TMSTD

In a couple of weeks, my oldest son is off to kindergarten.  I am taking a blog-fast until school starts, to seize the day with my little boys at home.  Topics I'm looking forward to writing about :  another couponing update (it might not be what you'd expect), more house tour, a new lampshade on a hand-made-for-us lamp, things you don't have to do as a SAHM (not *every* mom has to buy only farm market food and hand-tat her own lace), and of course, more blathering on about my family.

I'm out!  Peace.

The Concept of Queues

[Originally posted on here as a guest post on Birmingham Bargain Mom  -- photo included here]

In my home, the way things get accomplished happens in a variety of steps.  One, I have to make lists.  I *require* an external hard drive (the lists), because my built-in one is all jacked up.  I can't remember anything anymore.  Two, there are various spots in my home that are "to do" areas.  I call them "queues."  (Although "cues" would work, too... more on that in a second.)  These queues are a holding area where items wait until I can get to them. 

One particular queue resides on a ledge that separates the dining room from the front entry and stair way.  This queue is where downstairs things are put when they have made their way upstairs.  (Does this happen to anyone else?... Man, our stuff seems to get rearranged by little elves or something.  All. The. Time.)  As I run across items that belong downstairs in the sewing room, guest room, family room, or garage, they get placed on the ledge.  The next time I make a trip down, everything gets put away.  The whole idea is to save steps, and to keep stuff in my line of vision so I don't forget about them.  

An example: my husband Dave fixed a little car for the kids over the weekend.  He had to glue the wheels back on it. Imagine that, my wild children broke the wheels off a toy....let's just say that's not that unusual.  Anyhow, the car and the glue ended up on the ledge.  The car was there mainly to dry, but the glue needed to go back into the workshop area of the garage.  

I won't forget about putting the glue away because of where it is.  This is where "cue" would work because seeing the item in the queue gives me a visual cue that the thing needs to be taken care of.  Get it?

A few other queues  ::

The passenger seat of my car is a queue for things that need to be mailed at the post office, returns to various stores, or borrowed items that need to be given back to someone.

• The deck outside the back door is a queue for trash.  I don't always take stuff out to the big garbage can right away, so I might stash the trash, a few recyclables, and an outdoor toy on the deck to all be addressed at the same time.  I am outside a lot, so gar-bage (said with French accent) doesn't usually sit there for longer than a couple of hours.

• A chair in my closet is a queue for worn clothing that can be reworn.  It can also be a queue for new clothing that needs to be tried on to determine if it's going to work for me. (I am a spaz at the store and buy things that I *think* look good, but actually don't once I try them on home.  This means I have to make returns sometimes.)

• There is a bench near the door of the garage that is a sometimes-queue for things that need to go out to the car for various reasons.  Right now, for example, there are some adoption documents lying there.  I need to go to the doctor and get them filled out, but I don't want to carry them out to the car until I am actually ready to do that errand.  I don't want them to get crushed or torn up.  This is a typical example of queues helping me not forget about getting stuff done.  Those papers will be in my field of vision every time I leave the house.  And, since that spot is often empty, it will stand out to me that there is something there that needs attention.  

So, what are your queues?  I bet you have them, even if you haven't done it on purpose.  Sometimes a little basket or tray is an attractive way to establish a queue.  Any other queue ideas out there, friends?  

Meet Dave

There's some real muscle here at home.  And, in case you haven't seen my biceps, I'll tell you... it's not me.

It's this guy  ::

January 2011


His name is Dave, and he is my husband of 13 and a half years.  We met in college marching band at Purdue University.  Go ahead, mock if you must.

As an incoming freshman, I was at band camp when the director had all new students stand up in the rehearsal hall.  He said something like "Freshmen, look around.  Your future spouse is probably in this room."  Everyone laughed.  And for me, my spouse was in that room, indeed.  Dave was a senior-year drummer.  I always had a thing for drummers in high school, no idea why.  Oh wait, yes I do because dudes who play drums are wicked cool.  Sorry all you trumpeters or sax players.  You will always play second fiddle to a drummer.  Ba dum, pishhhhh.  (That was supposed to be the sound of a drumset accenting a joke during a stand-up routine).

Fall 1995


We were married in Louisiana two and a half years after first meeting.

December 1997



The above shot is from our reception, held at the Strand Theater in Shreveport.  I loved our reception, which was mostly on the stage  and would change very little about it if I could go back and do it all over again.  I'd change about 90% of the actual wedding though.  :)  I'd undo the navy bridesmaid dress choice, for sure.  And the church's crappy paneling that is in the background of everyone of my photos.  Hello, the ceremony totally should have been outdoors or in a barn or something.  Wait, what am I supposed to be writing about here????

