Making memories

One of my fall resolutions is to make more memories with my daughter and husband. We "do stuff" all the time, but so many weekends go by that we don't do anything memorable. Don't get me wrong, sometimes that's really nice! We enjoy having some weekends to do absolutely nothing, those are sweet memories, too. But like I told my husband the other day, I don't want to look back one day and think "Dang, I wish we had done more with C..." We already wasted a lot of opportunities this summer to go to the beach. We went twice, I believe. And I cherish those memories, but I wish we could have gone more. (Growing up, I was at the beach pretty much every weekend with my family, and I have so many great memories from those trips.) I'm so thankful that I now have an awesome camera so that I can capture all these memories and look back on them. (I have a Nikon D5000 if you're interested - totally worth the money!!!)

This weekend, we made plenty of memories. As you'll see, most of them were just plain, every day, around-the-house type memories, nothing "special." But they are precious to me. ( :

Saturday was an absolutely gorgeous day here in North Carolina, and me and C took advantage of it by going outside for several hours. It was one of those days where you need long sleeves and pants because the shade was pretty chilly, but in the sunshine it was glorious. Absolutely perfect. My mama came over with my cousin and another young girl and we all had fun playing on the swing set and in the grass.

I love this kid so much ( :
and I love how her diaper kept stickin out of her pants!

She has started doing flips...which really freaks this mama out!!

hehe ( :

She was kinda sad when everyone left us!

Yesterday, we decided to go to a pumpkin patch. I wanted to go to the State Fair, but DH didn't feel like driving that far, so I got online and tried to find a pumpkin patch close by. They are hard to come by around here! I did find one near us, but of course it doesn't open on Sundays. So I found a place about 30 minutes away.  Its mainly a corn maze, but the website said there was a pumpkin patch and lots of things for kids (including toddlers) to do. C didn't wake up from her nap until after 4pm, but we decided to go anyway.

This place wasn't anything like we were expecting. We were pretty disappointed. The arm bands we bought to get in didn't include any of the fun things, and we didn't discover that until it was too late. We didn't do the big 12-acre corn maze (well, its not really corn, but whatever) because you had to pay more for it, but we did do an itty-bitty toddler maze. I think if you're in a big group of older children/adults and you do the big maze and maybe the "haunted" trail at night, that would be a lot of fun. Or if you pay and arm and a leg to be able to have access to everything there! Despite our disappointment, we were determined to make the most of the trip. I think C enjoyed herself, and that's all that really mattered.  We won't be going back to that place, though!

Oh, and there wasn't even a pumpkin patch! That was the biggest disappointment for me. We're off to Gatlinburg, TN, this weekend and I am determined to find a pumpkin patch there!!

me and C in the "corn" maze

I need to teach my husband how to use the zoom! haha

C always twists her tongue like that...gets it from me ( :

Last night, we went grocery shopping and bought a ton of junk food for our upcoming trip. Normally, I don't like to have a lot of junk food sitting around the house. I mean, if its there, we're gonna eat it, right? And no one needs to eat that mess all the time! But when we go on vacation, that "rule" goes out the window. We eat at good restaurants while we're vacationing, but we make sure to pack a lot of goodies for the drive. We like to snack!

Our only mistake last night was me and DH were already hungry when we got there. Never go to the grocery store hungry!! We bought way more than we should have. But its okay; we had fun.

We got ingredients to make a homemade pizza (with store bought dough), and DH let C help him assemble it. She jumped right in like she'd done it a thousand times before, even though it was her first time.

yes, we make pizza in our diapers...don't you?

That pizza was pretty darn good, by the way. And I'm tellin myself its healthier than gettin frozen pizzas or ordering from Domino's....though its probably not. ( :

All in all, the weekend was excellent. This week will be crazy since I have a zillion things to do to prepare for our mountain trip, but I'm so excited to go. I have to go buy a new memory card because I know I'll fill my current one up. I don't even know what activities we have planned, but just being in the mountains will be enough for me, so who cares!

