12, oops now 11 days of freedom…..52 weeks!

DH has left for his annual convention and from San Diego is flying to South Carolina to visit our middle and youngest daughter along with her husband and our dear sweet granddaughter. 

I have such a long list of things to get done, but cannot push myself too hard because of my fibromyalgia.  The fibromyalgia, by the way, has been better in the past month or so, I think due to the dreaded word……EXERCISE!  Yes I have regularly been on my treadmill 45 minutes a day along with stretching.  This along with my vitamin/supplement regimen and prescription meds have enabled me to feel much better and do a little more around the house and outside of the house.

Yesterday I sewed all day on my youngest daughter’s quilt, which of course, I am not sure is as cute as I would like.  I am this way on most new quilts so I just need to continue and usually at some point I start to like it and by the end don’t want to give the quilt away (but I do). 

Here is my list:

1. Paint kitchen cabinets.
2. Put garden to bed for the winter.
3. Clean and prepare guest room for guests the last weekend of the month.
4. Clean bird poop off the north side of the house.
5. Finish youngest daughter’s quilt top, start another?
6. Lose 20 pounds…..okay okay I know I cannot do that.  But I would like to maybe lose 2?

Okay those are the big projects.  I have lots of smaller projects too. Like clean and organize the entire house!  Seriously I am trying to get back on track that started in January following Laura over at http://orgjunkie.com/

Head over and read the posts, the comments and the accomplishments.  It is inspiring.  Sometimes, however, life just gets in the way.  In my case, after coming home from visiting oldest daughter DH and I had our 35th high school reunion.  We were in the same graduating class and we had the very best time ever.  I think the older we get, the more fun it is to reconnect with our old friends.

Then I finally talked my 82-year-old mother into redecorating.  That involved 2 weeks of furniture shopping, carpet and paint shopping and helping get it finished.

Here is the before:

Notice the 25 year old ugly brown carpet and the early 80s style couch.

During:

New carpet and pain, DH hanging curtains that were dry cleaned. I’m trying to figure out how to ditch DH’s favorite grey cotton knit shirts while he is gone….I hate those things!  That is his post-work outfit he puts on every day when he gets home.

and after:

Updated and beautiful.  Really it is.  Not sure the pictures do it justice. 

I also finished this:

which has been a monkey on my back.  I was just not excited about this quilt for great-nephew, but apparently he was when my sister took it down to the Bay Area last week.

I also found this:

and was so excited to see this:

I was so excited to see one of my favorite bloggers had arrived at my local nursery.  Imagine my disappointment when I found out they were talking about bulbs!

I did have a small organizing project in that I had to make space for the several items DH brought home for our anniversary.  I made the mistake of cruising Pier One with him one day and he went back and bought every single thing I picked up and said “This is cute”.  It did not mean I wanted it…..but I know he had fun doing it and I acted like I wanted them all.  This took some rearranging and adding back a glass shelf into our dining room cabinet.  I also had to reposition and clean out doggy treat area.  Let’s face it I don’t need an entire shelf for one dog’s treats!

Here is the before:

Behind the door:

No wonder Landon is a little chubby!

Here is the after:

The two right bottom shelves were my gifts which were a teapot and 2 matching cups and next row 6 pastel individual quiche/dessert dishes and a darling measuring cup set that look like cups!

So okay back on the wagon I go!

52 Weeks….Where Am I??

Spending such a long time gone from home really screws one up.  Add that to the fact that I am only home 2 weeks and off I am going again to visit my oldest daughter who lives in Reno, a good 6.5 hour drive away. 

I finally decided I must get my car looked at because when starting, sometimes it would go right back down to 0 RPMs and other times it would be fine.  But it happened at my doctor’s office the other day and it took forever for it to be normal without dying.

So after having my mother drive me in to pick up my car (please Lord, don’t ever make me ride with my mother again), I pay our beloved mechanic $600.00 and hear him tell me I must have new tires before driving to Reno.  Great didn’t I just put new tires on this dang car.  Oh that’s right, YD lived with us for 7 months and drove back and forth to San Diego how many times (12 hour drive).

So today’s organization is this:  Make a note in  my new Stephanie O’Shea planner to rotate my tires in 3 months or 6,000 miles.  Or maybe I will put a sticky note under the oil change sticker in my window.  SOMETHING.  How much money did I waste never rotating that last set of tires??

