Gilby Baby

My favorite basketball player is Gilbert Arenas - or Gilby Baby as he affectionately known in our house. He is cute, well-mannered, well-spoken and a darn good basketball player. Plus he is humble. I get really annoyed by the egos and the entourages of some of the sports personalities.

So you can only imagine how mad I was for him, when he didn't make the American Team for the world championship. That was such a dumb move, Gilby is so cute and nice, everyone loves to watch him play. And when he smiles - forget about it.

Frugal Fanny

A friend of mine a couple of years ago said that his wife budgeted $50/week for groceries and she never went over that. At the time I was thoroughly impressed and wondered if that was even possible (though to be honest, they consistently ate much better than we did, she was a SAHM and cooked all of their meals and we were DINKs who ate out quite a bit - $50/meal was not uncommon).

So in an effort to be prove my frugality, I have decided to take up the challenge and try that myself. I have done it for the last two weeks without a problem (except for when we went out to eat on Friday night). However, I have my freezer and pantry pretty well stocked from less frugal days. The real challenge will be to see if I actually will be able to buy my refills from costco within that budget.

In order to accomplish this, I pulled out a separate wallet to keep the grocery money in and I am only going to deal in cash - $50/week. So far, the only trick is to actually plan our meals and make them. When I actually do plan a menu, we eat so much better, so this may actually be better eats for less money.

If anyone else is feeling up for a challenge, try $50/week for food and let me know how it goes.

Old Friends

Ryan and I went over to his best friend's new house last weekend for dinner. It was lovely to see them and three children (all girls). Audrey loved playing with new people and new toys. It was an interesting dynamic, the boys ended up playing with/watching the children while the women got to tour the new house and chat about future decorating plans, etc. - lots of fun. Hopefully I will be able to get together with his wife to do some fun projects soon, especially if the husbands continue this nice trend.

Hobbies

Lately I have been thinking about what sort of hobbies I have and which ones I would like to have and which hobbies I pretend to have.

I pretend I am a scrapbooker because I would really like to be one. I think I could also say that my house is a hobby of mine because I enjoy coming up with little projects to improve/decorate it.

I used to love to go dancing. Maybe I should take that up again. A tap class would be fun. I also used to love outdoors things like camping, but again, I haven't done that for years, and it really seems like more trouble than it is worth to go camping with a one year old.

I love to read, especially good fiction - Jane Austen is a favorite. I used to like to travel, but now I hate flying more than I like to see new places, so until I own a jet, that one is out.

I used to love to crochet, maybe I will take that up again.

Mommy Moment

Last night at 3:30 am, I had what can only be described as a "mommy moment". I had just fed little Audrey and was taking her back to her bed. Usually she is groggy and has her eyes closed and I just hurry as fast as I can so that I can set her down before she falls all the way asleep. Last night however, she was just looking at me. As our eyes met, I looked into her big blues and started to smile and I whispered, "I love you sweet girl" and she just smiled back at me gently (not her usual fill-her-whole-face-up-smile) as if she knew that already. It was just a tender moment. So I did what any first-time sleep deprived parent would do, I savored it. This time instead of putting her right to bed, I walked around with her and rocked her as we just smiled at each other. It was a fabulous moment (and actually fabulous seems a little weak as a descriptor).

Seeing Clearly

While we were out in Utah for Bud's wedding, my glasses were broken by a friend's children. As glasses are a big pain to replace and fairly expensive I was quite bummed. When I told Ryan about the incident I mentioned that I was tired of having to worry about glasses and I was ready to consider surgery. He was so excited. He has been trying to talk me into considering surgery forever and I just have been too afraid to even think about it.

So I started to read up on what actually happens when you get eye surgery. And I started to get nauseated. I am not kidding just reading about the surgery made me queasy. Now I have a new approach, I am just going to read up on the best doctors and then get an exam to see if I am even a candidate. If I am, then I will read up on the surgery.

I must say, it would be really nice to see clearly without glasses, I just don't know if it would be nice enough to get surgery.

Bergdorf Blonds: book review

Sadly I am reviewing chick lit on my blog. Perhaps even more sadly, I am reading chick lit. And saddest of all, I enjoyed this book immensely.

It took me a while (probably 30 pages) to get into the characters and their non-frugal ways (which I found annoying - don't even bother with the shopaholic series if you are frugal like me) but in the end, I thought the characters were well developed and I really liked the twist at the end.

So if you are looking for a light and easy read, dig right in.