My fall resolutions

What? People make New Years' Resolutions, why can't I make ones for fall? ( :

Actually, I never make resolutions in January because I found that I never kept them and was always disappointed in myself later in the year when I realized that I hadn't done anything I said I would do. But every once in a while, I make "mini-resolutions" to improve myself and my life. Those are infinately more easy for me to stick to. Maybe the pressure of starting a new year and new things to do is just too overwhelming to me. Who knows.

Earlier this year (in February, not January), I resolved to work on making the house more organized. Its not happening overnight, but I am making progress. My first project was to work on our bedroom closet. That was before I started this blog, so I don't have documentation. But I went through all the clothes in there (mine and DH's) and donated everything we don't wear regularly. (Maybe I shouldn't say "regularly" because there is still a ton of clothes in there, and there is no WAY we wear all that on a regular basis. But I do occasionally go through the clothes again and donate more.) I organized my shoes and all the shoe boxes that I hoard. (Its a sickness, I guess! But you never know when you'll need a shoe box...!) I organized our kitchen cabinets and pantry. I decluttered in our bedroom. I even got rid of our bulky kitchen table and bought a smaller one that better suits our space (not really an organization project, but it makes the kitchen/dining room look so much bigger and neater). Then I organized the medicine cabinet. I also resolved earlier this year to start cooking more. Before that, DH did practically all the cooking. But I decided it was my job, too, and I dove in to the world of cooking. I'm not great at it, but I try really hard! And I know my husband appreciates the effort, even if it doesn't always turn out so good. ( :

Maybe that's not such a long list considering I began this journey almost 9 months ago. But I am pleased with my progress and proud of myself for actually doing it. If you know me personally, you understand why these little things are such a big deal to me. I'm very much a "go with the flow" type of gal, and I don't get too worked up over things like an unorganized medicine cabinet. All these changes take huge efforts on my part. So I'm excited to see what else I tackle and change around the house.

I follow several blogs, and many of them are taking part in an October challenge in which they post every day this month and all the posts are related to a certain topic. I am thoroughly enjoying them all! I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with a daily blogging challenge at this point in my life, so I didn't even try to jump on that bandwagon, but my metaphorical hat goes off to you ladies who are keeping it up!

One of the blogs, Our Front Porch View, is doing 31 days to a more intentional life. I love that topic, but I can't imagine how hard it is for her to come up with a new topic daily! She has really opened my eyes to some things I need to work on in my life. I don't have it all sorted out in my head just yet, so I can't write about it, but I know the gist of what I want to see change in my life.

I want to make more memories with my daughter. I have a tendency to come up with ideas or buy craft supplies and then save them for "later" or a rainy day. And then "later" comes or we get a rainy day, and I don't do it. Like carving a pumpkin. She's old enough now to enjoy that, but I keep putting it off. Saturday we WILL carve a pumpkin together!!

Last night, DH and I took C down the road to our neighbor's farm to see his donkeys. We live on a farm, too, but we don't have donkeys. We can hear them all the time when we're playing in our yard, and C has been asking about them for a while now. DH and I always tell her "one day" we'll go see the donkeys. Well, yesterday after work, C and I were playing outside and she heard a donkey and asked where it was. I found DH and told him we needed to go see it, and we did. C loved it! That's the kind of thing I want to do more of. She's only going to be little once, and I don't want to regret not doing more with her.

Another thing I am resolving to do is find time to ride my horses more. Horses used to be my entire life, and I've lost that part of myself since becoming a mother. I know most women lose part of their former selves when they have a child, but I again, I don't want to look back with regret. Right now, I only ride every once in a while. Though when I get the chance to ride, I make the most of it and enjoy every minute. I never feel more at home than when I'm in the saddle (or bareback!)!. A while back, I decided to try getting up super early and riding some mornings before work. I did it one day and wasn't able to do it anymore. I want to try again. I'm not sure how it will work since the time is about to change, and I don't know what time it will be light enough to ride. But I'm hoping that it will work out. The time changes in just a few weeks, so I plan to start then. I think riding more often will make me feel so much better, and I'll be happier. And everyone knows a happier mama makes a happier home!

I'm also resolving to quit being a "lurker" in the blog world. All those blogs I follow, and I have never posted a comment on most of them! I don't have much of a following here (yet), so I know how it feels not to get comments. If I read a blog post and have a reaction to it, I am going to start commenting. It only takes a few seconds. I already started that one today. I commented on several posts. ( :

I also vow to spend more time with God. Reading His Word, I mean. I'm hoping to find an App for daily devotionals, since I know if its on my phone I'll be more inclined to read it. I downloaded an App last week, but I haven't been good about reading it because I don't care for the tone of the devotionals I read. So I'm taking suggestions for daily devotional apps!

There are several other things floating around in my mind, but this is all I'm really committing to for now. Baby steps, right? ( :

I cheated!

The exclamation point in the title of this post probably tells you that I'm not really beating myself up over my "cheating" incident. I was actually pretty pleased with myself! Sometimes, you just gotta take a short cut, you know??

I have been sick lately. Like really, really sick. The doctor in the Emergency Room last week said I had the stomach flu (DH took me there because I was severely dehydrated - that's how sick I was). I got 3 bags of fluids, some nausea medication, and some pain medication (dehydration makes you have intense stomach pain, if you didn't know - so intense that I told DH I'd rather be in labor again...yeah). It was a fun night. Its been over a week now, and I'm almost back to normal.

Luckily for me, my family really stepped up and were just basically awesome last week. My mother-in-law keeps C every day, and pretty much every day last week I called her to come pick up the baby. Which meant she also had to get her dressed for the day, pack her bag, etc. I was just too sick to take care of my own child, which was a hard pill for me to swallow! DH had to do things he doesn't normally have to do around the house, and he was a good nurse. My mother came a few nights and gave C her bath for me, which was a huge help, and then she stayed with me all day Friday because I was too weak to do ANYthing for myself. (She made me drink Ensure - yuck! But it helped me. I guess I needed the calories.) So what I'm trying to say is I am eternally grateful for my family! Its wonderful to know I have so many people I can count on when I'm in need.

Back to my cheating. I clean our bathrooms usually once every 2 weeks. I know some people clean their bathrooms much more often than that, but I struggle to get it done, so every 2 weeks is impressive to me! The bathrooms really don't get that dirty, anyway. My husband and I are both neat people and clean up after ourselves. And C is never in there unsupervised. Anyway, even though I clean the bathrooms regularly, I still have a mildew problem on my shower curtain. Gross, I know.

For a while, we did the shower spray stuff. You know, that chemical that you spray after you take a shower that is supposed to prevent mildew. It doesn't work. DH and I were diligent about it for months, and still mildew grew. Straight vinegar works wonders on the stuff growin on the walls of the shower (though it still grows back every other week - grr), I found. But I haven't had any luck with the mildew on the shower curtain, at the bottom.

It. Was. Nasty!

The week I got sick, I had planned on taking the curtain down and soaking it in bleach or something really strong to see if that took care of it. Of course as sick as I was, that didn't happen. I thought about just buying a new shower curtain, but DH would surely be less than happy with that idea. Plus, what a waste of money! Even though I'm feeling better this week, I have had so much to catch up on that I haven't had time to work on that curtain.

So, the other night I cut off the offensive bottom of the curtain!

I cut off about 2 inches of nastiness. Definitely cheating, but it looks so much better in the shower now. And I'm looking at it as a clean slate. Hopefully I'll find something that keeps the mildew away when I'm doing my regular cleaning.

What's funny is that DH hasn't even noticed. Or if he has, he hasn't bothered to mention it to me.

But I am vowing to myself to keep the dang thing clean and mildew free this time. I will NOT let it get to that point again. And I will NOT ever have to cut off 2 inches of a shower curtain again!

Don't judge me; aside from my previously nasty shower curtain, my house is actually pretty clean. Not as organized as it could be, perhaps, but definitely clean. ( :  And I can't be the only one who's ever cheated on housework like this, can I??

Medicine Cabinet Makeover

I promise I didn't forget about this project. I was sick last week, and though I was wanting to get this done last Wednesday when I bought the baskets, I was too exhausted that night to do it. I did complete it Friday, though! Actually, it only took about 15 minutes.

