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When Jesus admonished the Pharisees for their doctrines, he told them that they only wash the outside of their cup but never the inside, the superficial meaning of this is that their outward appearance appeared flawless but they were no cleaner than a garbage bin on the inside. However, most people have a different approach when it comes to their houses, the inside is sparkling while the outside remains a horrible site or one that is ok, but could do better.
No words can explain the kind of confusion that brings out especially when someone walks through a clattered front yard only to enter into a clean immaculate house, that is just wrong. These guidelines will help you achieve a balance between your outside and your inside.
Get a landscaper
A landscaper is to your yard what an interior decorator is to your house. He or she will bear the responsibility of turning your yard to anything you envision, and like what any good interior designer does, a good landscaper should first ask you what you want to do. This brings into focus what you need and what can actually be done. Once you establish that, you can be sure that the landscaper will do everything he does with your initial thoughts in his mind only he will do it well or better than you had imagined.
Utilize your driveway
Driveways are meant for cars, to park or get into the garage. Traditionally nothing much happens there apart from an occasional game of basketball. However, you can bring them to life by adding some flair by planting flowers alongside the driveway; pave it to remove holes and other chipped rocks. The best technique is to use interlocking bricks that provide a smooth finish and a classy look. You can also use your driveway for garage sales and car washing for economic gain or charity.
Take care of your lawn
A manicured lawn speaks volumes about the owner of the house; they show a sense of responsibility, cleanliness and order in that household. It is not a hard task taking care of the lawn, make sure it is well watered, use fertilizer to make the grass healthy and replant in sections where the seed failed. This gives your lawn an equal look, which is what many people go for. To protect the grass further, install and construct footpaths that will protect grass from stomping and consequently lead to drying up.
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When you are starting a small business, one of the chief concerns you may have is how to make sure that you do not spend excess money on anything. In all cases, the fact that it is a small business means that even a slight excess may have a significant impact on the profits that you make, since the profits are usually not astronomical enough to mask the effects of such excess spending.
Most of the time, you will find that business of this kind tend to lose money simply because they do not pay attention to a number of issues. Some of these include:
The issue of taxation
One of the problems with taxation is that you may end up paying too much of it if you are not careful with your calculations, and you will definitely end up getting penalized if you pay too little of it. This means that the only good thing you can do as far as this is concerned is to pay exactly what you are required to pay. This means that to avoid overspending on tax, you need to make sure that your bookkeeping is done properly, preferably with the aid of a skilled accountant. You do not need to hire one permanently in order to do this; you can always try to find one who can do such work for you on a temporary basis once your taxes are due. This will of course cost you some money, but most likely it will not be as much as you would lose if you overpaid or underpaid your taxes.
Getting third parties to offer other services
Another cost saving method you can use is getting third parties to offer you different kinds of services, rather than employing the staff to do them for you. For instance, when you have a website that you need maintenance for, it would be easier for you to work with a small business support company which can do this for you rather than get a web designer. The former may be cheaper, and you are also guaranteed of getting professional services as well. All in all, you will end up getting more value for money without having to worry about anything.
These are just some of the ways of saving money when you are thinking of starting a small business. The key thing to remember is that in all such cases, always try to do as much as you can to make sure that your spending is as lean as possible.
I experienced my 32nd birthday yesterday. I never knew turning 32 would be so hard for a 4 and 2 year old!!! They had energy out the wazoo! Extremely hyper all day long. Very inpatient. They wanted to make the birthday cake right away. Then they wanted to decorate the cake. Then they wanted to eat it right away, but it was only 1:00 in the afternoon. We need to eat dinner before we have birthday cake. I know they are still learning but please learn patience ASAP! Haha as I need to have patience with them on learning patience. 
Anyway so yesterday was all about me. I don’t enjoy these birthdays in my thirties but if I must have one, then alright. We had a downer though, getting an email from the boys’ bio mom and her rude comments to my husband and I. Not fun to receive on your birthday, let’s just say that.
So today is Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day to every mom out there, along with women who nurture kids who aren’t even their own. They deserve to be honored today as well. I wonder if there’s a Step-mom day? Anybody know? Today is my very first real Mother’s Day and it’s not going all that well. We went to church so the 4 yo could sing in the program for all the Mothers and he walked up, couldn’t find a spot to stand, so he came back down and refused to sing. Sad face. The boys were pretty rowdy during church, trying to walk around in places they shouldn’t, being loud when quiet is required, touching another little boy’s face in front of them, crawling on the floor, spilling the cereal treat we brought in a snack bag, not sharing the treat with each other, both going outside the main area with just me and being all crazy. I couldn’t take it. On top of all of their behavior issues today, it’s gotten hotter since it’s now summer and we don’t have our swamp cooler running just yet to cool down our house. Yesterday our house got up to 84 degrees inside and I was sweating just standing. One thing in life I hate is being hot and not getting any kind of relief. I need cool air to survive. Call me crazy, but I get very hot very quickly. So back to church today. During church I started sweating on my back and touching my back to the pew made my shirt a bit wet. Then I had to take the 2 yo out so I had to walk in public with a sweaty back and I was just mortified. I hate when things like this happen. Guess I’ll never wear this shirt again to church. I’d say today was the worst behavior from the kids during church so far plus I’m trying to listen and be uplifted while trying to hide my embarrassing back sweat. I mean, what a day! And it’s only 11:00 am!!!
