Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The 365 Project: Day 242

Today I ironed and cut the fabric for 9 new belly blankies. Count em, NINE!! Here are all the fun combos--reserve one for your next baby shower now! ;)
Love them all, but I saved the best for last--this is the combo I've had saved for our own little one since I started sewing. Looking forward to finally piecing it together.

Monday, August 30, 2010

The 365 Project: Day 241

Ikea baby room furniture building, Round 2: the dresser. So excited to have this awesome gift from Grev and Lynda in the house! Maybe I can finally start getting stuff put away. Maybe.

Side note: look closely at this picture of Raf. He's not mid-blink, he's that tired. He works 12-14 hour days, then comes home to the honey-do list. Poor guy!

Sunday, August 29, 2010

The 365 Project: Day 240

The first piece of baby room art, framed. It's so cute!! Thanks again, Nicole!

Want your own? You can find it, and other goodness, in the Sugar Fresh Etsy shop.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

The 365 Project: Day 239

Ikea baby room furniture building, Round 1: the bookshelf.

Friday, August 27, 2010

The 365 Project: Day 238

Finally breaking out the Charlie's to tackle this:
(hand me down receiving blankets, bedding, and gifted bibs and burp cloths). But not quite ready for this:
(the clothes!)

Thursday, August 26, 2010

The 365 Project: Day 237

A set of island vibed thank yous for Mr. Tags.

And a couple cuties from the island theme queen (my Mom) that were too perfect not to include.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The 365 Project: Day 236

Cute little Klamath Falls old town goodness.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The 365 Project: Day 235

Nena joined me for a little road trip to KFalls to visit Dad for a few days. Of course, we barely touched the camera, so I don't have any good vaca photos for you. Instead, you'll get a few days of randomness! Like Raf's bucket "tool belt"! Cute, isn't it? I was getting a little tired of doodads all over the house...and of him spending an hour looking for stuff every night!

Monday, August 23, 2010

The 365 Project: Day 234

Wow, I'm behind again, huh? Funny...I didn't even notice this time! That pregnancy brain is a doozy!

Every once in a while I get to spend a Monday afternoon hanging out with Lindsay and Karaliese, and their two adorable babes, Cash & Maddy. I love these days because I get to get to ask about things like childbirth, breastfeeding, circumcision, placentas, etc. Half of you probably just flinched even reading that sentence, didn't you?! Ha! That's the great part about hanging out with these two--I can ask anything, and they're so different that they always have great individual perspectives. And it's still so fresh in their minds! It's awesome to have friends like that.
And the fact that I get to kick it with their adorable (highly mobile) babies makes it even more awesome! Thanks ladies!

Sunday, August 22, 2010

I have a Closet!

I finally finished waxing all the shelves and poles so that Raf could get everything nailed in. Isn't it pretty?! This is what it looks like now that I've moved back in:
It's SO nice to have my things back in our room, and in a fairly organized manner even! Obviously, I had no problem filling the space, but I'm pretty impressed that our time spent designing actually resulted in a closet I'm not pouring out of. (Of course, this doesn't include my coats or my wedding gown, but I figure those don't really need to live in this closet anyway!)

The way I currently have things organized I do have some dead space, so I may consider asking the hub to install a couple more shelves. We still have a plastic drawer unit that won't be living in our closet space anymore that's full of little stuff (gloves, hats, scarves, and Raf's snow gear), so we do need to figure out a good way/place to stash that stuff .

The 365 Project: Day 233

Contrary to popular belief, I'm a good wife on the rarest of occasions. For example, this morning I made blueberry pancakes for brunch while the hubba was busy working

The recipe I used can be found on the $5 Dinners blog. A couple modifications--the batter turned out REALLY runny. I needed to add a few heaping spoonfuls of flour to keep it from running off the skillet. Also, 2c of blueberries was probably more than necessary. But other than that, they were light, fluffy and tasty! And made entirely of ingredients I already had at home, so I didn't even need to dent the food budget.

By the way, the burnt ones above were the work of the hubba deciding to help out. Mine turned out just right. See, I'm starting to figure out this whole cooking thing already!

Saturday, August 21, 2010

The 365 Project: Day 232

We spent our Saturday at breastfeeding class (where you'll be glad to know I did not take any photos), then at the Prokosch's annual Sand in your Shorts party (where I was too busy chatting to remember to take photos).

So, I'll share some cardmaking goodness instead. I finally visited the card table a couple times last week and made the executive decision to focus on quantity over creativity. I just need to get back in the groove! So I stuck with one style--a little paper, a little embellishment, a sentiment, and white bases. Easy to do, easy to love!

Friday, August 20, 2010

The 365 Project: Day 231

Bump update! On our way to the Still Time show in the City.

Making Me Happy.

