a trip to Utah

These new farm folk need their city fix once in awhile, so last weekend we trekked back to Salt Lake to visit old friends and do a little shopping. We had a fabulous time and loved seeing everyone. In our whirlwind to do as much as possible in a few short days, of course I didn't pull out my camera once. Camera phones work in a pinch, however. I did snap just a few photos using the Hipstamatic App on my iPhone:

Eva is happiest exploring the floor on her crawlers these days.

The girls and their buddies were so looking forward to swimming at the hotel. This time we decided to cheat on our favorite hotel (Little America) and stay at the Hyatt near the Gateway. Oops, their pool was outdoors. Oh well, the hot tub would do in a pinch!

These were our gracious hosts for two nights. We love our old neighbors and wish they could have come with us to Montana. Tyson is the cutest little two year old to ever have a conversation with.

Eva crashed in her high-chair at lunchtime. This was odd coming from a girl who doesn't fall asleep easily, but I guess we all partied hard. That and some yucky colds were acquired (and hopefully not passed on).

A stop on the way home supplied the opportunity to see my cousin and their sweet Aspen.

This and the next few photos were taken before our trip. But they were too cute to pass up including here.

 

I know, huh?

She doesn't suck her thumb like this very often, but I kind of wish she did. It's cute.

Mischievous and determined eyes cause me to predict a few personality traits shared with her sisters . . .

Feng Shui Friday—Challenge #4 Clean out the basement (its a contest!)

Click here to find out how you can join the Feng Shui My Way Challenge!

Challenge #3: Clean out the basement

Need I say more?

O.K. I realize for many of us this is a huge chore. So let me break it down. Clutter is the biggest enemy of Feng Shui, and much of it congregates in the basement (or the garage, or a storage room, etc.) Storage is a necessary evil, yes. But this week, let's evaluate the items we are storing and decide whether or not we really need to keep them. This is the stuff that goes from storage room to storage room when you move. Wouldn't it feel good to let go of some extra weight?

Then, let's see who can create the biggest pile to donate! Take a picture of your pile and e-mail it to me at joellynclark at yahoo dot com. The biggest pile will receive a copy of either Pioneer Woman's new book Black Heels to Tractor Wheels. or 27 Things to Feng Shui Your Life (Be sure to send your address with your e-mail!) Leave a comment on next Friday's results post to tell me which book you would like to win.

See you next Friday!

lessons from Frog & Toad

Did you see Abby's to-do list yesterday? Yes, she is her momma's daughter.

I've been thinking a lot about lists lately. Mostly because I live by one. I recently tweeted "I'm drowning in my to-do list. Save me!" I don't think that is what they mean when they say "live in the moment".

When I was grousing about this with a friend recently, she reminded me of Arnold Lobel's Frog & Toad Books, and one story in particular called "The List". I picked a couple of the books up from the library and have been reading the stories to my kids. They are priceless.

If you aren't familiar with this particular story, here is a quick synopsis: Toad wakes up and makes himself a list. As he finishes each item he crosses it off. Later, he is out on a walk with Frog and the wind blows his list away. He would chase after except (heaven forbid) that isn't on his list of things to do! So, he sits there for the rest of the day because he doesn't have his list to tell him what to do.

Finally, it is getting late, so Frog suggests they should be getting some sleep. Toad exclaims "Go to sleep! That was the last thing on my list!" So he writes "Go to sleep" in the dirt, crosses it out, and then Frog and Toad promptly go to sleep. Right there. Without going home, eating supper, and going to bed. I love it.

This is what I've learned from Frog & Toad:

1. Let go of perfection

This was my mom's reply to my tweet a few days ago, and it is sound advice. My to-do list weighs on me because of the pressure I put on myself to have a perfect house, cook a perfect meal, be a perfect person... And you know what? Nobody cares that my wallpaper is peeling and I didn't have rolls to go with my dinner. (As long as there is a good dessert! Ha.) And it didn't matter if Frog & Toad did everything on the list. They were together enjoying each other's company.

2. Be flexible

If there is one thing I've learned about being on the farm, its that having a structured schedule is impossible. We never eat at the same time and we never do the same things every day. Pile a baby on that and you never know what your day is going to look like. Some days I feel like I'm lucky if I cross one thing off my list.

