Planning, Planning, Planning...

Now that I'm up and back on my feet after this pregnancy sickness, I've started cooking again.  The nice thing about not cooking, I've learned over the past 6 months, is that when you don't cook, you don't have to think about what you're not cooking.  No grocery lists (beyond bread, peanut butter and jelly), no menus, no recipes, no nothing.  I'd be lying if I said that wasn't nice.

Now that we're in the swing of things, turns out my family still needs to eat every day.  Who know that families were so high maintenance?  I've experimented with some menu planning systems, from dry erase calendars to a recipe holder with the days of the week on the front, but I just can't seem to find one that I like.  I think part of the problem was that I was over thinking it.  We eat about 15-20 different things in rotation.  If I had a way to keep track of what we'd eaten recently, an easy to read format, and a place to put all this nifty information, my Type A organizer brain would be happy.

Adventures in Living...

I've been neglecting this poor blog for some time now.  It's not that I haven't been in the kitchen as much as it's because I haven't really made anything original lately.  After Chase's baptism two weeks ago and hubby's birthday last week, I'm all party-planning-baking-fun-timed out.  It's been a whirlwind here over the past four months (four months!!!  Say whaaaat?), what with all the having a baby, celebrating the holidays, hosting a christening, two birthdays (mine and his), and oh yeah, going back to work.  (And fitting my Pinterest addiction in there somewhere.)  Now that all of that is complete, I've been enjoying just Living.  Living in the moment, day to day, not planning or getting caught up in anything else.  Just Living as a mama, wife, nurse.  Life.  It's a wonderful thing.

I wanted to post some pictures of what we've done around our house lately.  Every night, when I'm rocking and nursing the kiddo before bed, I sit in his bedroom and marvel at how different things are from a year ago.  Mostly because I was laying in that same room, with different furniture and pictures on the walls, in a different bed, and throwing up everything I even considered putting in my mouth.  We've come a long way, that baby and I.  Honestly, though, everyone morning, noon and night I thank God for my wonderful husband.  I give single moms mad props - there is no way I could do this alone and keep my sanity.  Kudos to the single ladies out there raising their own little ones!!

Night and Day (Dress Shirt Pillow Shams)

Our little one has decided to start sleeping longer and longer at night - last night he was asleep by 12.45 and woke up at 7.30 - which is pretty awesome, for sleeping purposes.  What this means, though, is since he eats roughly 10 times per day, we now have much less time to get those 10 feedings in.  So now, he's hungry every what feels like 6.37 seconds.  I used to be able to nurse him to sleep and do things during those 2 hours in between.  Not anymore.  Now I get about 20 minutes to run around like a hopped up Charlie Sheen, trying to do everything I need to get done before he wakes up and wants to eat again.  

Gratuitous baby pic of the day:  Steelers Baby!

Luckily, those 20 minutes are exactly enough time to make these pillow shams.  (OK, to be honest, it takes about 20 minutes per sham.  So 2 sets of 20.  But still - that's pretty fast.)  Hubby cleaned out his closet a few days ago and left me a big pile of clothes to donate.  In the pile were several dress shirts in almost brand new condition.  Hubs has a fondness for stripped dress shirts, but since he wears golf shirts to work every day, his collection tends to grow faster than he can wear them out.  I set a few of them aside to see what I could do with them.

(If you're looking to donate clothing or other household items on the East Coast, the Purple Heart foundation does a great job using donations to support veterans.  And they come to you!  You can schedule a pick up online and they come to your house and take whatever you have for them.  Definitely recommend.)

Snowed In... (Throw Pillows)

It snowed here on Monday, about 12 inches.  I love snow.  Snow means that my hardworking golfer husband gets to take it easy for a few days.  Since school doesn't start again until Jan 3, we get another entire week together this week!  So far we've laid around, ate a lot, played in the snow with Layla, caught up on our DVR'd television, did the whole post-holiday clean up and generally relaxed.  It's nice.  :o)

Bob gave me this on our first Christmas together, so long ago!

I have not, however, turned on my oven.  I can't.  The idea of more butter and sugar gives me palpitations.  Next week, I promise I'll have some deliciousness, but for now I have something else.  Not delicious, but something I'm thoroughly proud of.

Pennsylvania and some homemade pumpkin pie (Peanut Butter Buckeyes)

That song always makes me thing of home, especially around Christmas, mostly because I'm from Pennsylvania and we always had homemade *some kind of* pie around our table.  Makes me all warm inside.  

What I have for you today is not pumpkin pie.  It is not pie of any kind.  But it is homemade.  And it is delicious enough to drive from Tennessee for.

Toast & Chairs (Bob's Blueberry Toast)

Our house is now completely painted! I would have taken pictures of my hard work, but the color is so light that it doesn't show up very well. It looks very finished in person, though!


I said that I would post a picture of the blueberry toast that B eats every morning on the homemade bread. I broke out the good china for these pictures, haha.

Bob's Blueberry Toast
2 pieces of bread, lightly toasted
cream cheese
blueberries
cinnamon and sugar

Assemble as listed above. Yum!

Also, I spent the day recovering our ugly antique chairs. They were handed down to my husband from Great Uncle So-and-so, and could be nice chairs, if it weren't for the hideous upholstery job. I recovered them with some fabric from Joann Fabrics and some trim. OK, that's a lie. I recovered one. It was such a pain, especially around the corners, that I gave up for one day and will cover the second tomorrow. The transformation is striking, though.

Ugly chairs.

Not quite as ugly chair. I'll tackle the next one tomorrow. :-)