The boys are supposed to spend time with their biological mom today so we’ll see how this all turns out. I dread the exchange. But I hope the kids have fun and are not sick when we get them back. Here’s to hope.
Well I hope your Mother’s Days are better than mine. I’ve already shed some tears and it’s not even noon. Beat that.
Since I have two little boys with tons of energy to utilize, I found this cute Easter chick on Pinterest that I wanted to try to make. I needed to get all the materials first and try one out myself before letting the boys get into it. I needed small round yellow paper plates, which I found at Zurcher’s for pretty cheap. Then I needed little googley eyes to glue onto the plate for eyes. Luckily I already had some of those from a project leftover. I needed orange paper to cut legs and feet out of and I just went through my scrapbook paper and found some cute orange patterned paper. I needed scissors obviously and some way to glue, so I actually used Mod Podge
I made one myself one night after the kids had gone to bed. It turned out pretty cute so I thought the boys could handle it. They didn’t really know how to do much of the work so I kind of did it for them. They are 2 and 4 so their fine motor skills aren’t 100% there yet. And of course I did the gluing parts with the Mod Podge
This Easter I decided to change things up. We have an egg-allergy little boy living with us so I wanted to stay away completely from the traditional dying eggs. I found a fun idea on Pinterest to make homemade Easter eggs but it didn’t have any instructions. I was still determined to make them myself.
The process took a considerable amount of time so I only ended up making one large egg each for every kid that would be celebrating Easter at our house this year (total of 6). I started by opening a balloon just enough to squeeze one or two small toys inside, along with a small individually wrapped piece of candy. Once the balloon was filled, I blew air into it to a size that still resembled an egg shape. Then I took colorful yarn and began wrapping the balloon. The amount of yarn I used for each egg was more than I expected. The picture from Pinterest showed less yarn wrapped around the balloons but I figured that I needed some way to ‘glue’ the yarn together to keep the egg shape, so I wrapped colorful yarn
Once the yarn egg is dried from gluing, you take what little piece you can find of the balloon and snip it so the balloon pops inside the yarn. My eggs deflated to some degree every time I popped the balloon. But that was okay since it was already glued. (If you didn’t glue before popping the balloon, the yarn will fall apart and you’ll have to start over again.) Any deflation actually tightened the yarn egg even more than when I wrapped them. So it was a win-win situation I thought.
Now the homemade yarn Easter eggs are done!
After all the plastic egg hunts were finished, I got out these yarn eggs and let each kid pick the one they wanted (except for the oldest boy and only girl). I had specific toys for the older two kids. Their little faces lit up when they chose their egg and asked how to open them. In every egg, there was at least one hole where the glue didn’t connect all the way so I showed them the hole and showed that they could rip it open that way. They each opened them and found their treasures inside. The oldest boy asked me how I made them and was interested about all the steps in the process. He also took his egg home with him to keep, even though it was empty by then. Here’s a look at the inside after the toys/candy was taken out.
There you have it! Easy instructions on how to create your own Pinterest craft of Homemade Yarn Easter Eggs.
I found an interesting website from Pinterest about “Oil Pulling.” Honestly, I’ve only tried it one day and could only stand about 5-6 whole minutes of it. Supposedly, it helps you fight off diseases naturally, get better oral health, and many other improvements in digestion as well. I figured, what do I have to lose? A few minutes of my time? And lots to gain. I read that you should take a very small amount of oil (coconut oil has the best uses but I had vegetable oil in my house, so I used that, YUCK!) in your mouth and sift the oil through your teeth by pushing and pulling it through them. If you’ve never done it before, you might want to try with water first, as I instructed my husband to practice. Within that 5 minutes, I had to spit out my oil mouthful 3 different times because I felt a gulp in the back of my throat, like I might need to puke. They said that was normal to feel that and to spit out and get fresh oil when you’re comfortable again. I also had to blow my nose a few times from the oil clearing my mucus I guess. Anyway, after I tried it for as long as I could stand, I persuaded my husband to try it too. He lasted about the same amount of time overall, had to spit it out maybe 3-4 times too. From his experience, it seemed a bit more subtle. He has issues with his teeth and hoped to get improvement there and he did report a more pink color in his gums after only this one treatment. I read that oil pulling is a way to detoxify your body. I haven’t returned to try this again but we did pick up a bottle of coconut oil. The coconut oil is thick however, we are a bit unsure how it would work with it but read you can heat the oil up and it liquefies. Still haven’t tried it. I also read coconut oil helps to get rid of acne, which I never thought I’d have in my thirties btw!