This week was DH’s birthday, his colonoscopy and then yesterday our 33rd wedding anniversary.  So this was not a normal week.  So I will entertain you with a shot of my new planner and my darling granddaughter at her 3rd birthday party, wearing the darling dress that I made her:

Oh yeah that’s my new gardening journal too!  Need to be able to remember what worked and what didn’t since my brain is not holding that information very well anymore.  Also I am on the shower challenge and doing well this week.  Thanks Stephanie!

Yes I know, too cute.  I cannot believe it is the first dress I have made my granddaughter.  Her baptismal gown was purchased by her Godmother, my oldest daughter….and not made from her mother’s wedding dress….but I did buy a pattern for one.  Maybe the next grandchild??? One can only hope…..and try to plan…..

So I need another week or two to get fully back into the swing of things.  Next week I will be sewing, sewing and sewing in Reno while OD is at work.  I am hoping  to get a few things done and maybe I will start my own pinterest.com boards….am I the only one who did not know about this fabulous site?  Saw my daughter on it one day and FELL IN LOVE.

I am raising my glass (of lemoncello, vodka and pelligrino with a twist of lemon) to all the participants who are keeping me at it and to Laura for hosting us each week from www.orgjunkie.com!

Taking a break…a long one…52 weeks.

I should say I am taking a break from my own house.  I am here in sweltering South Carolina, about as far from Northern California as you can get.

I will be here another 3 weeks and so far have done a few jobs around the house because my daughter is gone to a photo shoot that is taking her on a 4 day trip.

I hope to get a table and set up her sewing area as a surprise for her birthday August 24th.  I am itching to go to the Dollar Store for some baskets for above her washer and dryer and her pantry (from ideas here at www.orgjunkie.com.  Her house is new and she is very busy with my granddaughter and her photography business.

So I don’t have any pictures, just want to say hi and I will be back!  Right now I am enjoying every minute with my youngest daughter’s husband and son-in-law.  This is my first visit to South Carolina and it is lovely here on the coast…..just too hot and humid for me to do too much.  No wonder life is slower in the south!

52 Weeks-Happy update!

Well after the crappy week last week, I am happy to saw I was rewarded on Saturday when I took my mom to the local quilt show.  There I found something I have been waiting for and thought I would have to wait until October to get it.  Thank you Jesus!

Ruby I love you!

I knew there was no getting my craft/office/quilting room organized and that awful table in the garage without some help.  In case you have forgotten:

Help came in the form of a cedar lined cabinet from Costco:

Good grief what is that crap on my drainboard up there?  Anyhoo, this cabinet helped me with two areas of badness…my office/quilt/craft room and the table set up to hold my laundry so I do not have to bend over and over to sort laundry (I have fibromyalgia/connective tissue disorder/autoimmune disease/lupus or something like that).  Don’t ya just love all that empty space!  This is what used to sit in this space, nice enough, but not enough storage space, notice latest picture of my darling granddaughter?

First I switched out some bins to make sure I had matching ones for the cabinet.  I got a great buy on the bins as posted https://allysgrandma.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/holy-canvas-bins-batman/.

I organized some of my bins that had Amy Butler, Kaffe Fasset, Mary Engelbreight, kids fabric, batiks, etc:

I am happy to report both areas are now much closer to how I want them to be.  I am not totally done with either area, but I am feeling much more comfortable in the areas and my creative juices are coming back.  So much so that I am going to a mini quilting retreat this weekend at http://scottiedogquilts.com/.  I called DH to tell him what I had decided yesteday and why didn’t he go camping (since he came home early last weekend to take me on my marathon medical appointment week).  He got home from work last night, packed up and left. Didn’t take much to push him out the door   His camping partner is retired, so he did the shopping while DH finished his work day and arranged the employees to cover the weekend.

DH was out and gone by 5:00 pm, just in time to call my next door neighbor to get caught up on the Batchelorette.  Perfect girl’s night in.  Here are my after pictures:

Isn’t it pretty, all bins filled with fabric and the top a bunch of recipe books (and the rest are in DH’s TV room). I need to label the bins, heck some still have the price tags on them!

I know you are probably still horrified at all the stuff in my craft/office/quilting room, but believe me it feels so much better.  Same with the laundry area.  For me it is 2 steps forward, 1 step back.  This week felt like 3 steps forward!

