Friday thoughts 8/31/2018

Good morning! It's an abbreviated post today, simply because I haven't been online that much this week. Physical therapy is taking a lot out of me this time around, and I've had quite a bit of stuff to do with my son, so my time here has been cut short. I'm ready for a long, long nap (and it's currently only 6:42 in the morning, so that's not good!).

Let's get started.


*One Simple Way to Reduce Visual Clutter All Over Your Space*

This appealed to me a lot. Visual clutter makes me feel mentally chaotic (which is tough when you've got a four year old with a toy collection that looks like a toy store vomited all over the house). I do my best to at least keep the living room, where I hang out most of the time when I'm reading/crafting/etc, a calm space, but it's by no means perfect. I'm still working on getting the rest of the house to look as calm, but I liked the uniform look of these photos.

My only issue is that matching containers can be expensive to buy new. Collecting non-matching containers as you find them, from thrift stores and yard sales and Freecycle, is definitely an option. It's not the matching that appealed to me, it's the more streamlined look that the glass containers had- I especially like the jars with the shampoo and condition. I'd have to get some sort of shelf for my bathtub for that to be a viable option, though. The containers for ketchup and mustard and whatnot appealed to me as well. I have a basket in the fridge that contains all our condiments, and having them all in uniform-sized containers would be extremely helpful, so I'm thinking about this.

Do you prefer that sort of streamlined look, or are you not bothered by cereal boxes and bags hanging out on the shelves?


*Ambient-Mixer.com*

This is So. Cool.

Have you ever wondered what the library at Hogwarts sounds like? Longed for the sound of a rainstorm in the scorching heat of summer? Needed the background noise of a crackling fire or a waterfall, a spooky Halloween night or a restaurant? Ambient-Mixer.com has what you're looking for!

Crank up the sounds of the rainforest while you write, relax to the sounds of Victorian London as you read, listen to music reminiscent of your favorite computer or roleplaying game as you cook dinner. This has a TON of cool things to play in the background no matter what you're doing. I've fallen asleep to the sound of a fake rainstorm before, it's ridiculously relaxing, and the options here are practically endless. Check this out and pass it on, because it's just that neat.


*7 Reasons to Own Less*

"Never underestimate the power of abandoning crap you don't need," the author says, and boy, do I agree.

It felt so good this summer to drop those two carloads of stuff off at the thrift store. SO. GOOD. I have another pile started, too.

My problem now is that even though I'm not spending my time caring for *that* stuff, I'm still caring for everyone else's stuff. Remember my basement? The overwhelming majority of that was Not My Stuff (which is why it took so long for it to get cleaned out. I kept waiting for the other people in this house to take care of their own belongings, and after 3.5 years, it didn't happen). The overwhelming majority of things I spend my days cleaning up is Not My Stuff. It's a source of frustration to me that I have streamlined my own belongings, but not only have the rest of my family not done that, they leave those belongings strewn all over the house for me to clean up. If anyone has any ways to make peace with that (because so far, explaining to them that I don't want to spend my time cleaning up their stuff and that doing all that extra work causes me physical pain because of my back has yet to make any difference), I'm all ears. My dream is that everyone here gets rid of the stuff they don't need and organizes the things they do, but that's pretty much akin to a kid dreaming of Santa bringing a sparkly unicorn on Christmas morning at this point. ;)



And that's all I have for today! It's been an exhausting week here, and the weekends aren't usually any more relaxing, so I'm not sure when I'm going to get a break. Possibly never! Good thing coffee was on sale this week. ;)

Have a great weekend, everyone! :)

Merry Christmas! You're getting strep throat! (A completed project)

No worries. I'm not sick. No one's sick.

But my husband will be getting strep throat.

For Christmas.

"How can you possibly know that?" you ask.

Oh, I'll show you.

Tada!

You remember from your biology textbooks what strep throat looks like under a microscope, right? They're sphere-shaped bacteria, chained together, and they make you miserable. It's like knives in your throat when you swallow. Fortunately, that's not the kind I'm giving him for Christmas; no one wants that!

My husband is a scientist. He loves what he does and he's amazing at it, so what better gift for him than one that is science-themed? The science he does at work is far above my head, and I'm not a scientist at all, but I can at least present him with something science-y under the tree for a bit of a laugh this year, hand knit, of course!

Much more pleasant than the real thing.

The pattern I used came from House Full of Monkeys. She calls for safety eyes, but I just used a bit of black yarn and embroidered a happy face on mine. Because who says strep throat can't be happy while it's making you miserable?

This was a really great pattern. It's super simple to follow and I had no problems with it whatsoever. The only change I might make, if I were to make another one of these, would be to start stuffing it a little earlier than the end. I had forgotten how awful stuffing things is- I'd made a stuffed teddy bear years ago and stuffing that thing, along with sewing the pieces together, was enough to make me want to jump off the roof face-first. But that's it. I hung out on my chair with my two cats and watched reruns of Law & Order while I knit. All in all, it was a pretty relaxing project.

I've even got a super dorky poem written out for when he opens it; wanna hear it?

*groan*

In case you can't see it, it reads,

You didn't need a sweater

And you didn't need a coat.

So instead this Christmas,

I have give you strep throat.

Totally merry, right? 

Our strep throat buddy will reside happily in my gift stash with the other Christmas presents I have stored away. It's not an enormous pile, but it's growing, and that makes my planner heart happy.

So there we have it! A super fun, super adorable project that will make one scientist very happy come Christmas morning. Thanks to House Full of Monkeys for such a great pattern, I really enjoyed making this. 

Onward to the next knitting project, whatever that may be! :)

Five good things, version 8/28/2018

I'm having a little bit of a rough day today.

It happens, doesn't it? You can be swimming along perfectly fine, and then suddenly a giant wave comes and shoves your head under, completely out of nowhere. One of those hit me yesterday, and as I don't want those waves to take over my life, I'm going to take a cue from other bloggers like Kristen at The Frugal Girl and Katy from The Non-Consumer Advocate and list some good things that are going on. Accentuate the positive and all that. ;)

1. Say hello to my little friend!

Hello, friend!

This is the Winix AW107 FresHome Air Washer with PlasmaWave Technology. A lady from a local mom's group offered this up for free today. She's moving and this, along with a bunch of other stuff, was free. I had just been thinking about finding something like this; our basement (or more accurately, our crawlspace), tends to smell a little musty in the winter. What are the odds of this showing up two days later? But there it was, and now here it is in my house, and I'm pretty excited about it. One of the reviews says it worked great for their musty basement, so I'm absolutely willing to give it a shot, especially at the insanely amazing price of FREE.

2. My new physical therapist is amazing.

I went back for my second appointment yesterday and it was a seriously intense session. Intense in a good way, but I think it also added to my funk today.

Let me backtrack a little. Have you ever heard of people getting emotional during deep tissue massages? Like, the person doing the massaging will be doing their thing, just massaging along, and then suddenly the person on the table is in tears and doesn't understand why? I know that's a thing, I've read about it, but I've never experienced it until yesterday.

