I'm back!

So, for any of my followers out there, you may have noticed that I was AWOL for a (VERY long) while. Truth be told, I got busy, got a job and just no longer had the time to write anymore. And I wasn't really sure who all was reading.

My mother- in- law is trying to break into the photography business and since she was here for the birth of our son she offered to do a pregnancy photo shoot for us. This was a matter of about an hour before I checked into the hospital to have Rusty.

So, I guess I can do a little recap of myself and my life. My husband and I have been married for 5 years now and together for a total of 6 years. We have 5 furbabies, 3 cats and 2 dogs. And  almost a year ago my husband and I found out we were expecting a baby and we were about 4 months along!! We were SO excited. We soon found out that we were having a little boy (just like we hoped and thought). We welcomed our adorable, healthy baby boy into the world on October 10, 2013 at 12:18am. If you ask me, the pregnancy went by way too fast. I absolutely loved being pregnant. And I still miss it from time to time and can't wait for pregnancy number 2 (well, I can because I want to have time to enjoy my son alone). We named beautiful baby boy Rusty Ragnar. Some of you may think this is an odd name, but there is a lot of meaning behind it for us. Rusty was that nickname of my uncle/Godfather that I was very close to who passed away 10 years ago in August. And Ragnar is Scandinavian which means judgement warrior. My husband is Irish/ Scandinavian and his grandfather wanted him to be named Ragnar, but my in-laws weren't that fond of it and my husband has always liked it. We couldn't think of anything to put with just Rusty or just Ragnar so we put them together. I absolutely love his name. However, not long after he was born, we soon found out that he inherited my chipmunk cheeks and was storing milk in them. So, he soon adopted the nickname Little Chipmunk. Our Little Chipmunk is now almost 6 months old and is the best blessing.

First family picture seconds after he was born.

It hasn't always been that way however. As I mentioned, I loved being pregnant. I knew he was safe. And it's a lot easier to take care of a growing baby inside of you than it is to take care of one that is growing out in the real world. And obviously, everyone knows that babies are a lot of work, but until you have one, you don't know just how much work and sacrifices it takes. And while, my mother-in-law came down to help me out for the first week of Little Chipmunk's life, after she left it was just me and my hubby. As I have mentioned before, my husband and I live out in NM by ourselves while the rest of our family and friends live in CA and WA. And while we made the decision to have me a stay at home mom (which is an amazing blessing) my husband could not. (We need some way to pay for all those diapers!) And I went through some moments in those first few months where all I wanted was to sit and watch a 30 minute show without someone needing something. And while my husband is beyond supportive and helps whenever I need it, I still felt so alone sometimes. And then I felt guilty for feeling that way. Now that my Chipmunk is now almost 6 months old, I have come to the realization, with the help of some very close family and friends, that it's ok to feel overwhelmed. To take a break. To cry. To scream. Just like it's ok to follow your own schedule even if the sleep schedule isn't what everyone else recommends. Or if you feed your child fruits first then the baby won't like veggies. (We started my son on fruits first and he loves veggies just as much as he does fruits). And if you aren't ready to leave your child with a baby sitter, that's ok. If you do feel ready to leave your baby with someone. That's ok too. It's whatever works for you. There's no cookie cutter outline that you need to follow when you're a parent. So the next time someone tells you to do something a certain way, you can go ahead and try it, but if it doesn't work for you or your child doesn't like it, that's ok. Don't feel like you're doing something wrong because you aren't following the exact outline of what someone else found works for them.

My mother-in-law was also able to do a little family photo shoot before she left back to WA.

As I have repeated a few times now, my son is almost 6 months old (time goes by WAY too fast) and now he babbles, smiles, laughs, sits up by himself, rolls over in both directions, does donuts on his play blankets, scoots himself around and is currently working on crawling and it is absolutely amazing to watch. I am constantly amazed by just how amazing my son is. Don't get me wrong though, I still have my moments where I want to rip my hair out by the handfuls, but I recognize, now, that is a part of being a parent, especially a stay at home mom.

