Gardening Update 07/05/23
It’s been a while since my last garden update so I thought I would write up a quick one today even though my garden is in pretty bad shape. It looks like my last garden update was in April of 2022. Every year I think […]
Tag: frugal
2023 Goals Mid-Year Check In
As I sit here mid-way through 2023 with my first official Covid infection I thought I would take some time to look at my progress with my 2023 goals. For 2023 I wanted to focus on self-care and take time to relax every day. I […]
Oscoey Shop Update #3
On Friday 05/05/23 Oscoey Shop will have our Tulip Collection 2023 drop at 10:00 am PT. I was very inspired by my trip to the tulip fields a couple of weeks ago and took so many photos! I knew right away I would try to get another shop update done in time for Mother’s Day so I immediately ordered postcards and stickers. I have also been working on a couple of cross stitch patterns but there was simply not enough time for me to finish those. I may add them to the shop on Monday since they are both Digital Downloads but I am not sure if I will finish them in time.
I am completely in love with how my stickers turned out. They are glossy and the colors of the tulips showed up really well. I have a couple of our favorite daffodils in there as well. These are selling individually at $2.00 for the round ones and $2.50 for the rectangular stickers. I will also have a pack of all eight stickers available for $16.00 which is less than what you would pay for all of the stickers individually.
For my postcards I used a higher quality cardstock than my previous cards. I am selling these in a pack of ten with a bonus min-sticker pack for $10.00 and the photos look amazing on the higher quality paper!
This time I also put together packs of all the items in my Tulip Collection in a limited quantity for $25.00 which is discounted from the price of everything at $28.00 and includes the bonus mini-sticker pack.
The mini-stickers in this collection are some of my favorites. I may order more and use them for decorating packages later on in the year but for this Tulip Collection I did not order as much inventory as for past collections so everything is limited quantity.
Oscoey Shop will be opening up at 10:00 am PT on Friday May 5, 2023.
We also hope to see you at our live crafting together event on 05/15/23 on our YouTube channel which can be found here. I will be starting my large Purple Tulip Fields pattern and chatting. Stitch along with me or bring a craft of your own.
Links:
Arboretum in April
Recently we went to the Washington Arboretum near the University of Washington in Seattle. We have gone there many times in the past but have not been there for quite some time. We love to walk the trails and learn about the plants from all […]
Oscoey Shop Update #2
This week we had our second shop update for Oscoey Shop located here or by clicking the link in the top menu of this page. Opening up the shop has awoken the creative side in me I forgot I had. My journey over the past […]
6 year Blogiversary and Oscoey Shop Opening!
In honor of my 6 year Blogiversary coming up at the end of March I thought I would share a little bit about what is going on in the Oscoey world. First, the most exciting thing, is we are opening up a retail store called Oscoey Shop which you can find linked below and here. This has been a long time coming and will feature artwork, nature photography, puzzles, cross stitch designs and more to fit in with the Oscoey lifestyle. At Oscoey we believe in practicing self-care daily, working on financial independence, spending time in nature, growing our own food (even if it’s just a pot of herbs on the windowsill), and eating good food. We have a deep love for family and doing quiet things together. Art is always happening at the Oscoey house!
Oscoey Shop
This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
I started my goal of practicing self-care every day at the beginning of 2023 after spending the last few years losing myself in the corporate world and with the pressure to succeed at the “right” thing. Quitting my job in 2022 after a family emergency was the best thing I could have done for myself. I am slowly recovering from the burnout of working 50+ hours a week plus taking care of kids full-time during Covid and the intensity of our schedule that happened when the kids returned to school.
Family has always come first for me and after a year of self-reflection I have discovered that I can’t be my best self if I am pulled in too many directions. Working for a company at a high intensity job left me with nothing to give at the end of the day and many sacrifices were made, including with my health. Over the last year I have focused on eating better, getting my sleep, cutting back on coffee, spending more quality time with my kids and doing something every day to take care of myself and relax. It has really helped!
Although I did go back to school last September and I am super busy with that I have way better control over my schedule and if I need to take a day (or a week) and just rest I can. All of my classes are online and most of them are self-paced so I am able to work on assignments when time allows. Winter quarter was pretty intense for me because my kids don’t have a lot of school the first 6 weeks of the year, everyone always gets sick at some point during that time, and I had some family stuff going on in February so most of my school work was squished into the last four weeks of the quarter. I was able to set up a schedule for my assignments and weekly goals on what needed to be done and this worked for me. Everything was completed on time and I got decent grades in my classes too so I am pretty happy with how the quarter turned out.
Most of my self-care goals this year revolve around finishing some of my stitching WIPs, reading those books I forgot to finish, exercising and working through all of the puzzles I bought at the start of the year for my focus on puzzles. I am still really excited to work on all of these! For January I was able to work on some puzzles with my “If Fish Could Walk” New Year’s start that can be found here. For February I focused on my stitching finishing one of my freebies and made great progress on both my Alphabet Zoo and my Computer Wizard pieces. March was all about finishing up my quarter and getting my shop up and running. I plan on getting back into the swing of things with my puzzles for April. I am still working on “The Craft Cupboard” which can be found here.
