Newest Addition

It has been a while since the last post, but I have a pretty good excuse... I have been EXHAUSTED!

Eva is getting a new sibling!

Week 2: Kitchen Finished!

How often can you really say that your kitchen glistens? For a brief period of time, mine did!

Following the 14 Week Home Organization Challenge (Kitchen Week), everything has been cleaned. For some reason they think you can deep clean your kitchen in a week, which is nonsense. Last year it was my first time doing this and it took me four weeks! I am giving myself a break and allowing two weeks for the big tasks... like the kitchen.

It all started with the cabinets: they were emptied, vacuumed, wiped, waxed, "stuff" culled, and then re-stocked. That alone took a solid week for 40 cabinets!

To the left you can see my "cooking station" so I have everything in reach when cooking/baking.

To the right is just a lot of miscellany. I have a little bit of room here where I might move some of my homemade canned goods to.

I still have one cabinet that is too full, but it has the small appliances we need but don't use terribly often.

Next was backsplash, counters, sink, small appliances (microwave, stand mixer, etc.), stove, dishwasher (make sure you clean the filters!), fridge/freezer (inside and out), baseboards, and floors.
I found it helpful to work in a "top-down" approach, that I learned from my mom. (Thanks Mom!)

See that glass paned cupboard on the right? That contains teacups from previous generations of women in my family.

The top one is from my paternal Great Grandma circa 1910's? The middle is from my paternal Grandma's collection, and the bottom from my maternal Nana's collection. I have space for three more on the other side of the sink and I am hoping to have Mom and MIL each pick out a set that "represent" them, to add to my collection.

In case you are wondering, here are some of my favorite cleaning products that I use:





Don't be too envious of the kitchen... this week I am to tackle the pantry and kitchen nook. Yeesh.






But first, what's needed after two tough weeks of cleaning the kitchen? Puppy snuggles! I love how much she loves her dad.






















You may remember that Mom is also doing the challenge with me!! This is her first time doing it, so everything is going to take a lot longer. Perseverance is tough, but needed. Go Mom and Dad!

Here are some of the results of their hard work. Looking good!

Week 1: Kitchen

I promised to try and keep this updated with my progress on the 14 Week Home Organization Challenge. 

Well the first week is the kitchen and while some people can get it done in one week, but since Dear Husband (DH) and I both work full time, I planned on taking 2 weeks. Since this is my second year, I have less to sort through so it should take us less than the 4 week it did last year.

This first week it mostly looks like this: a disaster








From all angles...

We have 40 cabinet drawers or doors. 40! It is amazing, until you have to clean them. Since we didn't have enough room to take everything out at the same time, we started with kitchen tool and gadgets.
After pulling all the things out, we wiped down the cabinets with Murphy's Oil Soap, then waxed them with Feed-N-Wax like last year. We then culled any items we don't really need, and put everything else back.
Then we repeated the process for the tableware (plates, glasses, silverware, etc.), then for pots and pans, and eventually spices and food staples (flour, sugar, etc.)

Thankfully we were able to take a small break this weekend when we had SisX and her husband, BroD, over.
DH needed to bottle his latest batch of beer, so BroD helped with that while SisX and I worked on other projects.



And what's the best treat after a successful day of projects?
A stout float using home brewed beer!

Oh, and Eva was not to be outdone... her project was destroying a felted wool ball she got for Christmas.

2016 Christmas

We had a great, relaxing Christmas season:
We visited with friends and family, watch movies, read, nap, ate WAY too much good food. There were a couple of short illnesses to deal with but plenty of sleep, homemade soup/stew, and fluids got us back on our feet in short order. 

Among all this excitement, I didn't take any pictures. Not a single one. I can't believe it. 

It was just such a nice, chill vacation that we spent our time enjoying it rather than trying to document everything. 

Here was the Christmas card we sent out: 

The only time I had was during a Packer game, so I decided to embrace the theme and convinced Dear Husband (DH) to step out into the snow during time-outs and commercial breaks until we got a good picture. 

I did a bit better with my diet over Christmas (+1 lb) than over Thanksgiving (+3 lb), but it still leaves me three pounds over my "stable" weight that I want to maintain. I think what helped is keeping up with calorie counting over the holiday, so now I just need to keep making smart choices and not binge on leftover candy!

We did have a little Christmas cocktail party, and the Christmas Mocha Rum Punch was amazing. SisX and I dug the recipe out of Mom's 1970's TriDelta sorority cookbook. Those ladies sure know how to party.

The big decoration we added this year was a fake Christmas tree. We still had our normal (4 ft) real tree with sentimental ornaments on it, but we wanted something bolder for the front window since we don't have outside lights yet. 

DH has very strong opinions about needing a live Christmas tree in the house for the holiday, and I couldn't agree more. There is just something about the smell and look that makes the mess completely worth it.

I found a pre-lit one on sale, and it came in just 4 easy pieces and needed to be "fluffed" out to look more real. I picked up some ribbon and silver+blue ornaments (some plastic and some glass), but I couldn't find a topper I liked, so I just made a giant bow out of the ribbon and stuck it on top. 

I like how some of the ends are "feathered" or frayed so there are more color tones and looks fuller. 

The other complicated decoration I do every year is the Santas on the mantle. Every year my Nana would send an an ornament from a Hallmark Keepsake series.

When she passed, I was in the middle of the "Father Christmas" ornament series, so I have continued to buy the new one each year. I feared last year was the end because there were 12 of them, but the 13th did come out this year.

