January Organization Project --Spices

When January rolls around I usually get in this mood to really start organizing, cleaning and decluttering.   I guess there is a feeling that I just want a new, fresh start for the New Year.  One morning this past month,  I woke up early and noticed that my spices were practically falling out of the cupboard over the stove.  It drove me crazy enough to just immediately begin embarking on a makeover for my spice cabinets.  You see, I have spices in two places.  One is a turn-style spice rack that we received for our wedding.



But, notice how old and caked with dirt it had become!

 The other place is in the small cupboard space, which had become overly-crowded,  over the stove-top.

I like cooking a lot and so I have quite a few spices.  The problem was that some had gotten WAY too old and yucky and were taking up space for no reason.  Can you believe that I had some in that spice rack that I had never used since we got it on our wedding day. Here is one which expired way back in 2007!



Well, let's just say that we aren't newlyweds anymore. So, that tells you that many of these spices were way overdated! So, it was time to say, "Out with the old!" and "Make room for the new!"  But, of course, when it comes to our marriage, it just keeps growing better with time!  No time like the present to spice up your life!  So, this project got me excited to do just that!

  I found some duplicate spices, which I managed to combine into just one container.



 I got rid of the old, dried out spices and replaced them with new, fresh spices.

In some cases, if there were spices that I almost never used, I just got rid of them and decided to re-purpose the bottle for use of a more frequently used spice.  In that case, I decided to use my label maker to print a blank label and then use a fine point marker to try to write the name of the new spice so that it would look similar to the original font used on all of the other bottles in the spice rack.

 

 

And, in some cases, the bottles just needed a really good cleaning out before putting new spices in them.

And then there was the bottom of the plastic container I used to store my extra spices in over the stove top.  I couldn't believe how dirty that had become with such an assortment of various spices caked on the bottom of it!  Here is the before and after...

 

And here is what it looked like after clearing out lots of old spice bottles.

Here are the last stages of cleaning up my spice rack.

 

 

 

 What kinds of organizational projects have you either started or are you thinking of tackling this year?  May 2016 be a wonderful year with great new starts for us all!

Jay's Birthday

We have been celebrating Jay's birthday for a prolonged period of time.

 

 

His actual birthday landed on a Wednesday this year.  So, since it was a work day we had to celebrate just in the evening that day.  Although, he actually took the day off from work.  But, I (Chandra) did not.  His mother came down that afternoon and we all went out to eat at Texas Roadhouse that night.  I forgot the camera at home.  So, I only got a few pictures at home when he was opening gifts.

 

A unique gift he got from Mother was a brick.  "Why would he get a brick?" you may ask.

 

Well, it's not like getting a lump of coal for Christmas.  You'll notice, if you look closely, that it says, "Poudre Valley Hospital" on the brick.  That is the hospital where Jay was born.  They recently have been tearing down the old part of the hospital, where Jay was born, to make way for expanding and adding on more to the hospital.  So, by giving a generous donation to the hospital, Jay's mother was able to get a brick from the old hospital to pass on to Jay to remember the special place where he came into the world.

 

I told Jay's mother that we really needed a picture of her holding the brick in memory of her, because she was the one who did all of the hard work of delivering him way back when. 

The next day Jay's co-workers gave him a little party and decorated his office cubicle.

 I won't tell you how many years ago that was.  But, you can guess his age by the clue of his birthday cake.  I baked and decorated it myself.

 

Well, if you know when the Peanuts Gang Christmas movie came out, then you can guess Jay's age.  Because they both were born in the same year.  So, I decided to celebrate these classic events together.  We had the cake at a gathering at our house on the weekend.  I had invited our Japanese friends over to have our Japanese bible study fellowship/potluck

 and included a little birthday celebration, as well.

 

It's been a fun time to celebrate during the bleak Mid-Winter time.  So glad that God has blessed Jay with another year of life to rejoice and celebrate.

 

What is Life Like for a Post-Homeschooling Family?!

Lately, I'm enjoying reading about people's homeschooling days.  It makes me feel nostalgic and reminiscent.  For, just one year ago, I posted the same kind of blog post about one of our homeschooling days.  But, I'm also enjoying our post-homeschooling days.  We've come to the conclusion that homeschooling was definitely the choice for our family.  It really helped Penny's reading and writing skills take off.  She's also struggled with math.  But, by homeschooling, she could slowly trudge through until she got it, rather than being left behind.  Math was always my most challenging subject when I was in school, too.  So, by working on it together with her I learned along with her.  We also learned that if you search for tutorial videos on Youtube, there are really no math problems that you can't overcome, if you just don't give up!  This seems to have prepared her well for community college.  I'm really proud of her that she is overcoming and learning well, considering that we just came home from Thailand about 7 years ago, when she knew no English.  But, she has now completed her first semester of college getting all A's and B's!

