Birthday Calendar

I don't know about you, but I'm TERRIBLE at remembering birthdays. Dates are so arbitrary. I have a really hard time keeping them in my mind. I sometimes forget my own anniversary! I was thrilled when I found this pin on Pinterest a while back.

Source: littlenannygoat.blogspot.com via Melissa on Pinterest

So, I went out and bought some fun scrapbooking paper (even though I had plenty in my scrapbooking bag), and set to work. Here's the original tutorial.

I couldn't find white envelopes at Wal-Mart. I'm sure an office-supply store would have them. I also could only find envelopes that came in packages of 6, so I only ended up with 12 envelopes, but it all worked out in the end.

Materials:

13- 9x6 vertical white envelopes (I used 12 yellow envelopes, plus a piece of cardstock cut to size)
Enough scrapbook paper to cover 13 envelopes (1 12x12 piece of paper should work for 1 month)
Adhesive (glue sticks or glue dots would work best)
Months and days printed on cardstock (I used printer paper and really regretted it)
1 hole paper punch
2 book rings (you can find these in the office supply section at Wal-Mart)
Embellishments (optional, I didn't use any)

Procedure:

1. Trace envelope on scrapbook paper (see picture 1)
2. Cut out.
3. Glue to side of envelope that doesn't have the metal clasp on it.
4. Pick a new piece of scrapbook paper
5. Trace the entire envelope (including the flap). Used picture 2 as a reference.
6. Cut out. Cut traced flap off of the scrapbook paper.
7. Glue to side of envelope that does have the metal clasp. Glue scrapbook paper to flap of envelope (see pictures 3 and 4 as a reference)
8. Repeat steps 1-3 with same type of scrapbook paper and a new envelope.
9. Repeat steps 4-7 with new type of scrapbook paper.
10. Repeat steps 1-9 until you have completed the month of December. 
11. On the front of the first envelope, mark with x's where you would like the two holes to be punched. 
12. Punch out using a one-hole paper punch (see picture 6).
13. Using the holes of the first envelope as a guide, mark x's in the holes on the second envelope (see picture 7).
14. Repeat steps 12 and 13 for the rest of the envelopes.
15. Cut out and glue the months and dates on the matching papers (see pictures 8&9).
16. Once you have finished all of your cutting and gluing, bind the envelopes together with the binder rings.

This is what your final product should look like:

 It's far from perfect, but that's what this blog is all about. It's mainly for my own organizational use rather than for a display item, so it doesn't really matter. I'm thankful I finally have a way to keep all of the birthdays straight in my mind.

3 Simple Laundry Tips

For some reason I always end up ruining my "cool" clothes. I'm not very stylish. Every time I buy something that approaches being stylish, I ruin it. Well, "ruin" is a relative term...especially since the advent of blogging and Pinterest.

So, I decided I was not going to end up trashing the few "cool" clothes I had just because I had "ruined" them somehow. I hopped on the Internet and decided there had to be a way to rescue my poor articles of clothing. Here's what I found. I hope it helps you as much as it helped me!

Laundry Disaster #1: Shrinking a brand-new shirt.

I'm sure most women have shrunken at least one article of clothing in their day. My mother is queen of shrinkage. Once she shrunk my favorite wool sweater. Conveniently, it fit her afterwards. In this particular case, I accidentally washed this brand-new shirt in hot water. It was so little afterwards, I wanted to cry. I was determined not to give up. Here's what I decided to do:

1. Put on shrunken shirt while still wet. Tug on it to make it stretch to fit a little better.
2. Hang up shrunken shirt on a plastic hanger.
3. Match up the bottom of the shirt and LOTS of clothespins to the bottom. This will weight the shirt down, resulting in stretching.
4. Let air dry.

This really worked for me. I've since worn this shirt several times. I've also found that this shirt tends to shrink whenever it gets wet, so I've used this method again to ensure it stretches back to the correct size.

Laundry Disaster #2: Grease stains.

I usually wear aprons when I cook, but every once in a while I'll be in a hurry and won't wear one. It always seems to be when I'm browning ground beef. Last summer, I "ruined" one of my favorite shirts when grease spattered up from some ground beef I was cooking up. I hadn't been able to wear the shirt all summer and was about to throw it out this spring, when I decided to try to rescue it one last time. I found some ideas on Pinterest, but didn't really like the methods. So, I branched out and found some ideas on an ancient, slightly tacky bulletin board type website. Even though it's not the most attractive website, it had some AWESOME ideas. I decided to try Dawn Power Dissolve dishwashing spray (you can find this in the dish soap aisle at Wal-Mart).

