ants! Ants!! ANTS!!!

Greetings Friends, So our summer dilemma has been ANTS!! They are every where. I've got a toddler who likes to make every thing sticky with her sticky hands. We all know toddlers eat messy and it takes just one smear of jelly from a PB&J sandwich to attract these little sugar ants. I went to chalking up the cracks. There is one crack or opening in a door that they keep slipping through. So I've been on the battle front to protect the toddler and crawling baby from these critters. While online I saw this! A friend posted a link to http://www.crafterhoursblog.com/2012/05/dead-ant-dead-ant.html for a simple recipe to kill ants. It calls for 1 cup of water 2 cups of sugar 2 TBSP of Borax boil it for 3 minutes. Click the link above to see the pictures for the recipe. Let it cool and place it in shallow dishes around. I made this this morning and placed mine around outside. In a matter of minutes the ants were there eating up a storm! See my little 22 second video of how they are attracted to this solution... I hope it works! I'll update this blog when we find out!

Pacing my Progress while Procrastinating A Little.

Hello Everyone! I hope you are all doing well. I've been ok. Yeah just ok. I can't complain without feeling a little guilty but I can't say I'm exactly peachy either. Ever feel like a huge life change is over due? I'm talking about a full life makeover from inside and out. I want my location, spiritual life, appearance, attitude, personality and habits to change. I want more self motivation etc etc. I want I want I want. See that focus right now is inward. I think the solution to that focus is to look outward. Focusing too much on me sort of gets me depressed, so to help out with that I will try and divert my thinking and thoughts on others. How can I help others? I haven't found that out yet mainly because those words and thought just came to me. :) So while I was looking at blogs one day I saw this wonderful blog on 4 Weeks To A More Organized Home. I thought, I could do with a better organized home! So I had a look. Here was the first assignment: Day 1 Assignment ::Get dressed in something that makes you feel great {there’s something about dressing in clothes that make you feel great that just gives you more energy and zest for life! Get your free copy of SarahMae’s ebook, Frumps to Pumps, if you need more motivation in this.} ::Sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and make a list of 5-10 goals for this week. ::Complete your morning routine {if you don’t have a morning routine, take some time to create one today! Read my How to Develop a Routine That Works–And Stick With It series for step-by-step help.} ::Set the timer for 15 minutes and quickly pick up the main living areas of your home. ::Clean out your purse and/or diaper bag. ::Find 7 items to get rid of today. Throw them out, stick them in a donate or garage sale box, give them to a friend who can use them, or list them on Craigslist or eBay.  Ok So I did get dressed. I tell you what, I am a PJ wearing momma! Now I don't walk around in anything I'd be ashamed of checking the mail box in. I don't do the fuzzy slippers and such but just the general comfy yoga type pants and t-shirt. I think it's time for an upgrade. No I'm not going to walk around in pumps and be full on decked out but something other than the yoga pants and t-shirt might be nice. I can do the make up too. I don't wear a lot of it and I have a little fun putting it on. I'm also reading the book she suggests too. Sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and make a list of 5-10 goals for this week. I did. I think I accomplished 1 or 2 off that list. My problem is, I sort of lost the list. lol. Maybe I should blog the list instead. I know it's around here some where and I will find it. But it did say just make the list, not do something on it too. lol! No I actually tried to accomplish it. When I find it I will find a permanent spot for it. Complete your morning routine. That is usually done... daily. Set the timer for 15 minutes and quickly pick up the main living areas of your home. That would be the living room, kitchen, and dining room. That might take more than 15, but hey I did it and felt good about cleaning. This sounds rather Fly Lady-ish. I got her emails about 12 or so years ago. I remember my teens were toddlers then. It was overwhelming for me then but one thing I took away was the 15 minute cleaning and then a 5 minute break idea. Loved it! In fact I used to do this online with some friends in Samoa, Colorado, Texas, etc. We would all be in a chat and go off to clean and come back to chat for 5 minutes telling what we did. Since then my friend in Samoa moved to Australia, our kids grew up, our lives changed, as so did our schedules. So thank you Fly Lady for the nugget of good memory idea for me and my friends. Clean out your purse and/or diaper bag. Yes! I did both! I even through my diaper bag in the wash! I am still using the diaper bag I made too! It's holding up! Find 7 items to get rid of today.... Uh errr... well see what had happened was... I didn't accomplish this one. I am determined too! I even made a list of what I was going to get rid of. So I shall do this task as procrastinators say... tomorrow. lol but... all jokes aside it will get done. I like this assignment! I will take it at my own pace though. I missed today and probably yesterday already lol! Life gets busy. With a house of 5 kiddos you can bet on unpredictability. It's not an excuse to not set goals but rather a reason not to take things such as this too serious. It's something I want to do but if I don't get to it for things other than my own laziness, I'm good. :)

Stitch It, Paint It, Lose It, and Good Night!