I have degenerative disc disease, along with some dimished disc space, and possibly some other stuff going on. I live with daily pain; it's just a fact of life at this point and I do my best not to let it stop me. But it's always there, and my muscles really fight to keep up with what my skeleton and associated bits of my back aren't doing. My new PT is really good at finding all the sore spots, and yesterday, she found my quadratus lumborum muscle, or the QL, as she called it. It apparently causes problems for a lot of people, but holy crap... My general response to pain is to laugh and crack jokes; it's always been my coping mechanism, but when she basically jammed her elbow into my right side QL and just rested on it to get it to release, I had to seriously focus and go inward to get through it. This was so far the roughest PT session I've had. I left feeling exhausted, and became more emotional throughout the night, and I've stayed that way throughout today (although I'm actually feeling a little better as I type this out). Although I'm pretty sore today, it's kind of like a post-workout soreness and not in a "My body is failing me!" kind of pain, and my regular daily pain is much less, so this is a really good thing. This is absolutely what I need, and as I've been in this current back pain flare-up for the past year and a half, you better believe I'll be absolutely throwing myself at my PT again on Thursday (my next scheduled appointment). 

Have you ever experienced anything like this before? I'm curious to hear others' stories.

3. I'm so thankful for my mom.

My mom lives about 45 minutes away, but she comes up every PT session and stays with my daughter so that I can go. She knows how much I struggle with back pain and is so happy to help out. She's always so generous with her time, her money, her energy, and I could not be more fortunate to have a mom like her.


4. I love my dishwasher. 

When we first moved into our current home, I had the following:

* an eight month old daughter who woke me up 4-6 times a night.

*no microwave

*no clothes dryer

*no dishwasher

*no sanity

Every night after dinner, I trudged downstairs to wash a load of laundry, pull down the laundry I'd dried the night before on our drying racks, put that load of laundry away, then hang the first load on the racks when it finished washing. With three people in adult-sized clothing and a baby who thought that bowls of soup made for fashionable hats, we generated a lot of laundry, and while in normal circumstances I love air drying clothing, when you haven't slept more than three hours straight for the past ten months, more work doesn't exactly rank high on the list. We finally got a dryer five months after moving in.

Same with the microwave. One can live without a microwave, but when you're exhausted and your child is the type who will scream for an hour because you won't let her stick her fingers in a socket while you're trying to heat up lunch on the stove and you eat leftovers every day for lunch, well, it makes a difference. We finally got a microwave when my sister in law was over and wanted to reheat her son's food and was like, "..." My husband brought home one the next day.

Now. The dishwasher. My husband ran out and bought one on sale a few weeks after we moved into the house. Cool. Awesome. I was excited, because I'd already spent far too long washing dishes.

He installed it a year and a half later.

Oh yes, you read that right.

For a year and a half, on so very, very little sleep and a kid who constantly had to be stopped from climbing the walls every three seconds, I sometimes washed three sinks full of dishes per day (because I cook almost everything we eat). Between that and the wet laundry I hung, my hands were chapped to the point of painfulness that first winter. Washing dishes is my LEAST favorite chore EVER.

Things I would rather do than wash dishes:

*mow the lawn

*clean the toilet

*scoop the cat box

*clean up someone else's vomit (I am 100% serious here. That's how much I hate dishes.)

It took my husband all of an hour to install the dishwasher. One single hour, after how many loads of dishes I'd scrubbed (sometimes not very comfortably, because again, back problems and chronic pain). But that's all done now, and I adore that dishwasher. It's been installed for a little over a year now and I don't think I'll ever stop feeling grateful for it. It's a little on the loud side, but it could play heavy metal at top volume and I'd still sing its praises. I'm listening to it run now as I type, and it's just about the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. :)


5. I'm enjoying this lovely blended coffee drink.

Ahhhh.

Made at home from a mix I bought at Sam's Club a year or so ago, along with some frozen cubes of leftover coffee that I didn't want to go to waste. I don't drink these often, since it's more sugar than I normally like, but some days, you just need a treat, right? :)

What good things are going on for you today?



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Weekly Recap: 8/27/2018

I don't know what it's like where you are, but it's HOT HOT HOT here! And not just hot, but ridiculously humid as well. UGH. Fortunately, the temp drops on Wednesday, and I'm *very* much looking forward to that! What about you? Do you enjoy these dog days of summer, or are you more into the cooler fall weather?

Let's recap this week, shall we?


MONDAY

I tossed some white beans in the Instant Pot for dinner, and then spent plenty of time wrestling some of those garden tomatoes into the crockpot to make some tomato sauce.

They're off and ready to be cooked!

They simmered all day and smelled great. :)

My daughter and I settled down for Reading and Geography lessons (we learned about Comoros and Mayotte, neither of which I'd ever heard of before, so hurray for lifelong learning!), then got back up and ran to the Dollar Store for some containers for freezing the tomato sauce later on in the day. I practiced the piano while my daughter played with Play Doh on the floor behind me, and at naptime, I threw together some vegetable soup in the Instant Pot, then went down to the basement (I'm still so pleased with the basement!) and organized my boxes of yarn. I have two of them and they very much needed organization.

Like this tangle of yarn. GAH!!!

I separated full skeins of yarn (and almost-full skeins) from what was basically scrap yarn, untangled the tangly bits without wasting a single inch of yarn (which took some patience, let me tell you!), and dug through some other stuff that had inadvertently ended up in the box.

Like this.

I vaguely remember stitching this thing years ago. It's cute, isn't it? I'm going to have to hunt down a frame for it and then  I'll iron it up and hang it in my kitchen. It's perfect, considering our overabundance of tomatoes this year. :)

After blending the tomatoes in the crockpot, my daughter and I went off to the library. We enjoyed our vegetable soup for dinner, and I accompanied my son as he practiced his driving. I froze the tomato sauce, dropped it off in our garage freezer, and then finished the evening by reading a book from my Goodreads To-Read list.

TUESDAY

I *finally* organized my closet and cleaned out my bedroom- my parts of it, at least (not touching my husband's stuff!). This was a bit of a tedious task, but I persevered, and my closet looks fantastic. Not only that, but I have another garbage bag full of clothes for the thrift store. I'm absolutely killing the decluttering game this summer! After I finished, my daughter and I did her Reading and Geography lessons (we learned about the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and I cleaned the kitchen and the living room, and ran the dishwasher. During naptime, I made Pressure Cooker Penne Rigate Pasta (this stuff is RIDICULOUSLY good) and then made a huge batch of zucchini pancakes for my son's breakfasts (half went in the fridge, half in the freezer. He reports that these are really good). I swept and cleaned the living room floor, then tried to practice the piano, but my daughter decided to run back and forth through the living room repeatedly, and since she sounded like a herd of elephants and made it hard to keep time, I surrendered. ;) I cleaned the kitchen after dinner, practiced driving with my son, and went for a quick walk around the block with my husband and daughter. I collapsed, exhausted, with a book from my Goodreads To-Read list that night. :)

WEDNESDAY

I washed a load of laundry, then hung it to dry, and after that, my daughter and I went for groceries. We only had to go to two stores, but there was such a lot of traffic that it took WAY longer than normal. I rested during naptime, reading my Goodreads book, and then made a list of things I could make for my son's lunches (a friend is allergic to peanuts, so I'm doing everything I can to pack lunches that are both healthy for my son and safe for his friend to be around). 

