Dear Californians,

Tomorrow is election day. I'm not the type to try and preach my politics to people, but I do feel strongly against this topic and I want to share it with you. Please read this with an open mind.

Every child learns at a young age about Civil Rights in school. We learned about Rosa Parks and how she bravely refused to give up her spot on the bus. We learned about Century High School and how nine black students were blocked from going into an all white school in Alabama. What about the famous pictures of the young black men being painfully hosed down? And most importantly, we all learned about Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech.

Do you remember learning about those pivital days in history? I do. I remember as a young, innocent child thinking 'how could someone do that to another person? Why was there so much hate?'

Well here we are, almost 6 decades later. We've come so far as a country from those days of horrible discrimination...... or have we?

Everyday on my way home I pass at least 3 intersections of YES on 8 protesters and I immediately flashback to the images I saw in my textbooks as a child of the protesters during the Civil Rights movement. Why are we back to this? Why are there STILL people during this modern age fighting to deprive rights??

Voting YES on 8 unfairly discriminates humans of their rights and freedom, just like "seperate but equal" did back in the 60s. YES on 8 is not only about gay marriage - the issue of gay marriage is the tip of the iceberg; it's so much more than that. It's an issue of keeping a fundimental right from someone just because of who they were born to be and who they are attracted to.

Remember what Martin Luther King spoke of during that famous speech?

"I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Well, I have a dream too. I have a dream that one day EVERYONE will not be judged by their skin, or sexual preference, but by the content of their character.

Please vote NO on 8 and do not deny any rights to anyone.

Thank you for reading this.

Update: Please check out this blog. She's a much better person than I, spending so much time and energy on NO on 8. Thank you for your time, Insomniac!

How To: DIY Marble Magnets

Another thing I did this afternoon was put together all the magnets for the winners of my blog contest! A couple of you asked for instructions, so I went ahead and did a vlog to show you how.

{I appologize - it was a last minute vlog and Matt recorded with his camera phone, so the quality is pretty poor. But hopefully you get the idea, and you can start making your own!}



Like I said in my vlog, I got all materials at Michaels. The materials are:

- Marbles with one flat edge; can be found in Florals
- Flat Magnets
- 3/4" hole punch
- E6000 Clear glue
- Magazines or scrap paper

And here are some pictures of the final product:

Mission Organization

I've made a goal to get ORGANIZED. See, I have a dirty little secret. I'm clutter-phobic - on the outside. Confused? In the things I see day to day, I HATE clutter: knick-knacks, unnecessary wall hangings, ornate decorations that just sit there for no reason. A clean, functional space makes my heart flutter. Like this space.

But when it comes to behind closed doors, I'm a MESS! Remember that Friends episode with Monica and her secret closet? That's me. But I'm trying to cure this disease.

Katie over at Hyper Homemaker has made it easier with her Ultimate Fall Cleaning Challenge! Today's challenge was to tackle the kitchen, and that's exactly what I did.

So I cringe as I show this to you, but here are my before and afters!

{click on images to see larger}

POTS & PANS

My first tackle was my pots and pans. We have great pull out drawers, but given our tiny kitchen it's still hard to keep these drawers organized. But I manged to do it after only around 15 minutes!

PANTRY

Second was the pantry. This one took a little longer, but was definitely worth it! I love cleaning out the pantry, it's such a good feeling. (ps- Katie I think I rival you for smallest pantry!)

We've actually done a pretty good job of keeping our glasses and dishes organized, so I'd thought I'd share with you our system (those wire shelves are the BEST!)

KITCHEN CABINETS


Believe it or not, it took me less than an hour to tackle both these projects. So I decided it was a good idea to move on to the hall closet.

The hall closet was one of the most cluttered spaces in the entire house. It was the place that we put everything we didn't know where to put. (That and the garage, but that's another story and another chore for another day).

Since we don't technically use coats here in CA, I decided to make this closet our....... SHOE closet! We've spent too many days hauling piles of shoes upstairs to find them collecting back downstairs by the stairs. So I figured - what the heck, why don't we just store them downstairs in the "coat" closet??

I'm so glad I did this - it turned out so great and I know it will make our lives simpler. (Plus we can practice taking of our shoes off right when we get in the door to help keep our floors clean, an added bonus!)

ENTRY/HALL CLOSET


All in all it was a very productive day and organization makes me feel so much better!