30 on 30

30 Things to Do While 30

1. get a tattoo, yes Jon I'm being serious
2. go on a proper vacation with Jon
3. visit a city/State I have never been to
4. practice the 'new thing brought home, old thing leaves the house' rule
5. get actively stronger again
6. update the house in a meaningful way, like pick up a hammer kind of way new windows!
7. practice the art of not oversubscribing to people/events/obligations
8. pay off my library debt and never feel that shame again! done and done, clean slate as of January
9. pay off remaining CC debt
10. travel somewhere new to me in Michigan
11. successfully expand my career and better support my schools with actual support (past compliance issues)
12. train for and compete in an athletic event
13. babysit for my friends
14. be more of a cheerleader than a coach when it comes to my personal connections- most of the time we just want support, not advice
15. have more days filled with Laura-isms- coffee pots, magazines, comfy chairs, manicures, movies I've seen hundreds of times, Disney songs, grapefruits and hammocks
16. celebrate our 6 year wedding anniversary in style
17. get our car washed and detailed regularly
18. plant a smaller but better garden
19. pay for someones meal/drink at a drive thru
20. give someone a gift anonymously 
21. try out a church Fountain Street downtown
22. get involved with West Michigan refugee community
23. give my parents more hugs and tell them I love them more
24. find an out of office place that I can work at effectively and then schedule it consistently
25. purge my kitchen of old/dated cookware and upgrade
26. go wine tasting
27. landscape my yard
28. volunteer with HP
29. avoid buying more blue and black clothes...lets try for something different!
30. face my anxieties and fears by learning new coping mechanisms

Whew :) Want to help me on my quest for making Year 30 be as great as it can be? Hold me accountable and ask about the list, better yet join me in one of the adventures!

Summer Series Part 3

This past 'summer day' was especially nice for me. Jon redeemed his Mother's Day gift for me, a super fancy massage at his hotel. Over the course of an hour and a half hot bamboo, mud, and oil all took turns shellacking my skin. It was delicious.

I then got to spend the afternoon with my best high school friend and her sweet babies before picking up my own sweet HP and having a nice dinner with the boys at home.

This past weekend I began tackling project house with renewed gusto. My house is adorable (I think)...too bad no one can see through the shrubbery.

Exhibit A

B

And C

So I broke out the clippers, a shovel and my gardening jeans and spent the better part of Saturday tearing up those half-dead shrubs. I also managed to severally bruise my arms and legs. Ouch.

Whew

The only reason that bush is still there is because I was too tired to finish.

It's a start! Oh hey, check out my little garden :) 

Peas and lettuce!

Garden 2.0

A weekend at home with HP is exactly what I need :) He chose to sleep in our bed for nap time, still there quietly snoring. H has developed my cold unfortunatley. It hung on to me for a full week and made me pretty miserable. Happily for him (us) it looks like its just a runny nose for him.

We had grand plans of burleying to his daycare's carnival this morning. But the weather was too nice not to spend it planting our garden and picnicing on the lawn. Spring has finally sprung.

This year's garden will have 2-3 planting seasons (depending on my level of laziness). The first growing session includes 2 types of peas (Sugar Sanp and Sugar Daddies-hehe), spinach and broccoli.
Session 2: tomato plants (cherry) and zuchinni
Session 3(?): butternut squash

Pictures to come (fyi- it's just a lot of dirt right now...)

Necessary and Beautiful

I was chatting with my mom a few days ago in regards to house decor and I cited some article I'd read earlier that stated you should only put things in your home which are one of two things; necessary or beautiful. I don't know what you house looks like, but mine....I could do with some lightening up.

And that got me to thinking about the things we do every day. Why shouldn't the same be true? I should  only make a priority out of things that are either necessary (making the moo-lah to eat, clothe ourselves, and shelter us) and do things that help beautify the world or space around us.
I think it comes from working where I do, and among the population that I have, but its really easy to look around and see that I have it good.

