So Close...

2.5 more weeks of office work, y'all.

And a flurry of projects on the horizon that are completely un-work-related.

We just got back from an incredible thanksgiving vacation in Texas, during which we consumed roughly 4 gallons of Blue Bell ice cream and Violet grew two teeth. Eventful!

Anyway, I'm beyond excited to enter this new season of life apart from Corporate America. And I plan to kick it off in the following ways:

1) Finishing the task of decorating the Genteman casa for Christmas. There are a bevy of Pinterest items clamoring for my attention.

2) Keeping my sweet friend's adorable 3 month old son one day a week while she works. Violet will have a bestie and once they're a bit older, I'll basically have twins for a day. :)

3) Functioning as the admin for Sidney Street Sales, my hubby's side hustle that is providing the funds for me to stay home with baby girl. And speaking of babies, I'm also SUPER excited to announce that 10% of all profits from our next sale on Saturday Dec. 8th will be going to benefit the domestic adoption of our dear friends Josh and Kim Jones!

(If you want to help bring even MORE babies home, buy this EP from Josh or one of these amazingly comfy t-shirts from our friends Dan and Natalie who are adopting twin boys from Africa!)

4) Visiting the newly and resplendently renovated St. Louis Central Public Library! This dreamy place has been closed since I moved to STL and I cannot WAIT to get in there! Violet (and her eventual siblings) will surely spend a sizable chunk of their childhoods within these walls. Can't wait!

5) And finally, I intend to finish work on the first piece of a venture I've been dreaming about and sitting on for years. That's right. Look for my first works of kids lit to come to fruition in 2013. :)

For now? Back to that grind.

Tis The Season... for Tiny Prints

Having a baby will take up ALL of the memory on your phone REAL quick.

I've gone from having maybe 200 photos on my camera over a span of 6 months, to over 1000 photos in less than 5 months. And the real question is-- what in the world am I going to do with all of those photos?!

Two Words: Christmas Cards!

And when you're talking Christmas cards, holiday cards, invitations or announcements of any kind, the first place you should be googling is Tiny Prints.

Normally, the beautiful selection of cards at Tiny Prints would be a bit outside our budget. Especially since our income is about to be slashed, Christmas cards were definitely a line item that was up on the chopping block.  But the wonderful folks at Tiny Prints are giving me the opportunity to tell you what a great experience I've had with their website and their product-- and in return, they're giving me credits to their website to order my cards again this year! (Which is such a blessing, since Violet's face is just begging to be printed in mass quantities and delivered to a long list of loved ones who live several hundred miles away.)

SO. Let's talk Christmas Cards, shall we? :)
First of all-- the designs that Tiny Prints has to offer are stellar. Check it:

I've only ever ordered their Christmas cards, but they have cards for a variety of occasions and events. And these are designs you'll be proud to share with your friends and loved ones. You won't find any cheesetastic clip art covered creations, nor will you be plagued with card after card printed in Papyrus or Comic Sans. Tiny Prints offers unique, top of the line products in a variety of styles with different options for accessories (labels, envelopes, etc.) and various weights of paper.

Secondly, the service is speedy. Not only will your cards arrive promptly (even in the midst of the wildness of the holidays), if any issues arise, their customer service department does a great job of answering any questions that may arise.

Finally-- the quality of these cards is phenomenal. I can't even tell you how many compliments we received last year. These people are pros and their work speaks for itself. The prices of their cards vary, but they have wonderful sales and discounts during the holidays. Check out their special offers page for great deals on party invites, birth announcements, holiday cards and more! You'll be glad you did.

Thanks for adding an early bit of merry to our Christmas season, tinyprints. :)

p.s. I also just got an email this morning that zulily.com is offering $30 worth of custom tinyprints cards for $15, plus free shipping! If you're not a member of zulily and would like to be, leave me a comment and I'll send you an invite.

Time Is Love

Since my last two posts have been about cookies, I thought maybe it was time for a post with a bit more depth. 

So, to get right to it...

“This song explains why I’m leaving home to become a stewardess.”

And this song explains why I’m leaving my perfectly good job in December to stay home with my baby.

I don’t even listen to country, y’all. But the one week I decided to, I heard this song and it just happened to coordinate perfectly with the time of life when I was figuring out how to tell my boss that I couldn’t come back to work full time. Ever. 

It came down to this: I like my job and I'm super grateful for it, but I don't like it enough to continue to do it while paying someone else an obscene amount of money to raise my daughter for me. Not when I don't HAVE to. As it is, even with lots of support from Todd and our friends and family, my brain has been on the verge of melting down for the past three weeks, trying to juggle being a Mrs. while doing ministry, mommyhood, marketing for an engineering firm. I mean, I fancy myself a better than average multi-tasker-- but lately, I just feel like I'm doing four things badly.

I know I'll probably never have the luxury of just doing one thing (I'm not sure I'd want to, actually), but I want to do the things I am doing well-- and it's been especially difficult-- if not impossible-- to do that lately.

So-- we're gonna try something new. :)

It's crazy how I've wanted to stay home for years, only to realize now that it's time, it's going to be totally different than I expected. It will be wonderful. It will be stressful. It will be new in every way-- and I'm so ready to give it a try. I'm also so grateful for my husband's support and enthusiasm regarding this decision/life change. It definitely shifts our financial stress to him and I am humbled and grateful that he's willing to shoulder the burden alone for awhile.

My last day of work is in December. Will I work outside the home again? Probably. Who knows? I have plans for my new lifestyle (which I won't be sharing until I actually follow through with some of them) but I'm not fussed about coming up with a timeline for how long this new way of life will last. We'll take it a day at a time.

Till then? Gotta run... :)

Peanut Butter Cookies

I’m stressed out, y’all.

