10 Tips on How to Be an Adult

Raise your hand if, as a child, you ever said, "I can't wait until I'm grown up!" or "Grown ups have all the fun!" 

Okay, now that we most of the internet with their hands raised, let's ask this question. 

How many of you want to go back and slap 10 year old you because that kid had no idea what was in store! Good, I see I still have many of you with me. 

Adulting is hard. Adulting is rough. Adulting really should be it's own verb. It's not what most of us dreamed of as kids. But is it all bad? No! Is it tricky? Heck yes! Which is why sometimes you'll still find me in a blanket for with my teddy bear and some ice cream. 

But, despite all the bad rap it gets, being an adult can be pretty awesome. Granted, I only have 12 legal years of being an adult to back me up, but I've come a long ways in those 12 years. I wanted to grow up, got a taste of growing up and decided I didn't like it, tried to pretend I wasn't growing up, and then realized that growing up really doesn't have to be bad!

I've been thinking on this for the past month after receiving an email from Personal Capital about this very topic. So many people want to stay in Neverland, but it's time to embrace adulthood and get our grown up on! It's not as bad as it seems!

So, here are my 10 tips to being an adult that I try to follow. I'm not saying I'm perfect at doing all of these all the time. Far from it. But I find that as I try to follow these tips, my life is better, as is the life of my family. Some are fun. Some are just logical. 

1. Don't Feed the Drama Llama

Drama Llamas. Trolls. Chip on the Shoulders. Haters. Whatever name you want to give them. We all know them. There's often one down the street. And we all have them on our social media accounts here and there. And all we want to do when they post up something offensive, ridiculous, or contrary to your beliefs is to comment and right the "wrong". Don't. Don't feed the Drama Llama. It is always hungry, no matter what. Raise you hand if your convictions were ever changed by an argument on Facebook? Not many hands I see out there. How many engaged in one and left with hurt feelings, anger, or even damaged relationships? Lots more hands just shot up. Don't feed it. Show restraint and maturity and just don't. 

2. Budget

Oooh, the B word. "Dave Ramsey is ruining my life!" a friend joked on social media the other day. Budgeting is hard. Budgeting isn't fun. But budgeting seriously saves your life. We are horrible budgeters. Horrible with a capital H. Why? Because it's hard and we get lazy. Not a good excuse. I know that. So we are working on it. Reading Dave Ramsey. Setting up rules. Trying to do better! Living in a tiny house taught us a lot. It was worth it to save that money. "Live like no one else now, so later you can live like no one else!" -Dave Ramsey And now we live away from the fast food and quick trips to Walmart...which is really going to help us learn to stay on budget better! 

3. Take a road trip. 

Grab your family, your kids, your best friend, your mom, your dog, or your Grandma, and go. It doesn't have to be far. It doesn't even have to be overnight. But get out and go. You've heard me talk before about how doing and seeing new things bonds people together. It's true. Put some good tunes on the radio, grab something yummy (and legal behind the wheel!) to drink, and get on the road. A big key to this one though...put down the phones. You can't make memories if you're staring at your phone the whole time. Talk. Laugh. Enjoy! 

4. Apologize. 

This one is huge. It doesn't happen much these days. When you've hurt someone, physically or emotionally. Apologize. Sincerely. Without excuses. Excuses cheapen the "sorry". Be the first to apologize. 

5. Learn that you don't find Happiness, you Make It! 

Too many get out of college with their big bad degrees and hit the world, thinking they are walking into dream jobs and dream lives. For a few, it happens. For many, it doesn't. And for some this is completely soul shattering. They based all their happiness on landing their dream job with their dream spouse in their dream house. And they can't be happy until they reach their next milestone. If you're waiting for something to make you happy, it won't happen. Choose to be happy now. 

6. Buy a piece of furniture, without going into debt. 

I can't tell you how grown up I felt when we bought our first brand new piece of furniture. Well, something not from Walmart. Choosing the color, the style, and the fabric of the couch felt like such a grown up decision. But even more, buying it and paying cash. Knowing our limit and sticking to it, even though that put the most BEAUTIFUL couch off the list of possibles, was key. We felt proud of ourselves that we'd saved enough to get us a new couch, and one that looked good, and didn't put it on a credit card or start store credit for it. 