So, in an effort to align my words into actions I've done the following:

1. coach soccer now, and will commit to coaching the girls in the spring- for as much grief, heartache. angry-girl noise that comes with coaching (or just interacting) with the pre-teen set, it is waaaaayyyy worse seeing those girls drop out, not participate, lose interest or get intimidated out of sports. We need girls in sports. We need healthy bodies and good female relationships. 
2. sign up for adult ESL again- although just a 2 hour a week commitment it can feel really looong. Maybe its because the learners don't actively try to leave, or heckle you or otherwise make you not want to teach them, but 2 hours of pure English learning is a lot in one sitting :) For me anyway. Last year I tried to set up play dates with some of the women who had children. I don't think I got my point across well enough, no calls. 
3. re-heel ALL of my boots and shoes that need it- it took awhile but I located a place to save me from having to buy new shoes and toss ones that still have life in them 
4. make my coffee at home- a little piece of my soul dies when I purchase a throw away cup...and pay $4 for it...

That's it for now...not earth-shattering no, but something to think about and add to over time. 

Mmmm, minty

I have heard about Mint.com several times and only when Jon came home one day and mentioned it to me again did I finally look it up. Now a month later...I am stuck on it. For the good and the bad.

So it's a budgeting site, yeah, sounds exciting right? Well, YES! If you know me at all you know I like to crunch numbers and see how far a dollar goes (you do recall I lived on 20 euro a week in Finland). This ridiculous crunching obsession began with my first job as a hostess (Need the Weed at Tumbleweed!) and continues to this day.

During the last 2 years of NY living my budgeting skills dulled as my shopping skills flourished. I blame that on Anthropologie and Filene's Basement, they are a blessing and a curse (and Anthro is opening in Sept, one mile away from my house, ah!).

Well nothing like a good wake up call to get your budget back. Thank you Grand Rapids job market and generally Michiganian living. So back to the numbers with mint.com.

I am shocked and appalled about how much a family of 2.5 can spend at Meijers grocery store. Appalled. I need some serious lessons in couponing or something because I do NOT want to eat all of my expendable income. But also, who wants to spend days clipping and carrying around that file-o-fax of coupons?

So after analyzing the past month's expenditures I am ready to tackle this month with a renewed vigor (and smaller income...on summer vacay for a month). Can it be done without clipping and toting a fanny-pack of coupons? Please oh please let it be so!

Burley Babe

H is fast asleep in the burley, snuggled between a Boppy and Brobee. He woke up way early this morning. He sang happily from his crib until 6am when I finally decided his talking was turning to a more demanding tone.

It downpoured last night and I'm sitting on slightly damp wooden steps watching for signals that H is waking. It's a gamble taking him on burley rides in the am before his first nap because he tends to pass out and sleep for a shorter time than he would in bed. Oh well. Can't wake him now.

I am looking around this crazy backyard right now. It is so BUSY with things. The guy that lived here before had a thing for flowers. Yes I like them fine but wow, So many! Tulip, daffodils, tiger lily, a crazy purple bamboo-like plant, roses and then there are the fruit bushes. Raspberries surround the fence on all sides, an old growth grape vie is ranging free and a bizaar plum-like tree is growing knarly looking fruit. And on top of all this there is a gazebo smack dab in the middle.

We need to par down. Plus I's take a garden over flowers any day. It'll be a big project in the fall. A lot of work for a postage stamp sized back yard!

Naptime Rambles

Our mail-lady just woke me from a hazy 2:30 nap. I think I got like 15 minutes, HP is still going strong upstairs after chasing around a ball at the park with Jon and me. Our 3 minute walk to our park makes me happy every single time I do it. That park is 25% of the reason why I was sold on this place. I must say, this is a pretty sweet house.

I'll bypass the statement that I've been way too busy to post and jump right in with updates of the day.

Update #1, I have missplaced my camera's battery charger. This has ground to a halt my Project 365. Looks like it's more of a Project 80 or so. Eh. We'll see if it turns up in any of these random boxes lying about.

