I go for turning on the air. There have also been some cooler nights, but I like it to be cool at night, so we have just been turning on a little heater in M's room at night instead of heating the whole house.

So I got our gas bill yesterday and it was only 23.32! I am so happy as I was trying to over budget and had entered 100 for that for our budget this month! This will definitely help us catch up.

Now if we can just get our electric/water bill down!

Craft Blog

This post is probably going to turn into a long rambling introduction into my new craft blog, so in case you don't want to read it, I'll start with the link:

http://lovedreamcreate.wordpress.com/

I'll start off by saying it is a wordpress blog because neither lovedreamcreate nor love-dream-create were available on blogger, although I have checked both, and one has never had a post and the other it says doesn't exist. Oh well I guess I will give wordpress a try.

The reason why I had to switch blog sites is because I have spent a long time trying to come up with a name for a craft blog and a logo to go with it, because it's just not the same if I don't have some cute little logo to go on the top of my blog...you can tell how great I am at that right? :) So today I finally came up with this and what I think will be a cute logo, I just have to figure out how to make it digital. I drew up a sketch, not well, but it gets the idea across, just need to play around with photoshop to see if I can make it, or find someone who can! So you see if I stuck with blogger, it would be another 6 months before I got a craft blog going, because it would take me that long to come up with another name, and then I still might not be so lucky for that name to be available!

If you haven't been able to tell already, I am a fairly pessimistic person, who also gets discouraged easily. I spend a lot of time thinking about what other people can do or what they have or how they are, and think how I want all of those things. I don't really ever sit back and think about things that I CAN actually do, and mostly I am afraid to do things, because, yes, I'm afraid of failing, or I'm afraid no one will like me and so on. I am also a perfectionist, and never see anything I do as good enough, and I really need to quit being so hard on myself and start being proud of the things that I do. So this craft blog is about me attempting to step out of my shell and actually start doing things instead of just thinking about them.

I don't really know much about using wordpress, so it may take a while for me to get the layout set up, but I do have an intro blog up, and will hopefully be posting some project pictures tomorrow. I am a little sad that I can't find a "followers" thing on wordpress, but interested to learn about the features it has.

I hope to see you over there!

Some Organizing At Last

So I started this blog to post my progress in organizing, but have been stuck in a rut for the past couple months.

It's actually amazing how little time it would take, if I could just find the motivation to do these things.

Yesterday, I decided it was time I finally clean the shelves in the living room that have been piled with stuff for months.

I actually took these before pictures on March 11, and it has taken me til May 2nd to actually do anything about it!

The top of our entertainment center:
Before:
After:

Top of my DVD shelf:
Before:
After:

Bookshelf:
Before:
After:

Sorry the boxes are blocking the bottom shelf, it still looks kind of bad, but I'm not exactly sure what to do with the bottom shelf to make it look great, but the books aren't leaning like they are in the before pic.

Getting these little things done has definitely motivated to try to do more little things, because they really don't take all that long, and it makes me feel good to have accomplished something.

New Month, New Start

So I have decided that I am going to start looking at each month as a new start. A time to evaluate the past month, and make adjustments to start moving in the right direction, with finances, time, organizing, etc.

A few things going on this month...our neighborhood is going to have it's first block party! We are so glad to have great neighbors.

Our 2 year wedding anniversary is on May 17, and our baby boy turns 1 on the 18th! We are having his birthday party on the 22nd, which is also my sister's b-day.

I can't believe my baby is already going to turn 1, but I am excited about his party, and am loving planning for it! I think I have discovered a new love in party planning!

So yesterday was National Scrapbooking Day, and while I didn't exactly work on my scrapbooks, I used my awesome Animal Crackers paper stack from DCWV to create an awesome birthday banner, for my little man's jungle themed birthday party.

I am thinking of other ideas for decorations and such too, and look forward to showing you all after his party!

I will also have pictures soon of some organizing I have done today! Got lots to do to get ready for having all the company over for M's party!

I also have decided we need to somewhat start over financially. I use Quicken to track our finances, and have made a new file starting May 1st. We are going to start tracking better and trying to stick more to a budget. We are not going to eat out unless it is socially, when family is here, or we go out with friends.

Well the family is heading outside to enjoy the evening, so I will go join them! Hope everyone's having a great weekend!