Sweet Surprise

Last week I received a book I had ordered in the mail. I opened it and then put it on my self until I was ready to read it. Last night I pulled it off the shelf for some reason and in the middle pages of the book this card fell out. 

 I turned it over and the seller had place this message on it and signed it. 

For some reason I was truly touched by the thoughtfulness of the seller Kay. 

I don't remember what her seller name is but I am so appreciative of this little card.

(To read them just right click on your mouse and you can see it better)

Thank you Kay where ever you are. Hugs, Bobbi Jo

Happy September

Happy September everyone! 

Fall is my very all time favorite time of the year. 

I look forward to the cooler weather, changing of the colors (not so much here in the valley but up north)

cooking more soups & stews and actually just the change. It is like a new beginning to me.

Found this picture I think it is beautiful 

Some day I will live where it looks similar to this.

 Today being September first I realized that it is the start of apple season so I decided what could be better than starting off  the month with homemade applesauce.
So I pulled out the apples, washed, peeled and cut them  up

Put them in the small crock pot and added some peaches (forgot to take pictures of those)

added in some clove, sugar, salt, water and turned them on to cook.

I think these are going to be so yummy. 

Next week I will try a different fruit with them.
 Hugs, Bobbi Jo 

Cupcakes For ME!

Last night was the Blue Moon. 

Gabby and I ran outside and waited and waited and more waiting for about 25 min. then finally the moon came out of the clouds. It was so bright and beautiful. 

This picture unfortunately is not one that I took. But isn't it just beautiful? 

After the moon showed itself we went in the house and back to what we were doing before. 

A little while later Gabby comes upstairs and says that there are people there to see me. 

I was just getting ready to get a bath and really not wanting to visit with anyone and she wouldn't tell me who it was other than there was three.

 I go downstairs and open the door and these three are standing there with a plate of yummy chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and a slice of strawberry.

This is Macy Van Gieson, Keaton Van Gieson and Faith. 

The Van Gieson's are 2 of the children of our neighbor and my friend Amy (she does my hair).  

 That is chocolate on their faces and Keaton is wearing my apron. 

What a sweet and pleasant surprise from these three bakers. 

Hugs, Bobbi Jo

Faith For Vice President

Faith came home from school a few weeks ago and said that she wanted to run for Vice President of her school. So she has been working very hard on her campaign posters, getting the word out to people that she is running and her speech.

I think she looks very pretty, confident and ready to be Vice President

This is Friday morning before school.
Faith was giving her speech and she was ready to get this done.

 I didn't go to see her as she gave her speech (honestly I don't think she wanted me there because I told her to let me know what time earlier in the week but she didn't) I am not upset I totally understand I probably would have made her nervous.  

So I told Faith and Gabby to stand together and I would get a picture of them well when one girls face would be good the other was being goofy. 

So this is what we ended up with.

 Silly girls.

Since it is a long weekend we have to wait till Tuesday to find out if she won. 

It really isn't fare to let the kiddos know at school as they announce it on the intercom and then that awkward moment when you didn't win. Just saying I would do it much different. But I will be sure to let you know the results. 

 Hugs, Bobbi Jo

Missing But In Action

Last week I had left off on day 4. Well I have a very good reason for not posting on my blog. We had company come into town. Coco, Kyle and the kiddos came to visit us. I just had to enjoy the sweet little grand babies while I could. 

So as far as the paper clutter that is a daily thing I work on. I tend to like paper so I have to do a clearing each day. The budget we got on a budget and I will be talking more about that on a later blog. 

Routines I have been working on to get back. With summer it was hard to have a regular routine but not that school is back in it is falling into place nicely.

This was our bedroom on Wednesday night August 22ND. It was Kyle's Birthday so Dallas and Sara came over to celebrate too. Everyone ended up in our bedroom visiting 

Coco, E'lyse, Faith, Naima, Talmage

Other side of the room is Gabby in the red, Kyle, Sara in the chair, Dallas and Alan. 

