I have a stay at home life.
I'm a wife, mother of a 2 year old, and owner of a daycare center . . . conveniently located in my home. I get up way too early and stay up way too late. I love to renovate, craft, and bake. I love tea. I eat way too much chocolate. I love to be home.
This is my life.
Guess what's sitting in my garage right this minute?
If you guessed a filthy dirty, scratched up, colored on, marked up old table, you would be right!
I had third dibs on this table, and somehow I ended up being the lucky buyer! It's just what I have been looking for and I can't wait to get started on refinishing it. I'll share the details along the way.
In other house news, Brook's bedding arrived and we have her headboard built and will be building the footboard tonight. I cannot wait to get her into her new bed!
I found this little denim dress at the thrift store last weekend. It was too cute to pass up! It has a subtle mandarin collar, giant buttons, and an adorable cinched waist. We added some black tights and black patent shoes she already owned.
We had a Saturday afternoon date with Grandma at a local tea house for her first ever "real" tea party, and she had told me earlier in the week that she needed to wear a "pretty sess for da tea pawty." I didn't want to put her in any of her satin party dresses because I knew she would probably be getting messy, so this was the perfect (read: washable) alternative, while still looking adorable!
Dress - Joe Fresh, $4.99 from the thrift store
Black Tights - Joe Fresh, $2.99 marked down from $5
Black Patent Bow Shoes - Joe Fresh, marked down to $6.99
No. It's horrible. The quality is absolute crap. The finish is all chipped off, so now the cheap pressboard it is made out of is starting to bubble and swell. If someone sits at the end of the table and dares to put their elbows on it, the whole thing comes THIS close to flipping over. It stains every time someone drops a piece of food on it.
It just all around sucks and is in terrible shape. And we've only had it for about 4 years! The chairs are holding up well - a few scratches and they need to be tightened sometimes but they're perfectly fine.
I'm dreaming of a new pedastal table. I love the look of them, this one just didn't work out because of it's poor quality. Oh, and the fact that I am always gasping and grabbing the table if anyone leans on it for fear that the other end will flip up and hit them in the head.
I've set my heart on getting an older, solid wood table and painting the leg white with a dark stained top.
And of course, just the other day I found the perfect used one for sale, for a great price!! And I don't want the chairs, but I found someone else who will buy the chairs and let me have the table, which means I will get it for even CHEAPER!
The only problem? Someone else already has dibs on it. Is it terrible that I am hoping they hate it ? I want it so bad! I have to wait until the weekend to find out of it's mine or not and it's killing me.
This whole month has been kind of a hard one. We've been sick with everything under the sun, all three of us. Add in a frozen pipe that burst and soaked my daycare floors, some money stresses, and a frustrating personal situation and we've had a pretty rough time of it. But we made it through, and I did discover some great new things this month . . . .
I feel bad including this one, because I just bought it three days ago but it's THAT GOOD.
Chocolate Rocket tea from David's tea. I had a gift certificate and wandered in to the store on Saturday to try some new teas. The sales girls there are always awesome but this time the girl was whipping down teas faster than I could smell them; I love getting to smell all the teas, but I feel bad standing there and asking over and over for them to bring tins down off the wall. LOVE it when the sales girl seems cheerful and keeps bringing me more! I bought this one because it smelled amazing and it tastes so good too! My new favorite tea for sure!
Gap Long and Lean jeans.
I am one of those girls who buys the $20 jeans at walmart because I'm trying to "save money", wears them for 2 months and they are worn out and destined for the trash. Lately I have been trying to give myself permission to buy quality clothing, because I seem to go through clothes so quickly (Mostly due to the fact that my job is pretty hard on clothes). I am beginning to learn that if a $60 pair of jeans will fit way better, make my butt look good, and last 4 times as long as that cheap $20 pair of jeans I am actually saving more money than buying all those pairs of cheap jeans.
I got a pair of Gap Long and Leans online, during a sale. I only paid $30 some dollars for them, which is a-ok in my book, and wow. I put them on and could not stop commenting about how soft they felt. "This fabric!" I kept saying, and rubbing my legs. My husband keeps laughing at me but this is the first pair of nice jeans I've owned since high school!
I have such dry skin, and in the winter its so dry I can't even begin to describe it. My entire face flakes and gets red, I exfoliate daily and slather on thick face creams twice a day. It hurts when I smile or raise my eyebrows because the skin is so tight. But the worst part is it creates dandruff. It's not technically dandruff, since it's dry skin and not caused by a fungus..but it may as well be.