7. Plan for the future. 

Make a rainy day fund. Put 72-hour kits together. Set up a retirement account. Learn to can tomatoes. Don't have those resources yet? Keep you car gassed up so you can get to a friend or family member's house if disaster does strike. I'm not saying go mooch off your family and never prepare! I'm saying to do what you can at the moment, always taking steps (even if they are baby baby steps). Gas in the tank can be step one. A rainy day fund can be step two. Take it bite by bite! But plan ahead, because life has a way of stirring things up when we get too settled. Broken pipes and a flooded house. Extended unemployment. Foreclosure. Natural disasters. Retirement. Big family vacations. Nest Eggs. Just plan, and then do the work to make the plan doable! 

8. Bake a cake. From scratch! 

(I did not make this cake! Trust me, mine would look disastrous. You've seen our cake attempts! This was made by Cakes with TLC). 

Most of us aren't chefs. Many of us bake a cake that you pour out of a box (and I know I'll burst a few people's bubble here...baking a cake from a Betty Crocker cake mix is not baking a cake from scratch...start with the cookbook and pull out the bag of flour!). Some of us even are able to burn ice. Even if it's not pretty (and most won't be - this is Pinstrosity after all), you'll feel accomplished. And bonus points if you give it to someone. They'll love the extra time and thought that went into it! 

9. Build people up

Think of two groups of people, each stuck in a pit. In pit #1 the people are all climbing and clamoring over one another, pulling each other down in an attempt to climb to the top first and to get out ahead of everyone. The are all worried about themselves. In pit #2 they are all working together to help everyone climb and rise. They give boosts and before long they are all out of the pit. Which pit do you want to be in? Me? #2 all the way! Don't tear people down. It doesn't make anyone stronger. It doesn't do any good. Be the Good in the World. "A rising tide lifts all boats." -JFK

10. Keep building blanket forts. 

Keep your heart young. Growing up doesn't mean putting away your adventures, suppressing your joy, getting stuffy, and living a boring life. Growing up is just the opposite! It's an adventure all on it's own. One that has twists and turns, bumps and bruises, joys and heartaches, and sometimes the GPS doesn't quite work right. It takes work to be an adult (because I believe that being an adult is way more than just turning 18), but all good things take work. And this, this wonderful life we've been given, is worth the work! 

Iron Craft 2016: Flowers, Hearts, and PIGS!

It's Reveal day for Challenge #2 of Iron Craft 2016! The theme for this challenge was "Hearts and Flowers".

I'm not a big hearts and flowers kind of girl...so at first I was stumped (as I usually am the first day or two of each new challenge). After a few days I still kept coming up blank, until I decided to integrate the challenge theme into my decorations for the Baby's Corner (with Darrow I got to decorate his own room, but now that we're all in one room, I'm just decorating the corner where the baby bassinet lives). I turned to my Pinterest boards and found two adorable pins that suddenly gave me an idea!

The pig mobile Created by Eleni and the wedding photo is via The Amy and Jordan Blog, from a fabulous workshop wedding! 

I LOVE the hanging embroidery hoops with flowers and knew that could be the flowers part of the challenge. And while I wasn't making a mobile, I wanted pigs and flying pigs incorporated into the theme, so I set off to look for ideas and printables and found some great ones (and one that incorporated the heart part of the theme!)

This color scheme is my obsession right now, so I decided to run with it for the colors for the corner as much as I could (these are hard colors to find in the crafting supply world!). 

My inspiration for incorporating the hearts into the whole project was this find on etsy:

I'd already had a similar free pattern pinned (I'm guessing this is what the creator of the above photo used too, but who knows).

by mausimom

I got this adorable free Pride and Prejudice movie quote printable from Kendra (a long time Pinstrosipeep!). It's so cute and it makes me giggle. At some point in March I will be producing a "piglet" and we'll have to chase it.

Get the full size printable on Kendra's Blog. 

And then through Pinterest I found this adorable pattern on Etsy, but was sad to find that the shop is on break and I couldn't order it. But I still used it as inspiration.

http://thelittlefrenchbullblog.tumblr.com/post/22300535484

This quote was all over Hobby Lobby when I went for supplies and I knew it had to go up in the mix. I couldn't find a design I liked online to order (or one that I thought was a reasonable price), so I made my own.

