Office in a Closet

When we first moved into our 4 bedroom house we only had one child and he was just a few months old. So we had a master, a nursery, a guest bedroom, and an office. Although to be honest I am not sure why we had an office. At that point I did very little creating for teaching, didn't blog, and did not have a direct sales company, but we did! Then a long came our second child and we lost the guest bedroom to a new nursery! Toys were over taking our living room, C's room, and now there was this other child with all of their stuff!!! Where was it all going to go??!!
It was time for me to give up my office! It was FULL, mostly of junk, so we cleaned it out. The laptop went to the couch (I know that is a GREAT place for it!), the printer went to a shelf in the kitchen, and the filing cabinet went to the master closet. Everything else? It went to the DUMP!!!
Then about after a year of the "toy" room C was diagnosed with autism and that room became a sensory room! (I will do a post on that later)

But let's fast forward to June of 2014. I had been blogging off and on for a while, mostly about teaching, some about family and autism. I had started my direct sales business with Jamberry, I was still teaching and creating some things for TPT, as well as my ETSY shop for planner stickers. I had things everywhere.

I had a drawer in our bedroom, bags of stuff everywhere, and the laptop? Still on the couch, oh and very broken (which it still is) because C likes to jump on the couch and if something is in his way it either 1) goes in the floor, hard or 2) he jumps on it, hard!! I NEEDED AN OFFICE!!!!!! Of boy did I before I spent more money replacing the destroyed business supplies then I was making!!!!

First stop PINTEREST, of course!!! I didn't have a room anymore so I was looking for any ideas for placing a desk in the living room or bedroom without it be intrusive or open for C to destroy or jump on!! While on Pinterest I found these ideas.....

     

I sent these pictures to my dad (who is my handyman, he did C's bed and shelf featured in this post!
He said clean out a closet and I can do it!! So I did!! We had a coat closet in our dinning room, that yes held coats (that no one had worn in YEARS!!! plus a bunch of junk that didn't find a home when we moved in 5 years ago, and other things that I just shoved in there to get it out of the way!!

I went to work and cleaned out that closet. It is a TINY closet but took me 3 HOURS to clean out!!!! A lot of coats went to Goodwill, a lot of stuff went to the dump, and some stuff I had forgotten about go a new home!!!! And then the closet was EMPTY and ready to go!!!

So my dad came in and built some shelves, brought electricity in and it was complete and ready for me!!! So I added some baskets I had found for a $1, put in a light, my computer, and printer. Then I found the most adorable buckets and a white board calendar at Bulls-eye's Playground at Target (also known as the One Spot) and used them with some shower curtain rings to make pen holders!!! Check out the final product!

Planning Week 7

It has been a busy week planner wise!! Last week was a crazy busy week that just got compounded by snow! So everything was pushed into a couple of days!! Here is the spread at the end of the week!

So as if things weren't crazy enough, I have become a Chapter Manager for the organization that Happy came from!! I am super excited about this, because it will involve helping other families find the same peace we have found. I will also be working to educate the community on service dogs and autism!! My passion in life is autism awareness, so this is just going to be another avenue to share that. If you have any questions about service dogs, particularly for autism, then please reach out!!!! I would love to help!!!

So my spread for this week is just like my past two week in February.  I am a creature of habit, I can't help it, it is just who I am!!! I did add a little more decoration to it this week! I participated in the Planner Squad's swap for February and my stash came!!! Thanks Ashley!!! 

I added a little bit of what she sent to my planner (she also sent a Hershey's bar, but I ate that before I took the picture!) Anyway, I added a little of the polka dot washi (which were the perfect colors to match my February stickers!!)

Then I also used one of the project life cards she sent to write out my color code. I plan to laminate that and put a coil clip on it to make it my bookmark. 

Now we are ready for another busy week and more SNOW!!! Here is the final spread.....

And check out the video on my YouTube channel...

Week 5 Planning

Week 5 takes us into February, which I am so excited about! I am LOVING the color scheme for this months spread! The wrap in the Jamberry consultant planner is Sunny Lotus! It is very YELLOW, and not my favorite wrap (at least it wasn't) so I took to Instagram to see how I could liven February up with more color than yellow! I found these two jamicures (these are not mine, they were found online)

Athens and Boysenberry are two of my FAVORITE wraps and when I thought about them with Sunny Lotus it became one of my favorites too!!!!! So that is the color scheme I went with for this month! Check it out below!




And the final spread:

Creating a Bedtime Routine with Autism

One of the things we have struggled most with C is SLEEP!!!! He just doesn't seem to need any!! It has been like this since he was little. He would go for days on very little sleep and then crash for a LONG time, then go days again! That is hard on someone whose body doesn't function that way, it was really hard when we had an infant in the house too, and toward then end of his awake days you can see it take a toll on him too! If he some how managed  a nap during the day (at school he does take a short nap most days) then that means we are up that much later. His typical bedtime or time that he crashes falls somewhere between midnight and 2 AM. His typical wake up time is between 5 and 6. I have gone through so many different things to improve his sleep it is crazy! Well I think we finally have it (at least better) and we are in bed before midnight on most nights!