So Laura, yes I am rewarding myself with hopefullyclose to a finished quilt top this weekend!  Go check out the accomplishments of the other participant at http://orgjunkie.com/2011/07/52-weeks-29-celebrate-your-accomplishments.html.

Thank you Laura and everyone for all the incentive to continue on this journey, slowly though I go!

52 Weeks…..I am not close to done, will I ever be?

I had a bad week again, starting on Monday in Redding, having nerve conduction studies, an EMG, then driving to San Francisco t see another doctor, then home on Tuesday.  Wednesday I realized that I did not have the energy to make the strawberry jam that we stopped north of Hopland at a strawberry farm where we bought a flat of strawberries.  Then on Thursday I had a skin biopsy.  The anesthetic started to wear off when he started stitching, but I just wanted it over with!

So this week’s organizing would be me making jam.  I did it over a 2 day period of time.  I sat and watched DropDead Diva (DVR’d) while I cut the litte tops off the strawberries.  I washed and dried them, placing them in the frig.  My dermatology appointment was not until 4:00 pm on Thursday, so first thing I ran down to Ace Hardware and bought new lids and some Certo, which is in new little cannister thingees.  Cheaper I think in the long run. 

I dumped the strawberries in my largest pot, added the sugar, the Certo and cooked meanwhile finding all my little empty pint jars and rings.  I ran the jars in the dishwasher, started my water bath canner heating up and the lids and rings in a smaller boiling pot.

I also cleaned off my washer and organized the cleaners on the bottom shelf.  We stopped in Santa Rosa to get gas on our way home from SF, but instead bought a thing to hang my laundry on and a scale.  I am keeping the scale in the dining room, isn’t that a good idea!  

So I hope this counts here is how I organized my strawberries:

These are my lids and rings with the strawberry jam and canner also heating up.

Filling the jars and below the jars after being pulled from their water bath.  Then listening for the ping as they seal. 

Also I did clean my laundry area a bit:

I know I have a lot of cleaners/laundrystuff, some given to me from my elderly neighbor when she moved.  Here is my cleaned off washer:

Oh look, the whites are in the washer.  Here they are on the new hanging laundry thing from Costco and my line:

And now just for fun/to make you all feel better….this is how my office looks and where I am spending my day or week getting our paperwork organized from all our medical bills and coming up with a financial plan since THAT IS MY JOB NOW!

Yes things are bad right now…….diving in!

52 weeks-Getting there one day at a time!

Okay knowing when is enough enough…..good topic.  I have to hand it to Laura at http://orgjunkie.com/ , she always makes me think!   I strugge with this issue with food and fabric.  Not clothes so much….even though I have plenty.  I had been thinking I had plenty of fabric and then one of my favorite on-line fabric stores had a geat sale and I picked up some jelly rolls for a great price.  In my defense of fabric buying, I actually use it:

Well okay a charm pack and a fat quarter bundle too!  I have plans for all of it now.  As far as food goes.  I do stock up when I find things that I use on sale. 

I was just talking to myMIL about donating some clothes to the women’s shelter. I have an entie work wardrobe I will probably never use again, since I have been diagnosed first with fibromyalgia…..and now lupus.  My doctor told me that I would not be able to work and I have to agree with her.

So I am going to work on going through my work wardrobe and get rid of it before they get yucky just from sitting in  closet.  I plan to keep a few for social events I may go to that my daily jeans and T-shirts would be inappropriate.

This week I worked hard on my sewing/craft room, but it is still a mess:

So this week’s actual organizing was to show you how I organize my drugs!

and as you can see, I bought a larger pill organizer because I take so many pills a day:

I have spent a lot of time outdoors, but today this got done (entryway table):

Kitchen, dining room, livingroom:

Notice the furniture crammed onto the carpet so the laminate could be mopped well?  Well I wish I could say it was me, but it wasn’t.  MyDH was embracing his inner homemaker and cleaned like a madwoman today while I finished up a quilt for our oldest daughter’s friend.

So Happy 4th of July to everyone! and Happy Anniversary (the 5th) to my youngest daughter and wonderful favorite (and only) SIL!