The skin around my hairline flakes like crazy, just like my face. But it's pretty hard to moisturize your scalp! I've tried dandruff shampoos, moisturizing shampoos, hair masks. I've tried hot oil treatments, mayonaise treatments, and once even pureed bananas. And yes, I spent an hour picking out chunks of banana from my hair and swore to never try that again.
My usual treatment is to slather the skin around my hairline with vaseline before bed and deal with having greasy hair framing my face as even shampoo can't get rid of the grease that stuff leaves behind. So when I went to my Lush store and saw Snake Oil, I grabbed it and prayed it would help.
And it does! It definitely has cut down on my itchiness and the flaking! Not 100%, but a lot! The only downside is it is really awkward to apply...I usually end up just taking the bar and scrubbing it into my hair all around my face, and then massage it in with my fingers.
Orzo.
Until this week I had never tried orzo before. I've heard of it, but never seen it at my grocery store and it's not something I've ever seen on a restaurant menu. What can I say? I eat out only on rare occasions, and even that is usually a piece of pizza at Costco or a sandwich at the local fast food restaurant. I happened to see it on my last trip to the grocery store - I'm not sure if they just started carrying it or if I have been blind for the last 7 years, but I got some. I made this recipe for dinner and it was really good! I still prefer risotto but this is definitely less fussy to make so I'll be keeping a bag in my pantry from now on.
An Adiot Abroad.
I was working on a project in the living room one Sunday evening, with the tv on for noise in the background. This strange travel documentary came on and I was about to change the channel when the guy said something so funny it made me laugh out loud. I looked at the program information to see just WHAT sort of weird show I was watching, and saw that Ricky Gervaise was producing it. I immediately turned it up and called my husband to come and watch, and for the rest of the show we sat on the couch howling with laughte and slapping our leg(me) and snorting (him). It's now been added to our PVR schedule and I look forward to it every week. We're a season behind on the channel we catch it on, but I've seen previews for the second season and it looks even better than this one!
If you haven't seen this show, here's a clip of the episode that got us hooked! It's definitely very irreverent and raw . . . just FYI.
-I got Brook's room painted, curtains and chandelier hung, and took the front off her crib. Still haven't started on her bed but I ordered her bedding! Our first night with the crib front off was not good. Let's just say that it resulted in Brook's dad getting out a socket wrench and putting the front back on at 2am. We now are borrowing a bed rail from a neighbor and it seems to be working!
-I am sick with my 4th cold in 2 months. I feel completely worn down.
-Half my town is on Visalus, including most of my friends. Can't log in to Facebook without seeing someone asking people to join their team or posting their weigh in, or raving about their yummy shake they are drinking...I am tempted to try it to boost my weight loss, but I feel like it's a gimmick and I can't find the ingredient list anywhere of what is actually in the powder. I think if you replaced 2 meals a day with a healthy shake of any kind you would lose weight, I'm not convinced this magic powder does anything good. And I'd rather keep teaching myself portion control and healthy choices than live off of shakes and one meal a day. But everyone has such great success it's hard not to be jealous and think it would be an easy way to speed things up.
-My energy has been incredibly low lately, as has my mood. It probably has to do with being sick so often, but I just feel so tired all the time and can't seem to have energy to get the things done that I usually do in a day.
-I am going thrift store shopping and out for lunch with Brook on Saturday and I am looking forward to it so much, even if she will fuss and make every stop take twice as long as it would alone. Girlie time!
-I've been painting signs and making chalkboards like crazy....loving having another way to make a bit of extra money, even if it's not very much. It feels good to be creative again!
-We got our new phone books delivered to our door the other day. I say books because we got 3. Why 3, I don't know as all our neighbors got 1. I had to laugh when a friend knocked on my door for a visit and handed me 2 phone books that were sitting on our step, and as she did so a delivery boy walked up and tossed another on onto the porch!
I am beginning Brook's room decorating tomorrow and I could not be more excited! It's like Christmas around here!
We still haven't built her bed so she will stay in her crib for a little longer...her crib is black and her new bed will be white; her entire room will be a complete different style than her nursery so until the bed is finished I am sure her crib will stick out like a sore thumb, but it's a beautiful crib so it could be worse.
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