I said last week I intended to clean out and organize our medicine cabinet. We have a ton of medications and everything was just thrown in there haphazardly. I suspected we had some duplicates due to not being able to see exactly what we had, and I was right. Here's the before shots:

Its a pretty small space, but it was crammed full! Here's a closer shot of the bottom shelf, where the majority of the medication was:

Yikes.

I took everything out and organized it into groups. Pain relievers went in one pile, heartburn medication in another, etc. I threw out quite a bit of medicine, mostly old antibiotics. I discovered I have some really random stuff that I can't remember getting a prescription for, including Oxycontin and nerve pills. Woah! The nerve pills I think were prescribed to me during a severe allergy attack a few years back (when I have an allergy attack, its mainly my skin and nerves that are affected and I itch to the point where I feel like I'm going crazy - its awful), but the oxy? Who knows! That's some powerful stuff and I was surprised to see it in there, but it has my name on it. Just goes to show you that doctors will prescribe anything these days. I don't think I've ever been in enough pain to warrant oxy.

Moving on.... here are the after shots!

Close up of the bottom shelf

I wish I had another shelf in there, because there's a lot of wasted space now. I thought about buying closed containers to store the medication in, and that's probably the safest bet with a toddler in the house. But I knew my husband I would hate having to pull down a box and open it every morning. (We both take medication every morning - and every night for me - for heartburn/acid reflux.)

I thought about separating the medication into children and adult. That seemed like a waste, though, since I only have 3 medications for the baby: Children's Motrin, Tylenol, and Benadryl (all generic). The baskets are categorized by general type of medication they contain: Allergies, Heartburn/Acid Reflux, Pain, Vitamins (you can't see these in the pictures), Sickness (such as cold/flu medication and stomach issue drugs, also not seen in the pictures), random (the nerve pills and other medications reserved for my most severe allergy attacks), and Animal. I didn't realize how much animal medication we had until I organized everything.

I know the labels are not the prettiest in the world. I made them in about 5 minutes while C was running around saying, "what you doin, Mama?" over and over. I figured why waste a bunch of time making beautiful labels when there's a possibility we will absolutely hate this change and nix the idea completely. DH already hates that the pain medication is way at the top and you have to take down the whole basket to get anything out. But honestly, we don't take that much for pain so it doesn't need to be the most accessible.

So far, I am loving this simple change. Its not fancy like some other medicine cabinets I've seen, but that's okay. I'm more likely to keep something simple like this up. Every morning and night when I go to grab my reflux medicine, I don't have to search for it. And I can easily see how much more I have, and how much more Prilosec my husband has, since its all in one tidy basket now. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how my little project turned out! ( :

New Project!

One of my favorite blogs, Delightful Order, inspired me to take on a new project at home. Her latest post is a great one on how to start organizing in your home. In the post she mentions her medicine cabinet, and it reminded me that I've been wanting and needing to organize our medicine cabinet for a while now.

Our medicine cabinet is in the kitchen (where it should be, actually), right next to the sink - easy access to water when swallowing pills! We have enough medicine to supply a small pharmacy, I'm afraid. Seriously, if you're ever ailing, come to my house!

Anyway, currently, when you open the medicine cabinet, you must be prepared to catch a few bottles or loose packets of drugs that will inevitably tumble out. And forget about trying to see what's in the back of the cabinet. Who knows what kind of drugs are back there? I'll take a picture tonight so you can be sure I am not exaggerating.

Here's the post at Delightful Order that describes her medicine cabinet. I love the idea of using simple plastic baskets to hold everything, and then adding labels. So today I went to the Dollar Tree and found a few baskets that will hopefully work in our cabinet. I bought a few different sizes just to be sure. (Yes, I took the pictures in my car!)

