Blinded

We've been in our house a little over a month now, and our windows have been bare for that entire time. No curtains, no blinds — nothing keeping me from feeling like someone is staring at me while I brush my teeth or like I'm a zoo exhibit for passersby on the street.

At first I was genuinely scared to be in the bathroom at night if Scott wasn't there, too, because obviously any rational adult would think a man's face would appear in the window — a window that is probably 10 feet off the ground from the outside. It caused me to cut my two-minute toothbrushing short on many occasions.

To remedy fears plus deal with the whole "showering without being the neighborhood flasher" problem, we put up this temporary blind we got at Lowe's. Not the prettiest, but it gets the job done ... and by job I mean it helps me brush my teeth at night.

To keep our guests happy and not feeling like they're sleeping in a glass box at the MOMA, we added some "custom window coverings" of our own devising.

Yep, brown packing paper is the new burlap. You're about to see it sweeping Pinterest.

As for the other windows, they remained uncovered, even the one on my side of the bed that angles east and serves as nature's alarm clock every morning. It makes me feel like a face-melting Nazi from "Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark" at about 5:45 a.m.

Now that we've gotten used to the openness, it's become rather nice. I get to see God's handiwork firsthand. I mean, the sun rises every day! That's amazing all by itself. With the thunderstorms we've had lately, I've gotten to go to bed and watch flashes of lightning streak across the sky and marvel again at the Lord's magnificent power. We've seen a momma and baby deer eating in our yard and enough birds darting about to feel like I'm a Disney princess going through her morning routine through the aid of woodland creatures.

Yesterday, we finally had blinds — proper blinds — installed in the bedrooms and master bathroom and closet (yeah, we've literally had nowhere to change without feeling like a self-conscious, middle school girl in gym class). I'm glad for the privacy in some places, but I'm also glad we decided not to cover every window so that we can enjoy the view we've grown to enjoy (and no longer feel like we're the view).

No more temporary blind! No more fear of my own reflection!

No more midnight terror when the paper comes untaped and crashes down from the window!

My greatest blinds joy, though, is the view from my bed. It's like a snooze button for nature's alarm clock. It did make it much more difficult to wake up this morning without the sun burning my corneas. 

Slowly, but surely, we're making progress!

Pudding remix

In the long history of my grandmother's banana pudding, there have been a couple of attempts to make changes and still get delicious results. One time, my dad tried making it with chocolate pudding to get a chocolate-covered-banana type result. It wasn't a huge success. 

Over the weekend, it was my turn to add a twist. In an attempt to fuse two delicious summer desserts (strawberry shortcake and banana pudding), I thought I'd add strawberries to the pudding instead of bananas. Afterward, I wondered why we hadn't done this sooner! It was delicious, if I do say so myself.

I followed this recipe, replacing the bananas with a large container of strawberries that I had sliced and sprinkled with sugar the night before, allowing them to macerate and create lots of strawberry juice. I drizzled the juice over each layer of wafers and strawberry slices so that they could soak up all the goodness and add to the shortcake taste. 

I highly suggest you try this before the summer's end!

H&M online

Is it sad that I audibly gasped when I read that H&M had opened online shopping to the U.S.? They offer some really cute items for not too much money. You would gasp, too! I've only been to an H&M once when I was in New York and was so happy when I heard my hometown of Nashville had recently gotten one, but there's something so satisfying about being able to browse online and not have to make a pilgrimage to a big city when you want to shop.

As a sign of where my head is at now, I first went to the baby clothing tab to see what they offered for the little guy. I love all of the cardigans and stripes for fall and the bright chinos, keeping Preston comfy and cool. The also had the cutest little mittens and hats for when it gets colder, plus suspenders (suspenders!), for a price that keeps you from feeling like you're flushing money down the toilet. I mean, he'll have grown out of them by tomorrow. (And leave me weeping as I the too-small clothes in the outgrown box. Every time.)

Striped sweater, striped tee, chambray shirt, cardigan, chinos, socks, and sneakers

Of course, I had to peek and see what I liked for me. I loved the jersey dress, which would look great with belt and necklace — my standard as it seems. I wear a dress/belt/necklace combo at least three days a week. The polka-dotted tee is a step up from a typical basic, and the hunter green dress would be a great transitional dress from summer to fall. The bright blue shoes and bracelets would be a fun touch to any outfit.

