The Dilemma: A Dreamy Office/Playroom?

We have always planned in the back of our minds to have our daughters share a room once they are both in regular beds.  This is the only way we could have a third child, and even if we didn't we could really use the extra space.  But this week my husband said "What if we put the girls together NOW and gave you an office?" 

What, what, WHAT?  Zoe is 1 year old in less than 2 weeks, and will be in a crib for quite awhile still.  Plus I JUST got both rooms looking great, so my immediate response was "That's crazy, let's wait...".

But now that the idea is settling in, I am obsessed with it.  Of course, I've already stuffed my new office with much more than will actually fit in there, and redecorated it five times in my head.

Right now, my office is behind the couch in the living room.  I know the husband is as bothered as I am (or more) by the cramped feeling (and look) of having my office in the living room.  But while it isn't as pleasing to the eye, having my office in the living room makes it possible for me to do a little work or create something quickly while the kids are playing.  So I've accepted that it's function over form for now.  Would I hate having my office in a whole other room, away from the main action of the house?  Hmmm...

Maybe I can move the action... I would love to split the new office in half, and have my desk and crafting area on one side, and a play area for the girls on the other.   I'm convinced this can work because my sister-in-law has an amazing office/craft room/play room in her house.  I mean A-MA-ZING.  She has agreed to let me blog about it, so I'll show you sometime.

Here is some inspiration from Pinterest...

{Source via Pinterest}

{Source via Pinterest}

{Source via Pinterest}

{Source via Pinterest}

{Source via Pinterest}

All of these inspiration images have beautiful built-ins, and since my budget should be zero dollars for this project, we'll probably start with something much more simple... but I'm definitely feeling dreamy about having this space!!  And there are some very budget-friendly ideas in there too! 

There are the girls to consider though...  Both girls sleep pretty well, so I'm not so worried about them sharing a sleep space.  Hopefully that would stay the same when they're together...  Does anyone else out there have a preschooler and an infant sleeping in the same room?  I know it happens all the time, and the kids will adapt, right?

What challenges am I not anticipating from this arrangement??  My head is really spinning with inspiration today!!

PLEASE weigh in with your thoughts!!

This post is linked up to:

Weekend Bloggy Reading @ Serenity Now

The Path to Our Dream Home: Little Girl's Room

Today we continue the Path to Our Dream Home series with our older daughter's bedroom.  To catch up, you can visit these posts: Back to the Beginning, the Main Bath, the Guest Bath, the Utility/Storage Room, the Media Closet, and the Nursery.  Each post tours the space in photographs, and shows how we work a lot of organization and function into each room of our small house.  There are many project ideas for each room, so none of them is ever "done", but they are all on the path to our dream home!

We planned for our second child about the same time our older daughter was ready to move into a regular bed.  Since we wanted to re-use the nursery furniture, we opted to move Alyssa into a different room with new (to her) furniture.  In order to completely separate Alyssa's transition from the new baby's arrival, we put together her new room as a surprise for Christmas, and Zoe was due in late May.  That worked very well for us; Alyssa's didn't associate her new room with her baby sister at all.

We based the color scheme for Alyssa's room on a beautiful play quilt that my extremely talented Mom made for Alyssa when she was a newborn.  Her previous room had been pastel pink, green, yellow and purple and I wanted to incorporate some brighter colors into a similar color scheme (so we could re-purpose her curtains, but more on that in a minute!).  This was perfect!

Then I found these canvas prints and pillows at Target and they coordinated perfectly!

We chose a white bed and trundle that can also be made into bunk beds with the purchase of a second bed, in case we ever decide to have the girls share.  We repainted the dresser and nightstand from my teenage bedroom white for use in her room, and painted the walls a soft lavender.  I chose a quilted coverlet that is bright pink on one side and lighter pink on the other side and simple lavender bedding, all of which could stay in the room with different accessories as she gets older if we choose.

My super talented Mom also helped transform the window-length curtains she had made for Alyssa's nursery into a coordinating valance for the new room by shortening them and adding custom appliqued flowers in brighter colors to tie in with the accessories in the room.

I discussed the awesome wire art hanging system in an earlier post. We really like the ease of changing out the artwork.

