Getting Ready! <3 2010

Style school starts on Monday! It's filled with tons of crafty projects of all kinds - but most important... it's about gathering stuff that inspires you, creating a journal/binder to keep it in, and discovering your "style." I'm mostly looking at it as a time to organize and immerse myself in creativity! :) And I'll have this crafty chick as a partner to share ideas with!

I'll be sure to share my projects along the way!

And BRRRR!!! I know things are cold in the rest of the country, but - we're not used to this! It's been cold here for 11 days now - yes, peeps. Almost BELOW FREEZING in the southernmost portion of the U.S. We're breaking all kinds of records - and the boys are hoping for snow! lol
I really don't mind it - since we traveled to my parents this Fall in November, we're pretty much set for cold weather clothing. Lots of sweatpants, sweaters and jackets!

We took in a Heat game on Monday! Hard to believe it was my first nba game - I watch more basketball than the other sports combined - and yet, I've already been to nfl, nhl, and mlb games! lol

I'm organizing and getting lots of things together for the coming year! I can't wait to share them with you all!

I've committed to Project 52:
{A photo/layout per week to sum things up for us... working on my first layout already! Woot!} I'll be setting up a gallery for all my photos on flickr. And I've already settled on 8.5x11 for my size - to keep things simple. This one's for me ~ and I'm looking forward to it! :D

Another commitment? Back to meal planning/shopping the pantry. I slipped on this in the final months of the year - and need to get back to it. For me this means generally planning my meals, and being flexible for sale items that can cut my costs. This is super important for us {though not easy} - because we have special diet needs in our home. Because of those needs, we stick to all natural, organic foods and products. In addition, our youngest son has a severe nut allergy, so that limits a lot of things we can buy. My alternative? Getting creatively homemade. I'll be sharing my tried and true recipes along with trying new ones that I discover along the way!

{For those of you that didn't know, I spent several years in the hospitality industry, and trained under a couple of different chefs to manage kitchens. They were graduates of prestigious schools and passed along a lot of valuable info - in addition to the fact that I helped my mom in the kitchen basically all my life. lol So most of the recipes I use are either handed down through family, or created by myself...}

{I've got an awesome recipe for hot cocoa mix I discovered the other day that I can't wait to try!}

And yes - along with that I'll be doing a lot of "shopping my stash" in the coming months as well! I feel like a lot of the products I bought after last summer's CHA are still sitting UNTOUCHED and I need to clear them out before all the beauties from this time around start landing on shelves! lol

Finally, I'm getting things together for one of these in the next couple of months ~

It will feature handmade goodies from myself, mostly my fabric/sewing creations - which may include scrapping embellies as well!

I'll also be keeping up with my digi shop...

{Supplies for the banner are from my Green Peace kit - actually on sale right now!}

One of my current goals is to get a newsletter system set up so that I can keep everyone informed on what's going on there! I'm also putting together a CT call soon!

Those are just a few of the things going on behind the scenes around here! Off to take down the tree! {Yes - it's still up. :P}