We had dinner and then Birthday pie for Kyle. While we were talking Dallas(my son), handed me some pictures to look at of he and Sara's mini vacation to California. I went through the first 3 then looked at the 

4Th and it was a picture of a positive pregnancy test.
YES I am going to be a grandmother again from this sweet couple! I was so pleasantly surprised I started crying. What awesome news! 

Dallas & Sara 

Over then next few days Coco and I did a little shopping and a lot of talking, planning and laughing.
This is Naima playing with her princess Barbies

Talmage was crying because he couldn't go hang out with his Dad and Uncle Dallas playing ball so Coco told E'lyse to dress him up. 

This is what she came up with.

 OH MY GOODNESS!  (Can you say black mail picture.)

E'lyse got her scrubs for her EVIT class. 

She is in training while in high school to become a veterinarian assistant.She has 4 classes at the school then goes to the EVIT campus for the rest of the day. She really enjoys the class and as you can see she is enjoying her sweet blue scrubs.

A little more serious picture of E'lyse in her scrubs.

Random picture of Gabby after having her hair in some tight buns all over her head over night. It is super poofy! 

So now I need to get back to some regular blogging. 

September has some changes coming. Changes that are long over due. 

Hugs, Bobbi Jo

Simplifying for Fall Day 4Th Day

Today is all about the cleaning out of the Bedroom & Bathrooms. Since I have cleaned out and de-cluttered a while ago things have pretty much stayed the way they were.

However 2 weeks ago I  did a major clean up in Faith and Gabby's bedroom. 

Now brace yourself this is not a pretty sight

This is the before:

 Closet floor

Other side of the  closet 

I spent a full day working on this scary mess

This is now: 

I didn't take pictures of the closet but believe me they are so much more organized and clean.

Even though it took a good portion of my day I was so happy to get it cleaned up and ready for the school year.

 Hugs, Bobbi Jo

Simplify For Fall Day 3 Toys & School Supplies

Boy do I feel lame I have no toys at this time to de-clutter. This will come when I show you the girls room on tomorrows post. The toys that I keep for the grand kiddos have already been gone through a while back. 

School supplies hmmm...... well I have some notebooks that I bought for the girls for school when they went on sale this year. They really needed a lot of the composition notebooks I had over 12 of then and now only 2 left. Plus the two younger girls love to write stories when we are traveling or they are just relaxing so I am guessing that is where some of them went. Time to stock up again.

 Then I keep a box of extra pencils, erasers, pens, staples and other such desk supplies in a clear box with a lid in the garage on a shelf with our extra paper. 

As you can see there aren't very many supplies due to the girls already taking most of it with them to school or in their backpacks. The container WAS the larger size but it looked super sad when I took the picture so I switched it over. So now I know that when I see items on sale that are depleted I can stock up on them. That is the great thing about this Fall Challenge. 

Hope you are doing well on your challenge. Please let me know! 

Hugs, Bobbi Jo

  

Simplifying For Fall Challenge Day 2 Kitchen & Meal Plan

As you can see on Day 2 of the Simplifying For Fall  challenge we are working on our Kitchen & Meal Plan. 

My kitchen has pretty much stayed the same since I worked on it a couple months ago. There was however one area that got a little out of control and that would be the small pantry in the kitchen.
This is the before

 This is the after

The shelves starting at top are:
#10 Food storage items I use maybe once a week,
2Nd shelf oatmeal, Nutella, crakers for snacks or baking, coco powders for baking
3Rd shelf is spaghetti squash, onions, bananas, popcorn, bread & buns
4Th shelf is some baking items, my herbal teas and cereal
5Th shelf is the #10 cans of food storage that are used more frequently.
I just included that because I am always curious or nosy of what people have in there pantries.


 This is my cool door organizer(shoe holder) that holds smaller containers of things that are used frequently.
This way I can store my extra stock of items in another place but have these items easily on hand.
Coco had shared this idea with me when they lived down here in the valley. I have one in both of my pantries.

