Pinterest, how you draw me in!!

As I was up until almost midnight the other night, I realized that I had been on Pinterest for about 2 hours!!  I think I am slightly obsessed!  I have found so many awesome things there though, so it can't be all bad, right?!

The best of Pinterest:
DIY Cleaners, Fake it products, activities for the kids, design ideas for my home.

I have found so many recipes for homemade cleaners and laundry products.  One of my favorites is the yellow armpit stain remover!!  I have yet to try it but I am so excited, Jill over at One Good Thing by Jillee said she had amazing results!  Another of my favorites is homemade Oxy Clean!!  Also from One Good Thing by Jillee!

Pinterest, even though it draws me in and takes up apparently hours of my time, I think its also saving my family money!  I have found awesome ways to still have the products I love but made cheaper and with less packaging and chemicals!  What an awesome way to spend a few hours or minutes a day.

Cleaning Crazy

I just updated the Frugally Sustainable Challenge page on here.  Check it out and you can see what I am learning through this process.  I am so full of great ideas!!

There has been a crazy clean out going in my house!   I have been so frustrated with the amount of clutter that has come into my house over the past year.  Since I was pregnant for most of last year, not a lot got done.  So now it is all coming to a head and I am going cleaning crazy!!  Tuesday I started in the kitchen, and got rid of so much stuff, that was just taking up space!  I am so happy that its gotten cleaned out and I am ready to get moving on the rest of the house!  Today I worked a little bit in our dining room and got rid of a ton more stuff.  WHOOO  I am on a roll.  Pics will come soon!!  I still have a few last minute details to finish up before the house will be picture ready.

What I learned in 2011...

What I learned in 2011.... its a lot of work growing a person!!  As I was reflecting last night over the last year I realized that all of 2011 was spent growing a person and learning that person!  WOW that was a busy year!  I am so thankful for my little Baby Z he is so special and so fun!  Since he is number 3 I think he is more aware of his surroundings than the other two.  Its so fun to watch him watch his brothers, he gets so excited to see them going crazy!  Big E has been so interactive with him lately, it just melts my heart!  Although I do get a little nervous when I am in another room and the baby starts crying out, then you wonder what happened!  Asking Big E doesn't always help, because he seems to want to try and hide what he did.

I have been trying to figure out what my goals are for 2012, so far I have come up with very little!  Not sure if that's a good thing or not.  For 2012 my main goal is to learn how to be more frugal!  Since adding another boy to your family I just keep adding up the bills in my head (not so much for now, but down the road!).  I grew up with two brothers and I just remember how much food my mom would say she would have to buy in a week!  Its amazing parents didn't go broke!!  5 gallons of milk!!!  3 gallons of ice cream!!!  5 boxes of cereal!!  OH BOY!!!  Frugality needs happen in this house!!

So beginning tomorrow I will be doing the frugally sustainable challenge.  I am really hoping to gain some better knowledge of what that truly means to others and then to apply that to my family.

To be frugally sustainable, to me means, not wasting, being able to produce as much on your own as possible, and reusing things that we may normally just toss.   For the past few years we have "tried" to have a garden, not very successfully, I might add!!  So one goal for this year to get it under control and take some more risks in what we plant.  I would love to learn to can our produce and have food stored up for the winter.

For now those are my goals, I am hoping to add some more to this list in the next few weeks.  Hopefully by the end of the month I will have a good goal set for the coming year.