My WNT List

I decided to make a list.  If you know me, this is not exciting news.  I make lists ALL the time.  I have piles of lists on my desk in the office...grocery lists, home project lists, lists of activities for the kids, etc.  I think I sleep better when I write down all of the things that are constantly fluttering through my mind.  And I love crossing things off my lists, though usually I add more tasks than I complete.  (Why are there not more hours in a day??)  If it's possible to be genetically predisposed to list making, then my dad has definitely passed along the trait.  (Thanks, Dad and your itty bitty Post-It Note lists:)).

Back to the list that I am writing about today.  Today's list is a big, important list.  You could call it a 'Bucket List' or a 'Life List', but I'm going to call mine my 'Why Not Today' List = WNT List.  And although the majority of my lists are written with the intention of crossing off every last item as quickly and completely as possible, this list is less about crossing off each line item and more about living a more full life while taking advantage of opportunities as they present themselves.  You never know when you'll get another chance to ice skate in Times Square or swim with dolphins, so if those activities are important to you...make sure you do them the next time you're able!

Examples of the fragility of human life abound.  Look here and here and here for some recent examples.  This list, which will always be a work in progress, is a reminder for me to live a life with purpose, with passion and without regret!!

1. Live on a farmette.
2. Own my very own (potentially small, potentially vintage) truck.
3. Raise hens for fresh eggs.
4. Learn how to operate power tools so I can make my own furniture from scratch a la Ana White.
5. Try 500 new dinner recipes.
6. Travel to Hawaii.
7. Travel to Alaska during the summer solstice.
8. Drive along the coast of California.
9. Grow enough pumpkins to give one to every classmate of L and H.
10. Own my own shop of some sort.  Perhaps an etsy shop or maybe a real storefront in a small downtown.
11. Make my own soap.
12. Make my own cleaning supplies out of natural ingredients.
13. Build a small play city for the kids out of wood and paint.
14. Take at least one family trip a year indefinitely.
15. Take a cruise with my entire extended family.
16. Bring L to yoga class with me.
17. Coach L and H for a sport season.
18.  Drive a boat.
19.  Drive a train.
20.  Take a train through Canada.
21.  Own an antique Persian rug.
22.  Attend a real auction, and bid on something.
23.  Go to an estate sale.
24.  Eliminate processed food from my diet for a month.
25.  Bake my own bread regularly.
26. Complete an original piece of art for each child.
27. Be completely present when spending time with L and H.
28.  Tell Show Bill every day how much he is loved and appreciated.  Same goes for my kids.
29. Go to at least 2 music concerts per year.
30.  Learn the first names of every neighbor on my block.
31. Let L and H take turns planning an entire day of activities.
32. Teach L to read this summer.
33. Make a concrete planter with my mom this summer and do a fun craft project together every summer.
34. Go fishing with my Dad and my kids this summer and every summer.
35. Learn how to play guitar.  For real.
36. Sew 50 unique projects (ie: an envelope pillow counts as one no matter how many envelope pillows I make) (1. envelope pillow, 2. curtains, 3. window seat cushion, 4. patio chair cushions, 5. lavender eye pillows and covers)
37. Grow a lavender field and make lavender things with it.
38. Run at least one 5K race in every decade of my life.
39. Go for a hot air balloon ride.
40. Rent a beach house for a week.
41. Take a photography class.
42. Have two purses and two purses only. I used to have a huge purse collection...like 25 of them.  I ended up not using them that much because it takes time to switch purses, and I'm not much of a fashionista.  I sold my last batch of purses in the garage sale this year.  I currently own 1 purse and it's nearly falling apart.  I'd like to own two really nice purses.  One black.  One brown.  I'm a picky purse person now though, and I'm having a hard time finding ones I really like.  And I don't want to spend time shopping for purses.  I want the perfect black purse and the perfect brown purse to find me.
43. Jump out of an airplane.
44. Take an annual family camping trip starting this year.  (Even if it's just in the backyard:))
45. Put together a decent wardrobe...on the cheap:).
46. Have a driveway basketball hoop.  This one is not a joke, Bill.  I loved shooting hoops in the driveway after dinner on summer nights when I was a kid.
47. Rent a boat on the St. Croix for a day.
48. Learn a great fresh lemonade recipe.
49. Do L's hair in a different way for each of thirty consecutive days.
50. Enjoy one Christmas/New Years holiday season without any major medical issues in myself or my loved ones!!
51. Volunteer in some capacity at our church.
52. Take a computer class about blogging formats:).
Update 6.24.12
53. Go golfing with my Dad.
54. Travel to Europe.
55. Travel to Europe with Bill and see if it's possible for my second trip to compare with the fun I had traveling there with my Mom after graduation from pharmacy school.  I don't think I've laughed as hard, nor had as many near death experiences as I did during our three week trek through Europe.
56. Install a clothesline.