After dropping my husband off (I pick him up every night), my son and I went to go hear author Tim O'Brien speak. Tim O'Brien is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Things They Carried, about his experiences before, during, and after the Vietnam war. I'd finally read this the whole way through a few weeks ago, after reading parts of it in a college literature class ages ago and being intrigued by it. I feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to hear him speak, to listen to his insights about the book, about war, about writing. What an amazing opportunity this was. After we returned home, I finished a book from my Goodreads list.

THURSDAY

We started off the day visiting a local library that was having a book sale. I didn't see anything I needed there (wanted, maybe; needed, nope), so my daughter played in the children's department while I read a book from my Goodreads To-Read list. 

For dinner, I made a stir-fry with a ton of veggies and Verisoy Beef Substitute. I'm vegetarian and love these things, but my husband, who eats everything that isn't nailed down, thinks these are AWESOME. Their texture is quite like the beef you get from a Chinese restaurant beef-and-peppers entree, and they take on the taste of whatever you cook them with. I usually cook them with garlic, ginger, soy sauce, salt, and pepper, and they're amazing. We're lucky enough to be able to find them locally at an Asian grocery, but if you're vegetarian or trying to eat less meat, these things are SUPER good and worth an order on Amazon if you can't get them near you. 

I continued reading my Goodreads book, and when my daughter woke up, we did her Reading and Geography lessons (we virtually traveled to the Republic of the Congo- not to be confused with the Democratic Republic of the Congo; they're two separate countries). I practiced the piano, read more of my book, and after a delicious dinner, I picked my son up from his choir thing at school and dropped off two of his friends (they live fairly close to each other, and I never have problems giving kids rides. Other parents give my son rides all the time and I love being able to return the favor). Back home, I helped my son with his French homework, cleaned the kitchen, and relaxed with my book.

FRIDAY

The weather was gray, rainy, and gloriously cool this day! It felt like a hint of fall, even though I knew it wouldn't last. I cleaned the kitchen a little more, then settled in with some knitting.

So relaxing!

I know I've alluded to my stripey blankets before, but I'll try to get a post up about them soon. They're great stress-relievers, and a great way to use scrap yarn. I didn't have a whole lot of time to knit, because my mom arrived and we went out to a local place for brunch- my way of saying thanks for coming up, because afterwards, she stayed with my daughter while I went off to meet my new physical therapist.

I. Love. Her.

She's awesome. She absolutely knows her stuff. She's amazing with lower back problems, she's SUPER enthusiastic about what she does, she had some great insights into my pain, she found exactly what was hurting on me (my sacroiliac joint, which has given me trouble before, is one of those sore spots. And then she found my piriformis muscle and HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BOY OWWWWWWWWW. I think I hate that thing more than any other body part. I had a few spots on my lower back, right side, that were sore, and she thinks my tailbone is causing some of the problems too. Not a surprise, since I think I broke that sucker when I was twelve), and she has a great, outgoing personality. I *really* felt comfortable with her (which is good, because if you clicked on those above links, you'll see that a lot of my pain stems from, well, my butt, so I really need to be comfortable with the person who's helping me to feel better!), and I'm looking forward to my pain levels improving in the next few weeks. Crossing my fingers!

At home, after my mom left, I spent the afternoon snuggling with my daughter. She missed her nap and was tired and cranky and needed some extra mama snuggles, so despite her crankiness, I relished the opportunity to snuggle. After she went to bed that evening (early, since she was exhausted), I started knitting a Christmas gift for my husband, which I found on Pinterest and pinned ages ago. I finished two of the five parts of it, so I was pretty happy about that. 

SATURDAY

No gymnastics today, so we went to a local science surplus store. My husband picked up a few things he needed for a project (which ended up saving him a bunch of money, so yay for that!). By the time we got home, I wasn't feeling great (not sick, just exhausted. Maybe hormones? Who knows), so I lay down for quite a long time. We visited my sister in law for a bit, and I continued to work on my husband's Christmas present after my daughter went to bed (I'll post a picture of it when it's done, of course!).

SUNDAY

My niece had her birthday party; she turned three. They live about 2.5 hours away from us, so with traffic and stops and having to take a different route back because we also stopped to visit my cousin in the hospital, we spent over six hours in the car, where I finished a Goodreads book and started a library book NOT from my list. All the time in the car was NOT great for my back, but fortunately the discomfort was confined to the car ride, because once we were at home, I had stuff to do! 

I sauteed zucchini and peppers in order to make the quiche from The Complete Tightwad Gazette, so my son can have a friend-safe lunch this week. I also made a batch of guacamole from on-sale avocados and tomatoes from our garden, and a batch of Bananadoodle cookies from bananas that were on their last legs. 

Not pictured: the cookie already packed in my son's lunch.

These are a super yummy way to use up those mushy brown bananas when you're tired of banana bread. You can cut the sugar in the cookie recipe by half and it makes no difference in the flavor. Highly recommend these! After the kitchen was cleaned up, I ran the dishwasher and settled in for the night with my Goodreads book, too exhausted to think about knitting at all.


And that was my week! I'm pretty happy about getting my closet taken care of and continuing to keep up sending mostly homemade stuff (and stuff that's safe!) in my son's lunch. I have several lists of ideas, so hopefully they'll keep me motivated. I'm also feeling good about getting back into knitting again. I did the dishcloths this summer, but I'm moving into new patterns, ones I've never used before, so that makes it feel fresh and exciting. 

This upcoming week, I have three physical therapy visits, and my son's school has Back to School night for the parents on Thursday, so my schedule is already filling up! Nothing wrong with that. :)

How was your week?

Goodreads To Read list: 155 books

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Friday thoughts 8/24/2018

Happy Friday! This was my son's first full week back to school, and I'm feeling pretty good about it. I struggle to get going in the morning, but I've been packing his lunch the night before (I agree that he should be doing it himself, but he's in desperate need of healthier eating after this summer, and this way I can ensure that he's getting *something* nutritious) and making batches of breakfast, freezing them, and heating them up in the morning. I'm hoping this will be sustainable for the whole year; get back to me when it's a freezing, dark January and we'll see how I'm doing. ;)

Here's what intrigued me this week!


