Plan To Eat

I struggle with finding time for everyday tasks like vacuuming, dishes, laundry, and grocery shopping. I would love to outsource these tasks, but I can't justify spending the money on a maid or laundry service. I actually researched grocery shopping assistants in the area, but I didn't find much and they all charge exorbitantly anyway.

Enter Plan To Eat (plantoeat.com). This handy website takes all the planning and calculation out of grocery shopping and streamlines the meal planning process. To start, PTE lets you put in your own recipes or choose from theirs. I started off with about 18 recipes. Once you have a set of recipes that you like, you can drag and drop the recipes onto a calendar to create a menu for each day. You can specify breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and even snacks. So far, I've only used it to plan dinners, but then my free trial only started a few days ago.

Once you've got a calendar full of recipes (I worked a week in advance) PTE creates a grocery list of all the things you need for your recipes. You can drag and drop ingredients into the pantry section if you already have the ingredients on hand. Pantry items are set to delete after 2 or 7 days (or never). Because I plan to use PTE once a week or so, I set the items to delete after 2 days. After you've finished your shopping list for items on your menu, you can then add grocery items that aren't related to your recipes. I added breakfast cereal, bananas, coffee creamer and toothpaste. PTE even breaks down your list into manageable categories like dairy, meat, produce and dry goods. And it provides a recipe key to let you know which ingredients go to which recipe. PTE has thought of everything.

Matt and I investigated PTE together. Occasionally he'd say something like, "I wonder how long the pantry items stay in there. Because we won't have egg noodles on hand all the time." A couple of clicks around the site and I had set the items to auto delete after two days. Then he said, "It's weird that minced garlic is considered produce. I'd put that in the spices section." A couple of clicks and voila, minced garlic is lumped in with all the other spices. PTE is completely customizable.

PTE will save me hours every month and will virtually eliminate the, "Any ideas about dinner?" conversation we have every evening. It's so easy anyone can do it. It will also save money. At $39 per year, PTE is completely affordable. If it saves me just one dinner out per year it has paid for itself. Who knew meal planning was so much fun!

kitchen mini-makeover

Our prior house had a chair rail in the kitchen. The kitchen was very small, and it didn't have a dishwasher. Or even a double sink. But I really liked the chair rail. To highlight it, we painted the top and bottom each a different shade of green. I have no idea now what the top color was called, but the bottom color was something like avocado.

When we moved, our new kitchen did not have a chair rail. While I've toyed with the idea of painting a white stripe on the wall to mimic a chair rail, I don't think it would look all that great in our kitchen. For one thing, the cabinets are very dark. They'll be one of the first things to go when we're in a position to update the kitchen. I hate them. I need something brighter... maybe something more in the honey-colored range.

Anyway, the point is that I had to pick one color for the kitchen, so we picked the avocado color from the last kitchen. (It matched our towels better.) But once it was on the wall, it looked so ... muddy. I've lived with it for over 3 years now, and I think it's finally time for a change. I like the idea of green, but I'm terrible at picking out colors. My intention was to shamelessly copy Karen's color choice and see how I like Gentle Pasture by Valspar.

But when I looked at this color in the store, it looked SO much different than the color in my inspiration kitchen. Like... really really different.

my current kitchen

Karen's kitchen

Gentle Pasture

Asparagus

So now I think I've settled on Asparagus by Behr. One quick Google search confirms that it's a very popular color indeed, but I'm not sure how it will look with our dark cabinets. I'm going to paint it anyway, and if it doesn't look fab with the cabinets, I'll paint those too. That'll show 'em.

real progress

I took a half-day off of work yesterday to work in solitude on New Baby's nursery. When we first found out I was pregnant, I fully intended to use all of the same bedding and decor from Natalie's room. That was part of the reason we went gender neutral in the first place. Natalie's room turned out great. I loved it. I still love it.


But my mommy guilt got the best of me. I want my kids to know they are both special to me. New Baby will have lots of hand-me-down toys and maybe clothes. So why not give New Baby his or her own space to grow?

