2010

Someone tell me if you all get bored with my cooking "adventures"

So, I switched up my OAMC cooking for November just a little bit, and it reinforced everything I know about myself and why I hate cooking from scratch on a daily basis, and why OAMC is such a good fit for us. :)

In September and October, I followed the OAMC cookbook's two-week plans almost to the letter, just omitting a recipe or two and adjusting the provided shopping list accordingly.  For November, I decided to go "advanced" and cut down one of the one-month cycles by half.  This pretty much meant picking my 12-15 recipes and then assembling my own shopping list, recipe by recipe.

We shopped on Friday night, I picked up some missed items on Saturday, and I started cooking on Sunday. I've completed 8 of my 14 recipes and so far I've come up with FIVE ingredients that somehow didn't make it onto my shopping list.

:facepalm:

Thanks to the magic of Google, I was able to come up with adequate substitutions so that I didn't have to drop everything and run to the store five different times (and once the missing ingredient was nonessential enough that I just left it out) but for some reason, compling a complete and accurate shopping list has been the primary thing that has always tripped me up when attempting to do my own meal planning. 

What's up with that?

Pumpkins!!

Sorry the pictures aren't better...I still don't know how to use all the settings on my camera.

 Tiny Evil Ninja!

 Fiona's Cat

 Brianna's Fairy

 Josh's Happy Face (courtesy of mom)

Levi's Cityscape

The Whole Gang

So like...does this make me a grown-up?

I made pot roast for dinner the other night! (yes, one of the OAMC recipes.)

It turned out pretty darn perfect, if I do say so myself. Not that it was hard - throw it in the crock pot before work, take it out after work - but like I've said before, crock pots make me nervous.

Really, the hardest part (have I made this speech before?) was at the grocery store, figuring out which hunk of meat was a "pot roast."  Or rather...the right kind of pot roast. There were, like...a half a dozen or more different cuts of beef whose labels all included the words "pot" and "roast." Usually with two or three other descriptives in between.  I must have guessed right, though, because the end result was supremely edible.


(My mother is shamed, SHAMED, I tell you, to have raised a daughter who doesn't know how to pick out a pot roast at the grocery store.)

World's Biggest Hula Hoop?

This video is kind of long (6 minutes) but some of the tricks she can do with this oversize hoop are AMAZING.

OAMC Review: Upside-Down Fettucini Bake

 

'Nuff said.  

Okay fine! :D This recipe looked really promising, so I took a leap of faith and doubled it (it didn't make enough to split) and boy am I glad I did!  Huge, mongo hit with the whole family.  Here's the recipe:

Upside Down Fettucini Bake

1/2 lb italian sausage (hot, sweet or mixed)

1/4 onion, chopped 

8 oz fettucini

1-14.5 oz can  diced tomatoes

1 tsp dried oregano

1/2 c mozzarella cheese, shredded

1/2 c parmesan cheese, grated, divided

3 eggs, lightly beaten

2 Tbsp melted butter

2 Tbsp parsley flakes

1/2 tsp chopped garlic

Cook fettucini according to package directions. Meanwhile brown sausage in a medium skillet; add onion in last few minutes.  Drain excess fat. Add tomatoes and their juice to sausage mixture. Add oregano and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer covered, stirring occasionally, 20 minutes.

Stir mozzarella into sausage mixture. Sprinkle in half the parmesan (1/4 c).

Mix eggs, remaining parmesan, butter, garlic and parsley in medium bowl. Toss in fettucini until well coated. 

Spread pasta mixture in bottom of 10-inch quiche or round cake pan. Layer sausage mixture on top.

Freezing instructions: At this point, cover with heavy-duty aluminum foil and freeze.  Thaw completely before baking.

Baking instructions: Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until heated through.  Cut into wedges and serve.  Serves 6.

 My notes: I'd prefer it with a little more everything - a little more spice, a little more onion. Maybe a can of tomato sauce or pizza sauce. I couldn't find a 10" pan to save my life, so I jammed it into a 9-incher.   It *barely* fed the four of us (Josh had a sliver; Levi, Brianna and I devoured the rest). Next time, I'm going to double it and build it in a 9x13 pan instead of the 9" round so that we have lunches. In theory. 

Cooking Experiment Recap, and Round 2

Last night, we polished off the very last meal from September's Once-A-Month-Cooking experiment! We stretched 12 recipes, 20 meals, over a full month, so...I guess 10 nights of eating out for one reason or another. Levi figures we reduced our food expenses for September by 50% by (mostly) not scrambling for last minute dinners. There were a couple days where we'd forget to pull something out to thaw. :( Anyway, since all the meals were reasonably edible, we called it a Win and decided to do it again for October. But more about that in a minute. First, here's a quick recap/review of our Round 1 meals:

• Meatball Sub Casserole (2x): This dish went over well with Levi and Brianna, not so much with me. I don't know if it was recipe failure or pilot error, but the bread layer came out...gluey. Ick. Thinking this might work better with traditional lasagna noodles or something, if we do it again.
• Easy Spaghetti Sauce (2x): This recipe was "easy" because it's base is three family-sized cans of tomato soup. Boring. And really, really sweet. Not a big hit with my family. There's another, more traditional (there's that word again!) sauce recipe in one of the other menu cycles that I'd like to try.
• Orrechiette with Tuna: We ate this the very first night. It was...all right. I liked it, Brianna and Levi tolerated it. It was actually better as leftovers, hot or cold.
  
• Sweet Mustard Grilled Pork: We ate this one just in the last week. The recipe lists the cooking options as 30 minutes on the grill or 2 hours in the oven. We opted for the grill, but screwed it up, and blackened the outside. Still really, really good! Definitely going to do this one again, and try not to burn it in the future. It would pair really well with fried rice.
  
• Steak Milanesa: This was basically steak with a garlic-and-cilantro based marinade. Easy, different and good.
• Chicken Naranja (2x): The first time we cooked this, it was awesome. Even the leftovers were good (and leftover chicken can be tricky). The second time, I don't know what happened but the sauce went wonky and congealed in the oven instead of staying...saucy. Still edible, although not as good as the first time.
• Chicken Dijon (2x): Winner! Came out perfect both times. We had this with stuffing instead of rice and OMG, yum.
  
• BBQed Chicken Sandwiches (2x): This was our crock pot meal. I discovered crock pots make me nervous. I don't like having food cooking while I'm not home, and I also don't trust it to cook everything (read: the raw chicken) through. The recipe itself was good, although if you cook it down far enough to not be barbecue soup, there's not nearly as many servings as the recipe indicates - which is fine, because the count is supposed to be 24 sandwiches. That's a LOT.
• Mini Cheese Meatloaves: I don't want to talk about it.

Okay, fine. The meatloaf was a huge failure, and it was all my fault. Instead of two small loaves side by side in a square pan, I just mashed the mixture into one big flat loaf. And I baked it. And the top half was wonderful, and the bottom half was pink (I do *not* understand how people eat rare hamburgers or steak. Gag.). It was only as I was throwing away the inedible leftovers that I realized...I had two disposable foil pans stuck together. Woe is me...no wonder the damn thing didn't cook. Anyway, the edible part was REALLY good. I love meatloaf anyway, and this version was excellent. Can't wait to try it again. Properly.

• Gnocchi with Turkey Ragu (2x): Gnocchi, in case you weren't aware (like me), is kind of like little pasta bullets, except it's made from potatoes. I wasn't particularly thrilled - the texture was weird, and I'm weird about textures. The Ragu (Italian for meat-based sauce - clever, eh?), which I made with ground beef instead of ground turkey, was quite good, though. The second batch, we ate over egg noodles.
• Poppy Seed Chicken (2x): This was probably my favorite recipe out of this whole cycle. Classic baked chicken with cream sauce, with a crunchy breadcrumb-and-poppyseed topping. I think we had this over...rice? Ah...looked it up...wild rice pilaf. A perfect pairing.
  
• Last but not least: Hamburger Salsa Skillet: Good, basic. Not amazing. Needed more salsa.
  

For October, we opted for another Two Week cycle, again figuring on splitting several of the entree's to stretch it out for close to a month of eating. I shopped on Tuesday afternoon and Levi and I spent Wednesday afternoon doing all the prep and most of the cooking, and I finished the cooking on Thursday afternoon (there are lots of parts of my job I don't like, but can't complain about the hours!). Here's what we've got on deck:

• Southwestern Egg Casserole (2)
  
• Macaroni with Ham (2)
  
• Upside-Down Fettucini Bake (2 - was supposed to be 1 but looked good enough that I doubled it)
• Chicken & Dumplings (2)
  
• Chicken Durango (2)
  
• Chicken Scampi (2)
  
• Texas-Style Lasagna (2)
  
• Beef Pot Roast (1)
  
• Teriyaki Hamburgers (2 - again, doubled)
  
• George Romney Meatballs (1)
• Vegetable Soup with Meatballs (2)

We're skipping the Four Seasons Pizza, Coronation Chicken, Lime Grilled Mahi Mahi, and the Black Beans with Jasmine Rice - all which have questionable ingredients. Will let you know how this batch goes, but based on how everything smelled as it was being cooked and assembled, I think we've got some serious winners. :)

Kitchen Experiment Part 2: Cooking Day!

Grab a drink and put your feet up, this entry is a long one. First, here's our menu:

• Easy Spaghetti Sauce
• Meatball Sub Casserole
• Orecchiette with Tuna
• Sweet Mustard Grilled Pork
• Steak Milanesa
• Chicken Naranja
• Chicken Dijon
• Barbequed Chicken Sandwiches
• Mini Cheese Meatloaves
• Gnocchi with Turkey Ragu
• Poppyseed Chicken
• "Craig & Debbie's Easy Fixins" - which I call "Hamburger Salsa Skillet"

I omitted two of the recipes from this two-week cycle: Chicken Italiano, because it contains spinach, to which Levi is allergic, and Tilapia Filets because neither Levi nor I eat fish.

STEP 1: Clear your work space of any extraneous decor or appliances. Assemble your ingredients. (Milk, cheese, meats, etc. are still in the fridge until needed)...Check!

A couple notes on this step: first, since I have the Kindle edition of the cookbook but no Kindle, that's my laptop screen on the right (one nice thing about having the book digitally is that I was able to blow up the font size to make it easy to read from several feet away). Second, I pre-measured the flour, sugar, etc. - anything normally kept in a large, bulky container, so that I didn't have THAT taking up precious counter space as well.

STEP 2: Start chopping! As I mentioned, the book guides you neatly through all the steps in assembly-line fashion, so first I chopped all the onions I would need for all the recipes, then the peppers, the celery, etc. Then, when you start cooking/assembling, the recipes indicate measurements instead of quanties, i.e. one cup of onion rather than 1 onion.

Here are all my veggies! Aren't they pretty?

Oh, and you see this?
That is an entire fruit's worth of freshly grated lemon zest. It took me 20 minutes, at least, because I didn't have the proper tool and had to make do with the extra-fine side of an ordinary grater. And...after I had prepped and stored all 12 of my entrees, it was still sitting there. I *freaked* and started frantically searching through my recipes to figure out how I had missed it, only to discover...it was for the Tilapia. That I didn't make. D'oh!

Anyway! Once the veggies are all prepped, you start in on the meats. Which, in this case, mostly meant dividing and cutting up a million raw chicken breasts. Some you cube, some you cut into strips, a few just needed to be halved. I hate handling raw chicken anyway, so this was definitely my least favorite part of the process. Bleah. BUT, I got through it, and moved on to step 3...assembly! (The process up to this point has taken me about 4 hours. I think I spent about an hour just on the chicken.)

STEP 3: Cook/assemble/freeze. If I recall correctly, the meals were assembled pretty much in the order listed above. The spaghetti sauce had to simmer for a while, so my first completed meal was the Orecchiette with Tuna (side note: orecchiette is a fancy shaped pasta that, at my local grocery store, cost 3X as much as the box of store-brand mini shells. Guess which I bought?). For this dish, I had to heat some sauce, veggies and the tuna in a smallish saucepan, then transfer the cooked dish to a quart-size freezer bag. There is apparently a learning curve to pouring stuff out of a pan, into a plastic bag, because I made a MESS. Sauce *everywhere!* It's okay, though, I was able to scrape most of it off the counter and into the bag anyway.

Just kidding.

Anyway, once I got the tuna debacle cleaned up, the rest of the meals came together pretty smoothly. Any entree that was designated as serving more than 4, I split and froze as two meals, which in the end gave me not 12, but 20 entrees! Here's my freezer at about the halfway point:

8 entrees, 14 meals. 4 entrees/6 meals to go!

All told, I worked from about 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. made it through 10 of the 12 meals, and finished up the last two the next night after the kids went to bed. Whew!!

Kitchen Experiment: Part 1

(Two cooking-related posts in a row?!)

Levi and I (and the kids, by default) are trying a kitchen experiment.

Levi and I are not very imaginative when it comes to menu planning - our weekly table tends to be spaghetti, pizza, mac n cheese, parmesan chicken, spaghetti... - and invariably when I've been motivated to change things up, I fail to have the proper ingredients on hand and either have to run to the store in the middle of cooking, or, more likely, slam cupboards in frustration and run to McDonalds.

So, after doing some reading online, we (I) decided to give "once a month cooking" (OAMC) a try. The basic concept being, you prep a bunch of dinners all at once and stick them in the freezer, so that all you have to do is reheat on the stove, or pop it in the oven/slowcooker/on the grill.