And then I found this adorable cutie by Elizabeth Rose Stanton on The Whatsits. .

by Elizabeth Rose Stanton

So I spent a furious few days cross-stitching, flower arranging, and trying out different printing methods. But finally it all came together and I LOVE it! 

Putting it together was the part I was nervous about. I wanted to be able to arrange it first and then hang it up exactly in position without having to move things around and poke new holes in the wall. So I got freezer paper out, laid it on the floor, and then arranged the items on the papers. Once I had two arrangements I liked (for the two walls), I traced the circles onto the paper, took pictures with my phone and then took everything into the bedroom to hang.

I taped the freezer paper up onto the wall, and then tapped the nails in through the paper exactly where I would need them.

The paper pulled off the wall easy and left the nails intact and in place. All I had to do then was just hang the items on their nails!

For the flower hoops I had 6 bundles of florals (hooray for 50% off days at Hobby Lobby!) and I cut the flowers and greenery off and mixed and matched until I got what I liked, using the Amy & Jordan photo as my general guide and inspiration for arranging.

I did two cross-stitch pig designs, one in a 4" hoop (the hello pigs) and one in a 6" hoop (the print pig).

I planned on doing the rest of the designs printed on muslin fabric and stuck in the hoops, but I had a hard time getting everything to work just right. I found a great tutorial for printing on fabric that I decided to try, and it works!  The polka dot dress pig was printed using that tutorial.


After that though I kept fighting with my computer to print them the way I wanted to and by the time I figured it out I'd used all my muslin. So, I just decided to print the rest on cardstock and glue it to the hoop. It worked!

Finally at the end I had left over florals that I just couldn't throw away, so I tied them in a bundle and included them in the decor!

I'm pretty tickled with how it all came together. I wasn't sure if it would or if it would look weird, but I like it! And, I got flowers and hearts into the project in a way that I LOVE and that fits me. Hooray!

And, since I worked on this all day Monday (I did the cross stitches earlier, but everything else was Monday)...NOTHING else got done. Nothing. Darrow's toys were everywhere. We ate just Mac and Cheese for lunch and snack. I stayed in sweats until 4pm. So the corner was cute by the end of the day...but that was the only space in the house that looked good! But, it's done and today I can hit the house. 

To see Challenge #1 of the 2016 Iron Craft Challenge click here.

The Kett Files: My Creative Space, Take 2!

Well, I did it. It took me the better part of a day, but I did it! If you read this morning's post...you're ready for this. If you didn't, go back and check that out (or read on...you'll get the drift).

After taking a good hard look at the Living Room, after seeing Emilee's deliciously inviting space, and after browsing through other Creative Space posts and pictures...I knew our space needed some work.

But, as I mentioned this morning I didn't know what to do until I wrote up that post. Funny how that works sometimes! 

Our Living Room, my Creative Work Space, wasn't inviting, motivating, or conducive to creativity. It was chaotic and inefficient. So I came up with steps to improve it. And these steps didn't take running to the store; there were things I could do right then and there. And I have to say I LOVE the results! 

Just a quick reminder, so you don't have to go back to the previous post...this is what it was like when I started:

 The Corner of Chaos

Empty picture frames on the wall and propped up on the shelf.

And this disaster. 

Along with projects strewn about, the all-catching puff quilt "rug", and the box shoved under the cedar chest because it fit. 

My plan for a room makeover in a day was to:

1. Combine the shelves, eliminating the tower of chaos in the corner and making the bookshelf wall not look like a bookstore exploded.

2.  Put SOMETHING in those blank pictures frames.

3. Put the puff quilts away. 

And, that's exactly what I did. 

The very first thing I did was to pull the puff quilts out of the room and throw them in the washer so I can fold them up and put them on the blanket shelf. That was an easy thing to get done and checked off the list. 

But then it was time to tackle the real problem at hand. I took a deep breath and dove in.

