Freecycle: This week's random act of kindness

So I'm trying to keep up with my random act of kindness goal that I made at the beginning of the year and so far I think I'm doing OK, but I want to do bigger things.

I mean I've been paying people compliments, sharing treats I normally would hoard, taking photos for friends, spotting people money when they're short... Things like that.

Well, I did something different this week when I experimented with Freecycle. Freecycle is an organization that connects people so they can get rid of stuff they no longer want, and find things they're looking for for free.

I have been getting local Freecycle emails daily for over a year now but I've never done a "transaction" if you will. But since I'm trying to organize things around my house I thought I'd give it a shot and see if anyone had a few things I was looking for:

Mason jars, and empty oatmeal cans (to make hair bow organizers for Lil' J's growing collection).

Well that same day I posted that request I got offers for both. A woman left a box of mason jars on her porch and I picked them up while I was out, and that night we grabbed a lady's oat meal cans that were about to hit the recycling bin.

My husband complained on the way to get the oatmeal cans because he was convinced it would have cost less to just buy oatmeal, and would have wasted less emissions. Whatever dude!

I wanted to pay it forward and give away something I had laying around forever... My dog collar supplies.

Photos by Katie Harris

Before having Lil' J I made my dog all sorts of collars and matching leashes. I was convinced I'd start a business and make tons of money selling themed collars and leashes. Well, that only lasted a hot second. Yea, I sold some sets but I quickly became sidetracked with a new hobby--blogging, and my dog collar webbing and hardware was collecting dust in a pretty little wicker basket that could now be used to hold supplies for my new hobby--sewing.

I was thinking I could donate some of the supplies to Goodwill but I worried no one would find use out of it and it would go to waste. Freecycle was a much better idea--I hoped.

I listed the dog collar supplies and wondered how many days it would take someone to notice it.

Not an hour later I received an email from a woman who works with animal rescue groups and she says they'd love the supplies. How totally awesome is that?!

I was elated that my dormant stash could be put to good use.

She said she'd come and pick it up the next day, so I spent the night organizing the crafts and even threw in some old bandannas I had that don't fit Snoop anymore, along with some cute doggy print and Longhorn ribbon and things.

I'll admit, I did keep a couple of leash snaps and a snippet of webbing so I can make Snoop another nice leash when I'm taking a break from making clothes.
The next day she came by and grabbed it and she seemed very grateful.

So, one (wo)man's seriously lack of commitment/hobby ADD became another person's dog's treasure.

My acts of kindness so far haven't exactly been "random" rather more thought out, but they're helping random people, so I think that counts... Right?

Have you ever tried Freecycle? You should, it rocks!

PS: Yes, my dog was a dog model. I guess all of my children will be models.

How Pinterest saved my marriage

Another one of my goals this year is to get organized. I think it's got to be the number two resolution of all time after getting fit. I don't care about my health. But I do care about dying in a house that's decked out with cute homemade crafts.

Via

I didn't used to be this way... Homes that are super clean and organized remind me of Stepford wives and I don't have time for that crap. Problem is, that was the number one thing my husband and I would argue about... Keeping our place clean.

I'll admit, he does more than his fair share of cleaning. All of the dishes, the laundry, the bathrooms, the vacuuming, the sweeping and mopping... Heck, writing that all out made me realize he does a lot. Ok, so maybe he has a reason to complain about having my crap everywhere.

Lil' J doesn't help either. Any progress I make with cleaning quickly gets destroyed by her tornado path. And after a long day of work, picking her up from school, then feeding, bathing, making lunches and organizing clothes for the next day, I'm beat and the last thing I feel like doing is clean. I want to sit on my butt and blog. Or edit photos. Or read a book. Or watch Teen Mom... Heck, anything but clean!

When I was pregnant and read the "nesting" chapter of my pregnancy book to my husband he laughed and said "you'll never do that!" Well, I proved him wrong. But that was pretty much the last time I wanted to clean. ...Until now.

... ENTER PINTEREST...

I joined Pinterest last year and spent the first while re-pinning clothes I liked, and clothes I found for Lil' J. Photos I liked, hair styles... Stuff like that. I quickly scrolled past the home decor pins I saw in my feed because "those aren't me" I thought.

