Paper Dolls.

These lovely little darlings are free to download from Teri Pettit! I found them at Found It. Love It by Divine Caroline - one of my very favorite daily emails. I haven't talked my daughter into actually playing with any of the paper dolls we've gotten her her entire life, but I'm holding out hope!You can print out her entire tea party. Oh, I'm in heaven!

Hysterical

I know this book has been out for ages - I've given up thinking I'm going to read ANYthing hot off the presses - but holy crap it is funny!!! I am laughing out loud reading it! I read at night while everyone else is asleep and I have tears streaming down my face and I'm biting my lips together to keep from laughing so loud that I wake everyone up.

I'm a fan of Chelsea Handler, but I worried that even an incredibly funny stand up comedian wouldn't be able to put an entire book together intelligently. The first couple of chapters I could hear her voice as I read her words, but that has fallen away, and those words are just FUNNY!

She is crass, she is shocking, she is hilarious. Seriously. READ IT.

Her next book comes out March 10th and I might just be reading it "hot off the presses".

Surprise Plates

Do you have words or phrases that are part of your consciousness - part of you - but you haven't spoken them since you were a child? Surprise plates are that for me. When I was very young my brother and I would make "surprise plates" for each other. If either of us was feeling low or ill, we would put a little of this and a little of that on a plate with a paper towel over it to hide its contents until the other one would whip off the towel and say "SURPRISE!"
My sweet Miss Mae is home from school today, and my first thought was "surprise plate!!"

Another one is "Fishy-toe-bite" but that is another story.

I finally got the courage to sit down and watch a tiny bit of the news this morning about the earthquake in Haiti. I just couldn't stop crying. I can't imagine what those people are going through. Seeing moms screaming for their children... - it simply is horrifying. Too, too much.

There are so many places and ways to donate the money that is so desperately needed - a quick google search will turn up a list - however, another way to help is by donating your gently used shoes and boots. Souls 4 Souls is putting together shipping containers of our shoes to send to Haiti. Right now with all of the broken glass, twisted metal, raw sewage and building rubble on the ground they need shoes more than ever.

Even if you don't have the money to spare, we all have extra pairs of shoes in our closets. In fact it is estimated that "Americans have 1.5 billion pairs of unworn shoes lying in our closets."

Just rubber band each pair together and drop them off at the designated locations. Here in Portland, the drop off location is:
Foot Solutions on SE 82nd.

God be with all of the people affected by this unimaginable tragedy.

Towel Tags Are HERE!

Finally, the Towel Tags are up on the site.
Make sure you all know whose towels are whose, and tag your towels! Don't worry about whether or not your monogrammed towels are clean. Don't wash the family's towels every day. Tag whichever towel you grab and know it is yours for a few showers. Save the planet. Save YOUR energy!

Make you bathroom pretty with blooming flowers. Or spaceships. Or dinosaurs.

Did I mention you won't have to do as much laundry?!

Pretty Enough To Get Me Back To Yoga.

I was just explaining to someone about how I had JUST had a baby and had to answer, "well... he is 15 months old, actually" when asked. It has been 15 months since I worked out regularly. Yes, I worked out every single day of my pregnancy and then QUIT. Maybe if I had this gorgeous wrap to snuggle in after a workout I'd do it again? Seriously. Gorgeous.

New Year's Resolution: Feed My Family

I've never been one for New Years' Resolutions. I've never understood why anyone would wait for ONE time of year to make changes in their lives. This year, however, it coincides perfectly with what is going on with us. There's been a natural break in our schedules and it is a perfect time to start. There are SO many reasons this is so important to our family: we need to save money, we need to eat healthier, I need to get my head on straight. That last one is the biggie - the last thing I need right now is to try to figure out what to feed everyone at the last minute. This is when I give up and tell my husband to bring something home for dinner!

This is a before shot of just a tiny bit of my recipe books piled high with little corners bent over on the pages of yummy recipes I'd like to try. Let's just say I haven't opened one of them since I bent the little page over!I sat down and ripped out every recipe I think would work for us, put them in plastic sheet protectors,and made a binder for all of our family meals. I can take them out and move them around by the week or by dish or by season - anything I want.

I bought this darling little calendar from Clementine NW (LOVE THEM!!)

It stays in my recipe binder and every Sunday night I'm sitting down to plan out the week's meals. If I can swing it I go grocery shopping for the week on Sunday, so far it has been Monday morning. This will work!!!

I know tons of you plan out your menu's for the week ahead - do you have any great tips to help me!?