I have found that my role now has been that of school counselor and a tutor, especially when it comes to writing.  That is still a challenging area for Penny.  But, she really excels when it comes to things like spelling and grammar.  In fact, she often ended up helping other kids in her English class last semester.  That was great practice, considering that she is thinking about teaching English as a second language overseas someday.

This past week we went to her community college...

to find all of her classes, buy books

and bus tickets.

It was definitely less intimidating for the start of the second semester vs. the first semester.  I'm really proud of her to see how she is gaining more confidence and blossoming more and more into a young lady.

While we were homeschooling, I did a better job of reading a wider variety of books.  Now that we've stopped, I don't want to stop reading.  So, I'm thankful for a friend's blog that introduced me to a website/app called  goodreads.com  During Penny's first semester in college I would drop her off and pick her up two days per week.  When I would wait for her I would read books.  This semester will end up being a little different.  She'll have to ride the bus each day, because I'm switching to days for my second part-time job.  So, I'm not sure, yet, how I'll adjust to these changes.  But, I'm thankful that we're gradually transitioning into a new normal.

Another great advantage of the homeschooling was that Penny learned to do a really good job at housekeeping and cooking skills.  Now that I'm working more she'll actually be home more than I will be.  I have full confidence that she will pitch in and help out when she gets home from school.  I'm so thankful that she learned these important life skills and is such a responsible young adult, helping contribute to the good of our family.

The best part about homeschooling was that Penny learned more about God.  She now loves Jesus with a passion and she is not afraid to share about her faith.  She does so in a very kind, compassionate and bold way.  She is truly happy to share about the joy that knowing Jesus makes in her life.  And she is not afraid of what others may think, if she seems different.

If you are a homeschooling family, keep your eyes set on the goal before you.  There is a whole new world out there.  You are building a great foundation for your kids to prepare them for that world.  Work now on what their goals are for the future and help prepare them for that transition and they will soar!

Thankful in the New Year!

We had a great start to the New Year.  It was fun having a day all together at home on the 1st day of the New Year.  We started it out by having a breakfast of pineapple coconut pancakes, thanks to the mix sent to us from our niece's family in Hawaii.  Thanks, Linnea and Dan!

 

Since Penny had a goal of cooking more Thai food, she went ahead and cooked our dinner that night.  We had delicious Moo Larp ( Moo means "pork" in Thai), along with Thai sticky glutinous rice.

 

The next day, Sat. the 2nd, we decided to take a little trip to downtown Denver to see the Colorado History Museum.  Just before leaving for the museum Jay had checked the news on his tablet and saw breaking news that a big fire had just been reported starting in an office building down the street from where we live.  Sure enough, we got to drive right by it on the way to the museum.

 

Here's a photo of them shooting water down on the building even hours later when we returned from the museum.  It was the largest fire in Arvada's history.

Even with the windows rolled up, the smoke smelled horrible!  Sadly, this old office building, probably built around 1970, went up in flames quickly because it had the old shake shingles and no sprinkler system.  There had been people just showing up there that morning for a class.  One of the main offices there houses a drug/alcohol treatment center.  I talked with one young man on the bus riding by there a few days later and he said that that Saturday morning he was late for attending his class there.  He said that when he arrived people were escaping and smoke was pouring out the window of his classroom.  Everyone was asking, "Where is John?"  As it turned out, one of the teachers, John Rutter, had been trying to make sure that everyone get out safely.  He must have gone back in to check and they never saw him again.  Sadly, it has been confirmed that John perished in the fire.  What a selfless act from a man whose life's work was to help others! 

Speaking of the 70's, we got to see lots of toys from the 70's when we went to the Colorado History Museum, because it was a special traveling exhibit that had been extended, due to its popularity at the museum.

 

But, before we saw the toys, we looked at some of the other exhibits about the state of Colorado.

 

One of the funnest parts was taking a virtual ride in an old car down a bumpy path in the prairie.  

But, seeing the old toys from the 50's, 60's and 70's was the most entertaining!  Especially for us "old folks" who remembered playing with those toys.  Jay knew more of the toys from the 60's, since he was born in the middle of the 60's.  Since I didn't come into the world until '69 I pretty much only remember the toys from the 70's.  It's hard to choose, but I'll try to show you just a "few" of our favorite toys that we remember....

 

These are action figures that Jay had.  In fact, he thinks they are still packed away in a box at his parents' house. Here are some of the toys of the 60's.....

 

And then here are the toys of the 70's....

 

Here's a Lite Brite!  I still have mine and it still works.

 

 

These toys from the 70's were some of my favorites.  But, probably my #1 toy I played with the most was my hula hoop.  And I still can hula hoop just like a champion!  I used to take mine with me even to school on the bus and have competitions with my friends as to to who could hula hoop the longest.  It was the one thing that I was really good at.

 

What was your special toy from your childhood that brings back great memories?  Here's hoping that the New Year will bring back good memories and give you opportunities to build new, great memories, too!