*Americans Own Less Stuff, and That's Reason To Be Nervous*

There are really two articles here. The legal ownership conundrum the author points out (where we think we own certain kinds of purchases but the fine print points out that hey, no, we really don't) is definitely bothersome, but what interests me in this article is the concept that ownership is moving in a different direction- so much of what used to be strictly a physical purchase (books, DVDs, music) is now solely digital. How we own things has changed, and that's not something I've necessarily considered before on that level. I'll date myself here, but when I think about, it still feels like something off of the Jetsons (remember them??? I used to love that show). I can buy one device and read zillions of books on it; I can buy music without wrestling that awful plastic wrapper from the case (which will eventually get stepped and and the shards will slice my foot and linger under the couch for ages); I can buy a movie and not have to worry about where I'll store the case. How cool is all of that? It definitely fits in with my 'less is more' philosophy I've been cultivating lately, which is why this article jumped out at me.


*Living Tongues*

This week, one of the books from my Goodreads To Read list, which I finished, was The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the World's Most Endangered Languages by K. David Harrison. Harrison is a linguist who studies endangered and dying languages, documenting both the language and the struggle (or lack thereof) to revive it. This was a fascinating and deeply moving book, and the Living Tongues project is something he's involved with.

Language is important. Language conveys not just information, but history, culture, a connection to the past. When these languages die out, humanity loses so much. We're so much the richer for having a wide variety of languages and cultures, and it hurts my heart to think of the last speakers of any language dying. We're a bilingual French-English family, and we struggle with our daughter refusing to speak French. Now, she's four and has a stubborn personality in the first place; this is a normal, known phenomenon among bilingual families with the kids refusing the minority language; French is in no danger of dying off. But I liked how one person in the book phrased it: are you richer when you have one dollar, or two? Having a second (or more!) language is exactly like that. I absolutely support the work that the Living Tongues project is doing, because humanity is so much better off, for so many reasons, when these languages live on.


*The Connection Between Busy Hands and Brain Chemistry*

You know this one is right up my alley! ;)

In short, working with our hands can affect our brain chemistry in a positive way. Now, that's not to say that picking up a project is going to cure mental illness for good and replace the medicine needed to help people function. It's not quite that simple, unfortunately. But there's a connection between brain happiness and handiwork of all sorts, and as someone who has dealt with crippling depression in the past and who has learned to live with what is at times pretty fierce anxiety, I've definitely noticed that. I always have what I refer to as a stress-knitting project going (I seriously need to get a post up about my stripey blankets!), and it definitely helps at least take the edge off when my brain is in turmoil- or if not, it gives me something else to focus on.

A really fun book that touches on this concept is Made By Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World by Mark Frauenfelder. I stumbled upon this in the library this past spring and it looked interesting. Frauenfelder also noticed that we as humans tend to feel more accomplished, more content with ourselves and our lives, when we're creating, when we're doing, when we're making and producing and not just consuming the products that other people created. There's a sense of accomplishment that is sorely lacking when we outsource our tasks, and so he set out to become the king of DIY. I very much enjoyed reading about his adventures, and while I'm not going to trick out an espresso machine or build a cigar box guitar like he did, I definitely found his enthusiasm inspiring. This book has stuck with me and I think of it often when my brain and body want to get lazy. "You'll feel better if you're producing something," my subconscious taunts me, and so I get my rear in gear. :)

Have you noticed this in your life?


*We Are All Accumulating Mountains of Things*

Oof.

Online shopping makes it vastly easier for us to engage in mass consumption. Instead of needing to get dressed and drive or walk to the store, we can have things delivered right to our doorstep after poking the screens of our phones a few times. And that definitely has its advantages, don't get me wrong. We have a superstrong enzymatic cleaner coming to the house today (one that I couldn't find being sold anywhere near me locally) so that I can scrub down the little storage room where we keep the cat litter box. But online shopping can be dangerous, as it's *so* much easier to buy copious amounts of things we don't necessarily need. It's more important than ever to designate the difference between a want and a need, both for the sake of frugality and so that we don't all end up on an episode of Hoarders.


*Open the door to your...Mystery Loaf!*

Now I'm going to have that song stuck in my head...

Oh, how I miss the Vegan Lunch Box blog. I used to love seeing the creative, healthy lunches that Jennifer McCann packed for her son. I remember wondering how she got her son to eat all those vegetables (especially since, at that time, I barely ate vegetables). And then I was diagnosed with high cholesterol, and I decided to take charge of my health. I went vegetarian and began cooking a LOT of vegan food (along with exercising). My cholesterol dropped 80 points in three months, and I was hooked on veggies in a bad way. If that's a thing. ;)

Anyway, I was going through her blog the other day, trying to get some inspiration for my son's lunches. He's okay with having a peanut butter or cheese sandwich every day, but this year, one of his friends is allergic to peanuts, so I'm all about keeping that kid safe, even if it means a little more work for me. And as I scrolled through the old posts, I came across this link for creating a vegetarian loaf- you know, like a lentil loaf (which is SO good). I think vegetarian loaf recipes often get a bad rap, but I've had really great success with a lot of recipes, and they're super delicious as a sandwich with ketchup or Sriracha the next day (my mouth is watering just thinking about this right now!). And not only that, they make excellent pantry meals, as the ingredients are almost always stuff that I already have on hand. I was absolutely delighted to see that this link to a loaf recipe generator still worked, and I'm planning on trying a few out.

Do you enjoy vegetarian loaves? Any suggestions on recipes that you'd like to share? We're also really big fans of this one; whenever I tell my teenage son we're having this for dinner, he says, "YES!" Not exactly the stereotypical response, eh? And if anyone has an update on how Jennifer McCann and her Shmoo are doing, I'd love to hear it!



That's what caught my attention this week; what's been on your mind?




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Completed: Basement clean-up.

So.

Although this blog is only several months old, this is a post 3.5 years in the making.

I explained a little bit of the backstory of this in my post about cleaning up the laundry room. Basically, when we moved in, the movers dumped all the boxes in our basement. I unpacked like a demon over a number of weeks (since I had a baby who never, ever slept and I was seriously delirious with lack of sleep, it took longer than I would have liked), but I left my husband's boxes down there, because, well, they were his boxes. Some of those boxes had been sitting, crammed full of stuff and untouched, since we got married in 2007. At our last house, they were in the attached garage, so I didn't have to look at them, but here? Here they were in the lower level of our house (it's a split level, and the basement is finished, so it's not a true basement, but it's how we think of it) and I passed by the heap every time I did laundry, scooped the litter box, or searched for a book on our shelves or something in my craft area.

As time went on, the heap of boxes grew messier. Stuff got added to the pile, things shifted around as my husband dug through the boxes for items he was searching for, I pushed things around to make room so I could actually see some of my craft area. And still he left those boxes there. "Even if you just go through one item a DAY," I begged him, to no avail. The mess remained.

