Monthly Archives: July 2012

MBFPCP: Days eighteen through twenty-seven

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Holy ginormous update, Batman. I’m not going to do honey bunches of pictures for this entry because it’s just too much! And also because I didn’t take pictures because I was too lazy/nothing I did was really interesting enough to justify a photo of its own. So here are the pins for this chunk of the project, complete with a new format for reviewing them!

Day Eighteen
The pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/213146994834626749/
The process: I tried repairing a scratched DVD with a banana. It seemed easy enough, and I was thrilled at the notion of being able to watch a previously-unwatchable movie again. Unfortunately, I think this DVD was just too far beyond repair for even the cleverest tricks, so it was a no-go. I’m sure if the DVD were less deeply damaged, it would have been more successful.

Day Nineteen
The pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/213146994834786225/
The process: I truly dislike exercising. I know it’s good for me and I always feel good after I do it, but working out is torture lite to me. It’s boring and it hurts. But I thought that perhaps a quick workout to some favorite songs might make it a lot more enjoyable…and it did! I chose a couple of songs that make me feel like a badass (for example, the cover of “Immigrant Song” from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) and went to town. I definitely felt like I had a decent workout and it went by pretty quickly. Hopefully I can memorize the exercises and their order so I don’t have to keep checking my computer screen the next time I do this.

Day Twenty
The pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/213146994834751238/
The process: I’m not the biggest fan of eggs in the world, but I’ve been eating them more often to try and get some more protein. Of course, hard-boiled egg shells can be a real pain to peel off, so this trick seemed smart. It worked pretty well! I’m still a bit of an eggshell spaz, but it was definitely smoother than usual.

Day  Twenty-one
The pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/213146994834665509/
The process: I love ranch dressing. But I don’t like being chubby. So this seemed like a great way to avoid that particular side effect of the deliciousness that is your average bottled ranch. And oh…my…YUM. It was. I highly recommend this if you’re looking for a lower-calorie way to dress a salad or enjoy a dip! The recipe makes quite a lot and it’s absolutely delicious.

Day Twenty-two
The pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/213146994834549568/
The process: Okay, it’s not like this is particularly innovative or difficult, but it was pretty. I wanted something nice for my dining table, so I floated some rosemary in a bowl along with a tea light. It looked quite nice and I felt very fancy.

Day Twenty-three
The pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/213146994834547104/
The process: I drink coffee like it’s my job, so as you may imagine, I end up wasting a lot of coffee grounds. I really didn’t know most of these tricks, so this was a fun pin to stumble across! I made a mask out of the coffee grounds and an egg white. I have no idea if it made me look any different, but it felt nice and it was fun to pamper myself a bit. I should try it on my cellulite-ridden, post-baby thighs and see if that helps…

Day Twenty-four
The pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/213146994834547052/
The process: I’m cheating. I actually started doing this over a month ago. But it WORKS! It works wonderfully! I love green onions and use them a lot, so I figured I’d save a buck and grow them myself. They really do start sprouting in about two or three days, and I’ve been harvesting the same onions this whole time. It’s pretty cool to have them available and fresh whenever I want them! Plus, this is the first time I’ve grown something without killing it almost immediately, so that’s pretty cool.

Day Twenty-five
The pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/213146994834546843/
The process: Since I use my cutting boards all the time, they’re starting to look a little dingy. I love lemons and almost always have them in the house, so I figured it only made sense to give this one a try. It worked like a charm and my boards look (and smell) good as new!

Day Twenty-six
The pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/213146994834546805/
The process: Having a baby means I wash my hands more often than Monk. Before bottles, after diaper changes, and anytime it looks like my fingers are about to become teethers, I wash my hands. While it’s great that they’re clean, they are starting to dry out and get a little rough. I tried this olive oil sugar scrub and it worked really nicely. My hands felt much softer and it was far cheaper than any hand exfoliation system I’ve ever seen!

Day Twenty-seven
The pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/213146994834546394/
The process: Diagram or no diagram, I will never be able to fold these stupid things. Pin fail.

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Feet are awesome.

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So Ethan discovered his feet the other day.

Okay, correction: he discovered that he can chew on his feet.

