on liquids

I'm sure you're all dyyyying to know if we survived our soda-free clean drinking challenge.  The mister and I decided to go TEN days drinking only coffee, water, milk, tea, and natural fruit juice.  if we had alcohol, it was supposed to be cider or red wine.

(I originally got the idea from this post, but I loosened up the rules a bit.)

Well, I'm happy to say we wrapped up our ten days on Sunday, and we survived.  Why is this such a big deal, you ask?  As I mentioned before, I've had a Diet Coke almost every day since I was 17.  Whoa. There have been short breaks when travelling or if I have had a crazy amount of coffee or when I feel like my insides are turning brown from all the soda, but other than that, not many exceptions.

For a couple of days in our "challenge," I definitely wanted to run to the store or the nearest McDonald's and get a giant Diet Coke. Not many things can satisfy that craving for bubbles, caffeine, and artificial sweetener. But, I survived.  I had to talk myself down, but I survived. Hurrah!

Unfortunately, we did not quite make the cider and red wine only goal.  Husband and I went to the soft open of a restaurant during the 10 days, and they asked us to try a cocktail or two to give the new bar staff some practice.  Oops!  Oh, well.  And there was a baseball game or two in there...

But I'm very proud of neither of us having soda or those "fruit" drinks.  (You know the ones I mean.  The ones you think might be awesome, but then you read the ingredients and the first two are water and high fructose corn syrup? Yeah, those.)

All things considered, I'm counting this one a victory! 

spring!

My little flower plant in my windowsill is blooming! I have one lovely spring flower to admire.

foundation blanket stitch

Last night, I started a new craft project! I love starting new projects. The problem is 50% of them are left unfinished for ... I'm not telling you how long they stay unfinished for. Drives everyone crazy.  It kind of drives me crazy, too, but I'm okay with it because I'm usually on to the next project.

 

This week? Pillowcase edging!

 

A couple of weeks ago, I found this series of tutorials.  Aren't they darling?  And the blog is so fun to read!

 

I immediately sent the links to my mother, exclaiming how cute they were and lamenting not having a sewing machine. However, I consoled myself by thinking maybe I could talk my sister into sewing a few over her summer break (not that she really has one) and letting me have them to put on the edging.

 

Lo and behold, last night, a surprise box arrived.  I hadn't asked her to do this, but my mother had sewed me a set of pillowcases! They're absolutely adorable.  Blue and green floral print on one side, and green argyle on the other.  So much fun!

 

I dug through my mini-stash (it's small, but only relatively speaking) to find yarn that was the right size.  In the tutorial (from the same series), she recommended regular yarn, but at the weight class one lighter than worsted weight.  After some research, turns out I had some!  I didn't have a blue or green that matched, but this yellow looks cute with it.  (It even got husband color-coordinating approval, after he recovered from the initial shock at the suggestion we should use these "not very manly" pillowcases.)

 

I followed the directions using the smallest darning needle in my set, and this is the result:

 

 

What do you think?

I like it so far. I will finish the edging this week. They're too cute to be left unfinished!

in pursuit of health

We have decided!  And it is a big decision!  Husband and I are going to go 10 days without soda and other less-than-ideal drinks.

Let's take a moment to let that sink in.

I, the Diet Coke Queen, who has had a diet coke almost every day since her senior year of high school, is going to give it up for ten days. TEN days.  TEN DAYS.

via

And, not only that, but when I have that craving for anything fizzy, it's not allowed. This is going to be...super exciting.

Drinks I'm allowing myself to have:
1. Coffee
2. Tea
3. Milk
4. Water
5. Actual, natural fruit juice

If I'm going to indulge in an adult beverage, it must be:
1. of the cider variety, or
2. of the red wine variety.

(The glaring exception here is at baseball games.  It would be just plain silly to sit in the bleachers of a baseball game with red wine. Hilarious, even.  Only allowed drinks at games are water and very limited beer.)

If my mother reads this, she might gasp that I'm posting something that mentions alcohol.  But, since I decided to share our mini-fast with you guys, I figured I would at least be honest with the few of you that actually read this.

Where did I get this crazy idea, you ask?

I've always been interested in food (mainly the eating of it), but in the last couple of years my interest has expanded to a little cooking and a little research on what food does to the body.  If I'm going to start changing some eating habits, I have to start somewhere, and I figured a baby step (cutting out my daily fix) would be a good place to start.

There are some people out there who jump into things with both feet, but I'm just not one of those people.  Seriously, even getting in the pool in the summer I have to ease myself in rather than cannonball or dive-bomb.

In light of that, I figured we would start with the easiest step: cutting out non-awesome liquids.

