peelosophy

I heart my backyard.  It’s mostly the nature thing- being outside is so therapeutic for me. The kids are entertained for hours out there. The size of our backyard is just manageable for us, but there is also room for ideas.  And of course, we have lots of ideas.

There are those things I would just like to update…

• grass that is plush and perfect
• a fence that matches on all sides, but not a privacy fence – I love our neighbors too much and there is something about being able to look up or down four backyards that says community to me.
• some new plants in some of my established flower beds

And then there are the other ideas that I get when I am out there…

• For sure, we need a PATIO.  I’ve been going back and forth between patio and deck, but I think patio is what would do it for me.  It would need to be big enough to fit out patio furniture and grill with extra room to spare.  I like flagstone like this, but way bigger…

(Sunset magazine)

or a stamped concrete like this…

• I would LOVE LOVE LOVE a hot tub too.  The problem is privacy.  I know it would go at one end of the house.  Maybe something like this with a little more tall foliage…

• A water feature, later I do want little pond, but for now I want this fountain – I just can’t find one that’s not under $200.  I even have a place for it! I am totally serious.

There are a couple of things I would want to add to the playground area.

• A couple of these diggers like these, of course John wants to build them with his new welder…

• a kids size picnic table like this one, of course I would want to build it…

• some sort of fort on the ground.  I love the idea of a living willow fort like this one, but I can’t find where to buy willow in the States.  I love how natural it looks, like the forts my brother and I used to make down by the creek.

But I would settle for some sort of camouflaged tee pee or barrack similar to this…

• An outdoor shower attached to our house, just a simple teak shower, more for when the boys come into the house to hose them down.

• It should be said, that John wants to make some sort of man-made creek that drains and a half-pipe back in the play area as well.  I’m trying not to think about that too much.

That’s about it for now. Feel free to enter me in whatever backyard sweepstakes/makeover you can find!

Pop Pop Pop! – katherinemariephotography: I don’t remember how I came across this blog, but before you click it, if you are having serious feelings of inadequacy as a mother, save it for a later date.  Seriously, these themes of the week that she does with her kids are gorgeous and totally off the hook as far as I’m concerned – that’s a compliment from afar.   She is clearly an amazing designer and photographer and I have become addicted to the beauty she is creating, but have allowed myself to only take a peek when I can  admire without feeling bitter.

Back to the Basics: Batch Cooking – SimpleMom: I have been waiting for something like this post to get me exited about batch cooking again.  I used to do it here and there a couple years ago, but lost my rhythm.  I thought this post was great to jog my memory and to encourage ideas that I haven’t tried before.

Before/After Chad’s Filing Cabinet Planter – Design Sponge: I don’t have time.  I have so many unfinished projects.  But I want to do this – I know exactly where it would go and what I would plant.  Oh well.

Dirty Little Secrets: The Riverside Church Blog: I  love this post that Kim wrote.  I loved reading the comments that people wrote about it.  I have read this book too. There are so many ideas from this book that really resonated with me, but I could never put it into words and this book does a great job.  I’ve always wondered where parenting righteousness comes from and why is it so hard for moms/women to be honest with each other;  this book addressed alot of this for me.

This summer has been atypical for us. No camps – we had Jumpstart Kindergarten which killed the camp prospect.  No vacation outside of St.Louis.  No weekend agendas – we are too exhausted from crazy long work weeks.

Instead we have delighted in the simple pleasures and really that’s what summer is all about right?  Simple lazy days and easy nights.

Some of my favorites are long family walks – dogs included, playing in the backyard, frozen treats of any kind, having friends over, grilling, staying up “late” to catch fireflies, did  I mention playing in our backyard? – yeah we do a lot of that.  Others are….

Sharing popsicles with friends…

Sidewalk chalk. Henry loves princesses.

Webster parks.  I take for granted how many great parks we have around that we enjoy several time a week.  And the landscaping is so beautiful.  Kudos to Webster Parks and Recreation.  This is a landscape sampling from Larson Park aka “Bug Park”.

This isn’t exactly a “pleasure”, these were my feet after the Fourth of July Webster Carnival this year.  We went on the 4th, as usual, but it had rained most of the morning  and left the fairgrounds super muddy.  It’s probably one of the Top 5 most disgusting things I have ever done for my children.  But they got to ride all the rides they wanted…

I went to Aldi yesterday for fruit – glanced in the freezer section and they had…JELL-O PUDDING POPS.  I don’t know if they are coming back or not, maybe they are overstock from 1985.  Don’t know, don’t care.  I’m super excited!!!