The notes application on my phone is probably my most-used app. I keep my to-do list there, my grocery list, a list of blog post ideas, movies to see, books to read, and it goes on. The other day I found a note with gibberish written in it and several of my important lists were deleted, including my grocery list. (Sarah!) It caused me some frustration, but life went on. Sometimes your list blows away.

3. Celebrate what you've accomplished

I love how Toad wrote "Wake Up" on his list after he had already woken up, just so he could cross it off. You know, there is a lot of satisfaction in crossing things off your list. Sometimes I forget to celebrate things I actually did get done, especially the everyday things like doing the dishes, feeding and playing with the baby, reading the girls a story, and laundry. (Laundry is always on the list!) One thing I have been trying to do lately is "pick three". I prioritize my list and focus on the top 3 things. It helps me to focus my time everyday instead of bouncing around trying to do too much and accomplishing nothing.

4. Enjoy the process

This is the biggest lesson I want to learn—to stop stressing about what isn't done and just enjoy doing things. Sometimes I even let the fun things on my list stress me out. But if everything was done at once, what would I do with my life? What would I write about on my blog? (Ha ha.) Hard work is a privilege. Having a capable body and mind to do those things is a privilege. I want to learn to enjoy doing even the most mundane chores. So let's rename the to-do list, shall we? How about the Get-To-Do list? Or the Can-Do list?

 

 

Feng Shui Friday—Challenge #3 Clear out old pictures

Click here to find out how you can join the Feng Shui My Way Challenge!

It is time to reveal the results of our third Feng Shui My Way challenge:

Challenge #3: Clear out old pictures

I confess I didn't get very far with my own photos this week. But fortunately I already have a few systems in place to manage my photos. I have big plans to take this even further, and I will tell you about all that today.

#1: PHOTO STORAGE, ORGANIZATION, AND BACKUP

I started shooting digital full time sometime around 2004. Before that, I had a nice Canon film camera. I used to get doubles printed everytime I had them developed so I could give a set to my mom (a habit I got into especially after I had my first baby). All of my film photos are stored in photo boxes like this:

 

One thing already that would make this tons better is labeling my boxes!

Most of the boxes are organized by event. Unfortunately several are just filled with stacks of unsorted photos.

 

Had I really followed my own advice in this challenge, I would have sorted through all of these and tossed out duplicates and any photos that generated negative emotions and memories. Someday I will get that done. Eventually I want to scan the best photos and keep them with the rest of my digital photos, and ultimately to print them in photo books (more on that below).

My digital photography workflow is this: I upload my photos onto my computer and immediately label them by year, month, and event. I have a folder for each year, and each event appears chronologically within that folder.

In each event I end up with at least 2 folders: JPEG (full size files for all the keeper images) and BLOG (for images I have sized to post on the blog). I often also have a RAW folder for my best photos that I may want to go back and edit*.

*Since I shoot in RAW (read about that here), my files take up a ton of space. I know many people would NEVER delete their raw files, but I shoot so many photos to get one good one, and I can't justify taking up that much room on my hard drive for one good photo. So I delete all the blurry, bad photos, and the rest I process to JPEG.

I only keep the current year of photos on my computer. I want my computer to run as fast as possible, so I don't want my hard drive to fill up. The rest of my photos I store on two 500 GB hard drives.

Hard drives are inexpensive these days, so this is a small investment to keep your photos safe. My first drive (labeled Joellyn #1) stays on my desk and I try to back up to it every time I do a big photo upload, or at least once a week.

The second drive (Joellyn #2) is a duplicate of #1. I used to back up to it about once a month, but I have been slacking on it lately. My main goal is to make sure I have each year backed up on both hard drives before I delete it off my computer (so I have every photo in at least 2 places).

You can use software to set your hard drives to automatically back up. I haven't done this, but I should. You can also pay for online storage, another option I would like to explore but just haven't had the time. If you use one of these options I would love to hear about it!

One other thing to think about. It is good to keep your hard drives in 2 different locations. After I get my 2010 photos backed up onto my second hard drive, I intend to store it at my mom's house. This makes backing up a little less convenient, but it ensures I won't lose ALL of my photos in the event of a fire or some such tragedy.

If you haven't done this yet, take some time to back up your photos. Can you imagine losing them all? It happens.

 

#2: UPDATE FRAMED PHOTOS

Like I mentioned last week, I haven't gotten around to decorating this house much or displaying/hanging photos. In my old house I had a photo gallery in our living room:

I intend to hang it in our living room here also, and when I do, I want to fill it with my favorite recent photos (instead of letting them live on my hard drive where no one can see them).

