This Life, Redefined...

Vacation Souvenirs

2014-08-15T15:40:00.002-04:00

The girls and I took a mini vacation last week, spending a few days with my parents at their beach condo in Florida. One of Brigid's favorite things to do at the beach is to hunt for seashells, and even though I have to keep telling her she needs to at least limit herself to whole seashells, and not just various seashell pieces, we always come home with buckets of shells at the end of every trip. And I'm kind of running out of places to put some of them...

(And here's where I have to admit...I like seashell hunting, too. I am part of the problem.)

I have several large glass containers filled with sand and shells in various rooms of my house. I have a bowl full of sand dollar pieces in my dining room. I have driftwood scattered here and there. I look like I'm trying to pretend I live at the beach when I live in the middle of the mountains. (Ok, that part might be true...) But WE KEEP BRINGING MORE HOME.

Since I don't really have anywhere else to put more shells, I told Brigid that last week's haul was all hers, to do with what she wanted. The results:

A necklace and bracelet that she 'designed' herself from a couple of the shells that had holes in them already...

Two picture frames that I bought for $1/each so she could paint and glue whatever seashells she wanted to on them (the heart one she says she made for Steve and I, 'Because I love you guys, mommy!', and the other one will have a picture of her from this trip in it, once I actually get around to getting a picture of her from this trip out of my phone and into print.)...

And then, because I expected her to use a lot more shells on the picture frames (Seriously, who knew she'd be so artistic about placing certain shells in specific spots on the frames? I expected 99% of the wood to be covered in shells, not paint.), we had to find a place to dump the leftovers...

That one was a recycled idea we've used before, obviously. I told you the kid likes her seashells.

The best part? Other than actually spending time at the beach, that is? For a few dollars, we killed an afternoon with craft projects and created a couple of reminders of a fun vacation along the way. Everybody wins!

(Except for when I have to dust this stuff. That just sucks.)

Tomato Attack

2014-07-31T22:19:00.000-04:00

We decided to plant a garden this year, our first in the new house. Steve built us a raised bed, filled it with good soil, and we had eggplant, squash, zucchini, peppers, cucumbers, and four different kinds of tomatoes all planted and ready to go sometime in the second week of April, which is when the gardening people told us we should plant...

...and then Atlanta got hit with a random freeze in the middle of April. That doesn't really happen here. Unless I'm trying to plant something, apparently. It seems my black thumb is impressive enough to change entire weather patterns.

Go figure.

After the freeze, we thought we'd lost everything, but most of the plants seemed to rebound after a few days except for a couple of them that Steve replaced at Home Depot a few weeks later. Well, we thought he'd replaced the same plants, but I'm not entirely sure that's the case now. Because we have tomatoes. Lots and lots and LOTS of tomatoes. The tomatoes killed off the zucchini. They killed off the squash. They killed off the eggplant. They tried to kill off the peppers, but we replanted those in a different location before it was too late. The only thing that was able to stand up against the onslaught of the tomato plant were the cucumbers. I honestly don't know how we ended up with so many tomato plants. We HAD to have replaced some non-tomato frozen plants with new tomato-tomato plants, on top of whatever had survived the freeze.

BECAUSE WE HAVE HAD ALL OF THE TOMATOES AT OUR HOUSE THIS SUMMER.

All of them.

My neighbor got the first batch while we were out of town at the end of June, and it wasn't a bad haul. I was jealous that she had such a nice harvest, in fact, because I wasn't sure how many of those we had ahead of us...

Then, less than a week later, all hell had broken loose...

And they've kept coming. And coming. And coming. I have picked at least this much, each week, every week, for the last month. That is A LOT of tomatoes and cucumbers.

Here is what I'm currently trying to work through:

I don't think I am EVER going to recover from the amount of acid I've consumed this summer.

A few of my favorite tomato uses, after a month of research and development:
Quinoa Salad with Tomatoes and Cucumbers
Baked Chicken with Tomatoes and Lemon
Garden Tomato and Basil Pesto Pizza
Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter (I've tasted this alone, but not with pasta yet, as we've canned this recipe for the winter. I haven't eaten a single roma tomato, just because they're a good canning tomato and I've had more than enough grape and cherry tomatoes to keep me well supplied this past month,)

I'm hoping we manage to plan a little better next year, because this is just getting ridiculous, now...

Playroom Updates

2014-07-30T14:33:00.000-04:00

As of two weeks ago, I officially became a work-from-home mom. Even though I haven't fully transitioned into the new part-time role I'll be performing, because I promised my boss I'd stay as full-time as possible until September to fully support my replacement, I've still managed to find small bits of time to handle a few of the household projects that have been bothering me for the past few months, while Steve and I have both tried to juggle full-time jobs and keeping the house from falling down around our ears. Since I don't have to be up at 4:30AM anymore to get into the office, it's amazing what I'm actually able to get done in the evenings after the girls go to bed...

Project 1: Organizing the playroom.

I wish I had taken before pictures of this process, so you could see just what I was dealing with in the playroom, but my first order of business was finding new storage units.

Enter the neighborhood Facebook page!

I got two of these cabinets for $50/each, but I didn't like the oak color, and I wanted something a little brighter for the room. So I made the incredibly stupid decision to paint them. I HATE PAINTING THINGS. Remind me of this next time I get some new dumb idea like this...

I really should have done one more coat of white paint on those cabinets, but after one (way too thin, it turns out) coat of primer, two coats of white paint, and three coats of pink paint on the backs of the shelves, I was done. DONE.

After the painting was done, I emptied and reorganized and refilled every bin in that room, threw out broken toys and smashed crayons and empty sticker sheets, and resorted approximately one and a half million puzzle pieces into their correct boxes.

And now my children are never allowed to play in that room, again.

The end.

The 2014 List - June Update

2014-07-02T14:34:00.002-04:00

I always have these big plans to do things throughout the year, and then I never actually do them, because, you know...January was a loooooooong time ago. I've slept (and not slept, as the case may be, given the two rotten kids I live with, but whatever...) since then, and I forget things, so I like to try to revisit my list once a quarter, just to see where I stand on everything I wanted to do.

------------------------------

1) Send more mail...thank you notes, birthday cards, and 'just because' messages. - I sent my sister a bracelet after she had my niece. That maybe counts for something?

2) Be nicer, in general, to my husband and family. They deserve a much less crabby me than the one they were stuck with for most of 2013. - Probably not. Maybe I am just a generally crabby person, and I'm just now realizing this about myself?

3) Make more of an effort to communicate with the long-distance people in my life. I got away from facetiming with my sister on a regular basis, and I miss it. Plus, now that she's making me an aunt, I think it's even more important that we get back into the habit of seeing each other every week. I do not need her new baby asking 'are you SURE you have more than one sister?', just because Aunt Mary lives in Indiana and Aunt Tara lives all of the way in Georgia. - It's a little better. Ish.

4) Call or email or even text my friends from college more than I do now, which is hardly at all. Just because we can pick up after not talking to each other for months like no time has passed at all does not mean I should keep letting all of those months pass without the talking. I'm afraid the picking back up can't keep happening in a friendship like that. - Nope.

5) Do one fitness/health related challenge each month. - You know all of those '0 to 1,000 sit-ups in just 30 days!!' kind of schedules that pop up on Pinterest all of the time? I'm going to start doing those. One each month. Fifteen minute plank? I'M COMING FOR YOU. I'm also throwing my meat-free/sugar-free/alcohol-free months in this category, as well. - I started a new ab challenge yesterday. Here's to doing better than I've done so far.

6) Run another organized 5K. - It was so much more fun than I expected. Minus the running up a hill part, anyway. - Nope.

7) Renew my vows with Steve, in Vegas, by Elvis, for our 10th anniversary in October. - I'm working on this one.

8) Create an art wall somewhere in my house. - Not yet. But I at least have some ideas at this point.

9) Organize a workspace for me - YES! I did this one! Or I did this one as best I could in the room of our unfinished basement that will eventually be my room once we finish it. I can at least access everything, now, although I still have some big decorating plans for the space when we get around to putting up some drywall, finally.

10) Attend The Blathering in Seattle. - Charleston was such a great time, I'd love to make it back for the Seattle trip. - I'm registered! Except...they've moved the event to April of 2015, so am I still allowed to consider this a 2014 goal? I say registering counts.

11) Read at least two books a month. - I have actually read MORE than two books a month! Here is one I'm actually winning! Woo! I discovered the eBook section of my new local library, and hoooooooo BUDDY! I have enjoyed it, immensely.

January - MarchTales of a Hollywood Housewife - Betty Marvin (I have NO IDEA who Lee Marvin was, but I like inside Hollywood stories, so I enjoyed it for that.)
Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout (The book was interesting. I liked it, but I'm glad I got it from the library, if that makes sense.)
Attachments - Rainbow Rowell (This was my favorite of the three (Eleanor & Park, Fangirl) Rowell books I've read, probably because it focused on adults instead of kids. Not that I disliked the other two, it's just harder to relate to YA stories sometimes.)
Sharp Objects - Gillian Flynn (Wow. Gillian Flynn does dark pretty well.)
Dark Places - Gillian Flynn (Seriously. Where does this woman's inspiration come from? This was probably my favorite of the three books I read...)
Seriously...I'm Kidding - Ellen Degeneres (After so much Gillian Flynn, I needed something lighter. It was definitely lighter, but only ok.)
Someday, Someday, Maybe - Lauren Graham (Cute. It was cute.)
Twenties Girl - Sophie Kinsella (I loved her first couple Shopaholic books. But the last few in the series have just gotten ridiculous, and the other books I've read from her lately have had the absolute most ridiculous and kind of terrible plots around. I think it might be time Sophie and I break up, sadly. We'll always have early Becky Bloomwood, though...)
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - Deborah Moggach (I really, really enjoyed this book. I think it has almost NOTHING to do with the movie, which I haven't seen, but did google the storyline, but it was just a great story.)
I've Got Your Number - Sophie Kinsella (It wasn't as terrible as Twenties Girl. But I really only read it because my library had it available, and I still think the break-up is necessary...)
Heads in Beds - Jacob Tomsky (Interesting, and maybe kind of scary, look at the hotel business.)
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris (Funny, entertaining, relatively quick read.)
Life After Life - Kate Atkinson (I adored this book, but I'm not sure I'm smart enough to understand exactly what I read...)
Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls - David Sedaris
When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris (What can I say...my library had a lot of his books electronically...)
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt (Interesting story, but not one of my favorites. It was so very depressing and so very VERY frustrating. I wanted to kick multiple characters, multiple times.)
This One is Mine - Maria Semple (My library doesn't have Where'd You Go, Bernadette, which I've heard great things about, so I got this one instead. Meh...)

April - June
Blackout - Connie Willis (I love historical fiction. This story about a group of time travelers from far in the future being trapped in London during the Blitz was right in my wheelhouse.)
All Clear - Connie Willis (This was part 2 of the Blackout story.)
Sisterland - Curtis Sittenfeld (Once again, my library didn't have the e-version of his book that I wanted to read, so I went with this instead. It was ok.)
Doomsday Book - Connie Willis (I get a little intimidated, sometimes, trying to decide what book to read next, so if I find an author I enjoy at all, I tend to bleed that well dry. This story was referenced in Blackout/All Clear, as a sort of prequel involving some of the characters in those stories, and my library had the e-book, so I read it. This one involved time travelers stuck in the Plague, and I enjoyed it much less than the other two, sadly.)

