The Unskilled Expert

2011-09-13T20:57:00.001-05:00

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Change of plans.....

2011-09-13T13:10:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I've had a change of plans, which means that my blog has been massively lowered on the priority list. I'm FINALLY going to get going on my Etsy shop! After some discussions with other mother-owned small businesses, I've got my motivation back. Up first I'm working on fine-tuning the design of my Etsy shop. I will announce my shop's name and link here first.....hopefully soon! Then I'm

Back in the game

2011-08-29T12:21:00.001-05:00

So far I've met my goal of posting once a week...and yes, the post last week where it was just my weight loss; that totally counts as a post. :/ So I'm back in the game! My ankle is feeling better and I ran for the first time in 2 weeks last night. It wasn't too bad, I was only able to do half of my C25K time which means I ran 12.5 minutes, but I ran faster in those 12.5 minutes then I have

Just saying....

2011-08-23T20:57:00.002-05:00

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Jinx!

2011-08-14T22:09:00.001-05:00

I always jinx myself! You know, when you say "my baby is sleeping through the night!" or "hey my kid is finally potty trained!"....and then the next night you are up every hour with your infant or your toddler is peeing on the carpet. That's the story of my life, except this time it doesn't involve my kids (amazing, right?) I purposefully did not post about my C25K running adventures until I

Run Forrest, Run!

2011-08-08T21:32:00.000-05:00

This blog has been sorely neglected this summer! Even though we haven't done much this summer, it feels like we have been constantly busy. Add that to my laziness and lack of creative writing skills, and you have one pathetic blog. I have a lot of things that I'd like to write about so my new goal is to update weekly, if not more. I'm sure that anyone reading this (if anyone is still out

Harvesting

2011-07-07T14:35:00.000-05:00

How lame is it that I was excited about picking our first tomato today? And it was just a tiny little cherry tomato. Sad. But we also picked 1/2 pint of raspberries and a couple of onions, so I guess that makes it a little better. I was too lazy today to take pictures but just imagine the last pictures I posted, just fuller. In my last post, I mentioned my venture into Once A Month Cooking.

Summer!

2011-06-15T15:20:00.001-05:00

It's here.....finally! Although I can't honestly say that I love summer like most people. I hate temperatures of 100+ degrees, especially around here where the humidity makes it impossible to grab the mail without needing to change clothes. Yuck. But the kids have been enjoying the days, now that we don't have to worry about getting a nap in before picking M up from school. So far we've gone

Garden Update

2011-04-28T11:35:00.000-05:00

It's so exciting to finally see the garden coming together...with stuff growing in it! I have everything planted that can tolerate a light frost, and I'll be planting the rest within the next few weeks. I have updated pictures below. I didn't realize that you couldn't see much with the covers on, but those covers have been a life saver. The first week that I planted, the pesky animals (

Just wanted to share...

2011-04-07T12:19:00.002-05:00

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Weight Loss Tools That is all.

Progress!

2011-03-21T09:22:00.001-05:00

We were SoOoOoO lucky to have nice warm weather all week, we made a lot of progress on our garden. Here are some pictures of our deck boxes. We have very limited sun in our back yard and our deck gets a good chunk of it. We decided to stain these ones. After a few "discussions" back and forth about the safety of using stain for vegetable boxes, we decided to stick with it, only the top inch

Now we're back!

2011-03-08T16:06:00.000-06:00

You know how my last post was about us being sick and then getting better? Well guess who was sick AGAIN!!! K and I both had some nasty cold that lasted yet another week of our winter. I think we are now finally better (looking for a piece of wood nearby to knock on.) So I'm going to stop talking about it all together and hope that helps. On to better things....gardening!!! This year we are

We're Baaaaaaack!

2011-02-15T14:20:00.000-06:00

Holy cow what a month it has been! A little case of bronchitis turned into a weekend in the hospital! Good news is that everyone is seemingly back to normal. Bad news is ...... well I guess there really isn't any bad news. I don't even remember February starting and here it is half way over. We do have a big birthday coming up in our house though....M is turning 7 on the 26th! It seems

A New Year....A New Look!