Our ten days starts TODAY.

I'm already craving a Diet Coke just looking at that picture.

Here goes nothing.

carrots!

Now, you will probably all think I'm silly because of this post, but I don't mind.  I wanted to try an experiment, so I did.  The mister found it difficult to hide his mild contempt at my eccentricity, but he did a splendid job, and I expect you all to appreciate my experiement, as well.

 

It all started when I found this post on Pinterest, which led me to this blog post.

 

Do you see why I was interested?

 

I'm sure many of you know that, at the moment, we live in a teensy studio apartment and space is limited.  My only room for a "garden" is on one particular windowsill in our little 2'x4' "kitchen." Exciting!

 

So, what's a girl to do when she wants to garden but doesn't have space?!  She does it anyway!

 

I followed the ideas/directions in the post, in my own way.  I  picked up a bottle of soda on sale, shared it with the hubby for a few days, chopped off the top with some scissors (yes), left the label on to protect the dirt from too  much sun, and planted carrots! Yes, carrots!

 

Here's what they looked like last week when I was feeling snap-happy with my camera:

 

 

Aren't they cute?! They've germinated and everything!

 

Since then, the little tops are bigger than ever and even have real leaves.  They're 68-day-cycle carrots, so I can't "harvest" for a while, but it's a fun little project/experiment.

 

I threatened to line the other windowsill with bottles of carrots, but that suggestion was vetoed. Guess bigger harvests of veggies will have to continue to wait until I have an actual garden.  C'est la vie. One bottle at a time.

 

Happy Monday!

joyful

"Why should we need extra time in which to enjoy ourselves? If we expect to enjoy our life, we will have to learn to be joyful in all of it, not just at stated intervals when we can get time or when we have nothing else to do."

-- Laura Ingalls Wilder

moment of motivation

Yes, I know you will all be shocked.  I had a moment of spring cleaning inspiration. Can you believe it?! (Don't laugh too loudly, please.)

 

 

Our bathroom is tiiiinyyy.   Perhaps one day I'll give you the full photo tour. Seriously, it would take two photos. It's miniscule. We've done our best to be creative with storage space in our little bathroom, and I think with this reorganization we're improving.

 

 

You'll notice in the "before" pictures that the wainscotting has become something of a makeshift storage when we don't have enough shelf space.

 

See?

 

 

 

So. I decided to condense.  The cabinet below had old prescription bags and lots of makeup samples and miscellany in it that I have collected in my three years there and Mr. Homemaker has collected in the last year or so.

 

I shoved as much as possible into the second cabinet, which resides over the sink.  I haven't quite sorted out what to do with the giant hair gel bottle in the corner there, but...I feel sure it will come to me. 

 

Look!

 

This meant that I could reorganize the sink cabinet to my heart's content!  I put in mason jars to hold commonly-needed things and put the taller bottles on the top shelf.  (see below) Isn't it nice? 

 

I found the shorter latch jar at the local flea market for a few dollars, the taller one was found by my mother, and the regular mason jar...I have tons of those for canning/general use.

 

 

 

I know it's not a huge improvement, but -- one thing at a time! With any luck, by the time we actually get everything organized and cleaned and decluttered, it'll be time to move to a bigger space!

 

Seems weird to show you guys my bathroom messes and give you a peek inside my shelves but... why not? It's an adventure.

 

Also. Check out all that sunscreen.  Guess you can tell I'm a redhead, huh?

where have i been?

Now, I realize there aren't many of you readers out there.  However, for the one or two of you who might -- just might! -- check this blog on occasion, perhaps you've been wondering where the heck I've been.

I have no excuses.  I should have written. I apologize.

But! Since I've been such a bad blogger recently, let me show you what I've been up to!

Three things I've been doing:

1.  Making pizza!  Santa (yes) brought us a pizza stone for Christmas, and we managed to actually put it to use! We made the most delicious pizza!

 (Shh. Don't tell the hubby I posted this picture. He was super excited about the pizza possibilities.)

2. Had a visit! Boston Friend came for a visit, and it happened to coincide with inauguration weekend. It was pretty...epic. We did lots of stuffs.  There's no way I can encapsulate the entire weekend here, but let me share a few pictures with you, since I'm in a picture mood:

Hubby and Boston Friend being awesome

Me and Boston Friend being...more awesome. 

We also took a nice picture, I promise. 

Look! You can almost see the President in that black limo/car there!

3.  Projects! You'll have to read more about these when I manage to get them posted. There are at least two that I've been up to that are post-worthy...and so many more on the horizon!

Happy Weekend!