Holy Cleaning Spree!

I have a couple theories as to what may have caused it, but for the past two and a half days I have been on a major cleaning spree.

And not just "Oh, let me tidy up!" but "Nothing is safe! Everything must go! Purge!Purge!Purge! Whip this house into shape!"

It all started with quite a lucky gift I had received: When I picked Luna up from daycare I was talking with her daycare provider about a scrapbooking expo (she's practically a professional scrapbooker...is there such a thing?) and we got on the subject of scrapbooking and Project Life. Turns out she had some of the original Project Life things leftover from when she did her Project 365 and she gave them to me! How awesome! She didn't stop there...she asked me if I wanted some more supplies and explained that after companies send her samples and whatnot, whatever she doesn't use or doesn't want to keep, she boxes it all up into a flat rate box and sells it and she gave me one for free!

Let me tell you, it was like Christmas Day when I opened it. Check this out:

(Sorry for the cell phone picture!) So yes...then I had to find a place to put all of this...so I started organizing my crafts. Ended up making two of my own "grab bag" boxes of random bits and bobs. I haven't decided exactly what to do with them.

I didn't stop at the crafts though...I ended up doing the entire shelving unit in the bedroom (with Ryan's help for his side). Can you tell whose side is whose?

I think it's funny: my side has crafting supplies and Harry Potter, his side has booze, books, and video games. (For the record, I read too, but my books are on the living room shelves.)

And, for the first time in over a year, our bed is centered and there is no extra stuff taking up space! (First it was the Pack-N-Play, then it was a huge mound of wedding stuff.)

Lately I've been feeling like our apartment is too small, but intellectually I know it isn't: we just have too much stuff. A bigger place isn't the solution, but a smarter, well-organized, well-trimmed place is.

Ryan was laughing at me yesterday as I went around cleaning and throwing (quite a bit) into donate boxes. For a while all I would say is "Nothing is safe! Everything must go!" I think Ryan thought I might get rid of him if he stood still too long.

So, the dining room, livingroom, and bedroom have all been thoroughly organized and cleaned. The rest of the house has just been cleaned. I still need to go through and organize and purge. But, let me tell you, it feels great. It looks great. And I am just frolicking about pretending we're newlyweds in a brand new place rather than the same place we've been for 3 years.

So...now that the wedding is done and the place is organized, it's time for Christmas crafting!!! I've got so many ideas for people but we'll get to that later. I also have some Halloween ideas as well. (Too bad I have that whole going-back-to-work-tomorrow thing going on, but I'm choosing to ignore that.)

Hope you've all been well!
-Mrs. 246

P.S. Is it weird that I posted pictures of our bedroom online? Hmm...I would have posted pictures of the other places but I didn't take any earlier and it's late with terrible lighting. I don't mind sharing. I find other people's homes fascinating. Sometimes we'll walk around the complex and if it's night, and people's shades are open, I try really hard not to, but I completely check out other people's apartments. It's neat to see what they've done with the same exact space. Gosh. I'm a creeper and I think I'm revealing too much. Pull your shades down, people. I can't help myself.

The Big Ta-Dah! (Summer Garden Throw)

For the past year or two I've been somewhat obsessed with the blog Attic24. It is owned by a lovely lady named Lucy and includes many beautiful pictures of her life and crafts (mostly crochet) in England. Sometimes I like to read old blog posts of hers and daydream of what it would be like to have her life and to visit the quaint little villages in her area and just be jealous in general.

I love all of her crochet and especially her use of color. Whenever she does a big project and it's finished she likes to have a "Ta-Dah" to show off so people can "Ooooo" and "Ahhhh." If you've never done a large crafting project you may not know the feeling of finally finishing it...part of your soul goes into it. And at least for me, when your project makes people smile and makes them happy and inspires them, your heart feels like it could burst.

I envied a certain project of hers and I just had to have my own: The Summer Garden Throw . If you click on the link you can see her "Ta-Dah" Moment and like a lot of her stuff, it has links to her very own tutorials which are just fabulous. (Can you tell she's my craft crush yet?)

Anyway, without further ado.....here is my version of the Summer Garden Throw:

Includes: 144 squares of pure awesomeness, 8 rows of granny stripe edging, 1 "of-my-own-creation" granny scalloping edging.
Measures: 108cm x 108cm 
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft (wish I would have chosen wiser and more high quality, but I was as informed about my yarn choices as I could have been at the time)

Oh, but that's not all folks! I kind of went through withdrawals as soon as I finished the blanket so the very next time I started on a matching throw pillow. Here you go:

See how pretty they look together!! Of course then I had to have a photoshoot. (Sorry about the picture quality. I never realized how hard it is to photograph a blanket, let alone in our super dark apartment. Maybe I'll take things outside next time. I'll get better, I promise!)