#2 HP said a sad goodbye to his Aunt Katie yesterday. He helped me drop her off at the airport and then proceeded to cry the whole way home. Happily he will be cared for by his Grandma whom he hasn't seen in some time.

#3 Although we have no dryer, we do have an ancient washer in the basement that does the job. And now that Michigan has turned the corner to nice weather I've put up a functioning, if not sagging, clothesline.

#4 Mother's Day tomorrow. Last year around this time I was induced for HP. But because he was stubborn and unwilling I went home empty-handed and large-stomached.

#5 eh....I really like our new sofa...and I'm going to finish that nap now...

ReFresh

March is coming to a close! Things are ending, new ones beginning. HP's last day of baby daycare was Friday. He was sad to say goodbye to some of his friends. However saying bye to a certain redheaded Parker was pretty easy. These boys are always in battle when I see them together. Crawling over each other, stealing toys and pulling pacifiers out of mouths (that's Harrison's favorite, he loves popping those plugs out of his friends mouths). Thanks to the triumphant return of Aunt Katie from Yellowstone and the eventual return of his grandparents he'll be in the care of family until August.

We exchanged our books and magazines yesterday at the library for a fresher batch. I LOVE magazines. I'm really into Whole Living and Natural Home (man I feel older saying that...). But honestly for any potential home buyer they're kind of addictive. Sort of like a bride feels about all those bridal magazines. I was reading it and enjoying a cup of coffee with HP pounding puffs into smitherines at his high chair this morning. I saw a lot of projects for my potential backyard. We drove there yesterday with friends and showed them around the backyard. I kind of felt like a trespasser... We happily noticed a million fresh flowers sprouting up all over the place. I've spotted a perfect place for the rain barrel and I'm contemplating where a little garden could work. As far as the actual buying of this potential house we're in mid-stream. Appraisal review this week, finalizing loan, etc.

~~~~~~~

Last March's goals were all health related and I'm happy to say I've completed them! We had our eye appointments last week, H has his a month from now, I'm getting my first total physical this week and our dental appointments are next month. Yay success!

Now for April's goals: make new healthy routines which include the following

~try new recipes for lunch/dinner

~play more (swim/walk/run)

~clean more (for real...)

Wow, me last year!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

So this house that I like is a real.....um...good deal/first house/fixer upper/solid foundation/good start? All those words that you would use to describe Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. But that came out all right in the end didn't it? All it needed was someone to believe in it.

Here's the good, bad and ugly of my little diamond in the rough:

Good-
sweet wood floors throughout
arches all over the place
fireplace
screen porch
a partial white picket fence (for real!)
3 bedrooms
1 1/2 bathrooms in good repair
backyard with fences

Bad-
chipping, wood siding
old windows
unknown roof/furnace ages

Ugly-
wood panelling basement
appliances in the kitchen

Creepy-
we found out it's an estate house....the one thing Jon was not keen on was the notion of possible hauntings

There it is. Jon gets to see it for the first time today. I'm anxious to hear his thoughts. By the way this house is literally two houses away from the picture-perfect house that ruined me last week.

In anticipation of having at least ONE project in this maybe-house of ours I am currently loving this website:
http://www.younghouselove.com/ , now that is one crafty couple after my own heart.

A Lesson from Giada

I usually hate the morning Today show, so I can't explain why I still watch it when I'm home in the mornings. But two things actually stood out to me this morning as I rolled around the floor with the Bear.

I learned;
1) more Americans owe a greater amount of student loans than they do on their credit cards, and that the country's total is nearing a trillion dollars (student loans)
- this came literally 5 minutes after I was perusing GVSU's graduate website. I was intrigued about the possibility of going back to grab a few grad classes in hopes to, I don't know, receive a Christmas miracle and get my MI teaching license (on a silly note- each and every time I write the word license I mix up the s and the c, EVERY time). Well, now that story makes me want to wait that out a little.