Since we, like most parents, find ourselves shorter on cash now than we did before kids, the challenge was to put together a cute room for less money. Especially considering none of it was going to be "showered" on us.

We bought new furniture and painted, and that was a good start. But we had nothing on the walls. Everything I found online was either not to my taste or expensive or out of stock or gender-specific. I splurged on a wall decal (below) that was too cute to pass up and a baby's first year collage frame that matches Natalie's. Those two things came to about $55. I bought a couple of other small things new ($8.50 on clearance). Then I pieced the rest of the decor together using stuff I had on hand or purchased from a thrift store ($5.71).Decor: $69.21
Curtains: $15.50
Bedding: $45
Giving New Baby his/her own space: priceless (or $129.71)

It's got a totally different vibe from Natalie's room, but I really like it. I plan to showcase the projects here once I've got them on the walls. Check back!

31 weeks

I completely forgot to post my 30 week picture! But here I am at 31 weeks!

I can't believe that in 9 weeks (and by "nine" I mean "please-God-make-it-less-than-nine") we'll be a family of four, and Natalie will be a big sister. I'm still trying to picture her in that role. Sometimes she seems so grown up, and sometimes she's still my little baby.

There are times I wish I could have her all to myself for a little while longer. With a face and personality like hers, who wouldn't? But I'm committed to finding ways to make her feel special, even while (especially while) the new baby needs constant attention.

The room is coming along slowly. The furniture is in, the paint is up. All I need is artwork. And, uh, a crib mattress :) Details, details.

garage salesmanship

I am preparing to host my first ever garage sale this Saturday. Having taken part in a few garage sales (and having been to even more), I thought I was pretty prepared for all the work involved. Man, it is a lot of work. Especially while trying make sure your toddler doesn't run full speed down the driveway into traffic.

Matt is against garage-saleing as a rule, but I think he is curious to see how it's going to go. He doesn't like to haggle with people, but since we're in "everything must go" mentality, there won't be much haggling going on. After all, we're adding a whole other person to our family in August, and babies have lots of stuff.

Our sale is a few days away, but we have almost everything set up. As we go, I am schooling Matt in basic garage salesmanship.

Rule #1 : Everything has to be clean. You can easily spend days on this if your stuff has been in storage for awhile. Fun times.

Rule #2 : Display display display. There was a library study done several years ago in which a librarian chose books of which the library owned two copies. One, she left on the shelf. The other, she displayed. Guess which one checked out more? My own personal library-gleaned rule is that books on the bottom shelves don't check out much, so put your boxes on tables to encourage more browsing. Also, signs make a huge difference for people who come looking for one thing. They want to get in and get out. They do not want to check out all your crap to find that one-in-a-million deal.

Rule #3 : Bargain hunters start early 'round these parts. We'll be setting up at 7 for an 8 a.m. sale time. I already posted our sale on Craigslist and (surprise surprise!) received a few emails asking about specific items. One person even asked if we'd be willing to open our garage to him for a "preview sale".

I told you they start early.

i will miss this house

No we aren't moving.

But when Matt and I talk about home improvements and budgets and styles, one of us always brings up the point that this is not going to be our forever house. We won't still be living here when our children leave for college or get married. We won't be grandparents in this house. We might not even be girl scout leaders in this house. Our original plan was 10-15 years then we'd move on.

When I look around though, I will miss what we've experienced here. I remember decorating the house: peeling wallpaper, painting, and larger renovations. I remember when we found out we were pregnant (twice!), and when we brought Natalie home. We learned how to be parents here.

When Natalie's older, and we look back at pictures of her childhood, I hope she remembers our first home. Playing in the pool and sprinkler and laughing in her baby swing. The slide she wanted so badly. The deck she "helped" to build. The bathtub she drew all over and played in with her sibling/s. That we couldn't keep her from climbing onto the bay window seat. And so many other everyday memories we haven't made yet.

Maybe the pregnancy hormones are making me overly sentimental. But I can't help it. I will miss this house.

another project down!