 Look how cute and quaint and colorful they are on the chair! I am in love. Oh, okay...let's see how the blanket looks all nice and folded up...

...exactly what I thought: gorgeous! And last but not least bonus Boo Radley shot:

I kept trying to get a cute picture of Luna with it, but I haven't been able too yet. Let me tell you, she is in love with this blanket. I've been keeping it up on a low shelf (so Boo doesn't decide to try to make one of his blanket nests out of it) and when Luna notices it she gets super excited, crawls over to the shelf, stands up, then pulls the blanket down. It then falls into a heap on the floor and she kind of dives into it, happy as can be. She loves all the colors and just looking at it and loving it.

Half way through the blanket I was thinking I'd give it to Luna for her birthday. Is it wrong that I don't know if I want to do that now? Haha. I most likely will (She turns one in less than a month! Can you believe it?!)

Anyway...I've got another project I'm working on right now for the wedding so expect another reveal in a day or two. Luna's with her friends at daycare today so I have some *gasp* alone time today so I should get a lot done.

Hope you enjoyed seeing my blanket extraordinaire! Hope you're all well. Thanks for reading!

-Ms. 246

Fever Bean

 

The poor Bean has been sick for the past day and a half. Luckily she's on the mend. She inspires me to suck it up about a lot of things. Hits her head really hard or falls really hard? Thinks about it for a second, then continues playing. 102 degree fever? Eh...I'm sleepy and cuddly, but I'm still going to laugh, and play, and share my toys and act like everything's okay.

Side note: Expect a crafty update sometime this weekend. I have a BIG REVEAL. Also, I'm done with work for the summer so expect alot more crafty updates. :)

Happy Friday!
-Ms. 246

Beer Brats and Books

We went to the library again this afternoon. We had our last set of books to return. I love taking Luna to the library because she has such a blast. They have a whole little area that's baby friendly where she can just crawl around and play. They even have little bookshelves right there at baby level that have all their board books in them. Luna was more interested in the "bead on a wire" contraption. So much fun.

Our small town, hillbilly library even had a board book that was about having two mommies so of course I got it for her. Mr. 246 thought I was weird, but I thought that it was neat that they even had one.

Also, allow Luna to show you her dinner....her developing sense of taste is coming along quite nicely. Tonight she gladly ate steamed onions and bell peppers with a side of beer bratwurst. Oh, then she washed it down with some taco meat and a little bit of "Apples and Prunes" baby food. Stomach of steel, I'm tellin' ya...

"I love beer brats!"

Goodnight!

A Little Bit of Unfucking

I've come across a blog/site called Unfuck Your Habitat a couple months ago. It's one of the feeds I follow on my Google Reader and keeps me continually motivated to do some "unfucking" from time to time. It's a funny and snarky way of tackling your cleaning and your house. It also makes you feel okay that you don't have a Pinterest-worthy household...which I don't. (Although, once you start looking at some people's before and afters...I'm not nearly so bad.)

I even enjoy the small "unfuckings" that people submit. They motivate me to do even some small changes every once in a while. With both of us working and a very mobile baby, it's hard to do more than the minimum but occasionally I get around to it.

Here's a couple small (and I mean small changes) I've done recently. Here's a little Before and After of straightening one of the living room bookshelves...

Here's a before and after of my side of the closet that needed to get done...

None part of our apartment gets especially bad or anything, just sometimes areas done get enough loving so small changes are all it needs. Here's the toilet/shelf area of the master bathroom...(Yea...I need to get some color in this place, huh?)




Okay, two more...these are from a good couple weeks ago. (Spring cleaning is quite a long process around here!) Unfortunately, there aren't any "Before and Afters." The kitchen usually isn't terrible since we have no choice other than to keep it clean because it's so small. Haha.

There's only three vases on the ledge in the above picture (on the ledge above the stove), the next day or so, I got more! I loved when I had all these yellow flowers. There were FIVE different types of yellow flowers at one time. I felt rich! I would stand there counting: "One, two, three, four, FIVE different yellow flowers! Ryan, look! Look how neat it is! Five different types! All yellow!" The novelty of it all didn't wear out for me at all. I miss those flowers. Haha!  Here they are in all their glory:




No "before" on this one either. Just imagine lots of toothpaste spashes on the mirror, long hair from me shedding, short hair from Ryan's facial hair trimming, and all around disgustingness:

There you have it! I've unfucked a bit over the past month or so...emphasis on the word "bit." I've been enjoying life, however, and that I believe is more important than a spotless house.