Oh yeah, this guy  ::

Winter 2005




I kind of like him.  (I won't be wearing this, however.)

March 2011



We were married for eight years before having our son, Tucker, in 2005.  Aaaand, because we are complete band-o's, we went to Alumni Band five and half weeks after the baby was born.  For the record, I did not participate in any of the Alumni Band activities that year.  While Dave kicked it with his old drumline buddies,  I sat in the stands at the football game and nursed Tucker pretty much the entire time.

October 2005


(Don't ask why I was wearing a Longhorns hat at a Boilermaker game.)

Four years after that, we had our little Ceebers, aka Calvin.

September 27, 2009



We are also in the process of adopting a baby from China.... our family will continue to grow.  Insert photo of Dave with new baby here!  :)

But, back to The Man.  The Drummer Man.

He stills drums, though has nerve problems, which occasionally prevent him from playing .

June 2011


Dave has other talents.  I am not sure how it happened that I married an *engineer* who might just be more creative than me.

He is a geologist and a collector of beautiful rocks.  Sometime on my house tour, I will devote a section to his rocks.  Here he is all MSHA'd up at work ::

June 2009


In the past, Dave has also done some botanical photography (a few of his shots are on our gallery wall).  He even had a showing at a small art gallery in Troy, New York, a couple of years ago.  He snaps great photos on his various (but infrequent) overseas travel... the shot below is from Greece. The donkeys (mules?) were hauling bags of cement, made by the company Dave works for.  Small world.

A few other things about Dave  ::

• He has a photographic memory of music.  So would that be audiographic?  He can remember just about any piece after hearing it once.
• ...and therefore he knows just about every classical piece of music out there.  He is pleased that our kids' fave TV show is Little Einsteins. 
• He has been known to smoke a pipe or cigar.  The new deck is nice for that.   
• He was born in Indiana, then was raised partially in Pittsburgh, PA, until he went back to Indiana for college.
• He has worked for the same company since graduating college. 
• He has lived in IN, PA,IN again, KY, PA again, NY and now AL.
• He can't wait to go to China, a nation that has fascinated him for years.
• He is pretty handy, though it wasn't always that way. 
• He loves being a dad to two boys, who are both so much like him as a child.
• He reads a lot, though doesn't necessarily enjoy it.  Its more for information gathering.
• He has loads of patience, rarely loses his temper, and forgives and forgets quickly.  These are especially of great benefit to *moi*.
• He is a massive introvert.  Weirdo.  

Questions?  Comments?  Discussion?

IDO on Birmingham Bargain Mom

Check out some In Decent Order over on Birmingham Bargain Mom's blog!


Original content will be reposted here tomorrow, for my own archives.  

House Tour :: Sewing Room

I've posted a few rooms on the living level in my house tour series, and now we head downstairs for a quick detour before I do the rest of the upstairs.  

Welcome to where the chaos magic happens.... the sewing room.

This room is considered a "bonus room" because it does not have a window or a closet.  It certainly is a bonus to have a room dedicated to my sewing and creating.... it is convenient to leave projects in-process there and not have to clean up after myself, as I used to do when I would sew in my dining room years ago.   I also kind of feel like its my girlie room.... the rest of my home decor is an attempt to balance feminine with masculine, but here in the sewing room, its all feminine.  Let me show you a few deets....

Here is the view of the door way.  And, actually, there is no door.  I don't know if that is because its a bonus room or what, but there wasn't a door there when we moved in and that works for me.  Sometimes I set up a baby gate in the door way to ensure Calvin doesn't wander in there and start snap-pressing his fingers.

The closed door in the background leads to the guest room, and there is a small bathroom in between them.  More on that in a future post.


Above the couch is an inspiration board.  Its less inspiration and more a memory holder.  Anyone see something that is from you?!

Also, a pair of Susan Sargent scissors hangs above the couch for easy access.

In this room, I am going to move counter clockwise with my photos.... so if you're facing the couch above, turn to the left and you'll see my storage cabinets, ironing surface, various tools and a gallery wall.

The gallery wall is the real reason I did a deep clean and subsequent house tour post for the sewing room... my good friend Jen was visiting last week and did the wall for me.  It was a bit hodge podge before, so she took every piece, laid it out on the floor and in probably 15 minutes, had this pretty creation.  All of a sudden, the gallery wall made sense.  And then Jen hung it all by herself!  I love it.

All the pieces are meaningful in some way (nothing is there just for decoration)... the four white-framed cross-stitchings were Christmas gifts, made by my mother-in-law.