This photo I took at Anthro yesterday makes me happy. I wish Blogger layouts allowed for large photos. I'm thinking this one might actually need to be blown up, printed, and hung somewhere in the house for good vibes on a daily.

A Food Challenge

We use Mint.com to budget and track our spending. One of the nice things about Mint is that you can set a monthly budget for a specific area of your spending (Food), and Mint will send you email alerts if you've exceeded your budget for the month. I logged on for the first time in a while yesterday to re-categorize some recent expenses and noticed that we're already at $505 of our $600 monthly food budget! Eek!

First things first, I know plenty of you are reading this thinking "holy F, they spend how much on food every month???" We think that too. It's the one area that we're constantly frustrated with. We eat out too much. We go out with friends a lot. And groceries aren't cheap, especially when we try to purchase quality ingredients. I don't think I'd be as irritated if we were spending that much and eating the way we aspire to, knowing that we're spending on quality and to support our local food systems. However, that's not the case for the majority of this amount, so it's constantly irritating. (However, before you think we're too crazy, I would encourage you to sign up yourself and track every detail of your budget for a month or two. I bet you'll have some surprises of your own!)

So anyway, we have quite the challenge in front of us: to keep our August food spending to the already outrageous $600 limit. That means we need to spend no more than $95 on food over the next 13 days! Some challenges I foresee:
  • We're going to see Still Time in SF tonight: booze and 2am burritos both count on the Food budget!
  • We're making vast quantities of guac and 2 salsas for the annual Sand in your Shorts party tomorrow.
  • I may be going to visit Dad next week: 12 hours of eating on the road, and typically lots of meals out.
Some things working in our favor:
  • Raf has begun the wildness of quarter-end, which means Oracle will be feeding him most nights.
  • I've had a crazy lunchy luncherson schedule out with friends for the past couple weeks, but have nothing else in iCal at the moment.
  • We've done a ton of grocery shopping this month, including a bulk stock up at Costco, so hopefully with minor supplements, we can work with what we already have on hand.
That final point really sums it up. We need to make meals for the next 2 weeks based primarily on what is already in our cupboards. Novel concept, eh?! We started with dinner last night, and we did a pretty darn good job! The photo at the top is Avocado Pasta Salad via The Food in my Beard. It was SO yummy! As in, so yummy I wouldn't let Raf take the leftovers to work today (and I hate leftovers). We added some feta to this recipe, and Raf used red onions rather than scallions. Definitely a keeper in the tasty, simple, summer recipe department. Oh, and Israeli couscous (sometimes labeled Middle Eastern couscous) is a new favorite--we both loved the consistency of the larger pellets.
I figure if I'm in town and we're doing well on the food budget front at the end of the month, I'm going to go splurge at the Eat Real Fest in Jack London Square. Because, really, if I'm going to spend money on food, it might as well be awesomely tasty and in a festival environment, right?!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

The 365 Project: Day 230

I needed an "S" for a new wedding CD holder order, so I cruised out to Berkeley today and had brunch with my friend, Brent, which is always a good time. We met up at Bette's Oceanview Diner on 4th Street. There's no ocean view, but the simple food sure is yummy! Careful, though. We went at 11am on a Thursday morning and this place was packed! I definitely wouldn't attempt it on a weekend.
Of course, no trip to 4th Street is complete without a stroll through Anthropologie. This fabulous paper installation made me smile and had my head spinning with where and when a mini version could be recreated. Weddings most definitely. A baby room perhaps...??

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The 365 Project: Day 229

We trekked out to San Jose after Raf got home from work to help Griffin celebrate his 30th birthday. Lindsay had coordinated a little surprise party at their house, and I was happy to celebrate the fact that someone from our crew was turning 30 before me!

It was fun to catch up a bit--I hadn't seen either of them since they got engaged earlier this summer (YAY!) And chatting with Ramy is always good times, especially when he's busy coordinating a wedding. Well, technically an engagement first. Then an engagement party. Then a wedding. Then a green card. Or something like that. Doesn't Griff look excited to be 30?? Ha! Happy Birthday, guy!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

The 365 Project: Day 228

We had leftover hamburger meat and no buns, so casserole it is. It'd be better in the wintertime, but it's still pretty tasty (minus at least half the meat the recipe calls for).

Sadly, pregnancy exhaustion got the better of me and we didn't make it to the summer cinema showing of Twilight at Wente Vineyards. Bummer. It's crazy how fast the I'm-so-tired-I'm-dizzy exhaustion hits when you're growing a little person.

It's an Addiction.


I seriously need to stop receiving the Hawthorne Threads newsletter. I already have more fabric than I can keep up with. But look at all this fun stuff!!!

Do you see that 3rd one down? It's chickens!!!
Like this!
Thank goodness they don't have a one-click ordering system!!