Everything Has a Place

Christmas is such a wonderful time of year when we get to share gifts and memories with the ones we love. One of my favorite parts of Christmas is finding gifts that will make my family and friends light up with excitement and joy. There’s nothing like the feeling of giving something to someone that you know they will absolutely love. However, all the presents and gifts can cause quite a bit of clutter around the house. As the dust settles following the whirlwind of Christmas, many of us have a hard time finding places to put all the new presents and gifts. Through the years I have found some ideas that work to get your house back in order quickly and easily.

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Tags: cupboards, organize, shelves, space saver
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Hiking In The Unitahs

Camping in Bend

My husband and I love to be outdoors, whether it’s hiking, biking, fishing, camping, walking, hunting, snow shoeing, boating or most other outside activities you can think of.  Whenever possible we get outside and enjoy the beauty around us.  However, it does take some money to be able to do a lot of outdoor things.  Throughout our marriage we’ve accumulated all the necessary supplies to feed our outdoor passion.  However, it wasn’t until recently that we discovered the wonder of REI.

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Tags: biking, camping, fishing, gear, hiking, outdoor, snow shoe
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I don’t know about you, but I just love making personalized gifts for people during the holiday season.  There’s something different about making a gift from scratch than buying it from a store.  My family was really poor growing up so I got used to being very creative when it came to giving gifts.  Now I see it as a fun challenge to come up with something unique and fun that the receiver will absolutely love.  This year I made calendars for the parents and grandparents on both sides of the family.

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Tags: calendars, gifts, personalized, pictures
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I love taking pictures of my family, especially my 2 year old daughter.  I really try to capture the emotion of the moment so that when I look back at the picture I can remember what I was feeling when it happened.  I also try to take pictures that show the personality of the subject.  When we had our daughter I wanted to make sure I recorded her life very well so that she would know how loved she was and what she was like.  I think I’ve gone overboard with all the pictures I’ve taken of her, but I figure I’d rather have too many than not enough.

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Tags: camera, memories, personalized, pictures
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Loving Mother Earth

My husband and I recently moved back to the Northwest and are really getting in touch with our “hippie” selves.  In fact, I now make my own bread, ice cream, jam and granola.  My husband and I have tried really hard lately to make our lives more “green” and earth friendly.  We figure if everyone just did a little better at reducing consumption and recycling what they can, the earth would be a lot better off. We also have a tradition of purchasing a new Christmas book each year to add to our family collection.   So, this year we found a good book to go with our new lifestyle.

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Tags: carbon footprint, earth friendly, green, recycle, reusable
Posted in Christmas, Going GREEN, Miriam | No Comments »

There is not much else in the retail world that can compare to the excitement of Black Friday sales.

You may have been a part of it yourself. Maybe you stood in line in the cold at your local Target or mall to get a USB drive for $4 or some crazy-good deal.

And Cyber Monday, even…maybe you took advantage of those deals online that are so hard to pass up as well. But those days have passed already. It’s time to countdown to Christmas and you are running out of time if you haven’t done your shopping and you are running out of time if you haven’t gotten the kind of deals you were hoping for for yourself.

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Tags: Black Friday, Christmas shopping, Cyber Monday, deals, retail
Posted in Black Friday, Christmas, Cyber Monday, Josh | 2 Comments »