Well I've been up to nothing much. Just the same old thing. Today I went to Whole Foods and picked up a few things. I saw on Dr. Oz that Coconut Palm Sugar was good for diabetics. I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes with my last two pregnancies. Although it goes away after birth, I'm left thinking about my health. For the first time ever, I lost weight during pregnancy! Oh no don't worry, it's not bad, it was good. I was over my weight limit anyway. I was given the pills to take instead of the insulin shots. I was grateful to be given the chance to try them out first this time. Any how I saw that with the controlled glucose levels I went down a few pounds. Hmmm. So I'm on the mission to actually get serious about dropping this weight I gained with pregnancy. I picked up some Coconut Crystals for an alternative sugar.  Funny because I do not like coconut at all! I read on the can that it doesn't have a coconut taste. We shall see! I also bought some unrefined and unbleached sugar. It too is said to not spike glucose levels. I hope these work.

In addition to the alternative sugars, I bought some more Pu-erh tea. I've heard good reports on this. It's supposed to aide in weight loss. I'm excited to try this. I got some Pu-erh tea from Teavana. It wasn't bad but I think I was making this wrong. The instructions on the can were for an 8oz glass of tea instead of a pot. Oops! Lets try again lol.

The weather is getting warmer so we are out of the house more. Today we hiked the big hill up to our house. It was a nice walk. We shall do it again! Baby Fia was in the Moby like wrap I made. She feel asleep as we got back home. Must have been a good walk then!

Well as you may have noticed, I like to make things. Sometimes I get project overload so I decided to give myself a limit. I've made a project wall. It's not a wall it's actually an 8.5x10 printed out sheet with a border around it. It keeps me within safe boundaries lol. Here it is

. If the "Stitch It" is full then I can't add any more projects. I've got to finish one on the board first. They have to be the same size as a wallet size photo too. No cheating and no wait listing lol! I actually thought of doing that! Silly me. It will just push me to actually complete the projects I want to do.

So one thing that was not on the Stitch It board was this canvas painting. I have always wanted to do a canvas painting. I did one on Valentine's Day for my dear husband. I'm not sure how well he liked it since I don't think he would hurt my feelings in this situation. I tried and I'm going to try again. Here is my first Abstract Canvas Painting. It doesn't have a name or meaning really. I was just painting.

:)

It's Late Thirty A.M and time for me to go to bed. 

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uploading expressions

Hello again.
Another blog so soon? Maybe but it will be short. You know how you have your wants and desires but never get around to them? One of mine is photography. I really get a joy out of viewing photos. I like to see what's going on in photos of crowds, I like expressions in portraits, I like to see beautiful color in photos of objects and a photo with an overall mood really grabs my attention. So what do I do with all this emotion and such? I thought about starting a photo group but I don't think I'd put 100% into it. I haven't totally given up on the idea. I have several friends that like photography so I think it would have a good number of people join but not now. So what did I do? I started a photo blog. Yes, a blog with a photo a day and very few words. Nothing like the gobs and gobs of photos on my picasa or flickr accounts but just a simple photo a day. I've got it up and running now. The challenge is actually uploading a photo a day. Some of them may be old from the archives and some might be new. The one I just put up is the newest one I've taken. Some maybe not be so interesting and others may just have you staring. I won't put up any old photo, it will be of something that I like. It will be of something that interests me or makes me laugh. No, not a degrading photo, but something that will generally make you smile. I like photos that give a good feeling. We've got too much pain in our lives anyway so I don't focus on that. I'm not fond of nudes either so you are highly unlikely to see any body photos. I know some may feel that the body is beautiful, natural in forum etc. Yes that is true but not something that interests me. So if you like visit here http://bytesoflight.blogspot.com/
and leave me a comment of some things that interest you. Feel free to leave me comments on the photos too.

Thanks for reading again. I hope you've had a great day or you will have one.