This post is part of Soup-er Saturday hosted by Katie @ A Listmaker's Life

I don't know where my brain's been at...all day today I'm thinking to myself, "hmm, there's something I'm supposed to do today..."  What was I supposed to do??

Friday's Favorite Family Foto, that's what!!!

This picture was taken at my house during the surprise 30 something birthday party we threw for my mom in September 2007.

 This birthday was especially memorable because just a few weeks before my mom had been released from the hospital, after nearly a two month long stay, during which she was placed under a medical coma, interbated and nearly died.

I was 26.  I had a 4 month old daughter.  I thought I was going to lose my mom.


I called my mom and asked if she could keep an eye on Kassie for an hour or two while Jay and I ran errands.  At first, she wanted me to bring Kassie to her house and I'm thinking, "Oh sh*t!  What do I do?"  I came up with, "Ya know Ma, Kassie will probably be much more comfortable here, in her own house with her normal surroundings."  This was before Kassie started going there for sleep-overs most Saturdays, so my mom was like, "Yeah, you're right.  We don't want to mess with her schedule."

There were aunts, sisters, nieces, nephew's, friends and a TON of food!!  She walked in and was so surprised- and emotional!  We all were.  I don't think I've ever been so happy (or grateful) to celebrate another person's birthday.

I am a firm believer that one can never be too organized!!  I am obsessed with organization- checklists and charts are my best friends!!  I have lists for doctor's, medications, account numbers and contact info- you name it, I've got it on a list somewhere!!!  Obviously, when planning a babyshower the same holds true...

I think the most important part of planning any party is the budget!!  If you don't have a clear idea of what you can afford to spend or how much things costs, you're party could turn into a disaster!  We wouldn't want that, would we?  I thought not.  My crazy obsessive compulsive organized self has found the perfect solution...A Party Budget worksheet!!  This has space to list most things you'll need to cost out for a party, seperated into categories.  It gives you a clear idea of how much this shindig will cost you!

Of course the most important part of any party is the guests!  For some parties, keeping track of them can be daunting!  So to keep my guest list organized I created the Invitation/Guest List worksheet.  Here you keep track off all your guests, their addresses, the date you sent their invite and RSVP info...how simple is that?  All your info on one sheet!  No searching your desk drawer or day planner for Aunt Rose's address and no asking if cousin Jenn is or isn't coming!!

Last, but not least is your party location.  For most larger parties, you'll be renting a location for which you need to remember alot of information!  Does the hall have a music system?  Was it Julie I spoke with at the yatch club or Marie??  Does the VFW require a deposit or was that the restaurant??  Those questions are a thing of the past with my Venue Comparison Checklist.  This is probably one of the BEST checklists I've ever created and I did so because I could find nothing else that would have all the info I needed about a place!!  I guess it's true that when you want something done right you've gotta do it yourself!!

I hope these charts and checklists help you when your planning your next party, I know they're helping me with the babyshower!!  Be sure to check back for part 2 which is all about babyshower themes, decorations and favor ideas!!

I have nothing to blog about.  What's a girl to do??  Plan a babyshower!  My cousin (well, Jay's cousin) John and his girlfriend Sabrina are having twins...since I am the queen of planning and details, they asked me to plan their babyshower!!  Oooh, I'm so excited.  I love planning parties- and trust me, I have no shortage of resources.  Websites, lists, spreadsheets, buget forms, guest lists and on and on and on....so I've decided to share my obsession knowledge with you all!  As I'm planning the baby shower I'll be posting tips, ideas, websites and other helpful info!! 

Babyshowers, check.

Kat over at Mama's Losin It is not only pee your pants hilarious (don't say I didn't warn you) but also very generous!!  She's been having giveaways on her site for THE cutest aprons!!  Her latest giveaway is from another blogger Carrie @ The World the way I see it.  These are such cute aprons and totally make me wanna run out to the fabric store!  It's real easy to enter and you're on the computer anyway, so get over there!!

Giveaways, check.

In my endless search for crafting stuff (one can never have too much, right?) I have found some really cool websites that I'd like to share with you.

TipNut is a great site for free patterns for anything crafty- sewing, crocheting, knitting- you name it, it's here!!
One Pretty Thing is a crafty person's dream!!  There are patterns, tutorials, and a TON of free resources.
Vintage Holiday Crafts has free vintage clipart for all occasions.
Vinatge Image Craft also has free vintage images, plus craft ideas and tutorials.
Metapostmodern Knitting has great knitting and crocheting patterns for free.

Links, check.

Well, I guess that means I'm done with this post!!

My friend Michelle from Blonde Ambition emailed me the other day about this great organization, Do Something.org.  They really encourage people to volunteer how ever they can for a slew of different causes.  Well, they've teamed up with Aeropostale for what they call Teens for Jeans.  This is a national campaign to collect gently worn jeans for homeless teens and last year they collected over 125,000 pairs!!!

