Pinterest-a new subcategory under addiction in the DSM-IV

My husband dreads these 5 words.... "I saw this on Pinterest......" The inside of our house has been completely pinterested. The outside of our house has been completely pinterested. Our dinner menu has been completely pinterested. Our leisure activities have been completely pinterested. I can't help it...there are a LOT of really creative people in the world...and I now have access to all their ideas. I don't always have the most creative ideas myself....but I am GREAT at copying other people's ideas. I have successfully decorated our house for every holiday in the last year, made my daughter some super cute snacks for school, and found some creative pinewood derby car designs, all on pinterest. I've removed stains from clothing, created several new gardens for our yard, and found 20 new uses for free wood pallets, all by browsing on pinterest. I have redesigned and reorganized my bedroom, my kids bedroom, my linen closet, my bathroom, my kitchen pantry, and my living room, all without the the help of an interior decorator or professional organizer. While some of these projects involved cash, many of them were cheap or free. So I would say, that the time I have "wasted" surfing through pinterest,  has paid for itself time and time again. .

Yet it still amazes me how time slips away from you while you are searching through the gold mine of Home Decor, Design, Food & Drink, Gardening, Kids, and Women's Fashion Boards. Sometimes, I sit down for "just a few minutes" and find myself realizing it is 7:00 and I forgot to get my kids dinner (luckily, I found a GREAT recipe that is guaranteed to be kid friendly in my hours of surfing pinterest). I suppose that can be said for any true addiction. How could I have consumed an entire case of Diet Coke when I just bought it yesterday? (See previous post about Diet Coke). I know I can get through all 8 levels of Super Mario without warping if my mom would just leave me alone! But I had to buy these shoes because they match that one outfit I'm saving up for. I know if I just put $10 more in this slot machine, I'll get all that money back, plus more! Addiction is described as a condition that results when a person engages in an activity that can be pleasurable but the continued use of which becomes compulsive and interferes with ordinary life responsibilities such as work (NEVER pin at work...'cause it's blocked by my employer's web browser), relationships (I've found some really FUN kids activities and some great date night pins too) or health (hmmm...lots of good exercises and healthy menus pinned...just have to do/use them). So really, this addiction is benefiting both myself and my family!

So now I will share some of the creations I have made after hours of browsing on pinterest...their spectacularity will speak for itself!

Coolest shirt ever

Glass block

Empty jar...cause I spend all the money on Pinterest Projects

Love this saying

For our front step

What kid wouldn't eat fruit in sharp sticks?!

Our Little Free Library

Snack box for 52 hours in the car

My sister's Little Free Library

A bench around our tree

Awesome table I made out of pallets for our back porch

Love the LOVE scrabble pillows

For our 52 hours in the car-backseat organizer

Fence art (which my husband HATES)

Cute setup for the back of our garage

Valentine decorations from the dollar store

Redo of our bedroom

Christmas stairs

Dollar store decor

Awesome 4th of July Sign with my Silhouette

Valentine's Day Decor (dollar store again)

Rice Krispie Treats

My Favorite sign EVER!!!!

Ok, ok...that is probably enough. I'm impressed that you even scrolled through all those pictures to get to the end of this blog. So, that is a brief description and some examples of my addiction to Pinterest. If you would like to see more....you can follow me on pinterest at  http://pinterest.com/josephnrachael/boards/

And now, to return to our regularly scheduled activity:

The Hike from Hell

Today I signed up for a challenge at work called Hike to Healthiness. Over the next few weeks, we are challenged to hike 8 trails protected by the Mississippi Valley Conservatory. Along each trail is a plaque with a factoid, which you record on sheet to turn back in at the end of summer, with the possibility to win a gift card (I'm all about winning free stuff!). This sounded like a fantastic way to get my kids out in the great outdoors! I also thought we could combine one of our other favorite pastimes (geocaching) while we were at it.

I scoped out the list of trails this morning and chose the New Amsterdam Grassland Nature Preserve. This sounded like an easy place to start...not a long hike up the face of Grandad's Bluff, but a nice, easy stroll through some grasslands. These grasslands are an important nesting area for rare grassland birds (Henslow's Sparrow and Bell's Vireo) and the trail around it is only 1.1 miles. I also learned, from the geocaching website, that this was the site of some old sand dunes and the information in the geocache description was very educational (always a bonus to throw in a little education in a summer activity).

The weather was perfect (not too hot, no rain) so we stopped at Subway to grab a picnic lunch, filled up our water bottles, applied sunscreen, and headed off to find this new trail. It's located near the town of New Amsterdam (which I had never even heard of, even though I've lived in La Crosse for most of my life) and the drive there was short and very pretty.

We pulled into the parking lot and admired the beautiful scenery: tall grasses blowing in the wind, bluffs in the background, farms lining the edge of the nature preserve.

