August 2015 Reading List

The Beaches and Brides Romance Collection
A Time to Embrace by Lynn A. Coleman

The Captain’s Wife by Mary Davis

The Castaway’s Bride by Susan Page Davis

The Lightkeeper's Daughter by Paige Winship Dooly

Restoration by Cathy Marie Hake


The Lighthouse Brides Collection
When Love Awaits by Lynn A. Coleman
Phantom of My Heart by DiAnn Mills
A Beacon in the Storm by Andrea Boeshaar
Safe Harbor by Paige Winship Dooly
Whispers across the Blue by DiAnn Mills
A Time to Love by Sally Laity


A Wedding to Remember in Charleston, South Carolina by Annalisa Daugherty

Clutter Busting Challenge August 2015 Part 2

I've purged 76 items over the last 2 weeks with a total of 187 items this month.

My purge pile:

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Clutter Busting Challenge August 2015 Part 1

My Childhood Album

My project was to condense photos from my growing up years into an album. It seems huge to me but its no were near as big a project as our family pictures from my children's growing up years.

I’m not sure yet what to do with the pictures of my family that I don't want and the pictures before I was born. My thought is to pass them on to my mother and let her deal with them. I’m the oldest child and so they may end up coming back to me. LOL I'm pretty sure she has all the family pictures in a box someplace and not organized or in albums. That is how I got the ones I have when my stepdad came to live with us. I put them in bags to at least keep them together until I had time to deal with them. My grandmother used to toss the family photos into a dresser drawer after they were developed. They were not very good at preserving family memories. Although, I’m crafty I have not done much to get photos into albums either. My thought is to create an album from my growing up years and a family history album and toss the rest into the trash. 

Does anyone have any advice?

What I'm keeping. My completed album from my baby shower- early teens years. I didn't have much to keep after I sorted pictures into stacks based on before I was born, my childhood, and 2 stacks with my kids. I'm saving the two stacks with my other pictures of after my kids were born to do later. These were all picture that I got from my dad a couple years ago.

The 1st stack is trash because it’s mostly scenery and blurry pictures. The 2nd stack goes to my mother since it was before I was born. I do wonder if I should keep the pictures of my parents during their dating years since they divorced when I was 5. The 3rd stack goes to my (step)dad since it’s his family.

The album I put together of my childhood. It took 4 hours to sort pictures and put together the album. The pictures are from the baby shower to my early teen years. I didn't have much since they are the pictures that got left behind when my mom and stepdad separated. I’m sure my mother has more but I’ve never seen them. My stepdad gave these pictures to me. I do hope to one day get a few more pictures to add since this is not even half full and there are big gaps.

My parents Daryle and Linda in 1969 about 3 yrs. before I was born.

The only picture I have of myself and my parents. They separated and divorced before I was 5 yrs.














The earliest picture I have of just my stepdad Pete and mom Linda. This was about 1979 in Colorado. They got together when I was about 5 yrs. and separated in 1992, when I was 19 ½ yrs.














My two most favorite pictures of my childhood. My family camping together. I'm the oldest of 3 girl. My stepdad, mom, and us girls camped almost every weekend for a lot of years.














My stepmom Phyllis, dad Daryle, and my sisters in 1984. I'm the oldest Jennie, Amy, and Christine. Our first time meeting our baby sister Tabitha.














My stepbrother Chris, stepdad Pete, stepsister Karen. My mom Linda, stepbrother David, stepdad Pete, and David's boys.

My View

 My view at 1:00 this afternoon:

I had a load of folded laundry to put away along with 2 days worth of dishes. I don't do much beyond the basic chores on the weekend. I was lazy this weekend and therefore had a pile of undone dishes. 

A close up of the organized stack of dishes.
 

My view this evening:

I had every intention of doing them after I read a couple chapters and finished eating my ice cream. My husband wanted to go have a late lunch at Subway so I never got around to doing them. Thankfully my son-in-law Michael was doing a load when we got home. It doesn't happen often that I get help around the house but I'm thankful when I do.


I did do a load this evening and the rest will wait.  I still have a few dinner dishes to finish tomorrow. I have a book to read. LOL

My Little Craft Office

We finished painting my little office and redoing the floor two weeks ago. It took a couple hours to move everything back into the room. I spent a week organizing, washing all the storage containers, and doing a final purge once I got everything moved back. I let things rest a week to see if anything else needed done. I'm comfortable that my office is finished. I’m really happy that the Oops paint that we used looks good with the décor that I already had. My office is small ab...out the size of a walk-in-closet. I’m blessed to have my own pretty space to do my craft projects and plan my homemaking chores.

I still have a stack of magazines to go through but I'll always have a stack. I’m really proud of the fact that I have purged so much out of my little office. I purged enough that I didn’t put the shelf back over the desk window and had my husband remove a shelf from one of the bookcases. I no longer have crafting stuff stored in the basement. I do have my quilting supplies in the guest room closet but it’s organized and purged too.

I’m thankful for the month long work my husband put into helping me redo my office. I had a vision of what I wanted to see when I looked into my little office and we were able to create it. I wanted a relaxing look that didn’t look as busy. Not putting up the shelf over the window was a big step to making that possible. I wanted to get rid of almost all of the craft stuff for children and make it my own now that our 4 children are grown.

Clutter Busting Challenge August 2015 Part 1

I've been purging my little office and my husband has been purging his shed. We've purged 111 items so far this month. Its time to make the trip into town to drop off our donations.

My purge pile: