Bitten by the bug... the sewing bug.

My sewing time usually comes in spurts. I can go a couple of weeks without setting foot into my sewing room. (Unless it is stacking empty boxes in the middle of the floor.) Then, I get bitten by the sewing bug.

This bug dictates that I spend hours upon hours on Pinterest looking up tutorials and ideas, then I will push all those boxes against one wall to spend all of the free time that I am alloted (with an energetic baby) in my sewing room. Whipping out project after project.

Right now I have multiple ideas in my head for projects to work on. One of these is part of an outfit for St. Patrick's day. I plan on celebrating the luck o' the Irish with my sisters on Saturday. One of them is hosting their annual St. Patrick's day party that I have never actually gone to. Always time for a first! Anyways, I have been holding on to a shapeless green celtic dress for a while to upcycle it into something. I have some ideas, just need to get them done. Hopefully I finish by Saturday. Oh, and I didn't mention that Saturday happens to be my 23rd birthday. Nothing better than a new top for a new year!

I have also been looking at really cute little boy clothes on Pinterest too. Both for little James and my twin nephews Tim and Tom. They turned 4 in February. That perfect age where they are adorable in everything. Especially frozen blueberry juice, and mud. So looking at Pinterest has been inspiring me to create cute little boy clothes for them. We will see what comes out of the sewing room. It might turn out and it might not.

Well, lift your glass to some inspiration headed my way.

More to come....until then.

Live and Love 

Middle of the Month Goal: Meal Planning Monday's

I haven't made a middle of the month goal in a while. Since it is now January 6th and not the 1st. I will declare this a middle of the month goal. Note that it is not a 'New Years Resolution' I don't believe in resolutions. Mostly because mine never last past the middle of January and they are always too big. So I will do this as a middle of the month goal.

I need to be better about meals for Mr. Sir and I. I always say that I need to meal plan. I even downloaded Pepperplate onto my Kindle (a super amazing app I might add). I just never seem to meal plan well. So I am going to hold myself to posting my meal plan once a week.

The main idea of meal planning for me is to use the food we have in our pantry wisely. To keep the grocery budget down, and to not waste food after it is cooked.

Meal Planning Monday for Week 2: 2014

Breakfasts are usually cereal or toast, sometimes oatmeal or cream of wheat, depends on the morning and the temperature in the apartment.

Mr. Sir's lunches always contain a bowl of oatmeal with various flavorings, a pint of milk, a 4 oz. container of yogurt, one form of fruit and the previous nights leftovers. This provides a late breakfast, snack and his lunch for a 10 hour workday. My lunches are always leftovers.

James eats breast milk, formula, baby food purees and little bits of what we eat. He is the easy one.

Dinners-
Monday: French toast, using stale homemade bread. And stale leftover chocolate scone crumbles. With blueberry yogurt.
Tuesday: Broiled chicken with cauliflower on a couscous bed.
Wednesday:Yellow split pea soup Freezing the leftovers for quick meals later
Thursday: Taking a trip to my sister's house.
Friday: Still at my sisters.
Saturday: Bake bread for the week, so probably grilled cheese and tomato soup (out of home canned stewed tomatoes)
Sunday: Mr. Sir cooks whatever he feels like. Unless I get the urge to bake, I avoid planning my Sunday's.

I did not go grocery shopping this past week.

I need to bring up that our meat comes from Mr. Sir. He owns some beef cattle and rents out pasture land from his father (we make deals here and there for payment of pasture rent) We get 1/4 of a beef at a time to store in our chest freezer once a year.. So beef will not be added to my final monthly grocery stipend. I might take what we eat and add it into what beef is selling for in the grocery store at the moment.

I also need to account for WIC. Yes, I receive WIC at the moment. I have to say, it is a genius program. I will do whatever it takes to create a healthy little boy. So I will account for the WIC food and put it separately on the meal overview.

Oh and if you have a better, catchy name for "Meal Planning Monday's" Leave a comment. I need ideas.

Live and Love

Failed: middle of the month goals.

During the middle of June, I decided to make myself a goal. I was going to try oil pulling for one month to see if it was effective or not. I made it two and a half weeks. I did not really notice any difference. My teeth may be a little whiter and my skin isn't nearly as dry and irritated but I don't know if that is from the pulling or weather. I just attribute it to the weather.

The reason I stopped, it's well, I am not the most productive morning person. Throw that in with a weekend get-away to throw off my routine and I was doomed to failure. Maybe I should set less lofty goals and work my way up. Thinking that I could remember to do something early in the morning without coffee or breakfast in my system is just silly.

Anyways, for now I decided that if I want to whiten my teeth I will stick with baking soda one a week, it's easier to remember. Money wise, it's tons upon tons cheaper. I didn't notice enough of a difference in my skin to matter.

Oh well worth a try. 

Now to hang out in the coffee shop with the little man until my chiropractor appointment. Oh how I love lattes.

Live and Love'm

End of Week One- Those Pearly Whites

So I am really bad at goals. Don't believe me? I was supposed to post this on Monday. also,  I missed a morning during the first week of oil pulling, then just decided to skip it.

Sigh.

Anyways, I started a daily oil pulling journal. But seeing as it is sort of boring I will just give the rundown.

I made it all of the way through the week, remembering to pull every morning before breakfast, except for Sunday. I groggily woke up, fed James, realized it was Sunday, shook Mr. Sir out of bed and dashed off to church. Completely forgot to pull until late afternoon and at that point, there was no point in doing it.

I have to say, oil pulling is definitely an acquired taste. The coconut flavor isn't so bad, its just the texture of putting it in the mouth. It is kind of slimy until it melts. Then it is like coconut water. Swish Swish.