My mother-in-law recently lectured us about how pitifully outdated her mantle was getting. (Gulp.) I am currently working on going though my folders to find images to print for her. In this digital age I have to work harder at remembering to print and use my photos.

#3: SHARING YOUR PHOTOS

Aside from remembering to print photos for your family (guilty), you should also be able to easily enjoy your own photos. Are you faithful about putting them in albums? I'm not.

I have 3 scrapbooks: my childhood, my wedding, and Abby's first year. Then I stopped. It isn't that I don't enjoy scrapbooking, but it takes too much effort for my life right now. I also don't like how I go back and look at them and cringe at the style of scrapbooking. (I know I'm not the only one!) Going forward, I have decided to do digital photo books. I have printed one before and loved how it turned out. I hope to do one for every year since we have been married (1997). And I might actually get it done if I can just follow the K.I.S.S. method (which goes completely against my grain)! I can just imagine how proud I will be to have 14 books lined up on my bookshelf.

A couple of benefits to digital that you may not have considered. #1: You can make multiple copies. Your mom wants a copy? No problem. Just print two! #2: Depending on the service you use, your photo book will be stored online under your account, so if something ever happened to your book, you could just log on and order another. Its a pretty good insurance policy against losing your photos! Have you tried to print a photo book yet? I would love to hear about it. I need some inspiration and motivation!

 

So, its a wrap. Um.... are you there? Did I put you to sleep? That was one long and wordy post, but I hope it will be helpful to at least some of you. See you next Friday for another challenge!

 

the big melt

This week the warm winds have blown in and have melted all our snow into big lakes. Lakes are an unusual sight for this dry landscape, as is the wildlife that has come with it.

If these lakes don't dry up within a month or so they will kill the seeds that are planted beneath them. But mostly the moisture is very welcome.

The water has also made for extremely muddy vehicles and nearly-washed-out roads. It had been running over the road in several places the past few days, but had receeded by the time I snapped this photo.

Such is life on the gravel roads! I have been enjoying the scenery, regardless.  And even though most certainly the Montana weather will bring us more snow again, I can feel spring in the air and I'm excited for the landscape to turn green.

I ❤ Grandpa because he feeds me ice cream

Today little miss Eva is 9 months old! I thought I would take this opportunity to document where she is right now.

These photos demonstrate how badly I need to buy a decent flash for my camera. Oh well, blurry or not, they were too cute not to share.

 

Eva doesn't have a well-child visit until she is 1 year, so I don't know exactly how big she has gotten, except that I just had to dig out the bin of 18 month clothes (hand-me-downs) I have because she is outgrowing her current wardrobe. If Grandpa keeps feeding her ice cream she will surely grow out of these before long too. :)

Eva brightens everyone's day with her smiles and giggles. She is so sweet natured and a joy to have around. She has turned into a BIG momma's girl, though—probably because she has the benefit of having me around 24/7. I think she is a little more mellow than her sisters were at this age, but of course it is hard to remember exactly how they were.

She enjoys eating anything she can feed herself, so she eats lots of veggies and potatoes from our table, and gobbles up all kinds of fruit. Cheerios are her new favorite thing. She still won't take a bottle though, so the weaning process might be a challenge when the time comes! She doesn't have any teeth yet... so we still have that fun ahead of us. She doesn't drool like I remember the other girl's doing, so I'm not quite sure what is going on in her little mouth.

 

She is doing much better in the sleep department, sleeping through the night about half the time. Except the past week. Maybe those teeth are finally coming?

And the biggest milestone reached this last month is crawling! She is no longer stationery and I can no longer turn my back on her for even a second. She crawls the traditional way (no crab crawls or army crawls) and now hates to be stuck in anything where she can't move. The Exersaucer we got her for Christmas is now defunct, I'm afraid.

She pulls herself up onto her knees and looks very proud of herself. It won't be long before she pulls herself to a stand, so we'd better be lowering that crib mattress!

We just love this girl and are so happy she is part of our family.

Feng Shui Friday—Challenge #3 Clear out old pictures

Click here to find out how you can join the Feng Shui My Way Challenge!

