Blog

around here

this bag gets packed several times a day with different stuff, usually swimsuits, socks, and shorts

library books for the win

her shirt matches the pillow

still love these stamps

painting my toenails and getting a Project Life spread done lifted my spirits

all of the stuffed animals and dolls need to be fed

choosing new carpet is kind of hard but very exciting

on a solo Target trip I bought a $6 full-length mirror the better to take Instagram selfies, of course

cross-stitching with 30 Rock

on a walk to fight the no-nap tantrum

***

On Friday afternoon as I was wrapping up at work I felt so energized, inspired, and geared up for life in general and the weekend in particular. Then on Saturday morning when Meredith woke me up at 5:30 per usual with whining and neediness and I looked around the house at all the projects I wanted to tackle that I never seem to have time or money for, I found myself getting really down.

Those moods can easily take over, and I was getting really negative quickly so I did some active things to fight it. First I took a shower. I made Meredith get in with me and even though she cried at first (she had already been crying beforehand) by the end of it she was happily playing with the water. Then I painted my toenails, put on makeup, and got dressed in real clothes. Already I felt a lot better. I did the chores, because they really don’t take long and I didn’t want them hanging over my head. Then we both ate a really good breakfast. By the time David got up (Saturday is his day to sleep in) I was back in a decent mood. Meredith went down for an early nap which we both needed and I was able to get a Project Life spread done and in the meantime David picked up a bunch of library holds for me.

Then we did something suuuuper exciting. We went to a flooring store to look into replacing our carpet! We have the worst carpet ever (it’s just in the bedrooms and hallway at least) and our dogs have utterly destroyed it and so even though we’d rather have wood to match the rest of the house, carpet is half the cost so we’re just going to replace it and then keep the dogs out of those rooms from now on. It is going to make a HUGE difference in how all the rooms look and how we feel about our house and having people over. I’m going to have to do a before and after video to really show you. So then David and I talked about other home improvement projects we want to make happen before the baby is born and now I’m just really excited about it. I’m so grateful that we have some money in savings that we can use for this and keep the rest of our (very tight) budget intact.

After that little excursion David took Meredith to get pizza and to my parents’ house to watch football and they were gone for four whole hours! I made a lovely solo trip to Target and then kicked back on the couch, did a bunch of cross-stitching, and watched 30 Rock. It was awesome.

I’m glad Saturday was so productive because not much happened on Sunday other than church stuff. Mere decided not to nap so in order to keep the tantrum away we took a walk in the heat but at least she was happy. I got a little computer time in while David watched football with her on the couch and then we went to our small group and had a lot of laughs. So the weekend turned out great after all. :)

September 9, 2013
quick takes

Linking up! These quick takes are super fun to come up with and write, by the way. I recommend them.

one

Last weekend was a long weekend, which was awesome, and I was super productive at home, with hobbies, and had a bunch of good family time too. So it really is worth it, but man oh man are we paying for it this week at work. Every day is just jam-packed with patients, and as soon as I clock in there are already 2-3 waiting for me. I’m tired is what I’m saying.

two

We were scheduled to have our anatomy scan yesterday and I was really looking forward to it, but they had to reschedule me to the 16th. I was bummed, but it turns out it was a good thing because David was also super busy at work and we both would have felt really guilty taking a half day.

three

Epic toddler meltdowns are happening on the reg in our house now, about once a week or so. It’s hardly even worth mentioning when they happen anymore but yet I am anyway. I’m glad it’s not every day, but the hours-long inconsolable screaming is pretty tough to handle after working all day.

four

So last weekend one thing I worked on was my cross stitch project. This is the state of it right now:

I have been working on it for months and months because I don’t have time for it very often and when I picked it up over the weekend I discovered I had stitched an entire section in the wrong place and it took over an hour to undo and I almost gave up but I didn’t. Really though, cross stitch is so much fun for me, but is it just the most granny hobby ever or what? I don’t think I know anyone in real life of my generation who does it. I don’t care though.

five

Speaking of crafts, it’s not even technically fall yet but I’m about to start talking Christmas up in here. There’s a reason though. David’s grandmother has made all the grandkids and great-grandkids their stockings thus far (this is Meredith’s). She recently passed away, but we have not finished procreating! Specifically, my niece Karley needs a stocking for this year so I have agreed to take the lead on making her one. This is the one she chose:

It is kind of intricate, but there really are no simple options. I have never done anything like this before. I’m excited for the challenge, and a little nervous about pulling it off. The kit should arrive in a couple of days and I need to get working on it ASAP.

six

I am in love with this post on Book Riot, which is a bunch of Winnie-the-Pooh quotes that are good life lessons. I actually teared up at several of them. I can’t wait to read stuff like this with Meredith and future kiddos. Some children’s lit is just the best.

September 6, 2013
project life 2013 : weeks 31 – 33

I am getting back on track! The weeks aren’t lining up exactly because this spread encompasses roughly the first half of August, but eventually I’ll get back on a two-week schedule. One thing that helped me a lot in putting this together was that I had a lot of horizontal photos to pull from.

I’m still keeping things simple and it was nice to not have any inserts to deal with. The first page was pretty much all about our impromptu trip to Nashville to vist a friend.

I loved the video of Meredith chasing geese so I uploaded it to YouTube and printed a QR code for it.

This pocket includes the bulk of the journaling about the trip. I wanted to write more than what would fit on a 3×4 and since it was personal I thought a fold-out card would work best. I hope the arrow will clue future me in to the fact that there is more written inside. :)

The right side is daily life stuff. A couple of Meredith playing with her cousins, at the store with daddy (he won her a stuffed animal that she carries around with her now; so cute), playing in the sandbox, and a bump shot with a recap of my latest doctor’s appointment. Then I used one journaling card to write about a few other things that I didn’t have pictures of.