52 Weeks-Trying to get back to the swing of things!

Because of a recent visit from:

I didn’t get much done.  Flights into Humboldt are expensive, so I picked up and dropped off my daughter and granddaughter in Sacramento (approximately 5 hours away) .  Ally kept me busy all week.  My daughter was shooting a wedding and another family photo shoot.  We baked cupcakes and worked in the garden, picked strawberries, played and played and played. 

I got home Monday afternoon and it took another day to rest up and recuperate.  I had so much paperwork piling up I decided to concentrate on that this week.  First I took the stack and organized into like items:

1.  Mailed checks and cards to 4 graduates.

2.  Filled out form to transfer DH’s Roth IRA from one broker to another (have been meaning to do this for so long it’s embarrasing).

3.  Matched EOBs and medical pills.

4.  Paid bills for our rental home.

5.  Inventoried and did a little grocery shopping.

6.  Brought home granddog from Sacramento (older daughter met us overnight to see her sister and niece), who then ran herself ragged and could barely walk after 3 days. Took her to the vet.

7.  Took both dogs to groomers yesterday, then ran to town and ran errands.

8.  Filled out paperwork for county sheriff’s office for our new alarm system.

9.  Filled out pink slip, signing our oldest truck (#3) over to my older brother.  Our girls in Reno were using it, but they were done with it and let’s face it….3 trucks are too many!  My older brother had asked what we were going to do with it.  We decided to just give it to him since it needs new brakes and we don’t know what else may be wrong with it.  Every vehicle we have ever owned has been given or sold for a minimal amount to a family member…..how weird is that?  He paid to have it shipped from Reno to Washington State where he lives.

10.  Did laundry, cleaned floors, cleaned bathrooms, cooked some, cleaned kitchen every night, made coffee every night for the morning and took my meds. 

11.  Updated Quicken and balanced checking/savings accounts.

Today I ran to Kohl’s to spend my $30.00 in Kohl’s cash.  I took DH along and he bought 3 new shirts.  We paid $6.27 for them after using Kohl’s bucks.  Then I ran up to a friend/former coworker’s to say goodbye.  When I got to her house, I had to help her.  She only has until Tuesday to pack as escrow closes on her house and she is moving to Michigan from here in Northern California.  I started helping her pack her books…..oh my so many books she is moving….. and we finished up in about 3 hours.  I did take a few breaks, but by the time we were done, I was ready to quit. 

DH has gone camping with his hunting partner, so I have the weekend to myself.  If the weather is nice, I will work in the garden.  If it is not, I will work on the house, especially this:

I will be traveling next weekend to my nephew’s wedding in Washington State, but the really exciting thing is my sister bought me an Ikea bookcase that has cubbies that has an attached work desk.  So I really need to get my office/craft room ready to really get organized when I bring that home!  Good thing I bought all those Kohl’s baskets!

So in the meantime, I am going over to www.orgjunkie.com and checking out what everyone else is accomplishing.  I try to leave a comment on everyone’s entry, but sometimes blogs will not accept my comments.  I am not sure why, but I do try to read every entry.  It helps me so much!

Until next time……

52 Weeks…..Starting again…

I could go into great detail, but let’s just keep it to:

1.  Trip to San Francisco for Giants game.

2.  DH gets sick and after a week is admitted to the hospital with pneumonia.

3.  The day he is admitted I am diagnosed with Lupus.

4.  Middle daughter, Emily, is driving cross country from Reno, Nevada to her new job in Charleston, SC.  So I have to worry about tornadoes and strangers.

Here are a few highlights, but the main point is I have not organized a thing.  Just taking care of DH has been a full-time job.  However, I did take 2 hours away from the hospital (when DH had a friend visiting) to watch Bridesmaid’s after Iris’ hilarious review.  My older daughters were seeing it that day and I just spur of the moment thought I have got to get out of here.  I told DH I was going home to rest after all I do have lupus….., but veered into the local theatre on the way home and the movie was just starting.  Just what I needed!

Me so happy to have not just one, but 2 Websters, the gold one with an extension to reach the highest points of my house so I don’t have to wait for DH to come and get cobwebs down (I am talking outside).  We have a terrible spider web problem here in Northern California and you house can be as messy as you want, but for some reason I HATE seeing cobwebs around a front door!  I confess I am very judgmental when it comes to that.  But hey if it looks like a storm went through your house, I have no problem with that.  At this point I had no idea what the next 2 weeks would hold for me….. I was just blissfully envisioning a cobweb free zone…..