Then I began to craft more, sew more, and my crafting area quickly turned into a swamp mess. Disorder everywhere. I tried to shove things in the corner of the living room/ my craft area and warned my husband to stay away.

I blamed my disorder on our small living quarters. Two bedrooms just isn't enough for our family.

Then, one day while browsing Pinterest for sewing inspiration I can across a fabric organizer pin. It was genius. A glorious sight.

I read the tutorial and decided I needed to do this with my fabrics. I'm just getting started and have lots to go but this is already looking better than my heap of fabric stuffed in a picnic basket. I donated books from my bookshelf and created space for this!

But why stop there? If I'm organizing my fabric I might as well organize my ribbon, and my tulle, and why not my whole living room while I'm at it?

I was hungry for more suggestions for organization. I found pins for decorative mail holders you can hang in your kitchen, and keep your mail organized but hidden.

Via

I created a board I decided to call "Order in the court!" because order is what my house needs, and my house is... like a court? ... I don't know. But it seemed cool at the time.

Anyway, it's my new favorite board in progress. I'm constantly looking for ways to organize my daughter's toys, old clothes, books, tutus, bows. Plus my crafts, kitchen items, clothes, EVERYTHING! Here's what I did for my patters... This idea I didn't even find on Pinterest, I should pin it actually!

 

I spent all day Monday sorting through toys and areas of our living room we haven't touched in dare I say it... A year? Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad, but I will say that my fireplace mantle had random crap on it for longer than I can remember. I mean, I can't remember seeing it clean. But it's clean now!

I sorted through Lil' J's downstairs toys and donated a heap of them. Then I went to her upstairs toybox, which was full of only tutus, pettipants, pettiskirts and things like that. I took those out and put them in an old comforter bag I found when I was cleaning out the hall closet. I made a label for it "Dress up time!" and squished it under our bed. Now her toybox has a few toys in it but it's nice and neat! And all of the random tutus we had strung around the house have a neat place to call home.
Ah! It feels good to be getting organized. I never thought I'd enjoy it but Pinterest has seriously made it fun.

What does my husband think? Well at first he was like "uh huh, sure, I've heard this before..." as I told him about my goal to clean and get organized. I tried to give him a Pinterest tutorial and show him my organizational board but he was just like "Huh? is this like Twitter?" So I gave up and have just been showing him the ideas I stole as I accomplish them.

He's very impressed with my progress so far. He even complimented me on his favorite new addition... The basket I set aside for our TV remote controls, since we're constantly losing them.

"I used to think that mom stuff was kind of lame, but it's really cool" he told me. I wasn't sure what he meant by "mom stuff" so I asked him to clarify.

"Like the craft stuff. Like that mail holder thing you want to make, that's really cool." Ah, I get it. The organizational craft things. Not sure why he chose to classify that as a "mom thing" but I let it go. He's just excited to me married to a real life Martha Stewart, I would be too.

I'll document the little things I find and attempt throughout the year to hopefully keep me motivated and accountable. I also have some before/after pictures to show you but I'll wait until the "after" is where I want it to be. You can follow me on Pinterest to see what ideas and inspiration I have up my sleeve.

Has Pinterest changed you life too?  
PS: If you're not on it, let me know your email addy and I'll send you an invite to join!

Reading the Scriptures like it's Twilight

Why is it that I can pick up a fiction novel and fly through it in a day but every time I touch my scriptures I'm satisfied with getting through a few versus? A few chapters and I feel like a champ.

This year one of my goals is to really FEAST on the words of Christ. I'm going pretty good so far. Well, sorta.

Good news is I made a deal with myself that I wouldn't read my leisure books until I read the scriptures. Bad news is I haven't been rewarded with my "fun book" yet. Which right now is the Percy Jackson and the Olympian series--Book three.

Good news is I've read The Good Book every night this week. Bad news is I haven't gotten through a full chapter before falling asleep.

My husband and I read all of the children's series with Lil' J last year and this year I'd like to start her on the real deal. Not sure where to begin but I guess it doesn't hurt to start with Genesis 1.I know she won't understand it but if we keep reading every night, eventually she'll start picking things up.

Family and personal study. Whew!! You know, I can't help but feel like if I had an iPad I'd be so much better at this. I could digitally highlight my favorite versus, read with the lights out, have them with me all the time... Hmmm.

