Our next door neighbors have been expecting their little girl, and so in anticipation, I've been plotting and scheming.
It's what I do.
Blair (mama to be) and I are not particularly close, but we do have a lot of fun catching up in the backyard and at the occasional party. And beyond that, she's been miserable for the last few weeks. She's a tiny girl to begin with, and having the extra weight and pressure on her body is really taking it out of her, as it does many women in the last few weeks of pregnancy.
So I wanted to do something a little special to make her life easier, and if you know me, you know that means FOOD.
But not just any food. I needed comfort food.. But she's got a baby to take care of, so it has to be healthy comfort food.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
8/52 Spring Fever
We are almost a full week into the season of Lent. If you don't know what Lent is, well I encourage you to do some research. But essentially it's a time of self sacrifice. Traditionally during this time, you give up some habit or indulgence from your everyday life and replace it with prayer or meditation or similar reflection. Last year I gave up restaurants.. The year before that Shane and I gave up red meat.
This year, however, I've decided to do things a little bit differently.
I have decided this year to take on a house project every day. I made a list of ALL of the items in ALL of our freezers and refrigerators so that I can easily lookup what we have on hand.. i'm so tired of thinking we have no chicken in the house and going to the store, only to go through the chest freezer the next day to find out that we had several packages. I also cleared up the car port. Friday I cleared up the laundry room. Saturday I did some prep work for the vegetable garden. Sunday is a day of rest, so I didn't accomplish much, but I did go through some boxes in the attic and found a bunch of my old clothes, which I'm already putting to good use for a few crafts I'm working on.
Also, in the laundry room I found a bunch of old jars and vases ( When we bought this house, we had to move in very quickly, and a lot of the old junk from the previous owners was never gone through, so we were left with about 10 glass jars of various sized nails, for example)
Here's part of the collection:
So naturally my mind has been in overdrive! I have all sorts of ideas for all of my newfound treasures. Here's what I'm thinking so far:
1) a lot of my old T shirts have already begun being converted into a kitchen rug. I need one badly, and I don't have a sewing machine.. so this is a pretty idiotproof way to kill some birds with some stones. Hooray for things I might not be able to screw up!
Here's what it looks like so far ( I stopped for lunch, and will probably not pick it back up until wednesday, but you get the idea).
2) some of my other clothes with different fabrics are going to be converted into scarves - because everybody loves scarves these days and I can use them for myself or I can give them away. Hooray for free gifts!
3) a few of the shirts are being converted (once my sewing machine arrives at the end of the week) into baby dresses. This is partially just to practice my sewing skills and also to troubleshoot the hand-me-down machine which i've never used before, but also my next door neighbors are expecting a little one any day now, and so I'll have a perfect little benefactor for anything that I don't screw up. Hooray for babies!
I actually already started on a dress that is SUPERCUTE, but I cut it too small, so it's only going to be wearable for a minute... and I got sick of hand stitching it really quickly, as you can imagine. but whatever... it'll be perfect when the sewing machine gets here.
4) A couple of the things I found in the laundry room are going to be converted into halloween decor. Yes, I know it's spring - but Halloween is MY holiday, and I have ideas that never came to fruition from last year that I can get started on early for this year! These things include - a "raven" terrarium, and a glowing moon with a bat sillouhette, and probably a few jack-o-lantern-esque luminaries.
5) A few pieces are going to get painted to coordinate with the living room and kitchen decor, a few for the guest room, etc.
6) Who knows what else.. but Pinterest and I will figure something out, I'm sure.
In addition to all of this, in the back of my mind is my sister's Parisian Bistro party, which is a long way off (in May) but it never hurts to get started early.
I made a cake pedestal for the party, and was hoping to make a few more, but am having trouble finding the matching plates, so I may have to switch to a different style, unfortunately.
I think this one turned out pretty nicely, though. I decided to paint it white and just put pink and black ribbon on it so that I can keep the pedestal for future events and just switch out the ribbon according to whatever color scheme I'm using. I think this is perfect for the theme!
Also - I'm looking ito some serious closet reorganization in the upcoming weeks, and probably paying superclose attention to
Rubbermaid Closet Organization Products
They might be my saving grace.. reasonable priced and supereasy. *cross fingers*
This year, however, I've decided to do things a little bit differently.