Our new deck is my favorite part of the whole house. Especially on days like today... a temperature around 75 degrees and the sunniest skies we've seen 'round these parts in quite a while. And now on to pictures.

Remember what it looked like before?

Well this is what it looks like now...

The view from the yard. A pergola adds shade because our house gets full-on midday sun. Built in benches on either side of the deck add functional seating, serve in place of railings, and take up only a fraction of the space of furniture.

A close-up of the pergola and bench seating


The view out the back door... much more open to the yard, and about 3 feet bigger thanks to the large terraced step.

Natalie is really excited about the new deck!

Happy Birthday!

Sure, 30 is a milestone, but we celebrate our entrance to middle age by enjoying a quiet evening on our new deck. Going out involves too much precious time spent away from our wonderful, adorable baby girl. So we gathered friends and family around a crackling campfire and toasted marshmallows. Perfect.

The deck

For some reason, I feel it necessary to insist that my wonderful husband embark on large home improvement projects while I’m pregnant. With Natalie, we decided we needed a new master bathroom. It turned out great, but the experience was frustrating. This year, when we found out Uncle Sam was going to be rewarding us with a juicy tax return, we decided we needed another project. This year, it was the deck.

Our deck is roughly 20 years old and is showing its age. Or was showing its age. Before it was demolished. Maybe starting in March wasn’t the best plan, but now three weeks later, it’s almost done. It will be larger, more open to our yard, and feature built in seating and a pergola. When it’s finished. To the credit of my husband and all the great help we’ve had, this project has gone really quickly!

Right now we have loose deck boards on the deck and a makeshift ramp down to the yard. It’s liveable, but I can’t wait for the finished product. Check back closer to Easter for finished pictures. I’m sure it will be great!

words words words

Natalie's first word was Dadda, though I'm not 100% convinced she knew what she was saying. Matt and I marvel every time she says a new word. Sometimes she repeats what we say, but sometimes she says a word out of the blue that we haven't spoken to her in days.

I thought it was great how much she was able to communicate at 15 months old. But when our doctor told us that she should know about 10 words by that age, I was floored. She was already close to 50. After that I stopped keeping track. I couldn't anymore. She was and still is learning words so quickly that I can't keep up. When people ask, I end up saying, "Uh let's see. She said water, and uh... gator. Um... swing... slide. She knows all the kids' names at daycare..." But I know there's more.

I attribute this language explosion to the fact that we read and talk to her every day, and have been since she was born. Since before actually. And during those long commutes to Oxford, I listed to an awful lot of audio books. (So if she grows up with a penchant for Jeremy Irons' voice, audio books are to blame.)

Also, she has extremely good genes ;)

Soon I'll post a picture of Natalie's "word wall". Matt brought home bath crayons that Natalie absolutely loves. But in an effort to keep my mom updated on all the new words Natalie was saying, I used the crayons to keep track. These are her first 50 words.

Journaling versus blogging

I have always been a fan of journaling. More so now that I have a child (and another on the way). I started Natalie’s journal when I was just 5 weeks pregnant. And now, at 14 weeks pregnant the second time, I have started a new journal for the new baby.

With a full time job, a precocious and adorable toddler, a home that demands renovation, and a husband that insists we have food in the house at all times, the question becomes… are two journals enough, or should I continue attempting to blog?

920 -- Things I'm loving these days

1. The rain. It is nature's car wash. Plus it smells good.
2. The PSI monitor on my car. I'll leave you to your inferences.
3. These to do list note pads from prettybitter.com. I appreciate their honesty. (PS My birthday is coming up!)
4. Moms Like Me. After searching high and low for a full time working mom online support group, I finally stumbled on this (all local!) site. They have already helped me through one low point.
5. My darling daughter. Despite sickness, exhaustion, and general icky feelings, she manages to be amazing every day. We should all be so lucky.
6. My new fabric softener scent. Hey, it's all about the little things, right?
7. My husband. He works really hard, and never (hardly ever) complains. I have a lot to learn from him.
8. Custom return address stamps like these. Because labels are so last decade. Did I mention my birthday is coming up?
9. Bath time. Natalie's bath routine is the time we are guaranteed every day. We pick out her clothes, get some tub time in, and she talks up a storm. Afterwords, I feed her and sing to her. Sometimes she sings along.
10. Friends who call more than a month ahead of my birthday to ask what my plans are and if I want to get together to celebrate. They don't need no stinkin Facebook reminder! Thanks friend :)

Anything you're loving these days?

