Creativity explosion

Despite the crazy busy-ness of this month, I’ve had some creative moments and some organizational breakthroughs.  Hazaa!  First, on Monday I finally arranged for my mother figure to come over and counsel me on de-cluttering.  We looked at three rooms, I took notes (one column for what to change, one for what to buy).  I checked my bank account balance then went to Target.  Lucky me, it’s Easter season.  No, I didn’t stock up on Cadbury Eggs (though that’s a good thought).  Instead I loaded up on Easter “baskets” which I am now proudly using as storage.  Check out the colorful tin and baskets I used on my daughter’s bookshelf.

An organized shelf

My mother figure and I have several more Mondays of work ahead of us (thank you!), but I’m inspired.

Next, I got my daughter’s Junie B. Jones costume together for Literacy Day at her school.  Since I’m on the planning committee and volunteering, I got the hint that I had better wear a costume too.  Choosing a children’s literary character isn’t easy.  Most of them are animals or ordinary kids or worse, kids (or animals) in period costume.  I didn’t want to spend a lot of money and did want to use whatever I already have in my closet.  I’m going as Olivia.  This Olivia.

She tends to dress only in red with occasional black and white striped or polka-dotted accents.  In her fantasies she sometimes wears a tutu.

So, I made a red, Olivia-inspired tutu today which I’ll wear with black and white stripes.  And a pig snout.  Ta-da!

I can’t take complete credit for this tutu.  Thanks goes to the mom at the Feels Like Home blog who gave great instructions along with helpful step-by-step photos.

Last thing — and it’s only Tuesday, mind you — my four-year-old son and I visited two gardening centers in the rain.  I’m talking Seattle downpour rain or Louisville Flood of ’37 rain.  My son splashed in the puddles and put all of the fishy-shaped watering cans on our cart while I priced some forsythia bushes to replace the oak leaf hydrangeas (too pricey, will look elsewhere) and got a great suggestion on a ground cover for the patchy area under our dogwood: blue star creeper.  It will be in stock along with other step-ables next week.  We shall return.

Ready for its close-up: Blue star creeper