We stopped at the sign to take a picture and headed off on our hike.

Josh was super excited to find the factoid sign and he marched ahead of the rest of us. Here he is (below) pointing out a donkey at a farm nearby. 

The kids did great for the first .6 miles, which was were the factoid sign was located. Jacob was a little leery of the flying bugs, but he plowed along anyways. I had promised them that once we found the factoid sign, we would stop for our picnic.

As we were turning the bend right after the sign, we found a spot in the shade near two tall trees. I spread out our picnic blanket....and that is when the Hike to Healthiness turned into the Hike from Hell. Josh started screaming as he realized there was a tick crawling up his leg. As he flew off the blanket, Katie realized she had one on her shoe. All three kids started jumping up and down, screaming and crying, "Get it off, get it off". I looked down and found one on each of my legs too. 

Now I may be a little uneducated about the outdoors, but I really wasn't expecting ticks in a grassland preserve. I thought we would encounter those later on, in our hikes up the bluffs.  Boy was I WRONG!

We pulled up the picnic blanket and started speed walking around the trail to get back to our car. Josh cried hysterically the entire way there, and we stopped to pull ticks off our legs, socks, and clothes every few hundred feet. Jake kept lecturing me on what a horrible idea this was, and why hadn't I done any research on ticks and grasslands (good point). It only took us about 10 minutes to reach our car again, but I'm sure that any wildlife we would have seen on the walk was terrified by the screeches and cries of my three children!!

For posterity sake, I made my kids take another picture when we got back to the sign ("So we can remember to NEVER come back here again", said Katie). Notice Josh's terrified face and Katie scratching herself. 

We tried to do a tick check outside the car, but as we stood there, more ticks kept climbing onto our legs. I got off the few I could spot, and the kids piled into the van. Katie ripped off her shoes and found a tick on the sole of her foot, while Josh found three more on his legs and arms on the way home. 

 

Needless to say, I have been unable to get any of my kids outside to play on this beautiful afternoon. They all keep itching themselves (as do I), convinced they will find another tick. I hate to even mention the possibility of another hike next week (though it can't go any worse than this one!!). 

So, I would like to take the time to thank my employer and the Mississippi Valley Conservatory for encouraging us to participate in this Hike to Hike to Healthiness Hell....I may never get my kids outside again! Cheers to another 75 days of summer and the possibility of spending them all indoors (and we never did get to find that geocache).

Organization 101-Kitchen

An Organized LIFE Kitchen

In an attempt to get my life more organized in 2013, I decided to start with my kitchen. Besides my van and my bed (which is a tempurpedic that I LOVE...but that is a whole 'nother post), this is probably the room in the house where I spend the most time. Between cleaning it, cooking in it, paying bills, going through paperwork, hanging up backpacks, lining up shoes(I'm exhausted just thinking about all that)...I spend a great deal of time in this room. 

It all started when I got a laminator for Christmas (okay, okay-I bought it for myself-but it's not like I didn't deserve it!) I've seen some really cute labels on Pinterest lately, and I thought I could use those, run them through my laminator, and BINGO-instant organization. My thought behind this was-if it specifically says CHIPS in one part of our pantry-how could my husband or children put the chips anywhere else?! (Ha, ha...I'm sure you're all laughing at me-but they do put them away in the right spot 50% of the time-the other 50% of the time they just leave them out on the counter). 

Here is my laminator (isn't it pretty)

I decided to tackle our pantry first, because I really had no idea what was in there. We have a pretty small kitchen, with limited cabinet space, so a lot of things besides food go in the pantry. I made up some cute little labels using a template I found on Pinterest, added my own words to them, print them out on my printer, and ran them through the laminator. Using cheap plastic boxes from Target ($0.97 each...but of course I spent way over that-because who can leave Target while only spending $12.00??!!), I separated my pastas from my canned goods, and made a easy dinner box for my husband for the nights he makes dinner (ie: venison hamburger helper and tuna helper). 

I had an awkward amount of space above one of the shelves, so I hung an under-shelf storage basket there with all my baking supplies (vanilla, baking soda, baking powder, chocolate chips). It works great because I can pull the whole basket from the shelf and set it on the counter while I'm baking, and then I just slide it back when I'm done. 

Once all of that stuff was organized, I had plenty of room to store the appliances I use the most (ie: Pizza Pizzaz-really people-this thing is useful for way more than cooking up pizza). 

There seemed like a lot of wasted space on the walls inside the pantry. A few years ago I installed a shoe organizer to hold bottles/sauces/gravy packets, etc, but the other side looked lonely and bare. 