It didn't used to be this hard for me. I think it's partly because now I have a billion things going on, it's harder for me to slow down and focus on something that's normally last on my to-do list.

Back when I was a good person, I would read the scriptures by searching for specific topics or stories in the index that I was interested in. I felt I learned more studying that way. Starting from the beginning can seem overwhelming. I'm not sure how specific I want to make this goal yet but I think if I'm reading something, anything, each night, I'll eventually get into a groove I like, so it doesn't feel like a chore.

Jeez Louise, this sounds horrible. But hey, at least I'm trying.


Do you have any kind of guides or helpful tips you follow to read the scriptures personally or with your family?

Finding random acts of kindness

I've decided this year I want to be a nicer person.

Generally, I think I'm nice. Compassion is my passion, and I hate to think I could have hurt someone's feeling by being unkind. I even hurts me when I know someone has been hurt by another's unkindness. I don't understand why anyone would intentionally want to be mean to someone else. Call me extremely naive, but I truly feel deep down everyone has some good in them. I don't know what turns that good bad, but maybe kindness can help heal even a meanie's soul.

If everyone cared about each other more than we cared about ourselves the world would be such a better place.

I want to try to do my part this year by finding a random act of kindness to execute once a week.

When I set this goal the only random act I could think of was paying for some one's food behind me in the drive through (and pray they aren't ordering for a family of 10). I couldn't think of much else, so I had a chat with Mr. Google and came across HelpOthers.org where I found a plethora of ideas!

They have this cool list called a "smile deck" of cards sorted with acts of kindness for people you know, for strangers, for our world, and for yourself.

I'm already eyeballing a couple ideas for this week. I love the idea of doing things for strangers, but I think it's almost even better to do things for people I know too.

I'll let you know what I decide to do this week. Right now I'm leaning towards calling or writing a letter to a mentor.

Have you ever done anything like this? I don't think I've ever made such a conscious effort to try something like this.

Here's how it's 'bout to go down on my blog

My blog has been through so much over the past three years.

End of 2008-2009 Was a blast going on and on back and forth about becoming a mom, then finally getting pregnant about a year after starting my blog.

2010 Was full of pregnancy documentation, promotions, and exploring the world of reviews and giveaways. Toward the end of 2010 I realized that wasn't for me and pretty much went in the opposite direction in 2011 avoiding most at all costs.

Toward the end I think I found a happy medium, and I hope to continue that.

I sorta felt like I fell into a mid-blogging-life crisis for a little while. I didn't want my blog to ONLY be about my daughter, in fact I wanted it to be about ME and my experiences raising her. Not "she did this and she did that..." I also didn't want to be a blogger who writes sponsored posts all the time. I like to craft but I'm not a "craft blogger" and I'll never be a go-to site for the coolest crafts. Maybe cool crafts for dummies because my skill level is as such.

I like photography, and taking photos but I'm learning as I go. I'm no Pioneer Woman.

I actually don't really focus on anything. Which some blogging coaches would say is not good if you want to "grow your blog."

This made me take a step back and ask myself once again, why I'm blogging.

It sure as heck isn't to make money. Not on this here blog. That should take some pressure off, right?

I love keeping a journal and I'm going to be totally honest right now... I love knowing that people are actually reading it. People actually think my life is interesting/ crazy/ entertaining/a bad reality show they can't turn off. Either way, it's flattering.

Ok there I said it.

So now that I got that off my chest, I'm trying to find a balance between keeping fabulous people who like to read my blog, but not CARING if nobody is reading my blog. Let me explain...

I don't really pay attention to my blog stats anymore. I get a weekly email with how many people visited but other than glancing that over I don't pay attention to the analytics. I DO however, read each and ever comment and email I get and I get all happy and sappy when I get a big response to a post. The problem is the opposite is true when I get little to no response. I'm like "wait, where did everyone go?... They must hate me... Ok I shouldn't write about that anymore."

So one person may say that my no-sew tshirt dress tutorial helped them SO MUCH, but in my head I'm like "huh, one comment, people must think that's boring."

Then someone may email or facebook me saying they loved it, and I get excited again for them. It's an emotional roller coaster.