This week has just flown by, and I can hardly believe it is Friday again and time for another Feng Shui My Way Challenge:

Challenge #3: Clear out old pictures

The book 27 Things To Feng Shui Your Home warns that keeping old photos around can stir up old negative emotions and wear us down. Now, I am one to treasure old photos like nobody's business, so my first impulse was to dismiss this one. Why deny your past? Not all memories are good, but at least they teach us something. At the same time, when I look through old photos and find relationships and weddings that have dissolved, photos of myself that I don't like, and so on, its true that they stir up negative emotions. I'm going to have to give some thought to this.

The "My Way" part of this challenge is this:

#1: We should all have a good system for keeping our photos organized, both printed and digital. I take a lot of photos, and if I don't keep them organized as I import them, they would be a huge mess. Next week I will show you how I organize my photos and how I back them up to ensure they won't be lost forever in the event of a computer failure. I'm also going to take this week as an opportunity to catch up on my archiving process.

#2: The second part of this challenge is to update the photos you have displayed in picture frames. I haven't hung very many photos in this house yet, but I know the frames I have still packed away in boxes are quite outdated. I am going to make an effort to print some new images to replace them with as I hang them. (I'm not talking about the nostalgic ones. Of course I'm going to keep photos of my late grandparents, our wedding photos, etc. I'm talking about current family photos, school portraits, and the like.)

#3: Think about how you display your photos for others to see. This is where the greatest joy comes from. For me, this blog is a big part of my sharing, but I was recently reminded that I haven't been very good about printing photos for my extended family. My mother-in-law's mantle is severely outdated. Also, I am terrible about getting photos into scrapbooks or albums. The last scrapbook I did was of Abby's first year. I have decided to go digital with my albums, but I have yet to print even one book. Even though it is a project that would be so much for me to work on, it falls to the bottom of my to-do list and I may never get around to it if I don't carve out some time every week to start making progress.

So, join the "picture" challenge with me this week, and tell me how you've done! Good luck.

a trip for old time's sake

I hope you don't mind if I wax on about some special family memories today.

Since our basement project has kept us pretty close to home, after the carpet laying last week we were all ready for a break. That meant getting out of town. Some of my favorite childhood memories were spent in the Flathead valley visiting my Grandparents. I didn't get there very often after I left home. Even though my dear Grandpa and Grandma are no longer around to visit, we still have family in that area and I've been dying to go back there. So we packed up the Yukon (a.k.a. ranch limo) with all of us + mom and dad and headed out.

Even for a short weekend, we made memories and enjoyed every minute of the beautiful drive and our time there.

 

The girl's memories will be centered around feeding the lambs. They are in the middle of lambing season and had 6 new lambs the morning after we arrived! They have 4 in their garage now that are being bottle fed because their moms had triplets and couldn't feed them all. The girl's participated in feeding them every chance they could. And Abby even slept on the couch so she could join Uncle Dale in his middle-of-the-night lamb checks out in the barn. I wonder if their enthusiasm would last if they had their own lambs to take care of? (Not that we are considering it. Nuh-uh.)

The girl's participated in the morning chores. First they had to number a couple of the older lambs so they could be turned out to make room for newer ones in the barn. They are numbered to match their mommas.

Then they helped feed the sheep while Momma Llama looked on.

Afterward the kids were rewarded by getting to see a lamb be born!

This is one of the ewes that had triplets.

The rest of our memories will be centered around our time with family and enjoying Aunt Bonnie's good cookin'.

These sisters look nothing alike, do they? :) (Sorry, Mom, you probably won't be happy that I posted a picture with your hair uncombed, but this picture is sweet and you are both so pretty.)

 

We got to meet handsome baby Jace and get a few cuddles. And of course we did plenty of cuddling with little Eva, who was the best little traveler.

 

 

 

Sweet and spirited Paige. We found out Paige and Sarah are two of a kind. Here she is entertaining Eva:

The scenery there never disappoints and I was reminded to keep my camera at the ready.

 

 

Ah, am I ever happy to be back in Montana!

Feng Shui Friday—Challenge #2 Keep doorways clear

Click here to find out how you can join the Feng Shui My Way Challenge!

Happy Friday! Did any of you have a chance to meet Challenge #2 and clear your doorways? Friday came around really fast for me this week, so I was very glad this week's challenge was a little easier than cleaning out my closet.

The hallway/doorway leading to our garage has been driving me CRAZY. This is what it looked like:

Yes, that is a big dog and dog bed taking up most of the hallway. I also had this to contend with:

 

Tom would always come in from working outside and shed his work clothes and boots right inside the door. I'm trying to train him to hang them on the hook in the garage, right outside the door. Still trying.

