Wednesday weigh in: Scrap page hanger (& this & that)

Happy Wednesday! It's a beautiful sunny one here today, even if it is shining over that several inches of snow we received yesterday.  Spring will come! (my eternal mantra).

Wednesday's continue to be the day I check-in (or "weigh-in) on how I'm doing with my 2015 goals. Today I was thinking about how I've been trying to be more focused this Lenten season. I've been better with my devotional and reflection time, so that has been good.

I've been dusting off the fitbit and getting back to work on the treadmill (since weather still not cooperating). So feeling pretty good there too...although that is always my area of improvement! If only I loved to workout as much as I love to cook. Sigh.

And I've been spending more time on my crafts and scrapbooking. This has been easy and I enjoy my time creating immensely!! I have also been slowly changing decorations to Spring around here. I wanted to share this little hanger I have in my craft/office room that I just love & changed to a Spring photo.  I purchased it through Creative Memories long ago and I don't know that they still have it.

I have it hanging above my little scrapping draft table area and below my shelves. It came with the knob you put up and then hang the framework with the ribbon attached from the knob. It measures about 11x11 inches total and the photo part is 8x8. I have made several of these 8x8 photos from templates they have on www.shutterfly.com. They have different styles, patterns, colors and you choose how many photos you want on it and place them in and then shutterfly ships them to you. I have quite a handful of them now to represent different seasons but haven't made a new one in a while so many of the photos are dated. However, I love looking back at the old memories. 

This one is for Spring and it says "Spring has Sprung!" below the photo of my daughter. This picture was from her birthday when she was in 4-k (4year kindergarten) and we brought garden cupcakes to school - which are cupcakes you top with frosting, "dirt" (oreo cookie crumbs), a silk flower and gummy worms. 

As you can see I've hung other items from the other little knobs attached. 

Here you can get a little idea of the handful of these I have to play around with each season or if the mood strikes me to change to a new picture. I guess it's the little things that bring joy. Lol

In other news, I wanted to share that this is the last day for the journal give-away. I will have my daughter draw a name tonight by 8:00PM central time zone here in the states. So please leave a comment on that post if you'd still like to enter! I'll announce the winners (yep, as in 2 chances to win as I will have runner up goodies) on Friday.  Here's a few new peeks too:

Just to remind you of the journal and markers.

another embellished page peek

I told you candy would be involved - mmmmm!

A card to go to the winner that I will leave blank so they may use it as they wish!

The only thing I have left to do is find the little Spring decoration I wish to add. My friend's specialty store is only open certain days of the week and due to Vegas last week I didn't get there. However, I will be going tomorrow so that part of the prize package will remain a surprise! The runner-up will also receive candy and a Spring decoration. 

In final news.... I just wanted to share some bits from the Pentatonix concert in Las Vegas last week, as I couldn't get my photo or video to upload and share them this past Monday. Enjoy!

Photo of Pentatonix (or PTX) - acapella group. Check out video below:

Weigh in: pinterest recipe & family time

I keep using Wednesday's as my weigh in or "check-in" time with myself to see how I'm doing with the resolutions and goals I've set for myself this year. So here's my weigh in for this week:

One of my goals was taking more time for my scrapbooking and crafts (basically me time)....and included in that was finally making or creating at least some of the things I pin on pinterest. I pin many many things (those of you who have and enjoy pinterest know what I mean) - but have probably only utilized a few of the actual "pinned" ideas. I truly love pinterest. It's a guilty pleasure that I could indulge in for hours if I let myself. However, I'm a busy Mom and I don't (I couldn't handle the guilt afterward!!) - but yet the "pins" do add up. 

So I've started going back and looking at some of them more seriously and making a some of those things. The valentine bars I made recently, for example,  were inspired by Christmas bars pinned to my pinterest "sweet treats" category. I have a link to my pinterest in the side bar, by the way, if you would like to follow me and check out all of those pins!  So here is another recent recipe pin I made and want to share with you as it was quite yummy!

 

 

 

First you brown your well seasoned salted chicken

 

Then you make a yummy creamy honey Dijon mustard sauce (recipe will be below) and top the chicken with it. Then add fresh sliced mushrooms and yummy bacon.

 

Top with Colby jack cheese and bake for 20 minutes.  Delish! Here's the full recipe:

 

 

 

 

Another goal I had was more quality family time. Recently we were gone for more sports this past weekend and took time to hang out as a family and do some antique shopping. My hubby and I both like a lot of vintage and antique things and have our own collections. We've been passing that love down to our kiddos so they're starting to appreciate the beauty of antiques as well. During our little shopping trip I found a couple of treasures:

I'm obsessed with embroidered linens, table cloths and doilies and all of those kinds of lovely goodies. I loved this purple and lavender runner that was singing a song of Spring to me! (**can you spot the valentine decoration I made from another post recently?)

 

 

I also grabbed this old McCoy planter. I love the red bird in the middle of it! I collect depression era Weller and Roseville pottery, but I love a lot of McCoy pieces as well. Especially any vintage pottery with a nature theme to fit in with the north woods feel in my home. (check out the additional bonus peek at the few valentines decorations I have - including my new sparkly heart banner I put on our mantle)

 

That's my weigh in this week.  I'm curious now - do any of you use pinterest and if so do you create from your pins very often?

 

 

 

 

Weigh in Wednesday + Fab-ruary Day 11(& give-away!)

Sorry I am posting so late today dear Friends! 

