My Survival Guide

Lately I have been a little MIA, but I think I am about ready to resurface. Recently I have moved from a small 700 square foot apartment to a 1700 square foot home. I have been overwhelmed with how to keep it clean. A while ago a friend introduced me to the Fly Lady who has tips on how to keep your home clean by doing a little each day. I signed up for her news feed but was overwhelmed by the amount of emails. I decided to come up with my own game plan on how to clean my home which is similar to hers, but more personalized for me. Today is Day #1 and I feel strong. Below is my new life strategy. Hopefully this can inspire you, as well as keep me motivated.

The Housewife Survival Guide

Everyday Chores:
· Do the dishes after EVERY meal
· 10 minute house pickup
· Get dressed, fix hair and put on shoes

Room Cleaning Guidelines:
· Clean every room 1x per week

· Organize/declutter
· Vacuum
· Dust

Monday: Kitchen, Living Room

Tuesday: Bathrooms

Wednesday: Office, Meal planning, something fun

Thursday: Bedrooms, grocery shopping, Errands

Friday: Laundry, pick up house

Saturday: House wipe down, mop, ironing

Sunday: Relax

The Shape of a Mother

A couple of months ago my sister sent me the most beautiful link from the Starving Artist website. Upon embarking motherhood, I have thought a lot my ever changing body and what it now looks like. The images that this artist shares give me the personal motivation to embrace the new me and all my stretch marks. It really is the "imperfections" that make life beautiful. The rest of the images can be found HERE!!

http://starvingartistink.com/the-shape-of-a-mother/#

A Collection of Amazing Blogs

I love food and food photography. These last couple of weeks I have been trying to find some good new food blogs and now have a new great collection of food blogs to stalk. Here are my favorite new blogs that will cause your taste buds to work in over drive. Soon, I won't be nine months pregnant and then I will want to cook again. Yeah!!!

• http://tastykitchen.com/
• http://www.thehungryhousewife.com/
• http://barbarabakes.com/
• http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/
• http://www.browneyedbaker.com/
• http://cookiesandcups.blogspot.com/
• http://bunsinmyoven.com/
• http://www.ourbestbites.com
• http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/

I am still looking for some more food blogs and especially some more crafty blogs. What are your favorite blogs to stalk and be inspired by?

For a complete list food/craft blogs I read look to the right hand column.

I'm Back

For the last couple of months I have been MIA. I could give you a variety of excuses of why I dropped the ball on blogging, but I won't. Just know I feel bad. The other day my sister told me that she loves this blog and uses it for a lot of inspiration. This gave me the motivation to get back into posting, and to keep trying to inspire readers like you. So I offer my sincerest apologies and will rally up my forces and hopefully keep this blog interesting and inspiring. Keep coming back for your bits of inspiration, and please send some inspiration my way. I could sure use it as well.

How to be Inspired

Like many of you I am incredibly busy. As I write this I am procrastinating laundry, homework and even more homework. But even worse than procrastination, one of my biggest struggles is finding an assortment of good meals to cook. I first wanted to do a blog with just meal ideas, but then I realized that there are so many other good ideas to be shared. These include but are not limited to: books, crafts, date ideas, holiday ideas, baking ideas and inspiring words of wisdom. I thought that perhaps us bloggers of the world could post about these ideas on one common blog. This is a way to showcase what YOU have have been baking, cooking, crafting, or thinking about. Of course this will take time, but this is why I can't do it alone.

That is why I am trying to enlist as many people as possible who would love to share their knowledge and ideas. I am looking for various authors. You can post on your area of expertise such as crafting, baking, reading, relaxing, sewing....or whatever else. I just ask that you post at least once a month. This way the blog will be continually updated and it will not be a huge time commitment from anyone of us.

As I write this my thoughts are scattered. Hopefully you can get the gist of what I am trying to accomplish by setting up this blog. If you would like to be an author, add any input or have any feedback leave a comment or email us at abitofinspiration@gmail.com. If you know of anyone else who would love to be involved in this project please let them know. This will be an extraordinary success if we get a plethora of ideas.