Tonight I plan on taking all the medication out of the cabinet, sorting it, throwing out the expired stuff and the leftover antibiotics, and organizing it in my new baskets! I am ridiculously excited about this task. I'm sure DH will be thrilled, haha. He just loves it when I do "home improvement" projects, hehe. But he'll be okay. This is for the good of our household. The next time he asks me where on earth is the ibuprofen, it'll be super easy to find. ( :

Adventures in Potty Training

One of the many benefits of cloth diapering that I've heard from the beginning of my journey with cloth was that cloth-diapered babies tend to potty train faster. That certainly wasn't a deciding factor for me, but it was a nice little extra. Even though we wouldn't be continuously buying diapers for C, I knew it would be nice to have her out of diapers sooner. After diapering a child for 21 months, I can say that any time she's ready to ditch the diapers will be fine with me!

Not that its hard work, or even an inconvenience. Not really. Its just something I do. But it sure would be nice to stop doing it! Of course, once the diapers come off, we'll be rushing to the potty a zillion times a day (and at night, I'm sure). But C is starting to hate the changing table. Or anywhere that her diaper gets changed, actually. She used to love diaper changes, but these days she seems to think changing her diaper is the equivalent of getting vaccinations at the pediatrician's office. :/

C technically started potty training in May, when she was 17 months. That was the first time she peed in the potty. She's always came into the bathroom with me and watched me do my business. (Its easier to let her follow me rather than trying to rush while she's alone in another room! Plus I figured she'd learn by observing, and she did.) Earlier this year, I noticed that every time I put her in the tub she'd pee while the water was running. Then I'd have to drain the tub and fill it up - cause I'm not bathing my baby in pee water (even if pee is sterile)! So I got her a special potty seat (it goes on top of the regular seat, and the hole is smaller so she doesn't feel like she's falling in) with Sesame Street characters on it, and started sitting her up there every night while I started her bath. Eventually she figured out she was supposed to pee in there.

It went great for a while, then we hit a road block. So I invented the Pee Pee Song. From what I've heard, all mothers sing some variation of a pee pee song while potty training. But mine's more modern. Take that Luke Bryan song "Shake It For Me." Got that tune in your head? Now replace the lyrics of the chorus with this:

Pee pee, girl, pee pee for me, girl, pee pee for me, girl, pee pee for me!

Its a huge hit in our house. (haha) Most of the time I compliment the song with my awesome dance moves. Too bad I can't share those on the blog! Anyway, C gets a kick out of my performance, and that usually does the trick. Eventually, she started singing along with me.

We did the peeing-in-the-potty-only-before-baths thing for a while, then I realized that she could probably pee in the potty at other times, too. (I know, I'm brilliant. I mean, I do have a master's degree!) I told my mother-in-law about our progress at home with the potty, and she immediately jumped on board. She purchased C a bunch of training panties. Genius! I had been looking for weeks at my favorite cloth diaper store for cloth training pants. They are so expensive its ridiculous. And most of them are super thick like diapers. Which is great for accidents, but they seem to really absorb, which seems to defeat the purpose if you ask me. I purchased a few different ones, and ended up hating them. My mother-in-law went to good ol' WalMart and bought Gerber training pants. She knew I didn't want to go the Pull-Ups route (waaaaayy too expensive and we all know how I feel about disposable diapers!). These Gerber panties are basically underwear that are a little thicker than regular undies. They absorb just a little pee, enough to keep it from making a humongous mess. But not enough so that C can't feel it.

My MIL (mother-in-law) got lucky and was able to find some girlie prints at WalMart and K-Mart. Of course, when I went all I could find were boy prints or plain white ones - yawn. C wears a size 2T in the panties, and apparently they don't make much of that size. I guess because its uncommon for a child that size to potty train? Who knows.

Anyway, we had great success for a long while with the training pants. C slept in a diaper, I put a fresh diaper on her in the morning, and once she got to her grandma's she was in training pants all day except for naps (though she usually stayed dry during naps). Once I got home from work, I'd put training pants on her until bath time. Eventually, I got brave and started traveling with her in training pants. Only short drives, but still. She was very good about telling me when she had to use the potty, especially if we were somewhere other than home. I guess its more fun to a toddler to use other people's toilets? Yuck.