Our most current family photo. Isn't my family just beautiful?!

Now, I must go because my Little Chipmunk is ready for another nursing. And I have more baby food to make and a house to clean. Please feel free to leave comments and feedback.

Until next time,

Katie :-)

Folding Sheets

A few days ago, well actually, I guess now it's been about a week, I saw this pin tutorial on Pinterest on how to fold your sheets so they look pretty in your linen cabinet. I was pretty excited when I found it because I don't know about you, but I can never figure out how to fold the stinkin' fitted sheet! Lol I clicked on the pin on Pinterest so that it would take me to the link and I got this wonderful blog, The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking, that had pictures to it and everything! I was pretty excited because I am a visual learner so I have to see how something is done in order to do it myself. And the pictures were such good ones as well as the descriptions on how to do it! 

I was able to take my linen cabinet from looking like this:

Please ignore the horrible lighting

To looking like this!

So much better! And not only does my cabinet look pretty now, but I also feel like I have little presents of sheets for my beds!

Add caption

And there are a few other ways you can fold them too! I personally liked the second option because like I said I feel like I have presents for my beds. :-)


I hope this was as helpful for you as it was for me!


Until next time...

Katie :-)

My weekend

Man has it been a busy couple of days! Let's see where to even start! I guess it all truly starts a few days back. Well, a few weeks technically.  Actually, I take that back too. This whole month just sucks and has been one thing after another. It all started (well, if I'm starting with what has gone wrong since the beginning of the month then it didn't start with the washing machine, but for now the washing machine is where I'm going to start)  with the washing machine. For some reason a few weeks ago the washing machine decided that it was going to work perfectly fine for most of the loads and then on the last wash it was going to fill up with water and then not drain the water when it was supposed to. 

Now, I know I said that it decided this which makes it sound like it has a choice and I'm sure most people will disagree with me, but I seriously think the appliances in my house come alive and plot against me. I am quite aware of how crazy this sounds, but if you had as many problems with appliances in your house as I have had in mine, you would think this as well. I'm not kidding. And it plans it when no one else is home so I look like I'm crazy or something. Every time something goes wrong no one is here to witness. Drives me quite bonkers. 

Like when we had problems with our plumbing and everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) was backing up into our tub, it happened when my husband was gone. And it wasn't like he was gone for a while (well, he was gone for a while because he was deployed, but you will see what I mean when I say he wasn't gone for a while). My husband was home on R&R for a week and everything in the house was going smoothly. We were having a good time relaxing (well as much as you can in an un-air conditioned house in the summer) and just genuinely loving spending time with each other after him being gone for 7 months. And then he took a shower the morning he left, still things were ok. We were sad, but all the appliances and plumbing and everything else was working ok. I take him to the airport here in town come home and go to take a shower and the freakin' drain in the bath tub starts to back up, the toilet starts to gurgle, I get out of the shower and try flushing the toilet and everything back up into our tub! It was fine LITERALLY just HOURS before and as soon as my husband leaves it stops working! See what I mean when I say this house and the stuff in it plot against me?! I have had problems with the plumbing (but I have become almost a pro at fixing that because it has happened so many times with no one around. Good old unfolded wire hanger.), the washing machine, the knobs have come off the cabinets in the hall, the swamp cooler, the crank on our living room windows came off, and I have fallen/ gotten hurt in this house more times than my husband and his parents combined. I have slipped on the tile floor, the bathroom floor, the bath tub, smacked my head on pretty much every cabinet, smashed my fingers in the screen doors, ran into walls (although that was totally the wall's fault, it jumped in my way of walking.), and so much more it would take me a hundred years to tell you. And in the process of telling you I would probably hurt myself some more. 