(At this point, I was waiting for a library book that I was on the waitlist for, and I was 21 books into my goal of 24, so I decided to reread Harry Potter. Again. What can I say...it's one of my happy places. I'm on book 4, although I'm currently taking a break to read The Bones of Paris, since I finally came to the top of the list for that one, two months later.)

12) Take Brigid camping. - I really think this is just a Steve thing, now that I've given it some more consideration.

13) Find a yoga studio and start taking classes regularly. - No.

14) Write something, anything, not blog related. - I barely write things that are blog related at this point.

15) No spending money on new clothes this year. Using gift cards and rewards points are fine, but I need to get out of the habit of spending money on new stuff, just to make myself feel better. I swear, shopping is my addiction, but the high I get from buying a new sweater probably isn't enough to justify the amount of money I spend on clothes I don't need. - I haven't been terrible with clothes, but I've replaced that addiction with one to craft supplies. My new goal is, as of July 1st, not spending extraneous money on ANYTHING for the next 6 months. Aaaaaaaand GO!

16) No buying anything at all unless I absolutely need it. I have a bad habit of stocking up on things at sales (candles, lotions, make-up, beauty products), even if I have a cabinet full of the same stuff already at home. I will use the cabinet full of crap before I add more crap.- See above.

17) Be more consistent in updating my family blog, because my parents give me a hard time when I let it lag, and my personal blog, because I'm not as happy with myself when I let it lag. - I've, uh, been consistent about posting 2 days a week on the family blog. I didn't say what kind of consistency I was looking for...

18) Find a general practitioner and get a physical. - I can't get in until October, BUT I AM ON THE SCHEDULE.

19) Post at least one picture a day on Instagram, to get myself into the habit of taking more pictures of my sweet girls, since I find entire events have passed where I've forgotten to photograph said events. Like Christmas. Sadly. - It's not happening every day, but it's gotten better.

20) Get a haircut. - You can laugh at this one, if you must, but I did not get one single haircut in 2013. In fact, I haven't had a haircut since before Caitlin was born in November of 2012. I do not even know how this happens, but I know it must end. Soon. I think a Locks of Love kind of donation might be in order. My hair, it is long. - My hairs, they were cut. Or trimmed, anyway. And now I'm due for another...

21) Make an effort to get to know the neighbors. - I tend to not get dressed/leave the house on the weekends, and this extends to not fraternizing with anyone who lives near me, because I'm afraid people will judge me for my make-up free, sweatpants clad weekend laze. I should probably get over that. - We have been SO. DARN. BUSY. but I'm trying.

22) Write more thank you notes. - I am terrible at writing thank you notes. I should not be so terrible. - Still pretty terrible.

23) Buy new rugs for my new house. - The sunroom and foyer, in particular, need something fun. - I have one for the foyer, not for the sunroom.

24) Be more fearless in forming and maintaining relationships. - There are many times where I think of something I want to send to someone, whether it's an email, text, card, or what have you, and I don't, because I'm afraid I've maybe overestimated whether we have the type of friendship where I can do something like that. I don't want to worry about stuff like that anymore. - A little better, yes.

25) Put together an Advent/Christmas activity calendar for Brigid and Caitlin. - I did that for Brigid when I was home on maternity leave after Caitlin's birth, and it was so much fun. I didn't get the chance to do it this year, and I feel like I missed out on some part of the excitement of the season. I'm bringing it back.

26) Institute a once-a-month date night with Steve. Or date lunch, I guess, if necessary. - So much fail in this one.

27) Institute a once-a-month girls' night, whether it be with my old college roommate, my SiLs, or the neighbors. I should get out of the house at least once a month with people who do not live in my house. - Quite a bit of fail in this one, too.

The one where my crafty side remembers that it exists...

2014-05-21T17:24:00.000-04:00

My sister-in-law is having a baby boy in July, and while her family is throwing her a shower in June, my mother-in-law wanted to have one hosted by our side of the family, as well, so she could invite all of her friends to it. My other sister-in-law and I were tagged to plan it, with some help from one of the family friends, and hooooooooo buddy.

I had fun.

I was in charge of the decorations, and on one of my many trips to the outlet mall that is now a mere SIX MINUTES from my house since we moved in December, I scoped out the baby clothes in the various children's stores to try to get some ideas of a possible theme. One ridiculously adorable skull & crossbones hat discovery later, I made the executive decision that we were going to do a pirate theme, and to Pinterest I went.

Honestly. How did people plan parties before Pinterest became a thing?

I knew I wanted to make decorations that could be used for both the party and the nursery, and I wanted the favors to be fun, but not cardboard. After spending WAY too much money at Michaels,* I spent WAY too much time playing with stain and paint and scrapbooking paper and stickers. And I kind of loved every minute.

The prep:

And the party:

And (BONUS!) the goofy party crasher:

I'd forgotten how much fun it is (to me, anyway) to put something together like this. For Brigid's last birthday, because we had our house on the market, we did a birthday in a box kind of event at the local gymnastics place, one of those things where they plan everything except the cake. And for Caitlin's last birthday, which also happened to be her first? Well, we were living out of boxes following one failed house closing, coming up on our second (ultimately successful) attempt, and just getting back from a Disney vacation. Plus, it was the day after Thanksgiving. Let's just say the poor child was lucky she got anything remotely resembling a celebration that day.

I plan to make up for it this year. I may just start planning it now...

*After my first trip into Michaels, I called my sister-in-law to inform her that I'd already spent $100 in a craft store, and all I had for the party was a $5 fishing net. My shopping habit seems to have extended itself into the craft supply market now, unfortunately...

The 2014 List - March Update

2014-04-17T09:34:00.000-04:00

------------------------------

1) Send more mail...thank you notes, birthday cards, and 'just because' messages. - I don't think I've sent a single one this year. Onwards and upwards, I guess.

2) Be nicer, in general, to my husband and family. They deserve a much less crabby me than the one they were stuck with for most of 2013. - I don't think I've been too successful at this one, either. Things are moving for me on the job front, though, so maybe there's still time to turn it around.

3) Make more of an effort to communicate with the long-distance people in my life. I got away from facetiming with my sister on a regular basis, and I miss it. Plus, now that she's making me an aunt, I think it's even more important that we get back into the habit of seeing each other every week. I do not need her new baby asking 'are you SURE you have more than one sister?', just because Aunt Mary lives in Indiana and Aunt Tara lives all of the way in Georgia. - No, I haven't done a great job on this, either. But I'm going to see my sister and niece in Indiana next week, so maybe we can get back on track with this one, too.

4) Call or email or even text my friends from college more than I do now, which is hardly at all. Just because we can pick up after not talking to each other for months like no time has passed at all does not mean I should keep letting all of those months pass without the talking. I'm afraid the picking back up can't keep happening in a friendship like that. - A little? Maybe? Some...

5) Do one fitness/health related challenge each month. - You know all of those '0 to 1,000 sit-ups in just 30 days!!' kind of schedules that pop up on Pinterest all of the time? I'm going to start doing those. One each month. Fifteen minute plank? I'M COMING FOR YOU. I'm also throwing my meat-free/sugar-free/alcohol-free months in this category, as well. - Nope. I tried the planking in January, and I did it every day of the month, but I never could get past something like 30 seconds before I needed to take a break. February, I did nothing. For March, I had a push-up challenge planned, but when Caitlin and Brigid got sick, then gave that sickness to me, it all fell apart. Weak sauce, Tara. WEAK. SAUCE.

6) Run another organized 5K. - It was so much more fun than I expected. Minus the running up a hill part, anyway. - My SIL and I had plans to do this, but I haven't had the time to train. So...up in the air, I guess.

7) Renew my vows with Steve, in Vegas, by Elvis, for our 10th anniversary in October.

8) Create an art wall somewhere in my house. - Not yet.

9) Organize a workspace for me - Not yet.

10) Attend The Blathering in Seattle. - Charleston was such a great time, I'd love to make it back for the Seattle trip. - I'm going to need them to announce the dates, first.

11) Read at least two books a month. - I have actually read MORE than two books a month! Here is one I'm actually winning! Woo! I discovered the eBook section of my new local library, and hoooooooo BUDDY! I have enjoyed it, immensely.

Tales of a Hollywood Housewife - Betty Marvin (I have NO IDEA who Lee Marvin was, but I like inside Hollywood stories, so I enjoyed it for that.)
Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout (The book was interesting. I liked it, but I'm glad I got it from the library, if that makes sense.)
Attachments - Rainbow Rowell (This was my favorite of the three (Eleanor & Park, Fangirl) Rowell books I've read, probably because it focused on adults instead of kids. Not that I disliked the other two, it's just harder to relate to YA stories sometimes.)
Sharp Objects - Gillian Flynn (Wow. Gillian Flynn does dark pretty well.)
Dark Places - Gillian Flynn (Seriously. Where does this woman's inspiration come from? This was probably my favorite of the three books I read...)
Seriously...I'm Kidding - Ellen Degeneres (After so much Gillian Flynn, I needed something lighter. It was definitely lighter, but only ok.)
Someday, Someday, Maybe - Lauren Graham (Cute. It was cute.)
Twenties Girl - Sophie Kinsella (I loved her first couple Shopaholic books. But the last few in the series have just gotten ridiculous, and the other books I've read from her lately have had the absolute most ridiculous and kind of terrible plots around. I think it might be time Sophie and I break up, sadly. We'll always have early Becky Bloomwood, though...)
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - Deborah Moggach (I really, really enjoyed this book. I think it has almost NOTHING to do with the movie, which I haven't seen, but did google the storyline, but it was just a great story.)
I've Got Your Number - Sophie Kinsella (It wasn't as terrible as Twenties Girl. But I really only read it because my library had it available, and I still think the break-up is necessary...)
Heads in Beds - Jacob Tomsky (Interesting, and maybe kind of scary, look at the hotel business.)
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris (Funny, entertaining, relatively quick read.)
Life After Life - Kate Atkinson (I adored this book, but I'm not sure I'm smart enough to understand exactly what I read...)
Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls - David Sedaris
When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris (What can I say...my library had a lot of his books electronically...)
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt (Interesting story, but not one of my favorites. It was so very depressing and so very VERY frustrating. I wanted to kick multiple characters, multiple times.)
This One is Mine - Maria Semple (My library doesn't have Where'd You Go, Bernadette, which I've heard great things about, so I got this one instead. Meh...)

12) Take Brigid camping. - I'm amending this to read in our backyard. I've decided I have no desire to camp, especially when Steve started talking about spending weeks with the girls in a tent on the Appalachian Trail. It's better to just nip that in the bud completely.

13) Find a yoga studio and start taking classes regularly. - There is a yoga studio near my house that I drive past every day. That totally counts as progress, right?