And all the while, my anxiety grew. Messes and clutter have started making me very anxious, and beyond that, this area of the house was embarrassing. When we had people over and they caught even a glimpse of what that area looked like, I was mortified. Even when the rest of the house was in perfect order, the shame I felt over that basement was gargantuan. I'd been refusing to clean it, because hey, not my stuff...but as time went on, it became more and more obvious that it just wasn't going to get clean unless I did it, and honestly, my anxiety was so bad over that area that something had to be done.

And since part of the reason I started this blog was to leave no task unfinished, I began getting myself into the mindset of cleaning the basement. I started with smaller projects, worked my way up to the laundry room (whose mess was starting to resemble the basement itself!), and then it was time.

Are you ready?

It's bad.

Here it is.

It's okay to scream. Really.

That's not even the worst of it, to be honest. It's looked even worse at times. Can you see why this set off my clutter-induced anxiety so badly? It was getting to the point where I literally dreaded going down there, and I was getting tired of being afraid of- and being unable to use!!!!- an entire floor of my house. Another glimpse:

Is this worse? It might be.

This one was actually after I had started doing a little bit of cleaning, moving some stuff around and whatnot. On the right hand side, you can see a corner of the dry bar, basically just a large countertop with some open storage underneath. My son and I have cleared this thing off multiple times over the years we've lived here, and my husband keeps dumping stuff on it (he's, uh, got a messiness problem. Good thing I love him!). I stopped cleaning it off and my son gave up similarly, and the mess grew and grew. 

But no.

No more.

I desperately needed to Get It Done.

So I did.

It was a Tuesday when I started. I moved things around at first, making enough space for my daughter to play on the SmartCycle someone gave us (but that we've never hooked up to the TV because we don't want to get her started on video games this early! She has no idea it even hooks up to anything and just enjoys riding it like an exercise bike), and then I started going through boxes. I had a huge pile of recycling, a smaller-but-still-huge pile of garbage, and five hard plastic containers for storage in the crawlspace. And methodically, item by item, I began going through the boxes down there.

The things I found!

Bills (paid at the time, but then stashed and for some godawful reason, PACKED AND MOVED. WE PAID TO TRANSPORT THESE, SOME OF THEM MULTIPLE TIMES. YES, I'M SHOUTING; WOULDN'T YOU???), some of them from before 2010. Empty envelopes from cards and mail received years ago. Paperwork from cars and property that we no longer own. Bits and pieces of tools and things to be used with said tools, decorative items, military gear (my husband got out in the mid 2000's), backpacks with broken zippers, and my favorite item of all:

No phone it here; it was just the box.

WE TOTALLY NEEDED TO STORE THIS FOR YEARS AND THEN MOVE THIS THREE TIMES, RIGHT????? (This wasn't mine; mine was orange.) This box went straight into the recycling pile, and I moved on to the next ridiculous item. All in all, I managed to condense the heap of boxes my husband had been moving from place to place into four and a half plastic storage containers. That was it. Those boxes probably filled up an entire moving pod (which is what we used to move back here from Tennessee), but the keepable contents would've only filled a back corner. Not cleaning and organizing your stuff costs you money, people!!! 

So yes, it was an exercise in frustration, and it furthered my resolve of being careful as to what I bring in the house these days. I'm not interested in my time being taken up caring for possessions; I want to spend my time doing and creating and making, not cleaning and dealing with STUFF. I don't ever want to have to do this again. And most of this stuff wasn't mine in the first place, but I'm still glad to be in this mindset so that I don't get trapped by my own personal possessions.

The basement really didn't take as long as I thought it would. Two full days of sorting, organizing, and moving stuff around, and then this happened:

I nearly wept at being able to do this!

This was a huge deal for me to be able to do. 

I gave away a huge stack of empty boxes on Freecycle to a lady in my neighborhood who is moving- she was like, "Thank you!" and I was like, "No, thank YOU!!!!" I loaded up the car twice with enormous piles of stuff and dropped them off at the thrift store (and I still have at least one more, smaller donation pile). I gave my mom a few things. I organized my bookshelf, which had become a victim of my anxiety where I would just dump stuff on it and run out of the terrible basement, and I organized my craft area, which I'd been ignoring for ages, since I didn't feel like I could use it effectively with all the clutter down there. I organized, pitched, cleaned, decluttered. I. Was. Brutal.

Are you ready?

The difference is huge.

Check this out.

TA DA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's GLORIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you even? Because I seriously cannot. 

Even seeing that picture makes me heave an enormous, satisfied sigh of relief. The amount of times I've gone downstairs this past week, solely to admire the clear, empty space, numbers in the I'm-not-sure-I-can-count-that-high. The last time the basement looked this clean was when we were touring this house when we were looking for a place (the lady that owned it previously had passed away, so the house was empty), so this is an ENORMOUS deal. Everyone I've shown this picture to that knows us and has been to our house has had a reaction like, "OH MY GOD!!!!"

Yeah.

It's that good. 

So I'm feeling pretty good about my ability to get at least SOME things done these days. A lot of this summer has been dedicated to getting the house in a more workable condition, and I'm feeeling a lot of relief about the results. I have a few more projects to do- I want to pull the stove out and scrub it down; I want to scrub down my appliances that sit out (my Instant Pot, my rice cooker) and clean off all the dust and yuck that have collected on the sides; I need to clean the two closets in my upstairs hallway (waiting on my husband to put up the missing wall in the shower to do that; it's been down for, uh, six weeks or so now, and the parts of the wall that need to go back up are lying in the hallway. He works long hours and so his time to work on home improvement projects is limited, so we all just live in an ongoing home improvement project, basically). 

One box, one item, one old piece of paper at a time, I got the job done. 

And I'm feeling pretty proud about it. :)

Have you ever done a major clean-up like this? I'd love to hear your story about it.

Weekly recap: 8/20/2018

Happy Monday, and welcome to another (hopefully) productive week! It's been so disgustingly hot and humid here lately; I'm seriously looking forward to cooler fall weather, but so far, the weather forecast is just laughing in my face. Let's recap this past week, shall we?


MONDAY

My daughter and I ran to the post office, and then we were off to hang out at a library in a nearby town. We have borrowing privileges there, but I didn't need anything; she just wanted to play in their amazing children's department, so while she did that, I read a book from my Goodreads To Read list. After lunchtime, I put some white beans in the Instant Pot and then went down to the basement to organize the crafting area (which consists of my shelves of fabric and patterns/sewing supplies, my knitting supplies, my crafting books, etc). I only organized; I didn't stop to look through what I had, although I really, really wanted to! I worked quickly and then went back upstairs to do dinner prep for Cajun pasta with white beans and kale (this is a huge favorite around here; my daughter has loved it since she was a baby. She used to pick all the kale out and eat only the kale!). Instead of using canned tomatoes, I chopped up a bunch of tomatoes from our garden, which felt pretty cool. :)

So, while I was organizing my craft area, I came across these.

Knitted things!

Knitted rectangles. Two black, two colorful. What are they?

Wristwarmers.

Wristwarmers that I knit up years ago.

And then never sewed the sides up.