I have decided this year to take on a house project every day. I made a list of ALL of the items in ALL of our freezers and refrigerators so that I can easily lookup what we have on hand.. i'm so tired of thinking we have no chicken in the house and going to the store, only to go through the chest freezer the next day to find out that we had several packages. I also cleared up the car port. Friday I cleared up the laundry room. Saturday I did some prep work for the vegetable garden. Sunday is a day of rest, so I didn't accomplish much, but I did go through some boxes in the attic and found a bunch of my old clothes, which I'm already putting to good use for a few crafts I'm working on.
Also, in the laundry room I found a bunch of old jars and vases ( When we bought this house, we had to move in very quickly, and a lot of the old junk from the previous owners was never gone through, so we were left with about 10 glass jars of various sized nails, for example)
Here's part of the collection:
So naturally my mind has been in overdrive! I have all sorts of ideas for all of my newfound treasures. Here's what I'm thinking so far:
1) a lot of my old T shirts have already begun being converted into a kitchen rug. I need one badly, and I don't have a sewing machine.. so this is a pretty idiotproof way to kill some birds with some stones. Hooray for things I might not be able to screw up!
2) some of my other clothes with different fabrics are going to be converted into scarves - because everybody loves scarves these days and I can use them for myself or I can give them away. Hooray for free gifts!
3) a few of the shirts are being converted (once my sewing machine arrives at the end of the week) into baby dresses. This is partially just to practice my sewing skills and also to troubleshoot the hand-me-down machine which i've never used before, but also my next door neighbors are expecting a little one any day now, and so I'll have a perfect little benefactor for anything that I don't screw up. Hooray for babies!
I actually already started on a dress that is SUPERCUTE, but I cut it too small, so it's only going to be wearable for a minute... and I got sick of hand stitching it really quickly, as you can imagine. but whatever... it'll be perfect when the sewing machine gets here.
4) A couple of the things I found in the laundry room are going to be converted into halloween decor. Yes, I know it's spring - but Halloween is MY holiday, and I have ideas that never came to fruition from last year that I can get started on early for this year! These things include - a "raven" terrarium, and a glowing moon with a bat sillouhette, and probably a few jack-o-lantern-esque luminaries.
5) A few pieces are going to get painted to coordinate with the living room and kitchen decor, a few for the guest room, etc.
6) Who knows what else.. but Pinterest and I will figure something out, I'm sure.
In addition to all of this, in the back of my mind is my sister's Parisian Bistro party, which is a long way off (in May) but it never hurts to get started early.
I made a cake pedestal for the party, and was hoping to make a few more, but am having trouble finding the matching plates, so I may have to switch to a different style, unfortunately.
I also have started working on a ribbon tree for spring. For those of you that haven't seen my ribbon trees, they look like this:
I'm trying to decide between making a green one with a birds nest in it, green with pink flowers, or a light pink one with little pink bows. Decisions, decisions.
But the BIG news in the house is that we have FINALLY gotten some work done on our staircase, which we tore out LAST MARCH. That's right, nearly a year ago the walls came down, and as of this month, we finally have drywall again. We're supposed to have all of the mudding and sanding and stuff done this weekend, and then we can paint! What a relief!
This is the first time since we bought the house in 2008 that we haven't had holes in our house.. it's SO nice to see the end of a project in sight. Most of the projects that we've actually COMPLETED have been less visible things (insulation put in, wiring replaced, ductwork replaced, etc) Most importantly, this was the LAST project that stands in our way of getting REAL FLOORS.. instead of the plywood that we now call our living room floor... which has also been there since we bought the house in '08.
But the BIG news in the house is that we have FINALLY gotten some work done on our staircase, which we tore out LAST MARCH. That's right, nearly a year ago the walls came down, and as of this month, we finally have drywall again. We're supposed to have all of the mudding and sanding and stuff done this weekend, and then we can paint! What a relief!
This is the first time since we bought the house in 2008 that we haven't had holes in our house.. it's SO nice to see the end of a project in sight. Most of the projects that we've actually COMPLETED have been less visible things (insulation put in, wiring replaced, ductwork replaced, etc) Most importantly, this was the LAST project that stands in our way of getting REAL FLOORS.. instead of the plywood that we now call our living room floor... which has also been there since we bought the house in '08.
Also - It's just a couple weeks til my Green Velvet Cake w/ Guinness Cream Cheese Frosting is due, and I'm super excited about some tricks I've learned since the last fiasco. Stay tuned to see how that turns out.
I'll keep you posted onthe crafties and daily projects as well. Until then, here's a picture of Kaptain being totally unimpressed by my new crafts. Poor baby.
I'll keep you posted onthe crafties and daily projects as well. Until then, here's a picture of Kaptain being totally unimpressed by my new crafts. Poor baby.
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