Ok, now back to the washing machine. So, my husband came home and I calmly told him what happened (this is after I called up my Mama Sissy in a panic because I didn't know what to do). And he suggested looking online to see if they had any suggestions (which I of course TOTALLY thought of before him, but I wanted to ya know, make him feel like he was contributing to the situation so I waited till he got home to look at suggestions for solving this problem). So, I got on the computer and it said that if there was no kinks in the hose (which there wasn't) then there was a clog like in the machine. Which made perfect sense to me since we had just washed our dog's, Tomee, blankets the day before. And it suggested that to get it out of the machine to stick a garden hose up to the washing machine and force the clog back in to the machine and then it should start working again. So we did this and sure enough the machine started working again. And we thought that was going to be the end of it. We were sooooooo wrong. It happened again the the next weekend I did laundry and again this past weekend. After doing some more research online we have come to the conclusion that the pump is not working all the time. Because it fills with water fine, it agitates with water fine, it just doesn't always drain the water fine. It will drain fine at first, but after a couple of loads it's like the pump gets tired and just stops working. And we drained all the water out of the machine through the hose by placing the hose on the ground outside and all the water came out perfectly fine, so in my opinion it's the pump. So, my husband got online and found a pump that should work with our washing machine and ordered it and it should be here in a few days. So, I think we FINALLY will have that fixed in a few days. 

Then the past few days other than working on the washing machine my husband and I have slowly been cleaning up the back room and the guest room. My friend, Holly and her adorable daughter and Holly's boyfriend, Patric, are supposed to be here the end of next month so we are cleaning up the rooms so they have some where to stay. Lol My husband and I had a small pile of clothes in the back room of stuff that we wanted to donate so we decided that we would finish going through our clothes and shoes and other stuff to make one huge donation to the Goodwill. My husband got rid of more stuff than me because he had stuff from when he was still a teen so he had a lot that just wasn't his style anymore or didn't fit him anymore because he's not a skinny teen. Not that my husband was ever skinny. And I don't mean that in a mean way at all. My husband is by no means fat. ( I mean we have put some weight on us since we got married, but we are working on losing that weight), but when you get out of your teens years, things just fit differently. Like you can be smaller than you were when you were a teen, but the clothes just don't seem to sit the same on your body. At least that's how I feel about my clothes. And how it seems to be for my husband's clothes. But most of what we are donating is my husband's clothes just because his have moved around with him and his parents have all his stuff and have given him his stuff. I moved here from CA and most of my stuff is still in CA so the clothes that I have now are all currently my style and will fit me when I get back down to my goal weight. Plus about 98% of my clothes and shoes have all been bought in the last 4 years. So, I don't really have anything old because I had to start my wardrobe over from scratch. Not that I'm really complaining because I HATED the clothes that my dad and his wife made me wear. I was made to wear spandex pants which are tighter than all get out, but was not allowed to wear tight jeans. Does this make sense to anyone else because it certainly never made sense to me. Anyways, I started to go through my clothes and my husband said to wait until I lose my weight and then see if I still want to get rid of my stuff. There were still some clothes that I got rid of though because it was too short and I just knew that even when I lost weight it still wasn't going to fit. And I got rid of some shoes. That took us all weekend to do pretty much. But we now have 2 and half bags of GIANT black bags that we are getting rid of, some school books and an old laptop that doesn't even turn on, but they said they take computers no matter the condition and we won't get any kind of money for it so they can have it. It makes me feel really good to know that we will be helping at least one person by donating these things. 

Now, our guest room is pretty much clean except for all of my husband's military uniforms and military gear that seems to slowly be taking over the house. I swear it like reproduces while we sleep. His military gear makes little baby military gear over night. Lol And the back room though we still have some work to do. The back room has kind of become like a storage room for us because we have no where else to put it. There are 2 desks, 2 bookshelves, 2 tv stands, some boxes and 2 litter boxes that we need to figure out what to do with. My husband mentioned wanting to put the litter boxes in the laundry room since our laundry room only has the dryer in it. (The washing machine is in our kitchen. If you ask me whoever had the bright idea to put a washing machine the kitchen is completely stupid) So, I think today we are going to work on cleaning out the laundry room and moving the litter boxes in there and then kind of like moving the other stuff in the back room to one side (and seeing if there might be a little room in the storage units my in-laws have here for at least a couple things) so that we can fit an air mattress in there for Holly and Patric since the only other bed we have besides ours is a twin, so Lily will be taking that one in the guest room.