Pink Painting Fiasco

While William was in town, she and I did all kinds of fun house projects. And if we are going to be completely honest, William really did the lion's share of most of them.

One of these projects was to paint the entire main living level. We started with the living room. We painted it green - it looked great. So we moved on to the library - which we also painted green. That was another success story. So aimed with new found color picking confidence, I went bold and picked pink for my kitchen/dining room. We painted that (which was by far the hardest of the three rooms because of the sheer volume of trim work) - and it just didn't look right.

The pink looked rather nice in the dining room portion of the room. I have black furniture in there and it was a really nice contrast. However, in the kitchen portion, it made the cherry cabinets look orange. Orange just doesn't go so well with pink and wasn't what I was hoping for at all. The think that made me decide to repaint however, was the effect the pink room had on the other rooms on the floor. The whole floor is open and with the pink in the middle it made the whole floor look like a cute little girl room in lovely pastels. The strange part about that was that the green on its own was a deep and muted green that didn't look pastelly at all.

I will never be a professional painter, but I certainly learned something. One wrong color can change the whole feel of the house.

We just finished repainting the kitchen today. We painted it beige. Which actually turned out quite nice and my green rooms are back to looking elegant and not little kiddish.

Awkward Moments

I was just thinking of some of my most awkward moments.

One that comes to mind took place at the second law firm that I worked at in DC. I had been there about a month and I was starting to get to know the staff by name. So in an effort to be friendly (and also not forget names too quickly) I said hello to the fellow delivering the mail.

Me: Hey Robert, How's it going? (in a very cheery voice).

Dwight: I'm Dwight! Robert died two weeks ago. (In a very scolding and disgusted way).

Me: Oh. (long awkward pause - I mean really how do you recover from that) Bye (in a much less, cheery and wishing I was invisible voice).

Rearranging

One of my favorite Sunday activities for as long as I have been able to push furniture - has been to rearrange my room - and now with a whole house - to rearrange the house.

Growing up, every Sunday they would give you a program for Sacrament Meeting. I quickly realized that the programs had a great number of uses - from origami, to drawing, to tic-tac-toe. My favorite use was to make a floorplan of my bedroom and then try to fill in the furniture in a new and appealing way. Since I shared a room with my sister, William, she was of course my PIC (partner in crime) in these useful Sunday endeavors.

Well, the habit was so enjoyable and so cemented, that I still wake up on Sunday mornings wanting to do a little something different in my house. I now try to channel that energy into various projects, like sweeping the garage or putting up towel racks, etc. But it is the same drive. I now have two PICs - Ryan and William. Unfortunately, Ryan does not share the same rearranging drive and William is far away, so I can only benefit from her assistance via phone these days.

At William's wise suggestion, I have started a list of house projects that I eventually want to do. I am hoping to get lots of assistance when she comes to visit. Maybe I should start an "improve the room" fund in the meantime.

What's in a name?

In an attempt to be frugal, I shop at a very obscure grocery store that is dirt cheap and that we affectionately refer to as "the used food store". So as you can imagine, such a store is located in a rather run down part of town in a strip-mall with a few other obscure shops.

Well, yesterday as I was going there, one of the shops, "Campos Furniture" had printed up a huge banner of a sign that was hung on the side of big box-truck parked in the parking lot.

The sign read:

CAMPOS FURNITURE

Remodiling Sale

Our name says it all

There were two fabulously funny things about this sign. The first is that they misspelled "remodiling" on a huge printed banner (if you could see the area it is in, you would also appreciate the humor in them remodeling at all). And second, that the store's slogan is: our name says it all. Now maybe I am ignorant to the deeper meaning of the words "Campos Furniture" but to me, that name does not really say a whole lot, let alone, say it all.

Birthday Presents

I think I was 4 or 5 when my mom asked me if there was something special I wanted for my birthday that year. In fact there was. I had been eyeing the Mac'n Cheese sleeping bag offered on the back of specially marked boxes for sometime. My mom double and triple checked that a Mac'n Cheese sleeping bag was what I really wanted. She made sure that I knew that if she ordered it, that I couldn't change my mind and get a toy later on, etc. But I was positive - I really wanted that Mac'n Cheese sleeping bag. The sleeping bag looked just like the blue box with orange food on it.