I did get a canker sore all week, starting on Tuesday. I don't know if it was from pulling the toxins out or because we have been eating an insane amount of rhubarb this week. It lasted the full week too. T'was unfortunate.

So far, no marked improvements. My hurt cavity tooth still hurts, some other teeth hurt too but I don't know if that is from the oil pulling or the wisdom teeth trying to squeeze their way in. My wisdom teeth are hopefully getting removed next month. No improvements on my body either. I was hoping that it would reduce my excema or dry skin a bit. It has only been a week though. Maybe it takes longer, we will see.

Until next time,
Live and Love.

Those Pearly Whites, and Middle of the Month Goals

So, teeth. I want the nice, white, shiny teeth that everybody dreams of. In reality though, they are coffee and sugar stained yellow ones instead of pearly whites. At least I can thank genetics for straight teeth. When we got married, my husband and I got into the habit of brushing, flossing and mouth washing our teeth together before bed every night and most days if they feel icky, I brush them during the day. It got me to really enjoy going to bed with soft, smooth, and clean teeth. I enjoy it so much that now I can't fall asleep if I haven't brushed. Yet, my teeth are still not very pretty. The dentist confirmed and then filled a cavity. That same cavity has now been bothering me for 2 months since she tried fixing it. It didn't hurt at all before.

I have looked up all sorts of ideas on how to fix my teeth. Besides cutting all sugar and carb filled foods from my diet (Huh, yea right) I figured there had to be another way. I ended up looking up about oil pulling. With oil pulling you swish coconut, sunflower, or olive oil around in your mouth first thing in the morning to remove the toxins. Apparently, if you do it long enough it is really good for your teeth and whitens them and can even reverse cavities and can do all sorts of other good things for the body.

I need to have a monthly goal and yes I do realize that it is the middle of the month, but at least it is a Monday. My goal for this month will be to try oil pulling. Every day for 31 days I will attempt to oil pull with coconut oil for 20 minutes first thing in the morning. We will see if it helps at all. Some people say it does and some people say it doesn't. This will be my test. I suppose there should be pictures too. Pictures might make this whole thing more believable.

I will give an update at the end of each week of my progress. I am attempting to hold myself accountable and actually do it. It doesn't cost a whole lot to try and might save me money in teeth whitening supplies later.
Have you tried Oil Pulling? Did it work for you?

Conclusion of Silence

Well, my silence week is over. My conclusion : Silence is nice. Computers are handy.

I did better than I thought that I was going to. I only allowed myself a short amount of time each day to answer email's and check for messages on Facebook. It also got a little tricky because Mr.Sir got a new iphone and boy is that a neat toy *ahem* I mean phone *ahem* ipod? .......computer????

Overall it was a nice week, with lots of work being done. Lots of time spent with Mr.Sir. We went hiking, fishing, and swimming. Some house cleaning, I couldn't figure out what was making my house reek. Turns out that it was a bad egg, sigh, what a mess to clean up. I also did some book reading, knitting, and crocheting. I spent time visiting during sewing day for our Quilt Guild.

It did become a little easier because my brand new laptop won't charge for some reason, so I was down a computer until I get it fixed. I will admit that I like doing handwork while watching marathons/movies on Netflix.

I also decided that it is okay to have a little bit of downtime in front of the computer. You don't need a massive amount of it, that is not healthy but using it as a tool for communication and entertainment. That is acceptable.

So really... honestly.. I didn't learn a darn thing. Except what a bad egg smells like.
 Oh well, Live and Love.

Silence

In a world bombarded by social media, advertising, and just media in general it is no wonder that we have a problem with people not being in shape. I know, I know. Posting this in a blog is kind of hypocritical. I am sitting in a chair on my laptop during a beautiful day like this. The good thing is, that is my problem not yours. It is also my problem to fix. 

Anyways, when you work from home like I do I have always thought that it was nice (and productive) to have music in the background. Or turn Netflix on to watch a show that I have seen countless times for some good 'background' noise (some of my favorites are Doctor Who, Firefly, and The Dresden Files). I know that I would probably (scratch that, Most Definitely) get more done if I didn't have the media on but something about the noise makes the house feel less quiet and less lonely. For some reason that makes me feel like I get more done, when I actually don't.

But do I really need this media? Would I be more creative if I worked in the silence? The next question is, would I be more creative withOUT Pinterest? Uff da that is a tough question... Pinterest is great for inspiration but I can spend hours on there just paging down the page letting my eyes glaze over at all the pretties. Would it be more beneficial for me to spend that time out in the garden, or behind my sewing machine? Would I walk more? Would I be so bored that I want to exercise? Would the house be cleaner? If it took me half the time to get a project done if I didn't have my 'background noise' what would I do with my spare time. 

I have decided to set myself a goal for this next week. Today is Monday the day of all days to start goals. (Really, what other day makes sense?) Starting today, right now I am going to try to limit my social media (as soon as I post this blog). This includes Facebook, my blog, Spotify, Pandora, Pinterest and Netflix. I will allow the radio when I am doing cleaning and other such menial tasks and my cell phone to make calls and texting is allowed. Another thing allowed is research, for example if I want to look up a recipe or whether or not vinegar will kill my plants I can look it up, but must keep it quick and no 'drifting' to other sites. But for the majority of the day, lets say until 8 in the evening that gives me 2 hours before I go to bed if I want to use it. I will not use my laptop at all. In fact, I think I will turn it off and stash it away. I want to see what it does to me. Will I spend more time outside? Will the silence be lonely, or welcome? We will see. I will update again next Monday with my conclusion. For now, Live and Love.