C had even started pooping in the potty! Not consistently, but she was getting the idea. During all this time, my MIL and I decided we weren't going to rush C at all. If she was 3 then we'd be pushing the potty thing, but since she's not even 2, we figure if it happens, great, if not, okay. Some days she doesn't like the potty at all. We just take it in stride. She does get rewards if she uses the potty. Usually a sticker, sometimes a treat. But I wouldn't say we bribe her. We don't say "you can't have this until you pee in the potty." But if we ask her if she wants to pee in the potty and she does, she gets a reward. (Not every time, though! Sometimes she just gets praise and a high-five.) C is very proud of herself when she uses the potty. She hasn't gotten the hang of wiping yet, but she tries. And she can't quite pull her pants up and down on her own, but she helps.

Well, lately, C's not really interested in the potty. Maybe its because she's teething, or because she's been sick, or because we're not pushing it. Who knows. I think my MIL still keeps her in panties some during the day, but I haven't asked lately. I still ask her to pee before her bath, but most days after work if I ask "do you want to pee in the potty?" and she says no, I drop it. And most of the time lately she says no. No big deal.

I didn't really expect her to be completely potty trained by the time she's 2, or anything like that. At first, I was confused as to why she seemed to be regressing in this area. But then I read that its completely normal. She'll get it straight, eventually. This time next year, if she's still in diapers most of the time, we'll have to start really working hard on it. But for now, we're just letting C set her own pace with this.

That's pretty much how I've done this whole mothering thing. I've listened to my baby from day 1, and I've gone with my instincts. So far, its worked for us. People told me to get her out of our room long before I did (she was 5 months when I moved her from the bassinet beside our bed to the crib in her room), people told me to get her used to a bottle long before I did, people told me to start her on solids long before she let me know she was ready (she tasted solids at 6 months but didn't eat them regularly until 9 months), people have been telling me to wean her already for almost a year now. And when people find out I still rock her to sleep every night and at every nap time, they say I should be able to lay her down and she put herself to sleep. Well, what C tells me is almost always the complete opposite of what everyone else says. She knows what she needs, I just have to listen to her and ignore everyone else. She's only gonna be a baby once in her life; why rush her to grow up? She will when the time is right. ( :

To Be Or Not To Be?

For 2 weeks now I've been debating whether to continue this blog or not. I've only just begun, I know, but really, who am I to give other people tips on living crunchy, or any other way for that matter? My life is far from perfect. I am far from perfect. Then I remembered that the authors of all those blogs I follow are not perfect, either.

None of us have it all together, not really.

People who blog are just sharing what works for them. They're not (well, most of them are not) trying to make you feel inferior. I'm certainly not. I am trying to lead a simpler and better life, and I'm making mistakes along the way. I think the journey is as important (or more important) than the final destination. I probably won't ever be the perfect mama or wife, or have the perfect house, but I'll do my best to be the best mama and wife I can be, and have a nice household. (And by nice I don't mean full of fancy, expensive things. I mean a functional house that is full of love.)

With Christ on my side, I can do all that, and more. As long as I remember not to shut Him out! That's hard for all of us, huh? Its so easy to get too big for your britches, as we say around here, and think you can do things by yourself. But you can't. Okay, okay, I'm not gonna do a sermon here. ( :

I won't promise to blog every day, I won't even promise to blog every week. The first week I didn't blog, I got kinda panicky and worried that I wouldn't have a successful blog if I didn't blog all the time. Well, I'm not doing this to be successful. I'm not trying to gain hordes of readers and make money (though that would be nice!). I just love the idea of sharing my little corner of the world. I enjoy the writing process. I'm not very good at it, but who cares? I won't take time away from my family to blog. I'd rather enjoy my life and the people in it. Really, if I didn't, what would I write about?

But if you are following, thanks. Hopefully I won't bore you to tears here. ( :

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering....when I took C to the doctor a few weeks ago, it turned out she had an infected mosquito bite! Who knew? After a few days of antibiotic ointment, she was fine. Though now we're extra cautious about mosquitoes. She's also sleeping much better at night, thank the Lord!! She still doesn't sleep the entire night in her crib, but she's been staying in there until 4 or 4:30, so I'll take it. ( :