Until I post again...have a lovely day!

-Ms. 246

My SAHM Day

*Pardon my make-up free face...I had no one to impress today other than Luna and she loves me just the way I am. :)*

Today was Mr. 246's first day of work (training) all day. I just happened to have the day off of work (Lincoln's Birthday...who knew? Kind of silly...) so I got to play make-believe Stay-At-Home-Mom. I haven't had Luna to myself for a whole day since she was two weeks old. At that time, she pretty much still slept all day and I was still recovering from my c-section. Well..let's just say that I am POOPED. She had one of those days that babies have where they refuse to be put down and you have to hold them all day. Luckily I had the Ergo. (Which is almost impossible to put on by yourself...)

So here's some of today's highlights:

Hanging out in the Ergo because she couldn't possibly sit and play like she usually does 90% of the time. Haha. We also went on three walks 'cause that seemed to entertain her...

She didn't want to make any cute faces. Lol. Then we found some flowers! (I was on the hunt!)

I've had a flower craving recently. I can usually find some around the apartment complex but times are bare. None of the plants are in bloom it seems. Our apartments are "garden apartments" so there's a ton of landscaping. The right time of year and I have tons of roses I sneak from the rose bushes by the pool. Hehehe. I promptly put them in water when we got home (Luna helped!). They look bigger than they are, they're in a baby food jar...

At one point Luna decided all her toys were boring so I brought out the big guns: tupperware. That seemed to keep her entertained...

So, while she did that I worked on my Mini Art Quilt for the MAQ swap and I'm almost done!! I just have to finish the binding. I've purposely not been posting about it because I want it to be a surprise for my partner, but here's a sneak peek:

Hopefully that doesn't give too much away. I also decided to make something I found on Pinterest and it came VERY close to becoming a Pinterest Fail. Here's what I was supposed to be making:

Photo credit: http://griffithsrated.blogspot.com/2012/02/valentine-prezel-buttons.html (This also has directions!)

The original picture I had pinned didn't have directions, but someone had said to bake them at 350 for 6 minutes. I've come to realize after a kitchen full of smoke that this may have been too high of a temperature (especially since the link I posted above says to do it at 200.). I caught it just in time though, and though the bottoms were "browned" they still turned out delicious. So much so that they're pretty much all gone. This is the best picture I have of the finished product:

I have some of the stuff left over, I think I may try again. The kisses didn't even melt all the way. Gosh, this is seriously probably the easiest "baking" you could do and I still messed it up. As soon as I saw the smoke I had to start laughing. On another note though, I made a bomb-ass dinner. One of those beef roast crock pot kits with the veggies. I left it in the crock pot perfectly and it was wonderful. (Forgot to take a picture though...too busy in delicious food heaven.)

I decided at some point that the little flowers I picked weren't fulfilling my flower craving so Luna and I went to the grocery store. I didn't like any of their cut flowers, but I found a lovely pot of bright red/golden orange tulips! They're sitting near the front door, just happy to greet me when I get home. :)

Then, after Mr. 246 got home, we got a silly surprise. Our apartment complex does cutsy little things every once in a while. They recently had a "pick the Grammy winner" type thing to win money off your rent. We looked at the form and pretty much didn't know ANY of it. There were like 3 names we recognized and somehow by blind guessing we got SECOND PLACE. hahahahaha. It's just silly. We did not make any sort of educated guesses whatsoever. But, hey...I'll take $60 off rent. :)

So yea, I survived. Luna survived. I think I may be sore tomorrow from having to carry her every where, but that's okay...I'm glad we could have a girls' day. I love my little Bean. I'm going to go finish my quilt, then take a nice hot bath with some Harry Potter then it's time for tea and bed. :)

-Ms. 246

Our Lovely New Neighbor.

We got a new neighbor this past week. I was quite glad when the old ones moved out (3 young, very annoying boys with a mom who never watched them and a dad who was never home). So, you could imagine my excitement when an single old lady moves in beside us instead.

Mr. 246 had met her before when I wasn't home. Today I met her and answered the door. Yesterday Mr. 246 had helped a different neighbor and her daughter fix the daughters bike. New neighbor lady thought that was nice and brought him a tin of cookies and a small Jesus pamphlet. Hmm...to each his own I suppose. So I'm talking to her about gardens and what not and she invites me to see her plants next door so I go. We get to talking about everything (she's pretty much telling me her whole life story).