Until February 22 you can bring your old jeans into Aeropostale (they don't need to be Aero brand) and they'll make sure your jeans get to a local charity or homeless shelter.  To say thank you, Aeropostale will then give you 25% off your next pair of jeans!! 

How great is that?  The jeans you were gonna throw out anyway can now get you money off a pair to replace them!!  Have a middle or high schooler at home??  Have them get involved with their friends and host their own Teen for Jeans Drive!! 

Be sure to check out the Do Something website after you've collected and dropped off all your jeans for more great causes you can be a part of! 

I've bene back in the blogsphere for a few days now and have yet to post a single thing!!!  Oh, I've been doing stuff, I've just not gotten myself back into the swing of things!! 

Menu Planning Monday @ I'm an Organizing Junkie - totally spaced!!
Tackle it Tuesday @ 5 minutes for Mom - no tackling here!!
Make it from scratch carnival hosted by 11th Heaven's Homemaking Haven this week- not this week!!!

And that's just a few of the things I was participating in before I went AWOL...let's not forget to mention that I made a KILLER sesame chicken stir fry last night and got half way through it before I remembered my camera and then when it was done for a final picture my camera battery died!!  It was soooo good that by the time my camera re-charged there was none left to take a picture of!!

Oh yeah, and Kassie and I made homemade Valentine's on Saturday which I forgot to not only take pictures of but bookmark the site I found them on!!!  I also have NO IDEA where on my computer I saved the free patterns I had found for the most adorable kid's aprons and other stuff to share with you all!!!  Where is my head?!?!  I'll find it, eventually!

I've already started my menu plan for next week as well as decide on what to "tackle" for next weeks post too, so I'm off and running!  Hopefully I can get my arse in gear this week and remember to post!  Til then...

Hello my dear bloggy friends, it's been a while!  I can not tell you how much I have missed the blogosphere!!  But I'm baaaack!!!  I had originally written a long, detailed post explaining my absence and all the bullsh*t surrounding it but decided to give you the short version!

After dealing with some family illnesses (everyone is happy and healthy) the drama hit closer to home.  Jay had been caught in the middle of a huge problem with his company and union and had been laid off.  Not a problem normally because he would just collect unemployment until his union placed him with another company except that his company decided to be spiteful jerks and tell unemployment that he had quit.  He was placed with another company on a short term basis and when that job ended and he went to file for unemployment, he found out that because he had not been with the second company long enough his claim would be bounced back to the original company.  Well unemployment doesn't pay you when you quit a job (though he hadn't quit!) so this meant that he had to go through a long and drawn out appeal process.  This process generally takes anywhere from 3 to 6 weeks but because the economy's in the shitter and the unemployment office is totally overwhelmed, he was given no time frame!

I'm supposed to be keeping this short, right?  Ok.  So his union's busting their butts trying to find him work but this time of year is when operator's are getting laid off so there wasn't any work available.  Things went from bad to worse.  With Jay not working and waiting for all the unemployment bull to be straightened out we had no income!  This was ok for the first month, maybe month and a half but we didn't know what we would do after that.  Surely unemployment would be straightened out by then, right?  Nope!  So come Thanksgiving time we were in a really bad spot financially.  We couldn't pay our bills or even have money in our pockets.  Thank god his cousin owns our house or we probably would have been evicted!!  We had no idea what we were gonna do as far as Christmas as were really faced with the idea of not being able to have one!!!   Luckily, he was placed short term on a job 3 weeks before Christmas that would keep him working until the end of the year.

During all this things were really bad...our utilities were in jeapordy of being shut off, we were borrowing money for diapers, my cable phone and internet had been shut off and our truck was repo'd.  We of course we fighting like mad and I was seriously considering moving back to my mom's with Kassie.  My family was on the verge of falling completely apart...

Jay was finally given a date for his appeals hearing which was held on January 26th...4 1/2 months with next to no income other than a few weeks in December and we were supposed to survive?  How?  I can't understand how your expected to get by while waiting so long for unemployment to be resolved!!  So needless to say, we're in a financial blackhole from being unable to pay any of our bills during all this bullsh*t...though unemployment found in his favor (because he really DIDN'T quit his job) we're going nuts trying to figure out how we're gonna pull ourselves up outta this mess.

So much for the quick version huh?  You couldn't even imagine how stressfull and uncertain and just plain old depressing my life has been these past few months...thankfully things are being worked out, slowly but surely and hopefully life will be somewhat back to normal soon!! 

I cannot wait to catch up on all your blogs that I've missed and see what everyone's been up to...It'll take me a few days to update my blog (I've got a Halloween party poster on there!!!!) and get back into the swing of things but I can't wait...If anyone's got some cool stuff going on at their blog, let me know~ gotta get back into Menu Planning Mondays and Happy Homemaker Tuesdays and whatnot, but I'm looking for some new stuff too...