So, that has been my hectic weekend/ week. I hope no one was too bored. And I hope everyone has a GREAT rest of the week! Until next time...

Katie :-)

Some people...

You know what really gets under my skin? When someone pretends to like you. If you don't like me that's fine, but don't pretend to like me. That annoys me. My next door neighbor does this. One minute she likes me and calls me her friend and that I'm like family and then the next second she has deleted me off her Facebook and gives me dirty looks. What are we, 10 years old? Last time I check I was 23 and she was like 27 or something like that. Waaaaay older than 10. And it really irks me because I have so done quite a bit for her and her kids. If I made extra cookies or some other kind of dessert I would give some to them, anytime they needed medicine and they didn't have any and came over asking if I had some I would give it to them, I went out of my way and took her daughter to the gym with us to help her lose weight. Or I should say tried to take her daughter to the gym with us. Her daughter was always bailing on us and not telling us she wasn't going to go that day so we would wait around for her and then miss our gym time because the mom and her daughter would never freakin' tell us the daughter wasn't going that day! Oh, and then the mom asked me to drop her daughter off at tutoring after the gym (on the rare occasions she did show) and guess what, I did that too! And then when I told the mom that we couldn't take her daughter anymore the mom had the nerve to say "I'm sorry she was such a burden." ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME?!! Never did I once say that she was a burden for going! She was a burden because she WASN'T going!!!

 And THEN the other day their dog got out into the alley and so I asked my husband to go tell her. Well, by the time she got back to the alley her dog had disappeared down the alley and so she had to go look for the dog. (Dog's name is Macy) So, because my babies have disappeared a few times and I know how scared I get I decided to help and I ended up finding Macy and bringing her home. She said thank you and all was good. Then a couple days later she ignored me while my husband and I were talking to her husband (who is a really cool guy) and then deleted me off her Facebook. I hadn't even spoken to her since finding her dog and she was all of a sudden pissed off at me. Really? Freakin' stupid.

Oh, and then yesterday my husband and I were in the front yard hosing Tomee off to help her cool down and my neighbor decides she's going to talk to me again. Seriously? Make up your damn mind! And don't pretend you like me if you don't! I don't care that we aren't friends and I don't care that she doesn't like me. I didn't not like her, but I didn't go out of my way to talk to her anymore either. We were cordial. Which was fine with me because we don't plan on living here forever and as soon as we leave this state, we probably won't keep in touch with many people here. My husband might keep in touch with a few of his friends and that's because they were deployed together so they have a different kind of friendship, but pretty much anyone I know here is gone from my life the second I leave. To be cordial is one thing, but they were saying I was like family and then turning on me the next second. That's what made me mad. If you're turning on me that easily then I truly was not your friend which means you really didn't like me and were pretending to which is what pisses me off.

And I like kids. I like them a lot, but when they are my neighbors kids and they feel the need to just pop over whenever they want even after they have seen me on the phone, that's rude. Her daughter saw I was on the phone and still decided that would be a good time to come over and tell me something I already know and then get mad at me when I say I'm on the phone and can't talk right now. Her kids don't know how to respect others privacy either. When my husband was deployed last year, the kids came over every day for a month, pounding on my door EXPECTING to come in! Really?! This woman needs to teach her damn kids some manners.

Like I said I don't care that she and I aren't friends anymore. I'm just bothered when anyone claims they like me and then outta blue they don't anymore. Obviously, you didn't really like me in the first place, so why pretend that you did? To me that's just too much work for someone I don't like. If I don't like you then I don't like you. Plain and simple. I'm not gonna waste my energy pretending. I have better uses of my time and energy than to use it on someone I don't like.