After reviewing MANY OAMC books on Amazon, I purchased Once A Month Cooking: Family Favorites (Kindle edition, $10!).


This book is great for OAMC newbies because it does all the thinking for you - you just pick a 2- or 4-week "menu cycle" and it gives you a complete shopping list, recipes and assembly line-style preparation instructions. A lot of the other books are more focused on helping you save money shopping by building your own menu around your grocery store's sales, but I didn't feel like doing that much work. I wanted this to be SIMPLE.

(One of the other reasons I picked this particular book is because ALL of the Menu Cycles were available for free download on their website, www.once-a-monthcooking.com. I knew that I was going to be cooking stuff that my family would actually eat - or at least try!)

Serendipitously, around the first of this month our cupboards were looking pretty bare and we were due for a major shopping trip anyway, so I decided on a menu cycle, cross-checked the pantry and shopping lists against what we actually had on hand, added the miscellaneous household stuff that we always needed (cereal, milk, diapers, etc.), and headed out shopping.

The total bill for "Two Week Cycle D" came to just over $130 - at a projected 72 "servings" (the recipes ranged from 4 to 20(!) servings per dish), the per-serving cost was under $2. I've never paid THAT much attention to how much it costs to cook for my family, but that sounds pretty good to me.

Next up (with pictures, finally!) - Part 2: OAMC Meal Prep Day.

My Favorite Peanut Butter Bars

I know it sounds crazy for a school lunch menu to contain the "best" anything, but when I was in high school, the cafeteria made the best peanut butter bars (sidebar: always, always served on Pizza day, for some reason)...and somehow, shortly before graduation, Levi talked the cooks into giving him the recipe. I generally remember to make them about once a year, and just made a batch this morning to munch on during the football game.

And after keeping it my little secret for more than 10 years...I'm sharing it with you.

The ingredients:

• 3 1/3 c flour (that's three-and-one-third)
  
• 1 1/3 c sugar
• 1 1/2 c brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 2 jumbo or 3 large eggs
• 1 1/3 c shortening
• 1 Tbsp vanilla
• 2 c peanut butter

Preheat oven to 325. Spray a 9x13 cake pan (or two, if you have them) with nonstick spray.

Combine all ingredients except flour in a large mixing bowl. (Personally, I like to use half creamy and half crunchy peanut butter, but I rarely have both on hand.)

Stir in flour, one cup at a time. Mixture will be stiff and almost crumbly.

Press half the dough into 9x13 pan. I find it easiest to use my hands. You want to really press the mixture together into a solid sheet, eliminating as many cracks and crumbles as possible.

Bake in preheated oven 10 minutes - no more. Remove from oven before appearing fully cooked. Cut into bars with a sharp knife while still warm. Cut slowly, or they'll crumble!

Allow to cool before serving. Cover pan with lid or foil, or transfer to airtight container.

Makes TWO 9x13 pans, 18-24 bars each. Yum!

A funny for football fans

The scenario:

Levi and I are watching the Vikings game last night. It's the 4th quarter: newly drafted quarterback Joe Webb takes the field.

Commentator Mike Mayock: "...like most rookie quarterbacks, Webb has no concept of pass protection yet..."

Me (pausing TV): "Okay, explain exactly what he means by 'pass protection.' "

Levi: "You know how every play, Peyton Manning is constantly yelling directions to his receivers and line? That's because he can look at the defense and see there's a blitz, there's whatever, et cetera. That's pass protection.

Webb looks at the defense and thinks, "Hey, there's eleven guys."










Okay, you probably had to be there. But I'm still giggling.

Job search update

The job hunt continues. It's worth noting, I think, that so far I've gotten rejection letters from about half the companies I've applied to. Of course, no one likes hearing they weren't good enough, but the novelty of actually receiving a written communication from a company despite being eliminated as a candidate - much less a full 50+% of them and most of those through the US Mail(!!!) - definitely caught my attention. My experience - and that of most every job seeker I've ever known - is that the job search process generally goes like this:

1. Send out your resume and personalized cover letter
   
2. Make the appropriate follow-up noises
3. Hold your breath for about two weeks
4. Give up on that position after never hearing a peep in reply (unless you make the cut for an interview).

I'm not quite sure what this reject-letter business means. I'd like to think it means my resume made it through a leg or two of the consideration process before being trashed...it seems crazy to me that in this economy, with the number of applications each position probably gets, companies are suddenly choosing to MAIL letters to every single rejected applicant. But I suppose it's just as likely that churning out rejection letters is built right into their computerized resume-scanning process. :op

Anyway. When Cindy and I discussed the reject letter phenomenon (and the jobs that I assume I've been eliminated from due to not hearing anything), she zeroed in on the truly important question: why am I not making the cut? We concurred that the biggest hurdle is probably my lack of college degree. Now, I'm not putting my career-transition plans on hold for 4-5 years or more while I bang out a bachelor's degree - not just no, but Hell No. But Cindy feels, and I agree (and thankfully, Levi also agrees), that if I don't nail down a job - or at least start seeing some positive responses to my resume - in the next month or so, I might get more consideration if I'm at least actively enrolled in a degree program.

So, how does a 30-year-old woman with a full-time job, two kids, and a husband who also works full time, find time to go back to school? Oh, I have a plan, I do...but this entry is already getting long, so I think I'll save that discussion for a future post. ;o)

Garage Sale Wrap-Up

Ahhhhhh, done! (Well, nearly...)

The garage sale went spectacularly well! We made more $ than DH would've made by going to work last week, which is all I was really hoping for on that front, and I think we sold about half our stuff, including ALL of the large furniture pieces except for the hide-a-bed. We got lots of compliments on how well organized everything was, and on my directional signs (which, sadly, I did not take a picture of). I also wish I had taken more before-and-afters of our setup so I could impress upon you exactly how much crap we were trying to get rid of (and how much we GOT rid of, LOL!). And that's not even taking into consideration the bags and bags and bags and bags and bags of trash and the mountains of cardboard recycling that we cleared out in the two weeks before the sale. But our friend Ryan dropped by, and snapped some pics with his phone:

sea of shoes!

household table...and part of the mountain of clothes

ALL of this driveway stuff (except the poor couch) was gone by the end!

Garage Sale Tip: our sale was Thursday - Saturday, but we did about 75% of our total sales the first day, less than 10% the second day and the rest on day 3. IF I ever get it in my head to do this again, it will be two days only, Friday-Saturday. Friday to catch all the eager beavers, and Saturday for all the folks who work like normal people. Our middle day was dead, dead, dead. Also, 8-6 makes for a loooong day, but we did plenty of sales between 5 and 6, catching the after-work crowd. I really don't understand people who do their sales Wednesday-Friday, 8-4. They'll never get my business.