Ok, its not that bad. It's silly, but some of that it goes through my head. Especially cause I'm a hypocrite. Yea, I'll admit it. I don't comment on blogs I read as much as I should either. Actually last year was so busy it was an all-time low for visiting other blogs and commenting back.

Ok, I'm going on way too long about this. Anyway, point is, I may have thought up a solution to my problem.

If I'm going to be honest with myself, I'm not writing this blog JUST for myself. It's for myself, my daughter, my family, my friends, and all of the people who have written to me and said my experiences and words have helped them in some way. If more people discover my little corner of the Internet, its awesome. But I can't stress about it. This aint a job. In fact, it's more like free therapy.

SO... To find the balance between caring and not caring and going back to my frequent stream-consciousnesses posts I'm going to write as if I'm writing this blog for myself and my best friend.

Funny thing is, I don't think my best friend reads my blog.

You know who else doesn't read my blog? ... Aside from my husband. (He doesn't read it either (but he's not allowed to)). My mom. Jeez, now that I think about it no one reads my blog. Except you. Therefore you will be like the BFF I'm writing to from now on. I can be silly, share my secrets (but not the ones that could get me fired or divorced) introduce you to cool things I find, teach you how I made something new, tell you how much I love being a mom, and ask you what you think of my new outfit, or the photo I took this morning.

And I won't be sad if you don't respond right away because hey, we are busy people. And life gets in the way. I can totally relate. Even if you don't talk for a while, you know your BFF is still there whenever you need them, and you can pick back up right where you left off.

Another thing... Going through my blog rolls and old posts I noticed an extremely different crowd. It's like a class of Baby Making Machine readers graduated and I'm yapping to a new group of kids.

I feel bad having a blog roll when I can't add everyone. Especially when I'd most like to visit those who visit me and see what yall are all about because if you like me that means I'd probably like you too.

To solve this problem I got rid of my blog rolls on the sidebar and my friends link at the top. Now I can focus on getting to know visitors who want to be visited and make new blog friends. How will I know who you are, you ask? With my handy dandy stalker tracker of course. It'll email me your address and I can come visit your house and bring you cookies!

KIDDING OF COURSE!

My comments section will be like my daily blog roll. If you leave your link in your comment, or if it's attached to your name and you've updated within a month, I'll assume you don't mind me paying you a visit back. I've already been doing this since the start of the year and it's SO NICE visiting you back!

So there you have it! My blogging resolution to write as if this is for me and my BFF in a nutshell.

A New Year A New Me

Every year I make a list of goals I have for the year. Cook more, eat less crap, exercise. It's the same routine. I'm still doing that, with hopes of following through fr once. But this year, here online, I thought I'd make a personal blog resolution: To keep it real.

More Photographs.

More interaction.

Less comparing myself and my blog to others.

More honesty.

Less big company reviews.

More supporting mom-owned shops.

Less arguing.

More passion.

More returning the comment love.

More giving back to charities (like we did for March of Dimes).

There are blogs I LOVE to read. And every time I visit them I leave smiling and refreshed that there are still bloggers like this and this (and there are so many more but these are a couple of my many favorites).

When I go through my reader I see posts full of reviews, giveaways, pleas for more subscribers, and advertisements. I got swept up in this movement this year. It began to consume me. Not in 2011.

Now, if a giveaway is included in a post it's at the bottom, in italics, and more discreet. If you leave a comment, you're entered. No hoops to jump through, there aren't a million ways to enter (because some people have all day to enter every way possible but most people don't) if you just comment on the post you can win, and there's maybe one way you can get an extra entry.

I was brought down by a handful of people on twitter, surrounding births of friends, my birth, decisions I was making regarding it, and how I've chosen to raise my child. I've found blogging about thinking about becoming a mom is much less controversial than decisions that come along with becoming a mother.  I let it get to me, but I won't in 2011.

I can't sensor and alter every line I type for fear someone will misread it the wrong way and think I'm talking about them. I can't write in fear of offending. Or worry a joke toward myself will be taken the wrong way. I'd never intentionally hurt someone, but I can't waste precious time trying to correct every single misunderstanding.

I won't sugarcoat things. Actually, I think I'm good at not pretending like my life is perfect. That would be hard to fake.

I'm coming back next year. Stronger. Happier. Unafraid.

I'm gonna do me.

Happy New Year.