2) Giada (cooking guru) suggested baking friends Xmas treats and gifting the food plus the bakeware. I thought this was an awesome idea. Nice Giada. I still think her shirts are way too low-cut but whatever. Honestly even I'm distracted when I watch that show. Anyway. Harrison and I jumped into the car over his naptime and while I hit up Marshalls and World Market he snoozed like a champ. Now all I need to do is bake and take. (spoiler alert for those of you that read this and receive this gift, Merry Christmas!)

Oooops, I hear the Bear. That was a short afternoon nap. Anything under 15 minutes just doesn't count.

Te amo Anthropologie

I love Anthropologie, hands down favorite shop. Yesterday I was inspired to try and build a look alike to this top.

Materials: 1 yard shell pink knit + old too small grey Target T

Constructed the embellishment from grey T, cut into strips and sewed the pink strip onto the 3 strips.

Then cut out pink fabric to make the top. I used another long shirt for a model because I didn't have a pattern to follow.

Then the fun part of pinning the embellishment on.

Finally sewed it on in place. The cowl neck took a long time to create and a few errors along the way I had to rip out and start again. Upon looking at it I decided to add another grey bit to the other shoulder to balance it out. Also I didn't add cap sleeves like the original as those tend to bulge my arms.

Ta da! For a no pattern project I like it. A few adjustments left but overall a fun day project!

Slice of Life

It's 6:30 am. Baby is still sleeping, Jon's alarm didn't go off so he ran to work "late" at 6, I am awake watching HLN and drinking coffee. Baby was a real sweety last night, after some fussiness upon bedtime he fell asleep by 9p. He didn't need me until 3! What?! And he's still cribbed and just beginning to chatter.

In recipe project news: Grilled Veggies, corn and...

limoncello cake! 

Okay, the grilled veggies didn't require a new recipe, but the cake did. 

When I did my solo 3 week tour of England and Italy (2005, right after my spring semester in Finland ended) I stayed with my sweet friend Nadia in her town outside of Milan. We went to a bar where her father played drums in a band, ate large flat pizzas and drank limoncello. It's a whiff of strong lemon that's for sure. 

 

It was a success! I was in a nostalgic mindset and pulled out my Finnish coffee mugs which I had sent to my parents. What a nice walk down memory lane while baking :)

Playing House

My friend Mandy bought a house in Holland! It is way cute and I must say has a bunch of projects for her and her husband! It was the first time that I ever experienced House Envy! For real. Honestly, owning a house scares me more than having a baby, strange? What can I saw, Mandy's house just spoke to me :) I especially enjoy the back sunroom, as did Baby H.

I got to try my hand on Project Weed! Happily Harry was content enough to supervise without being fussy.

I sure gave that a haircut! 

Project Weed had a good start :) 

Baby Shall Not be Rushed!

I knew going into it that induction is not a guarantee that Baby will show up, so I shouldn't have been too surprised that Tuesday afternoon one of the doctors advised me to call it a day and go home. Okay, that's a bit of a bummer though. Made worse by the fact I was hooked up to an IV drip for 48 hours of drinking pitocin, penicillin and saline. Made even worse by the "labor diet" I was on which consisted of toast, jello and popsicles. Luckily Katie and Jon turned a blind eye when I stole food off their plates. Hunger really makes me ornery, no joke.

Now Jon is back to work, I am back home with Katie and Baby is lounging comfortably, just not in my arms yet. I guess I can take this as a sign to really finish up some last minute things around here, one being the final touches on the nursery. I really like the final outcome, my Mom did a lovely job on the floors, I'm really happy with my bookshelf and all his cute little clothes are stocked and ready to wear.

Knock knock!

Changing table (circa 1981, the era of older sister). I attempted some animal pictures but my dog looks a bit dolphin-like.

Jon and Katie put up the Blik wall sticker, it was a Xmas gift from Katie and we love it :) The crib is smallish but I really like it and that rocker is old old old but fairly comfy!

I love this area because it houses all of Baby's animal friends and scads of books that I poached from the basement. Katie painted the trunk the sweet green that I initially bought for the walls (now I would rethink that color for a wall- a bit overwhelming, plus I love the brown. The front of the trunk is chalkboard so that'll be fun to draw on eventually.