14) Write something, anything, not blog related. - I barely write things that are blog related at this point.

15) No spending money on new clothes this year. Using gift cards and rewards points are fine, but I need to get out of the habit of spending money on new stuff, just to make myself feel better. I swear, shopping is my addiction, but the high I get from buying a new sweater probably isn't enough to justify the amount of money I spend on clothes I don't need. - I'm better-ish, although I'm starting to think my obsession has switched from clothes to make-up and stuff for the house, so I still have some work to do.

16) No buying anything at all unless I absolutely need it. I have a bad habit of stocking up on things at sales (candles, lotions, make-up, beauty products), even if I have a cabinet full of the same stuff already at home. I will use the cabinet full of crap before I add more crap.- I'm making a dent in my supply cabinet (if you don't count my make-up drawer, that is...).

17) Be more consistent in updating my family blog, because my parents give me a hard time when I let it lag, and my personal blog, because I'm not as happy with myself when I let it lag. - It depends on the week.

18) Find a general practitioner and get a physical. - Nope. But! I did find a dentist. So I'm taking credit for that.

19) Post at least one picture a day on Instagram, to get myself into the habit of taking more pictures of my sweet girls, since I find entire events have passed where I've forgotten to photograph said events. Like Christmas. Sadly. - It's not happening every day, but it's gotten better.

20) Get a haircut. - You can laugh at this one, if you must, but I did not get one single haircut in 2013. In fact, I haven't had a haircut since before Caitlin was born in November of 2012. I do not even know how this happens, but I know it must end. Soon. I think a Locks of Love kind of donation might be in order. My hair, it is long. - My hairs, they were cut. Or trimmed, anyway.

21) Make an effort to get to know the neighbors. - I tend to not get dressed/leave the house on the weekends, and this extends to not fraternizing with anyone who lives near me, because I'm afraid people will judge me for my make-up free, sweatpants clad weekend laze. I should probably get over that. - My next door neighbors are probably the NICEST people on the planet, so that hasn't been hard. And just last weekend, when I just wanted to keep the girls in to get ready for bed, I made an effort to go socialize when they asked us to come roast marshmallows with them. I consider that progress. Plus, the little girl two houses over is constantly inviting herself over, so I really have no choice BUT to get to know her and her family.

22) Write more thank you notes. - I am terrible at writing thank you notes. I should not be so terrible. - Still pretty terrible.

23) Buy new rugs for my new house. - The sunroom and foyer, in particular, need something fun. - I have one for the foyer, not for the sunroom.

24) Be more fearless in forming and maintaining relationships. - There are many times where I think of something I want to send to someone, whether it's an email, text, card, or what have you, and I don't, because I'm afraid I've maybe overestimated whether we have the type of friendship where I can do something like that. I don't want to worry about stuff like that anymore. - A little better, yes.

25) Put together an Advent/Christmas activity calendar for Brigid and Caitlin. - I did that for Brigid when I was home on maternity leave after Caitlin's birth, and it was so much fun. I didn't get the chance to do it this year, and I feel like I missed out on some part of the excitement of the season. I'm bringing it back.

26) Institute a once-a-month date night with Steve. Or date lunch, I guess, if necessary. - Oh, goodness. We've had one date this year. ONE. Even our lunch dates are few and far between at this point.

27) Institute a once-a-month girls' night, whether it be with my old college roommate, my SiLs, or the neighbors. I should get out of the house at least once a month with people who do not live in my house. - Nope.

The Year To Come: 2014

2014-01-03T14:06:00.003-05:00

A few years ago, the always hilarious and incredibly insightful Caitlin mentioned the concept of defining the upcoming year with a one-word focus point, instead of making a bunch of meaningless resolutions that no one ever keeps for the full year. I absolutely stole that idea for myself, because what else is the internet good for, if not borrowing the ideas of people smarter than yourself, to make your own life better?

Without much deliberation at all, actually, my 2014 word came to me in a surprisingly easy fashion: thoughtfulness. See, I spent a good portion of 2013 wrapped up in my own internal drama, and I don't really think I gave enough thought to how my internal drama was affecting those around me. I spent a lot of time being unhappy, and I don't want to do that this year. I want to think about making other people happy, not constantly focus on what's making me sad. Also, I want to be thoughtful about eliminating what it is that's making me sad, but I think I'm slowly coming to terms with that part of the equation.

And so, my list for 2014...

------------------------------

1) Send more mail...thank you notes, birthday cards, and 'just because' messages.

2) Be nicer, in general, to my husband and family. They deserve a much less crabby me than the one they were stuck with for most of 2013.

3) Make more of an effort to communicate with the long-distance people in my life. I got away from facetiming with my sister on a regular basis, and I miss it. Plus, now that she's making me an aunt, I think it's even more important that we get back into the habit of seeing each other every week. I do not need her new baby asking 'are you SURE you have more than one sister?', just because Aunt Mary lives in Indiana and Aunt Tara lives all of the way in Georgia.

4) Call or email or even text my friends from college more than I do now, which is hardly at all. Just because we can pick up after not talking to each other for months like no time has passed at all does not mean I should keep letting all of those months pass without the talking. I'm afraid the picking back up can't keep happening in a friendship like that.

5) Do one fitness/health related challenge each month. - You know all of those '0 to 1,000 sit-ups in just 30 days!!' kind of schedules that pop up on Pinterest all of the time? I'm going to start doing those. One each month. Fifteen minute plank? I'M COMING FOR YOU. I'm also throwing my meat-free/sugar-free/alcohol-free months in this category, as well.

6) Run another organized 5K. - It was so much more fun than I expected. Minus the running up a hill part, anyway.

7) Renew my vows with Steve, in Vegas, by Elvis, for our 10th anniversary in October.

8) Create an art wall somewhere in my house.

9) Organize a workspace for me

10) Attend The Blathering in Seattle. - Charleston was such a great time, I'd love to make it back for the Seattle trip.

11) Read at least two books a month.

12) Take Brigid camping.

13) Find a yoga studio and start taking classes regularly.

14) Write something, anything, not blog related.

15) No spending money on new clothes this year. Using gift cards and rewards points are fine, but I need to get out of the habit of spending money on new stuff, just to make myself feel better. I swear, shopping is my addiction, but the high I get from buying a new sweater probably isn't enough to justify the amount of money I spend on clothes I don't need.

16) No buying anything at all unless I absolutely need it. I have a bad habit of stocking up on things at sales (candles, lotions, make-up, beauty products), even if I have a cabinet full of the same stuff already at home. I will use the cabinet full of crap before I add more crap.

17) Be more consistent in updating my family blog, because my parents give me a hard time when I let it lag, and my personal blog, because I'm not as happy with myself when I let it lag.

18) Find a general practitioner and get a physical.

19) Post at least one picture a day on Instagram, to get myself into the habit of taking more pictures of my sweet girls, since I find entire events have passed where I've forgotten to photograph said events. Like Christmas. Sadly.

20) Get a haircut. - You can laugh at this one, if you must, but I did not get one single haircut in 2013. In fact, I haven't had a haircut since before Caitlin was born in November of 2012. I do not even know how this happens, but I know it must end. Soon. I think a Locks of Love kind of donation might be in order. My hair, it is long.

21) Make an effort to get to know the neighbors. - I tend to not get dressed/leave the house on the weekends, and this extends to not fraternizing with anyone who lives near me, because I'm afraid people will judge me for my make-up free, sweatpants clad weekend laze. I should probably get over that.

22) Write more thank you notes. - I am terrible at writing thank you notes. I should not be so terrible.

23) Buy new rugs for my new house. - The sunroom and foyer, in particular, need something fun.

24) Be more fearless in forming and maintaining relationships. - There are many times where I think of something I want to send to someone, whether it's an email, text, card, or what have you, and I don't, because I'm afraid I've maybe overestimated whether we have the type of friendship where I can do something like that. I don't want to worry about stuff like that anymore.

25) Put together an Advent/Christmas activity calendar for Brigid and Caitlin. - I did that for Brigid when I was home on maternity leave after Caitlin's birth, and it was so much fun. I didn't get the chance to do it this year, and I feel like I missed out on some part of the excitement of the season. I'm bringing it back.

26) Institute a once-a-month date night with Steve. Or date lunch, I guess, if necessary.

27) Institute a once-a-month girls' night, whether it be with my old college roommate, my SiLs, or the neighbors. I should get out of the house at least once a month with people who do not live in my house.

The Year That Was: 2013

2014-01-02T14:29:00.000-05:00

It's always funny to look back at your list of goals for the year, because...wow. A lot can happen in a year. At the beginning of 2013, I had all of these plans to reorganize/redesign/redecorate some of the spaces in my house, only to have that all mean absolutely nothing when we started talking about selling the house midway through the year. And then we decided we'd wait until mid-2014 to sell it. And then we decided that we wouldn't, in fact, wait that long, and the last three months of the year spiraled into a chaotic hole of stress and frustration and general anger that I really should sit down and detail at some point, if only for the cathartic purpose of looking at the mess from the other side and gaining a little perspective on it.

But we came through the process with a house and location that I love, a plan in place to make life better for our family, and the readiness to actually live the next year, rather than just try to survive it. But first!

A look back...

------------------------------

1) Lose the pregnancy weight. - I was back at my pre-pregnancy weight, but then we started living out of boxes and off of take-out, and I stopped running. Let's just say I had to seriously watch some of the angles on the Christmas pictures we took, if I had any plans of anyone ever seeing a copy of those pictures.

2) Give up meat for a month. - No.

3) Complete the Couch to 5K program. - I DID IT! And not only did I complete the program...

4) Run an organized 5K. - ...I DID THIS, TOO! My SiL and I ran our very first 5k, and we actually RAN it, hills and all. Except for one very small part, where we walked for about a minute when the hill was not a hill, because I'm pretty sure it was actually a mountain. Other than that? I RAN A 5K!

5) Clean/reorganize my closet. - I'm unpacking, slowly but surely. I have to share my new closet with Steve. This has no real bearing on the organizing of my closet, and there are two separate, good-sized halves to it, but it needs to be mentioned. I have never shared a closet with anyone before in my life (YES, I KNOW THIS IS THE WORST OF THE WORST OF ALL FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS. I'M SORRY.), and I am sad that I have to start now.

6) Take a belated anniversary trip with Steve, a long weekend somewhere without the kids. - No. We, uh, spent the last night in our old house alone, packing, while the girls were with Steve's parents. That's about as close as we came to a kid-free weekend anywhere.

7) Make a meal entirely on my own (I don't cook, so this might be the biggest one of the year!) - We stopped cooking, so neither one of us was actually making meals. But, I was doing it at one point, so at least I know I can do it when we start meal-planning again.

8) Create an art wall in my staircase. - See: sold the house.

9) Organize a workspace for me. - No. (We sold the house, you know?)

10) Attend The Blathering in Charleston. - Oh, man. This was the best. I completely failed to write a recap of the weekend (I haven't ruled it out, yet, even if it has been MONTHS since I was there), but I met so many wonderful ladies, and ate a lot of good food, and spent hours wandering a lovely city, and it was just the perfect weekend away with friends. I am keeping all of my appendages crossed that I can make Seattle happen this year, because I would LOVE to see as many of those friends again as I can.

