Music - More decluttering and sorting!

I have been collecting copies of different sheet music for 30+ years and have put it into folders and then I had multiple copies over the years from being in different callings in different auxiliaries and handouts of words to songs, etc. , etc. I have also collected purchased sheet music. It too has collected into a small pile. Every time I dust that particular shelf I groan at the 'growing' pile of music that had no order to it at all. It just got stuffed into one of the bulging folders. Well this had to get cleaned out! For the past two to three days I have sorted, thrown out and organized all the music into 'two' notebooks. I have to add that the purchased sheet music has been around for sometime and the staples have turned rusty. Another good reason to take it apart and put it into one my notebooks. Now all my sheet music is organized, indexed, concise, neat and 'much smaller'! Gee it felt good to finally tackle that! Now if I collect any more sheet music I will punch 3 holes in it and pop it into the proper notebook!

These are the two notebooks. My daughter-in-law Angela made the music drawing (the one to the right) one day last year while she and David were visiting and she just wanted to 'doodle.' I thought she was so clever to make a 'heart' out of the Treble Clef and Base Cleff notes! She did not want to keep it. I kept it and now I have a perfect use for it, the cover of my notebook! The other notebook has the '88 Keyboard note chart' and I used that when my girls were taking piano lessons to help figure out what the notes were. It comes in handy now and then.

The spine of the two notebooks so at a glance I know which one I want to add to or see the music. Whew! Glad that project is done!

New Beginnings, clutter, digging in???

BEFORE: Does anyone else have this problem, clutter?

That counter is like a 'magnet' and things just appear! I will admit that I am the biggest offender!

AFTER: Now how long will this stay cleared off? Hmmm, a few days or maybe even a whole week!

Now the basket is there to 'remind me' to answer some Christmas mail. Yes, it is a month past Christmas and it's still sitting there! I think it's safe to say, it won't run off before I get to it! :o)

There is something about January that when the Christmas decorations are all put away I notice all the 'other things' that have been tucked here and there so decorations could be displayed. So the 'spring cleaning bug' begins to strike a few months early! That's a good thing. I don't think I could make it until spring actually arrives!

Do you ever have one or more of those 'expanding room corners' that need to go on a diet? I have two in our master bedroom that were growing uglier by the day. Well, yesterday and today I dug right in and cut them down to size! Wow! The corners look bigger! They still have a few things in them, but what a difference!

Julie, you remember being in our room this past Christmas wrapping all your things and seeing the exploding corner where my wrapping paper was? I decluttered and sorted, tossed, and organized it into a neat little corner. The opposite corner where the linen closets are were really exploding! Not any more! It's been cleared away except for one comforter I couldn't fit in my closet. I'm working on resolving that though.

A few other things I've worked on:

Cleaning out that bottom drawer in the buffet.

Cleaning out and straightening up kitchen cupboards.

Going through closets and getting stuff ready for D.I. (Yippee!)

Cutting up Neil's old raggedy shirts for shop rags.

Drum roll here....

My biggest thing - going through 3 tubs of my parent's genealogy!

It was so overwhelming just thinking about it but now that I've been through it all and will still be going through it over and over, I'm not so overwhelmed. I've actually 'started' working on it! I have Family Search plus PAF on my computer. I have a dear friend down the street who is always working on her genealogy and she walked me through Family Search. You want to know what was the 'most embarrassing moment' for me? Realizing my immediate family plus my siblings information was not there! I had it in PAF but now I'm moving it into Family Search.

Anyway, it's a new beginning, starting the genealogy I've had for 16 years! That's embarrassing!

I am not through decluttering, a forever progress. I'm glad I've dug in and so far I love the results!

Specially 'hand made'...Joy in the journey! :o)

David & Angela gave Kirsten this huge balloon for Christmas. She was busy yanking the string up and down and smiling about all the 'noise' her balloon was making! I tried to capture that happiness and didn't quite make it. Kirsten likes the balloons more when they are starting to deflate because they make 'lots of noise.' :o)

After several attempts, she turned her back on me and hid behind her balloon!


For Christmas 2009 I made a special gift for each of our 6 children. I worked on this project for 3 months. I put together a photo album of almost 200 photos each and wrote a journal "When Grandma Was A Little Girl." Kirsten even got the same gift!
The cute individual block photos you see in the background were a 'hand made' gift from Chris and Michelle for Neil and I. Aren't they cute?! :o)

It took me a month just to 'sort' all the photos. I had a bin for each child's photos. Then I had to chronologically put them in order. Can I just state that it's better to 'date' the photos as you take them, not wait until 20 years later! Thank goodness today's technology 'dates' photos!

In this blog, Grandma's Cookie Jar (see older posts), I wrote 98% of these stories (63) from about May 2008 to January 2009. I re-edited and added photos and put it all in my laptop and then went down to a local printer and had '6' softcover books (95 pages) made. There are even color photos in it.

A page from my book "When Grandma Was A Little Girl." I realized that my grandchildren didn't know very much about when I was growing up, thus came about 'When Grandma Was A Little Girl.' I worked on this for a couple of weeks.

Another page from my book.

The last portion of my book was about my entering a pageant and the diary I kept. Just to think, several years ago in one of my 'spring cleaning' modes, I wanted to throw this out and Neil convinced me to keep it. So 'hooray' for Neil or this entry would not have been there!