*insert screaming here*

This is the exact reason I began this blog. This is a prime example of all the stupid things I've been starting and not finishing, that I've been letting sit around undone, just waiting for someone else to come along and go, "Huh, wonder why she never finished this while she was still alive." I don't want that; I don't want to be that kind of person anymore. I want to finish the things I start, to complete the projects I set out to do (in a timely manner, of course!). Honestly, when I dug these out of one of my knitting bags, I was kind of angry with the past me who let them sit there all this time.

Immediately after I finished with dinner, I sewed the first pair up.

Much better! This will go to my mom for Christmas, as they were originally supposed to be for her.

After my daughter woke up, we did Reading and Geography lessons (we went to Chad), and then I practiced the piano for a bit. After dinner, my 16 year old son came up to me and said, "Wanna go for a walk?"

When your 16 year old son asks you to hang out with him, you go. We walked 4.16 miles in about an hour and 15 minutes, and honestly, it was wonderful. It was nice spending time with him and talking, just the two of us. We're going to try to do this on a regular basis. :)

That night, I watched an episode of Orange Is the New Black with my husband, and...

So colorful! So FINISHED!!! These are mine. :)

TUESDAY

I started the laundry, then my son and I loaded the car again for the thrift store. We had a bit of time before the store opened, so I practiced the piano. Angel Eyes by Jim Brickman is really starting to sound good! I'm mostly at the point where I can play the whole way through; I just need to fine-tune a few areas, and then I'll be ready to move on to something new. I'm kind of looking forward to that!

We dropped our donation pile off at the thrift store and went in to look around, but they didn't have the book I was looking for, so we left without buying anything. Afterwards, we went and walked around a local mall, and, since it was my son's last day of summer vacation, I took the kids out to lunch, as is our tradition. We had a nice time together, even if my daughter was a little wild!

At home, I put some black beans in the Instant Pot and threw the laundry in the dryer. Normally, I hang it out to dry, but there wasn't going to be enough time to collect it that evening, as we had other plans. And finally, FINALLY, during my daughter's nap, I got some time to write (at a time when I wasn't exhausted and braindead, as I often am by the time my daughter goes to bed at night) and I blasted out 831 words, which felt BEYOND amazing!!! I threw together a quick dinner of beans and rice, and when my daughter woke up, we did Reading and Geography lessons (Chile today). I practiced the piano for a little bit, and after picking my husband up, my son and I went to a local school to hear a speaker. This man was a parent, one who lives in a neighboring town, and he lost his sixteen year old son twelve years ago to teenage drinking. My son is a pretty good kid; I've never had to worry about him getting into trouble or making stupid decisions about alcohol, but it never hurts to repeat the message. The man's story was utterly heartbreaking.

After we returned home, I gathered my son's school supplies, then I whipped up a batch of Universal Muffins from The Complete Tightwad Gazette (seriously one of the best recipes ever. I use it several times a month) for the kids' breakfast the next morning. I then sat down at wrote a little more, bringing my total for the day to 1047. YES!!!!!!!!!!!

WEDNESDAY

First day of school for my son!!! He's a junior this year. I was feeling bittersweet about the start of this year, because it's my daughter's last year before starting full-time school. Next year will be my son's last first day and her first first day. I spent the day singing Rod Stewart's Forever Young and randomly bursting into tears. I know, I know!!!

My daughter and I hit the road for groceries after breakfast. We stopped by three local grocery stores and also went into Walmart to buy new pillows. My neck and shoulders have really been bothering me lately (I thought, and my doctor did too, that my shoulder pain was related to rotator cuff issues. But apparently some of the pain I'm having resembles the symptoms of degenerative disc disease in the upper spine. I have it in the lower spine, so it's not out of the question that my upper discs are degenerating too, sigh), and since my pillows were in sad shape anyway, I was hoping new ones would help. At home, I put the groceries away, cut up fruit for fruit salad, and cut up some peppers for snacks. I put the chickpeas in the Instant Pot and wrote 525 words, then did dinner prep for BBQ Cheddar Chickpea Burgers, a green salad, and a tomato mozzarella salad (the tomatoes came from our garden, of course!). When my daughter woke up, we did her Reading and Geography lessons (China), and I practiced the piano. That evening, I cleaned the kitchen and watched the last episode of Orange Is the New Black with my husband.

THURSDAY

My daughter woke up early, so we drove my husband to the train. After breakfast, I cleaned the kitchen (again! Someone really needs to get on that whole self-cleaning kitchen thing) and swept the basement. My mom arrived just before 9, which made my daughter very happy. Grandma came to watch her so that I could go have my MRI done (insurance did approve it, so yay for that! Unyay for whatever my copay will be...). After that was done, my mom took us out for lunch and we stopped by the Dollar Store (I bought a plug for my kitchen sink). We walked around a local park in the late afternoon, where we found this beauty:

I know nothing about butterflies, but this is so pretty!

Everyone ate leftovers for dinner; I was still too full from lunch. My husband and I hung out with my daughter in the yard, and that's when we met another friend:

TOAD!!!

Do other people get this excited when they find a toad in their yard? I was super jazzed about it! We picked him up from near the compost and put him (her?) in by the tomatoes, where it was cool and damp. What a cute little garden buddy! We also picked our pumpkin, since the vine had detached, but here's a before picture:

Is it too early to decorate for Halloween?

 I was pretty worn out that evening, so I did some research for my writing and went to bed early. 

FRIDAY

Ugh.

I was *really* worn out this morning. I had breakfast with my daughter and then started feeling extremely tired, so I curled up with her on the couch and dozed a little while she watched The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That for an hour. We attempted to do her Reading lesson, but she was NOT having it. After deciding that it would be better to call it quits rather than argue with a four year old, I sent her off to play in her room while I rested on the couch, but my shoulder was so painful, even while I was icing it, and I was feeling so poorly that even trying to hold my book open was too much. I gave up, and after I put her down for her afternoon nap, I went to bed as well and slept for two and a half hours!!! I'm not a napper, so this is how you know I don't feel well. I don't know if I was fighting something off, or if this was just my body's way of telling me to slow down, but yikes. I picked my son up from a friend's house and ended up dozing on the couch again after dinner. My husband and I watched The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society on Netflix, and then he very kindly rubbed my shoulder- part of it hurt so badly that his rubbing it made me cry. :(

SATURDAY

Still wasn't feeling great when I woke up, but it was off to my daughter's gymnastics class, where I read a book from my Goodreads To Read list. When we got home, I rested for a bit, then mowed the lawn, stopping in the middle to take a break. After I showered, we went to a local bookstore and then the Dollar Store next door (my husband needed something for a project he's working on; I bought a set of bobby pins), and then for dinner at the local pizza place several doors down. I'm not a huge fan of the place; if I'm going out to eat, I'd rather it be for something I can't make at home (such as Indian food. I make some curries here and there, but making Indian food is something I'd like to improve on). I finished a (fairly heavy) Goodreads book that night and went to bed early.