11) Read at least one book a month. - Let's see, through September, I had: In the Garden of Beasts (Erik Larson), Wild (Cheryl Strayed), Discovery of Witches/Shadow of Night (Deborah Harkness), Wedding Night (Sophie Kinsella), The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald), Rules of Civility (Amor Towles), The Casual Vacancy (JK Rowling), Summer at Tiffany (Marjorie Hart), The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky), Austenland (Shannon Hale), These is My Words (Nancy E. Turner), and Fangirl (Rainbow Rowell). I added Jeneration X and The Tao of Martha (Jen Lancaster), Silver Linings Playbook (Matthew Quick), Allegiant (Veronica Roth), Eleanor & Park (Rainbow Rowell), Mulligan Girl (Rebecca L. Boschee), Thwarted Queen (Cynthia Sally Haggard), My Year With Eleanor (Noelle Hancock), and The Cuckoo's Calling (Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling).

That's 22 books, or two shy of the goal I set for myself on Goodreads, where I am apparently a little more ambitious than I am around here. I'll have to change that for next year, I guess.

(Plus the seven Harry Potter books, reread. I really like counting those, too. And I actually reread them twice, if we're being totally honest here, because I started them again as a distraction from the house situation, after we went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal)

12) Take Brigid and Caitlin to South Bend for a weekend (preferably a football weekend). - We did it! We even took Brigid to her first football game, which she wanted to leave during the 2Q. We...did not leave. I did enjoy showing the girls the campus, though.

13) Research/practice meditation. - No.

14) Find a yoga studio and start taking classes regularly. - No.

15) Find a 'mommy and me' class of some sort for Brigid and I to attend. - No.

16) Write something, anything, not blog related. - No.

17) Take one lunch break a week, even if it's only 15 minutes, to sit somewhere quiet and recalibrate/reflect/replan the next few days. (when I go back to work...) - HA! HAAAAAAAA! No. (still, again.)

18) Start taking outfit photos again, in an effort to wear everything already in my closet instead of shopping for new items. - Eh. Maybe.

19) Be more consistent in updating my family blog, because my parents give me a hard time when I let it lag, and my personal blog, because I'm not as happy with myself when I let it lag. - Still no.

20) Start reading my favorite blogs again, since I haven't even LOOKED at my reader feed in months, and I miss keeping up with it. - No.

21) Find a general practitioner and get a physical. - Not yet.

22) Throw Brigid a NYE party next year, complete with hats, noisemakers, and fun food, since she was really excited to stay up until midnight this year, but I was so tired from the baby's schedule that we faked midnight for her at 11PM. - Yes. We did. Finally, one I can claim.

23) Send more mail...thank you notes, birthday cards, and 'just because' messages. - I've been better-ish. But there's still room for improvement.

24) Try a juice fast/cleanse. - I didn't even come close to doing this.

25) Decide, once and for all, what I want to be when I grow up, and formulate a plan to get myself there. - We're...getting closer.

------------------------------

I'm giving myself a 10 out of 25. I...need to work on this process, don't I? 2014, I'M COMING FOR YOU!!!

My First 5K

2013-10-02T15:43:00.000-04:00

I did it. I RAN A 5K!!!!

Brigid. TRY NOT TO LOOK SO SHOCKED.

Much better.

My sister-in-law and I decided a few months ago that we wanted to run a 5K. She had started running several months earlier, while I was kind of half-heartedly attempting to get back into the Couch to 5K program, and signing up for an official 5K race sounded like good motivation for both of us. We had plans to run the trail between our houses at least once a week, once I was more up to speed, but life gets in the way, and we only managed to get out there twice. But I did run on the treadmill five to six times most weeks, with the sole purpose of not embarrassing myself serving as the main reason I managed to find the time I needed to do it.

(Of course, the secondary reason I made the time is that Doctor Who is available through Amazon Prime on my iPad, and it makes great treadmill viewing, and running gives me a good excuse to grab the alone time I need to make it through an episode, so...yeah. Hooray, exercise!)

On race morning, while we were killing time between registration and the start of the race, we were sizing up our competition. There was the guy that takes racing vurrrrry seriously, with his sweatband and shorty-shorts, stretching next to us. There were the kids that were running and jumping and acting like the three miles they were about to run was nothing for which they needed to conserve energy. There were the people RUNNING TO THE STARTING LINE, as though the 5K was only part of what they intended to run for the day. (In fact, we saw one of those people still running an hour after the race, which...wow. I don't have it in me to ever be one of those people, but that's impressive, right there. Also, it makes my knees hurt, just thinking about running that long.)

And then we decided that our goal for the day was not to be the last people to finish.

My poor sister-in-law, you guys. She is so much taller than I am, so her strides are longer. She's in much better shape than I am, so her endurance is better. And yet, she stayed with me the whole time, letting me set our pace. She joked that her only concern was that the rest of the pack would get too far ahead of us, and we wouldn't know where the course went next. I joked back that I would allow her to cross the finish line before me, at least, so she wouldn't be the last person to finish the race.

But! We weren't last! In fact, we were 42% of the field away from being last! For my first ever 5K, I will take it.

As demoralizing as it is to see someone trot on past you while PUSHING A STROLLER, for crying out loud, and as painful as it is to run uphill over and over again when the course claimed to be flat, we ran the whole way. Well, we ran 99.9% of the whole way, anyway. There was this one hill, towards the end, that was a STEEP em-effer, and we made it three quarters of the way up before we walked the rest of the way. I was basically moving at the speed of a walk while 'running' up it anyway, so it just made sense to dial it back a little. But that was maybe less than a minute of walking, and we finished out at a run, even when we had to run uphill to get to the finish line, where Brigid, Caitlin and Steve were waiting for us.

And you know what? No matter where I finished, I did finish, and I will call that a success. I have had this on my list of things I've wanted to do ever since I was trying to get back into shape after having Brigid, so three and a half years later, it feels pretty good to check it off, finally.

Now, my SiL is talking about downloading a 10K training app, and she asked me if I wanted to join that crazy train with her. I'm going to have to think about that one...

The List - September Update

2013-10-01T16:45:00.001-04:00

You know, I actually feel like I've made some progress toward my goals this last quarter...

1) Lose the pregnancy weight. - I am back at my pre-pregnancy weight, which is awesome. My body shape still isn't what it used to be, which is not. But, it happens, you know? I'm kind of getting over it now.

2) Give up meat for a month. - No.

3) Complete the Couch to 5K program. - I DID IT! And not only did I complete the program...

4) Run an organized 5K. - ...I DID THIS, TOO! My SiL and I ran our very first 5k last weekend, and we actually RAN it, hills and all. Except for one very small part, where we walked for about a minute when the hill was not a hill, because I'm pretty sure it was actually a mountain. Other than that? I RAN A 5K!

5) Clean/reorganize my closet. - Sort of, if you count getting the closet cleaned up to put the house on the market. Organized, though? Not really.

6) Take a belated anniversary trip with Steve, a long weekend somewhere without the kids. - No.

7) Make a meal entirely on my own (I don't cook, so this might be the biggest one of the year!) - I've taken over dinner duties on the nights I'm home with the girls all day. It's not the best, most of the time, but I think (hope?) I'll get better over time.

8) Create an art wall in my staircase. - My house is on the market. This won't be happening this year. But...next year? Maybe?

9) Organize a workspace for me. - No.

10) Attend The Blathering in Charleston. - I will be on the road to Charleston in less than 48 hours. ALL OF THE EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!

11) Read at least one book a month. - Let's see, through June I had: In the Garden of Beasts (Erik Larson), Wild (Cheryl Strayed), Discovery of Witches/Shadow of Night (Deborah Harkness), Wedding Night (Sophie Kinsella), The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald), Rules of Civility (Amor Towles), The Casual Vacancy (JK Rowling), and Summer at Tiffany (Marjorie Hart). Since then, I've added The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky), Austenland (Shannon Hale), These is My Words (Nancy E. Turner), and Fangirl (Rainbow Rowell), which puts me at thirteen books through nine months. I win.

(Plus the seven Harry Potter books, reread. I really like counting those, too.)

12) Take Brigid and Caitlin to South Bend for a weekend (preferably a football weekend). - We did it! We even took Brigid to her first football game, which she wanted to leave during the 2Q. We...did not leave. I did enjoy showing the girls the campus, though.

13) Research/practice meditation. - No.

14) Find a yoga studio and start taking classes regularly. - No.

15) Find a 'mommy and me' class of some sort for Brigid and I to attend. - No.

16) Write something, anything, not blog related. - No.

17) Take one lunch break a week, even if it's only 15 minutes, to sit somewhere quiet and recalibrate/reflect/replan the next few days. (when I go back to work...) - HA! HAAAAAAAA! No. (still, again.)

18) Start taking outfit photos again, in an effort to wear everything already in my closet instead of shopping for new items. - Eh. Maybe.

19) Be more consistent in updating my family blog, because my parents give me a hard time when I let it lag, and my personal blog, because I'm not as happy with myself when I let it lag. - Still no.

20) Start reading my favorite blogs again, since I haven't even LOOKED at my reader feed in months, and I miss keeping up with it. - No.

21) Find a general practitioner and get a physical. - Not yet.

22) Throw Brigid a NYE party next year, complete with hats, noisemakers, and fun food, since she was really excited to stay up until midnight this year, but I was so tired from the baby's schedule that we faked midnight for her at 11PM. - I have a few more months on this?

23) Send more mail...thank you notes, birthday cards, and 'just because' messages. - I've been better-ish. But there's still room for improvement.

24) Try a juice fast/cleanse. - I probably won't do this. Most likely.

25) Decide, once and for all, what I want to be when I grow up, and formulate a plan to get myself there. - Blergh.

Reading Rainbow

2013-09-04T17:23:00.002-04:00

Apparently, I can write more words than any one person should about favorite movies and television shows (if that one person is not a movie or television critic, anyway), but then the words dry up, and I forget to post again.

NOT THIS WEEK!! This week, I'm linking up with Ginger's Bring Back the Words prompt around what my favorite toys were as a child, which is actually a surprisingly short list, given how many toys were in my house at any given moment when I was growing up. In fact, there's really only one item on that list...

Books.

Now, before I could read, I had a few toys that I liked. When I was three, I wanted a barn and a farm and a horse for Christmas. This was the first Christmas my mom and I shared with my soon-to-be-step-dad, and when I unwrapped the Fisher Price farm set he'd put under the tree for me, I think I knew right then and there that he was a keeper.

(I was right, by the way. He's still a keeper, 30 years later. I am an excellent judge of character, obviously.)

Then there was the American Girl doll I got when I was...10? 11, maybe? I'd wanted a Samantha doll more than ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD, and there she was on Christmas morning. The pictures from that day are a great testament to my joy that morning, but they're also a testament to pre-teen braces, frizzy hair, and remarkably pasty complexion, so...yeah. I think those pictures are in a box at my parents' house somewhere, maybe (hopefully?) never to see the light of day, again.