Sunday I spent about four hours (no joke) neatly packing the kids' clothing and toys into 12 -count 'em, TWELVE - boxes to take down to Once Upon A Child (OUAC). We dropped off 6 boxes - that's all they would take since it was an hour to closing - and they bought...wait for it...approximately 4 items for a total of $8.55. JACKPOT! LOL. Seriously, though, they are very very very very picky about clothing. Toys, it appears, have much more relaxed standards.

Monday and Tuesday was back to work, then Wednesday Levi and I were both off so we worked on packing all the unsold stuff for delivery to the local LoveINC Thrift Shop (it was *really* handy having a place just a few blocks away! If they hadn't been, we would've bagged everything and scheduled an ARC pickup). It took Levi THREE trips to get all the clothes, toys, and miscellaneous household stuff (coffee mugs, baby bottles, etc.) over there. Then, Levi took the kids' clothing that didn't make it into the first OUAC trip, as well as several boxes of leftover books - and three boxes of old LPs that didn't make it into the sale, oops - into town. The clothes he dropped at a different UOAC and the books and records he took to Half Price Books (HPB).

If you have a HPB in your neighborhood and haven't checked it out, DO. The cool thing about HPB is that they take EVERYTHING (books, anyway) that you bring in. Cheesy romance novels, old textbooks, car buying guides from 1999, a copy of "How To Father" from 1974 - you name it, they'll take it. (Their buy policy says that they donate unsold/unsellable books to "various charitable organizations around the world," but I've got to think that some stuff goes straight in the recycling bin or is sold for insulation or something.) They took all the books and 2/3 of the records and gave us $43! They DID give us back the records they weren't interested in buying - I don't know why that policy is different from their book policy....but it makes for a much more manageable ebay project than the original 200+ records that Levi's mom gave us to try and sell.

(Side note: I've already established a HPB Bag for all the books that I keep stumbling over and going "WHY did I keep this?" I'm also NEVER buying a book for retail price again. This place seems like a great compromise between paying $8-15 for a book, reading it once, being unimpressed and stuffing it on a shelf for all eternity, and my complete inability to ever get library books back on time.)

Anyway...After he finished at HPB, Levi swung back through OUAC and picked up those rejects - and $21. Woo hoo! All that's left to do is run the OUAC boxes over to LoveINC, and find a home for the poor couch, and the garage sale - and the garage clean up project - will be really, truly, FINALLY finished. In the meantime, though...check it out!!

YAY!!!!!

The 'I' in INFP

If you've ever done a Myers-Briggs Personality Profile, you'll recognize "INFP" as the acronym for Introverted-iNtuitive-Feeling-Perceiving - which is my personality type. I took a new Myers-Briggs when I first started my career counseling sessions, with the report being (duh) career-oriented. It was really interesting, but it's the "I" - Introverted - that's on my mind at the moment.

You see - the test results for each section of the profile came back as a "score" on a continuum of -30 to +30. On the extrovert/introvert scale, I scored...

+1.

For real. I was one point off of dead center, in favor of introversion. And thinking back to the test, I can even pinpoint the questions that I wavered on, that might have pushed me a point or two toward extroversion instead. I've always thought of myself this way - I like to call myself a "shy extrovert" or an "outgoing introvert" depending on my mood - but it was interesting to see it laid out in black and white. Cindy (my career coach) came up with the perfect analogy for this middle-of-the-road-ness...she said, "I bet you're the type of person who likes to go to coffee shops to read or study. You like being around people, but you don't really need to interact with them." So true!

The whole reason this topic is on my mind is a result of the garage sale - I've had more face-to-face social interaction in the past two days - with strangers, even! - than I generally have in a month. And I've really enjoyed it, but now that we've closed up shop for the day, I want nothing more than to pop in a movie, crawl into bed and not talk to anyone for the next 12 hours.

Adventures in Big Boy Bed Land

So far the transition to big-boy bed is going well! I was concerned that sneaking out of bed to play with toys would be an irresistable lure that first night, but much to my surprise, J took the "Stay In Bed" rule to heart. (He also fell asleep almost immediately, so that helped.)

Night 1: Bedtime at 8:00, peeked at him around 8:30 and he was sound asleep under the covers. Peeked again about 10:30, and he had wiggled himself on top of the covers and done a full 180 so that his feet were resting on the pillow! Levi put him back the "right" way. Checked again about 11:30 before going to bed myself, and he had wiggled up so his head was touching the wall, but at least he was pointed the right direction. I made sure to go in there right away in the morning so that he got the idea that we would get him up, and wasn't tempted to let himself out of bed.

Night 2: Bed at 8:00, up at 7:00. Stayed under the covers all night.

Night 3: Ditto. The bedtime transition appears to be a success!

Today, we attempted Nap Time in the big boy bed for the first time. He was good, although not sleeping, for the first hour. Then I heard creak-SLAM! "Mommy! It's awake outside!" J had started fiddling with the windowshade, and upon realizing it wasn't nighttime, determined naptime must be over. Since this was breaking the Stay In Bed rule, he had to spend the rest of naptime in his crib. OMG, talk about The End Of The World. J starts sobbing, "Moooooommeeeeee!!! Noooooooooo!!! Seeeeeep in my big boy bed!!!!!" The wailing seems to have stopped, but we're definitely not getting any actual napping accomplished.

Hopefully the quick visit to Baby Prison will still be fresh in his mind at bedtime. ;o)

Project Progress!

It's so nice to see projects that you started 6 months prior, finally starting to come to fruition! You may recall this, my second Random Apples post ever, where I talked about my linen closet and decide on a big-boy bedspread for Josh. And this, a few weeks later, where I briefly showed you the disaster that was my kitchen catch-all counter.

6 months later, my linen closet STILL looks awesome (although I did have to go look up that youtube video to refresh my sheet-folding skills the other day), and as for the other two projects, well, let's take a look, shall we?

Kitchen counter

Looked like this

receipts, mail, tupperware, small appliances, toys, junk, an award from 2008(??), my three-hole punch(!?!), etc., etc., etc., all jammed together so that stuff was routinely falling on the floor or worse, into the trash.

Yesterday, I did this
ahhhhhhh.....blank slate...

And now it looks like this!

Things are still not quite as compartmentalized as I would like, but I cut our plastic storage by about half and only kept the ones that I know we use most often. And I've trained Brianna, whose responsibility it is to empty the dishwasher, to nest things neatly instead of just haphazardly stacking stuff every which way so that it all inevitably tips over and crashes to the floor. That pile to the right is stuff that needs to go back to Levi's mom, and a stack of lids with no bottoms (which I should pretend to throw away and see if it brings their better halves out of hiding...), and a collection of pens-pencils-markers that still needs to be thinned out, but at least they're contained. To the left is the blender, the charging cord for my phone, and our change jar. And that's it! Most exciting of all, I cleaned out the eleventy-billion* paper grocery bags that were taking over the under-counter space to the point that the trash can was living in the middle of the room (ick)! I know a lot of them are going to get used for the garage sale (yay!) but I'm also awaiting delivery of a second recycling bin that is ONLY going to be for storing grocery bags...and they are all going to stay in the garage. Woo hoo for organizational baby steps!!

