It's Time for an Update

It has been an absurd amount of time since I have posted anything here...  I mean, I have had a lot going on, but I feel like I would like to share an update of recent happenings. 

First of all, the BIGGIE -- we have a new addition to our family.  Dylan Kate Hall made her debut May 14, 2015 at 10:44 pm.  She is an absolute joy and seriously, the best baby.  We are very blessed and although it has been challenging, I am really enjoying being a mommy to two beautiful girls.  I plan on sharing her birth story and what life as a family of four has been for us soon!

7 lbs  & 20" long

Second of all, we planted a (small) garden and me and the Lineman are trying hard to keep it up.  Between the girls and us both working full time, it is a job, but I am enjoying getting the yummy produce out and trying to learn to preserve it for wintertime.  We have lots of squash, cucumbers, a few zucchini, tomatoes, peppers (hot, sweet and banana), okra and corn.  It is not much of a garden compared to most around our area, but it is more than enough for us, and almost more than we can keep up with.



Our tiny garden, that is producing a lot!

We also have some home projects that we are working on.  We have to have a new roof -- we have been avoiding/dreading this one since we moved into the house five years ago, but we are going to bite the bullet and things should get started in the next week or so on that.  I will share pictures before and after...I am sure it will make a huge difference in how our house looks.  (Although, I really wish it was like a new kitchen or something...).  I have also decided to try to de-clutter and re-vamp the house one room at a time.  I recently cleaned out the laundry/mud room.  This seems to be the room where everything gets dumped and it was bothering me, so I decided to do something about it.  I will be painting and organizing it when I get a chance, and I plan on sharing that. 

Finally, I am working very hard to get back in shape and lose some lbs since the birth of Dylan Kate.  This is something that I find very personal because I feel a lot of disappointment in myself for letting "weight" rule my thoughts.  I don't want either one of my daughters to ever feel like that...I want them to be beaming with confidence and not to stress over body image.  However, I feel like I need to make improvements in the types of things that I eat (not fast food every other night) and I know that I need to be more active.  I had always exercised in some form or fashion, running, gym membership and even cross fit before Carter was born.  After her birth, I just fell completely off the wagon.  I don't know if I just wasn't motivated because I was overwhelmed with the change in my life from having a baby, or if I kept thinking "why should I change...I'm just going to have another baby soon enough."  Most likely it was probably a bit of both.  However, I am feeling much more motivated since Dylan's birth and since I am pretty sure that more kiddos are not in our future, I am ready to get back on track.  So far I have lost 30 lbs...ok, that's from the day I gave birth.  It still makes me feel more accomplished, even if I did lose most of it during the birth process.  From the point in which I actually started trying to lose, I am down 7 lbs.  I am excited and am looking forward to sharing what I have been doing and eating. 

I may not be able to keep my blog updated as much as I would like, but I really enjoy having an outlet to share the happenings in my life.  Here is another pic of little Dylan Kate in the hospital.

Organization Project 101: User Manuals

This past week was an unusual one for me.  It has been fragmented by rain, ice, then snow and frigid temperatures.  This has caused my work to be closed for the past few days, and luckily has given me some time to work on a few things around my house that I have been needing/wanting to do, but just never got around to doing.

One of those things was organizing a drawer full of product manuals that I have had since we moved into our house.  Being as it has been almost 5 years since we got married and moved into our house, you can imagine what this drawer looked like.  Pretty rough.

Here is the problem.  This pic doesn't really do it justice.  

So, for the solution, I had been planning on/wanting to load everything up into a notebook to keep it all organized, but like most things, I just hadn't gotten around to it.  Some time back, I think I saw this on pinterest or something like that, but I went back through all my pins and I can't find it.  Just know I am not smart/creative enough to come up with this idea on my own, but I can't direct you to the site where I found it because I don't remember.  Shocker.  Anyway, it worked out really well, and now I know where to find these user manuals in case I need them, which in a lot of cases I do.  Also, I now have a free drawer in my dining room, which is awesome.  Here is what I did: 

I used a basic 3-ring binder, a pack of sheet protectors and some dividers for different sections. 

Then I loaded up those babies with all the different user guides/instruction manuals I had and voila:

 Nice and organized.  I separated my sections into small kitchen appliances, household products, baby products, large appliances and miscellaneous.  It felt great to get some extra organization going on during my snow day.  

Also, I will say this will be nice in case we ever sell any of those items, we can go and pull all of the instruction manuals that go with it, which would be helpful to the new owner.  

How do you all keep up with these types of things without letting clutter overtake your life?