Yes, the stocking on the right is Eva's with her latest Rally-O and Agility ribbons she earned in December. 

Here is the latest addition to the collection from this year.

The first week of January is usually time for me to set up my "system" for the year. I am trying out this new "Commit 30" planner this year, where you write goals and objectives and make shorter, actionable steps to those goals each month, week, or day. 

One of my goals is to continue getting the house in order. You may remember that I tried the 14 Week Organizational Challenge last year. Not only do you clean, but you cull everything you can, room by room. Well I made it through week 8-10 last year but couldn't quite finish. Since I work full-time and only have the evenings available, this year I am giving myself more time for each task (so it is really the 23 week challenge for me.) 
I have also recruited Mom to be my accountability partner! She will be trying the challenge for the first time ever (so proud of her!), and we are going to encourage each other to keep up and finish the challenge. Oh, and I'm ignoring the basement because that cull and clean will take the rest of the year!

Wish me luck! I will try to log a little bit about each room. Besides, keeping busy will be good for me right now; I am like a sulky preschooler because my best friend is moving away. Why is it so hard making close friends as an adult?

Camping and Running!

Dear Husband (DH) and I are pretty new when it comes to camping. Both of us camped a little bit with our families when we were young, but nothing since our ages have had two digits.

Thankfully, SisX and BroD have more recent experience and indulged us in a two-night camping trip last weekend to help show us the ropes.

We had such a nice little campsite-home for a couple days, but I wasn't able to get too many photos due to all the rain and drizzle during our stay.

I caught a few of us soaking in the sunshine while it was out and about. The boys were tossing around a football, while Eva lounged in the warming sand.




It was cold enough at night that Eva crawled into my sleeping bag and slept by my legs all night, but thanks to her we both stayed nice and cozy. It was quite a challenge getting Eva in the tent while trying to keep the sand out, but we managed well enough.

 We did get the chance to take a long hike over the dunes but due to the rain, the majority of our day time was spent huddling under our tarps, playing cards, and cooking amazing camping food.

How is it that all food tastes better when you have been camping? Not only did we have the traditional S'mores, SisX materialized breakfast "banana boats" which are bananas with peanut butter and chocolate chips, roasted in tin foil over the fire. It was a great, filling breakfast for a day of adventuring.

Of course one of the first things I did when we got back was bathe Eva right after unpacking the car. Naturally the very next day she found something nasty to roll in and earned herself a second bath in as many days... she didn't seem too remorseful. She was more interested in getting out so she could try to rub in the foul stench again.


We had those big adventures last weekend, but this weekend was also exciting; DH ran in his first 5K ever and rocked it!

There were over 500 people registered, and he had a lot of factors that could have messed with his time. He had never run with so many people before, he's not used to "trail running" compared to road running, he doesn't usually run outside when it is cool, and he had sprained a leg muscle a few weeks ago and hadn't run that distance in a while.


All that being said, he did AMAZING, beat his time goal, and finished in the top 10 for his age group!

I am so proud of him for going after it and completing this goal he has had for almost a year.
Way to go!

Hawaii Vacation

It has been almost two years, but Dear Husband (DH) and I finally got to take a get-away vacation! Since it had been a while, we decided to do it right.

Late January we were deciding between Rome and Hawaii.  When we determined that the best vacation time was going to be March, we felt that left too little time to plan an international trip. (We are both "type A" personalities who like to have a strategy and plan of attack.)

So Hawaii it was! It was an amazing trip, but with some frustrating travel both there and back. Between our three flights, we were delayed nine different times! The delays varied from 5 min, to 3 hours and 45 min.

We ended up getting a really good deal on renting a condo, but due to the delayed flights we got into Hawaii at around 11:30pm. Then after a looong day of travel, the door code they gave us didn't work. We were literally the width of a door away from our destination, and we couldn't get in. Thankfully I had an after-hours phone number to call and we were able to get in.

Since we arrived in the dead of night, we could smell and hear the ocean, but we had no idea how close we were. Then we woke up to this view:
Amazing!

Besides getting there and back, the rest of the trip was stunning. Because we have such pale skin, we spent the mornings running around doing activities, then go out to lunch, and return back to the condo to read and relax. We opened up the doors and windows so between the breeze, the sounds and smell of the ocean, and the view it really felt like we were outside, but under a shade tent.

The adventure on our first day was going out on a whale watching boat.
We were toward the end of the season, but we got to see quite a few. The best was when we saw a momma, her calf, and 3 or 4 males in pursuit. They went on a long 30-45 min chase and we followed watching their antics.













We hung out in Lahaina for the afternoon and it had to be one of my favorite places on the island.










Tuesday we drove the road to Hana. It was beautiful and a bit scary. We only had one really close call.












Wednesday we went snorkeling, and while the weather was rough so we didn't get to go to Molokini, we got to go to a couple of sites with diverse coral and fish. The best part was that it was DH's first time snorkeling and the amazed look on his face after he first stuck his face in the water was priceless.

Thursday we just explored around the island and did some casual shopping.

I think we saved the best for last. Our big splurge for the trip was a helicopter ride around Haleakala (the big volcano) and Hana. The scenes were astounding. It made me realize what a stunning, harsh beauty Hawaii is.






After the flight, we treated ourselves to an incredible meal with a fabulous view.

 All in all it was a great trip, and just what I needed: a bit of adventure, and a lot of relaxing.
It reminded me that I often get caught up in the day-to-day, and I need to slow down a bit and live in the Aloha spirit.