Are we having fun yet?

Well these two obviously are.  MD asked an Arizona player as they were on the field warming up if she could “have his balls”, which apparently cracked up everyone around her.  First he gave one to a little boy and then to her…of course….she is a fake blond by the way, but was a sweet little blond 2 year old who caused people to ask who her father was….DH did not find that amusing…how did I get off on that.  She is 30 now and is acting like a 14-year-old!  I have to admit my girls are a lot of fun.  Just watching all the men look at them and make remarks as we walked a distance behind them into the pregame sports bar for dinner was pretty entertaining. 

This was parked outside our hotel.  I think it was a BMW, but I just had to take a picture and share. 

The view of the city after the golden gate is beautiful:

Oh wait, that’s Sausalito….

Aah there it is…San Francisco.

So life has been rough as evidenced by:

My former lovely dining room table that was even featured one of Laura’s 52 weeks posts (www.orgjunkie.com) :

Ooh that Mother’s Day orchid does look pretty though doesn’t it!  I have missed keeping up on everyone’s progress and hope to get back to my habit of reading every single entry of this challenge.  It really does help keep me motivated.

And for all you Southerner’s ahem (coughirsiscough) this is what a real taco shell is:

Taken at a Walmart somewhere south of us since our county will not allow one.  Here are a few closeups in case anyone is confused:

and our favorite:

Also I have discovered at Costco a delightful new adult beverages for those of you with children out of school or soon to be.  It can be disguised as lemonade.  Just make sure you have real lemonade when the kids want some. 

You can even pretend to me one of those totally together fabulous Italian women like DH’s TV girlfriend Giada:

2 parts Lemoncello

1 part San Pellegrino

Squeeze of lemon

Perfection!  If you are feeling really elegant, slice a lemon and put on the side of your glass!

Happy Organizing.  Hope to see you next week with someting accomplished!

52 weeks—-I did something!!

I figured after semi-sort of organizing the past couple of weeks I needed a real problem area to fix.  One cupboard I open every day is my coffee cupboard which also holds my most used leftover containers and the containers I use or DH’s breakfast and lunches that I pack for him every day (excet this morning when I dragged myself out of bed only to realize he had left already, I’m telling you that new drug regimen is helping me sleep really well!).

Anyhoo during my time of figuring out what I was going to do I used my last paper towel and was left with this:

 I wondered if I should start saving them for Iris….http://www.thebeardediris.com/2011/05/03/pootorial/. I mean does she have enough for all three of her kids to have fun?  Besides I love being the person that my neighbor knows I will have whatever she needs like foil, cooking oil, sugar, ketchup and yesterday zit medication!  Yes I found some Oxy spot treatment in my cabinet as little Paisley used Ally’s potty.  Then I gave her some whipped cream:

Okay enough chit chat onto the cupboard:

Not sure why some of my pictures are blurry, sorry…anyway here is what was in the cabinet:

We also had 2 big bag of Costco sized Starbucks French Roast beans.  I am not one of those “I hate starbucks coffee” people…..obviously we  love it:

Well I cleaned out the garage cupboard that held the large bags of coffee, put the cereal up with the other 8 boxes, the pasta with the other pasta and ended up with:

Wow look at that….empty space!!

The garage cabinet went from:

 to this:

Omgosh more empty space!!   See the coffee on the second shelf?  I am only keeping one at a time in the kitchen.  As I was moving all my food around I started to understand why those extreme hoarders, er I mean couponers keep rearranging their food stash.  I felt like I needed to rearrange mine to get all my beans and marinara sauces together:

But I have way too much stuff going on in the next week to deal with that now.  I had a flat of impatients to plant.  My DH’s brother and SIL are arriving Saturday.  We are having brunch here on Sunday.  Monday I have a quilting class AND an appointment with an attorney for a consult on my comp claim.  Then Tuesday we are driving to San Franciso to meet our older daughters for a Giant’s Game.  Before Tuesday I need to finish the quilt tops I bought as kits for them.  I finished one yesterday and will work on the other again tonight during sit on our butts and watch TV time.  Here are the fabrics:

And then just for fun, what do you think is beneath the pillows of our quickly made bed?