*really. I counted.


Josh's Big Boy Bed

...is in!

I couldn't find my post about how I eventually snagged the pirates bedspread, so if this is repetition I'm sorry, but I snagged it on clearance from Sears.com for...wait for it...ELEVEN DOLLARS. (Yep, I definitely remember typing that before. Weird.) Anyway, it's absolutely precious and I'm so glad I went for the full instead of the twin size. Josh is going to flip when he gets home this afternoon and sees it!

Back on my feet?

Had my final check up with the orthopedic surgeon this morning! The breaks are fully healed, now it's just a matter of waiting for the tendons and whatnot to recover from being wrecked. Doc says the best therapy I can do is just walking on it every day - which is harder than it sounds. It's really easy to drift into a limp that doesn't actually use the ankle. It actually feels pretty good - like I'm recovering from a really bad sprain at this point.

My ankle is still pretty deformed, which is making shoes a bit of a challenge. I have one pair of very soft and flexible Sketchers tennies, but the sole on those is so narrow that it doesn't give proper arch support and I find them REALLY hard to walk in. Plus, I occasionally wear an ace bandage or a brace if I know I'm going to be on my feet a lot, and NONE of my shoes will fit over that. Walmart, here I come.

I still don't know how long it will be until I can start riding again. I'm trying to tell myself I'm not even going to THINK about it until September. 8 weeks in a cast seems like it should require at least 8 weeks of rehab, right?

A brief observation on vanity

I got my cast off this past Monday! After a couple thorough tub soakings, I've exfoliated pretty much all of the built-up skin (ew) and am no longer ashamed to go out in public in legwear that exposes my shins. A handful of people have even asked to see my surgery scars, and that got me thinking...

How many women do you know - are you one of them? - who are walking around in shorts, tank tops, flip flops, with ankle, knee, elbow, shoulder surgery scars for all the world to see? Who are almost proud to show them off, and tell the story of how they got them?

And yet, how many of those same women, even ones who are in good shape, would never be caught dead in a bikini because it would expose their pregnancy stretch marks? Are you one of them?

Taking back my garage

A couple years ago, Levi and I rearranged much of our house, and a lot - a LOT - of stuff ended up in the garage. I always swore I would never be one of those people who have too much stuff in their garage to park the cars, but guess what...yup. For two years.

*Not my garage. Ours is twice as big, and probably definitely worse.

So anyway, in preparation for moving out of our house at some point in the nearish future, we decided to have a garage sale. And to have a garage sale, you need a garage. We've set the dates - July 23-24, mark your calendars! - and now we need to start busting our butts to sort through everything, decide what stays, what sells, and what gets thrown out immediately.

The original plan was to spend ALL day on Wednesdays sorting junk, as in theory we've arranged it so we both have Wednesdays off in July. Unfortunately, things rarely go according to plan - our very first Wednesday, I ended up having to work most of the morning, and when I got home, Levi was down with a migraine. We finally got started around 2:30, and put in a couple hours work before we had to pick up Josh from daycare. Here's what actually got accomplished:

• I thinned my book collection by about 1/3 (this was not technically a garage project, but it was something to work on while Levi wasn't feeling well, since I'm still on crutches for another couple weeks)
• Levi dragged in, and I sorted, three good-sized boxes of miscellaneous...stuff. I think one entire box was full of old McDonalds Happy Meal toys. I chucked them all in the Toy bin for the sale, and will probably either label them 10/$1 or free. :)
• Brianna made a good start on cleaning her room. I told her anything she donated to the sale, she could have (most of) the money for. She cleared out three shelves of her bookcase and came up with a stack of untouched activity books, several outgrown computer games, and a bag of too-small clothes.
• Oh! Also not garage related, but I cleared out an entire glassware cabinet in our kitchen. Out of that cabinet we kept 14 coffee mugs (2 sets of 6 and two individual mugs with sentimental value), three measuring cups, one small baking dish, and a dozen cool plastic drinking cups. We moved out at least a dozen random coffee mugs, half a dozen insulated travel mugs, and TWENTY SIX MORE of the cool plastic drinking cups. Cause, they're cool and all, but do we really need thirty eight of them? I don't think so. That cabinet is BARE now. I love it. ;o)
  

So that's it, so far. We've got three more full Wednesdays (plus the entire week before the sale) to work on this project and a LOT of garage left to tackle. Wish us luck!

*P.S. I'll try and take some before and afters for a future post. :)

My war on perfectionism

I am a perfectionist.

I will start a project, and then tweak, and tweak, and tweak.

And more often than I care to admit, by the time I'm done tweaking, the optimal time for presenting said project to the world has passed, and all that effort comes to nothing.

This career counseling/job searching/resume building process is a prime example. Levi has said right out loud that he's concerned that I will get so bogged down in creating the perfect resume, etc., that I'll never get around to actually sending any out. And he's right -that is a potential pitfall for me. Instead of settling for a "good enough" summary section on my resume and banging out a "good enough" cover letter,and getting the damn resume sent off for this job I'm "so" excited about, I spent most of last night - until the wee hours - tweaking. Trying different fonts and spacings. Revising a word here or there. Googling cover letter samples, looking for the "perfect" template for my "perfect" cover letter. I found this job posting almost a week ago, and it's been active for 12 days. Mine is going to be just one in a sea of resumes, if they haven't already closed it to new submissions. I need to stop picking at it and - like Nike says - just do it.

Could it be better? Could my summary statement be stronger, my cover letter more compelling?

(oh God, I'm sorry for the alliteration. It was an accident.)

Of course it could. But I'll never forgive myself if I miss out on this opportunity because I was unable to settle for good enough.

Now, you'll have to excuse me, I have a cover letter to plagiarize write.

Brain Dead, a.k.a. job search update

Tuesday I had a meeting with Cindy; we spent the entire hour turning the list of my job responsibilities for the past 10 years into "resume speak." I was feeling pretty good about the changes, and thought I only had a few little bits left to finish up - the summary and technical skills sections, mainly.

That same afternoon, I was browsing the job postings on LinkedIn and found one that I was really interested in (and it's local, in case you're wondering). So instead of kicking back and waiting for next week's meeting with Cindy to put on the finishing touches, I've spent pretty much every spare minute of the last three days picking apart the job listing and inserting as many of the keywords as possible into the resume bullets I had already written (luckily for me, the listing was quite comprehensive).