I just had to vent about this. Is there anything that you guys need to vent about?

Until next time...

Katie :-)

Oh, my husband is going to help me tonight with some stuff on here, so hopefully it will look different this time tomorrow. :) Hope everyone has a great day! :)

Hello!

Well, hello, hello, hello everyone!!!! How is everyone today? Hopefully well. Things aren't too bad here. Gotta couple errands to do today and then I'm working on an order and probably gonna make at least one more quilled flower. :) 

What kinds of crafts do you all like to do? I'm not too picky when it comes to crafts. I'll pretty much try everything at least once and I like most crafts. At the moment though I love making my duct tape stuff, friendship bracelets, and now quilling. Those are my current favorites. It just sucks a little because it gets to 100+ degrees most days here and we don't have AC, so you end up sweating your butt off even if you do absolutely nothing except breath. It's miserable. We are hoping we can either move somewhere cooler or get an AC put in if we end up stuck out here for a few more years. If we move or not all depends on the which job offer my husband gets first. I can't say what they are for his safety, but once will move us to our desired location almost immediately while the other will keep us here for another 3 years. Yaay -__-  I guess all in all it's not horrible and it could be worse. I just hate heat. And I hate sweating for no reason and we never get a break from it. Well, my husband does when he goes to work. But at the house it's just always hot. It sucks.

Phantom with his stolen treats

Haha as I write this, my youngest cat, Phantom, is stealing the cat treats. Lol He's gotten it open a couple times now. Lol I don't think he has quite figured out what to do once it's open though. Lol 

Emerald on top of her door

Izzy eating dog food

I have some weird babies. Lol Emerald likes to sleep on top of doors, eat plastic, and chase shadows. Izzy wants outside more than our dog, Tomee, and eats just about everything including dog food. Tomee is glued to my hip or my husband's hip every chance she gets and Phantom steals his cat treats, eats paper, chews on my friendship bracelets, tries to eat our feet and sleeps literally on anything. Lol He's still a baby though and it's fixed yet. I'm hoping to do that this weekend if anyone would call me back to make an appointment.

Tomee being her silly self

Well, I think that is all I have to say for the day. For now anyway. If something happens I will surely let you know. :) And if there's something you wanna talk about let me know by commenting. And please be sure to visit my page https://www.facebook.com/katiesnspirations or follow me on Pinterest! Keep cool guys! Until next time...

Katie :-)

A Little More About Me

So, today I'm gonna tell ya a little more about me and then I think I will start talk about more than just myself. But, no guarantees. Lol

Let's see, I said I was going to tell you a little bit about my friends. There's my best friend, Jazmin. We are so close we call each other sisters. We have never physically met in person though. Her boyfriend is a good friend of mine from high school and she commented on something I wrote on his Facebook. After that we just hit it off. We started talking on Facebook all the time and then exchanged numbers and now she can't get rid of me. :) Lol She truly is a great person. She's there for me whenever I need her, no matter the time. Last year while my husband was deployed I could call her up day or night and she would listen to me blubber on the phone and tell me everything was going to be ok. It meant so much to me because my husband and I live in New Mexcio (which IS in the United States. You'd be surprised at just how many people don't know that New Mexico is part of the US. It's really rather annoying being told all the time that I don't live in the US so they can't help me. And believe me, this has happened more than once.) and we live out here by ourselves. All his family lives up in WA and most of my family lives in CA ( I am proud to say I was born and raised there. I love it there, but for reasons that I will probably never say on here because there is the possibility some people will read this and use it against me, I will most likely never go back there. Not only for my personal reasons, but also because it's so FREAKIN' expensive there! Lol) I also have some family that lives in WA and that is the family I was talking about yesterday, my Mama Sissy, Nonny, Gaga, TT, and my 2 wee cousins, Skylar and Aiden. But my husband and I are in NM with no family and not many friends. Now, we don't have friends because we find most (not all, but most) of the people we have tried to be friends with turn into giant jerks (to put it nicely). And my husband and I would rather be alone than waste time on people that we don't really like. (Thank goodness my husband and I like each other! LOL) 