I find this incredibly adorable. He grabs onto his little foot, folds himself in half like a baby Murphy bed, and starts sucking on his foot and chewing on his toes with a vengeance. It’s so cool to watch him discover things these days – he’s so interactive and excited about figuring out his body. He also just learned to roll from his back to his side…although the first time that happened, he immediately started crying because he freaked himself out so much. Poor thing. He seems all right with it now, at least.

A friend of mine recently asked what it is that babies do, exactly. And it’s a fair question. For a while, they really don’t do much. They mostly sleep, waking up only to eat and get changed and occasionally scream for God knows what reason, because New Mommy and Daddy sure don’t. That stage goes on for a while. But just when you’re desperately longing for something, anything, that makes you feel like a parent instead of a robot, that’s when babies start smiling and cooing and realizing they have hands. That might not sound terribly exciting, but think of it this way:  everything a baby does, from crying to cooing to sucking their thumb, is entirely new to them. It’s kind of amazing to get to watch someone do everything for the very first time. And watching how fascinated they are with these seemingly simple things is so much fun. In that way, babies are a lot like stoners: they’re not terribly mobile and their minds are blown by things like ceiling fans and anything that lights up.

So while watching a baby figure out that those things at the end of his legs are part of him and are an excellent pacifier substitute might sound boring to some, to me, it is precious.

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MBFPCP: Days ten through seventeen

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Yikes. I’m a wee bit behind on this. I’ve been doing the equivalent of a project a day, but I have had to double- and triple-up a few times (should there be a hyphen there? Too lazy to Google. Someone just tell me). I am, in fact, caught up through today, but I haven’t actually taken pictures of every project – a couple just aren’t really interesting enough to need a picture from me. The one from Pinterest is good enough (or better).

So, what did I do on days ten through seventeen?

A freaking lot.

I tossed out one more bag of junk as part of my modified “40 Bags in 40 Days” project (which, by the way, I may revisit next year for Lent. Not because I observe Lent, but because it would probably be easier to remember to do it). The bag of junk came from all over the apartment, rather than one concentrated area, so there’s really no point in taking a picture. But after getting rid of 10 very full bags of useless items/trash, I can say that I feel a lot lighter. It’s amazing what a difference a small effort like that can make! It took maybe 10 minutes a day to fill a bag, sometimes less, and it looks so much better.

I attempted to turn a cheese grater into an earring stand, which is a great idea in theory, but it turns out that I really don’t have as much jewelry as I thought I did. Basically, I have a (unpainted. I know. Lazy) cheese grater sitting on my dresser with four pairs of earrings dangling from it. So it looks kind of stupid. Perhaps if I actually paint it and treat myself to a few more pairs of earrings, it will look better.

I made my own air freshener, using baking soda and essential oils. I used peppermint since it’s one of my favorite scents, and it actually worked incredibly well. The scent is strong, but not overwhelming, and it’s ridiculously easy to do. I’ll probably redo it with a prettier container, since right now it’s sitting in a Tupperware container covered in tinfoil. Not terribly attractive.

I did my best to organize my laundry closet with what resources I had. We had been given a set of baskets for a wedding gift, and I love them but have never had a place to put them until now. I was so glad to find a good use for them!

Before

After

Organizing under my kitchen sink didn’t really go as planned since I realized I didn’t actually have any of the materials featured in the pin. But I guess it looks a bit better.

Before

After…not sure why it ended up looking so much more crowded post-organization, but whatever.

Pin fail: I was planning to organize my entryway like in this pin, and I even had a cute wicker basket all ready to go. And then I learned that the basket didn’t fit on the table. So I guess we’ll try that one again some other time.

In attempting to clean and organize my fridge to look more like this, all that happened was me getting very depressed over the fact that there is absolutely no food in my fridge and I really need to go shopping. And I also need to scrub my fridge, so no pictures because it’s kind of embarrassing.

I made these coffee cubes, which are awesome. I liked them a lot – I poured vanilla almond milk over them – but Adam was the one who really freaked for them. He likes coffee but can’t drink much caffeine without feeling sick (and I don’t buy decaf because it’s stupid). These let him get the coffee taste and drink a ton of his beloved milk without overcaffeinating.

Finally, I turned the hangers in my closet around to see what I really wear. I thought this was a great idea since I always have trouble remembering the last time I wore some of my more formal stuff. I’m not wearing much from my closet at all right now, since most is still too small or meant for cooler weather, but I figured it would be a good idea to go ahead and get it taken care of now.

