Storm's A Brewing..

This past week has been crazy busy as my husband's cross country team got ready for the WPIAL meet.  This meet is for the varsity runners (boys and girls) to try and earn a place for the state competition in Hershey PA.  We have one boy and one girl who are amazing runners and were certain to earn a spot.  Unfortunately, the girl earned a spot but our boy lost all that he learned from training to his nerves and didn't place.  He's only a sophomore so we have high hopes for the next few years. 

We leave on Friday for Saturday's competition and I'm hoping this upcoming storm doesn't cause too much damage to the course.  I was shocked to here the storm was actually touching mainland in the Delaware/PA area.  I thought it already hit the Carolinas and all the rain we've been having yesterday and today was the storm reaching us. 

I was shocked when the news advised us of bad weather starting Monday night.  We normally only see rain for a couple days after Hurricanes hit mainland and die down as they move up our way.  So I spent all day trying to prepare for what could be some crazy rain/wind/snow in the next few days.  I hope my basement holds up.  It's been raining so much recently that I'm guessing it's gonna get water once the storm hits. 

The good thing is that I was able to get all my son's winter clothes out of storage and I have a good idea of what he needs.  Paige's clothes have been out for a while and she just needs some jeans and a winter coat (hopefully she'll wear one this year). 

With the storm and getting ready for states, I probably will not post till next week.  Hope everyone is safe and warm!  It's already dropping below 40! Brrr!

Photo Button Display

My kids are very active in sports.  We love it!  Though it does make for a very busy life especially since my husband is also a high school cross country and track coach. 

With each new season comes team pictures.  I buy the smallest package which includes a 5x7 individual photo, a 5x7 team photo, and an individual button.  While it's easy to display the photos, the buttons most often get set aside.  I use to wear them when the kids were little, but lately I haven't. 

I had thrown them in a pile in my office (aka the most unorganized room in my home!).  Each time I looked at them I thought what a shame because they are so cute. 

I had tried to display them on my filing basket.

But they never stayed on good and I could only get a few on at a time. 

I really wanted to display them in a cute way, but for the life of me I couldn't come up with any good solutions.

Then one day I happened to remember the cork board tiles that I bought with the plans to make a copy of a Pottery Barn Teen bulletin board.  But finding matching tiles of cork, magnetic, etc was proving difficult.  So I just opted for the large cork board frame I found at Home Goods. (Hoping to finish by posts on Paige's room soon. Can't believe I started her room last August!)

The tiles have been sitting in my office for over 2 years and I figured that they would be perfect to display the buttons.  It's not completely finished (see above paragraph as to how long projects have been taking lately!), but I am really liking it so far.



This wall is directly outside of Paige's room.  To the right is her bedroom door and to the left is the bathroom. Yes, I have also added repaint the trim to the list of things to do.



The top board holds all of her softball pictures from T-ball to Junior High. The bottom tile has her cheer leading buttons (and one lone soccer and volleyball one).  Not all of her cheer buttons are on as I can't find 3 years worth.

I haven't decided what to do with the window decals yet.  I'm not crazy about putting them on our cars and they were too cute to throw away.  I was going to put them on the wall above and below the tiles.  Or put them on the tiles and rearrange the buttons around them.  Jeff and I are also debating on framing the tiles in. 

I also put a cork tile outside of my son's room.  I am guessing that the rest of  his baseball buttons are with Paige's cheer buttons because we are missing a few years worth. 

Hanging the buttons on the cork was so easy.  I just used the old fashioned flat thumb tacks and the fastener on the back of the button as the hook.  I can move them around as needed and it really looks cute (despite my horrible photos).  Plus I can add more tiles as needed which I probably will with my son as he is now getting into more sports!

It's cute to see how much they've changed and it reminds us of some wonderful times shared together!  



I Heart Aussies

Life is really hectic here as my husband is in the middle of his cross country season.  I try to help out as much as I can and luckily by the end of this month it will be over.  Just in time for the holiday craziness to begin!

But back to what I've been up to.  Reading blogs and pinning on Pinterest.  Yah, major time wasters I know.  But I have found some really great blogs through Pinterest!  Totally fell in love with Slow Your Home.  Brooke is an amazing writer and utterly honest.  Love her.

The Organised Housewife is another new blog I'm crushing on.  Kat has a lot of great organizing challenges and ideas.

 Nadia at The Everyday Blessings keeps things simple and joyful.  I like her outlook on homelife.

They all share some similiarities too.  They all live in Australia and blog about cleaning, simplifying, and creating a better home.  Their writing styles are different and even though they all write about the same type of issues (cleaning, organizing, etc) I don't find them to be repetitive as they approach it in their own unique way.

Though I do have trouble understanding some things such as recipes as they tend to use metric measurements and temps.  I also don't understand some of the references to animals or birds.  Sultanas are raisins (I think).  And Napisan is a popular cleaning agent.   Also it's weird to see a post dated for the next day!! 

I really have been spending way too much time on this laptop! 

Must.Get.Off.Now......