So are bedtime routine starts about thirty minutes after dinner (or just enough time to give E her bath, brush her hair and teeth, and put her in pajamas) I start C's routine by putting 2 to 3 drops of Roman Chamomile oil on a paper towel.

I take that paper towel and place it between his pajama tops and bottoms under his pillow while he takes his bath. We have tried other oils but they have different effects on him, no good ones in most cases :( 

I prep his room for him to relax. We have a laser light that shines around the room, and a humidifier which serves two purposes. The most important is C was getting very bad nose bleeds in the middle of the night, and the other is it creates a noise for him to sleep! 

 Once his room is prepped, lights off, laser on, humidifier running we take a bath! This is not an easy process. Some nights he LOVES bath, most nights he HATES bath!!!!

Once bath is finally over we head into his bedroom and get dressed in those pajamas that now smells like his oil, with his head on the pillow that also has that scent! Then we lay and stare up at his artificial stars. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we sing, sometimes we just cuddle, but we always lay there for a few minutes and look. Sometimes this works like a charm and he is asleep before I get up. BUT there are many times he gets up after a few minutes and goes to play! The thing is that on nights we do this he is always in bed before 10:30, on nights I miss any part of this he isn't in bed until midnight, and oh my goodness, if we skip everything (cause I am out at a Jamberry party or event for school, no one else does this routine with him) we are up until 2 AM!!!! So 10:30 I will take!!!

There is our routine that has been 5 1/2 years in the making! So now share with me your nightly routine? What have you tried? What works? What doesn't?

Jamberry Going Going Gone

Wow, I really just can't believe it is almost February! It really doesn't seem possible! This is a super sad/happy/depressing/exciting time of year for Jamberry consultants. That is right it is catalog retirement time!! We are sad because inevitably a favorite wrap will retire, but we are filled with excitement because we know that all those favorites will be replaced in March!!!! I wanted to share with you today the wraps that are retiring.

 My personal wishlist is LONG!!!!!! Here are some of the highlights!!!

ABC 123

Black and White Houndstooth

Boysenberry Cheveron

Cup of Tea

First Crush

Icy Berry Polka

Icy Peony Polka

Lotus

MatchMaker

Mint Green and Gold Stripe

Once Upon a Time

Poppy and White Polka

Prissy Plaid

Sly as a Fox

Sunny Lotus

Teal and White Polka

Tungsten

Wild Cherry

Mulberry Lacquer

Yup that is just the highlights!!!! It is a good thing I get a discount!!!!

Want to see a little more of the retiring wraps?!?!? Then check out this video!! Want to see more? Email me at markeetanails@gmail.com and request a picture of ANY retiring wrap!!!!

Have your wishlist ready? Order at http://markeeta.jamberry.com!!!!
Is your wishlist to big? Host a party, sign up at http://markeeta,jamberry.com/host
Comment below with your favorite wrap that is retiring!!!

DIY De-tangle Spray

So all the snow has meant a few things for my family! First it means I cannot get my minivan out!! Second it means LOTS of time playing outside all bundled up in our winter wear!! Last it means E wears a hat, sweats and gets MASSIVE tangles!! I am so not used to tangles, my hair is so thick that they just fall right out (so does curl), but E gets them just from sleeping!! This hat she wore did a number on her little head! It was a DISASTER!!!!!

She hasn't had a tangle this big since her surgery where we couldn't wash her hair for almost a week!!! To top it all off we were totally out of her de-tangle spray and like I said before we couldn't leave to get any!!!! So what did we do?!?!?

Mommy took to Pinterest of course! Well I couldn't find a single recipe that we had the ingredients for!!!! So I got a little creative! I found some people used vinegar, some used conditioner, some used essential oils! This is what I used!!! 

I took an empty spray bottle of heat protector that I use, really rinsed it out good!! Then in the spray bottle I mixed:

• 1 oz vinegar
• 4 oz water
• 1 pump kids shampoo
• 4-6 drops orange essential oil (enough to cover the vinegar smell)

I shook this up really well in the spray bottle and we started brushing, using her incredible Wet brush.

This is after just 2 minutes of brushing!!!! I never imagined it would work as well as it did!! AND the best part was NOT ONE PEEP from her!!! She screams anytime I brush her hair (she is super tender headed, also not something I was used to!!!) In all it took me about 5 minutes to brush her whole head of hair and get this: 

 Then of course she always likes to have it braided until it dries so in all about 7 minutes from start of brushing to finished hair!!!!

Share with me some of your tricks for getting tangles out of hair? Any other DIY stories you have because of weather forcing you to be creative?!?!? If you try out my mix let me know how it works for you!! 

Week 4 Planning

Check out this video I posted for my week 4 planning! I am pretty sure the beginning of the week will not stick with what is scheduled because of the snow! Like our church already cancelled service and C's music makers is cancelled as well! I am excited with the blog posts I have scheduled for this week!! Yay!! Share your planners and weeks with me in the comments!!!