So it was an eventful few days. And I know I’m still technically behind, but I promise I’ll get the documentation up as soon as I can. Days eighteen through twenty-five will probably wind up being another big post like this one, since we leave for the beach on the 26th and that will wind up being cocktail week, natch.

If you’ve got any great pins you’d like to share, send ‘em my way!

Bonus post: HAPPY FOUR-MONTH BIRTHDAY, ETHAN!

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You guys. I have a 4-month-old. Wasn’t he born, like, 15 minutes ago?

I can’t believe how quickly the past four months have gone. Ethan can sit up now almost completely on his own. He tries to walk when we hold him up. He can stand in his exersaucer. He drools like a bloodhound. He chews on anything he can get his hands on – and sometimes he just chews on his hands. He giggles and laughs and responds to things. His tickle response is kicking in (and it is so cute). He is totally freaking me out.

Happy four-month birthday (one day late, sorry), my sweet Tomato!

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MBFPCP: Days four through nine

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Okay, so I realized that daily updates were probably going to get really annoying, really fast. So I’m probably going to start consolidating entries about this project into weekly or twice-a-week progress reports so that I can dedicate more entries to what this blog was originally about – parenting and mommying and general baby-related stuff.

But in the interest of showing off my progress with the great decluttering, check it out:

Our desk looks like…well, a desk. The stuff on the seat is our chessboard (which does not currently have a home, but which may end up residing in our closet) and several picture frames that need pictures in them! I’ll get around to it eventually, I’m sure.

This cabinet currently resides in our dining room and has sort of been a catch-all. I’m hoping to use it in Ethan’s room once we move him into it. I think it might be a nice place to store some clothes.

The closet took four bags and four days to complete. I know it doesn’t look all that different, but I got rid of a LOT of stuff and have lots of space now.  I think we’ll be moving a few more items to other parts of the apartment to tidy it up even more. I’m really glad it looks better – it was stressing me out a bit.

Tomorrow, I’m going to fill one more bag o’ stuff to get rid of and then choose the next pin to try…I’m obnoxiously excited about this project. It’s ridiculous.

MBFPCP: Day three

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On this third installment of My Big Fat Pinterest Challenge Project, I attempted to tackle my pantry.

My pantry is ridiculous, so please judge gently.

When we moved here, Adam was in charge of putting pantry items away, so (bless him), there was pretty much no rhyme or reason to where things were. Spices were together, but everything else just would up wherever there was space. What’s more, a lot of waste ended up in there – items that were no longer good, things that we didn’t need anymore, and a few random things that just didn’t belong in the pantry (which I discovered today). So while I am eternally grateful to Adam since he had the daunting task of setting up our home more or less completely on his own, I felt that there was a bit of room for improvement.

The obligatory “before” shots:

Logic: there is none.

This is our upper cabinet, which was basically just stuffed with stuff.

I have to confess that I didn’t actually get a full bag out of this decluttering day. I consolidated some spices (for some reason I had three mostly-empty containers of cinnamon, two of cayenne pepper, and a two sea salt grinders. No idea), rearranged a few things, and tossed out some stuff. The end result?

I know. It doesn’t really look all that different. Honestly, with the pantry, I wasn’t aiming to make it perfectly organized and orderly and logical. I just wanted to improve it a little and start to get it moving in that general direction. I’m sure I’ll be revisiting the pantry in the future of this project, but for today, even this little bit of improvement is enough for me. It feels much better!

MBFPCP: Day two

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Hoo boy.

Today was…well, it sure was a day.

Ethan is going through a Daddy phase right now. He finds comfort in Adam more than me, and while I know he is a baby and therefore isn’t doing it to be difficult, it sure feels difficult when I’m alone with him all day and can’t make him stop crying. He pretty much cried all day unless he was asleep, so I couldn’t get around to doing the second day of my 10 Bags in 10 Days, based on this pin, until about 7:00! I put Ethan to bed and cleaned as quickly (and quietly) as I could.

Before, the bathroom looked like this:

Pay no attention to the lady in her husband’s pajama pants.

And my brother’s bathroom wasn’t much better (though in the interest of his privacy, I didn’t take pictures of his). However, about ten minutes and one grocery bag full of junk later, it looked like this:


I ended up rearranging the medicine cabinets so that medicine and first aid was on top (a habit I want to get into now, before Ethan’s old enough to reach), then moved my makeup and our other grooming items into the middle and bottom shelves. Since I don’t wear makeup every day, it made sense to get it out of the way to free up the counter. Under the sink still looks a little messy, but it is loads better than it was and I can actually see what everything is!

