Birthmark or What?

So, close to a month ago, an oddly-shaped red splotch showed up on Kevin's belly. I thought maybe we'd accidentally pinched him snapping a cloth diaper or something, but I watched the spot, put a little baby lotion on it & after two weeks, called his dr. She said to try putting Aquaphor on it for a few days & come in if it didn't clear up. I did, it didn't, so we went in & saw her. She deemed it something akin to a birthmark. Late-bloomer. It doesn't seem to bother him at all, so I felt relieved.
Then, he got these red lines on his legs that were clearly from the diapers... I later narrowed it down to the overnight diapers we were using.
So, we went to the cloth diaper store and showed them to the lady that owns it & got some new diapers to use overnight. After taking a few days to pre-wash them, we finally tried them. They're ginormous! It's so hard to get the covers over them! They're hemp & he can still soak them through. They're supposed to get more absorbent after more washings, and we can add inserts...
But, at any rate, the marks on his legs do seem to be getting better. The splotch on his belly, however, remains unchanged. *shrug*

Gardening, ducks, jewelry & more

Been busy here lately. Yesterday we hosted our big Gardening Party!
Yeah, not a fancy party in the garden, and down & dirty gathering to garden! I don't know how he did it, but my hubby actually convinced quite a few of our friends that pizza & fellowship were worth the back-breaking work of tilling and landscaping & tree-planting (other planting is yet to come) a roughly 35'x20' area of our yard on a dreary Saturday. I had to run & get some last-minute things we'd forgotten or put off buying until that day & it ended up taking me long enough that I missed out on all the fun outside. I made it back just in time to track one last set of muddy footprints into the house & fix up some fruit & salad to go with the pizza.
I'm so amazed at how nice everyone was to come & help us and what good, quick work they made of the project! I think it looks pretty great! I was hoping to get out there today and actually plant the seeds and sedum, but it's been raining again. At least it's washing the mud off our patio. ;)
That's my hubby showing me what all they had gotten done. See the little plum tree in the back? :D
There's a little mini-fence up now & we're going to run chicken-wire around the sides to try to keep the bunnies out. We're also planting marigolds outside the big fence. Apparently, bunnies don't like them & will steer clear.

So, backing up a bit, in preparation for yesterday, and just because it needed to be done, Paul was trying to mow Thursday night when I started to feel icky. No usual symptoms of being sick, I just had a massive headache and then I had chills, so I checked my temp. It was 102! I ran out & told Paul, but he wanted to get the mowing done since we had more prep to do on Friday. I tried to tough it out, but Kevin kept crying and crying. That's totally unlike him & it certainly wasn't helping the headache. When I tried to change his diaper I realized my hands were numb & I was having a hard time fumbling with the cloth diaper & concentrating... I tried to put the waterproof cover on without an actual cloth diaper on him! So, I grabbed a disposable and went back out & told Paul, the yard will have to wait, I can't handle the kids by myself. I called the on-call dr. and described my symptoms. He asked some questions & basically said, "that's weird. It sounds like something viral. Get some rest & come in in the morning."
Thankfully, I improved overnight & my temp was in the 99-100 range the next day (even without Tylenol) and I saw the dr. I had talked to. He said he wanted to make sure it wasn't meningitis, but he didn't want to sample spinal fluid unless it was really necessary. Since I was improving, he didn't think it was necessary. He said it was just some weird virus & I'd have to ride it out. My temp was back to normal Saturday, so I wasn't too worried, but it certainly was weird!
Friday, I hired the neighbor's 19yo daughter to mow the rest of the yard for us. Her grandpa ended up helping her and doing the trimming even!
When she came around the South side of the house with the mower, she startled & was startled by a duck who flew out from under our "chimney" vent! She looked & discovered the duck had a nest with at least a half-dozen eggs (we later counted at least 10!) under there!
We're quite surprised & baffled by our new resident. There aren't any ponds nearby! The only idea anyone had that she was out there was that I had heard some noises outside the fireplace (while I was sitting inside) that I'm guessing were from her.
While our friends were working, I peeked & found that mama duck had returned to her well-hidden nest and her eggs.
Oh, & for reference, this is what the nest is under: Can you see it under there?

Meanwhile, my wonderful mother has been hard at work photographing my jewelry & updating my facebook page! I still need to finish some of the descriptions, but I'm excited to be making progress with her help. :D
Most of these are pieces I have been meaning to post & am glad to be getting out there now! I have one more new piece to post soon.
Here's a crappy picture with my leg as a necklace stand! Pay no attention to my mess in the background please! Getting in on the whole ombré trend...

