beyond the blog

linking up with Bec at Bloggers Bazaar
linking up with Sonia, Kelly, Sonia and Bron

This week has been tough. Sick kids (three of them!) have meant I'm finishing the week running on empty, and then you might have noticed if you follow me on instagram that we surrendered Steve's Triumph today.

I've made no secret of the fact that money has been hard over the last year. There is finally light at the end of the tunnel; well, not quite, we're in a position now that every spare cent will go towards paying our bills off over the next five years, but we've kept our house, kept our cars, and done the right thing by the people we owe money to. Sometimes, being a grown up is hard work.

my messy desk

I've had a craft cupboard in the kitchen for a few years now, but I've had a craft room upstairs for the last year, so I decided it was time to move stuff from the kitchen to my room last week. And then on Wednesday, I decided I needed to finally sort (and maybe even use!) the Studio Calico kits that I bought last year. Shuffling through everything in the kits sparked my desire to do more, and actually create, but Wednesday marked the start of 3 ill children, so nothing has happened yet. Maybe after the school holidays.

As I'm scrolling through my feedly list every few days, I tag a lot of stuff into Pocket. And I even go back and read articles every few weeks.

Loved this post from The Nerd Nest about busting through creative roadblocks

10 myths about scrapbooking from Simple Scrapper

I'm starting to look for ideas for slightly structured activities for Sophie, so this post from Childhood 101 is heading into the must-do list

I struggle with the balance of me-time and kid-time, so this post from Life Your Way touched a nerve

Breakfast is a big issue for some members of this house, so I'm constantly looking for easy ideas. This buttermilk maple french toast isn't necessarily easy for weekdays, but I love the Baking Bites blog, and have never had a recipe failure yet.

I can not rave about By Regina enough! So much of what she writes speaks to me in a way I had never considered before. I loved this post on the Love Languages of Blog Readers (and totally got the references!)

from The Polka Dot Chair

Forget that this is a sewing reference, it is true of so much we do in every day life. I've said to Steve a few times in the last week "buying cheap doesn't help us if you need to change it to make it work for us", I think he's finally getting the message!