(Along with the video of my Jr. Miss competition (IT WAS A SCHOLARSHIP COMPETITION!) when I was a senior in high school. I think I've safely hidden that away somewhere, because it was awful. Picture a group of high school girls dancing a horrific dance to Jailhouse Rock by Elvis, in white sweatsuits with black electrical tape lines on them, made to look like jailhouse uniforms. Then imagine the ridiculous answers given to terrible pageant questions, and that is maybe the most cringe-worthy tape of my life. So. Bad.)

But books. Well, books were my life when I was growing up. I would read anything and everything I could get my hands on. I'd read every book in the young adult section at the library that earned me extra points in the Summer Reading Club. I'd read all of the children's books my little sister brought home to read, to her if that was an option, but even to myself, if it wasn't. I'd read really age-inappropriate books, now that I think about it, that I found on my grandpa's bookshelf. I'd read cereal boxes at the kitchen table, just to have something to do.

My mom loves to tell the story about how I got lost driving home from my piano teacher's house, even though she lived five minutes and one turn away from me, because I'd turned the wrong way. Turns out, when you start reading the minute you get into the car, you're not going to know how to get yourself around the small town you've lived in all of your freaking life.

Go figure.

My mom actually had to ground me from reading from time to time, because I wouldn't get anything else done. My room would be a mess, my homework would be incomplete, my chores would be unfinished. Seriously. My mother. Would ground me. From reading.

Who does that?

I hope beyond anything else that I am able to pass this love of reading on to my girls, because I don't know what I'll do if they don't enjoy it like I do. Brigid gets two books read to her every night before bed, and I'm trying to get back into the habit of it with Caitlin, as well. I am SO DAMN EXCITED for the day when I think Brigid is finally old enough to read the Harry Potter books with me, and I have a box full of old Nancy Drew books in the basement with her name on it. Lord of the Rings, Madeleine L'Engle, Narnia, The Babysitters Club, whatever new series they have out for kids now. I want them to want to read it all.

Just as soon as they learn how to read.

Reliving Notre Dame

2013-09-03T18:41:00.002-04:00

I try to make it a point to always wear green on the Friday before a Notre Dame game, because I am just that much of an ND homer. I may or may not have bought this skirt from the J Crew outlet with just such an event in mind...

Of course, this week, I had to move my pre-gameday ritual up a few days, because Steve and I took Thursday and Friday off to actually go to Notre Dame for the game, but still...I think I got my point across.

We went back to South Bend for a game in 2011, but we'd left Brigid with my mom for the day (my parents live about two hours away from SB), and we'd just driven up and back that same day. We didn't leave the tailgate lot, except to go to the stadium and walk to the bookstore on the edge of campus when the game was over, so it had been awhile since I'd been on the actual campus. It's changed so much, but then...it hasn't.

When I was in high school, I applied to Notre Dame to give my parents bragging rights. I thought I could get in to the university, and I wanted them to be able to tell their friends that I had, in fact, done so, because, I don't know. I was a snotty high schooler who wanted to show off, maybe? But I had absolutely no intention of going there for four years, because I wanted to move to the city. Sure, that city happened to be Indianapolis, which is maybe no great shakes to most people, but it was a big deal to me, since my closest neighbor when I was in high school was the cow that lived in the pasture across the road from us. I was going to Butler, and that was that.

But there was no point in letting my official college visits go to waste, even if I'd already made my decision, so when my best guy friend and the guy I happened to have a crush on at the time asked if I wanted to take a day to go visit Notre Dame with them, of course I went. Spend the day in school or take a four hour roadtrip with a cute guy? Please.

I was 18. I think we all know where my priorities lie.

It was cold and rainy when we got there, so we decided to skip the official tour. After all, none of us were planning to go there, anyway. My friend was moving to Boston. My crush wanted to go to Duke. Why did we need to learn about the campus?

Then we stepped inside the Basilica to look around.

Look, I am Catholic. I was baptized Catholic. I attended Catholic school through seventh grade. I taught kindergarten Sunday school when I was in high school. I've spent my life at church. But I struggle with it sometimes, and I am not as active as I should be. And I definitely wasn't as full of faith as a teenager as some people I knew at the time. And yet, the minute I walked into that church, I knew.

This was where I would spend the next four years of my life, and I have never once regretted that decision.

Six years later, I would get married in that church. Nine years after that, I would take the daughters I share with the man I met just across the quad from that church to Mass there. And I would feel the very same feelings of coming home each and every time I walked into that building.

Notre Dame is my happy place, and I think it always will be. I've been telling Steve for years that I think I'd be happy working on a college campus for the rest of my life, but I think I've been wrong. I don't think I'd want to work on a college campus, I think I'd want to work on this college campus...

...if working meant sitting outside, under a tree, with a book, in the spring and fall, of course. I may end up being the first person in history to retire to South Bend, Indiana, I think.

What I'll be sad to leave behind...

2013-08-14T17:31:00.000-04:00

If we do end up moving in the near future (I am so very superstitious and paranoid about the universe, I'm afraid to assume that we will, in fact, be moving until we do, in fact, move. So please excuse me, but I'll be speaking in nothing but hypotheticals for the foreseeable future...), there are a few things about the house that I'll miss. I mean, it's hard NOT to miss the place where you brought your babies home for the first time. Especially when you put so much planning and effort into that place...

This nursery is by far, my favorite room in the house. We did the shelf around the room on our own, pulled from a site that Steve found online, using basically these exact colors of light blue and green. Even though we knew Brigid was going to be a girl when we were planning this room, I was in the denial stage of 'I don't want my baby wearing nothing but pink. I want greens and yellows and I WILL NOT GIVE IN TO GENDER STEREOTYPES!!!' And I didn't. Until my daughter learned to speak for herself, and then, well...

Might I introduce you to the room she helped us design, once we decided that letting her pick out her own 'big girl bedroom' might be a good way to help her come to terms with the new baby?

There is pink in this room. Lots and lots and LOTS of pink. And a princess chandelier, just for good measure. I don't mind, though...I actually kind of love this room more than I expected to. I think it's the blue, particularly the Tiffany blue of the accent wall. I don't know many people who hate the sight of Tiffany blue, you know?

Ideally, I'd like to just pick up the 2nd floor of my house and move it to a new location, which is not at all unreasonable, I don't think. Now, I just need to figure out who I talk to about making that happen...

(Caitlin's furniture, which was Brigid's furniture before her, came from a baby boutique north of Atlanta, whose name I don't remember, except for the glider. The glider came from Babies R' Us. Brigid's furniture all came from IKEA, including the chandelier and the little pink chair, although it was a 'natural' color until we spray painted it pink. The comforter and curtains, we picked up from the Pottery Barn outlet.)

Moving

2013-08-13T16:56:00.000-04:00

I know this is my fault, because I am the driving force behind wanting to move someplace new, but I am SO TIRED of spending time working on a house that I don't want to live in anymore. The painting and planting and floor redoing and packing and decluttering and OMG MAKE IT STOP. Please. Just make it stop.

I have a room full of boxes and furniture that need to be taken for storage, because it's not stuff that we're getting rid of, it's just decorative stuff that's making the house look too full, and the house can't look too full when you're showing it to prospective buyers. I have a deck that needs to be painted if it will ever, for the love of all that is good, stop raining for more than six hours at a time. I have a yard that needs pavers laid, pine straw spread, and bushes trimmed, if it wasn't a thousand degrees out, in those six hours when it wasn't raining. I have a basement to organize, a master bedroom to clean out, an almost 4-year old's room to declutter, if I could just stop doing laundry and dishes and watching my kids for a good 48-hour period so I could make some actual progress. I have a garage to clean out. And carpets and windows that need to be cleaned. And doors and windowsills that need to be painted. And maybe a bathroom tile that needs to be fixed.

And that's all before we go through the process of listing and showing the house, and then hopefully selling and packing up the house.

And all of a sudden, I'm starting to remember why I said I never wanted to move again when we were moving into the house we currently live in. I'm going to record one of those video diaries of these next few weeks, to keep in a safety deposit box, so in the event that I start to get the itch to move again after this whole ordeal is over, Steve can force me to watch it on repeat until it kills that itch dead.

It's the least I can do after putting him through all of this, right?

TV Time

2013-08-08T15:38:00.002-04:00

Well, last week I had so much fun participating in Ginger's favorite movie link-up that you'd better believe I wanted to participate in this week's favorite television show version.

10) Alias - I've always said that I want to be Sydney Bristow when I grow up, because seriously...she kicks so much ass. Steve and I started watching the show randomly one summer in the middle of its run, because I think maybe he found a deal for season 1 on DVD? And he's never been one to pass up a good deal? Even if that deal is on a show that neither of us had shown any inclination to watch prior to that moment? Whatever. That DVD was my first taste at binge watching an entire season of one show, and well, I was hooked after that. I have, however, never quite forgiven Jennifer Garner for breaking up with Michael Vartan in the middle of the show, to go marry Ben Affleck, even if the Garner-Affleck kids are some of the cutest kids on the planet. I'M STILL NOT OVER IT, OK? This has not stopped me, however, from adding it to my Amazon Prime watchlist, because I intend to watch it from beginning to end, all over again, sometime in the near future.

9) Charmed - I don't know what it is about this show, but I love it. STOP JUDGING ME! *ahem* The show runs on TNT now, and they were just starting with the pilot episode during my first week of maternity leave after having Brigid, so through the magic of the DVR, I was able to record and watch the entire thing from start to finish. The supernatural overload may have had something to do with the voices I could have sworn I was hearing in the white noise machine when getting up with Brigid during all of those sleepless nights, come to think of it...

8) Bones - I just love the relationships between all of the characters. The science stuff is interesting, I find the murder stuff a little gruesome from time to time, but the characters keep me invested in the show, no matter what.

7) Parks & Rec - It's not weird that I want to go knock off Ann Perkins and then take her place as Leslie's best friend, right?

6) New Girl - I know she's kind of a polarizing figure, but I LOVE Zooey Deschanel, and I want most of her wardrobe from the show.

5) Downton Abbey - I'm giving Downton this spot on a trial basis. It has A LOT to do before it can make up for what it did to me last season.

4) Friends - I will watch these reruns whenever they are on. Who DOESN'T watch these reruns whenever they are on?

3) Seinfeld - I've made Steve watch the reruns throughout our relationship, because I got tired of quoting the show to him, only to have him look at me like I was nuts. Not that he doesn't have a point, when I can relate most of life to Seinfeld, but still. I needed his support. Our family favorite is probably the Festivus episode, because we have a lot of fun interpreting Caitlin's baby shrieks as 'I've got a lot of problems with you people!' Well, I have a lot of fun doing that. Steve might just be humoring me at this point.

2) West Wing - This is such a great show. It is so well written, with such great characters, that I am still sad they didn't just leave it on the air. I absolutely would have watched Jimmy Smits as president for another 4 years, if it meant they weren't taking Josh Lyman away from me. This is my current Amazon Prime binge-viewing obsession.