If I had thought my resume was looking sharp before, it's freaking amazing now.

I was hoping to get that all done and a cover letter written in time to submit before the end of business on Friday, but alas, I didn't quite pull it off. So instead, I took advantage of the weekend to dive into a project that's been in the back of my mind, a little something I think of as "the whole package": I decided to whip up a basic "resume website" (www.fionapayne.info) and set up separate Facebook and Twitter accounts to associate with it. Oh, and I updated my LinkedIn profile with my new and improved resume info, of course.

I'm very pleased that everything is coming together as quickly as it has, and now all that I have left (on MY list, that is - I still have Cindy's "job search action plan" ahead of me) is to get Cindy to sign off on my resume, and to write my cover letter. I sent my new website live earlier this afternoon, and decided to completely put this process out of my mind for a couple hours (serendipitously, Levi's mom offered to take me and the kids to see Toy Story 3. For the record: it's awesome).

Tonight or tomorrow I HAVE TO compose my cover letter, as my goal is to have my resume waiting in that HR inbox first thing Monday morning.

Job searching is hard work.

Crossroads

So, today at my career counseling meeting, Cindy and I put a huge dent in the overhaul of my resume from generic blah administrative all-over-the-map-ness to laser-focused marketing guru-ness. There is still a bit of polishing to do, but the foundation is there, and I'm actually eager to start sending it out (who'd've thunk it?).

And therein lies the next challenge...Levi and I have to decide whether I should keep my job search local, or if we want to take the plunge and relocate out of Minnesota.

It's an idea we've been kicking around off and on for a while - we're both really, really tired of winter. California sounds lovely, even if the COL difference is intimidating. Neither of us have ever lived outside the state except for college, and how many people really take the chance to start over in a new place once they've got families, mortgages, etc.?

On the one hand, the timing couldn't be better for us...I'm actively looking for a new job, Levi also wants to explore other options and - well - we're going to have to move out of our house before the end of the year anyway (both of our families know that we're allowing our house to go into foreclosure, so I feel like I can finally talk about it "in public"). If we're going to have to move, why not go big, right?

On the other hand, we have to move out of our house in 6 months. Which means we need to start figuring out ASAP where we're going to live instead. Can I really squeeze a nationwide hunt for the perfect job, and a cross-country family relocation, into that time frame? Never having done it before, I just don't know.

Also in the back of my mind is the what-to-do about the horses. I'm extremely blessed that horseback riding has been a nearly expense-free hobby for all of my life, thanks to the fact that my parents are in the business. But if we moved out of state, either we'd have to increase our household income by an insane (and probably unrealistic) percentage in order to start paying all the bills for two horses - after all, I couldn't keep Twinks but tell Brianna that Merle has to go! - or we'd have to make arrangements for the horses to stay at home for an indefinite period of time, which, in addition to being its own kind of challenge, also makes me sad. (Selling them is not an option I'm willing to consider, but fortunately I don't think I would have to. I've told my mom that when her farm sells and my horses are finally homeless, I don't want a cash payout, I need a horse-maintenance trust fund - ha!)

Decisions, decisions...

Shame on me

Two months...TWO months...without an update?

There's just no excuse for that.

Here's some stuff that has happened in the past two months:

1. My new halfchaps fit like a glove.

2. The second time I wore them, my horse bucked me off before I was even properly on, and I broke my ankle in three places, not to mention had a nasty dislocation.


So yeah, I've been sitting on my butt 16 hours a day (and sleeping the other 8) for the past seven weeks. And haven't blogged a single letter in all that time. Shame on me. So what, you may ask yourself, have I been doing to fill that time instead?


Decorating my cast, of course. (more pics of my x-rays and my cast-turned-art-project can be seen here).

In truth, that's not ALL I've been doing; I also go to work once in a while. And shortly before I cracked my ankle into a million pieces, I made contact with a career counselor named Cindy (our first face to face meeting was a week after the accident!) and we've spent the past two months identifying a new career path for me and building a new and improved resume. I wish I had been blogging about this along the way, too, because it's been a really interesting process. But the homework has been intense! In fact, I should probably wrap this up and get back to it, since I have a meeting with Cindy in the morning...

Leather Leg Warmers, Take 2

(helllooooo? Anybody still out there? Sorry I've been neglectful. I'll try to do better.)

ANYWAY...you may recall that a few months back, I was crazy-excited about my new half chaps, although I was going to have to exchange them for a different size. After THREE months of back-and-forth with the retailer, I still did not have my replacement chaps, so yesterday I said screw it and demanded my money back. And today, I ordered NEW half chaps from a large, well-known equestrian company, and according to my confirmation, they should ship today and be here next week!

(Mine are smooth leather, not suede, but I didn't like the picture of the leather ones. Even though it'd probably be a more accurate representation of my elephant-like calves.)

You may be wondering why I went with the fly-by-night, nobody's ever heard of them company in the first place, and the answer is simple: Big Name Retailer didn't carry these chaps 4 months ago. Can't wait for them to get here!

You like me! You really like me!

Bwahahahahaha! My friend Heather @ 365 Days of Awesome passed on this award to me:

Do I deserve an award for my awesome blog? Probably not. ;o) My blogging is sporadic at best and probably boring as hell, but thanks anyway!! The award comes with an assignment: share 10 things about yourself. So here goes...

1. I'm the oldest of three kids; my brother and sister are twins.

2. I have an entrepreneurial streak a mile wide. I come by it naturally - my mom and her dad both started and ran successful businesses for many years. So far I've been a Mary Kay consultant (5 years) and a real estate agent (4 years), and I have yet to come to terms with the fact that I'm probably not cut out for self-employment - I'll be launching home business #3 in a little bit, and I also dabble in freelance graphic design.

3. I used to be thin. Proof:


That's from my grad party in 1998. I still have the dress in my closet...I might even try and wear it again someday.

4. I'm addicted to the written word. Books, magazines, the internet. Fiction, nonfiction. I admit I love romance novels and mass market trash way more than I enjoy "the classics."

5. My favorite movies are Demolition Man, Legally Blonde, Miss Congeniality, Empire Records and 50 First Dates.

6. I love to draw and doodle, although I'm far from what I consider an artist. (If you'd grown up with my brother, who IS an artist, you'd understand why.) I'm pretty good at drawing what I see, but not so much with stuff I visualize in my head, and the finer points of shading and the like continue to elude me.

7. I'm horribly shy in social situations - this probably contributes a lot to my struggle with #2 on this list, since it's really hard to be successful if you hate promoting yourself. I have no problem with speaking in front of a crowd, though.

8. uhhhh....I'm 5' 2" but petite-length pants are always a hair too short on me.

9. I won the district spelling bee in 8th grade. (In 7th grade I got eliminated on "discussion," in 6th grade, "fiery" and in 5th grade, "pigeon.")