Jen pointed out that everything worked together, even though that was relatively unplanned.  There were similar color themes throughout all the pieces.

Did you catch some of my favorite tools on the work surface?

I use the typewriter for personal notes or address labels.  The greenish-grey industrial-revolution-looking tool to the left of the typewriter is a snap press, for affixing grommets or snaps to garments.  It is very gratifying to whack the handle to power the grommets through layers of fabric.

Somehow I didn't get a close up shot of the tall storage unit, but you can see it (with the lamp on top) in the overall shot.  It consists of the same units as the others, just stacked three high instead of two.  They are from Ikea.

The lamp is from a garage sale years ago.  There were two lamps there and, like an idiot, I only bought one.

Some of  the random stuff lying next to the lamp  ::

Various snaps for the snap press.... I have a small selection of colors, but they work for just about everything I need them for.

Moving on to the sewing table, another garage sale find from my own neighborhood about a year ago.  (Again, didn't get a great close up shot, but check out the first photo of this post, and you can see her beautiful curvy legs.)

Machines on the table....(left to right) Janome cover stitch, Brother serger, Bernina sewing machine.


"Hi, Bernina!"

Next to the machine, I keep a magnetic pin cushion and small thread nippers, a gift from my friend Lori.

My sewing chair, yet another garage sale find in Delmar, New York... it belonged to a woman who worked for the state of NY for over forty years.  This was her work chair.

Oh also, note the floor.... it is stained concrete.  I don't recall the actual color, but the photo above is pretty true to life.  We had a basement flood last year, and consequently we ripped all the carpet out and vowed to make the basement less ruin-able if it were to flood again.  We like the stained concrete, though it might not be for everyone.  Flaws in the concrete are visible, which, to me, gives the floor tons of character.  And, it hardly ever looks dirty.  :)


In the corner of the room stands a multi-level tower, from Pier One.  This was one of many fabulous purchases that my friend Aimee picked out while staging my previous home for sale (which, by the way, sold in the first week... nice work, Aimee).  I keep magazines, photos, knick knacks, and sewing machine accessories on the tower.

Close ups of the shelves  ::

Hey, see that vertical ruler above?  It is an old-fashioned hem ruler, and I bought it at Layla's garage sale last year.

I forgot to mention the art work above the sewing table.  I painted it, inspired by a quilt, while participating in a Susan Sargent color class in Vermont in 2007.

Did you notice the garland of clothes pins and photos in the background of this shot?

Nothing spectacular, just wanted a way to display a few special photos that were sort of floating around the sewing room.  It is a piece of twine-wrapped wire (I think it might be a type of floral wire) suspended between two nails.

Isn't that sweet little girl in the black and white polka dots so cute?!  That's Abby.  She is he daughter of Jen, my gallery wall friend.  :)

I'll do a post on the insides of the storage cabinets so you can see how I organize the sewing gear.  It might not be what you think.  Hint:  its contained, I know where everything is, but it doesn't look amazing.  Ha!

Butterfly Bush

When local landscaper designer Sarah Thelen assessed my back yard for a landscape plan, one of the first things she said about some of the plants was that they were in the wrong place.  It was ten o'clock in the morning, and the back yard is completely shaded at that time of day.  Yet, she pointed to irises, roses, and butterfly bushes and said, "Yeah, these don't get enough sunlight."  She pointed out that all three of those plants should have been more lush and have lots of blooms at that time of the year, but instead they were all spindly and had a few (as in, one or two) pathetic blooms on them.  She said the reason they were spindly is because they were stretching for sunlight... as if they were craning their necks for the sun.  The lack of light made for skinny, weak, bare plants.  They needed to be moved.

When my parents were here a few weeks ago, my dad and I dug up the two butterfly bushes to transplant into a sunnier spot in the yard.  It's not exactly ideal to transplant during the sweltering heat of an Alabama July.  But, whatever, I needed digging help and my dad was available and willing to pitch in (or, actually, pick-axe in).  We dug the holes, added soil conditioner and a little bit of organic fertilizer, and plunked those skinny minnies in.

Three weeks and lots of watering later, the bushes seem to be doing better.  They both have several blooms on them and today I caught an actual butterfly on one!  That's decent, baby.

And, if you'd like to see me looking farming-funky, here's my dad and me after all the hard work  ::

Lucky for you, I am not wearing my pink gardening crocs.  Because that would just be dangerously ugly dangerous to wear while shovel- and pick-wielding.

Summer in the Street

Most afternoons or evenings, we play in the street with the neighborhood kids.  Last night was perfect.... sweaty kids playing as the sun set behind the trees.