She swears a lot for an old lady. And apparently smokes cigarettes....and she's super Christian. (Her words: "I'm a Christian, but I ain't no Jesus freak or nothin'") Uhhh...yea. I just let it go. I don't like talking religion with people and I don't like having battles of wits with people who are hardcore about anything. They're just much too passionate about things I just don't care that much about. I had a very surreal life moment when I was talking about how we wanted to move back to the midwest before Luna was too old and that we didn't want to raise her in California. Her response: "Yea! There's too many damn liberals and homosexuals out here!" Oh my gosh. I definitely had a "Is this real life?" moment when she said it.

Needless to say, we like to be good people just to be good people, not because of religion or anything. And for that reason alone, I exchanged #'s with the old lady (she happens to have MS as well so will probably need help from time to time.) But I don't think we're going to be that great of friends. If people want to a certain religion, that's fine...just leave me out of it.

Even this evening, I'm still having a very "Did she really say that?" reaction to the whole thing. How odd. And what a very interesting old lady. I'm sure you'll be hearing more about her in the future...

-Ms. 246

P.S. Luna has TWO teeth almost all the way in now. Her bottom center ones. :)

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday Everyone!

I decided to stop in and say hello and fill everyone in on what's been going on here lately:

Ryan and I played Cards Against Humanity last weekend. I love this game. The issue is that we have no friends so we have to invent fake players. Okay, they're not fake...we set up some of Luna's stuffed animals and pretend they're people. It's a bit like a 5-year-old's tea party except we're 25 and drinking alcohol. One thing I've learned....Those stuffed animals have dirty minds:


We had "Steak and Cake" at my parents' house for my mama's birthday. For a store bought cake, it was delicious. (I didn't have steak, I made myself some shrimp. Luna didn't have steak either. She got smooshed peas.)

I also took this picture of Mr. 246 while we were over there. We decided he looks like a giant midget or something. The proportions are just weird. Maybe something to do with the ceilings in the background?

We made some AMAZING flatbread pizza. Seriously, these were delicious. So good we decided that we're having these on Saturday night instead of take out.

I got my first letter from my pen pal! I immediately wrote one back and put it in the mail the next day. (It takes 3 stamps!) I even decided to write a letter to a friend back in Ohio. I think I might even write one to my brother soon. I just love the stamp she used. So fancy and European, haha:

I made Luna's Valentine's Day hat! (I've since then added two more rows to make it a "slouchy" beanie, but I haven't taken a picture of that yet.)

Luna went on her first "big girl" stroller ride. Up until this point we had her in the car seat snapped into the stroller:

Luna also continues to say "Nom nom nom!" when she's hungry:

For weigh-in today, I gained 1 pound. I figured I would. I only tracked food and stayed on goal for the past 2 days. The rest of the week I just ate what I wanted. I lost too much last week so instead of just eating a little bit more, I just ate what I wanted. Oh well. Totally worth it. Who says food can't buy happiness? (Spoken like a true fat girl.)

Last, but not least, I'm making progess on our new bedroom quilt. Here it is so far, Ryan's holding it up side ways. There's still about 12 or so more rows to add onto it for the top piece:

So yea...that's what we've been up to. We don't have any plans for the weekend, but I'm glad to be at home. I am having a slight urge to redecorate or reorganize something. We shall see! Have a good weekend.

-Ms. 246

What We've Been Up To As of Late

Hello again. 246 news update for this past week:

• Mr. 246 has started training his mustache to be a curly cue type mustache. (I don't know the proper term for it.) He's been growing out his hair since October. When your employer is a 6 month old baby, they don't really get picky about what kind of crazy you look like. Haha.
• I've been letting Boo Radley sleep in our bed again the past couple nights. We trained him to sleep on the couch in the living room before Luna was born because we knew she'd be in the bed from time to time in the middle of the night and Boo can get snappy when he's tired. Luna's been very good about sleeping through the night though and Boo is just so gosh darn cuddly. It's been so cold lately it's been nice to cuddle up with him. He sleeps with me like a little teddy bear.
• This happened about a week ago, but I think it's really neat -- Luna can work a zipper! What kind of 6 month old does that?! Whenever I'm wearing my zip-up hoodie she will take her little pointer finger, put it in the hole of the zipper pull and pull it down. Repeatedly. So neat. She's amazing.
• I've been quite busy crafting but I don't have too many finished results. I've been working on a couple large projects that will take a little while. I did manage to finish two things, though:

Matching hats for Luna and I! I just loved the yarn and I didn't know what to do with it so I decided on the old stand-by: ear flap hat. My ear flaps are a little mismatched. That's what I get for no actual pattern, and no counting. Haha. Luna's was made with this pattern. I just kind of adapted it for big people size.