Kirsten's photo album, birth to present!

A page from her photo album.

A page from her photo album.

I have to say it was quite an undertaking to do this project but I had 'joy in the journey' through time to the present! It was a gift of my time and love for each of our 6 children. I think they all enjoyed the gift. I read somewhere...'A gift is from your heart.' This gift was truly from my heart. I cherish and love each of our children, their spouses and our grandchildren. They are a treasure! My hope is that they will read these stories to their children and years later my greatgrandchildren. I hope their children will also enjoy the photo albums too.

Happiness is a journey - Hop on board!

Note to self (I'm having this conversation with myself)...
The start of each new year gives us all a time to reflect on the past year. I find it interesting that 'the past' is like an attitude. Psychologically when a new year begins we shift gears and go into auto mode and move 'forward.' This is a good thing. A lot of folks try to make New Years Resolutions, which most of the time end up forgotten or get lost in life's shuffle. The root word is 'resolve'. I like that term. Resolve is to do better or to improve upon a given thing or action. I do not make resolutions. Each day is my opportunity to improve over the previous day, 365 days a year.

For this year I have decided each day to -
1-Do a good deed, no matter how insignificant. Only I need to be aware of it, no one else.
2-Have a positive attitude, at least for part of the day, and be grateful.
3-Help others feel better after talking with them. (There is a difference between 'with' and 'to'.)

I am the Visiting Teaching Coordinator in my ward. We have 170 sisters so that calls for constant change. In talking 'with' our sisters I noticed that some just remain 'down in the dumps'. I have a quote on my erase board on the refrigerator...'Happiness is an attitude!' I also like the one ...'Happiness is a journey'...and I've added...'Hop on board!' I also think a good dose of 'laughter' is healthy! When you see a child smile or laugh it fills you with joy! Adults should smile and laugh more often as children do. Hmmm, find the 'child' within myself. :o)

If we make it a resolve to 'be happy' we feel better and that spills over onto others and makes them happier. I loved Pres. Hinckley's attitude...be grateful and things are going to get better and don't be down. Satan has many tools to bring us down to his level of misery. I choose NOT to be on that team! I like Polly Anna's attitude when she gives the note to the minister and explains to him that her father preached the 'happy texts' because it made people feel better. The Lord blessed us to have 'JOY'! When I looked in the Topical Guide of our scriptures..pages 260-261 the word 'joy' is replete with scriptures to look up!

I will BE HAPPY! :o)

Holiday + kids + fun = :o)

A trip through the holiday -
WARNING! Lots of photos! Enjoy! :o)

The kids saw Auntie Angela Guptill 'kissing Santa Claus'!

Grandma (Great Grandma too) Guptill visiting with Santa! She's been a good girl this year!

Chris with two of his girls, Brooklynn and McKenna-it's early on Christmas morning!


Our grandson Tyler-not too big for Santa!

Our granddaughter McKenna busily working on her gingerbread house!

Some of the grand kids enacting the 'Nativity'. I have to say that 9 mo. old Adelaide (oops, she's a girl!) was good as gold playing baby Jesus!

Bob & Julie's family were at our house a week prior to Christmas. We had an Erector set and the kids loved making things!

The instruction booklet!

Waiting to leave for church, they were building a tower with blocks.

Our granddaughter Brynnly trying to make the tower higher!

Brynnly made this robot! It was great!

Grandpa (dad) had this train that ran all over and when it ran into an obstacle, it reversed itself to get on its way again. The kids loved it!

Our granddaughter Matilda taking a turn pushing grandpa's tractor!

Our grandson Braxton watching Grandpa's 'Mr. Machine' marching along the floor. Grandpa got this over the Internet. He had one exactly like it when he was a little boy.

Kirsten on the floor playing with her nieces and nephews. She had so much fun and laughed so hard. She loves kids!

Bob and his son Quintin (Zachary is observing) playing with dominoes and seeing who can knock down each other's walls.

Some good fun playing Phase 10!

Braxton giving his cousin Adelaide and hug and kiss! She survived!

Lisa brought a gingerbread house for the kids to work on. They had so much fun! They would put candy on the house and then take it off and eat it and add more candy!

It's almost finished!

The builders are finished!

Now for the good stuff. Let's eat that left over frosting! Yum!

Julie was given this 1,000 piece 'Manti Temple' puzzle from her sweet mother-in-law Sondra Ward as a Christmas gift. It was Julie, Lisa, Brynnly and me, grandma, working on it and we finished it up in just over 2 hours! Wahoo!

Julie and her dad, grandpa, and Braxton looking on, going over directions to do some sight seeing!

This was taken at Grandma Guptill's. There were 25 of us for Christmas!

Let the fun begin!

Grandma Valdine Guptill in her 'Snuggie'!

Brynnly and Lauren having fun with Lauren's Karaoke machine!

This is at our home and the garland and bows I put up for Christmas.

Even the little gate was decorated!

We had so much fun! Chris and Michelle and their family also visited our home for a few days and played and had a great time! Doug & Ashley were able to spend two days with us. It was so wonderful having all 6 of our children and their families spend Christmas with us. Neil's mom is 83 and going strong and is such a fun trooper! She had a great time with all 24 of us at her home on Christmas day! Jordan and Lisa also played host and had Doug & Ashley and David & Angela staying at their apartment. Grandma had the rest of us! The walls were singing with happiness!