Tiny Project

The last few weeks, I haven't been feeling very "nesty." I've been feeling very "workallthetimey" and "onlywanttospendsparetimeplayingwithmydaughtery." However, I do love fall and wanted to bring a little of the season inside so I decorated the top of our piano.

Sidebar: How does Halloween decorating fit in with fall decorating? It feels early to have Halloween stuff out, but I'm all "there's no way I have time to put up fall stuff, add Halloween stuff in October, and remove it again in November." 

Anyway, after I decorated, I had this.

Nothing fancy, and probably not to many people's taste, which is fine. Regardless, I love the sparkly BOO but this felt unbalanced with nothing in that color on the right side.

Enter, Radiant Orchid.

I get a little obsessed when Pantone releases their color of year, and I bought a test pot of Radiant Orchid a few months ago with no clue what I'd do with it. So, I painted a piece of scrap wood and two paint stirrers.

Then, I decided I would put ghosts on top of the sticks. I pieced together one ghost.

This is a pair of my daughter's socks that she's outgrown, covered with white tulle. I found some old letter stickers and ripped up a few of them to make the face. Boom.

It's really kind of obnoxious looking though. And also, I didn't want to use up all of E's socks. We might have another kid someday and he or she will have feet.

And after that, I went out for hibachi with T's family. Because they had birthdays. And we were hungry. And I had no clue what I was going to do with my other painted sticks.

After dinner we stopped at Meijer, and I found my solution.

These cute, sparkly little spiders were $3. I glued them and the lone ghost to the sticks, stuck them in the mason jar, and called it a night.

I'm really happy with the final look now! Not perfect, definitely not fancy, but the colors feel more balanced and I smile when I walk past.

Lean In, Burn Out, Lean Back, Whatever

While on maternity leave, I read Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg. It gave me quite a bit to think about, although reading it while postpartum hormones were raging through my body wasn’t the best idea.

Since then, there’s been plenty of related coverage about how to lean in but still stay a little bit leaned out but not too far out and so on. I have no clue what the prescribed balance would be. I did like this story from Fast Company though. 

The #3 suggestion about practicing self-compassion struck a chord with me. This is something I’ve struggled with for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been hyper-critical of myself. The first instance of this (that I can recall, though my mom told me it was always an issue) was in 3rd grade. If I got anything less than a 100% on an assignment, I’d write a note to myself at the top of the page that said, “you’re stupid” or something to that effect. It got to a point that my teacher called my parents. Even after they talked to me and reassured me that I was not stupid, I continued doing it. There was nothing anyone could do to convince me that it was ok to be imperfect.

These feelings have crept in and out of my life. Becoming a parent was by far the biggest test against my self-compassion that I’ve ever faced. When I missed a question on an assignment, I could blame myself – I should’ve studied more, should’ve paid closer attention in class, should’ve double-checked a calculation. With a baby though… there was nothing I could’ve done to fully prepare myself. Believe me, I tried. I read books, blogs, forums, and more. I talked to friends with children and pestered them with questions, and called the pediatrician with all the other questions that popped into my mind. But it didn’t matter. I couldn’t be a 100% perfect parent because there’s no real definition of a perfect parent. And for awhile it made me crazy.

I wanted so desperately to be the perfect mother, and every time I “failed” I would beat myself up about it. But it just contributed to the cycle. Every time I beat myself up, I was wasting precious time and energy that could’ve been spent loving on my daughter. With less time and energy, I wasn’t being the type of mother I truly wanted to be, and then I’d beat myself up even more.

Finally, with the help of a supportive husband, friends who are always there to listen, and – full disclosure – a prescription for an anti-anxiety drug, I’m closer than I was before. My daughter doesn’t care if the house is immaculate. In my mind, it needed to be pristine, but in reality, all she wants is space to move around, a few toys, and a momma who will hold her and love on her. She doesn’t give a damn if her toys are artfully arranged on a shelf. She doesn’t know if her food is homemade vs. from a jar or if I lost all the baby weight. Having some compassion toward myself allowed me to let go of things that aren’t truly important and become more present in the beautiful life I have.

Be Still My Heart

A few weeks ago, TJ and I watched Hot Rod. The movie is ridiculous and kind of dumb and one of our favorites. I can’t get enough of Jorma Taccone dancing to Two of Hearts.