**P.S. Summer is here and with it, a huge array of family activities.  We're running and playing more than we have in a long, long time!  It is fantastic, but it's leaving me less time to blog, so my entries are looking to be sparse for the next several months while we enjoy all the fun that summer has to offer.  And I have some major potty training to tackle...my boy is STUBBORN!  And lots of reading to do with Lucky girl.  Wish me luck:)!!

Our Lovely Lemonade Stand

While reading through a magazine this spring, I came across this advertisement:

I had read about Alex's Lemonade Stand in the past, and thought it would be a great activity for our family and would support a wonderful cause at the same time.  Our goal was to hold our lemonade sale during National Lemonade Days, June 8-10 (Today through Sunday!!), with all of our earnings going to ALSF.

In order to reach our goal, we needed a stand of some sort.  I turned to Pinterest for some lemonade stand ideas, although I knew from the get go, that I wanted an old looking stand like one I had seen at a barn sale about a year ago. (It wasn't for sale, but was so, so adorable.)

Here are a few stand ideas:

Sweet Shop Stand

via

Lemonade and Bake Stand

via

Ultimate Lemonade Stand

via

Adorable Lemonade Stand

via

But my absolute favorite lemonade stand is this one:

Rustic Lemonade Stand

via

I love the simple and rustic look of the stand.  The stand pictured above is all over Pinterest from an engagement photo shoot that was taken using it as a prop.  It is adult sized, so we needed to bring the scale down a bit, but we wanted the same overall feel.  Bill crafted a plan and made a cut list for the kind folks at Home Depot.

Our wood pile that once looked like this:

And later this:

Now looks like this:

Isn't it cute?  I just love it:)!  And I can't wait to get it stocked with lemonade and cookies and cups and straws for our big sale later today:)!  I'll be taking pictures (of course:))!

In terms of cost, I'm not sure of the exact cost for this project since we bought the wood several weeks ago when we were also stocking up on dirt and mulch and plants for our landscaping project.  It wasn't much though...maybe $30 in wood?  The yellow paint that I used to write 'Lemonade' was 59 cents at Michael's (minus 20% with a coupon:)).  The fabric banner was a clearance Target find from a few months ago for $1.18.  I had the small chalkboard on hand already.  We also had the stain on hand already from our factory cart project last fall. 

Speaking of stain, in order to get the aged wood look I desired, I first wet the wood down with water.  I applied a thin coat of ebony stain and wiped it off immediately.  I worked in small sections so the resulting look was a light grey stain.  Then I applied the dark walnut stain and wiped it off after a short time.  Also, we learned from our factory cart, that it works best to stain the wood prior to construction.  We stained our factory cart after it was already put together, and when the wood shrinks in the winter time, you can see unstained wood in the seams when you look closely.

All in all, I'm thinking the stand was probably $35.  And, it will help to provide some storage in the garage when it's not being used as a lemonade stand.  See this handy shelf Bill installed?  

We'll be putting crates on and under the shelf for easy access toy and ball storage in the garage.  Yeah for organization aids!

With that, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and if you see a lemonade stand in your area, stop and buy a cup:)!!  

Latch Board Fail!

While we were up north for Memorial Day Weekend (and the week that followed:)), we kept busy with lots of fun, kid friendly activities.  The latch board that we made was one of them:

In order to make the latch board, Lucky and Charm painted a wood plaque that I picked up at Michael's for a couple bucks with a coupon:

Then the paint dried, and I had to sand off all the little brush hair pieces that dried in the paint since we used el cheapo paint brushes to paint it.  Next, Uncle D.B. attached several brackets that I picked up at Menards on the cheap.  (Thanks Uncle D.B.!)  I spent $4 for all 5 of them since most were $1 or $2 and 2 of them were 'Free with Rebate'.

 

 Then it was time to play:

In my head, this board was going to be awesome and hold their attention for a long time, but in practice it didn't work out that way for my kids.  I think they played with it for about 5 minutes total:)...probably because they were more interested in talking to Oma and Opa than playing with a silly latch board!  Also, when you think about it, a latch board teaches kids how to open and close locks that may or may not be in place to protect them.  Perhaps it wasn't such a great idea after all!  It cost $6 plus our time.