SUNDAY

My husband and I put our daughter in the stroller and walked 1.8 miles to Dunkin Donuts. She'd been asking if we could do that, and today was the day. It was warm out and I was pretty worn out by the time we got back. I ate my maple-frosted donut (I can't even remember the last time I had a donut, to be honest!) and then fell asleep on my chair for about an hour. Fortunately, when I woke up, I was finally feeling a little more back to normal, so hurray!

I cleaned the kitchen and living room, then shifted a few things around in the basement, which is FINALLY DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll have another post up this week about it- you'll be amazed at the difference. I keep going down there and grinning. It's just SO. MUCH. BETTER. The space is usable now, which isn't something that could be said for the past 3.5 years we've lived here. The joy and relief I feel over this is indescribable, so keep your eyes peeled for that post.

My daughter and I did her Reading and Geography lessons (Colombia!) and then we all went to visit family, where I worked on my knitted stripey blanket (have I posted about those here? I'm going to have to look...). We picked some more tomatoes at home...

So yeah, it's sauce day tomorrow...

And then I made more muffins for the kids' breakfasts. 

My husband stole one already!!!

I'm going to put together a list of quick breakfasts. I'm planning on making some waffles and pancakes for the freezer, along with some breakfast sandwiches and breakfast burritos (those last two especially after the New Year, when my son has what's known as zero-hour gym class, which starts at 6:40 am and I'll have to drive him to school then, yikes! He'll need breakfast on the go). I'm trying to be better at being prepared with wholesome, filling homemade breakfasts and not have to buy cold cereal. I figure this is at least a good start. :)

So that was my week! I'm so thankful the basement is done; I'll have that post up in a few days, so be sure to check back. Now that I've tackled that project, I'm going to move on to reorganizing my closet, but I don't think that'll take *nearly* as long as the basement did, and I'm hoping that means I'll be able to devote a little more time to writing. *fingers crossed*

How was your week???

Goodreads To Read list: 157 books

Words written: 1572

Knitted projects finished: 2

Friday Thoughts 8/17/2018

The end of another week. It's rainy here today, which isn't a bad thing, since I think we need it. My son went back to school this week to start his junior year, so we're all adjusting to the new schedule, both waking up early and hustling to get ready, and having him gone all day. My daughter will start preschool in a few weeks, and that'll be yet another adjustment! There's always something going on around here. :)


*10 Simple Things That Will Make You Happier At Home*

This is a lovely little article, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how many of the things I already do on a regular basis. I've been trying to focus on gratitude more lately; I try to find something to enjoy or appreciate about every task (including scooping the litterbox! No one LOVES that task, but it has to be done, so I usually play a song I enjoy on my phone while I scoop. It makes the experience...if not enjoyable, then easier to work through); I have a display of things from the travels I've gone on with my mother; I somewhat follow the 'have an intent for each day' rule.

When I'm not running errands like getting groceries or running the kids around, I spend most of my time at home, and it's important to me that the area around me is calm, free of clutter, and a pleasant place to be. I've had to work very hard, both on my house and on myself, to make this possible, and it helps immensely with my anxiety. It's a constant struggle, though; I'm one person, cleaning up after four people (three of whom do NOT clean up after themselves whatsoever) and two cats, so it's truly neverending.

Does it matter what the space around you looks like? Are you one of those lucky people that can feel calm, relaxed, and productive wherever you go, or do you find it easier to be the best version of yourself when your space is organized?


*5 Exercises for Rotator Cuff Pain*

Ow.

So when I went to the doctor a few weeks ago, my doc confirmed that my right shoulder pain is most likely rotator cuff pain, which is what I had suspected. Apparently, physical therapists don't like to do both lower back and shoulder work at the same time, so we're going to focus on getting my lower back in good working order first, and then we'll move on, but for the moment, this shoulder stuff is kind of ruining my life. :( It may be genetic; my dad has shoulder issues and told me this past weekend that he's on his third bout of frozen shoulder, so lucky me!

Hopefully YOU won't need this link. If you do, I'm sorry, and I feel your pain...literally. If you have any other suggestions about alleviating rotator cuff pain, I'd absolutely love to hear it!


*What Do You Want Your Tombstone to Say?*

I am in perpetual indecision.

I've basically been a homemaker most of my adult life. I've had a few part-time jobs, the kind where you wear a nametag and, for the low, low salary of minimum wage, you get to hear what a piece of garbage you are from far too many of the customers (and as a result, I'm so, so nice to retail workers. They work so hard and get treated so terribly). I've taken college classes on and off. But I've never felt like I've had a purpose and that bothers me. There are things that I'd *like* to happen- if time and money were no object, I'd go back to school to become a librarian. Unfortunately, the logistics of that make it an impossible dream: it would be far too expensive, there'd be no one to care for my young daughter when I'm gone, Too Expensive, I'd have to travel too far in order to go to a school with that program, $$$$$, we've already got my son's college to pay for in two years, there's the money issue, there's no guarantee that my back won't die completely the second after I graduate, did I mention it would be prohibitively expensive?

Anyway...I'm going to do the exercises on this page and see what I come up with. There are things I'm working on, like with my writing (which I've been able to get back to a bit this week, now that the majority of the basement is cleaned up!), but...there's more to me too. And I think defining it on paper, to see in front of me in an organized way, will help to clarify a few things for me. :)



That's about it this week. I've been so busy that I haven't had much time online, so those are the only links I had bookmarked! Not necessarily a bad thing, I think. What about you? What have you been thinking about?

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Weekly Recap: 8/13/2018

Welcome to another beautiful week! It's been a crazy one around here, so crazy that I don't have as many pictures to show off as I would like- I've just been too darn busy. But that's not necessarily a  bad thing, right? :) Let's recap.


MONDAY

After getting ready for the day, I cleaned the kitchen, and then my daughter and I got started on her Reading and Geography lessons. We virtually traveled to Cambodia, where, I learned, they eat fried snake. I am all for people feasting upon whatever makes them happy and healthy, but I'm not a fan of snakes (alive or cooked), so that set off my phobia a little! If I'm ever lucky enough to travel there, I'll stick to all the other delicious food Cambodia has to offer. :)

I swept the living room and kitchen, and during naptime, I cooked some taco-flavored lentils for Chipotle-style bowls for dinner. And then (cue ominous music) I cleaned out the worst part of the laundry room. *shudders* It was gross. When I finished with that, I settled down in my reading chair to read The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. This has been on my mental want-to-read list (but not my Goodreads To Read list) ever since we read parts of it in a class I took let's-not-discuss-how-many-years-ago. My hand is finally being forced by the fact that Tim O'Brien is coming to speak to my community at the end of the month, and I am NOT missing that, so I want to be prepared! I only got a few minutes to read, though, because my daughter woke up, and then I had to give my son a ride.