I first took the games on the top shelf of the bookshelf and moved them to the remaining open cubby in our bed (which we LOVE...I was nervous at first, but I love it more and more!). That cleared out half of the top shelf. I then went through and moved all the textbooks, books we don't read, most of the fiction books, and the not so pretty books and put them in the mostly empty cabinet of our bed. We hadn't decided what to put in there yet, so I decided today. There was just the perfect amount of space!

This cleared up a TON of space on the bookshelf wall, enough that I could then move everything off the Tower of Chaos and organize it onto the bookshelf. 

It still is quite full, but it doesn't look so crazy like it did before. 

The top shelf is reserved for photo albums and religious books. The 2nd shelf is the craft and movies shelf (we recently went through and put all our DVD's in a disk folder and threw the bulky cases away-saves so much space and it looks so much better than a ton of DVD cases!). The third shelf is the office supply box, the few fiction books we left out, Cameron's science books, and my piano music. 

The bottom two shelves are Darrow's. I recently found the plastic storage boxes at Walmart for $0.97 and bought 5 to work on organizing his toys and I love it. I think I'll go back and get a few more. He can't yet get the lids off, so he can't dump everything and run. And, the little pop up tent that was in the box under the cedar chest fit in a mesh laundry bag we weren't using and fits on the shelf...much better looking than the box poking out from under the chest! 

We put some of the books we didn't want handled much (we have a few over 100 years old that are some of our treasures) up on top of the shelf as decor, mixed with various odds and ends.

So...if I got everything off the Tower of Chaos and on the bookshelf wall, what does the computer side of the room look like now? I'll show you.

Ta da!! I'm over the moon with how it looks and feels now. The room feels bigger, brighter, and better. Of course there are things I could think of to buy to spruce it up still, but for doing this all today just staying home and rearranging what we already have, I'm pretty tickled. It feels more open, more organized, more aesthetically pleasing, and more conducive to creating, living, working, and playing in! And apparently it's quite conducive to taking naps in.

And, I think I'll be able to use the sewing desk to craft and create on a little now too! I love how much more open this looks and feels! We have a wood chair that matches the wood of the desk and table, but Cameron swears this plastic folding chair is more comfortable. So we have the less pretty plastic chair there instead of the pretty wood one. Function sometimes wins out over beauty!

The Tower of Chaos shelves unstacked, and I moved one outside to hold plants and yard decor under my kitchen window when it warms up a little, and the other one I spray painted gold to help lighten up the room some (I tried orange, but didn't have enough leftover orange spray paint in the can). This went right by the desk to help hold the speakers, hide cords, and to enable me to keep my Life Binders close at hand to be able to use them more efficiently (again, a whole post on those will come before too long!). And the one plant I have managed to not kill, through 2 winters and a move even! You couldn't see it back in the corner where it used to live, and it got forgotten a few times. Now I can enjoy it every day, remember the sweet friend who gave it to me more often, and even remember to water it more frequently.

And finally with all the organizing and moving things around done, it was time to hit the last item on the list...the empty picture frames. I've been wanting to get "my colors" (orange, of course, and sage green! I'm loving that combo right now!!) in the living room more, along with a picture of our family, so I decided to make my own "printables" here at home and print them out on cardstock for now. The photos didn't come out super high quality, but it put pictures in the frames and when we update our family pictures after March I can get real prints made. For now though, this works great!

You can't read them real well with the glare, but the top is our last name and year we were married, and the bottom says "Gratitude turns what we have into Enough" (which is a great reminder for us in this little house!).

And then I printed off one of my all time favorite photos of Cameron and I for the other blank photo frame.

I really really LOVE how today's project turned out. I feel so much better about the room. It feels good. It looks miles better. And now I just want to create, or curl up on the couch and read, or play more with Darrow. I don't feel like hiding!

Darrow cheered me on from the couch all day. Poor kid woke up sick. He's a good little sicky...he doesn't cry, doesn't fuss, and doesn't get too clingy...he just wants to snuggle up on the couch, listen to music, and watch whatever I'm doing.

The next step I'd like to take in the Living Room are curtains. But now I have to figure out just what I want! Eek!

It's amazing what a little organization can do towards a room "makeover"!

Anyone else have to double up their living space as their work space and creative space? What do you do to make it work? What's your decorating/organizational style with it?