Moody Monday - 1st Floor Bath

Mood board novice here. I have LITERALLY (imagine Chris Traeger saying this) no experience putting something like this together. I typically fly by the seat of my pants for projects around the house, but this one is different.

This project requires planning, demolition, skill and a crapton of money.

We’re planning a complete renovation of our hideous first floor bathroom in the next few weeks. This is the only full bath in the house, meaning we’ll be showerless for awhile. In order to (I hope!) minimize the amount of time we spend showering at various relatives’ houses, we actually sat down and planned this one out.

I’m a simple girl. That’s why there are a mere five things on my mood board. We have the big stuff planned though. In the shower, we’ll go with traditional white subway tile. Although we’re on the fence when it comes to grout color, I’m leaning toward something in the grey or brown family. We aren’t doing any accent tile, so I think colored grout will really pop.

We’ll replace the crazy colored tile floor with ceramic tiles that resemble wood planks. The rest of our first floor is hardwood and this should tie in nicely. A soft, muted green should look nice with this and white trim.

Although the vanity in the bathroom now is only a few years old, it’s not really our preferred style. This white vanity from Ikea is closer to our style, and we’ll top it with an interesting mirror. This one is from Target and if the measurements are right (gotta check that!) I think we’ll go with it.

I have ideas for a few of the other details – a white waffle-weave shower curtain, wood plank shelves over the toilet, and maybe even removing the linen closet door to open up the space more.

We took a tiling workshop at Home Depot last weekend. I’m still stymied by the notion of a wet saw (the blade is in water? does that mean that the tile gets wet when you cut it? does that impact how the thinset works? did I use the term thinset correctly?) but the workshop was moderately helpful. I think we'll keep the name and number of a handyman close by though once we start the project... just in case!

Salmon & Sea Foam

Our first floor bath is U-G-L-Y. No alibi.

Behold, the bathroom. This is the view from the door, which you can see on the left side of the photo. The door is open as far as it will go. There’s an enormous towel rack on the back and it hits the door of the linen closet. Looks like we need toilet paper.

It’s the tile’s fault. Our tile is bad. All five colors of it are bad. Yes, five. There’s mauve, salmon, sea foam, a lighter shade of sea foam and blue. When we moved in, we knew about four of these colors. That blue caught us off guard, as it’s only used on the back wall of the shower.

Obviously, I didn’t style these photos. With a bathroom this ugly, there’s no point. If I’d bothered to hide the shampoo, shower gel and baby bath wash, do you know what you’d see? An ugly bathroom. Buh-bam.

I’ve made attempts to tone down the vibrant tile. I bought a nice shower curtain. It didn’t make a difference.

I bought soap in a nice bottle. Still not good. (Sure signs of a baby in the photo too: Diaper Genie and childproof vanity.)

Whatever. Ugly is ugly. I gave up. Blue towels, tan towels, that sea foam tile is all you can see anyway.

Thankfully, this is the next project on our list. We’ve never tackled anything of this magnitude, so I’m already a little nervous. Lots of planning going into this one!

A Fresh Start

This is not my first attempt at blogging.

I tried my hand at this a few years ago with a blog I called Blue Love Notebook. I created it after my mother passed away. I was very close with her, and although she’d been sick for awhile, nothing could have prepared me for the emptiness I felt without her. Talking about her was painful but writing about her was cathartic, and so the blog was helpful.

For awhile.

Although I never expected it to happen, my life eventually stopped centering around the loss of my mom. As I came to terms with the new normal of my life, I felt less and less compelled to work through my feelings in print. However, I really felt like I’d created BLN to write about her… it felt strange to try and write about anything else there.

Hence – this blog. After losing my mom, I believed that I’d already lived out my happiest day – that no future day could ever make me the happiest because she wouldn’t be there. And even though I feel a little twinge of guilt as I type this, I have to admit I was wrong. When I see my husband and daughter playing together in the house we’ve made a home, I know it. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I’m so lucky, and now it’s time to focus on that. There will still be sad posts here from time to time because that’s life. But with so many rich blessings, I’d be a fool not to capture this time however I can.

I’ve taken thousands of photos in the last year.

Time for thousands of words.