1) Gilmore Girls - I want to live in Stars Hollow. Not in some small town somewhere in New England. Just Stars Hollow. I'd also like to be able to think as fast as Lorelai Gilmore talks, if that's not too much to ask.

Honorable Mentions:
The Office - Jim and Pam's wedding might have been one of my favorite episodes of any television series, ever.
The Bachelor/ette - Who doesn't like a nice hot mess to watch every now and then?
So You Think You Can Dance - Those kids have some serious talent.
Community - It can be up and down, quality-wise, but the up can also be really, REALLY up.
Dawson's Creek - Mostly because I have nostalgic memories of gathering in my dorm's common room to watch it with a whole group of girls in college. It's on my watchlist for future start-to-finish viewing at some point, too.
VEEP - Hilarious. The show is FREAKING HILARIOUS.

I'm sure I'm missing something, but this is what I have at the moment. What about you?

Let's all go to the movies...

2013-08-01T17:40:00.000-04:00

When I was younger, writing was my creative outlet. It was the one area where I had any sort of artistic talent, and I genuinely enjoyed getting lost in the words rolling around in my head, as I tried to put what I wanted to say on paper as quickly as it wanted to come out.

Then, I went off to college, where my writing-intensive Government 2nd major fell away as I became focused on the spreadsheets and formulas and calculations of my Finance 1st major. I never quite lost my love of writing, but I felt like, somewhere along the way, I'd lost the ability to write how I wanted to write. I started my family blog in 2010 as a way to bring some of that joy back into my life, while also documenting my daughter's life for my out-of-state family, who never got to see her as much as they'd like. Eventually, that became my family yearbook, printed out every year by my husband for us to remember the events of the previous year, followed religiously by my mom and grandmother for pictures of my girls, used by my mother-in-law to share our lives with her friends. And I love that they all have the opportunity to do what they want with that space, truly. But I also feel that because that is what that space is used for, it needs to be primarily a picture book, with the words providing a secondary focus for people if they can bring themselves to look away from the smiling baby that has to be included in every. single. post. to prevent my mother from asking me when I'm going to start posting more pictures of the girls for her to see.

So, you know, the words. I'm still trying to bring them back.

A couple of weeks ago, Ginger started this Bring Back the Words weekly prompt that I've wanted to participate in every time she's mentioned it, but, for various reasons, I just haven't. Well, maybe not various reasons. Maybe just one.

It's time, ok? I just never seem to have time. I always see the weekly prompt, think to myself 'THIS IS THE WEEK I'M GOING TO PARTICIPATE!!!', and then before I know it, the week is over, the next week's prompts are up, and, I don't know. It just hasn't happened, yet. BUT!!!!

This is the week! Because this week? Well, Ginger is talking about movies. And, my friends? I have some THOUGHTS on movies.

So, let's jump in, shall we? Here are my 10 favorite movies of all time:

10) Can't Hardly Wait - This movie came out the year I graduated from high school. So of course we watched it at least once a week in college, because 'OHMYGOD, that's like, so US!' Sorry I'm not sorry.

9) Match Point - I don't know what it is about this movie. I watched it originally because Matthew Goode is on my 'list' (you know what I'm talking about), and, well, that's reason enough for me to watch something, right there. But, I really loved it. And I found myself actually rooting for the villain to win in the end, although that may have had more to do with my strong dislike of Scarlett Johansson as an actress than the movie itself, but still...I'm going to give credit to the movie. It is good.

8) Rudy - I went to Notre Dame, so I'm a little biased, here, but this movie makes me feel ALL of the feelings. I can remember my roommates and I feeling beat down one week towards the end of a semester, and we spent a Saturday watching this movie and sobbing like fools. Because Rudy! He beat the odds! He played football at Notre Dame! The fight song! Woo! By the end of the movie, we were so full of school pride, WE probably could have made that tackle against Georgia Tech, and getting through the semester didn't seem like such an ordeal anymore. Also, my husband (also an ND grad) starts tearing up at the music from THE OPENING CREDITS, so, it's kind of a big deal in our house. Side note, the first: I've heard the real Rudy speak at a pep rally. He's terrible. Also, I think he was kind of an ass when he was actually at Holy Cross/Notre Dame. But still! Rudy!

7) Elf - This movie makes me happy. I love everything about Christmas, and I love Will Ferrell, and I refer to my daughter as an angry elf all of the time when she gets pissed off. It was on Showtime the other night, and I watched it because I was sad. It helped...

6) Love, Actually - Happy, Christmas, everything I said above, etc, although you will have to replace Will Ferrell with Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. And I have no problem with that. They would be why this movie is ranked ahead of Elf, honestly.

5) Newsies - Fact: I have been in love with Christian Bale since I was 13 years old, when my high school music teacher had us watch Newsies in class one day. He remains my longest running relationship, to this day. For Brigid's first Christmas, I bought her Newsies on DVD. SHE NEEDED IT, OK?

4) Chasing Liberty - I like the idea of running off with a hot British guy in a foreign country. Or, I did, anyway, back in the day. Now the thought of sleeping outside all night on top of a building in Prague just makes my neck hurt. But still...I'll watch the movie anytime it's on.

3) Harry Potter (any and all of them) - I'm going to include this as one movie, because I will absolutely watch all eight of them anytime they are on t.v. In fact, ABC Family just did a Harry Potter marathon last weekend, and even though I came in late, I still managed to catch three of them while I was painting my staircase (don't ask...), and honestly? I'm disappointed I missed the first few they showed. I would have had it on all day, if I'd known it was available. Side note, the second: We are going to Disney in November, with a stop at Universal, first. I have informed my husband that there's a chance I will never actually make it to Disney, because I'm partially convinced that I'm meant to live my life as a character actor at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I think this would make me happy. This doesn't make me weird, right?

2) Center Stage - The first time my roommate made me watch this movie in college, she was acting all swoony over Cooper Nielson, and I thought she was crazy, because no. Not attractive in the least bit. She just smiled at me and promised to check in with me again at the end of the movie. Yeah...she was absolutely justified in being swoony. There is just something about a boy who can dance, you know? This is one of two things that stay on my iPad at all times because I never get tired of watching it, and the ballet scene at the end is surprisingly effective background noise for a workout.

1) Pride & Prejudice (the long one) - Ok, so I know this isn't technically a movie, since it was a BBC miniseries, but I don't care. It is six hours of Colin Firth being Mr. Darcy, and Jennifer Ehle as the most perfectly awesome Elizabeth Bennet, and even though I have seen it a million times already, I've never hesitated to watch it again when I have free time. It is the one thing that I will never, ever, EVER take off of my iPad OR my iPhone to free up space, and if that isn't true love, I don't know what is.

Honorable Mention: A Charlie Brown Christmas (not really a movie, I guess, but I have so many happy feelings when I watch this show, dating back to how much I loved Christmas as a child, that I couldn't leave it off of the list.), Hoosiers (I'm from Indiana. It's a requirement if I ever want to be allowed back in the state.), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (I like the Bryan Adams song, and if that's wrong, then I don't want to be right. Also, I have a weird attraction to Christian Slater in that movie. I know...I don't get it, either.).

And that is my list. Tell me...what have I missed? Where am I wrong? What are your favorite movies?

Health & Wellness Goals: August

2013-07-31T17:41:00.002-04:00

I have, officially, seen my pre-pregnancy weight on the scale, which would be a great feeling, except for that part where pregnancy shifts everything around, so even though the scale might say that you're where you were before, your clothes are telling you that the scale is wrong. My calves are bigger than they used to be, my belly could kind of still pass for a pregnant belly if I'm not completely careful in what I wear, and there are some back bulges where I'd SWEAR there weren't back bulges in the past. But it's fine, for the most part. I'm eight months removed from having Caitlin, and for the most part, I can basically fit into my closet again.

It's fine.

Except...well, it's not always fine. Some of my dresses just don't fit well. Some of my boots seem to cut off circulation below my knee. And most of my t-shirts have had to be retired.

I'm not naive. I understand that bodies change with age and REALLY change after pregnancy, and I don't ever expect to look like I did in my 20s again. But I'm also pretty sure that if I went to my doctor right now, she'd tell me I'm overweight for my height, and that's something I'd still like to fix. Then there's the part of me that knows, at one point in my life, I was able to run more than three consecutive miles without feeling like I wanted to vomit or die or vomit, then die. And that part? Right there? She is beyond annoying and has convinced all of the other parts of me that I should get back to that point, while signing me up for a 5K to push the issue. I kind of hate her sometimes.

(I think tonight is going to be one of those times, when my C25K training app jumps from 10 minutes of running without a break to 20 minutes of running without a break. Way to ease me into things there, fellas!)

I feel like I am starting to get the exercise thing back under control, which always makes me feel better, but it's probably time I tackle the diet side of things, too, because guys? My sweet tooth is out of control. If you could have SEEN the number of tootsie rolls I put away last Friday in a binge of stress eating, you'd have been either impressed or disgusted, depending on your view of whether stress eating tootsie rolls is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm kind of inclined to consider it a bad thing at the moment, so I'm putting myself on a no-sugar plan for the month of August. No more stress eating candy or raiding my freezer stash of Girl Scout cookies (which are, uh, gone anyway after last week's craziness...). Sugar has been causing headaches and upset stomachs for me lately, anyway, so now seems as good a time as any to see just how much better I feel off of it for 31 days.

Who knows...maybe I'll even come out of it as one of those people who can have a small piece of dark chocolate here and there, and feel completely satisfied when it's gone! OR EVEN ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO CONSIDERS FRUIT A VIABLE DESSERT!!! That could be me, come September, right? RIGHT?!?!?

(Wrong. I am an 'eat every piece of chocolate within a 2 mile radius of my current location' kind of person. I will never be one of those moderation people. I hate those people.)

(In an 'I'm completely jealous of those people' kind of way, of course.)

(Why can't I be one of those people???)

We made a decision! Sort of!

2013-07-26T17:07:00.001-04:00

We had a realtor over to our house last night, and we walked through the whole place with her, and she pointed out what we did and did not need to fix before we put our house on the market, and we told her we'd have everything ready to go by September 1st, and she said we'd list the house after that. Then she left, and I started crying.

Because all of a sudden it hit me that even though I am the driving force behind all of this, even though this is what I want for the family, if everything goes according to plan, we could be out of the house before the holiday season. And if it only goes partially according to plan, we might not be in a new house before the end of the year. Suddenly, I'm facing no decorating for Halloween or Christmas, no trick-or-treating with the neighbors, none of the fun things that I look forward to the other eight months of the year (because my holiday season starts in September, of course). And even though I know it will all be better in the long run, a lost holiday season makes me sad, because I'm up against the clock already on having kids young enough to fully enjoy the magic behind my favorite time of year, and I don't really want to waste any of the time I have.

I tried to explain all of this to Steve, and he basically looked at me like I'm nuts, which...he does have a point. I feel kind of nuts right now, and I'm more or less banking on feeling this way until the process is settled one way or the other. Either we'll sell the house within the 30-days-on-the-market time frame our realtor has set out for us, and I'll deal with whatever comes our way after that, or we won't sell our house in 30 days, and we'll pull it off of the market until spring. Whatever happens, we will be fine. Everything will be fine.