1. Spray grease spots with Dawn Power Dissolve.
2. Throw sprayed article of clothing in washer and wash on normal cycle with regular detergent.
3. While wet, check to see if you missed any grease spots. If you have, spray again and re-wash.
4. Air dry.

This worked the first time! I didn't even know this spray existed. A word of caution: I tried using it on my non-stick electric skillet. Bad idea. It took off some of the non-stick finish. I've also tried using some of my husband hand goop that he uses to clean his hands after working on the car. I spilled some homemade ice-cream on the same shrunken shirt, and the hand goop took it right out. It did say it was safe for laundry stains, so make sure you find a hand goop that is laundry-safe.

Laundry Disaster #3: Whites accidentally turned pink.

I recently bought an expensive camisole that sucks in your stomach. It works really well (and also prevents natural breathing). What I like most about it is how high the neckline is. So many camisoles are too low for my tastes. Somehow, a pair of my husband's pajama pants bled onto this camisole and turned it a pale pink. This happened in the laundry basket somehow before I even threw it in the wash. I wouldn't care normally, but I do want this camisole to show sometimes when the neckline of my overshirt is too low. I wasn't really keen on bleaching it, because that weakens the fabric. After an Internet search, I found out that Rit (you, know the dye company) makes a little color remover product (can't remember where this info came from). I think it's meant for accidentally dyed clothing or for preparing another article of clothing for dyeing. I found this product in the laundry section of Wal-Mart right by the other Rit color dyes. Basically, all you have to do is follow the instructions on the back of the box. It didn't work perfectly, but it is a little better. I think it will still be wearable in public (under something else). I would show you a before/after picture, but this all happened before my new camera became such a wonderful part of my life. You can't really tell a difference in the pictures, so I thought it would be pointless to post them.

I know there are many different remedies for all of these "disasters." These are just some of the ones that worked for me. Feel free to comment with more laundry tips and tricks!

Magazine Idea Binder... or, Paper Pinterest

I got this idea from Sew Many Ways the other day. I found it while browsing her amazing website. I pinned it to Pinterest so I could share her brilliance with others. Here's the pin:

Source: sewmanyways.blogspot.com via Melissa on Pinterest

Basically, you rip out magazine ideas, put them in protector sheets, and put them in a binder. It's really a no-brainer idea, but I'm a bit dense sometimes and need others to guide me along the way. A friend has been giving me her old magazines after she's ripped out what she wants. Most of them are food-related like Food Network, Everyday with Rachael Ray, Better Homes and Gardens, Saveur, etc. They were taking up quite a bit of space in my closet, so I decided I needed to take action.

For the past couple days, I've been watching episodes of Miss Marple on Netflix while ripping out recipes from these old magazines. I found an old binder in my closet and a bunch of extra sheet protectors in my recipe cupboard. I made a cut label for the side and a simple title sheet out of scrapbook paper I had for another project. I haven't finished the project yet, but it's well underway. Here's what I have so far:

Sorry for the poor lighting, I'm too lazy to open the curtains for better lighting. Originally I was going to re-type all of these recipes to look nice in my real recipe binder. Pretty sure that's not going to happen anytime soon. Karen on Sew Many Things mentioned this was her Flinstone version of Pinterest. I call it "Paper Pinterest."

While I was thumbing through magazines, I came across an interesting article about gluten-free diets in a BHG magazine. It mentioned some symptoms of a gluten intolerance, and I do have a few symptoms. The article mentioned going on a strict gluten-free diet for a month and then slowly adding in gluten again to see what it does to your body.

Since it's summertime, and I'm already getting bored. I may have to try this. A month isn't very long. I won't be doing much traveling in July, so it might be perfect for me. The idea of living gluten-free is a little frightening. I think it would really cause panic in my husband. The unhealthier, the better in his mind. (He does work at McD's after all.) So now I need to start doing some serious research to see if this is even possible for me. I should probably go to the doctor and talk this over with her too, since that's what all the disclaimers for every diet say. We'll see...