So other than some regular cleaning up in the kitchen this was the only area that scared me. he he
The rest of my day has been working on Menu Planning I am still working on this today. It is Wednesday yes and it is taking me forever. You may ask why and so I will tell you. I am figuring out how I can cut the grocery bill down to $100 or below for the next couple of weeks. This past week was done on $120.
I am currently reading this book

It has so many wonderful ideas and I am taking notes so it is taking me a little longer to get through this book than it normally would.
So my challenge for this coming week, I go shopping on Thursday normally is to spend less than $100 this includes everything including paper products, toiletries and food. We will see how I do. We do have a bit of supplies built up so I think this is a big advantage.
 Hugs, Bobbi Jo

Some Nights Dance Fun

This morning Faith came in and wanted to hear this song

Some Nights FUN

 and then all of the sudden a wild dance broke out right there in my room.! Faith was lip singing to the song Gabby was jamin in the back then they both broke into a wondrous dance

Great way to start out the morning before leaving for school. 

Hugs, Bobbi Jo

Simplifying For Fall Day 1 Kick Off

 As you can see on the above picture Simplifying For Fall Day one KICK OFF. Being that I was awaken a half hour before I actually had to get up my kick off day started out ahead of schedule. 

I was able to take kiddos to school (my turn this week in the car pool) then go to Wal-Mart & Fry's to get the needed groceries for this weeks menu and drop a book at the library all before 7:10 this morning. 

I came home started some wash, did other house chores, ate breakfast and started in on the laundry room.

Today's Simplifying starts off with Clothes and Laundry Room

 I apologize for how yellow the pictures are. I think this is due to my laundry room being a bright sunshine yellow and very little lighting in there. 

I must first explain that a little bit of remodeling is going on here. It started when i saw on another blog that the lady got her washer & dryer stacked. I didn't now you could do this with these washers. So  I showed Alan the pictures and made such a fuss about it . He started to do some thinking, then asking me questions. Well it was much later like a couple months that he said we could do it sometime.

I don't remember other than it was after my Birthday that he did get it done. He pulled out a shelf that was built there and patched it. It still has yet to be sanded and textured. 

This is my laundry room before

Not terrible but messy. 

Other side is my book shelf with cook books, dish towels, clothes, flour sack towels, Sham-wows, dirty kitchen linens basket, cookbook binders. 

The drawers that go under the washer and dryer that were on them when we had them side by side are in the garage. Alan is going to make a shelf that will go on the left had side of the washer and dryer with a rod to hang clothes on (this will hopefully save me some ironing.) and the drawers will come back in and be put on the ground underneath. So the boxes to the left are full of our items from those 2 HUGE drawers and on the top of those are rags .

This is the box with dog grooming  shampoo, conditioner, brushes, leashes and decorative scares. 

Also put in the extra items until the drawers come back in. 

Washing items, stain remover and special detergent for Hubs hunting clothing

 Extra items 

And now the After 

And the other side after 

 Now don't worry I did find the homes where all of those other things that were in here belonged. I am thinking that this is much better (at least until my drawers come back in! ).

Now for the second part of today's challenge

CLOTHING

Some people might find this odd but I don't have a dresser.

Instead I keep my socks and unmentionables in these containers.

 The clothing is folded and organized to keep them neat.

The rest of my clothing is hung up. It goes my shorts (more like capris but my legs aren't too long so they are longer), camis for under shirts, t-shirts for everyday, nicer shirts, cover ups, dresses, skirts, then lingerie. I had cleaned my close out a few months ago so there really wasn't much to go through here. 

Above my clothes are my boxes with my shoes in them. To the left you see the distilled water that is for the Netti Pot. Just for those curious minds out there. 

This wasn't too bad of a challenge today. 

I hope if you are joining in you will share with me your successes or the link were I can check them out. 

Hugs, Bobbi Jo