I am really excited for the next year of blogging. Spring is here and I will start posting more gardening posts as I get plants in the ground and my flowers start to bloom. We are also going to be spending more time out in the woods this year and I will be doing regular shop updates throughout the summer so look for those as well.
My YouTube channel will continue to feature grocery hauls and shop updates on a regular basis. I have paused on my weekly Fridge and Freezer Recaps for now but I will film every time I do a pantry or fridge clean out.
I wanted to thank those of you that have supported my blog over the years. A lot has changed since I first started writing and I have not been very consistent but I still love doing it and will keep it up for as long as I can. For now, check out the shop, my YouTube channel and look out for garden content coming soon!!!
Links:
2023 Goals
My goals for 2023 revolve quite a bit around self-care and doing things that make me happy such as cross-stitching, gardening, puzzles, hanging out with my family and reading. I am also trying to make them pretty open ended so I don’t feel to rigid […]
2022 Goals End of Year Reflection
2022 was a year with mixed results for me. As I reflect on my 2022 goals post from March of this year I am struck by how different my year turned out from where it started. I started the year gung ho about my career […]
2023 Goals: Puzzles
It’s that time of year again for goal setting and reflection. I am hopeful for 2023 and one of my focuses will be self-care. I love puzzles so I am setting a goal of working on my puzzles for 2023. I was very inspired by Karen Puzzles on YouTube (link here) with her journey towards the puzzle championships. I had no idea there were competitions!!! I have not found any in my area yet but I am definitely keeping an eye out. All puzzles mentioned in this post are listed at the bottom so if you are here for my 2023 list feel free to scroll on down.
This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
I started my 2023 puzzle journey in 2022 with some practice puzzles. We have a bunch stashed from over the years so I dug through our pile and started puzzling. I timed my first one which was Grandpa’s Garage at 300 pieces and it took me 1 hour, 18 min and 56 seconds to complete. If that seems fast to you, this was a super easy puzzle with large pieces. For comparison, in 2022 at the World Jigsaw Championship the fastest times for this 500 piece London Postcard puzzle was 34 min and 25 seconds which is amazing!
Next I tackled the 1000 piece The Craft Cupboard by Colin Thompson. This one took me about eight hours but, huge caveat, I had help from my husband with sorting for the first four hours which is when everything is the most difficult. No doubt if I had done this on my own it would have taken way longer. I loved this artist and I’m already thinking about which ones to add to my list for the future. I would really like to do the massive 18,000 piece Magical Bookshelf but one, it is super expensive and two, I have no idea where I would put it to keep it safe from dogs and kids. I am sure it is the size of my living room (or bigger) and logistically I don’t know how it would work.
I pulled this 500 piece Home for Christmas Puzzle out of our stash and it was unopened. We got this one out of one of those random Woot boxes many years ago. Did you ever do those? My husband was really into them for a few years and we did get a few good things out of them but it was mostly stuff we gave away. I will put a photo of the box below but I could not find this one on Amazon although it looks like you can find it on Ebay if you are interested.
I found a similar one on Amazon here. I didn’t time this puzzle because my daughter really wanted to help with it and honestly if she had not helped me it would still be sitting there undone. The quality on this one was not great and it was hard to tell if the pieces fit together correctly and with the glare I was having a really hard time seeing the colors. If I did another one of these I would try to change the lighting up a bit and see if that helps.
Lastly I started this 500 piece Golden Gate Bridge puzzle of unknown origin from my family room. This is the brand Costco carries so we probably got it from there. I had a great time sorting this one and had it sorted in a record 15 min into edges, the bridge, some sky and then the rest of the pieces.
Unfortunately I quickly remembered why we don’t buy this brand of puzzle any more. The pieces do not fit well together and I really struggled to get the edge put together. I gave up after about an hour and started working on the clouds. I am really glad I didn’t time this one because it will probably take several hours. My kids have been helping me a little bit but they are also discouraged by how difficult it is to see if the pieces actually fit together. I will post a photo here on my Instagram when I finish this one, hopefully before the end of the year!
To keep track of my puzzles I will be filming as much as I can and posting it here on my YouTube channel. I have created some boards on Pinterest linked here and below. The completed list is currently blank but as I work on my puzzles I will add them to the completed one. For now, I am finishing up what I have started and trying to pry out of my kids which puzzles they bought me for Christmas. Ha ha!
Happy holidays and puzzling everyone!
Puzzle links:
World Jigsaw Champions Website
World Puzzle Championship Individual Puzzle:
The Grandpa’s Garage puzzle is a Goodwill find and I could not find a copy but here is an interesting 300 piece substitute:
September 2022 Grocery Spending Wrap Up
September was an expensive month for us as far as groceries go. All of our stock up trips seemed to happen this September and that caused our grocery total to be higher than usual. We also have been trying to eat healthier which of course […]