I just wish we were to the 'fine' part already...

Inside My Head

2013-07-24T17:43:00.003-04:00

When Steve and I bought the house we're currently living in, we bought it for the future. We were two childless people, living in one of the most family-friendly neighborhoods in the area, with four empty bedrooms to our name and a primary school a block away from us. We were set for the long-term.

Then Brigid came along, and we started making friends with other families in the neighborhood. A new couple moved in next door to us, and suddenly, Brigid was referring to their son as her boyfriend, and Steve had a beer drinking buddy, and I had someone to carpool with to neighborhood girls' nights out. They had their second son a few months before Caitlin was born, and now we have a whole group of kids planning to grow up together. When a planned trip to the pool with a bunch of neighbors was rained out last weekend, we invited them over for dinner so the kids could play together a little longer, and the adults could drink wine, and it was just a nice way to end the weekend. A few weeks before that, it was a Sunday night pizza run for all of us together, after the neighbors had taken Brigid to the pool for the afternoon, so Steve and I could finish a home improvement project we'd been working on for weeks.

We've truly found ourselves in a really fantastic situation, and I couldn't be happier about it. But, for some reason, I just can't leave well enough alone. I can't be content with everything we have going for us.

Our house, our neighborhood, our current lifestyle in general, it's a two income party for us, and I honestly don't know how much longer I want to keep us a two income family. I want to stay home with my girls so much, there is an actual aching feeling in my chest when I think about it, and I can feel the panic/anxiety/need/some other emotion that I can't quite define rising in my throat, trying to fight its way out. The deep breathing and distraction techniques I've used to fight the random bouts of anxiety I've dealt with in the past only get me so far these days. I'm on every stress-fighting natural supplement I can find. I try to run the noise out of my head on the treadmill. I keep myself up later and later every night, because I can only fall asleep if I am so exhausted, I can't keep my eyes open for another minute, but even then, if Caitlin gets me up anytime after 4:30am? I'm usually up for the day, because there's no way I'm falling back asleep.

(Well, unless I'm running on 3 or 4 nights of 5 hours of sleep. Then I'm ok with it...)

I spend so much time thinking about how wonderful it would be to stay home with my kids, to work around their schedule alone, not their schedule, my schedule, Steve's schedule, and my mother-in-law's schedule, since she watches them three days a week. I think of how I can be responsible for dinner, so Steve's not rushing around to do it the minute he gets home, because I know how much that stresses him out. I think about how I can do the grocery shopping during the week, so our weekends are reserved for fun activities with the girls, instead of the chores that we haven't had time to do on the weekdays. I think about taking Brigid to a weekday ballet class, so our weekends can be flexible.

And I want it to be that way. Just like that.

But then I think about the money I'd be giving up. Am I actually doing wrong by my daughters, if I can't give them everything I always thought I'd be giving them? Is it wrong to move them away from such a great situation, with friends next door and down the street? We bought this house for the future, and we will lose money on it if we sell it now. Can I live with that? Or will I feel like I'm being selfish to the detriment of my family? Sure, where we'd like to move, we'll be closer to Steve's parents, which he says is where he'd like to be, but he's going to have a longer commute if we move there. Will he resent that, over time? He married someone who was willing to pull her own weight, financially, and if I'm not that person anymore, will that just increase his stress levels, knowing it's just him, now?

I know what I want to do. I just keep thinking it would be so much easier if I could do it in a way that's not an option for us. And I'm worried that what is an option for us isn't actually the right option for us. And around and around and around again, this is the whirlpool of thought I feel caught in, almost daily. I just want someone to tell me what we should do, what will give my family the happiest future. I just want someone to come be the adult for me for awhile, so I don't have to do it anymore.

And barring that? I just want to win the lottery, so I can move us all to our own little island, and this time period just becomes something we laugh about over fruity drinks on the beach, because ha ha! look how stressed we were when life involved something else besides drinking fruity drinks on the beach! isn't it nice that we don't deal with stuff like that anymore?

That's not too much to ask, right?

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

2013-07-23T17:40:00.002-04:00

I don't know if there is anyone out there still listening to me or not, because when you only post once every three months, and you just haven't been able to visit/comment on other blogs recently like you used to do, and Google decides to ditch its feed reader, giving everyone else the perfect opportunity to weed dead blogs out of whatever new feed reader they're moving to, you don't expect many people to stick around, waiting anxiously for your return. But I have things to say, and even if no one is listening, and I have things to figure out for myself that I can only figure out if I put it all down on paper, first.

(My head, it is a noisy place these days. I can't keep track of anything in there, anymore.)

I want to get back to posting outfit pictures, because I've been on a stress-shopping binge, lately, and my newest no-shopping stint will begin on August 1st, which means I need to get back to appreciating what I already have, instead of wanting everything that I don't.

I want to talk about make-up, because, well, see the stress-shopping binge, above. I love make-up, I always have, and ever since Style Lush went quiet, I've lost the outlet where I could talk about all of my favorite products. And favorite products? Hoo, buddy, do I have them.

I want to talk about my feelings as a working mother who no longer wants to be a working mother, the constant beating my emotional well-being has taken as I've struggled to lose the baby weight after Caitlin's arrival in my life, the struggles I've faced in trying to teach Brigid right from wrong. And my fear that I am not doing right by her in this process.

I want to talk about all of the stress and anxiety that has slowly taken over my life this past year, in ways that I've never truly appreciated until I actually sat down and thought about how hard the simple things in life have become.

And I want to talk about how happy I am that my life is where it is, in so many ways, despite all of that other stuff that keeps getting in the way.

I have things to say. It's time I got back to saying them.

The List - June Update

2013-07-01T16:46:00.001-04:00

I feel like I say this every time I manage to make it back to this space after a long break, but I miss writing here on a regular basis. This is my own little corner of the world, and I start to feel bottled up when I can't take some time for myself. Unfortunately, between work and the girls, time for myself seems non-existent these days, and I'm just not sure when it's coming back...

Anyway. The list.

1) Lose the pregnancy weight. - 27lbs lost. I'm three measly pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight, and yet, it still just doesn't feel right. With Brigid, when I lost the weight, I went back to being myself. After Caitlin, though, something changed, and my pre-pregnancy weight just doesn't have the same shape it used to. It can be so disheartening to see a familiar number on the scale (FINALLY!), but still not fit into half of the clothes in my closet. However, I am taking comfort in the fact that even though I FELT overly large in the strapless, empire-waisted bridesmaid dress I wore in my brother-in-law's wedding a couple of weeks ago, the pictures don't make me look nearly as bad as I had been preparing myself for, mentally, ever since they were taken. So. Bright side.

2) Give up meat for a month. - Not yet.

3) Complete the Couch to 5K program. - No new injuries to report, but no new progress on this, either. I blame the seventeen home improvement projects we have going on right now, which eat into that tiny little hour of alone time I have between getting the girls to bed and collapsing in bed myself.

4) Run an organized 5K. - See: No Running In Two Months.

5) Clean/reorganize my closet. - No.

6) Take a belated anniversary trip with Steve, a long weekend somewhere without the kids. - Still in the works.

7) Make a meal entirely on my own (I don't cook, so this might be the biggest one of the year!) - Eh, at this point I might call boiling some pasta, heating up some sauce, and opening a bag of prepared salad 'cooking' and mark this one off of the list.

8) Create an art wall in my staircase. - We...might be moving? Maybe? We've discussed it anyway? So, I don't know what to do about this now.

9) Organize a workspace for me. - No.

10) Attend The Blathering in Charleston. - STILL REGISTERED!! STILL SO EXCITED!!!!

11) Read at least one book a month. - Let's see, through May I had: In the Garden of Beasts (Erik Larson), Wild (Cheryl Strayed), and Discovery of Witches/Shadow of Night (Deborah Harkness). Since then, I've added: Wedding Night (Sophie Kinsella), The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald), Rules of Civility (Amor Towles), The Casual Vacancy (JK Rowling), and Summer at Tiffany (Marjorie Hart). I'm at nine through seven months. I used to get through nine in less than two months. Sad.

But, again...seven Harry Potter books, reread. I should probably cut myself some slack...

12) Take Brigid and Caitlin to South Bend for a weekend (preferably a football weekend). - We're currently trying to get up there for Labor Day weekend.

13) Research/practice meditation. - No.

14) Find a yoga studio and start taking classes regularly. - No.

15) Find a 'mommy and me' class of some sort for Brigid and I to attend. - I should try to find a new one for us.

16) Write something, anything, not blog related. - No.

17) Take one lunch break a week, even if it's only 15 minutes, to sit somewhere quiet and recalibrate/reflect/replan the next few days. (when I go back to work...) - HA! HAAAAAAAA! No. (still.)

18) Start taking outfit photos again, in an effort to wear everything already in my closet instead of shopping for new items. - Eh. Maybe.

19) Be more consistent in updating my family blog, because my parents give me a hard time when I let it lag, and my personal blog, because I'm not as happy with myself when I let it lag. - Still no.

20) Start reading my favorite blogs again, since I haven't even LOOKED at my reader feed in months, and I miss keeping up with it. - Sort of. Some of them.

21) Find a general practitioner and get a physical. - Not yet.

22) Throw Brigid a NYE party next year, complete with hats, noisemakers, and fun food, since she was really excited to stay up until midnight this year, but I was so tired from the baby's schedule that we faked midnight for her at 11PM. - I have a few more months on this?

23) Send more mail...thank you notes, birthday cards, and 'just because' messages. - I've been better-ish. But there's still room for improvement.

24) Try a juice fast/cleanse. - I'm doing this dandelion tea thing? Which kind of has made me feel better? But which has also prompted Steve to ask me if I'm preparing for some kind of drug test he didn't know I had?

25) Decide, once and for all, what I want to be when I grow up, and formulate a plan to get myself there. - Blergh.

The List - May Update

2013-05-14T21:41:00.000-04:00

Last year, I made it a point to revisit my list of goals for the year at least once every three months, so I could see what sort of progress I was making towards them. This year? Things have gotten away from me a bit.

Between the new baby, an overactive toddler, and a job that takes up more of my time (and causes more trouble) than both of my girls combined, it's all of a sudden May, and I have no idea how we got here. So...an update:

1) Lose the pregnancy weight. - I have lost about 20lbs since the start of the year, which is excellent. Less excellent is the fact that I gained more than 20lbs with Caitlin, so I still have some work ahead of me.

2) Give up meat for a month. - Not yet.

3) Complete the Couch to 5K program. - I keep trying. And I keep injuring myself, outside of the whole running thing. First, it was slipping on the stairs at my in-laws' house, and messing up my ankle. Then, it was falling in the parking garage at work, and tweaking my quad muscle. I'm sure, once my leg stops hurting every time I awkwardly squat to pick something up, I'll manage to throw my back out, or something.

4) Run an organized 5K. - Not if I can't quit falling while doing absolutely nothing athletic, I won't.

5) Clean/reorganize my closet. - I bought some skirt hangers that I love. That's about it.