Baby is all set for clothing until he turns 2 I think! I've got them pretty well sorted by size now. I especially dig his bath gear complete with yellow duck robe! His sweater and pant set were a gift from Jon's sister and was a crowd pleaser at the baby shower :) So cute. The curious little blue pig is from Kellie, I love how he is spying out from the corner here :) That'll be Baby's college fund :) Ha. 

Fabric Bookshelves

I came across these sweet bookshelves while perusing Ohdeedoh's site and oogling at all the pretty nurseries people put together. When I saw these shelves I really wanted them in baby's room.

So I picked out some fabric after a long deliberation. I decided to really go for the rainbow effect and got patterns from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Then I picked up two 4" poles from Lowes and a couple of wall brackets.

I followed the pretty basic instructions and made the actual bookshelf part of the project fairly quickly. Adding the wooden poles after.

Now the background is complete! Time to add the pockets to the front, I was going to put all three different patterns on but ended up stopping with the two instead. So what to put in the pockets I don't know but I like them anyway :)

I'll post the final put together nursery when it is actually put together....which will be just in time, gulp. Sunday night is Go Time.

A Touch of Grace

Jon and I have been challenged big time, well more than we expected to be, this last month. It has been pretty unsettling at times. Questions about health and safety have been preoccupying ours minds ever since I was hospitalized with that horrendous blood clot. Today my doctor called to tell me my blood levels have stablized (finally!) and I am therapeutic for now. No more bloodwork til next week. This makes me breath a little easier, good news for sure but still it remains an issue to bother me. As my tummy grows I get increasingly nervy about the possibility of a cesarean being called for in case my body isn't willing to cooperate at 36 weeks.

So now I'm beginning to give the weeb inside the expanding belly

pep talks and a heads up that things will be moving perhaps sooner than he wants them to.

 Seemingly out of the blue many great things have come our way this past week. Out of what looked to be a perfect storm of terribleness a bright light has broken through. These mini miracles include getting a sweet tax return back, showing the apartment to some very interested people (to get out of our pricey lease sooner than Sept), having a familiar and stable place to land when relocating the soon-to-be three of us, and becoming eligible to be on Jon's insurance (which sure beat out my lame one). All amazing things that could not have lined up more perfectly to reassure me that it really will be OKAY. 

And today was a GREAT day. Aside from a pretty rough night of being kept up by a dancing baby and a gross case of nasal drip the day turned out lovely. 

I began a project that was inspired by this amazing mobile at blablakids.com. 

My intention was to knit a little blue bird, but I believe he has morphed into an elephant 

This will become his trunk and head, I hope! I'm without a pattern so its kind of a hit and a miss.

Could the day get better? Well it did. I had this decadent Mint Mocha at Bigby's, handed the girl my punch card to pay for the overpriced concoction ($5 what!?) and much to my surprise she said "oh that's your free one! Do you want to get the bigger size?" I not only got to keep my fiver but I enjoyed the drink even more (and no I didn't get the bigger size, there should not be a bigger size than that monster!)

I decided to put my fiver to good use and stopped at Schuler's on the way home to buy my favorite magazine ELLE. I would buy these (the small pocket sized ones) when I lived in Finland every month and would read them cover to cover. So that's what I'll do now, move down to the porch, put my feet up  and read while I wait for Jon to come home.

Project Thank You

I watched a million and one episodes of Baby Story on TLC today and teared up like a fool every time. So instead of sitting there on the couch I got inspired to be a little crafty and make some thank you cards for my upcoming Baby shower. I saved a lot of the materials from my wedding invitations because they were so cute. I was happy to find them and use them in my cards.

I love the green and cream colors from the invites. I didn't use any of the pink left overs to avoid any confusion on Weeb's gender.

I wrote a variety of "thanks" with colored pencil 

 

I glued on the edelwise flowers and arranged them in different patterns

I am pretty happy with them, mostly because it gave me a fun little project to work on and I got to finally use up all that left over material!

 

Weeb and I say hi! 30.5 weeks