At 7PM, around the globe, candles are lit to honor tiny lives lost. For many years our culture has shrouded death and grief as things we do not speak of, especially miscarriage and infant loss. Many generations have asked parents to grieve in silence, the Wave of Light seeks to shatter the silence and bring light into the depths of grief.

Every life has value.

The sunset on October 15, 2014. Beautifully reflecting the colors of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness.

Please join the Wave of Light.

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Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

So what happened next?

I learned a lesson that would serve me well when we began our most recent renovation, our kitchen. I learned that sometimes helping my husband with a project does not mean me being part of the action of said project.

Once we started laying the new floor it was clear that no matter how many “it’s-so-easy-just-snap-and-click” how-to videos we watched, the laminate flooring was going to be a bear to install.

At this point I stopped taking progress pictures because it was getting a little ugly, and I was getting a LOT in the way.

So remember the picture of those lovely boxes of beautiful laminate flooring?

Misnomer! They were not utopian! They were… well, we won’t go there.

Each time a new board was laid, the previous ones would shift. Frustration. Lots of it.

Our living room and dining room are combined, so that made for a very long pattern to lay out. Installing in a single room would have been quite a bit easier.

Thankfully dear friends came to the rescue. He helped Vince while she and I stayed out of the way and occupied the children.

Now the floor is in and I love it. We’ve been living on it for over five years and it’s holding up very well under us, and our children, and our dog, and our cat…

It was finished in time for this little guy to start crawling! Yes this is Nate, when he was a peanut!

I wouldn’t go back to carpet. The ease of laminate has been this momma’s pleasure.

Have you had a home project that has taken on a life all it’s own? Will you share your story with us?

The post What Ever Happened After That Trip to Friendly’s? (31Days – 2014) appeared first on CreativLEI.

First it was my serger. It has been rendered useless since the loopers need to be timed and I am unwilling to pay half the price of a brand new machine for the repair.

Then came my camera. Well, the camera itself works, but my 18-55mm lens (the one I use most often) is broken. Sadly, the insurance and extended warranty have already run out so chalk that up to “I’m not going to pay the cost of a repair that could buy me a brand new lens”.

See a trend here?

Well, on Wednesday my KitchenAid mixer decided it was her turn to revolt! I was in the middle of a batch of bread dough and she just refuses to go on. Now what?!?! I’ll be calling the hotline at KA hoping they’ll have some good news for me.

All the tools of my trade are failing me. I mean I get that I shouldn’t be completely reliant on “technology”, but this is just plain ridiculous!

The post Another one bites the dust… appeared first on CreativLEI.

Now, that got some attention didn’t it.  I promised Laurie a dirty post, so here goes…

Some of you know about my obsessive cleaning habits.  Wait, now don’t mistake that as meaning I keep my house sparkling 24/7, because I don’t.  I just have a habit for finding, ahem, interesting cleaning jobs, that to some people may seem outrageous.  Last year was the drier.  After noticing that is was no longer running at full efficiency it was opened up and we found dust bunnies and lint lemurs procreating at an alarming rate inside the machine.  All was cleaned and she runs like a champ now.  Well, yesterday after finding a puddle under the washer I summoned DH (darling husband for those that don’t speak net-ish) and he happily opened it up to check it out.  Okay now you know how we all attempt to clean those grimey spots on or in the washer? *note to self, it is totally normal to wash your washer*  Well, let’s just say, what you can’t see or reach… YUCK!  I will admit I have probably paid more attention to my wash routine than most since starting to cloth diaper, but it’s only because I keep finding out new things, like towels for instance… Do you towels ever have a musty smell after just one use?  It’s probably from build-up in the washer.  Yup, too much soap is a problem, stuff just doesn’t get clean.  Fabric softener, it’s a scam, all it’s doing is leaving oils on your laundry to make them “soft”.  But anyway back to the dirty washing machine… So, after Vince opened up the machine and we looked inside, he knew what was coming…  He removed the top part of the wash basin for me (you know that piece you try to reach under to clean every now and again) and well…

Gross isn’t it.  Now for those of you that are thinking that this is from the diapers I’m washing, nope, this isn’t *that*, it’s lint and detergent that’s just yucky.  So I got to work and scrubbed that puppy clean.  Lots of paper towels, hot water and a screwdriver later and I had this…  Much better!

Vince put it all back together and it’s lovely!  Musty stink it gone, yippee!  Almost makes me look forward to the 7 loads of laundry ahead, lol, almost…

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