Jersey dress, polka-dotted tee, sleeveless dress, heels, and bracelets

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an online shopping cart to fill.

Iron chef: Baby edition

I decided early on that I wanted to make Preston's food versus buying it pre-prepared. Some of the pre-prepared offerings have weird ingredients and additives (and have you seen those weird Gerber meat sticks? Eww). Plus, it's cheaper to buy the stuff and make it myself versus buying 21 pouches or jars at $1-1.50 a piece. As a note, when we travel, I do get organic pouches (I like Ella's Kitchen or Peter Rabbit) because they are much easier than lugging a cooler of the kid's meals around. But in the day-to-day, he eats what I make.

I've been making baby food for Preston for a while now, and I feel like I've gotten into a good routine with it, so I thought I'd share my little process and a few helpful tips I've learned along the way.

I do most of my baby food making on the weekend, tackling two or three foods at a time. I tried making it all on one day, but that was too much to take on. Here's a run down of what he usually eats.

For breakfast:

Blueberries and pears

Peaches

Mangos

Apple

He gets one of these get mixed with his oatmeal, and he eats yogurt along with it.

For lunch and dinner:

Carrots and apples

Sweet potatoes and apples

Peas, spinach and pears

Green beans and apples

Butternut squash and apples 

He eats one of these combinations along with a mixed grain cereal or a pouch of a protein food, like chicken or lentils. (The kid's got texture issues that we're working through, and he much prefers the pouch blends to my blending chicken.) 

Pears, blueberries, sweet potatoes and green beans were on the list this weekend. I use my Beeba Baby Cook to steam most of the foods and to blend all of them. I take a mish-mashed approach, using some fresh foods and some frozen, some that get steamed, some that get baked, some that just go in as-is. 

For the pears, they get steamed in the Beeba. I usually steam the apples and carrots in the Beeba when preparing them, too. It took two batches to steam all of the pears, then I blended them, leaving half plain and half mixed with blueberries that I had defrosted. 

I baked the sweet potatoes in the oven, let them cool, then scraped out the insides and blended that. I use the same method with the squash when making that. 

I buy green beans, peas and spinach in steamer bags, so the green beans were cooked in the microwave before blending. Like I said, it's a mish-mash. 

When Preston was smaller, I pureed his foods to be very smooth to help him eat them. I've gradually let the blends get chunkier, though, to help him transition into foods with more texture and get him ready for finger foods. While his battle with finger foods is another post for another time, he has gotten better with the aforementioned texture issues, tolerating blueberry skins in his breakfast and actually eating chunky green beans. Like Scott and I say, it's a victory no matter how small.

Once blended, I fill up the Beeba freezer tray with the purees and put it in the freezer. Since I only have one, the remaining purees are put into other containers and into the fridge until it's their turn to be frozen (takes about a day to get it all in the freezer). I pop the frozen pods into labeled, gallon-sized Ziplocs to store them.

I like to freeze the fruits and vegetables separately and combine them when they're going to be eaten so I can vary the combos to change things up for Preston and so I can keep track of the size of each serving so I know that he's getting all the fruits and vegetables he needs for the day.

The Beeba also defrosts the frozen blends when meal time rolls around. I put one or two pods in a little bowl on the steaming rack, add water, and let it go. Once they've cooled, it's chow time!

Yum!

Arachnophobia

I hate spiders.

In fact, my extreme revulsion, anger and disgust toward spiders is so strong that I don't believe "hate" is a strong enough word. It's a hate that requires special typographical emphasis and color.

I !!!HATE!!!#^% spiders.

I blame this hatred and fear on my second grade teacher, Mrs. Locke, and the effective — albeit terrifying — lesson on spiders she taught back in 1993. I remember slides of black widows, the beady eyes of a brown recluse staring out a me from my textbook, and the creepy, crawly details of my classmates' presentations. It was the worst.

And while knowledge is supposedly power, for me, knowledge was terror. Learning that brown recluses love small spaces, like inside of shoes, made me seriously consider steering clear of footwear altogether. Basements and garages and their accompanying cobwebs were to be avoided at all costs.

So, when moving into our new house, I found myself face to tiny, creepy face with my biggest fears.

Scott and I have a buffet that stored movies in our old house and is now serving as a makeshift TV stand in the new house. (You can see part of it in my weekly pregnancy pictures.) At the old house, I always avoided its base because there were cobwebs all around it, despite my efforts to Swiffer them away. At one point, there was evidence that something had hatched under there, but we never saw any spider babies, so didn't think too much about it. When the piece was being moved from the old house to the new, I asked Scott to check underneath it to ensure that no spiders were inhabiting it and making the move with us.

The next day, Scott and I were moving it from the dining room into the living room of the new house, and I was putting felt pads on the bottom of the buffet when I decided it was a good time to clean underneath it. I asked Scott if he had checked it like I asked, and he said no. Scott pulled on the back, bearing the weight of the buffet against him at an angle to expose the under belly. There along the side were four spider egg sacks. And I have to say that my reaction is not one of my proudest moments.

I'm not a squealy girl — a fact I pride myself on. But when presented with those little, white, woven carriers of doom, I couldn't help myself. It was too much.

I begged Scott not to make me touch them, even if it was just with a Clorox wipe. I told him I'd hold the buffet up while he did it, but it was too heavy for me to manage. He kept coaching me on: "You can do it! C'mon! Just close your eyes and do it! Do it for your baby!" Meanwhile, the baby in question was cackling his mom's sounds of fright. He finds joy in the weirdest things.

After a great deal of encouragement, I finally plucked up the courage to wipe the sacks away. (Just the word "sacks" makes my skin crawl!) I may or may not have screeched "This is my nightmare!!" Thankfully, they were empty and didn't spring forth thousands of spider babies. I don't think we could've afforded the therapy I would need if that had happened. I still required a laboratory-grade decontamination shower afterward.

Needless to say, Scott owes me big time, and I'm working on a list of silks, cashmere, jewels, and spider sprays for him to repay me with.

Day one

We finally moved into our new house over the weekend. It was no small feat, moving a week sooner than we expected, but (BIG) thanks to the in-laws, we got everything accomplished.

Sunday was our first full day in the house, so I thought it would be fun to document what it looked like then. (Translation: Young House Love did it, and I wanted to, too.) The house is a new construction, so there's not a lot that needs fixing or updating, but I think it will be neat to look back and compare how we make it feel like home once we're settled in and everything is in it's place.

^^^From the outside^^^

^^^Kitchen, when entering from the garage^^^ 

^^^Kitchen, looking from the living room^^^

^^^One more of the kitchen^^^

 ^^^Living room^^^

 ^^^Dining room and front door from the living room^^^

 ^^^Master bedroom^^^

^^^Closet^^^

 ^^^Office^^^

 ^^^Guest room^^^

 ^^^Guest/Preston's bathroom^^^

^^^Preston's room^^^

^^^And one of Pres, who wanted to make sure he was moved, too.^^^

I failed to get a picture of the garage, which is where the true chaos was with the majority of the boxes and things that had yet to be placed in there. This week, we've slowly been bringing in boxes, emptying their contents, and taking the boxes back out to the garage. The house is finally starting to take shape, feeling more like home every day. I promise more (and better/cleaner) pictures once everything is in place.

Fourth of July wishing

This year, I'm really in the Fourth of July mood. I would love to have people over for a festive get-together with food on the grill, lawn games to play and maybe even finding a fireworks show nearby. However, since we're in the middle of The Great Move of 2013 (the "we're in the new house, but everything is still in boxes and, oh, have you seen the [fill in the blank] anywhere?" stage), a party is not in the cards. However, if it were, you can bet this is what I'd be doing ...

I love this linen T-shirt dress from Gap. Paired with these red Target sandals, it's patriotic without being too much, and both you could definitely wear all summer long without feeling like Uncle Sam.

The Fourth is really all about the food ... and independence. Burgers and hot dogs are pretty standard, but I think this grilled pork tenderloin looks yummy. Plus, you pretty much have to have corn on the cob. It's in the Constitution. And the lobster roll looks delicious (we substitute lobster for shrimp in my house, and it's still very tasty). And the berry dessert adds red, white and blue without being rage inducing and difficult like the 11-layer, red, white and blue ombre cake I found. 

I love summer days and how the sun doesn't set until 8:30. Lawn games are a great way to soak up that extra daylight — corn hole and bocce ball being two of my favorites — and cooling off with a sprint through the sprinkler is always a welcomed relief. Once the sun sets, bust out some sparklers!

How are you celebrating the Fourth? You're always invited to my house to unpack boxes!