She ordered it and I had to wait for the longest 6-8 weeks of my life in anticipation of its arrival. It finally came and I slept in it immediately and for the next few days, I would not sleep anywhere except in my new sleeping bag on the floor of my room. I remember some adult - probably my mom - commenting on how thin and flimsy it was, but to me it was heaven. I was sleeping inside a giant box of Kraft Mac'n Cheese. :)

Indigo Girls

The Indigo Girls are my favorite band. Now while my husband finds that as a convienient reason to tease me about having been a lesbian in a past life, I really just love their lyrics and their music. Oftentimes I disagree with some of their more political songs, but I still love their music because it feels very real and sometimes very raw.

Social Awkwardness

Ryan's Grandma died over the weekend. She was very old and had a great life. So we are headed out to the funeral this week.

I have only been to a couple of funerals in my life so far. The most recent was my grandfather's about 8 years ago. I felt a little uncomfortable at the funeral - which I think is normal. I must admit to feeling v. uncomfortable about this upcoming funeral - for more formal reasons. At my own grandfather's funeral any faux paus that I may have made in funeral ettiquete would have been dismissed as a grandchild greiving. At this one, I am hoping I don't just say something terribly strange or imprudent.

All or nothing

Life seems to be an all or nothing sort of game. You can be going along fine, maybe even feeling that life is a little monotonous and then all of a sudden, every big event in your life happens at once or everything that can go wrong does.

This week it has been the case of things going wrong. The weekend started off with Audrey having a fever, so we had to cancel our trip to Charlottesville to attend Ryan's bff's law school graduation dinner party. Then right as Audrey is feeling better, I lose my wallet, and her fever turns into a cold on the day the new babysitter started. Everyone knows when you are sick, you just want your mommy. Then Ryan's car has a flat tire and today it just plain won't start at all, so I had to drive him in to work at the last minute and then I am driving all the way to Baltimore and back to go to my BIL's medical school graduation and dinner party. Mind you, I still don't have a license and/or any money to even fill the car with gas and Audrey still has a cold. And to top it all off, we seem to have a leaking toilet that is pooling water in our master bath.

To be honest, at this point, it has become funny.

New Nanny

I have a new person working for me as Audrey's babysitter.

She is a home-schooled teenager, who can come over in the mornings. It seems to be working out pretty well so far. She is really nice and Audrey likes her a lot.

Plus I find that I am a little more comfortable bossing around people younger than me. So when Audrey takes a nap, I have no problem assigning little projects to her. I am hoping that having a helper on projects, is going to help me get some of the ever-present projects (like putting stuff up on free-cycle) moving along.

The bathroom project

All of my interior decorating for the whole house has started (and apparently stalled) with the entry bathroom.

We painted it a lovely light grey, replaced the towel rod with a towel ring, added some frameless glass-covered rose pictures and viola - we have a pretty bathroom.

I would still like to add a small white floor rug, paint the light fixture silver and put a couple of single flower vases on the main wall to put roses in.

Treasures

I was decluttering a couple of "treasure boxes" that I keep. Turns out most of my "treasures" were actually trash. Shells that I can't remember what beach I picked them up on, keychains saved for some strange reason, broken pieces of cheap jewelry, etc. Why in the world have I kept all of this stuff for so long?

Vacation

We just got back from a family vacation with my husband's family to Williamsburg, VA. It was actually a lot of fun. We went to Colonial Williamsburg for one day, the guys went golfing and the girls went shopping in the morning of another day, then we all just hung out and relaxed for the afternoon and on the last day we went to Busch Gardens all day and in the evening R and I took a lovely stroll around the market area of Colonial Williamsburg. And of course, we ate at really good restaurants every evening for dinner. And I think a good dinner really makes for a good vacation.

We absolutely loved the area. It was beautiful. I really liked Colonial Williamsburg. The revolutionary war period is my favorite part of American history, so I really enjoyed being in a restored city and seeing all of the houses and the little shops and hearing all the stories and such.

On our stroll we walked around the William and Mary campus. I am really hoping that R decides to go to law school there.

Discipline

Working from home takes a lot of self-discipline. I remember working at an office - (at some jobs) it was easy to putz around for a day (chatting with co-workers, volunteering to pick up lunch, and then afternoon snacks, checking my email, signing up for electronic bill-pay, etc.) if I wasn't feeling so great. It just doesn't work the same way anymore. When I check my personal email, it is now on my dime. Even so, the positives of working from home, especially when I have a little one, far out weigh the negatives. However, I definitely cannot do it without a babysitter. If you thought co-workers were a distraction, a cute little girl sitting on your feet, smiling and babbling, is just plain irresistible.