So, while my husband was gone I didn't really have anyone to turn to here in town. Which most of me was ok with because I needed to know I could get by on my own without relying on anyone, but sometimes it was nice to just hear "Everything will be ok, Katie" and that was all I needed to pick myself back up and get through the day. My Mama Sissy was amazing about being there for me whenever I needed her as well. 

Jazmin and I talk just about every day. Either through, IM, test, phone calls or Skype (when her computer works. Lol But that problem should be taken care of since we sent her our laptop that we were no longer using.) But either way we always find a way to talk. Sometimes, we go a couple days without talking because one or both of us gets busy, but it's never been longer than a week. She is a kind, generous person who occasionally has a temper (but really, don't we all?) and when I get mad about something she is right there with me getting mad at that something with me. Lol 

Another friend of mine is Hali. She and I have known each other since 9th grade soooo that's... 9 years now??? I think that's right. It's Monday, my brain is a little fried. It's been a while, I'll just say that. Lol She's so sweet and caring. She was there for me a lot last year too which meant a LOT to me because she and I grew out of touch for a while. She even asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding in October! Yay for weddings!! :) Still don't know if I can for sure make it which breaks my heart at the possibility of not being able to make it due to finances. I really hope I can, but if things don't change around for us soon, I won't be able to. :( Most likely my husband wouldn't be able to make it though  whether things change or not. If things don't change then we won't be able to afford him to come with me and if things do change (which we really really hope they do) then he will be in training and so therefore wouldn't be able to make it due to that. She and I have grown pretty close since we got back in touch and we try and touch bases at least a once a week. 

Then there is Sadie and Holly. I don't talk to them quite as often as Hali and Jazmin, but they are still really good friends of mine. I have known Sadie since 8th grade and Holly since 9th grade. We are the type of friends where we don't talk very often, but when we do talk it's like no time has gone by. Sadie is married and has a cute little puppy. And Holly is with a great guy that we went to school with named Patric. Holly has a beautiful daughter named Lily. Holly, Lily and Patric are planning on coming down the end of July beginning of August. I'm SO excited about that because it has been SO long since I have seen any of my friends since they are all in CA. I really hope they can make it still as time gets closer because I really miss them. 

I truly have some pretty amazing friends. I am so blessed and so thankful to have them part of my life. I know that if I seriously needed anyone of these girls they would be there for me in a heart beat. These girls have helped me be a better person all in their own ways and I don't think they even realize it. 

I think that is just about it for now. I think you know all the important stuff about me now. Lol From now on it should just be new stuff and me talkin' bout my crafting. Hopefully you guys weren't too bored. And you come back to read more later. Be sure to check out my Facebook page that has handmade items by me that I am selling or have sold, but can make more. https://www.facebook.com/katiesnspirations  or follow me on Pinterest by clicking the button at the top or clicking here http://pinterest.com/kgmouse/ Hope you all have a wonderful day. Until next time...

Katie :-)

My very first quilled flower

Oh, I just remembered! I wanted to post a couple more pictures of my work! 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the quilled flowers I made. More to come. :)

Ok. Now, I'm off to go do some dishes and try and work on one of my bracelet orders. Be sure to go check out my work. And feel free to leave me a comment. :-)

Some of My work

So, I know I said I was going to be back tomorrow, buuuut I decided to play around with this some more and realized there is a totally easy way to add pictures. Lol Duh! lol

Heart bracelet Pattern

Duct tape wallet I made.

Punisher bracelet

Duct tape Hello Kitty Purse

Duct tape bow

Duct tape Rose hair pins

Breast Cancer Awareness Bracelet

Diamond bracelet