Monday Random Ramblings

Hey everyone!  I hope y'all had a wonderful weekend.  So tell me, are you ready for some random ramblings, because that is exactly what I've got today.

We are really starting to heat up here -- 105* over the weekend and 109* predicted for today -- yikes, right?  The Man and I got out early on Saturday morning and did some yard cleanup.  He trimmed the Mesquite Tree and I dead-headed and cleaned up the pots.

The Man has been babying this tree for a couple of years now, since we lost one of the big branches during one of our crazy Haboobs!  It's looking pretty good now.

I have two of these nice big pots of mums from last Fall, and they both graced me with

Spring blooms.  They won't last too much longer, and then I'll trim them way back and hope

they will be ready for blooming again this Fall!

My herb pot has been very abundant this Spring and needed quite a bit of trimming.  I decided to make a bouquet for the breakfast table -- smells delicious!

I know you've seen Mr. Giraffe many times, but I do not believe you have ever seen him with......

Such a jaunty headdress!  A couple of precious little girls, aka: Little Miss and Littliest Miss did

a bit of decorating the last time they were here!  Silly me, I alway use those tassels for lamps or candlesticks!

When it gets really warm and everything on TV is a rerun, we head to Red Box to catch

up on movies.

Whoever came up with this system, is a genius!  So, what did we see?

Monuments Men -- The Man and I both really enjoyed this movie!

August: Osage County had some incredible acting, but was very dark in its content.  We can all only hope that we do not have families that are this volatile.  If you have a real aversion to "potty-mouth" language, then this movie is not for you.  It was very hard to take at times.

I won a give-away!  Sweet Robin at All Things Heart & Home gave away 3 issues of 

Jennifer Carroll's new online magazine "Celebrating Everyday Life," and I was one of the lucky winners.

This is really a very lovely magazine.  Thank you so much, Robin!

As much as I enjoy the ease of reading a book or magazine on my iPad, sometimes a piece of work comes along that you just know you have to be able to touch and hold in your hands.  A book that will have notes written in the margins and passages highlighted with a marker.  A book that will get dog-eared and show signs of much love.  This is just such a book.

Myquillyn Smith is one of our fellow bloggers, but she refers to 

herself as The Nester at The Nesting Place.  Some of what really caught my attention was the following excerpts:

"Giving Up on Perfect......Instead of giving up on a perfect idea, what if you gave up on perfection?  Giving up is the first step to creating the home you love.  The goal of perfection does nothing but hold you back."

I thought, "Wow, is this ever true.....at least of me."  I am a perfectionist and many times it holds me back from doing and trying so many things.  I'm feeling such renewal from this book and seeing ways for me to just breath and let go -- okay, I know this won't happen overnight and will take some effort, but I'm truly seeing some possibilities for positive changes.  Yes, I highly recommend this book!

When the weather starts heating up around here, I spend more time in my craft room.

This past weekend, I spent some time perusing YouTube videos on organizing 

Becky Higgins' Project Life core kits.  There were several methods that looked interesting, but organizing predominantly by color sounded like the best fit for my style of scrapping.  I have several kits and had been using them separately which was kind of boring and frustrating.

After combining all of my kits and separating by color, I found that I had so much more fun putting my pages together.  I loved how quickly these photos of our Memorial Day weekend activities and our "California Cruisin'" vacay, came together in these pages.  The containers I used are from IKEA, and I had picked up several of these when I bought my Raskog cart.  They fit perfectly in the cart, BTW!  The other thing I like about this new system is how easy it is to move the plastic bins back to the Raskog when I need my crafting table for something else.

Aside from writing this post, twice (don't ask), doing some vacuuming & laundry.....

The Man and I also had a morning date here.  UGH....I don't like it, but I do it anyway!

I truly hope you will all have a wonderful week, do some fun-stuff, and make memories!