Someday we'll add a hang-up bar for clothes, but right now the closet is all about toys storage.  We use natural bins from IKEA to covertly stash toys all over our house, including here in the closet.  Dolls and doll clothes go in a slightly larger basket and vehicles are parked here as well.  The top shelf gives Mommy a little extra storage for over-sized items.  We'll put the doors on sometime when the girls are both a bit bigger, but for now it is easier access with them off (and they still haven't been sanded or painted, to be honest!).

At the end of her bed, Alyssa also has a play area where her imagination can really run wild.  Since she loves to help her Daddy works on cars, she spends just as much time at the workbench fixing things as she does playing in the kitchen - so awesome!

Many more projects are also planned for this room, so we'll be back here soon!!  :)

This room has all the different areas a pre-school girl needs.  How do you coordinate the sections of your children's rooms?

This post is linked up to the following link parties:

Home Decor and Organizing Link Party @ organize & decorate everything

Party Time @ The 36th Avenue

Whatever Goes Wednesday @ Someday Crafts

Delightfully Inspiring Thursday @ Delightful Order

Hookin Up with HOH @ House of Hepworths

Transformation Thursday @ The Shabby Creek Cottage

Flaunt it Friday @ Chic on a Shoestring Decorating

Inspiration Friday @ At the Picket Fence

Weekend Bloggy Reading @ Serenity Now

Motivate Me Monday @ Keeping It Simple

DIY Project Parade @ DIY Showoff

Sundae Scoop @ I Heart Nap Time

Overflowing with Creativity @ It's Overflowing

Love It, Like It, Link It @ The Organised Housewife

Weekend Warrior Party @ Ask Anna

Metamorphosis Monday @ Between Naps on the Porch
One Project at a Time @ A Bowl Full of Lemons

Happy Mother's Day Cards

Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there!  

I am quite happy with how our cards for Mother's Day turned out this year, so I thought I'd share.  I enjoy hand-making cards, and I maintain a stock of paper, blank cards, and supplies so I can put together cards on a moment's notice for almost any occasion.

I got out a few sets of pretty paper and let my 3-year-old choose the specific paper for this year's Mother's Day cards.  She chose this colorful, funky, flowery paper. 

From there, we decided how to deliver the message.  I usually use a stamp for this purpose, but this year I didn't want to just say "Happy Mother's Day".  I chose this stamp with a bird and cute flower that says "for you" and stamped it on yellow paper that coordinates with the main paper in brown ink.  I also ran the ink pad around the outside edge of the cut-out to finish it off.

Then Alyssa helped me choose an embellishment to add a little something extra to the simple design.  We chose mauve heart-shaped brads.  I used my Croc-o-Dile punch to attach the message paper to the main paper with the brad as shown. 

We've had a nice day of visiting with family and I'm looking forward to a quiet, relaxing evening with my kids and hubby tonight.  What do you do to celebrate Mother's Day?

The Path to Our Dream Home: Nursery

Today we continue the Path to Our Dream Home series with our second daughter's nursery.  To catch up, you can visit these posts: Back to the Beginning, the Main Bath, the Guest Bath, the Utility/Storage Room, and the Media Closet.  Each post tours the space in photographs, and shows how we work a lot of organization and function into each room of our small house.  There are many project ideas for each room, so none of them is ever "done", but they are all on the path to our dream home!

I don't have before pictures for any of the bedrooms as they are just standard bedrooms and the changes were all cosmetic - paint, ceiling fans, faux wood blinds for the windows, and new floors.  My husband did scrape off the old popcorn ceiling treatments, which made a huge difference in terms of updating the spaces.

We moved our older daughter Alyssa into another room in order to re-use the nursery furniture for our second daughter Zoe.  Since my Mom is a super-talented quilter, we based the decor for the room on a quilt she made; we chose the pattern and fabrics together specifically for the room.   We based the look loosely on the example quilt pictured for the pattern, which was from the book Quilting for Baby.  We achieved a completely different (and gorgeous) look for the re-decorated room by avoiding pinks and purples.

The back of the quilt is a fabulous chocolate brown minky fabric that allows you to really see the beautiful quilting work.

We used extra fabric to make this beautiful, inexpensive matching memory board.  I'll cover how to do this in another post soon.