 I was a busy Gal all day with my Mom-in-law and the appointments she had today. Plus errands I needed to run for a big event at my daughter's school tomorrow. I'm on the PTA there and involved on several committees. I feel blessed to be a SAHM and have the time to be involved in both my kiddos' school lives and activities.

To weigh-in this week I wanted to share that I've been pretty good (not as much as I'd like yet though) with my exercising. I actually have to dash again soon to play wallyball (a sport where you play volleyball in racquetball court and can bank the ball off the walls) with a group of gals that I organize. It's so much fun, yet a tremendous 2 hour workout!! I have been wearing my fitbit more, drinking my water like a good girl and being more active. I'm still not working out total as many days a week as I'd like, but I'm getting there. This ties in a bit with my linking with Helen at I Will Bloom for Fab-ruary Day 11.

My answer to when I feel most alive would have to be when I'm being physically active.  I LOVE how I feel after I've expended all that energy at wallyball. Or when I've done a good hard workout on my treadmill. But most of all when I'm outdoors. I love taking walks, running around with my kiddos and our dog Ruby outside. That is definitely when I feel most alive! The beauty of the outdoors just energizes me and how just breathing the very air out there is different than when I'm stuck indoors. God makes some pretty darn beautiful stuff out there and it speaks to my soul.

this is from several years ago after playing outside in the snow together

I also wanted to share a couple of other things with you. I'm also weighing in to share that I've been taking more time for my crafts and scrapbooking too. It's amazing when you turn of the t.v. a little more how many other things get done! Lol One craft I'm starting to toy with is a journal that I would love to do as a give-away to one of you dear folks. I'm still quite new to this blogging world but you all make it such a joy for me and so easy to want to visit this space every day. Here's a little peek:

I've been collecting lots of fun bits over the past several weeks....some new bits and some old bits I already have around - that I would like to use to embellish this brand new journal.  It's a romantic month so I'm using romantic pretty papers, linen tags, twine, flowers etc.... I know a lot of us use our blogging space as a type of journal, but I figure that's why even a hands on journal might be a fun thing to give away as we're obviously a journaling kind of people. It would be a lovely place to write thoughts, blog post ideas, sketch pictures, paste memories. Possibilities are endless (I just love a good journal!) I will be working on it over the course of the next week or so and then give you a real look at it and post the give-away plan and date and where you enter to win. What do you think?

 

I also wanted to leave you with an early Valentine from my pretty Ruby. She had her "haircut" recently and they always doll her up after. My Mom-in-law was with my that day and Ruby was giving her lots of kisses!! Lol 

On that note I must go - but I'll try to get around to as many of you as I can later tonight and say hello. xo

 

Weigh in: Books

Well I'm pleased to update that I'm loving my fruit infusion water bottle! It works just beautifully and I've been much better about getting my water intake. Of course, it doesn't hurt that as I've been getting over this flu I still need a lot of liquid for all the crud still left in my lungs and the coughing. Here's even a pic I took the other day:

This particular day was a raspberry pear blend and was quite good. Here's the link to the great gear bottle I bought. They also gave a free downloaded "recipe" book with the purchase.  I have no association with this brand - just highly recommend this bottle or one like it!

Now onto my weigh in Wednesday topic for today: Books! I'll be short and sweet as actually I'm posting to ask for your help as to more great book ideas. I've almost finished the inn Boonsboro trilogy recommended by my friend Carrie and they've been really good and fun! I still want to get back to reading Outlander and catch up there....but looking for some other choices on the way. I have some books lined up in my ipad from a while ago, but now I'm not interested at the moment. So what have you been reading lately that you just can't put down? I like almost all genre of books also! The last book I read that I gobbled up really quickly too was Wild by Cheryl Strayed (true story now made into a movie with Rees Witherspoon).

 

I'm just so happy that so far I'm sticking with this resolution and have been reading more! Yay!! Thanks so much for any ideas you share - it's greatly appreciated! xo

Weigh in Wednesday: Water

Well it's only a few weeks into our new year and how are you holding up with your resolutions or goals for yourself so far? Are you still faithfully working on them in some way every day? Noticing changes in yourself or your habits? Or are those resolutions already not even on your radar anymore?

Well I was thinking about the goals I've set for myself and I thought that since Wednesday is the day I weigh myself each week (try to only do it 1x a week and not obsess)....as well as just a good point each week to "check in" - I would make Wednesday's my WEIGH-IN WEDNESDAY .  It's a good way to keep myself accountable as well as to share tips or advice on what is working for me or what isn't.  So it would include things like: getting healthy goals, my reading goals, scrapbooking and blogging goals etc. It would be a great way to get feedback too, as I love hearing what you have to share and all of your good advice and tips too!  I just thought I'd give it a try for awhile and see what all of you think of it, or if you're interested to share too.

Today water is my weigh in topic. One of my big goals was getting healthier (exercising more, eating healthier etc). A big part of this to me is drinking a lot more water! I always struggle with this part as water is boring and difficult to make myself drink often. It's also just not as yummy with certain foods too. I decided to purchase one of these:

It's a fruit infuser water bottle.

I'm hoping that it will help me up my water ounces each day.  I also ordered a couple of books with different "recipe" ideas of what to put in here to make it more interesting. It looks like there's even suggestions for tea to go in with the fruit! By putting the fruit (or even veggies) into that little basket the flavors infuse into the water and give you flavor and even some vitamins and health benefits and is nice and all natural of course.

I'll keep you posted and let you know if it works well and makes a difference! Do you have any water tricks that help you?  How are your resolutions going? (if you're still sticking to them) Lol