If you have any suggestions for me, I'd love to hear them. (This is a rare opportunity, I rarely ask for advice. Fire away!)

Longwood Gardens

My husband was working all day on my birthday this year. To make up for my lonely day he took me to a local arboretum called Longwood Gardens the day after my birthday. The gardens were developed by Pierre du Pont in 1907. Pierre du Pont is part of the du Pont family that started the Du Pont corporation that specializes in scientific innovations and whatnot. You've probably seen the logo on something related to cars or trucks before. Anyways, he bought the property of Longwood Gardens because the family that owned it had to sell it, and all the trees were going to be torn down. He was loaded, so he was able to make the property beautiful. He believed that no greenhouse should be private, so he opened his gardens to the public.

It cost $36 for the two of us to get in. It was worth every penny. The high cost keeps out the ruffians and bratty children, which makes it even better. We spent the entire afternoon and early evening there. We simply moseyed along the paths looking at whatever we felt like looking at. There weren't many crowds since we went on a weekday. This was one of the most relaxing and enjoyable days of my summer.

Ben bought me a new camera for my birthday, so I got a little carried away with snapping photos.

Here are some beauties I stumbled upon in the exhibition halls/greenhouses:

We also had fun watching the rather tame "wildlife" in the gardens. We had never seen bullfrogs up close like this before. They were everywhere. Ben always has to check out the fishlife in whatever body of water we come across. He found lots of well-fed bluegill and some very friendly catfish!

There were quite a few fountains scattered throughout the gardens. Pierre du Pont had a fascination with water stemming from his childhood. Some of the fountains made me feel like I was touring one of the estates mentioned in some of Jane Austen's novels. Well, except for the one my husband decided to drink out of.

By far, my favorite part of the gardens was the water lily garden. I've had a fascination with lily pads ever since my canoeing trip to the Boundary Waters back in college. There were lilies and lily pads everywhere on the lakes we canoed. I had so much fun taking pictures of these lilies. They actually dye the water black to make for better pictures and to discourage algae from growing.

At the end of the day, our feet were pretty sore from all the walking we did. My toes were actually swollen for a couple days. We probably shouldn't have worn flip flops! The last gardens we traveled through were the rose garden and the topiary garden. We were the only ones in there, so we took off our shoes and walked through the lush grass. Man, that felt good!

What a wonderful day! Can't wait to go back to see some of the light displays at night sometime!

All the pictures in this post were taken by either my husband or me. I used picmonkey.com to put the photos in collage form. No other editing software was used.

Don't Be Anxious

      created by melissa at thelazyperfectionist

Washable Travel Toothbrush Holder Tutorial

I love Pinterest. Follow my boards by clicking here and then click the big red "Follow All" button. I found this great idea on there a while back and wanted to make it for myself for camping trips.

 Source: etsy.com via Melissa on Pinterest

The problem was this is a link to an Etsy site, not a tutorial. So, I had to figure it out using the pics on Etsy. I don't want to take away from the Etsy seller. I think it's great that she's selling these on Etsy. I think she's selling these for a fairly reasonable price. If you aren't crafty, you should purchase these from her Etsy site by clicking here. She has some other neat items for sale as well, so check it out!

I've tweaked her version a little bit to fit my needs.

Materials:

• Cheap washcloths (I picked up a pack of 8 at Kohl's for $3.99. Other stores may sell them for even cheaper.)
• Pencil or washable fabric pen
• Matching thread (My thread doesn't really match all that well, but I don't care because it's for camping.)
• Ribbon (I used leftover ribbon from another project; hence the Christmas color pallette.)
• Buttons (I used extra buttons from old clothes that I've since donated to the thrift store.)
• Sewing machine (You could sew these by hand if you really wanted to.)