The pack of kids loves roaming the culdesac with their various vehicles.

I love seeing these kids have fun.

It was an average evening, yet it was special because my childhood friend Jen and her baby Abigail joined us.

I never want to forget it.

House Tour :: Dining Room

Our home is called a "split foyer" plan.  It is not a split level.  Rather, the front entrance is in-between the two floors, the main living level and the basement.  The main level is semi-open, in that the dining room and living room are open to one another, seperated only by the ceiling slope and a change in flooring (dining room is hard wood, living room is carpeted).  I hope to share the floor plan and some wide shots of the house some time, but for now, I am sharing the dining room alone.

Let's start with the bookcases, which are from Ikea and you can add on to them, to create longer units.  There are two units here.

The book cases hold some of our favorite objects, as well as books that we think are worth holding on to, at least for now.  You know me, I am a chucker.  In fact, while dusting the shelves in preparation for the photos, I pulled six books out that we are going to pass on to someone else.

Some close ups of the shelves ::

Yes, I know the candles are crooked and I kind of like them like that.

This seems to be our Asian shelf, with a Tangram game, figurines from Korea, and a stone carving from China, a gift from my brother.

A vase that I rescued from my mother-in-law's garage sale, as well as a photo of my dad and me on my wedding day  ::

Note the fish salt and pepper shakers... they are both filled with kosher salt.  If anyone needs pepper, I bring in the pepper mill from the kitchen.  It is more convenient to have two salt shakers for meals where we have company.

One of many, many, many rocks in my geologist-husband's collection  ::

I love this shelf.  The small vials in the wooden case were rock samples from a college laboratory.  I am not sure how they came into our possession, but we'll just say I am pretty sure they are from Purdue.

On the rock sample case are two photos taken by my friend Sarah Cook.  In the next shot, I removed the front photo so you can see the one behind it more clearly.

Sarah, does posting your photos constitute copyright infringement?  ;)

A fabric covered box from Target, holding small family album books.

Some of Dave's fossils are on the silver tray here on the brown shelf  ::

A close up  ::

I have the most interesting husband, no?  Geologist, photographer, drummer, world champion swing dancer. (Uh, kidding on that last one.)

Here's some decent/indecent order for your viewing pleasure.  It is the bottom shelf, hard to see unless you're all up in its grill.  It holds year books and photo albums.  This is about as good as that shelf gets.

Now, the right side of the book case, which holds another one of Dave's interests :  vintage radios  ::

One of my most unusual books lives on that shelf, under the radio.  In case you can't read the title it is called The Pop Up Book of Nightmares," and it was a gift from a colleage upon our mutual graduation with masters degrees in counseling.  And yes, it is a true pop up book.


The white shelf seems to have a lot of baby-themed books  ::

One of my favorite Sarah Cook photos is on this shelf, on the far left of the photo  ::

Here it is.  My boys were 4 years old and 4 months old in this shot.

No trinkets on this one  ::

I picked up this white "B" bookend the last time I was at Ikea  ::

Ah, and another great Sarah Cook photo, behind a piece of Alabama calcite.

Again, no tchotchkes here, just books ::

And, once again on bottom, we have some photo albums, baby books and barely managed chaos.  I straightened the chaos for the photo, I admit.  It is mostly loose photos that need to be saved somewhere.

Okay, back to the wide shot  ::

And now for the last few details....


To the right of the bookcases is an old church pew, salvaged from some church in Chicago.  Dave bought it in Atlanta.  The photo is a close up of a hosta leaf, shot by Dave.

In the center of the dining table lives a little brass owl trivet.  Also, if you have read my blog a few times, surely you have seen the table cloth in about every other photo.  It is from Urban Outfitters.  It is faded, stained and it still has the magic for me.  Love it.  I prefer to cover this table because it was damaged during its first life as a floor model at Pottery Barn.  Maybe some day I will learn how to do a professional paint job on it, because it is a very pretty pedestal table.

On the console table (see the very back of the  wide shot photo, in front of the white blinds) that could serve as a buffet, I have a few favorite things that I previously wrote about here.   I did a bit of rearranging since then.  I am not in love with it, but I do like having these things where I can see them every day.

Doesn't this huge candle and pedestal remind you of a cake?  That's probably why I like it.

The room does not have drapes, though I have an idea for some.  If I end up doing them, I'll be sure to share new photos.  For now, I just love how much natural light comes in.  The dining room is not too fussy, easy to clean and all.  I am not sure if adding drapes will make it fussier.

The paint is Sherwin Williams Special Gray.