Feeling Blue.....

Hi friends. I know I have been MIA this week and I wanted to jump on here to say a quick I'm Sorry. I have been feeling blue all week and haven't really had anything to talk about. Well let me take that back, I have had things to talk about, I just needed to get my head together and work through it all. I promise I'll be back next week with some interesting content. I try not to leave this space un-updated, but sometimes you need to take a break!

In other news....remember last week when I told you we got some organizational stuff for our closet? Well we still needed to re-organize everything. Here's what it looked like pre-clean:

 Nothing had any sense of organization. Shoes, and blankets and everything just strewn about and it was driving me CRAZY! We took about 4 hours out of last Sunday and did a through deep clean. On Saturday I had re-organized both dressers and was able to empty 2 full drawers and that mean I could take some hanging items out and create more space. I cleaned out shoes, purses, bags, and trash. I had a full trunkload of donate when we were finished. We stacked jeans and sweatshirts in the cubbies. Shoes went on the middle shelf and blankets, games and other items that don't get used often (including all my crafting stuff) all went in boxes and on the high shelf. We overhauled where everything goes and of course color coordinated in all. The hubby even took all of his ties and put them in a basket.

I know it doesn't look a lot different in photos but trust me, it feels a million times better. Having that extra hanging room helps to avoid wrinkles on the clothes too! YAY! Next task.....tackling the garage. Sigh. We are in full Fall Cleaning in our parts! What about you?

I thought we'd be farther along......

I have been feeling a little down the past couple of days. I realized on Friday why that was. On this day last year, the hubby and I found out that we would be expanding our family. We were both so excited and could wait to start planning everything. Our excitement was short lived, as we lost the baby. We thought that since it happened once that it would be very easy to fall pregnant again. Well, that has not been the case. 10 months after the go ahead, here we are with not even a blimp. It's disheartening to say the least. People keep telling us that it will happen when its supposed to, or that we are trying too hard. Honestly, if we had known it would take this long, we probably wouldn't have waited at all. I know that we should be patient, but I have talked about this in the past and we are waiting for our time. We hope that our time will come soon, as we are trying to do everything in our power. Until then, we try to continue to live our lives and continue to love one another.

So, to update you on the more recent events, lets talk about the weekend. Friday we had our once a month visit with our dear friends and had a nice relaxing evening playing Cards Against Humanity, its like Apples to Apples for adults. Earlier that day, I was treated to the most amazing sandwich at a local restaurant in Pasadena called The Raymond. If your ever in the area, make a reservation and hit it up. I can't wait until they have their pumpkin ravioli back on the menu. We had been reveling in the cooler weather until that day and spent every evening on our porch last week just relaxing.

Saturday we headed down to Ikea to pick up a new dresser, and some other storage items for Fall cleaning. It's time to get rid of the old and get organized again! Then we headed out to my grandmothers house to have a faux Thanksgiving. We had turkey and all the fixings with lots of family. It was a great afternoon.

Brimmes Chest of Drawers from Ikea

Sunday, D's sister, brother-in-law and us took D's parents out to lunch for his dad's birthday. Good conversation all around. Then we headed home to do some assembly. It took the boys 2 hours to put together the dresser while I move furniture around and cleaned out the old dresser. Then D and I had dinner and watched a movie. It was a fairly busy weekend, but not really uneventful. Hopefully I can get an after photo when I get the closet re-organized. No I didn't take a before, but I can take a midway to show you what we did, and still need to do.

Also, last week the hubs and I decided to have a little date night at the shooting range. It's still so much fun to do target practice, however I do need to get out more. My aim isn't nearly as good as it once was. Were just testing things out to see if there's any shopping to be done. It was a fun night just the two of us!

Hope everyone in blogland had a great weekend!

Plastic Bag Obsession?!?

I may or may not have a plastic bag hoarding problem.
I have acknowledged this and am seeking help!

