New Change: Busy, but HAPPY!

Lately I feel like I just have not had enough time in a day. I'm sure most people feel like this. On a good note, I haven't been stressing out about my long to-do list!

Here's a few things I've been up to lately:

Coming up with art projects for the kids I work with

Three Weddings & a Kids Photo Session (editing, editing, editing)

Traveling

For two of my weddings I had to travel out of town. It also worked out for me to go to my niece's 2nd Birthday party. Chris was able to make it to Rocky Mount for her party too!!!

Personal craft projects

I made these for Emma's Birthday! It was such a fun project to work on. I also made two more owl's for Sara's (one of my bride's) flower girls. I was really happy to find out that one of the girls sleeps with her owl every night!

I have a few other projects going on at the house. I'll look forward to EVENTUALLY sharing those!

Keeping our house clean (on going of course!)

Clearing Clutter (again, on going!!)

Planning Parties

Preparing for something big in my future ( not referring to babies....more to be revealed later!)

I know someone who would love to see me post a few pictures of how her baby shower is going, but that's not going to happen!

This list could continue on, but I don't even have time to post anything else! Back to work! Tomorrow I'm planning on going to Church and spending the rest of the day with my husband!!!! NO WORK!!!

New Change: Decorating & Simplicity

It's funny that my first post was suppose to be about our move to our new apartment. That post is still waiting to be completed. I didn't want to complete it until our apartment was finished being decorated. I am so close to accomplishing this. It's a huge deal for me, because I have never 100% finished decorating a place that I lived in. I can't wait to share photo's of our place soon!

In the meantime I have been trying to de-clutter and giveaway a lot of stuff too.  I have been doing really good at purging. We seem to manage to take quite a few bags to goodwill and I sale some items on Craigslist. My goal right now is to keep things simple. Here's a list of a few things I'm doing or working on:

• Minimizing the amount of kitchen gadgets that I have and probably don't use.
• I have donated a lot of plastic containers. We don't have a lot of cabinet space and I hope to buy all collapsible reusable containers in the near future. We already have a few collapsible pieces that I love! These are way more practical for me then the large bulky containers that take up too much space. Here's a few more that I'd like to purchase soon:

• I decided I no longer wanted to buy plastic vinyl shower curtain linings. Even though they are cheap they are not recyclable. I purchased a recyclable lining that you can also wash and reuse. The vinyl curtains seem to get really gross quickly and I would go through those pretty fast.

•  These are a few items I recently bought to help "complete" my house decorating/simplifying projects:

My Dean Smith autographed basketball FINALLY has a place to call home! I want to make sure I take good care of this one so I can pass it down one day!

I was very excited to purchase this mini food processor. I have been wanting one for a very long time. This will be so much easier for chopping up spices and other food items. I can't wait to try it out! I'm sure with the holiday's coming up I'll get to use it quite a bit. I love the color I picked out too!

I have been wanting one of these cool gadgets for a long time! I finally purchased a refurbished one and I love it! I have been so behind with my receipts this year, so this is going to save a lot of time for me. It will also help out around tax season!!!

We bought these simple curtains for our bedroom. We live right off of a main street and it can be pretty bright through our window. The curtains we bought aren't this long, but the same style. They are very simple and they serve their purpose. I don't like spending a lot of money on items like this when I know we're going to be moving in the near future. I am just glad we finally have something to block a little sunshine and street lights!

I can tell such a huge difference in my life now that we've tried to keep things more simple. I really hope to keep the concept of simple living in our future (even when we have kids). I also hope to stay aware of the environment and try to do small things like recycling and buying reusable items. This change is so good for Chris & I. It truly just makes me a happier person! I'll look forward to sharing  more soon!

Summer: Waiting for Irene...

I've grown up near the coast and have always been use to the possibility of experiencing a hurricane around this time of year. I'll never forget Floyd, which caused major flooding where I am from. This was the first time I had ever experienced so much damage in my own hometown.

Chris & I now live at the beach. I'm grateful that where I am isn't going to be hit quite as hard this time, but still concerned for all those that will be. I debated on going back to Rocky Mount (hometown) since Chris is out of town, but I decided to stay. I will be staying with some good friends tonight and maybe tomorrow depending on how things go. I cleaned my house and packed up almost everything that is important to Chris & I. I don't think anything will happen at our apartment, but I'd rather be safe. I can't even imagine losing my pictures, hard drives, stuffed animals, and all of our keepsakes that mean so much to us! Our car is now packed full of those items.

Now I'm just waiting. I have my Ben & Jerry's (that happens to be the flavor of my favorite cake!) and I am content! Hopefully I will say the same thing when I return to our place in a day or two!