6) Take a belated anniversary trip with Steve, a long weekend somewhere without the kids. - Still in the works.

7) Make a meal entirely on my own (I don't cook, so this might be the biggest one of the year!) - No.

8) Create an art wall in my staircase. - I've bought a bunch of frames. And I have them laid out on the floor of the front room. But that's as far as it goes right now.

9) Organize a workspace for me. - No.

10) Attend The Blathering in Charleston. - I REGISTERED! I'M GOING!! I'M SO EXCITED!!

11) Read at least one book a month. - I guess, since I didn't specify that the book a month didn't have to be a book I'd never read before, I'm actually ahead of the game on this one? Actually, even without that clarification, I'm still kind of on pace, but so far I've read: In the Garden of Beasts (Erik Larson), Wild (Cheryl Strayed), and Discovery of Witches/Shadow of Night (Deborah Harkness), plus I'm currently reading Wedding Night (Sophie Kinsella). So...five, right?

cough*Plus I reread all 7 Harry Potter books, just because I wanted to*cough

12) Take Brigid and Caitlin to South Bend for a weekend (preferably a football weekend). - We're currently trying to get up there for Labor Day weekend.

13) Research/practice meditation. - No.

14) Find a yoga studio and start taking classes regularly. - No.

15) Find a 'mommy and me' class of some sort for Brigid and I to attend. - Brigid is currently enrolled in a ballet class at the Atlanta Ballet Company, where I get to go sit in class with her while she 'dances'. I don't get to dance, though, and I think the ABC is really missing out on something special here by not letting me participate, but whatever. What do I know, right?

16) Write something, anything, not blog related. - No.

17) Take one lunch break a week, even if it's only 15 minutes, to sit somewhere quiet and recalibrate/reflect/replan the next few days. (when I go back to work...) - HA! HAAAAAAAA! No.

18) Start taking outfit photos again, in an effort to wear everything already in my closet instead of shopping for new items. - Once I fit into more than three items in my closet, I will get RIGHT on this.

19) Be more consistent in updating my family blog, because my parents give me a hard time when I let it lag, and my personal blog, because I'm not as happy with myself when I let it lag. - I can usually manage to get something into the family blog about three times a week, even if it's a throwaway picture post (because, let's be honest, that's all my family cares about, anyway), but this blog has been sadly neglected this year. I need to change that.

20) Start reading my favorite blogs again, since I haven't even LOOKED at my reader feed in months, and I miss keeping up with it. - I transferred everything to a new feed reader! And I added a few that looked awesome! But...to read them? I'm still trying to find a better balance for my time.

21) Find a general practitioner and get a physical. - No. Although having one might have come in handy when I thought I had pinkeye, but still...no. Not yet.

22) Throw Brigid a NYE party next year, complete with hats, noisemakers, and fun food, since she was really excited to stay up until midnight this year, but I was so tired from the baby's schedule that we faked midnight for her at 11PM. - I have a few more months on this?

23) Send more mail...thank you notes, birthday cards, and 'just because' messages. - Sort of. It comes in spurts, and I am not consistent at all. But I'm trying to be better about it.

24) Try a juice fast/cleanse. - No.

25) Decide, once and for all, what I want to be when I grow up, and formulate a plan to get myself there. - I know I want to spend more time at home with my girls. I know I don't want every waking moment to be consumed with work, to the point that I am using my personal phone as a wireless hotspot to work from the car as we're driving home from Indiana on what should be a vacation day, because there is some work emergency that needs to be addressed. I DON'T know how to get there, though. So...uh...TBD? I guess?

Fun With Make-Up

2013-05-13T22:03:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, I spent Saturday night out with several ladies much, MUCH younger than myself, in honor of my soon to be SiL's bachelorette party. It was fun, and exhausting, and a little crazier than my 33-year old body can handle these days. And I learned that while I still like to talk to just about anybody who will have a conversation with me while I'm out, I now find myself doing things like discussing career paths with the 29-year old engaged bartender who is studying to be a chiropractor and giving parenting advice to the guy who's wife is pregnant with their first kid (a girl!) at the bachelor party drinking next to us. So, you know. I am a BLAST to have at parties, obviously.

Anyway, as I've gotten older, I've started using a lot more make-up in my everyday routine, to try to mask a few of those telltale 'yes I have a baby at home, and no I haven't had a decent night of sleep in something like 10 months' signs, and let me tell you...the rabbit hole that is internet make-up advice is just as fun/exhausting/crazy as any bachelorette party with a bunch of mid-twenties people in attendance. But! Most of the time I don't wake up with a splitting headache in the morning after looking at you tubed make-up tutorials, so I'll have to give the nod to the internet on this one.

My newest obsession? Tightlining.

It's an eyelining technique that involves lining from underneath your lashes, to accent your eyes without the heavy handed look you (or I, in any case) can get from regular eyeliner. I followed the advice I found here, and for my first attempt, I was pretty happy with the results:

Of course, the look took A LOT of Q-Tip clean-up, because I had eyeliner all over the place, but it's definitely a look I want to keep practicing, because I think I could make this an everyday thing for myself, once I get a better handle on it.

Side note: The other night, I was watching Two Weeks Notice with Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant, and all I could focus on was Sandra's eyeliner. Because in almost every movie she is in, I always love the look of her make-up, and now? I AM TOTALLY IN ON HER SECRET! Watch your back, Sandy. I'm coming for you.

(Because, the only thing separating me from Sandra's superstar life is the eye make-up techniques, right?)

Side note, the second: I used this Stila Smudge Pot and a flat eyeliner brush for my first attempt.

Remember Me?

2013-04-04T18:01:00.001-04:00

I signed up for this absolutely awesome thing that Doing My Best has been hosting for awhile now, a 'Crappy Day Present' Exchange. The thought process behind the exchange is that we all have crappy days, and wouldn't it make that day just a little less crappy if you had something fun from someone nice to open when you're feeling blue?

The answer, of course, is yes. And even though this is my first time participating in the exchange, I've had so much fun shopping for the person I am sending a CDP package to, I think I can already claim that this whole thing works like it should. Except...

Well, I was supposed to do a 'getting to know you' post for whoever has my name to look at for ideas. And I kind of got busy. And I kind of forgot. So, I kind of failed on that part. But! Better late than never? Maybe?

1. What time did you go to bed last night and were you alone?
Around 11PM, and no. Not if you're counting one husband, two dogs, a remarkably brave cat, and a rogue toddler who joined us at 4AM.

2. If you could be given ANY gift what would it be?
A free house so that I could stay home with my girls. That would be awesome.

3. What was the last film that really moved/disturbed/thrilled you and why?
If I say the last Harry Potter, does that make me really, really behind the times? Because it was. And I am.

4. What is your favourite TV show of all time ie you've seen them all, can watch it over and over again and quote lines from it?
It's a toss up between Gilmore Girls and Seinfeld.

5. Whats your favourite way to wake up and whats the first thing you do?
On my own (ie not by one of my girls waking me up way before I'm ready). Check Twitter and drink coffee.

6. What would you call yourself if you could choose your own name?
I don't know. I've been Tara for long enough that I think I'd have to stick with Tara. Unless...could I call myself Kate Middleton? Would that make me Kate Middleton?

7. If you had to do a bushtucker challenge (you have to eat insects/grubs etc) what would be the worst thing you had to eat?
I couldn't do it. They would ALL BE TERRIBLE. Except maybe ants. I could probably do ants.

8. Whats the worst/most embarassing CD/Album you've ever owned and do you still have it?
I lived in Cincinnati when the Reds opened the current ballpark, and they distributed this CD of songs by Blessid Union of Souls written specifically for the team. It was terrible. SO BAD. And yet, I listened to it A LOT. And I made other people listen to it. And I still have all of the songs memorized. But I don't know where it is right now, and that makes me sad.

9. what would be your dream vehicle (bikes, cars, boats, batcar and millenium falcon is allowed!)?
Ooooh, a boat. A really nice one. Because if I could have my dream vehicle, I'd also like to be living in my dream location, so I'd need that boat to get around in Venice.

I deleted question 10 because it was dumb, and I don't want to renumber all of these.

11. What characteristics do you dislike in yourself?
I get flustered very easily. If I only have a few seconds to make a good impression, I don't. You need to have prolonged exposure to me to fully grasp my charm, I think.

(Also, I'm very sarcastic. But I actually kind of like that about myself.)

12. Your favourite item of clothing and why?
My gray scarf from Land's End. It's the perfect piece of travel clothing, because it doubles as a wrap, it dresses up any outfit, and it keeps me warm on the plane.

13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would it be and who would it be with?
Europe. All of Europe. I want to go to Ireland/Czech Republic/GermanySpain/Portugal/Greece and spend more time in France and go back to Italy.

14. If you could have any animal/creature, What would be your ultimate pet be?
I want a Harry Potter owl.

15. What did you want to be when you were little and do you think you ever will be?
An novelist, and probably not. I don't have the creativity...

16. Whats the next planned event you're looking to in your life?
A beach vacation with my family.

17. What were you doing before you started this?
Working

18. What was the last thing you ate that you really shouldnt of ?
A Reese's peanut butter egg.

19. If you were an ice cream/haagen daz/ben an jerrys flavour what would you be?
I have absolutely no idea.

20. Who was the last person you spoke to that you didnt want to talk to?
I don't think I should answer this one...

21. What was your favourite toy as a child . . .and now?
I was less of a toy person and more of a book person as a child. Now? I'm an iPhone person. ALL. OF. THE. TIME. on my damn phone.

22. When was the last time you cried laughing and why?
I don't remember why, but I know it was only a couple of months ago. I was pregnant at the time, so I might have been a little hysterical? I feel like it maybe involved dirty jokes...

23. What is stashed under your bed/mattress?
Does cat hair count? What about dog toys? ALL OF THAT STUFF ENDS UP UNDER MY BED.

24. What did you dream about last night?
I didn't. But my husband dreamt he met my golf crush, so I want HIS dreams next time...

25. What are you really afraid of?
Anything happening to my children. Terrified.

Luck of the Irish?

2013-03-18T14:03:00.000-04:00

My St. Patrick's Day outfit, sponsored by my favorite maternity skirt, which I ABSOLUTELY intend to keep wearing as long as the elastic holds up, and a pair of Spanx, which I also intend to keep wearing as long as I can still pass for slightly pregnant anytime I wear anything that isn't loose and flowing.

The tank top is a maternity find, too, from Target, and I would kind of like to keep buying every color that they make, because I love how long they are. But also? I would very much like to quit wearing maternity clothes because, you know, I do own other clothes that I would like to wear again someday...
Skirt: Motherhood Maternity Tank Top: Target Cardigan: Banana Republic (outlet)

(The cardigan! The cardigan isn't a maternity item! That sort of counts, right? Even though I was wearing this cardigan at the end of my pregnancy?)

(Whatever. I'm getting there. There are more non-maternity clothing items that fit me now, compared to where I was at the start of the year. I just really wanted to wear jeans and boots to the St. Patrick's Day festival we went to on Saturday, but that wasn't an option. I'm tired of it not being an option, that's all...)