I have a long term plan for this problem that includes removing the closets you see in the top photo. I will leave an area next to the refrigerator for the dog bed and hooks for Tom's long work clothes. Then, in the rest of the space, I want to have a long bench and hooks to function as a landing strip for our coats, diaper bags, backpacks, etc.

That is all well and good, but who knows how far off the "long term" plan will be. So, to ease my frustration, I came up with a great solution.

First, I removed the bottom two drawers in the built-ins. They weren't holding much more than a few paper bags and empty plastic jugs.

Then, we removed the drawer glides and hammered out the divider between the two drawers.

And we were left with a great new cubby for the dog bed!

Ideally, we would find a different place for the food and water bowls too, but baby steps, my friend. When the weather is warmer I think those can go out in the garage.... along with the dog, I hope. She is pretty spoiled and I don't know if I have the heart to kick her out, but she sheds SOOOO MUCH!!!! I'm pulling my hair out trying to keep her hair vacuumed up. But pulling my own hair out is sort of counter-productive. :) But I digress.

Mia wasted no time trying out her new bed and is just delighted with it, as am I. No more stepping tripping over the dog bed every time I leave the house!

Because of the carpeting deadline in the basement i didn't clean out any closets this week like I wanted to. But the two in this hallway are on my list. Have you been cleaning out your closets? Or clearing your doorways? Do share!

basement progress—bathroom teaser

If you could hear through cyberspace you would hear alot of banging in the background of this post. That is because the carpet layers have arrived and are nailing down tack strip in our basement! We have been putting in a few marathon days to get ready for their arrival, and while I wish I could say that we were 100% done with everything, we still have quite a bit more trim to caulk, spackle, and paint. We also have the flooring on the stairs to do and a few other finishing touches around the basement.

But for today, I thought I would show you the progress in the bathroom.

It went from this....   to this.....

 

And now to this....

Well, I'm not quite ready to show you the whole thing yet. We have some cabinets to build, mirrors to install, etc. and I want my final reveal to be complete. But I won't leave you hanging. Here are a few teasers:

A glimpse of the sink and faucet, with a peak at the marble tile countertop in the background. (We still have to add a tile backsplash after a tall cabinet beside the sink is installed.)

This is the accent tile in the shower, and below is one of the dual shower heads. We have my dad to thank for the gorgeous tile work. Considering how much tile installation would have added to our costs if we would have had to pay someone else to do it, we are incredibly fortunate to have a bathroom this beautiful.

The floor is simple except for the addition of a subtle "rug" accent in front of the sinks.

The light fixtures are from West Elm. You will have to excuse the construction dust on everything... it was futile to clean at this point.

We kept our costs in check by purchasing all in-stock items from Home Depot. The tile is a great line of porcelain that included a great variety of accent pieces to choose from. The sinks are semi-recessed from Decolav. The faucets are these by Glacier Bay, and while they were a little less elegant than I wanted, they were the only in-stock option that would work well with our sinks. We were willing to make a few concessions since this is, after all, a basement bathroom.

For example, I had my heart set on a Euro-style frameless glass shower door. After pricing a couple of options ranging from $850 to $1400, we decided we would live with a shower curtain. We are installing a rod that is hidden inside the shower and an extra long shower curtain, so it won't be visible when the shower is not in use. (I'll show pictures later.) So, as I said, we have made a few concessions; but we are still very pleased with the results (especially considering where we came from!)

 

Kids are awesome (Part IV)

My kids haven't quite figured out how to survive a Montana winter. They are getting antsy to get out of the house. It is March first and everyone I know is starting to fret about the fact that winter hasn't let up once since November. (I honestly don't remember a year when snow covered the ground THE.ENTIRE.WINTER.) But having grown up here I am keenly aware that winter could hang on for 2 more months. I hope it doesn't. But it could.

The other day the girls decided they wanted to try to play some basketball. This scene cracked me up. First, they tried to dribble the ball in the snow and quickly realized that wouldn't work. Then they tried to shovel the snow off—only Sarah grabbed a rake instead of a shovel. (And actually tried to move snow with it.) Even better is their clothes: sweat pants and rain boots? They have perfectly good snow gear. Abby is in a light spring jacket and has a neck warmer on her head. Being the good mom that I am, I just sat back and watched them suffer. Not surpisingly, they were inside 5 minutes later complaining about cold toes and begging for hot chocolate.