It’s this:

Yes he actually did not move as I made the bed around him.  What a lazy ass dog.  The only time he gets to sleep in our bed is when DH is gone, as he was that night/morning since he had play-off tickets for the San Jose Sharks.   He is so smart, that night he jumped out of his usual bed and jumped right up on our bed.  He knew somehow that daddy was gone and he got to sleep with me that night.  Obviously the next morning, he wanted to enjoy the bliss as long as he could!

I know I said I would print my freezer inventory, but I will save that probably for next week, when I will have even less time than I did this week to accompish something.  So my typing it into a list will look like I accomplished something next week!

This week’s questions:

1. Do you sometimes use limited funds as an excuse not to get organized?  Not really, I’m pretty cheap so I always look for bargains…like my 41 baskets from Kohl’s I got for 80% off!
2. What’s on your list to organize this week?  I have a busy week with a quilting class on Monday, driving to San Francisco for a Giants game on Tuesday, driving home Wednesday….so it will have to be something quick and easy!  Like this week!
3. What one task do you notice yourself continually putting off?  Why do you think that is?  Organizing my pictures because I have 32 years worth unorganized and it is a daunting task!

Keep on keeping on everyone who”s participating in Laura’s 52 weeks challenge over at www.orgjunkie.com

52 weeks… still going strong….kind of….

Two weeks ago it was an MRI, last week it was a colonoscopy…this week a pneumovax shot that has rendered my left arm pretty useless.  I had my annual exam Monday along with a pneumovax shot.  Because I have asthma, my doctor, Dr. Beth thought I should go ahead and have it, especially before my good insurance runs out at the end of September (COBRA). 

My older bossy fun sister challenged me to a month of buying nothing but perishables from the grocery/drug stores.  I have to admit that once I realized I was not going back to work I began using coupons and hoarding er stocking up on stuff.  So I inventoried both my pantry and freezers (large stand alone and two refrigerator freezers)  to get started.  I made an excel spreadsheet myself after spending way too much time surfing the net trying to find one.  My inventory consists of unopened jars/boxes/etc.  It does not include what is already opened or spices, etc. 

So here it is:

I think I listed hot sauce twice…oh well you get the picture.  There are only 2 of us in the home…me and DH!  I do need a few items, some ww flour, some brown rice and quinoa which we are low on all of those.  I also have some coupons I want to use before they expire tomorrow.  So I am going to go shopping today to get a few more items.    Next week I will post my freezer inventory. 

Also in an earlier post I talked about DH’s man cave bookcase and how I needed to get it organized.  Well using 2 of the bins it went from this:

to this:

The bottom two rows hold bins with my granddaughter’s books in them.  We also had a busy week that took our backyard from this:

 to this:

 with a small misshap outside the back door where a small landing was poured:

which was done by:

I was switching some laundry from washer to dryer when out he goes through his doggy door in the garage to the outside onto the new landing.  Poor thing had been going nuts looking and barking at all the strange men at our house this week.

I also managed to finish this:

So I stayed pretty busy even with my arm pretty painful.   Now let’s go through our fearless leader’s  (www.orgjunkie.com) questions of the week:

1. Do you rotate your seasonal clothing?  If so, have you done it yet?  Sort of.  We live in a very temperate climate so I don’t actually pull out really summery clothes unless I am going on a trip somwhere hot….like South Carolina….or the Sacramento valley… or the weather calls for it.  I have a rubbermaid container in the garage with shorts, capris and sleeveless tops in it.  I should probably dig it out, but I am afraid I will look like a fat cow in everything!
2. Are you celebrating your accomplishments as you go?  It’s so important no matter how big or small the task is you complete!  Every day at home is a celebration, seriously, after working outside the home for over 30 years, I am just so happy to be a homemaker.
3. What’s on your list for this next week?  My list…well I did write down two things while reading everyone’s posts from last week.  One is washing my teapots that are above my cupboards in the kitchen, the other I cannot remember, but will when I find where I wrote it down….

I also plan to get another quilt done, between today and tomorrow hopefully.  DH left this morning after stopping at our business, to go to another Sharks game tonight.  So I will be alone today and tomorrow and hope to get a lot accomplished on the quilt for my middle daughter, who is moving to South Carolina about the middle of May.  She requested it after I posted the picture above on facebook.  I ignored her, so I am hoping it is a surprise.

So happy week everyone, both organizing and just living!  And prayers for all the people who are suffering from the tornados!