Relaxing Monday

Mondays have become a day of relaxing for me. We have started with a weekly playdate at 7:30 a.m. with a friend and her 9-month-old. He takes an early nap at 9, so they come here until around 9 and then he falls asleep on their way home. Once a month I have an appointment at 10:30 so my mother-in-law babysits. We got in the habit of having her babysit on Mondays (when my appointments were more frequent), so she often takes her now even if I don't have an appointment. Today was one of those days. I spent some time shopping at Joanns. And then I met a friend at Kohls to spend our Kohlscash from our purchases last week. I came home for lunch and realized I didn't go to Staples. I need ink cartridges so I can print out all the interesting things I found for celebrating Michaelmas which is Thursday. Since I need to pick Hazel up around 1:30 unless my mother-in-law calls to tell me she got her to nap there (which hardly ever happens) I think I'll run out to Staples right before then.

I am hoping to get a bit more time to sew. I need to finish the three pairs of pants I'm making for Hazel and finish piecing her quilt. I will share the quilt pictures with you on October 19th when I get to be a guest blogger at Sew Happy Geek. It only seems fitting to share the quilt I made from her pattern and with the fabric I won from her blog on her blog. So look for a link that day.

Meanwhile, I was reading my Better Homes and Garden Magazine during lunch. I didn't get too far, but found something I wanted to share with you. You can download FREE pumpkin stencils and for each person who downloads BHG donates $2 up to $5000 to one of five charities (so up to $25,000 total). To do this all you have to do is visit BHG.com/charitystencils and you will have to log in or start an account there. The charities are The Humane Society of the United States, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Rebuilding Together, and March of Dimes. You can download as many as you want once you do the initial one which chooses the charity your $2 click will go to. Again it is FREE to you, so go check it out (even if you don't want the stencil you can always delete it later!).

One other thing to check out is the competition Not Just a Housewife is hosting. She is giving away a $100 Pottery Barn gift card and if she gets enough entries she will get two to giveaway. Go check it out. She is introducing a new website called Hometalk, which looks pretty neat in itself. They have decorators, contractors, gardeners, experts to answer questions for you and lots of giveaways all free!! Go check them out!

Some other interesting Halloween/Autumn Decorations and Activities to check out:

My Computer is My Canvas this freebie

I Heart Crafty Things has an adorable handprint cardinal craft from Tippytoe Crafts.

Tippytoe Crafts has a beautiful fall wreath tutorial.

Tatertots and Jello has several lists and links to Halloween crafts and Pumpkin Projects and Fall Projects.

C.R.A.F.T. has a guest blogger with some adorable small printables for free autumn decorations.

Silly Eagle Books has a great apple tree art project to go with a book. I think I'll be trying this later when we do more with apples.

And Mrs. Happy Homemaker has delicious looking apple nachos. Yum!!
Gotta try these!








Ok, enough time on the internet. Gotta run to Staples and pick up Hazel. Have a great day!!