Feels good to be getting back into the swing of things!

September 4, 2013
quick takes

Still loving the quick takes around here. Soon I’ll get myself together and make a plan for the blog, but it hasn’t happened yet.

one

Remember the Book of Lists series I was doing and then unceremoniously dropped? I’m resurrecting it now that I feel like a human again. Since this is a long weekend I should be able to get it together for early next week. I think a few people are still kinda sorta playing along but from now on it won’t be so structured. I’ll still aim for the first Monday of the month and I’ll do my best to announce the topic ahead of time, but be ye warned that it may not always happen such. That said, next week’s topic is celebrity crushes and it is a surprisingly hard one for me. I could only think of two! Pretty sure it’s because I don’t have time to watch TV or movies or read magazines. So I’ve been doing some (really difficult) research and I’ve come up with another, but here is where you tell me your crushes so that they can become mine as well. Go.

two

Quick Meredith update. We’ve had a few screamy nights around here but only one that was truly horrible. We were at church small group and she had an epic meltdown with screams that should only be used in case of torture. I don’t think “being moved from my place at the bottom of the slide so the big kids don’t hit me on the way down” counts, but that’s just me. Anyway it was super embarrassing and we had to leave early, and this continued all the way home and for an hour later, and then David had to run an errand so I got desperate and decided to drive her around till she fell asleep and here is the string of texts I sent him during that time:

Yes I had given her candy to get her to be quiet. I only wish I had thought of it when we were still at church group.

three

One more thing about Meredith. She got impacted. I felt terrible as I was watching her try to poop because I couldn’t stop laughing. Her face was just too hilarious though. After awhile I could tell she was in pain, and I’m a nurse, so I did what came to mind and took care of it manually. So that’s how my nights have been going this week.

four

Pregnancy update: not much to report. I have a huge appetite now. Heartburn is becoming more prominent. Peeing a lot more. Next week is our big anatomy scan and I’m getting more and more nervous about it. I have completely irrational fears like there won’t be a baby in there at all, as well as completely morbid fears like it stopped growing awhile ago, and then normal worries about it looking healthy, and then trivial worries about what the sex will be. I know I’m going to be happy either way, but I think I will also be sad either way. So I’m ready to just find out and deal with it.

five

On the subject of babies, I’m not sure if I’m going to have a shower or not because we have most of the essentials, but I’m trying to think of things that would be nice to have that I didn’t have the first time around, or are helpful with two kids. So far I only have four items on the list, so what would you add? This doesn’t have to be necessary stuff but just stuff you liked.

six

Lately I’m obsessed with collecting audiobooks from the library to put in my queue. I request them in CD form, upload them to iTunes, then I have a nice selection to choose from depending on my mood. And because I don’t want to steal from the library, I delete them when I’m finished listening. I’ve currently maxed out my library hold allowance requesting the Harry Potter series on audio and almost all of the books on Janssen’s list. It’s so satisfying though. I’m also in the middle of A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin and everyone says it’s the best in the series and so far I agree. It makes me so happy to have a book to be obsessed with.

seven

Long weekend ahead!!! Even though we are totally going to pay for it at work when we come back, it’s still worth it. I would love to have a productive weekend so my plans (apart from normal chores and such) include working on Project Life, Book of Lists, and hopefully some cross stitch, a desperately-needed date with David, a family birthday BBQ, and maaaybe some blog planning & writing.

Hey look, I managed to fit in seven takes today! Happy weekend.

August 30, 2013
project life 2013 : weeks 27 – 30 (july)

I am finally finished putting together the spread for July. I’m so behind and I’m not loving doing it this way. The first half of July was still first trimester haziness and then towards the end I emerged from that and began to feel better, but we were super busy. David’s grandmother passed away so we had a lot of family stuff going on, and Meredith had her birthday and party. So far in August I’ve been feeling great (hence the blogging I’ve been able to do) but it’s taking awhile to get all areas of my life on track like they used to be. The scrapbooking schedule is not a priority, in other words.

So here it is. There are two inserts: one has Instagram photos I took on Meredith’s actual birthday and on the back are photos from her party which was the following weekend. For those I relied almost solely on my mom’s iPhone pictures so I trimmed them down and mounted them on paper to fit into the square pockets. The second insert is this blog post and I chose to leave the back blank.

There are many reasons that a monthly spread isn’t working for me, but one of them is that although I’m not taking a TON of photos these days I still have more than can fit, and too many of them are vertical iPhone photos. So this layout is mainly pictures with three chunks of journaling about big events: Meredith’s toddler phases, Gigi’s death, and a pregnancy update.

In putting this together I tried to keep it really simple and easy. A little stamping and similar labels on all the vertical photos to keep them coordinated. I used mostly neutrals on all the papers since there was color enough in the pictures.

Same thing happening on the right side.

Here is the insert for the sort-of day in the life I did on Meredith’s birthday. If I had taken better notes I would have included the times on the photos but I didn’t, so I didn’t.

This is just a closeup of the tab I used for the insert. Nothing exciting but it says it all.

And photos from Meredith’s party. There were a lot more but these give a decent overview. I just wish we had more pics of the rest of the people that were there.

So that’s that! Next weekend I’m going to attempt to get another layout done that includes just the first half of August. My goals with this project starting now are to take more horizontal pictures and to get back to bi-weekly spreads.

August 26, 2013