You should be out the door already to get you some.  Maybe you need a memory jog.  Bill Cosby.  Vanilla, Chocolate and Vanilla/Chocolate Swirl flavors. Jell-O Brand. Made with real pudding.

Read more…

This has been many moons in the making and will never be to the detail that I want it, but it helps me so I thought I would share.  It’s my price book.

What is a price book you may ask? It is some sort of book to keep track of prices.  I use it to keep track of grocery prices.  For example, I never know if that’s a good deal on peanut butter or not, so I would look in my price book for reference. I’ve learned that not every sale is a sale.  I get the prices on items I buy from my own grocery receipts or sales ads and mark it in my price book.  It sounds a little consuming and it is at first, but once you get into it, we buy most of the same things at the store and eventually my price book runs itself.

I have used a paper notepad before, but have switched to an Excel document in the recent year in hope of accessing it from my iPhone when I’m at the store. I’m hoping to put a link on the main page of peelosophy soon too.

Here is the link if you want to access my price book: peels price book

Here is also the grocery list template I use too: market list

Yes, I love tools and spreadsheets.  Let me know if you have any ideas for improvement on these.

Maybe it’s because I’m a cheap date, but I watched this video 3 times by myself and then coerced the boys to watch it with me later.

My favorite if the third one shakin’ his booty and then the one raising the roof towards the end.

For a background about this series of posts on my Binder, click here.  If you want to see them all – you can search “binder” in the search bar.

The next part of my binder is a section called “Zones”.  This again is straight from FlyLady, actually I printed them right from the site.  (The printable detailed cleaning lists are when you scroll to the bottom of the page)  I  should probably update mine now since I printed mine over 6 years ago!!!  I’ve always wanted to change them up a bit to fit our needs a little better.  For example, in the living room zone, she has to vacuum the rugs and we don’t do rugs at our house.

The basic idea of the zone cleaning, is each week you are in a different zone (living room, bedroom, etc.) and this is when you do detail cleaning in that area of your house.  So, theoretically, the whole house should be “spring cleaned” in a month, every month.  This is just what works for me.  I’ve been doing it this way for 6 years, and my house is never perfect, but it is easier to keep up with then before I did it.

The other part I have in the Zone section, is FlyLady’s Crisis Cleaning.  I do this when I find out someone is coming over later and I feel like my house is a disaster and I don’t know where to start.  I love this page because it tells me what to do when I am usually in a panic.  Now I don’t do this when you (Mads, Greta, Liz, etc) come over, it’s more when John says “my mom and grandpa are coming over for dinner in two hours”.  I go to the page, follow what it says and it gets done without freaking out.

Hop over to the Riverside blog to check out my guest post today.  Originally I wrote it for peelosophy, but I thought I would send it over to Matt to see if he needed a post for our church blog.

It’s funny how much easier it was writing a post intended for my blog than writing one with the intention of putting up on my church blog.  I was just writing, not concerned with a bunch of other people reading it.  Way less pressure.

I’m kinda floored right now with the coincidental showering of thoughtful gifts I’ve received in the last 24 hours.  Of which half the people don’t know that we have been under a financial strain or that I have been desperately wanting things because of it.

It started last night at a wedding shower where the gifts to those attending the shower were earrings.  Can I tell you – I literally asked God for some new earrings like two days ago.  No joke.  I was putting on one of the two pairs that I own (because I have this thing about losing one earring) and I found myself really wanting to go out and buy some more earrings.  Instead of shopping, I told God that I would love some new earrings.  Yeah, it happened like that and now I have these…

Next was today, Greta called and asked what I was doing about 5pm, I told her nothing and knew John was working late.  She said, great, Maddie and her were taking me out to dinner at CJ Muggs their treat and that her mom was watching ALL 7 OF OUR CHILDREN.  The best surprise gift ever.  And Gail, their mom, wore the boys out so good they fell asleep in 10 minutes after hitting the sheets – record time.

Then, this evening, Lucy, the best neighbor ever, came over because she had a couple of things for me.  The first was a darling maternity shirt from Target that a friend of hers didn’t like after buying and it was too small for Lucy, but Lucy thought it would fit me – love it.  There is nothing like new maternity clothes for your fourth pregnancy.

The second thing she gave me was something I had been looking for for a while – a banana slicer.  Don’t mock, it’s really for the kids, they love prepping their own food for snack.  I haven’t been able to find one not online and mentioned it to Lucy eons ago and sure enough she found one and picked it up for me.  I am so excited about it!!