We left the top half of the walls the same celery green it had been for Alyssa's nursery, but painted the bottom half of the walls chocolate brown and added a chair rail (after the glider made it clear exactly where it was needed by scuffing up the wall in the previous nursery!).  Three black-out panels in chocolate brown cover the wide window.  I have plans for some modifications to these soon, so stay tuned!

New bedding with cute green and brown polka-dots coordinates with the room perfectly.

We also re-used the white high-shag rug from Alyssa's nursery (it was from Target originally).  With a professional cleaning from an awesome local carpet cleaning company, it is still white!!

I found these baskets at Michael's which are the perfect color of not-so-common blue for this room, and I was extra excited when they were on sale that day!  They are the perfect solution to contain and hide away all the infant-care and diapering supplies!  And this dresser's many drawers provide the storage we need for Zoe's clothing, since this room has no closet.

I am in love with how this room turned out!  Some projects I have planned will make it even better!!

How do you re-decorate rooms to have a totally new look without changing the anchoring furniture?

This post is linked up to the following parties:

Delightfully Inspiring Thursday Party at Delightful Order

Hookin Up with HOH at House of Hepworths

Home Decor and Organizing Link Party at Organize & Decorate Everything 

Sticker and Party Time at The 36th Avenue 

Weekend Warrior Link Party at Ask Anna

Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch

One Project at a Time at A Bowl Full of Lemons

Inspiration Board at Homework

Weekend Bloggy Reading @ Serenity Now

It's been awhile... and sharing an awesome Menu Planning Idea

I have NOT fallen off the face of the earth, I promise!!  After the blog took a backseat to planning the hugely successful fundraiser for my good friend (helptheharrisfamily.blogspot.com) in early March, I was invited to teach a seminar for my Quality Assurance consulting business (www.norcalqualityconsulting.com), which was an amazing opportunity that I just couldn't pass up.  So the blog took yet another back seat.  I've accepted the fact that this might just have to happen from time to time, but I am determined to keep the blog going when I can because I LOVE it.  I hope you'll put up with me!

A long overdue post is coming SOON!!  As the weather here starts to look like spring, I have a ton of project ideas to share!!

In the meantime, here is some organizing candy from another blog that I am SUPER excited to adopt! 

Megan from The Homes I Have Made blogged about this awesome magnetic menu board over two posts.  She started by explaining how she uses the board to plan meals (main and side dishes) for a month at a time, to keep track of the associated recipes, and to incorporate new meals and nights out. Then in her second post, she described exactly how she made her board.  I discovered this magnetic menu board on Pinterest and I love her whole blog!!

{Source: The Homes I Have Made}

How to Organize a Fundraiser - Part 1, Getting Started

One of the reasons I've been slower than usual super slow to post lately is that my blogging time has been otherwise occupied with planning and working on some fundraising activities for a very close friend that is fighting breast cancer.  I have learned a lot in the process, and since I have pieced together my information from scattered sources and learning the hard way, I thought it might be beneficial to write about the process for anyone who might do something similar.  I will be back on track with my normal posting schedule by the second week of March, but this semi-hiatus is well worth it!!

Our fundraising activities are aimed at raising money to offset the medical expenses my friend is incurring as a result of her breast cancer diagnosis, including three surgeries in a matter of weeks (because the cancer had spread to one lymph node they removed all the others on that side but thankfully none of those were cancerous), followed by chemo (and all the medications to fight those side effects) and radiation.  

The fundraising activities logically divide into several phases, so I will post about this in several parts. You can read about my fundraiser specifically at helptheharrisfamily.blogspot.com.  And if you live in the Paradise/Chico, CA area, our event is this next Monday, March 5th from 5 to 9 PM at the Paradise Round Table Pizza - we hope to see you there!!!


Part 1 - Getting Started

Form a "Committee"

Include those core people willing to commit and help with every facet of the fundraising.  There will (hopefully) be other people who volunteer to help with various activities along the way, but these are the people that will be "in charge" of making decisions.

You should have this meeting early in the process so everyone is on the same page.  It is hard not to have your head swirl with ideas once you decide to do a fundraiser and everyone can go off in different directions pretty quickly.  That first meeting allows you to focus your energy on realistic endeavors that everyone agrees to pursue.

Have a Goal in Mind

Have a clear financial goal in mind, based on the beneficiary's expected medical expenses.  I'm certainly no tax expert, but don't forget to aim about 25% higher to allow the beneficiary plenty to pay taxes on all the funds raised (since they will be taxed as income).  In our case, this is a lofty goal because they have many expenses, but all the more reason to try and help!  Anything we can do will ease their burden and that is the whole point!!