When we got back home, I cleaned up my daughter's room and then practiced the piano for a bit- still working on perfecting Angel Eyes by Jim Brickman. That night, I completed the laundry room and felt pretty darn good about myself! I folded and put away some laundry, and then watched an episode of Orange is the New Black with my husband before bed.


TUESDAY

In the morning, I took my kids to Menards and bought a small shelf for the laundry room, then stopped by Walmart to pick up some heavy plastic containers in order to begin work on organizing the Basement of DOOM. At home, my daughter and I did her Reading and Geography lessons (we went to Cameroon). During her naptime, I threw dinner in the Instant Pot- Vegan Cabbage Roll Soup (I used rice instead of quinoa, since that's what I had on hand). I'm not normally a huge cabbage fan, but this soup is delicious. After that got going, I set up the shelves we'd purchased in the laundry room, and then I started moving things around in the basement.

The box marked 'Pretzel Crisps' actually holds tea. Don't ask.

To the left, my daughter's easel.

My daughter's nap was short today, but by the time she woke up, I'd moved enough stuff around that there was a place for her to play while I dove into the mess of my husband's boxes (some of which hadn't been touched for 8+ years!!!).

Like this. It was just an empty box, but we would have moved it AT LEAST THREE TIMES!!1!!1!!!11!1!!!!

She helped me sort things into piles, which was pretty adorable. We hit the library after we were done cleaning, and after dinner, I headed back downstairs for more basement cleaning. Before bed, I read a little bit more of The Things They Carried.


WEDNESDAY

I started laundry, and then my daughter and I headed out for a grocery trip to two different stores. At the second store, I somehow managed to miss seeing this on the way in:

It's not actually real.

How did I miss that? Egads. Anyway, back at home, we cleaned more of the basement, hung the laundry outside, and then dropped my son off at school so that he could get pictures taken and pick up his student ID. Back home again, I- say it with me- CLEANED MORE OF THE BASEMENT. Earlier in the day, I offered the empty boxes up on Freecycle and someone had responded almost immediately, so I carried those outside for her and they were gone quickly. After dinner, I- you guessed it- CLEANED EVEN MORE OF THE BASEMENT. And then I slipped and fell.

Ow.

I'm very fortunately that it wasn't a bad fall. My foot hit a piece of plastic and slid on the tiled floor and I went down hard on my left knee. It could've been pretty bad, and I was a little worried that I was going to be hurting the next morning, but fortunately I had nothing more than some strained muscles in my left leg and some aches on my right side. PHEW. Despite the fall, I still packed the car full in preparation for donating approximately fifteen thousand pounds of unnecessary stuff to the thrift store, cleaned the kitchen, picked my son up, and finished The Things They Carried. 

Exhausting day!

THURSDAY

My daughter and I dropped our stuff off at the thrift store, then stopped by the Dollar Tree next door, because I needed a mop. Of course, they were all out of mops! I did pick up a bucket and two bottles of floor cleaner. I usually make my own, but I wanted something more heavily scented for the first wash or two- that floor down there needed it! Fortunately, we were planning on stopping by another grocery store, and right next door to that was a Family Dollar. We grabbed a mop there, and then grabbed some loss leaders from the grocery store. Back at home, we did Reading and Geography (Cape Verde today), and I started the dough for focaccia in the bread machine. And when my daughter went down for a nap, I did something that I've been dreaming of doing for ages:

DREAM BIG, KIDS!!!

After scrubbing, I threw together a salad for dinner and baked the focaccia with tomatoes from our garden. Ice cream was on sale this week, so we had some of that after we ate. I figured I had done enough work for the day and settled down with a book from my Goodreads To Read list after my daughter went to bed.

FRIDAY

My daughter was up super early today, so we gave my husband a ride to the train. Yard sales were fruitful this week. I picked up a jar of orange-scented hand soap, a bottle of Bath & Body Works lotion and a container full of beads (which I'll give to my mother for Christmas), a drinking cup with a hockey team logo (which I'll give to my hockey-obsessed son for Christmas), a sewing pattern for a child's apron (I'm hoping to make this for my daughter for Christmas), and a skein of yarn (since it was only ten cents, I grabbed it and will toss it into my stash for future use). At home, my daughter helped me prepare the tofu meatballs for dinner, and then we did Reading and Geography lessons (the Cayman Islands!). We dropped off my son at a friend's house and then my daughter and I made a Costco run. We're new to Costco this year and I had remembered to grab the coupons and gift card we'd gotten for joining, and so we came home with a three-pack of cleaning wipes, a pack of 72 AA batteries, and a pack of toilet paper, all at no cost out of pocket. 

From there, we went to the library, where my daughter and I snuggled together and read Dr. Seuss's HOP ON POP and an adorable Mo Willems book called I Will Take a Nap. That night, I read a little of a book from my Goodreads To Read list, picked up my son, and watched an episode of Orange is the New Black with my husband.

SATURDAY

My daughter had gymnastics, so I read more of that Goodreads book. At home, I cleaned the kitchen and living room, then re-mopped part of the basement that still looked a little dusty and gross. I spent the rest of naptime organizing the bookshelves in the basement, which had become a disorganized mess and a place to shove things and run. When my daughter woke up, we went to my sister-in-law's house with the intention of taking the kids on a picnic, but thunder and lightning cancelled those plans, so we just let the kids play in the house. That night, I read more of my Goodreads book and watched two episodes of Orange is the New Black with my husband.

SUNDAY

Renaissance Faire day!

My husband and I have been visiting the Ren Faire together since we were first dating. It's a little bit of a different experience now that we have our daughter, much slower and not quite as long of a day, but it's still fun. 

Despite the crowd, it really didn't feel crowded. How did it feel? HOT.

It's just not the Ren Faire without stopping to watch the joust.

And of course we had to stop and pet this, uh, Renaissance-y goat!

And since the Ren Faire is about a fifty minute drive from us, you know I didn't just sit there in the car.

Ta-da!

Finally finished! In case you're curious, the pattern I use is The Mitts from Bev's Country Cottage. I've made so many of these two-needle mittens. It's a super simple pattern, easy to follow and understand. I'm not a fancy knitter, so this one is perfect for me. These mittens will go into my Christmas gift stash. I have a list of knitting projects I want to make, so I'll pull that out in the next few days and figure out what I want to work on next. :) 

Before dinner, my husband had to do some work in the yard, so my daughter and I settled down for a Reading and Geography lesson today (a quick virtual trip to the Central African Republic). After she went to bed, I read my book for a bit and then watched Orange Is the New Black with my husband.

And that was it! I'm *this* close to finishing the basement, something I honestly never thought I'd be able to say. I still need to organize my craft area, which shouldn't take too long, and I think I'm going to put my husband's containers in the crawlspace. After that, I'll write up a post about the basement so you can see the before and after...if you dare. The two befores I have are pretty bad!

Goodreads To Read list: 160 books

Mittens completed: 2

Laundry rooms fully cleaned and organized: 1

How was your week? 

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