Sites To See for November 2

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween! Did you get lots of treats? Now that the little man is old enough to really know what is going on, we have gotten pretty scary around the house this year.  All of the cute pumpkins and ghosts have given way to spiders and skeletons.  I have to admit, I really enjoyed making things a little more gory. It isn’t often you get a chance to decorate the glass canisters with ‘blood’ drips and fill them with fake eyeballs made from ping pong balls!

One last thing before we get to the links.  I will seldom if ever talk much about politics or religion on this site.  But with the election being Tuesday, I want to mention both.  This election has the potential to cause more divisions than ever before.  I fear the Bush vs Gore election was simply a small foreshadowing of possible events that could occur over the next few months.  I ask that you say prayers for the country and all of the people throughout the election and in the immediate months as well as the years to come.

Now, Look and Enjoy!

Random Articles:

Looking for health reasons and extra benefits of decluttering besides just a cleaner house to get you motivated? Get Organized For the Health of It by Colette Robicheau from Maintain a Healthy.

Paper Pile Makeover Results! from Small Notebook. Look at what Rachel accomplished!

Home Energy Savings Tips from Home Construction Improvement

List of Clutter-Free Holiday Gifts from Getting Organized. There are a lot of good ideas. My favorite is still consumables from the kitchen. Let’s face it, If they like it, it will be consumed. If it isn’t eaten they didn’t want it. It will expire and they will have to throw it out. No lasting clutter. Not everything I give is from the kitchen, but a lot is.

On To Do Lists and Productivity from Reassigned Time. This is a good article describing his to-do process with recommendation of some good apps to use. I recommend you check the apps out, too. But the main reason I am sharing this article is to remind you that there is not any system out there that is perfect for everyone. The author states it well. So get out there and learn some tips and tricks. Pick a recommended system or routine and try it for a while. Keep what works. Tweak or drop anything that doesn’t.

When to Do Low-Priority Tasks from Tools for Thought.  For all of the tasks you keep pushing to the bottom of your list.

To Make:

Here is another link to a recipe site, but it is for soaps, lotions, lip balms, and tons of other bath goodies. Pine meadows. They have a lot more than recipes, but I love this page in particular.

Printable Fall Leaf Cutout Templates (Maple & Variety Leaves) from Creativity Portal. I loved the idea of taking this or other templates, printing out on card stock, and then using them for gift tags. I am going to take a second look at my clipart. Wonder how many other unique stencil templates I have available for projects? They also have category links for other occasional projects.

Putting Art to Work from At Home Redesigns. Make a very simple, pretty chalkboard. It looks like she took some stone spray paint to the frame, and Mary suggests using magnetic paint before the chalkboard paint to get the board to pull double duty.  I love double duty items.

Copper Skillet Birdbath from Sunflowers. Ok, How cute and easy is this idea! Never would have thought of it.

Pass it On Plates from Today’s Creative Blog

Making Soap from Kitchen Grease from Little House in the Suburbs. I know some bacon fanatics. Wonder if they would save me their grease?

Tutorial part 1 of 2. Getting ready to make your own tofu from U Handbag.

Techy Stuff and Useful Software Applications:

My Pyramid Tracker from the USDA. Track your diet and exercise for up to one year. This one seems very interesting. You enter your food intake or exercise and it will give you feedback. You can track daily for up to a year. I do not know if that means it will store 12 months at a time or if at the end of the year something changes about your data. I am an admitted foodie during the holiday season, but I am going to try this out for our family after the holidays.

Early Look: Top 10 Android Apps from Website Magazine. Have you checked out what useful apps are available for your phone? I admit I only utilize a few of the built in apps on my cell. But this list has inspired me to take another look.

Giveaways:

Sign up each week for a weekly giveaway of coffee beans from Get The Bean. Then check out Meaghan’s personal blog at I Kicked Cancer’s A** for a dose of count your lucky stars, go get yourself checked information and some tear jerking inspiration. At 28 she was diagnosed with Cervical Cancer and told she had the slimmest of chances of living.  In the first article I read she talked of picking her funeral music and how she remembers being at peace with death, but worried for her family and friends.  Tears I tell you.

I came across a site this week when I was looking into how to do some giveaways here. It has links to over 1100 giveaways. Bloggy Giveaways Quarterly Carnival (Fall, 2008) from Bloggy Giveaways. I have not taken a look at any of them, so I can not tell you which ones are still good or anything else about them. If you are into trying to win some prizes, go check them out. Just make sure you have a place to put the winnings before you sign up for each one!

Keep in Mind:

I came across each of these websites and stories either from Stumble Upon, RSS subscriptions, SITS, search engine pathways or from others on Plurk! I am passing them on to you as I found them - in good faith. I can not guarantee the validity or accuracy in any manner. I enjoyed reading them and I hope you will, too.

Your Links:

Let me know if you did enjoy them in the comments. If there is an article or website you would like for me to consider sharing next week, send me an e-mail using laurelplum [at] laurelplumonline [dot] com (the spelling out is to avoid spam) or send me a Plurk!

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