Organizing the Funds you Raise

It took several conversations with various folks (my banker, my CPA, and finally the head of a local community foundation) before I understood that becoming a non-profit is not the way to go about a fundraiser for an individual's medical expenses.  In fact, a non-profit by definition can not benefit a named individual.  Which means that none of the donations will be tax deductible (this hasn't seemed to affect our collections - our community has been amazing!).  And incidentally, setting up a non-profit is a long and expensive process.

The banking end of things ended up being pretty simple.  My friend (the beneficiary) had to go to her bank and fill out a form to get a Tax ID from the IRS, and then set up a bank account specifically for the fundraiser, a "Medical Expense Fund" in her name.   Then she set up a separate PayPal account and linked it to that bank account.

Consider how you will invest in your fundraiser.  We kept things to a BARE minimum in terms of up-front costs, which somewhat dictated what events we planned and how we got the word out.  We also didn't want to take any money away from our friend to pay for the fundraiser from the raised funds.

Involve the beneficiary

While we would have loved to have pulled off all the fundraising and handed my friend a check to cover all of her expenses without her knowledge or energy, that just isn't possible.  There are many parts of the fundraiser that will need her input, there's just no way around that.  She had to handle the Tax ID, opening the bank account, and linking it to PayPal.  And because she's a very private person, we've run everything we're doing for advertising by her (especially if it has her picture on it!).

Brand Your Fundraiser

You should put together a background story and take some photos early in the process.  The advice I got was that your "main" photo should be of the person and his or her family, preferably smiling and happy.  So we had a little photo shoot one day when she was feeling up for it and I got some great photos.

Once I had these two pieces, I set-up a "Cause" Facebook page (so it would have a "like" button) and a website (a Blogger blog since I'm familiar with how to do that).  I created the pink ribbon and Gerber daisy logo pictured in this post in order to unify all of our printed and web materials.

Decide WHAT you'll do

We have decided to have one main local event with many different fundraising activities.  Ours was greatly simplified by a program that our local Round Table Pizza has (which may be franchise-wide) where you can have 4 hours set aside in an evening (must be a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday) and they will "host" your event and donate a generous portion of all non-alcohol sales to the cause (including delivery in our case!).  That took care of a venue and food without any up-front costs for us, whew!  Since we began contacting other businesses in the area, we've learned that other places offer a similar program.

We are also allowed to have other activities at this event, so we are going with a raffle, silent auction, and bake sale.  More about these in future posts.

Have a Timeline

We set the date of our event based on when my friend was most likely to be having a good day based on her chemo schedule.  This, plus the fact that the bills are already coming in and we wanted to help as quickly as possible, meant we needed to plan the event within about 8 weeks.  This is SO LITTLE TIME!  But it is totally possible!!

We set little deadlines for ourselves that broke the planning into logical phases.

Collecting: We needed to know what items would be donated (mostly) in order to start advertising for the raffle and silent auction, so we started by contacting businesses and asking for donations.  This will be the focus of the next post in this series.

Advertising: Then once we had a general idea of the donations we had, we moved into advertising mode: posting updates on Facebook and our website, posting flyers, passing out flyers, selling raffle tickets, getting our event mentioned in newspapers  and on the radio, etc.  In order to concentrate our efforts, we thought we'd have advertising go for about 2 weeks prior to the event.  In reality it may be about half that (other than posted flyers and Facebook/web stuff) because it takes some time to really arrange for the advertising, so that was one (of many) lessons learned.  Because we wanted to expose those businesses donating to our cause as much as possible, I think we held out a little too long waiting to gather the donation commitments before we moved forward planning the advertising, but it is really hard to cut that off.  Of course we are still collecting (awesome!) donations, but in reality it is reasonable to have a little less exposure for those that weren't able to commit right away.  We will still do everything we can to thank all the businesses that participate (more on this later)!

Ask for Help

Once we had a plan for the event and fundraising activities we wanted to do, we set out to ask for help from the community.  I will post about this next time.

Thanks so much for reading!  Have you ever planned a fundraiser for a friend?  What lessons did you learn along the way?