One of our Christmas boxes came this past week (We got so much stuff in Ohio over Christmas we had to ship a lot of our gifts home.) Included in this Christmas box was a bunch of yarn that Mr. 246's sister had gotten me: (I noticed that I have red, pink, and white in there and I have plans to make Luna a Valentine's Hat)

Had to make something with it, didn't I? I came across this pattern for crocheted glove mittens and decided to give it a try. (Go here if you're on Ravelry for better pictures.)

I think I'd like to tweak the pattern and use a smaller gauge yarn. I don't know if I want to finish the glove or not. It fits snug, but crochet always stretches after a bit anyways. At least I think so. I don't know if I want to finish it because I think I could make it better. I think the fingers need to be longer and I need to pay better attention to counting my stitches.

And, for my crafting crowning joy this week. Here's what I've got so far on the quilt I'm making. 5 rows done! I had done the rows done and I couldn't wait to sew them together to see what they'd look like.

I decided against the "random" pattern of colors. I started laying it out and it didn't look quite right. I started laying it out with diagonals and loved it instantly. So there we go!  Granted, lots of the corners don't match up, but they're pretty darn close. And a lot of them are surprisingly spot on.

I don't know if I'll finish it in quite a while though. There is a Mini Art Quilt Swap I joined and send out is by 2/22/13. I have a pretty good idea what I'm going to do, but I think I need to practice some techniques first so it might take me a while and some of my crafting time. I can't exactly say what I'm up to since this is a public blog, she may be reading this and I'd like it to be a surprise!

Anyways, that's about it for now. I'm off to have a lazy Sunday afternoon. My favorite! Can't decide whether to nap, crochet and watch something, or read. Hmmm...decisions.

- Ms. 246

Mr. 246 and a New Friend!

I've been posting a lot recently about what I've been up to, but you may be wondering what Mr. 246 has been up to...

He's been eating baby feet and that's okay.

Mr. 246 is currently a "stay-at-home-dad." Although I'd love to stay home myself, financially it works out much better right now if I'm working and he stays at home. (I really want to stay at home, but truth-be-told, he's probably better at it than I am.) He does a wonderful job. He really does. I come home, the chores are all done, Luna is super happy, and dinner's on it's way to being made. He even makes my lunch for me most days! (I know...I may just be the luckiest girl ever.) You know how some women say they were born to be mothers? I think he was born to be a father. He is the best dad I could have asked for for my little bean.

So anyway, he's been taking care of Lunabean, but recently he's made it one of his New Years' Resolutions to read 50 books this year. So far he's read one and a half and started a third. He's using GoodReads which seems to be a pretty awesome website. You rate books and then they give you recommendations. He says his recommendations were all pretty spot on. (I did it as well and all the results came back as children's books. Maybe I read far below my level or they think I should, haha. I might reevaluate the rating process, do it again, and see if it changes.)

I read some of the book he already finished and it is awesome. It's Lost at Sea by Jon Ronson. He's a investigative journalist and the book is a compilation of short stories of people he's met during his work. The first chapter was about the religious "coming out" by the band members of Insane Clown Posse. The author sits and talks to them before a show and it's pretty hilarious (although the ICP members are quite serious). It also includes such instances like: the silliness of Indigo children, AI robots you can (mostly) have conversations with, and "a pop singer whose life’s greatest passion is the coming alien invasion." I might be reading this book myself in the very near future. (Be warned, however, Mr. 246 says that the later chapters are about bit more serious and possibly depressing topics toward the end so it's not all silliness.)

Mr. 246 is also into little trees:

More specifically -- bonsai trees. He's been shaping them with wire and everything. He puts them in the window every morning and turns the plant light on in the evenings (as pictured) to make sure they get enough light each day. There's also apparently a complicated watering/humidity tray process I know nothing about, as well as fertilizing. I think they're cute though! (Especially the Juniper, on the left, which I got him for his birthday last year.)

Hopefully I'll have a project soon. I've been kind of lazy and just working on my Mario cross stitch. I think I may work a lot on my quilt this weekend. (And possibly make a tea wallet - I've wanted one for a while to take to work, we shall see.)

Have a lovely evening!
- Ms. 246

P.S. I almost forgot! I am on my way to accomplishing New Years' Resolution #8! I've got a pen pal! She lives in England! I met her on the HP Craftalong boards at Craftster.org. How exciting, right? I've written her a letter tonight and I'll be mailing it tomorrow!