649.1 -- Things I've learned from being a mommy

1. A very very clean house is not necessarily a home

Of course it's necessary that Natalie has a clean place to grow and thrive. Clean clothes to wear. Clean bottles from which to drink. And a clean place to sleep. Does that mean it's important to vacuum the house every day? To scrub her bathtub after every bath? To sanitize her bottles after every feeding? Not to me. Will she mind if the dishes pile up or if her laundry never does get folded? She won't. And if she does, I hope she won't care.

What I hope she remembers are the trio of lullabies I sing to her at every bedtime. That I would rather cuddle and play with her than anything else. Even if she doesn't remember specific things, she will hopefully remember that she was always more important to me than chores.

I try to get Matt to understand this, but maybe one of us has to keep an eye on the dust bunnies.

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew
And out in the yard there's a hullabaloo
But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs and dust go to sleep!
I'm rocking my baby for babies don't keep.

by Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

747 -- Another New Addition

You might recall that we decided to overhaul our master bathroom weeks before our precious daughter was born. We thought we'd have plenty of time. I wasn't much help, other than painting and design decisions, so Matt had a lot of work on his hands.

The master bath before... desperate for an update.

After hearing from my OB that Natalie was likely to be a week late, I was confident Matt could finish on time. Then she came early. When we left for the hospital at 4 a.m. on a Saturday morning, our new quartz countertop and Corian undermount sink were on saw horses in the kitchen. Which is exactly where we found them when we got back from the hospital 2 days later.

Matt dragged himself away from our little one long enough to install the sink, fit the plumbing, hang the vanity mirror, and install the glass shower enclosure. We now have a luxurious master bathroom to relax us after a long day, or revive us in preparation for a long night.

Viola!

Note the stone corner seat (Matt's idea) and the custom inserts on the wall (my idea). I'm especially proud of the vanity that Matt put together. He had to order a wall cabinet and customize it himself for our very small bathroom. The medicine cabinet/mirror was another project. Recessing it into the wall added "visual square footage."

I love our new bathroom. There isn't one thing I would change!

128.4 -- Waiting

The changing table and diaper bag are stocked.

Our hospital bags wait by the door.

The car seat is ready.

Now that we have entered the two-week warning period, our little one might come any time. Nothing left to do but wait ... anxiously!

747.77 -- Baby Space

The nursery is finally finished! Would you like a tour?!

These three prints are from my mom. She found them at a "charity shop" in England. (Also -- new ceiling fan! :)


This view is my favorite. I love the furniture and bedding we picked out, and the curtain sheers are my favorite part of the whole room (though I know you can't see the cuteness in this picture). The baseball mobile may not match the room, but it is totally personal. The wall above the crib says, "Everyday holds a possibility of a miracle."


My dad bought this rocking chair for my mom when they found out she was pregnant with me. Matt had it repaired and refinished when we found out we were pregnant. I had to weed the baby books we had. They didn't all fit on our bookshelf!


This is the wall above the changing table. I was able to rip apart some old classic Pooh books to make these framed prints. And of course a Willow Tree... I love those!


Most of the toys won't see use for several months of course, but the baby will have lots of plush options to choose from. The basket is full of gifted blankets for our winter baby -- most of them were handmade!


See the plush green rug in front of the crib? Charlie has taken to laying on it as his go-to spot. When he is scared or bored or tired or when we are working in the nursery, he goes to that rug and curls up. It's so cute!