Procedure:

1. Using a tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush as a guide, fold the washcloth up a little less than halfway (or a little more than halfway depending on the shape of your washcloth). You want to make sure that the top of the toothbrush doesn't stick out when you roll it up. (Who knows what sort of nasties are creeping in campground bathhouses!)
2. Pin the washcloth in place to ensure it doesn't slip while sewing.
3. Sew up the sides. I sewed on the inside of the factory made seams because I need a very obvious guide when sewing. You should now have one giant pocket.
4. Again using the toothpaste and toothbrush as a guide, mark how wide you would like your pockets to be using the pencil or fabric pen. I drew a line all the way down to the bottom of the folded edge because I'm a terrible sewer. I didn't measure scientifically. I just guesstimated. The original seller made hers have four pockets. I didn't need that many pockets, so I just stuck with three. When I have kids one day I may increase the number of pockets in one roll to keep all the toothbrushes together.
5. Sew down the lines you drew. You should now have 3 individual pockets.
6. Cut a length of ribbon. I tucked my toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss inside the pockets and then rolled it up to see how much ribbon I would need.
7. Flip washcloth over so the pockets are facing the table. 
8. Attach ribbon in the center of the right-hand side of the factory hem. I did this by hand. You could probably do it with the sewing machine if you really wanted to.
9. Sew button to outside of ribbon to ensure your stick stays intact. You are going to be putting this through the washing machine, so make sure your stitches are secure. If you don't want to use a button, you don't have to. 
10. Insert toothbrush and toothpaste in pockets, roll up, tie, and throw it in your suitcase. 

Final, rolled up toothbrush holder

This was a super-easy project. The key is adjusting it to fit your toothbrush and your toothpaste. It took me a while because I had to remember how to thread my machine and wind my bobbin. I'm also a terrible seamstress (just ask my grandma). It doesn't really matter if you can sew or not. No one will inspect your seams. It's meant for travel, not display. You can use this anywhere. I plan on taking this with me whenever I travel. It would have been great for college since I had to brush my teeth in a communal bathroom.

Sidenote: My husband and I  just used these last week when camping. He mentioned to me that it would be better to have Velcro fasteners. I may try to get some Velcro dots and sew them on there to see if that would be more convenient than tying a ribbon. It would probably be more manly, that's for sure! I'll keep you posted.

Here's a look at another pin I found using washcloths. I may have to try this one before my next camping trip.

Source: whimsy-girl.blogspot.com via Melissa on Pinterest

There is No Way You'll Ever Be Busier Than Me!

I may have blogged about this before. I most likely have because it's both my biggest pet peeve and my biggest struggle. Kinda funny how my biggest pet peeve is also one of my biggest struggles.

Back when I was in high school, I was muttering to my friends that I wanted an after-school National Honor Society meeting to hurry up because I was supposed to leave right away to go to a surprise party about an hour and a half away. I didn't want to be late because I desperately didn't want to spoil the surprise. Everyone hates a surprise-spoiler.

Anyhow...one of the girls standing near me said in all seriousness, "Oh Melissa, you will never be as busy as me." I about fell over. My friends around me couldn't believe she would actually say that to someone especially since she was known around school as having little to no social life. I didn't come up with a good retort because I hate face-to-face conflict of any kind. I did rage to my family and friends later and still bring up the issue years later.

When I told my dad about this little incident, he brought up one of his Bouch theories. (My dad's last name is Boucher so he calls his life observations Bouch theories.) Here it is:  Everyone always thinks they are busier than everyone else. He then went on to say that there are different levels of busyness. Level one is making sure you get your strawberries canned before they rot in your garden. Level four is deciding whether or not to bomb Iran. Housewives usually are busy on a level one while the President of the United States is busy on a level four. He also brought up the point that sometimes housewives with no children think they are the busiest women in the world at the same time as a mother of four is working full-time outside the home and trying to get her kids off to their various activities fully clothed and on-time thinks she's they busiest in the world.

Everyone has a right to think he or she is busy. Busy individuals just need to keep their busyness in perspective. No stay-at-home housewife without children should ever say she is busier than a mother who works full-time outside of the home. She can think it all she wants and whine to her husband and mother about how busy she is, but should never publicly downplay the busyness of a working mother.

I know that I'm kind of trying to downplay the busyness of stay-at-home housewives who have no children, so I'm sort of doing the same thing as some friends and family members of mine who have whined about their busyness via Facebook in the past. This post is a lecture to myself on one of my biggest struggles as well as a pontification on one of my biggest pet peeves.