In my brother’s bathroom, I found something I had forgotten about…six boxes of that Nads hair removal stuff. When I was pregnant, I had this idea to stock up since waxing at home would be so much cheaper and easier than shaving my legs every couple of days! What a genius idea! Until I used it once and thought I was dying. Y’all, that stuff hurts. I am not tough enough to deal with it. And then there was a leak that damaged the other boxes of it. And I still have no idea why they were in Jonathan’s bathroom. So, yes, a total waste of money, but it’s a great (somewhat embarrassing) story for me to share on my blog.

Tomorrow, I’m planning to attempt cleaning out the pantry. Yikes.

My Big Fat Pinterest Challenge Project: Day One

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Yay, I did it! I actually started my project like a big girl. I decided that it would be easiest to focus on household organization for the month of July. That’s usually my #1 most frustrating thing – I’ve grown to really dislike clutter and I get aggravated when things are out of place. I know for a fact it’s Mommy Instinct (yes, it’s capitalized, because it is a Thing) because clutter never used to bother me that much. I always wanted my place to be clean, but never exactly organized. Not anymore.

Pinterest has lots of great ideas and tutorials for getting your place to be as organized as possible. One pin that struck me was called “40 Bags in 40 Days“, in which the pinner got rid of a bag of junk every day for over a month. I am doing a modified version of that and committing to 10 bags in 10 days. Today, I focused on my nightstand.

You might not think that something as small as a nightstand would hold a bag’s worth of junk. You would think wrong. My nightstand ended up being additional storage in the move (which, if you recall, was pretty hit-the-ground-running, so we were stuffing belongings into anything that would hold them). Which means it looked like this:

I know. It’s awful. I seriously don’t know why half of those things were in there. I found a bag that goes around a bottle of Crown Royal and a plastic cucumber that was apparently a cast gift from one of the productions of As You Like It that Adam was in. Why was plastic vegetation given as a gift? I don’t know. I’m sure it made sense in context, but I had no context, so I just put the plastic cucumber on Adam’s nightstand, realizing the weirdness of placing a fake, green, phallic vegetable where everyone could potentially see it and do a double-take. And then I started plotting many, many practical jokes. Bwahaha.

Anyway, I cleared out most of what was in the drawer, did some re-arranging, designated some junk, and put a few things back where they actually belonged. The end result?

Yaaaaay, it’s a big-girl drawer! I’ve got my girly stuff like lotions, tea lights, and a lavender infuser oil burner thingy that I got for Christmas and forgot about (sorry and also thanks, Lindsey, I promise I’ll use it now that it has been re-found!), as well as our Comcast information because I haven’t figured out a safer place for it just yet.

I’m feeling really good about this. It took all of five minutes and I significantly de-cluttered a problem area of my home. Now I have a lot more space in that drawer if I need, several unnecessary items are gone for good, and I, you know, followed through on something I said I would do. I’ll be accepting my medal any time now.

Tomorrow: the Great Decluttering continues when I tackle…THE BATHROOMS!!! Dun dun dunnnnnn.

And now for something completely different…

I had what I can only describe as a relapse in my depression and anxiety last night. I was up until 3:00 cleaning the apartment and doing some meal and grocery planning, but I was sobbing the entire time. Hence why it took me until 3:00 AM. I’ve been feeling those emotions threatening to bubble to the surface for a while now, but I figured it was just normal motherhood-related stuff, not PPA/PPD.

Now I’m almost ready to admit defeat and that I’m not able to deal with this entirely on my own. I’m going to give it just a little more time – in case it really was just a particularly bad day, which happens – and then I’m going to start looking into talking to my doctor. As hesitant as I am about the notion of being unable to cope on my own, naturally, I also know that I can’t keep doing this. It’s affecting every aspect of my life and I can’t let that continue much longer. So I’m hoping to get a grip on myself (and, TMI alert, but I’m also sort of hoping that it’s at least partially PMS-related, because my body has decided to freak out once a month now…which wasn’t so much the case pre-baby. Thanks, hormones!), but I’m also willing to go to a professional if that doesn’t work.

Oy.