This post has been linked up to:

Home Decor & Organizing Party @ Organize & Decorate Everything

One Project at a Time @ A Bowl Full of Lemons

Organizing & DIY Link Party @ Organizing with Sandy

Make 2012 Your Best Year - February Refresh

 
It's amazing what a difference a month can make in one's outlook and perspective.  As part of my determination this year to make changes that don't fade away right after the New Year (first discussed here), I will check in monthly with a "Make 2012 Your Best Year" series to make sure I am aligned with my goals.  I will call this my "monthly refresh".  In order to be worthwhile, the refresh should be viewed as an opportunity to organize your thoughts and refine your practices in a positive way, not to be negative or overly critical.  And the fact that this has taken the whole first week of this short month is okay.  It doesn't need to fit a rigid schedule, just so that it happens regularly and monthly is (I think) the right interval for me.

Be Thankful

January was a particularly crazy month around here, mainly because I got in a car accident a couple of weeks ago.  Of the MANY things to be thankful for, my two small daughters and I were completely unharmed physically aside from a small bump on the side of my head.  I am also thankful that there were no other cars involved.  The car did not fare so well, so we are having to deal with that.  But it is just a car.  Our financial situation went from "teetering on the edge of comfortable" to "we'll get through it somehow".  But it's only money.  Talk about a refreshed perspective!

I find often upon reflection that stress and anxiety are a matter of my perspective.  After the accident, all of the worries and stresses of life were stripped away and I was just thankful to be okay.  And even more so that my kids were okay.  I ignored life for a full day to just appreciate this feeling, and allow myself to feel the protective motherly instinct to cocoon my kids away from harm.  I took a few more days to ease back into reality, and by now we're finally back to a "normal" routine.  And all the worries and stress are back, but I am able to keep them contained to a healthy level of pressure because I am aware that they are put there by me, and I have the power to take them away again if needed. 

{Source}

Just like the intentions of the New Year, I hope that my appreciation for my life and control over stress don't fade too much with time.  So I will revisit these concept as part of each monthly refresh.

Take Care of Me

One of my big goals for this year was to Take Care of Me.  As part of the monthly refresh, I will add at least one concept every month, without abandoning the previous ones.  I will still check in with all of my previous goals, to renew my resolve and refine the tasks that address each goal.  


Less Self-Deprecation

During a recent yoga class, the instructor complimented another student in the class, and the student responded in a way that slighted herself and downplayed the compliment.  The instructor pointed out that unfortunately we have all learned to do this, and it is true.  I do this all the time!  And even though it is like a reflex, I wish I didn't do it.  And I certainly would like to avoid teaching this to my girls. 

This isn't a completely new concept to me.  As my older daughter began to understand what the adults around her were talking about a little, I decided that self-deprecating remarks should be filtered out, just the same as my potty mouth.  The difficulty comes with actually doing it.  Especially because I hardly recognize that I have done it.  Somehow I've made a natural transition in the potty-mouth department.  So much so, that is almost feels weird to cuss anymore when the kids aren't around, where I used to have quite the vocabulary.  So how did I even do this?

Practice.  It doesn't seem like it took much practice to filter the potty mouth.  It seems like it was a mothering instinct or something and it just happened.  But can I decide what is appropriate for these instincts?  Or did I really practice not cussing in the first months to a year in which my daughter was there but not quite aware of exactly what we were saying?  Probably the second.  So I need to learn to recognize that I've made a self-deprecating remark, and then re-program myself to filter the comment before it comes out.  Re-programming can only come with practice - first in being aware and then in filtering.   So I will practice.

Adjust Goals to Be Realistic


One of my goals for this year was to blog more often, increasing my number of monthly posts compared with the months in 2011.  I haven't posted in what feels like forever, and although the reasons for this gap will hopefully not recur, I have also determined that my schedule just doesn't allow for me to post more than once or twice a week.  So I have decided to accept the reality rather than always be disappointed that I am not doing more. 


On a very positive note, I had also set a goal of the number of page views I'd like to have for the whole year (for a significant increase over last year in the blog's infancy) and I am so pleased to say that I am already hopeful that I will double my goal.  This is thanks to some awesome link parties in which I've been participating, and it is so exciting!  Thank you so much for reading this, and I hope you'll become a follower and leave me a comment on how you like my blog!!!