I also got some other art projects done & started with the kids, inspired by this: http://pinterest.com/pin/211176670000214352/
Mine are just on paper so far & not so cool, but they're cuter (to me) because they're my kids' hand- & footprints! ;)

Feeling thoughtful

As in, full of thoughts!
I have lots on my mind this evening and I'm not sure where to start, but I do want to write more in general.
One thing I've been thinking about a lot, but not really acting on, is this blog post and all that it's talking about. I think we do a lot better than most Americans when it comes to expenses & finances in general. We don't have much debt; we buy, borrow & inherited lots of used things; we use coupons for grocery & other shopping & take advantage of deals where we can. We are gardening, using cloth diapers and I'm breastfeeding. All of those have financial and other benefits. They aren't without their costs, though. Mainly: time.
Sometimes I read things like the blog post linked above and I think of how much less we could be spending (money) on various things. My hubby points out the time trade-off for many of these things. The cloth diapers, for example, mean that diaper changes take a little longer and laundry takes a little longer. Since I'm a stay-at-home-mom, we decided the time investment was worth the financial pay-off. Hubby isn't all gung-ho for them, but is happy to be saving money.
That's where I am on a lot of things. There are few issues I take a very strong stance on, the rest of the time I'm trying to find a balance.
We're still doing many of the things we're doing rather selfishly, to save money, and not as good stewards of this nation or planet; though that is a happy side-effect of much of it. Sometimes I see or hear/read something that gets me really motivated to change in one way or another, like the blog post linked above, but I go back to wanting a moderate amount of little luxuries as well.
If this blog post seems a little wishy-washy and haphazard... that's just because that's the way my brain works... or doesn't, depending on your perspective. ;)

Clutter busting

Well, I got all the stuff dropped off for the garage sale. There's a few things I could have added, but maybe we'll have our own garage sale after lil' K has outgrown some more clothes. Not in the pics below, but donated to the garage sale were another pair of black dress shoes, pet grooming kit, a bag full of bottles & binkies & such, a couple little novelty picture frames and a seat-belt adjuster thing...
I was SO happy when the lady in charge said we didn't have to price the clothing individually! That was what I was really dreading, so the rest wasn't so bad. I had no idea what to put on the bag of bottles & stuff, so I just put "make an offer." Pricing the rest wasn't too bad.
Then I took the kiddos to Steak 'n' Shake. Amber bounced around in her seat like a ping pong ball! I'm glad we got her in a set that wasn't adjacent to anyone else, the people behind me got to hear a near constant stream of "Amber, sit down, sit up, get back in your seat, get off the floor, sit up and eat..." and so on... Ugh.
Trying to get both kiddos to nap now so I can fold the laundry and get coupons ready for Paul to go shopping.
Edit: I did a little extra clutter-busting. My friend came to visit & mentioned that she was collecting Box Tops for Education for something, so I gave her all ours (since we've been collecting for a while & some were expired/expiring & Amber's still not in school)and since she works at the library that's having a donation collection for a book sale, I gave her a bunch of books that we were trying to sell. So, I don't have a pic of the box tops, but I can post a pic of the books later.
Edit: Books (Now or soon available at the B public library, except for "Broken Prey," which my FIL took.)

Blarg! How do you price for garage sales?

The moms' group I'm in is having a group garage sale this weekend, and we'll be donating our items & all the profit will go to pay for the groups expenses. We have to price all our own stuff though. I HATE pricing stuff... & this is why we have to price our own stuff, everyone hates pricing stuff & nobody wants to get stuck pricing ALL of it. I understand... that said, do you have any tips on how you price things? A few of us would like to do some blanket pricing, like "everything in this box is $1" but I'm afraid if it's not consistent, it might be an issue. Plus, since I personally won't be profiting from any of the stuff, I don't really care how it's priced. Paul's Ok with us not profiting personally, he's just happy to get some clutter out of the house.

So, that's the basket of clothes I'm donating that I mentioned in my earlier post about the decluttering challenge. I'll try to photograph some of the other things & if you're interested, email me at frau_innis (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Shoes - women's 7.5 or 7

Both boxes contain the lights pictured on the top one.

(Ugh! It rotated my pic!) Both boxes contain what's pictured - practically unused in both cases!

A whole box of unused furnace filters - we accidentally got the wrong size & couldn't or didn't want to bother with returning them.

Day 1 - Clutter Busting Challenge

So, I'm wanting to follow along with MoneySavingMom.com's Clutter Busting Challenge and I have more than 7 thing ready to go already... in fact I got rid of a few things a few days ago, but brought in at least as many in return, so that hardly counts.
A friend was getting rid of clothes & I wanted to as well, so we traded. Two of the shirts she had from someone else were too big for me & she's a seamstress by trade, so she's altering them for me & I'm going to alter a necklace for her & let her raid my fabric stash. :D
Argh, I can't upload my pic right now. Anyway, imagine a laundry basket full of clothes that I'm going to donate to a group fundraising garage sale.
It was supposed to be this weekend, but the lady who was going to host it had a death in the family, so it's post-poned. I'm relieved, actually. I could use the extra time to get ready.
I'll check in tomorrow with some of the other things I've set aside for the garage sale.

Just a Little Update

Just noticed I'd missed a comment on my last post & it'd been over a month ago, so I thought I'd check in!
My kids are still growing like crazy, especially my son! He's about 14lbs now & not yet 3 months old! Nights are starting to go better, generally, as he tends to sleep through the night. :)
My mom's been doing great with her new business venture: PJ's Place. So, I asked if she'd be willing to help me out with my jewelry. She said yes & she's been photographing the pieces I've had done for a while and been meaning to list on my Etsy page. She's going to help with the actual listing and my facebook page.

So, I've noticed a major trend on Pinterest & other sites... everybody's into Ombré!
So, I had a little fun on Thursday when I realized I had a LOT of different brown/tan nail polishes. I've always liked kinda different colors, but I didn't realize I'd acquired so many browns... so I managed to paint my nails this way... pardon my messy edges.


I've also been working on a new ombré necklace. Right now it's half-finished. It'll be four matching strands (with a clasp) when it's finished: