It's What's for Dinner

The newest product discovery is the Plum Spoon Boon. I found mine at Target, but I'm sure you can find them lots of other places.

This little screw on spoon is amazing! I've had problems getting little man to eat. He has to have the spoon or we go into melt down. The traditional spoon was great, but he wouldn't get half of the food in his mouth and I couldn't get him food fast enough. Most feeding ended in tears. I tried giving him a spoon for each hand and one to feed him with, but alas he's a smart one and would drop one or both to acquire the one with the food on it. Why do I like this little spoon? I get food to him at his rate so less fussing because I can't get him food fast enough. He can hold something and not make a HUGE mess. He grasps the end of the spoon or top of the pouch without disrupting meal time. The only negative I have for it is that I think it's made for an older kid. The spoon is deep for such a tiny mouth (he's 6 months) so he can't get all of the food out, but I can look over that. Feedings are cleaner, faster and happier for all. Will we need to change methods as he gets older, yes, but for  now this is one happy momma.

As for my mealtimes I got around to cooking something for dinner tonight. The farm share brought potatoes so I made a little breakfast hash this evening. Potatoes, chives, green onions, and left over breakfast sausage from the other day. Yummy! It required no salt or pepper as you get plenty of flavor from the green onions, chives and sausage.

Mustgo Stew

In a previous post I mentioned our farm share. I love getting the bag of veggies each week. This week we had some beautiful carrots. As there are enough veggies for a full family and I'm primarily the only eating  them I'm finding it difficult some weeks to keep up. When I was at home, Mom would always make mustgo soup with all the things that "must go" before they spoil. Since I bought stew meat recently and it was either cook it or freeze it, I stuck it in the crock pot with the beautiful carrots and some celery, mushrooms, green onions and a few radishes that were left over from the 4th. Just a little happiness which greets you in the morning. It's nice to wake and know lunch is taken care of and today after the kiddo seems to only sleep 30 minutes at a time that was much needed.

Bright and Beautiful!

The Rule of Two

It seems now that I have a kid that I live out of my car. The diaper bag never really makes it in the house and then the stroller is always there along with other various items that make it in, but with a kiddo in my arms when I go in the house and the temp being over 100 degrees now I don't always everything the house. There are times I feel like the car looks like this.

(World's Messiest Cars)

Now I realize this is a big extreme. I know I don't collect that much stuff in the car, but the fact still remains that it's far from clean. Part of my attempt to simplify life is keeping the car clean and organized. Ultimately it would be really nice to do the drive thru car wash and then use the free vacuums and just clean out the trash, but alas baby boy is not a fan of the car wash or the vacuums. Where does this leave me? I either use a good morning naptime to clear it all out or use the rule of two.

The Rule of Two:
When you don't have time to get EVERYTHING done at once, at least get two things put away.

I'm not sure if it's an idea my mom had or if it's one of my own. It's been around a while, though not always utilized. So my goal this next week is relocating at least two things. When coming in from the car I'm going to grab one of the many toys that relocated to the floor on the drive home and something else and put it where it belongs. Once you get the car clean you can help keep it clean by doing the rule of two each time you get out of the car. You don't have to get ALL the trash at once. Grab the fast food cup and those gas receipts when you stop at Walmart and drop them in the trash on the way in. It's all about progress, not perfection. My new mantra. We'll never be perfect, but we can be better than we were.

(Image from IFB)

Shelby, Betty, Madeline, Julie & Julia

Tonight after putting the little one in bed I decided on what I would do for my "mommy time". So here I sit, my Betty Crocker brownies, delicious Madeline Tosh yarn, and Julie & Julia. It's just a lot of Mom and the little guy these days. I'm much more efficient than I was when he first came home. We have a loose schedule and in that schedule is always some mommy time. I'm a firm believer that if you take care of yourself that you can take care of them better than if you didn't. Since Daddy is busy with work I'm doing it all and all the time. This is a lot for one person and if I didn't do things I enjoy like knitting I'd burn out for sure.

Speaking of knitting, after a brief sabbatical, I'm back and working on the little one's blanket. This is my year of fearless knitting! I've decided that I'm not going to shy away from hard patterns or patterns that intimidate me just for the amount of knitting involved. In the last few weeks I've started back on my first sweater. I've busted through some of my yarn stash with a fun scarf. As I mentioned before I pulled out the baby blanket for my 5 month old. I started that bad boy during pregnancy - no judging! I am truly an ADD knitter. I can put a project into the naughty bag and let it hibernate for months. This sadly is how I am on several things in life.

This week I've finally started fixing the hot mess of an old desk we've been using as a side table. On our first assignment we lived in this 1,000 sq ft apartment near the beach. It was white. When I say it was white, it was white. There wasn't even builders' beige to live with. So after over watering a plant and ending up with a water ring on said desk I painted it. I painted it bright green and loved it. And then we moved. I was not as big of a fan of the color in the next house. Then we moved again. Needless to say I was over the green. What did I do? I bought stripper and started a new adventure. I brought the desk out, put the chemical on and waited for it to bubble and the paint to fall off with ease. HA! I do have to say that it worked well some places and less in others. I tried again and still no amazing results. I wanted to restore this sweet little desk to it's glory. No dice. I was frustrated and needed a break, so I wiped it down and decided to use it for a week or two while I regrouped. Now, around 2 years later I pulled out this still partially green desk while the little guys was asleep for a nap and sanded it. It still has flecks of green, which are permanently soaked in the wood, but I'm viewing it as added character. On another day I stained it. Maybe next week I'll put on the clear coat. I'm not putting it back where I'm using it since you know what happened last time I did that.

