Preserve Your Battery Life!

My blog is all about ideas to lead a beautiful life both inside and out.  Lately, I've been sharing a lot of ideas to make our homes beautiful (the outside part).  So, today I thought I would write a post that includes some ideas to lead a beautiful life on the inside.

I know that most of you, like me, feel like our life is so fast-paced and our task lists never seem to end!  Between work, friends, family and all the random demands we encounter throughout the day our personal batteries wear down quickly.  When my battery wears down I am generally not very fun to be around.  I do it to myself because I always want to do a good job, give more, do more and be more.  I need to remind myself to sit down and relax so I can preserve my battery life. 

I came across this list on the Personal Leadership Insight Blog and thought I would share it with you all!  These are some simple things we can do that will keep us happy, healthy and well charged for the long haul!

16 Ways to Preserve Your Battery Life
1. Get adequate sleep.
2. Consume nutritionally sound food and drink.
3. Maintain positive relationships.
4. Do meaningful work that aligns with your core values.
5. Have a hobby and do it often.
6. Keep harmful chemicals out of your body.
7. Remove the clutter from your vehicle, home, office space and life.
8. Stop the gossip.
9. Help others in need.
10. Stop making tiny issues into big deals.
11. Forgive others.
12. Create a cool memory often. (I.e. - new restaurant, road trip, date night, catch some live music, etc.)
13. Take vitamins daily, naps weekly and vacations yearly.
14. Clear your email inbox regularly.
15. Forgive yourself.
16. Listen to positive, uplifting music and human interactions.

I love this list!  It's hard to remember to do all of these, but by just picking a couple of them to do on a regular basis you will do a lot for yourself in the long run!

So below, I posted a picture of Adam and I  at the ISU game on October 1.  We took time out from being busy and time away from our task list to have fun tailgating, enjoy the awesome fall weather in Iowa and make a memory or two.  He is great at helping me to re-charge and preserve my "battery life."  Unconciously we do a lot of these 16 things aleardy. Adam is naturally better at doing a lot of the things on this list but continually reminds me that it's ok to take a break, relax and not make a big deal out of something so small. 


ISU Game - Oct. 1, 2011

Print this list, keep it close and enjoy! :)

It's A Girl!

GOT YA!! For some of you, I bet you had to read this post because the title completely caught you by suprise and you had to figure out what was going on!  No, I did not and am not planning to have a baby.  Maybe someday, but not any time soon...

However, our good friends in northern Iowa just had their first baby, a girl, named Riley Jo.  And, because I love giving gifts you better believe we mailed them one right away.  I am pretty proud to say that I actually made the majority of their gift (if you count items and not $$ because we did give them a Target gift card.) Some of you might think I am crazy for spending time on this stuff because it is SO MUCH easier to go out and buy something but that's definitely not as fun when you want to give a unique or personalized gift.

Here is what I made.  It's not much (that's why they got a gift card) but it was fun! :)

I love making greeting cards!  I do a lot of rubber stamping and use a lot of Stampin' Up products.  Making cards is something I do to relax.  Not to mention it saves quite a bit of money when you consider buying $3.59 greeting cards these days - Ridiculous!  Even though I love making greeting cards my boyfriend, Adam, said I can't make a living do that...

I also do a little bit of sewing- mostly straight lines yet - so I made a burp cloth.   If you can thread a sewing machine you can make one of these.  Just pick out some cute material, sew the material right sides together and then turn it right side out and stitch up the opening.  Very Easy!

This was my favorite part of the gift!  I picked up a cute jar a Hobby Lobby, (usually 50% off every other week), tied a ribbon around it and used my rubber stamps to jazz it up.  You can't see it very well but I filled it with those cheap, plastic, little girl barrets that I found at Target.  It would be cute filled with diaper pins or candy if you wanted to give something simple as a birthday gift. 

Personalized gifts are fun and pretty easy as long as you are willing to put a little more time into them.  If you don't like taking the time to make gifts or don't feel very creative, let me know, I would be happy to make personalized gifts for you to give.

Happy Crafting!!

Great Fabric with a Personal Touch

I love stopping at the mailbox when I pull in the driveway - I always hope for something good and once in awhile it happens! 

Last night I opened the mailbox to find the fabric I ordered to start my living room makeover project from QuiltHome fabrics.  I was so excited!  QuiltHome fabrics is an awesome website that has designer fabrics from Amy Butler, Ty Pennington, Joel Dewberry, and others.  Below are two fabrics that I ordered to re-cover throw pillows for our living room.

L to R: Joel Dewberry 'Modern Meadow' and Amy Butler "Lotus"

The blue fabric is designed by Joel Dewberry called Modern Meadow and the cherry color fabric is designed by Amy Butler called Lotus.  The fabric is pretty inexpensive in comparison to going to a fabric store without a coupon! :)  I can't wait to start sewing this weekend!

Now, here's the BEST PART....

I got a PERSONAL NOTE on my receipt!  It totally made my day and now I can't wait to order more fabric from here!  What a neat touch from an online store!  Lesson learned for those of us that work in sales, always say thank you.  People love a personal connection and hand-written mail because today handwritten notes are far from the ordinary.  I will definitely be sending out more notes!  When was the last time you sent a handwritten note, letter or card?

Fall Decorating Pumpkin Tower

I LOVE this idea for fall decorating - Love it!!  I found it yesterday while I was reading A Thoughtful Place Blog. This is such a fresh new idea for decorating your front porch with pumpkins so I thought I would pass it along if any of you are looking to spruce up your front door with some fall decor.  I don't know about you all, but I'm not too successful when it comes to carving pumpkins.  They never turn out like the ones I see in magazines. 

If you can't tell I'm pretty excited about this idea and you are probably wondering "Why don't you do it?"  I would love to build a pumpkin tower.  In fact, I'd probably be working on this little project today because it is a beautiful fall day here in Iowa.  Unfortunately I have three problems that make this project a little difficult.

Problem 1:  Meet 'Bam'
Bam is our smart, young, and extremely energetic black lab.  He would see these pumpkins as the best toy that he has ever played with!  He litterally couldn't keep his paws off them.  I could see these pumpkins rolling around our deck, strung through our front yard or eaten within the first day.

Problem 2:  We live in rural Iowa (Not actually a problem)
We live in rural Iowa, on a county road.  Below is a view of what we see from the deck on the front of our house.  It is beautiful here! There are very few vehicles that drive by - it's great!  This time of year, during corn and soybean harvest, there is actually more traffic with farmers hauling grain to the local elevator. (They probably aren't my target audience.)

Problem 3: Five-digit house number
Because we live in rural Iowa, we have a rural 911 address that is five digits.  Could you imagine this pumpkin tower?  It would be huge!  I think this is a two or three digit house number project.



There are my three excuses.  I actually laughed when I was writing this post thinking about our dog tackling this pumpkin tower to play with the pumpkins and me trying to size up and stack 5 pumpkins on top of each other.  It would be chaos to say the least...

If YOU would like to do this project here is thelink to instructions from the Better Homes and Gardens website.  And, if you do build a pumpkin tower, please email me (contact me page) with a photo of it.  I would like to post it on my blog to show off your project!

Happy Fall!