Tidy Brown Wren, bringing order to your nest

I seem to have dropped the bloggy ball again.  Life is blessedly busy and eventful and this little blog has taken a back seat for the past week or so. I've been busy with a large organizing/redesign project at a client's home, happily preparing my classroom and lesson plans for the upcoming preschool year, and deliriously overcome with joy and thankfulness for this little bundle. . . Our sweet little granddaughter was born last Saturday and this is a photo of her snuggled in her car seat, ready to leave the hospital.  Everyone is doing fine and we are so thankful for God's little miracle. 

We have a new member of our family ready to arrive in just a few days.   Our youngest daughter and her husband are expecting their first child (our first granddaughter) any day now.  A few weeks ago they had a maternity photo session with Andi Grant at our house.  I missed out on getting to watch the adventure, but Papa got to help with gathering all of the props.  I love that the photos were taken at Brown Wren Acres, the same place where their engagement photos and wedding photos were taken.  Each set of photos represents a letter of the alphabet and Ashley and Chris plan to make an alphabet book for little Miss Charlotte to enjoy.  What a special way for her mommy and daddy to show her how much they love her. You can check out more of the photos at Andi's website .

Monday Motivation: Getting Control Of Household Paperwork Out of control paperwork seems to be the number one problem most of my clients have. I would say it has to be my number one problem as well. I still struggle with it, but I've come up with some systems that help me to create order out of the mess pretty quickly.   If you're overwhelmed with papers, here's how to take control and set up your own system to make your life easier. First we'll start with figuring out what you have. Let's pretend you have papers all over your house and they are totally disorganized. Don't apologize - just get started: 1. Start with a large surface, like your dining room table, to use as a staging surface. Cover the surface with boxes or other rectangular containers to sort your paperwork in. Some of the categories you might choose are: Bills, medical, car, school, insurance, photos, banking, stationary, taxes, recipes, contact info., appl...

One of the great things about having grandchildren around is that they help you to slow down and look at things.  I tend to rush through life and in the process miss the fun.  In my effort to get to the end I forget about the journey.  I might be pleasantly surprised if I took the time to explore something I've never seen before.    Littlest grandson climbed up onto the truck box in the back of his uncle's pickup to checkout the view through the window.  He sat very still for several minutes, staring into the truck and didn't say a word.  Finally, he turned around and shared his thoughts.  "Big truck".  Why, yes it is.  Just the facts.  No other details needed.  Plain and simple.  Life should be simple.                            ...

Here we are on the last Monday Motivation of July.  I've enjoyed hearing from several of you who are following the Monday Motivations and organizing/cleaning your whole house.  I'm so proud of each of you for all of your hard work.  I love to hear how happy you are with the changes. Don't worry about how much time it takes to work through your home.  Just doing one small task each day or week means that you are moving in the right direction.  So many people get overwhelmed by their home and so they do . . . nothing.  Doing nothing only compounds the problem and makes things worse.  If you can only do one thing this week, pick 10 things in your home to get rid of.  Even small items make a difference.  When you change your mindset to look around your home for things that don't make your life better, then you are able to make choices about things to get rid of.  Here's what I got rid of this past week to keep my living r...

Our friends have a peach tree in their yard that has been producing lots of peaches.  They brought some to church and I happily loaded up. I peeled and chopped the peaches, added some sugar and lemon juice, and then started boiling away.  I had 8 cups of chopped peaches and I added 4 cups of sugar.  Before filling each jar with the mixture, I added 1/2 tsp. of lemon juice to each jar.  I always refer to my Ball Blue Book of Canning when in doubt. I prepared my canning set-up.  The large pot to the left has boiling water ready for the water bath.  The small pan in the back right has lids and rings sitting in warm water.  The pan in front is simmering the jam.  I put my jars into the boiling water bath, submerged, for 20 minutes. An hour later I had 4 half pint jars of peach jam ready for the pantry.  I love the beautiful color.

The Wrens have been super busy here at Brown Wren Acres.  Every time I go to grab my gardening gloves outside of the back door, the mother Wren lets me know that I'm too close to her expanding family.  She's decided to take over the little gardening cubby where I keep my tools and gloves handy. Nestled down in the basket is her lovely little nest and several eggs.  I also found another nest in the tire swing hanging from the oak tree in the front yard.  I don't see any eggs in this nest.  I think mother might have had second thoughts after the last storm winds blew threw.  I'm sure it was a wild ride on this tire swing.