So, for those of you who don't know, I live in Los Angeles county. Last year, this lovely county passed a law banning all stores, grocery and the like, from providing their customers with plastic bags. You are not either required to bring your own bags, purchase paper bags for 10 cents a piece, purchase re-useable bags for $1 a piece, or carry all your items bagless. The good thing, when I get into the city where I live, they still provide plastic bags, which I use for bathroom trash cans, picking up dog waste and various other tasks. D works in LA county in a supermarket that doesn't provide bags and the city I work in has now passed the same law. So, we both no longer can get plastic bags, unless we shop at Target or other mass retailer inside the city we live. Usually not a problem unless we are meal planning at work. So what did I do? Started hoarding those stupid bags. It got to the point where there were so many that I couldn't get under my kitchen sink! So a couple of weeks back while searching my favorite time suck, Pinterest, I came across an idea on folding the bags in the shape of origami footballs. (you know, those things you would make when class got boring) It was a genius idea and I spent 2 hours (yes I know I am crazy) and folded each of those bad boys and threw them in a basket under my sink, so that we have a ton of saved space. Now they are so neat and tidy I can throw a couple in my purse for when I know I am going to shop in an area with no plastic bags! Yay! To see a tutorial on how to do this click here.

So much space saved!

Please send my husband flowers or support for my craziness! I am sure he will appreciate it! Although, it does come in handy when we have an organizational nightmare!

New Year, New Me

New Years has always been a contemplative time of year for me. Its a chance to re-asses one's goals and how you would like your next year to progress. While each person is different, I am not going to make the standard New Years Resolutions this year, but to make a lifestyle changes for my family. It is not widely known, but Darin and I are looking into starting a family. We have the "when it happens, it happens" kind of outlook on it and are not specifically "trying" to get pregnant. We will not be upset if it does happen, but we also want to be a little more prepared if the situation happens. With this in the back of my mind I have made a conscious effort to make a healthier me. I would like to be in good health and shape when the time comes so that I have as little complications as possible, and to also have the ability to bounce back quickly. To make this happen I have started a new work out regime and have decided to cut out fast food from my diet and start to make home made dinners. (Now that I have my new hardware, this is entirely possible!) I have also started to take a multi-vitamin and folic acid. With a couple of recipe books in hand and exercise TV on my OnDemand this goal seems to be very attainable.

Next on the lists of things is out with the old and in with the new. With a new set of priorities comes a need to clean out ones closet, literally and figuratively. Within the last 2 years Darin and I have realized what we are capable of dealing with and what we are not. I had a conversation with my cousin who recently had the same revelation about certain people that he no longer converses with and I told him that he probably just grew out of his friendship with that person. I think that is a great way of thinking about it. You should never think ill of someone that has hurt you or has left your life, for whatever reason. Just think of it as a growing process and what qualities in people that you want to have around you. We have a wonderful group of friends that are always there when we are in need and a wonderful family that will do anything for us. Our support system is very good. With the figuratively part out of the way we have decided to start cleaning out our junk. Today we started with the garage, and had a mighty large trash pile and a very large donation box too. It felt so good to get somewhat reorganized again. The next task is to tackle our closet and kitchen and get rid of things that don't get used and give them to people in need. Why should it just collect dust in my cabinets when somebody else can use it? Besides, when we finally buy a home I don't want to pack and transport things that I am never going to use again!

The final thing on my list of lifestyle changes (NY Resolutions) is to be more adventurous. Not necessarily the jumping out of airplanes adventurous, but the kind where Darin and I take something that we have never done and go do it. I know lots of people that do this, and I have decided to take note and introduce some variety into our lives. As they say, variety is the spice of life and we live in one of the most interesting states in our country so why not take advantage of it. This will get Darin some photo experience and it will be a good stress outlet for both of us.

There they are....my resolutions for the year. Out on paper (well sort of) instead of in my head. Hopefully I will be able to keep these resolutions this year. I am looking forward to 2011 and celebrating 9 years together with my husband, 4 years married, 3 baby births, 2 weddings and a partridge in a pear tree.