20% and other thoughts.

dearest friends and family members,

I have several random thoughts on the brain, and instead of taking the energy to post all of our Utah 5 Weeks of Summer fun, I thought I'd write down some of the thoughts that are floating around in my head.

1- Lately, I've been compiling all the patterns that I've created within the last while.  I'm surprised to see the sheer volume of it all.  As I was going through all my archives, I stumbled upon these files.

Remember when we did that fabric line for that big company?  Oh yeah, me too.  That was a fun time.  Perhaps we'll end up being one-hit wonders?  Like that movie, Music and Lyrics where they only had ONE hit song, "Pop Goes My Heart!" ---that might end up being us.

Anyway, did you know that the original colorway was made up of oranges, yellows, and greys?  Here are some of the patterns and colors we made that didn't make the cut, but that I still love.  In the end, they wanted greens and pinks more than oranges and greys, but my heart still gravitates to these ones.

None of them are earth shattering, by any means, but I still was a fan.  In the end, I did really like the raspberry colors they helped to choose.  Here are some other ones that I grew attached to but that never made it.

Pretty interesting to see, right?  We had created about 13 different thumbnails, but fabric takes time/money to produce, so you have to be choosey.  In the end, they took 6 different patterns and we put them in three different colorways.  Fascinating, right?  Maybe not?  Hmmm... regardless, it was on my mind.

2)  Lately, I've been really good at doing laundry.  Aaron now wears scrubs to this new office---before he wore "business casual" which meant button down shirts and slacks.  Which meant, I had to be on my "A" game and make sure they weren't a wrinkled mess.  Ahhh, the life of a domestic woman...

ANYWAY, I am thrilled that scrubs don't require such work, but I will say, when you only have 5 sets you have to make sure you get that laundry done... weekly.  (it used to be worse, he only had 2 pair, so I was running our ridiculous machine every two days!?!)  If I didn't, my husband might have to re-wear old stinky ones, or worse, go naked.  hA!  Like that would be an option!!

Anyway, the point is this:  I am getting very prompt in the actual WASHING of the clothing in our house----it's the putting AWAY that I struggle with.

Often times, I take our clean folded clothes out of the basket as we wear them.... then when it's time to do the wash again, I FINALLY empty out the basket and put away the clean clothes.  Do you do this too?  Why is it so hard for me to finish the last 20%?

3) Speaking of 20%, do you remember that awesome book I've talked about a million times called Clear the Clutter with Feng Shui ??  She talks about how we wear 20% of our clothing 80% of the time.  I'm continually amazed with how true that statement is.  As I was organizing our closets, I was tempted to get rid of the 80%, but I wimped out.  I mean, you never know when you might need to dress as a gypsy/pirate again.

Anyway, I am gearing up to go through both dressers/closets of the kids to de-clutter their clothing.  When they grow so fast, it's insane how often we have to be switching up wardrobes for them.  Tillie keeps pulling out shirts from her drawer that she wants to wear, but they are now belly shirts.  Whoops.  Yes, Melissa, it is time to go through those dressers again.

4) I've been exercising a lot this last while and I'd really be happy for the scale to tell me that I've lost 10 pounds, but alas, it still won't.  Lame.  Don't you wish that when you gave good solid effort it would be rewarded right away?  Me too.

I've even considered doing those ridiculous lemon juice cleanses---you know, the ones where they put in something crazy like cayenne pepper, lemon juice and two drops of honey?  You drink ONLY that for 10 days?  Have you heard of these things?  I mean, it sounds crazy, but I did consider it the other day.  Any experience with that?

I just feel like life is so much better when you allow yourself to eat delicious things.  I'm not saying ENGORGE, just small/normal amounts on occasion.  Do you agree?

I'm not really needing any of these questions to be answered, I'm just putting them out there b/c I have no recent photos to post.  Well, I'm sure I do, but they're all still sitting on my camera.  :)

5) One more thing, did you know that I have a talent for recognizing when people get their hair cut or bangs trimmed?  It's true.  As long as I see someone on a pretty regular basis, I can pretty much always tell if they have trimmed their hair... especially bangs.

For example, last night while we were watching The Sing Off (which, hello, is a great show on NBC.  It's a singing a'cappella competition, and we're big fans over here. And, one of the main contributers of the show is Ben Folds---who we both are Ga-Ga over.  It's a great show.  But I'm SUPER sad that Vocal Point (BYU's a'cappella group) just got voted off.  BOO.  It's nothing like that show I had high hopes for, but were quickly dashed on the first episode.  Yeah, you know what show I'm talking about---Glee.  It is/was bad news bears.)  ----------WOW, I have digressed.

Anyway, two of the singers in two different groups both got haircuts, and I noticed first thing. Aaron didn't really notice/care.  But, it was right then and there that I decided I have gift for that sort of thing.

Isn't it amazing the talents we are blessed with?

So, there are the random thoughts for the day.
Take them or leave them.
love, melis