Office Organization

Adam and I have a small home office in our bedroom.  It's just a small desk and file cabinet, but it's all we need to house our laptop and printer and keep track of our budget.  I think it needs a bit of a makeover.  

Here's how our office nook looks now:

I love our little clothespin bulletin board and plan to incorporate it.  I also adore the canvas photograph that Adam got me for my birthday a few years ago.  I think it will get a new home somewhere else in our room.  I have plans to put up some new functional organization, as well as some decorative features.  I've wanted to add a little more pizzazz to our office nook for quite sometime now, so I've been collecting different things to use in the space.  

Here's what my stash includes:

-A bulletin board I found for cheap at Goodwill

-Our initials that I painted gold

-A magnetic strip with magnets that I found at a garage sale for $1

-Cute burlap artwork that I found at JoAnn's on clearance for $5.97 

I'm still hunting for a few pieces before I can start the project:

-Some kind of file folder organizer

-Maybe some bins to hold receipts that we need to enter on our budget

-Some more frames for photographs

Once I get those last few items rounded up, I can start arranging our new office wall.  I can't wait to start! 

Sprucing Up Our Bathroom Shelves

Adam started working on some new shelves for our guest bathroom recently, which I am super excited about.  The shelving we have in our bathroom now is okay, but it doesn't really fit the space.  We currently have three small box shelves hanging on the wall that I found at a garage sale last summer. They've done their job, but we're ready to put up something more substantial.  

Adam got the idea for new shelves from a book he checked out from the public library.  Yes, Adam and I still check out books from the public library.  I have a soft spot for libraries, having worked in them. Anyways, Adam likes to check out books that feature woodworking projects.  He found a book called The Handbuilt Home by Ana White.  We liked it so much that we surpassed our renewal limit at the library.  So we bought a copy on Amazon.    

I am so glad that he checked this book out, because every project is adorable.  Adam might not be so glad he showed it to me, because I now want him to build every project in it.  He already built me the wrapping paper station that is in our guest bedroom.  

The next project in the works is new bathroom wall storage.  It will fit the space above our toilet in our guest bathroom much better.  Plus, it will give me more space to put cutesy decorative stuff.  

Adam's already hard at work.  I sure am a lucky wife!

Moxibustion

Well, I can add moxibustion to my list of things I never thought I'd know about or do.  I learned about moxibustion during my third acupuncture session this past Friday.  Mary, my acupuncturist actually used moxibustion on me during my first acupuncture session.  But today she sent me home with instructions to do it myself at home three times a week.

Moxibustion is basically burning moxa, an herb, above your skin at specific points of the body.  You can get moxa sticks, which look like cigars.  You then light the moxa sticks using a candle until the end starts to get gray and ashy.  You're supposed to blow on the end of the stick to help it burn evenly.   

Once you have your moxa stick lit, you hold it directly above certain spots on your skin.  Mary marked ten spots on my feet, legs and stomach with little x's that I am supposed to burn moxa above.  You don't ever touch your skin, so it doesn't hurt. 

Mary just used pen, so I made a little diagram to help me remember where the spots were once the pen goes away.  Hopefully my diagram will make sense to me when the spots go away.  

The technique that was described to me was to hold the moxa stick above each spot until it gets too hot. Then you take it away and push your finger in the spot to disapate some of the heat.  After that you hold the stick back over the same spot.  Do this for a total of six times over each spot.  The spot will turn a bright pink.  And I'm supposed to do this three times a week, leaving at least a day in between times.  

I was told that Mary will be able to tell if I've been doing this or not by feeling my pulse.  I've always been a rule-follower, so I'll be sure to follow Mary's directions.  The whole point of doing this is to help balance my Qi, promote blood circulation and promote fertility.  It's not hard and doesn't hurt, but I do feel a bit silly while doing it.  I did it in the bathroom so I could run the fan and suck up some of the strange, incense-y smell.  Maybe I'll have to get some beads for the bathroom door.