In search of...

The perfect coffee travel mug.

I have a few requirement: it MUST keep my coffee warm, it MUST be dishwasher safe and it MUST not change the flavor of my coffee in any way, shape or form.

This is turning into a much more difficult search than I had initially anticipated. I am finding terrible reviews on Amazon, on what looked like promising coffee mugs.

Reviews like this:

"

1.0 out of 5 stars Satan's Cup, February 24, 2011

By 

Mike - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Smart Planet EC-7LG 16-Ounce Double Wall Ceramic Cup (Kitchen)

This could be that absolute worst cup ever created by mankind. In fact I'm 100% certain that if a cave man had a choice between drinking coffee out of this cup and a carved out piece of wood, he would immediately defecate in this mug and smash it on a rock as this cup could only have come to him as an angry punishment from a vengeful God.

There is no way anybody but the Taliban, hell-bent on annoying coffee starved Americans to the brink of death, could have engineered a worse fitting cap to this mug. Fitting the cap to the mug is like solving a Rubix Cube if that Rubix Cube were filled with scalding hot coffee and were missing pieces and also smelled like toxic burning rubber.

And why does the top of this mug have to smell like a plastic industrial plant dropped a deuce in your morning java?

And why is the cup holder piece so ill fitting? Is this some sick twisted joke on the consumer? Do you want me to spill hot coffee on my crotch? Is it funny to you that I have to take the holder off the cup in order for it to dry? Why are you such an evil manufacturer?

PS and it looks awful

Buy this cup if you hate America." 

for this mug .

and this review:

"

1.0 out of 5 stars tastes rubbery., December 23, 2010

By 

getter - See all my reviews

This review is from: DCI I Am Not a Paper Cup 12-Ounce Porcelain Travel Cup with Lid (Kitchen)

Great concept. Too bad your coffee taste like you're licking a tire. Maybe it'll wear off someday, but drinking with the lid on leaves you with a rather disgusting coffee/vulcanized rubber flavor."


for this mug.




I need your help blogger friends. What do you use to transport your coffee to a different location? 

Hating cold coffee in a mug I have to hand wash,
Chelsey

Facebook Friends

Hello Fellow Facebook Pals,

I see many of you are coming over to visit my blog this morning. This blog won't have much content about my children on it, at least not photos. I will however be blogging about cooking, homemaking and homeschooling on here, as well as different happenings in our lives. I would love to keep in touch with you on here or over email. As you can see I have not updated this thing in MONTHS. I will however try to post something weekly and would love to get comments from you about what you have been up to.

Your pal
Chels

Adventure

We are going on an adventure! (said in my best hobbit voice)

Come check back at the end of May to hear all about it!

A Struggle

I can't seem to write on a regular basis. I could make plenty of excuses, but the main reason for my lack of writing is laziness. Which is ok. When you have two kids under the age of three, one being potty trained and in preschool (homeschool style) and the other that is just so darn cute all I do is want to make him giggle all day, then by the time they are both asleep I just want to do nothing. I take that back I do watch my shows (project runway ya!).

I'll admit this as well, I started playing some warrior game with my husband on our ipads to have some bonding time, I passed him in levels because I'm awesome so now I have to wait for him to catch up ;).

My son is asleep and my daughter is painting with watercolors. Better yet, painting herself with water colors. She is beautiful.

I would include some photos but stuff is not working at the moment.

Too bad for you.

I'm at a creative block with my scrapbooking (for the past 3 years). Nope, that is a lie also. I have plenty of inspiration from other blogs. My desk is just a mess.

It is kinda raining out. What's kinda raining you ask? It is cloudy and rained last night, only when I step outside does it start to rain again and hit me in the face.

I guess I'll be drying my diapers under the porch covering thing today.

My daughters hands are now black because she has so much water color on them :)

Bath time. Nope I'll just give her more paper to hopefully paint on.

This was fun.

I would love to hear what you have been up to. Has any rain been hitting you in the face?

I'll write again soon.

Chelsey

Project Life

I'm finally caught up on my pictures I printed out for Project Life! Those are just the one's I had printed for that album! I need to get more printed to get caught up on the current. Project Life is so versatile I love it! Many use it to document every week, some every month and some when ever they have pictures to put in. I fall into the category of when I have pictures to put in. I love taking pictures, but I never seem to have my phone let alone camera around. I need to get better at that! I started the photo's in my Project Life album after my daughter turned a year old (back in Aug.). The photo's taken before Aug. will be traditionally scrapbooked. Here is a glimpse of a few pages I have so far.

Yes, this is clear back from Halloween. I told you I was behind!

Those are from Christmas

I'm having a bit of trouble with my 20 month old wanting to peel the stickers off and wear them! lol. 

This is as current as it gets! These were from the beginning of March. Not bad when I'm YEARS behind! 

So far I'm was able to get caught up Aug. 2011 - March 2012 by using Project Life!

The reason I'm doing traditional scrapbooking for my pictures prior to Aug. 2011 is because it would be my daughter's 1st year album, my wedding album and some random pictures in between that have already started being traditionally scrapbooked.

My memory keeping to do list:

1.Begin traditionally scrapbooking my daughter's first year (thats the big pile)

2.Start on my son's first year album (the small pile) which only consists of his first few days :)

3. Print current photos and Project Life them.

For more information on Project Life go to http://www.beckyhiggins.com/products/

I'm also linking up at The Mom Creative for Project Life Tuesday. Visit there to find more bloggers doing Project Life! What are your favorite ways to keep memories? I'm currently obsessed with Instagram. 99.9% of my pictures are edited with it. I'll share more of my favorite phone photo editing apps soon!