About a month ago, we finally got a new stove (after spending years waiting 90 minutes for pizza and brownies to cook). My old stove had a HUGE drawer to store pots and pans, but the new stove (isn't it pretty??!!) has a TINY drawer (it's fits the awesome new griddle that I use on my new stove-so I'm not complaining). I needed somewhere to hang my pans, but I'm not a big fan of clutter, so I hammered some nails on the other wall in my pantry and hung the pans. PERFECT!! Easy to see and easy to put away. 

                                                          

Since we've always had such a small pantry, we keep a lot of our every day food in an armoire in the kitchen.This is the food that the kids need to be able to reach (snacks, breakfast foods, etc). This also received an array of cheap plastic bins-which are now CLEARLY labeled. I really like the way it made the pantry look so organized. The baskets under the shelves are great for foil, saran wrap, cocoa, etc (another good way to use that wasted space). 

I found a rack at the office supply store (I think it is a desk organizer for binders) that worked perfectly in the bottom of the armoire for my baking sheets, muffin tins, and other pans. Since they are all standing up, they are easy to see and I can grab the one I need without toppling the rest.  There is also plenty of room down there for my Kitchen-Aid Mixer (which I LOVE...but I don't like to look at on my counter all the time).

We have a detached garage and the kids often enter the house through the back door into the kitchen. My sister-in-law made us this super cute coat rack a few years ago (and I added 3M hooks underneath for their backpacks). I decided to add some storage next to that for things that leave the house (donations, gifts, things that need to be delivered to others). I already had these wire shelves in our basement, so I bought some bankers boxes (about 6 of them for $10 and they are REALLY sturdy) from Target and added my own, cute labels. The bankers boxes are a great place to throw stuff that used to sit on our kitchen counter, and I can grab the whole box and take it out to the car if I need to. 

The other things I've been waiting to do for years is make a "kids cabinet" so my kids can reach their own plates, bowls, and cups. Right now, they all jump up on the kitchen counter to grab what they need (anyone else who has Corelle and tile floor knows that it is NOT as indestructible as they say). I found some cute, melanin plates, bowls, and glasses on clearance at Target (man I love that store) and put them in a cupboard underneath the counter. The added bonus to this (that I wasn't really thinking about when I did it), is that it makes it easier for the kids to put the dishes AWAY from the dishwasher too. Score!!

It took me about 12 hours to get the whole kitchen organized (and my husband thinks I'm crazy for labeling everything), but it makes it all look so pretty! I'm really loving the ease of finding things and the fact that the kids (and the hubby) can put things away in the right place (I can always dream). I'm pretty sure I will be happy with the kitchen organization for at least a few months, and then I'll be ready to switch it up again. Until then...I'll enjoy the tidiness as I spend my hours cooking, cleaning, and organizing in there!

Smartest Loser Contest

My mom, dad, sister, and I are joining in the Smartest Loser contest at Gundersen (where my dad and I work). The goal is to lose the most weight as a team in order to win prizes. This is exactly the kind of motivation I need since I really suck at trying to do it on my own. I have come up with a few "tools" that I think will really help me along the way.

This cute little thing is called the Fitbit. You wear it like a pedometer but it estimates how many calories you burn, the number of steps you have taken, and has a cute little flower that grows as you complete more activity throughout the day. It also keeps track of your sleep (you wear it on your wrist at night) and shows your sleep activity throughout the night. It syncs with it's base and uploads all the information onto the online "dashboard". I have already entered the food I will eat throughout the week, and as I complete my activities (strength training, walking, exercise bike, etc) it will let me know how many calories I've burned, how many I've eaten, etc. I LOVE little gadgets like this-so I'm pretty sure it will be a good motivator for me. It also gives you little badges (you taken 10,000 steps today, you've climbed 50 flights of stairs, etc).

The next tool I'll use is the spark people website. I have used this in the past with great success. There are some fantastic recipes on the sparkrecipe website and you can sync them right into your meal planning for spark people. It's loaded with tips, tricks, advice, encouragement and lets you set up teams to keep each other motivated. I did all my original menu planning on here and then copied the data into the fitbit dashboard online (I know, a little redundant but since fitbit is new to me, I want to make sure the calories, etc end up the same on both. My fitbit will also sync all my data to sparkpeople so I can see my progress there too. 

The final piece of my plan is the website diet bet. You create a team of people who each pay money into an online pot (you actually type in your credit/debit card info and they deduct the money). Whoever loses 4% of their weight gets to split the pot (so if two people lose 4%, they split the money). The money is then deposited into your paypal account if you win. The thing I really like about this tool is that I have to actually put money out there (money I don't really have). I know that I will work hard to keep my money and even make a little more (if I win). We are putting up $20 bets so the pot will only be set at $80-but that is enough for a few new clothes later on!

So that is a summary of the plan!! I am very excited about it and I plan to post some of my activities and results here. I follow through much more if I am held accountable for my goals-so I'm counting on everyone who reads this to criticize my failures and celebrate my successes along with me.