10. I've had three horses in my life: Allspice, from when I was 8 til about 14, Frolic, 14-24, And Twinks, 25-present.

WHEW!! That was harder than I expected. I'm passing this gem onto Jill at My Corner of the World.

My Vision

...I envision a home that is warm and inviting.

...I envision a home where everything within it has a purpose.

...I envision a home where everything has a place.

...I envision a kitchen that is stocked with healthy staple ingredients.

...I envision a space all my own - my computer, my books, my papers. With a door, so that if it gets messy, no one else has to look at it. ;)

...I envision a job that is enjoyable and fulfilling (most of the time, anyway).

...I envision a daily routine that balances leisure and responsibility.

...I envision living by a budget that balances leisure and responsibility.

...I envision feeling financially secure.

Gonna Party Like it's Your Birthday...

Happy Birthday To ME!!

This past Thursday was my (gasp) THIRTIETH birthday, and I've been celebrating all weekend. I had asked for Thursday off from work, and since Levi was also off due to an injury (more on that later - can't believe I forgot to blog about it!), he took me out to breakfast at Perkins after the kids were all delivered to their respective destinations. Granny's Country Omelet (no celery), hash browns and two slices of french toast, plus a free birthday muffin (to go, of course). Talk about deeeeee-lish. Then Levi laid down for a post-breakfast nap and I headed out on my "secret mission." I had decided a few weeks back that I wanted to do something totally unexpected to commemorate the big 3-0, but I had told Levi only that I was taking part of my birthday day ALL to myself. Anyway, after a stop at my favorite salon to have my bangs trimmed and my eyebrows waxed - boy, they were due! - I drove downtown and...

...got my nose pierced! Thank you, Nick at Saint Sabrina's, for a great and (almost) painless experience. You can't see in this picture because of the flash, but the stone is actually purple, in honor of my amethyst birthstone.

(Good God, that's an awful picture. Note to self: put on some makeup and retake at next possible opportunity.)

I got back from my piercing adventure just as Levi was getting up, and his reaction was priceless.

Him: Hey, did you have a nice time?
Me: Yup. (diabolical smirk)
Him: So what did you do?
Me: (mocking eyebrow raise)
Him: (eyes bug out of head)
Me: (laughing maniacally)

So far, all the reactions I've gotten have been positive - not that I care if you think it's stupid, because *I* think it's awesome, so there - but the most entertaining thing is that my own mom either hasn't noticed or is studiously pretending she doesn't (I'm leaning more toward the first, since I didn't catch even the slightest reaction when I saw her the next day, and after all, one dainty little nose stud is small potatoes compared to my sister's pierced tongue and lower back tattoo).

ANYWAY...after the kids got home, we all went out for haircuts and birthday dinner at TGI Fridays. Friday was boring, then Saturday we went to lunch at Levi's mom's house and then...THEN...leaving the kids behind at MIL's house, Levi and I scooted off on a long-awaited overnight getaway at a local hotel!

We checked in, then went out on the town, ate, drank, made merry, stayed up late, slept in... (ahem) "snuggled"...then after checking out, we had breakfast at Perkins (yes, again - full plate of french toast this time), wandered around Mall of America for a couple hours since we haven't been in AGES, discovered THE coolest new store/experience called MagiQuest - yup, I'm a geek, and gee I wish I had discovered this earlier so I could have drug all our friends there for my b'day! - and then caught Avatar in 3D before heading back home to rescue MIL from the kids.

All in all, a most satisfactory way to celebrate turning (gasp!) thirty!

Bits & pieces

...Twinks and I worked on ground poles this afternoon. (That's not me or him, but I figured at least some of you might be wondering what the heck "working on ground poles" means.) This is a big deal, because my big baby thinks anything left on the ground is probably going to jump up and bite him if he goes near it. It took us a couple minutes to get over the first one, then once we had walked and trotted over it both directions (because clearly, it's a completely different object from the other side, and this one might be a biter...), we had Britt throw down a second and then a third, which, amazingly, he took totally in stride (ha ha). This is excellent news, because trotting ground poles is an excellent strength builder, and also, it's embarrassing to have a horse that's scared of them.

...A couple weekends ago, our friends Ben and Mel invited us to see Romeo & Juliet at the Guthrie theater (that's it, over there). Never having been, we said "sure!" The Guthrie itself was kinda cool, and I'm going to try and remember to blog more about our visit another time. The performance itself, on the other hand, was only so-so, with the second half being better than the first. But for reasons I can't explain, instead of the traditional 16th (17th?)-century setting, or even a modern-day take a la Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (love that movie, BTW), this enactment was..wait for it...Shakespeare-meets-Charles Dickens. Maybe if we had stuck around for the post-play discussion group(?), they would've elaborated on this decision, but since we didn't, I get to assume that they simply hadn't gotten around to putting away the A Christmas Carol costumes yet.

...The great soap experiment continues. I've been using my Citrus Chunk on my bod exclusively for about three weeks with excellent results. My skin remains soft, smooth and relatively non-scaly. Some days I slap on some lotion after, but most of the time I don't. I've even been using it on my face, probably 90% of the time (the other 10% being when I forget until I'm out of the shower because I'm still used to washing my face over the sink). I definitely do still need a moisturizer for my face, though. I've even tried it on my hair a couple times, and I love the texture and body I get when it works, but it seems kind of hit-or-miss (I suspect the "miss"es are that I'm just not getting enough lather). I hear Jill is working on a new shampoo bar, which I'm thinking about trying. Or maybe I'll just stick with my tried-and-true, if overpriced, Aveda. ;o)

...Now, I really must sign off and go do some laundry. And run the dishwasher. And take a shower.

Thirty

My birthday is next week...I'm turning 30! Still not quite sure how this happened, since most days I feel about 24. Anyway, the big day is almost here, and I can comfortably say I'm looking forward to it. In fact, I kind of feel like I want to commemorate it in some way...doing something that is just for me. I've considered...

• getting a tattoo...I plan to do it eventually, and I love something like this:

(only not quite so minimalist, and with a little color)...

• getting something pierced - my nose, eyebrow, ear cartilage - NOT anything kinky, so don't go there...

• something with my hair...but except for dying my whole head a crayola color or shaving myself bald, I've done most everything else you can do. I've been short, long, red and blonde highlights, purple highlights...

(boo, I don't have a digital pic of my really long hair! Maybe I'll have time to scan it in today.)

I do have this box of pink dye that I've thought of using on my whole head, over my natural color (instead of bleaching first as recommended) just to see what would happen. Hmmmm...

These are ridiculously good!

We are heading over to my grandparents' house to watch the Super Bowl in a few minutes (well...as soon as Josh gets up from his really late nap!) and this is what I'm bringing:


I don't know what you'd call 'em...Crazy Delicious Strange Recipe Meatballs?