2011-01-30T12:14:00.000-06:00

How does it look? I got notification that the site I got my designs from was changing, along with the code. I figured I might as well change it up, since I had to adjust all of my code anyway. It is very typical of me, if you know me personally you will know that I like to change and rearrange things. Come to my house today and then again next week, and most likely our furniture will be moved

Mazie

2010-12-22T11:43:00.002-06:00

A few friends were talking today about the story of our Nativity and it really got me thinking about the story of our cat. By the way, if you haven't heard already, she is going to be in next year's I Can Has Cheezburger calendar! After her appearance in their How To Take Over the World book, they liked the picture enough to add it to the calendar. And after you read the story, the calendar

More projects completed

2010-12-12T11:30:00.001-06:00

I finished up M's quilt. It was absolutely adorable...until I washed it and parts (not all of it of course) shrunk. I think that she'll still like it though. Here is a part of it, she picked out the pink and black skulls on her own. I also make her a white polka-dot minky pillow. I also whipped up a little pillow for K to go with his alphabet letters. And my final project today was a set of

Just another homemade Christmas in Kentucky....

2010-12-05T18:59:00.001-06:00

....or Iowa. Whatever. I finished 1 of the 3 projects that I have planned for the kids this year, and I wanted to show it off :) M's quilt is about 75% done, just waiting for my fabric to come in the mail. I'm planning on making a little fishing pole set for K next, and then he'll be getting these ABC's as well: Aren't they cute? I can't take credit for the idea, I got it here at Chez

Welcome December!

2010-12-01T15:35:00.000-06:00

Wow, time has flown by this year! I can't believe it's December already, but maybe that has something to do with the fact that it's Iowa and we haven't had a blizzard yet. And December doesn't just mean Christmas at our house...it means birthday! TWO....yes, he's going to be TWO this month. He's been busier then ever, learning things left and right. I am extremely happy to report that our

Christmas countdown!

2010-10-27T21:24:00.000-05:00

I am so excited to say this....I am about 90% done with my Christmas shopping!! Jealous? I have a few of the last minute things left, which I will save until later because I actually enjoy doing a little holiday shopping in December. Not the kind where I have to wrestle other parents to get the "it" toy for my kid, but things like stocking stuffers and such. The only thing I don't have prepared

Cooking monster...

2010-10-17T09:08:00.000-05:00

...not to be confused with Cookie Monster. I have really been cooking a lot these past few days, I have found so many recipes that I wanted to try. Especially this time of year, when it's not too hot to have the oven on all day and of course the fact that there are apples and pumpkins everywhere! Today I made some pumpkin butter. It doesn't have butter in it like you may think, it's more like

pasghetti!

2010-10-07T12:45:00.000-05:00

Not to brag, but I'm pretty sure the spaghetti that I made last night was the best ever created. Don't buy it? Ok, but it was REALLY good! I'll post the recipe down below, in case you are feeling inspired to try it. October is an incredibly busy month for us. We probably had 4 things on our calendar all year (yes, we are boring people.) But this month I have something every weekend and

Garage Sales

2010-09-28T14:19:00.000-05:00

So I'm gearing up for our garage sale this weekend! We've done one the past two springs, but this is my first fall garage sale. Thankfully the weather is supposed to be perfect this weekend, and I have people lined up to help out with the kiddos, so I'm kind of excited for it. Not to mention that I'm excited to get rid of stuff and make money! I'm still doing good with the gym. I've had a

One week down, so many more to go

2010-09-19T11:52:00.001-05:00

I started my free week trial at Anytime Fitness this past Monday, so I've officially completed one week. Yay! My original plan was to go every other day but I went every day except Wednesday (when I was sick) and Saturday (when we had plans all day.) I actually enjoyed myself, not to mention the time away from the house (and kids!) Our switch to eating better has been going well too. We got

Extra Life

2010-09-06T13:15:00.000-05:00

My wonderful husband is at it again, doing the Extra Life charity event. You may remember me posting about this last year (because I'm sure I posted it several times :) Last year all donations went to the Texas Children's Hospital. This year we are so thrilled to announce that we get to CHOOSE the hospital that we want the donations to go to, as long as it is within the Children's Miracle

I'm one of "those" people...

2010-08-31T21:13:00.000-05:00

...you know, the "green, organic, natural, hippy" type. This may not seem like news to most people, considering my previous ventures: homemade laundry detergent, cloth diapers, composting, etc. I do have to say though that I lasted at those things MUCH longer then I ever expected. I'm taking some time off of the homemade detergent and dishwasher soap. I need to tweak my formulas a bit, and