I added a few new buttons to my blog. They are over on the right; you can join me on Pintrest, Google+, Twitter, Instagram or Email me!

Have a great week everyone!

Your Pal,

Chelsey

Updates

I just noticed I have not written anything at all over the winter months. Well, if you want to call it winter at all. 

First things first, I gave birth to this handsome fellow a couple of weeks ago

I could stare at him all day...

Birth went so smoothly with him. I started to have contractions when I woke up that morning around 7:30, which I thought were just Braxton Hicks. According to my 'timeing' calculations I wasn't due until the end of March, I was off. They began to get worse throughout the morning, so I drank a ton of water and got into a position to relax my body and mind. Then my husband decided we should call the midwife just to have her look at me (we really did not think he was coming that day at all!). That was around 9:30. We arrived at the birthing center at 10:30 she took a look at me and told us I was dilated to a nine! And was going to have the baby! I started to feel the need to push a little after 11 and our amazingly handsome son was born at 11:28. We were homeward bound about four hours later where I was able to rest in my own bed (and recliner). 

Right after having him (he didn't come out with a bonnet)

Yes, using a midwife at the birthing center restricted me  from using an epidural, my choice, yes. I don't regret it one bit. That was the most amazing experience ever. Along side the birth of my daughter in which I did have an epidural. Both births were so different and yet so amazing. If we have another, I think I will do without the epidural. Plus, they say that each baby comes faster than the last. My daughter was here within 2 hours of pushing, my son within 28 min of pushing, not sure we will make it out the door of our house if I have another. Ha! 

Too much information?

Over the past few months I have had a few great goals of getting caught up on my scrapbooking before he was born. ALOT of scrapbooking. 

I was very successful at getting nothing done. 

This week I was feeling rather ambitious and decided that I'm going to start and finish my daughter's first year scrapbook. Start my son's first year scrapbook and begin a scrapbook for our everyday pictures as well. Shutterfly.com had free shipping if you ordered $30 or more so I took advantage of it. I ordered 350+ pictures, that should get me caught up on what I want. 

I am super excited about the new materials I'm going to use for everyday pictures. Has anyone heard of Project Life by Becky Higgins? Well, I have been following The Mom Creative for some time now and just about every Tues. she post a Project Life page or pages she has completed.  Here is a sample of one of her pages

You can find close ups of this layout on THIS POST.

Project Life is meant for quick scrapbooking. Not having to create massive page layouts (which I'm still doing for my kiddo's first year books). But, instead you can create multiple miniature layouts like this one 

Found over at MIRIAM'S BLOG which has some beautiful layouts,

whom I just discovered today via the PROJECT LIFE LINK UP

in which I hope to be joining in a couple of weeks. 

Click on some of the links I posted and check out more on Project Life, if you are interested in a bit of a quicker and easier way to scrap your photos. I get my kit on Thurs. and hopefully my pictures will be here some time next week! What have you scrapped recently?

Spring is officially here! Im assuming anyway since we had to Spring our clocks forward. Our garden is almost tilled up. We have to sharpen the blades and then we will be able to till the rest up. I can't wait to see what prospers this year! I haven't had much luck with big gardens (because I didn't have time to take care of them; now that I'm home, I'll be able to tend to this one everyday. And of course take lots of pictures of my kiddos helping me! 

Have a great week!

Your pal,

Chelsey

PS I'm going to try and update on a regular basis, sorry for slacking

"And try Me now in this"

This has been a hectic month. My hubby received a new job working as the youth pastor at the church I grew up in as a child, which in turn is allowing us to relocate to a new home. Yay! I love where we live now but very excited about the new place as well. We have been painting and cleaning at the new place for the past week. Today they are tearing out old carpet and next week putting in new stuff. Tomorrow we move all our little stuff over next weekend all the big stuff. Its kinda crazy around here.

Here is a few pics on what's been going on.

About a month ago, when it was still in the 80s, I took Charli to the Nature Center. They have put in a whole new kids area.

She got to build things

bang on things

get messy in a MASIVE sand box

And try to figure out how this shovel worked.

We went to the Buhler Frolic, Charli got to see her first parade, and I bought my hubby his first potato gun (regretting that one haha). It was a beautiful day out.

Since we are moving and it frosted, we went out and picked all our green tomatoes off our four plants to save and turn red. Here is a look at our bounty

And the weirdest one

I was reading Malachi 3 the other day and verse 10 has really been on my mind

" "Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, 

That there may be food in My house, 

And try Me now in this," 

Says the Lord of hosts, 

"If I will not open for you the windows of 

heaven 

And pour out for you such blessing 

That there will not be room enough to 

receive it. "

I think so many times I/we get stuck on blessings being money, to pay off bills, go buy nice stuff or whatever one does with it. Thats what society has conditioned us to believe, that money is everything. That day we were picking our tomatoes I had a laugh out loud moment, literally. This verse came to mind as I was filling up a third brown grocery bag of tomatoes. "there will not be room enough to receive it" Where are we suppose to put all these tomatoes while we wait for them to turn red?!?! What a blessing. I felt this was quite the literal example of this verse. As for now we are rotating them, inside, outside, warm spots, in the sun. Trying all the tricks recommended to us. We will be making alot of salsa, spaghetti/pizza sauce and diced tomatoes. I have to remind myself that the Lord's blessings come in so many different ways.

How has your fall been so far? 

It wont be long until Nov. 

Time is going to fast.