Also, after I purchased the supplies for this latch board, I discovered a pre-made version by Melissa and Doug:

Melissa and Doug Latches Board

It's available at my local Michael's for about $27, so if I used a 50% off coupon, it would be $13.50.  Only about $7 more than my DIY version, and I think it's much more interesting because the locks actually have wood doors that can be opened!  Again, whoops.  When tackling DIY projects, usually the idea is to either save money by spending a little bit of time making something yourself or create something that isn't currently available for sale in the size/shape/color/pattern you desire.  In this instance, I should have just paid the extra $7 for the M & D version.  Ah well.  I'm just chalking it up to another DIY lesson learned:)!

(Have a good day, Opa!!  We love you soooooooooooooooooo much!  Hugs and Kisses!  BBLH)

Liebster Award!

A great big thank you goes out to Obsessively Crafting for nominating Sunshine on the Inside for the Liebster Blog award!!!  "Liebster" is German for "Dearest".  The award is a "Share The Love arrangement", given to inspirational bloggers with less than 200 followers.

 

 Thank you Shalamar!  You made my day:)!

The rules of the award are:

• Thank the person who sent you the award and link back to their blog.
• Copy and paste the award to your blog.
• Nominate 3-5 other blogs and let them know by leaving a comment.

Here are some of the blogs I'm enjoying:

• Danielle @ Storypiece
• Tami and Christi @ TC Challenges (It's a new blog, but I know it's going to be awesome:)!)
• Kate @ Crafty Kate

Hope you are all having a wonderful week!

Throw Pillow Talk

Remember a year ago when I found white euro pillow covers and plopped them on a couple pillow forms that were a little too small for the covers?  My initial solution was too shrink the covers in the dryer.  That idea worked for a couple weeks until they got stretched out and started looking really sloppy again.  I had two bigger pillows that I put inside the sweater covers and they worked much better, but I had always envisioned three matching sweater pillows across our king sized bed.  I've been on the lookout for a huge pillow for awhile now.  I was excited when I found this pillow at Marshall's one date night (post-dinner...pre-movie).  

 The pillow did have a relatively big problem:

...see the tear in the lower left corner? The tear/slash went into the pillow insert even.

 Since I really only needed the pillow insert, I could look past the tear, especially for this price:

In complete honesty, when I picked it up, it was marked $7.  I asked if they would take $3.  They countered with $4.  I said okay.  

I gathered up a couple materials including $2 in pink ric rac, the extra pillow cover I had on hand and a different pillow insert I already owned.

 Here is what I ended up with:

AND

The colors in this fabric are perfect in Lucky's room, so that's where this new pillow is living.  I'd been wanting to try making a pillow using ric rac along the edge instead of piping.  It looks okay, but I learned that I much prefer the look and ease of piping.  I consider it a lesson learned on the cheap:).

Project cost:
Two new pillows for $6 ($12 if you count the original sweater cover).

I Love Summer Weekends!

We had a blast this weekend while visiting Oma and Opa up north.  We got to see their gorgeous, new sun porch addition:

And play by the fire:

 Lucky the Monkey:

 Post-tree collision:

Cousins:

Uncle D.B.'s Show Time:

 Happy 43rd Anniversary Oma and Opa!

 Lord, it's hard to be humble, when you're...

Happy Early Father's Day Opa!

 Cooking with Oma:

Haircut time with Uncle Fritz:

Fish Feeding at the Pond:

Ice Cream Ball Rolling:

What a wonderful weekend!!  Thanks Oma and Opa!

Silverware Herb Markers

Now that we have our herb garden planted, I wanted to add some fun herb markers to help me keep my herbs straight.  I originally wanted to pick up some fun Smith & Hawken copper herb markers that Target is selling for $2.99 each, but my local Target hasn't had them in stock for several weeks, and I'm thinking that since it's a seasonal item they might never come back in stock.  I searched for herb markers on Etsy and found several listings for silverware herb markers.  I thought I would try to make my own using this metal stamping kit that I ordered off Amazon.

I ordered this kit because I liked that it had numbers and letters, and I liked the $12-ish price.  I would have loved to pick up a kit in a bigger size, but as the size goes up, the price also goes up...dramatically.  I also picked up some random pieces of silverware at Goodwill for $0.29 each.  I pounded them flat with a hammer, and used the stamps to write out the names of my herbs.  I discovered that it was best to give each letter one solid hit from the hammer versus several smaller taps.  Smaller taps created duplicate letters in some cases.

After I stamped all my spoons and forks, I got out a Sharpie marker to help make the letters stand out better.  I just colored in the letters and then wiped off the excess Sharpie with a wet wipe.

 This one reads 'Cilantro'.  The sun makes them tricky to read at times:).

 'Dill'

'Chives'

 'Lavender'

'Basil'

I think it's funny that there are forks and spoons in the garden:)!  

And with that...I hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend.  Travel safely, eat lots of grilled food, and most importantly...don't forget your sunscreen!!