I'm a teacher, so I get pretty busy during the school year. If you count the amount of work I have to do at home and the amount of work I do running our school's tutoring program, I often work 13-14 hour days. I almost never work less than a 9-10 hour day. I'm not a mom yet, but I often lapse into thinking that stay-at-home moms have it made. They get to do housework and take care of their own children all day. What could be better? How can they even begin to whine about how busy their lives are? They don't have to deal with other people's problems. They just deal with their own family's needs. I see so many articles and blog posts about how busy stay-at-home moms are while teachers get ripped to shreds for having such an easy job because they get summers off.

This line of thinking on my part is completely, 100% hypocritical.  I'm falling into the trap that my acquaintance in high school fell into all those years ago when she told me I would never be as busy as she was. Yes, teachers are really busy. Stay at home moms are really busy too.

I'm sure some of my thoughts will change as I have children. I really hope by cultivating a right attitude towards busyness while I'm young and naive that I will handle the responsibility of parenthood with much more patience and fortitude than I would have otherwise. I know for a fact that I will slip into thinking I'm the busiest woman alive between now and the day I die. I just need to remind myself from time to time that I'm not the only busy person out there. We all are busy in our own little ways.

So here's the bottom line: accept your busyness as YOUR busyness. God allows different people to handle different amounts of responsibility. God also expects different amounts of work from different people. Don't judge others on their lack of busyness. You have no right to do so. Even though I so badly want to say that stay-at-home childless wives have the easiest lives in the world, I can't. Even though I want to say that moms who are also teachers are the busiest women in the world, I can't (although you could make a strong case for it).

What I can say is do the best with the time God has given you. Don't whine about the lack of time you have. Don't try to get others to feel sorry for you. (They won't anyways.) Accept your lot in life with patience and fortitude. Every time you start to think you are the busiest person on the planet, think about the busyness of the President of the United States. Chances are you are no where near as busy as he (or someday she) is. Check out the pictures below to see how being the President aged some of our nation's leaders in a short period of time:




Pic from http://blogs.rep-am.com/worth_reading/2011/12/07/this-aging-game/



You don't have it so bad after all, do you?

The Elusive Pursuit of Creativity

I can be sort of creative...sometimes. Can I really call myself creative if I'm only creative sometimes? I love reading creative blogs and spending time with creative people. I love the rush when I finish a creative project. I'm just not consistently creative.

I think my fear of what others think interferes with my ability to be fully creative. I'm always afraid people are going to think that I'm a copycat or that I don't have the "right" to be creative. It's all so stupid. It's so much easier to coast under the radar so no one sees my attempts at creativity. Blogging is so hard for me not because I have nothing to say. I have plenty to say. I just don't want anyone to think that I'm trying to be something that I'm not. I'm almost 25 years old. I shouldn't be worrying about that sort of nonsense anymore.

Hopefully this blog will help me break out of the tiny little world in which I've imprisoned myself. I have to keep pushing my self-imposed boundaries. Maybe I should follow this list:

Source: mobypicture.com via Josh on Pinterest

Here goes!

Mr. Rogers...The Re-mix

One of my friends posted this video on Facebook today. It's a re-mix of Mr. Rogers. PBS contacted a guy named John D. Boswell to create this montage. It's absolutely amazing. You probably won't appreciate it if you didn't enjoy watching Mr. Rogers as a child. I watched it all the time and wished desperately that I could live in his house and live a simple life just like him. I remember being bothered when I found out for the first time that he actually didn't live in the house on the show. That disappointment was right up there with finding out the Mitchell Corn Palace isn't made entirely out of corn. Anyways, enjoy this lovely video. I know I did.

Summertime

It's finally here! Summer! Today I finished tidying up my classroom and had my administrator sign off of my end of the year checklist. What a great feeling! For the first time since I started teaching three years ago, I actually didn't have to pack up my classroom to move to a new classroom. I was in three different classrooms in the three years that I've been teaching. It will be so nice to be in the same room two years in a row. Makes for a whole lot less work.

Now I have to figure out what to do with all of this free time. I started a spreadsheet for my to-do list. It gets longer by the day. I love the feeling of endless possibilities that comes at the beginning of every summer. There will be much relaxing, much reading, much cooking, much crafting, much organizing, and much exploring taking place in this little apartment!

I'm hoping to share my summertime adventures on here in hopes that I get myself writing. I've been slacking in that department. I think with an almost non-existent stress level for the next three months I should be able to get a little more of that done.

Source: thesweetestoccasion.com via Melissa on Pinterest