Lately I’ve noticed a decrease in my eyelash fullness and searched on Pinterest to see if there were effective natural ways to “grow lashes” and found a few helpful tips. I’ve been putting Vaseline just above my eyelash line using a q-tip and brushing it onto my lashes (like you would mascara) every night before bed and sleeping with it on for the past four nights. I’ve noticed a slight improvement in the little amount of time I’ve tried it. There are other ideas on how to grow your lashes naturally on my skin care Pinterest board. Some include castor oil, vitamin E oil and aloe vera oil into a mixture. I’d like to try that sometime when I’m able to pick up vitamin E and aloe vera oils since I already own castor oil from when I tried the Oil Cleansing Method for about 4-5 months last year. I’ll post about my results from these two regimes in about a month from now and report on my stubbornness to press on.
Do any of you use these tips or regimens? What side effects have you found, if any? Do either of these interest you after reading my experience and research? Please comment below! I’d LOVE some feedback.
I surfed Pinterest the other day, you know, for hours (no big deal) and found this gem of a link to make Homemade Puzzles! We recently found out from Provo’s Head Start preschool program that our oldest boy has Sensory Processing Disorder. We haven’t gone into any occupational therapy for him yet but I am currently researching how to channel his playtime into learning time and productivity. Pinterest has some great ideas! This idea was the first one I wanted to try since it looked so easy to make.
I gathered these supplies plus some newspaper so I had no mess at the end.
I found some easy Mickey Mouse vector art images online and printed them onto thicker white paper. I decided on a happy Mickey and a sad face Mickey to help our boys learn how to recognize emotions. I think it’s working well so far.
I also saw from the link source to write numbers on each craft stick with permanent marker so the child can start seeing numbers in sequences. If the picture was too large on the front side, I just put the numbers on the back.
As with any most moms, I made some mistakes. My puzzles weren’t perfect. I used an X-zacto knife to cut out the jumbo sticks but with how hard the glue hardened, it would cut it and create overhang on each stick. Or I had to rip off a tiny piece here and there since it got sliced.
The Mickeys turned out alright so I moved on to creating puzzles out of my boys’ faces. Here they are while the Mod Podge was drying (don’t worry, it’s supposed to look white but it WILL dry clear).
To sum it up, this craft project went really well. I’ll definitely do it again. So glad I found it on Pinterest!
Let’s hope the boys have a happy face every time they play these puzzles.
I’m super excited to announce that I finally completed my bachelors degree in Art & Visual Communications at Utah Valley University, with most of my classes in Photography.
On to bigger and better things, hopefully! Family is one of these things. My new family takes a lot of work and selflessness. I’m not used to having to discipline two little boys just yet but I hope it comes naturally soon. They are so energetic and active and always getting into things they’re not supposed to. Looking for work for when Brandon gets home from work and I’m done tending the boys. Also, very nervous to get back into the workforce. Been out of the loop for a few years now. Hope my confidence kicks in and removes my anxiety over starting a new job. Wish me luck, internet.
Last night, we were sending the boys to bed at 8:00 pm and Kave whines and ends up saying, “My bed is not workin’” and “It’s broken.” He wanted daddy to lift him up and put him in his bed. Then he said, “You night-night me?” – meaning will you go night-night with me please?
The four of us were at Lowe’s, a home improvement store, and walked in an aisle with mirrors and Eliab says when he sees himself, “Oh hello there…you again.”
At Walmart, Brandon brought the boys in a shopping cart up to me waiting in the returns line. A guy in front of me was wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots so Eliab says, “Hi Cowboy” and Kave also says “Hi Cowboy.”
The other day, Eliab asked me, “You daddy’s girlfriend?” and “When I get bigger [he means 'grow up'], you be my girlfriend?” And I have to tell him, “No, I won’t be your girlfriend. I’ll be your mom.” He then says, “You’ll be my mom again? Two times?” And I say, “I’ll always be your mom.”
Perfect Tuesday Tunes for this week! No Doubt has a brand new song out, after a 10 year break!!! I love them!
In other news, ELEVEN days till my wedding day!!! 