2 lbs frozen meatballs
14 oz. can sauerkraut, drained well
12 oz. bottle chili sauce
14 oz. can whole berry cranberry sauce
12 oz. water

You can either heat everything but the meatballs over medium heat until the cranberry sauce is liquified, then add the meatballs and heat through, if you're going to be serving them immediately...or you can dump everything in a crock pot on high for about 90 minutes, stirring occasionally.

So. Ridiculously. Good. I probly should've doubled the recipe, cause I could eat this entire batch myself.

Blogger's Block

Hey, sorry I haven't updated in a while! I've been stuck with a raging case of writer's block...either I can't think of anything worth blogging about or everything I put down on paper SUCKS. Oh, plus Levi hurt his back a couple weeks ago, so I've been called upon to cover some of his work on the days when he really felt like crap, as well as my regular duties, so there's been a couple 10-hour days in there, too. Hey, there's a blog topic for a future date--the perks and pitfalls of you and your husband working for the same small company, which is also the family business.

lets..doooo..the time warp...agaaaaaain!!

Thanks to my friend Paige, one of my favorite new(ish) workout ideas is...

hula hooping.

Yes, really! After listening to Paige rave - and seeing the videos she posted on Facebook - for an entire summer, I broke down and bought a hoop of my own last October. Now, it's important to note that this isn't a $5 kid's hoop from Toys R Us - this is a handmade, oversized and weighted hoop designed especially for use as a workout tool. (It's also pretty! She uses shiny "mirror" tape in addition to grippy tape to make it fun as well as functional.)

It took me about a week of daily practice before I mastered just spinning the hoop around my waist for more than a couple revolutions. I had the most amazing sets of bruises...all around my knees and calves from dropping the hoop. Once I got that down, though, I pretty quickly mastered "stalling" the hoop - stopping it in mid-spin with my hands - and sending it back the other direction. Wheeeee!

Hoop practice kind of took a backseat over the holidays, but earlier this week I picked it back up again - thankfully I turned out to be not too rusty! I also figured out another trick - how to lift the hoop in mid-spin from around my waist to over my head!! It took me several more tries to figure out how to keep the hoop spinning around my hand, up in the air - the first several attempts I either hooked the hoop with my thumb (nearly dislocating it in the process) or sent the hoop flying through the air across the room (OOPS!). Thank goodness for youtube - there are dozens of hooping tutorials (my favorite are Caroleeena's) and I was able to figure out what I was doing wrong without seriously injuring myself...or my house.

Anyway. I'll leave you with a few of my favorite hooping videos. The first you may have seen before - it was making the rounds in mid-2008 or so, and I love the energy (and the song!). The second is the video that inspired my friend Paige to start hooping - this girl makes it look so easy. I'd love to be that effortless someday! (It also has a kick-ass soundtrack.) Last but not least is a video from a Cirque de Soleil performance that simply blows. me. away. Obviously I never will be that girl, but I can watch this video over and over again.







If you're wondering when you'll see a video of ME demonstrating my mad hoop skillz...you might be in for a long wait. Maybe if I ever learn how to move my feet and spin the hoop at the same time...

Addendum: Paige dropped off a new hoop for me to try this afternoon (it's hot pink and black and silver!!). The diameter is maybe 3 inches smaller than my old hoop, but holy hell - it's like starting over from scratch. So far I can't keep it up more than 4-5 revolutions. It's okay - I'm up for the challenge!

Calm vs. chaos

Although you wouldn't guess it by looking around my house, I consider myself to have an organized soul. I crave order and organization. I'm anal about details like all my clothes facing the same way in the closet or how my dirty dishes are stacked on the counter. Typos or grammatical errors in books jump right off the page and smack me between the eyes. I thrive on structure - once I find a system that works, I stick to it like glue. I load the dishwasher in the same order all the time, I follow specific steps when I pay a bill, I even write out my checks in the same way every time. I think I mentioned the other day that haphazard messes totally stress me out - I would rather fold laundry for an hour (every towel the exact same way, of course) than spend 10 minutes picking up the living room. Let's not even get into how many times I edit my blog posts or how I obsess over my color scheme.

I'm not sure why this is, except that I know my mind is always going a hundred miles an hour - my brain is multitasking even when my hands aren't. Systems help me make sure nothing important gets missed.

Of course, there are areas of my life that don't have really good systems yet, and as you might imagine they drive me more than a little crazy. Example: the other day I posted a picture of my shiny clean kitchen, which I was super proud of. What I didn't show you was this....


(Seriously, I cringe just looking at this picture. I must do an amazing job of mentally blocking it out day after day. ) This space is basically a catch-all for stuff that belongs in the kitchen (and quite a bit of stuff that doesn't) but doesn't have a proper "home." Tupperware strewn everywhere, eight bazillion paper grocery bags (we use them for recycling, but have way too many), a jug of bubbles, a horse show award from 2007, and God knows what else. As you can see, even the window ledge is cluttered with "stuff." This space drives me crazy. If we were in a position to do any home improvements, one of my top priorities would be ripping out this counter and filling that space with floor-to-ceiling cabinets. That's not gonna happen any time soon, so instead I restack the tupperware more or less weekly, rearrange the pen cups (how hard is it to remember that whiteboard markers go in this cup and regular pens in that cup?!), and throw stuff away when no one is looking (those bubbles are next!).

One of the reasons I like going to work everyday (well, most days) is that my office is 180 degrees from that counter space:


(Ahhhhh. Pretty, isn't it? I can literally feel my blood pressure going back down. ) Everything has a specific home, right down to the white-out tape and the separate containers for big and little paperclips. Even though 90% of the time I'm in the office alone, my workday has a pretty consistent routine as well. My boss and I share a page-a-day calendar, and everything I need to get done on a given day, the boss writes on the calendar, and I check them off as I do them so she knows they got done. Mostly this is stuff like which bill(s) to pay on a given day, but it's also reminders to send e-mails or pick up the timesheets or call in payroll. If there's stuff that I need her to do before I get in the next morning, I write it on the calendar. I would love to have that level of organization in every part of my life.

...

Okay, that was an interesting tangent....back to home. Just recently Levi has offered to take over 100% of the money management in our house, and although giving up control is kind of hard for me, it's also a huge weight off my shoulders. We both knew I wasn't very good at it (more on that another time - maybe), and it was creating undue stress for both of us. One of the reasons I became in charge of dishes-and-laundry was because those were the tasks I agreed to take on in exchange for letting (making?) Levi take over the bookkeeping. And I'm pleased to realize that those responsibilities are becoming a more natural part of my routine, as well.

Uh....this post is getting stupid long, and I don't really know how to wrap it up. So tell me: do you need structure and organization in your life, or do you thrive on chaos? How do you deal?