Needless to say I'm not a finisher when left to my own devices with home projects. This is why I married my husband. Together we are yin and yang. I'm the OCD, have several projects going or draw it out because I need it to be perfect and he's the one project at a time, doesn't have to be perfect kind of guy. He doesn't understand my knitting habit. Why would one ever have 5 projects going at once? My reason? I get bored or frustrated and rather than hurry through and make mistakes (which will bug the ever living daylights out of me every time I saw it) I will put it away until I'm excited to work on it again or at least not angry. Now the hubs is no slob. He does wonderful work around the house, but if there is a small hiccup he doesn't obsess about it. We stretch each other though. He knows I'm OCD and will make sure to slow down when he gets close to the end of a project so he doesn't make mistakes in the excitement of almost being done and I do honestly try to do not have projects lying about for long periods of time. He hates the mess. We're good for each other.

Well with all of this talk of getting things done and taking care of myself I have to admit it's time that I pick myself off the couch and get ready for bed. This momma has to get some sleep to make it happen all over again tomorrow. Good night all!

Live Simply part 1

Live simply. What does that mean to you? I'm sure if you asked 10 people that one question, you would get different answers. There is no right answer and no right or wrong way to do it either. You'll find everyone has their "how-to" out there on the web. This is what worked for them, but may not work fully for you. I've looked at tons of sites and pins on pinterest.com looking for methods of scaling back.

Over the next 6 months I'm going to try and simplify my lifestyle. After bringing baby home and not returning to work my stress level has decreased. I'm not pushing myself so hard to get it all done at once. With the little guy here most of my schedule revolves around him and his needs for the day. That being the case I would like to simplify not only what we own, but also how I do things. This allowing me more opportunity to keep the house under control or be social and enjoy the time I have with my family.

I'm going to start with stuff since I can't seem to focus clearly until the house is in order. I plan on starting once I've recovered from having my wisdom teeth pulled yesterday. Oh how I look forward to eating solid food.

Knitting with friends

I started knitting around 2 years ago. The first person we met when we moved to Boise was the girlfriend of a guy who was in training with my husband. They stayed with us for a couple weeks while closing on a house and as a thank you, bought me my first knitting lesson. Over the last two years I've gotten closer with that girl. Our boys deployed and we knit together. They broke up and we continued to knit together. No matter what's going on we can sit together and talk about our projects and life. It is the gift that keeps giving. That friend is moving this weekend. I'm very sad to see her go, but very excited for this new opportunity in her life. And while I'm losing a knitting partner, in the coming days I'll be gaining a few more.

Recently, through knitting hats for new squadron babies I've had some other ladies share their desire to learn to knit. I look forward to sharing this thing that has given me such joy. I wanted to share my going ons of this week trying to prepare a little to teach these ladies. I felt when I started that there was so much I didn't understand. I need to see examples of what you're talking about to fully grasp the concept of what I'll be doing. Below I've shared a few of my swatches and if you're a new knitter I encourage you to visit Ravelry and check out all the patterns there are out there. It's not just our grandmother's hobby.

 Stockinette Stitch 

Made by knitting on the right side (RS) and purling on the wrong side (WS)

example: Row 1 knit; Row 2 purl

In the Round (circular needles): Knit all rows

 Notice how this fabric curls on the ends.
Let's say you're knitting a scarf. If you have stockinette stitch at the edges it will curl some.

Garter Stitch

Knit all rows

 In the Round: Rows alternate from knit to purl.

This fabric will look the same from the WS as it does on the RS.

Ribbing

Here's an example of ribbing. This is made by alternating knit and purl stitches
on a single row and continuing that pattern on other rows.

The bottom of this swatch is made by knitting(K) 2, Purl(P) 3, K5, P3,K2 

the next row (WS) would be reversed - P2, K3, P5, K3, P2 

An example of how two simple stitches can make something that looks more complex

This last one is just a current project I'm working on, my first fingerless mitts.
This is a little more difficult (not by much) with the use of a yarn over (an increase)
and two decreases (SSK or slip slip knit and K2tog or knit two together)

Housekeeping and Motherhood

In just the last few months my life has changed completely. I've gone from working outside of the home to having our first child and deciding, with my husband's schedule, I want to be home full-time to raise our little boy.

This blog is meant to be kind of a diary of my transition into motherhood and keeping house again. You see it's been over 4 years since I've had a regular schedule. I used to work a normal 9-5 job and after getting laid off I decided I wanted a change. I went back to school to be in the healthcare field so I could find work easier since we move every 3 years with the military. I worked night shift and then evenings and even some days with this first job. My sleep schedule has been anything but regular. It's not so surprising that with these changes, my normal routines for keeping house have gone by the wayside. Now that we have a little one, and my husband's schedule being hectic, I've decided to stay home. I've got to say so far I'm loving it! I'm far from being on a regular schedule, but I'm finding my way.

Another purpose of me doing this is to remind myself that even though I'm not perfect, I'm doing pretty dang well for myself. I tend to be a perfectionist and with that, for me, comes the feeling of not being good enough, because I'm not to that bar I've set for myself. That bar is at an unattainable height and I'm realizing with time that I need to give myself credit for what I AM doing. Maybe that's something you struggle with too. We look at Pinterest and magazines and see a world we'd love to have. The home decorating, and perfectly photographed food and the crafting, oh the crafting, we aspire to do. I think many times we focus so much on what we'd like to get done or how we'd like to live and don't give credit for what we're doing. We look forward to the improvements we want to make in our homes, in our families and ourselves and forget to realize how wonderful we are NOW.

Well, I hope that at some point this helps someone or at least provides a little entertainment. I'm planning on sharing both successes and failures as I grow in this new phase of life. I can't wait!