618.2 -- The Final Countdown

After so long, the very last month of pregnancy has begun. Technically, that was on November 8th, but I was celebrating the bathroom over the weekend, so I'm celebrating the one-month mark today!

So... today marks four short weeks to my due date. To say I am looking forward to that glorious day is an understatement. Aches and pains have increased, as have day-to-day stresses and frustrations. The good news is that the nursery is one shelf away from being completely finished! (Where did I put those screws??) Look for pictures of the completed space on Friday if not before. I promise!

A sneak peak at the nursery and the final belly pic... unless I go past my due date!

747 -- Visible Progress

For the last two weeks, Matt has been working really hard on the bathroom. However, there hasn't been much visual progress until now. While I know all the work he's put in, any other person might look at the room now and think, "What've you been doing?" Well, here's what he's been doing:

When he tore up the ... well ... entire bathroom, he found some water damage to the plywood floor, so he put down all new plywood. The stack for the toilet stuck out of the wall at a funny angle, which prevented us from enlarging the shower the way we wanted to. He rerouted the stack so it wouldn't interfere. Our new sink will be higher than our old one, so he rerouted the plumbing for that. The shower plumbing needed to be moved back about 8 inches, so he almost completely rebuilt that. The mirror we had in the bathroom was not recessed, and our new one will be, so Matt framed out a cabinet in the wall. He also framed out two wall inserts in what will be the shower. Then it was time to install the new can lights and exhaust fan, requiring some time in the attic (never fun).

After all this was done, Matt used a combination of drywall and moisture-resistant cement board to make the walls, ceiling, and floor. He then installed the shower pan, and built a curb between the shower and the rest of the bathroom. We painted a water-impermeable concoction called Mapegum onto the shower floor and part way up the shower walls. (Mapegum takes 12-24 hours to dry completely, so it's a huge time suck!)

Somewhere in between all of this madness we made several trips to various hardware and home design stores. We picked out tile for the bathroom floor, the shower floor, and the shower walls, as well as the new vanity, counter top, sink bowl, and sink and shower fixtures.

Yesterday, we painted on another layer of Mapegum, filled in all the drywall holes and seams with drywall mud, and set the tile for the bathroom floor. (And managed to get the new ceiling fan installed in the nursery.)

Today we'll paint on a third and final layer of Mapegum, and sand and re-mud the drywall seams. Monday night, we'll tile the shower floor and curb. If there is time, Matt might also sand and mud again.

With only 1-2 hours each night to work on this project, of course it has been slow going. And it's hard for me to accept that so much prep work has to go into the project before the visible progress begins. I have no doubt we'll have a functioning bathroom by December, but getting there will include a lot more late nights for both of us!

747 -- Bathroom Remodel

Matt and I (but mostly Matt) have decided to undertake one final pre-baby home renovation project: The master bathroom. It's really needed an update ever since we moved in. Now that Matt is out of the National Guard, his evenings and weekends are a lot freer. And since he got a new job involving bathroom and kitchen remodeling, it seemed like the perfect time.

For the last few days we've been pricing vanities, counter tops, ceramic tile, and faucets. Matt is on a golf outing this weekend, so the project is on a temporary hiatus, but we expect it will be done before the baby comes. Below, see the "before" and "during" pictures... already a huge improvement!

Before ................................... During

618.2 -- First Big Purchase!

Thursday, Matt and I drove out to a gorgeous Hamilton subdivision to take a look at a brand new Pack N Play I saw advertised on CraigsList. Long story short, we loved it. It doesn't match the stroller we registered for, but the Pack N Play (and matching Swing N Bounce, both by Graco) will mostly be in our living room (or other people's living rooms). I'm guessing they won't come into much contact with the stroller :)

The future nursery is still a guest room until at least the end of August. Until then, we can't set up much baby stuff. Here are stock images of both our big scores. I love that they were so cheap, and that the black pattern will go nicely in our living room. I super love that these both come with the vibrate feature, and that the Pack N Play comes with all that extra storage!