October is always busy, and this one is no exception-- but these past few weeks have been straight madness. A to-do list that never ends. That pretty little chore list, a few posts down? I haven’t completed the full list in three weeks. (I’m still on the schedule though. I didn’t do laundry on Friday, but I did grocery shop yesterday and Todd and I have every intention of cleaning the bathrooms tonight!)

But, there are always bright spots, even in the most maddening of weeks. This week? Violet practicing her giggling is high on that list. And these are a close second.

There aren’t a whole lot of situations that a good peanut butter cookie won’t make better (unless you have a peanut allergy, of course L but hey, give this a go with sunflower seed butter or something! I mean, why not?)

Recipe and photo props to my favorite magazine ever.

Day Brightening Peanut Butter Cookies

Makes 32 cookies | Hands-On Time: 30m | Total Time: 45m
Ingredients

• 2  cups creamy peanut butter (not the all-natural variety)

• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

• 2  large eggs

• 2  teaspoons baking soda

• 2  teaspoons pure vanilla extract

• 1/2  teaspoon kosher salt
• 
  

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350° F.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat the peanut butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low and beat in the eggs, baking soda, vanilla, and salt.
3. Roll heaping tablespoonfuls of the dough into balls and place on parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing them 2 inches apart. With a lightly floured fork, press the dough to a ⅜-inch thickness, making a crisscross pattern on top of each cookie.
4. Bake, rotating the baking sheets halfway through, until the edges are set, 10 to 12 minutes. Cool slightly on the baking sheets, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.

Enjoy!

*Kickstart Your Labor Cookies

Yes, they do exist-- and they totally worked for me. :)

I got the recipe from a college friend (via Shoppingfortwo.com) when I was 39 weeks pregnant. She told me that she made them right around her due date and went into labor after nibbling them for a couple of days. I made them the night before my due date and ate them and went into labor the following evening! Not saying they're magical or anything-- but when you're pushing 40 weeks, it doesn't hurt to try. :) Anyway, I wanted to share the recipe here for anyone who's super prego and ready to pop! I was nervous to try them, but prego or not, they are really yummy. And really spicy! And apparently they work, so bake at your own risk. :) Here's the recipe:

2 1/2 c. flour

1 1/2 t. baking soda
3/4 t. cinnamon
1 t. ground ginger
1/2 t. ground cloves
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. cayenne pepper
8 T. butter
1/2 c. sugar
1 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. molasses
1/4 c. egg whites

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, baking soda and spices and set aside. Cream the butter and sugars together. Add the molasses to the creamed butter, then add the egg whites until combined. Addd the dry ingredients slowly. Once incorporated, roll dough into 1 inch balls and place onto baking tray. Bake 8-10 minutes. Once cool eat as many as you can possibly stomach, lay down for a nap and wait for labor to begin!

Visit the aforementioned website for more testimonials-- and good luck! :)

*They were actually called "Break Your Water Cookies", but my water never broke (they did it at the hospital), so I modified it. :)

Adventures In Domesticity: Chore List

The reason this blog is so dusty, is due largely to the presence of this little nugget:

Gosh, I love her. SO much. She's 3 months old today and oh, how she has monopolized my schedule. And thrown a huge wrench in my ability to be efficient.

I've never really been great at resting. (I come from a long line of women who struggle with it.) I can always think of something that needs to be done. I can't sit down on the couch if I know the laundry is slowly spreading itself through the house like a renegade ivy plant. It's hard for me to just crawl into bed when our dressers are stacked with stuff that doesn't belong and a basket of clean clothes is collecting dust and wrinkles at the foot of the bed. (Neglected laundry is especially bad because I'm averse to ironing. So on top of a messy room, I will also have a husband who looks like he slept in all his clothes for a week.)  And the kitchen? Ugh. Forget it. Our counter space is minimal, so if you don't clean up after one meal, it looks like hurricane aftermath in there.

For these reasons, I am often guilty of being found with a pile of laundry in the middle of our bed at 11:00PM. Or wiping down counters and mirrors in the bathroom when I should be brushing my teeth. Todd and I have argued about this more than once. But what do you do when the house is too overwhelming to clean in one day and there's ALWAYS something to be done?

Allow me to introduce, our new weekly chore list:

MONDAY- Grocery Shopping & Floors
With a small child in tow, going to the grocery store is no small task. So I've made it my only Monday responsibility and it's worked quite well the past three weeks. I usually hit two grocery stores-- sometimes it's Target and Trader Joe's, sometimes it's Schnucks and Aldi. Either way-- we knock this out on Monday and avoid the store for the rest of the week if at all possible.

Todd does the floors (sweeping and vacuuming, we have hardwood with a few rugs). I will if I must, but it's not my fave. We mop once a month. (The first week of the month.) Twice if we're feeling really zealous. That may increase when Violet starts crawling.

TUESDAY- Bathrooms
One upstairs, one downstairs. I've slacked at cleaning the tub lately, but between the two of us, they both get the attention they need, once a week.

WEDNESDAY- Wipe all surfaces and clear away superfluous items downstairs
Wednesday night is when we host Gospel Community (which means roughly 20 people in our house from 7-10:30PM) so we straighten the couch up, take all shoes and bags, etc. upstairs, wipe the dusty surfaces and clear/clean the dining table and stereo console. We also usually sweep again.

THURSDAY- Bedrooms
This means our room and the nursery. Everything that found its way up to the bedrooms on Wednesday before GC gets put away on Thursday. I also wipe down the surfaces in the bedroom and every two weeks, change the sheets.

FRIDAY- Laundry
All of it. All day. Washed, folded and put away. (That's the hard part.) But it MUST be done.

SATURDAY- Kitchen (deep clean)
This means pulling out the toaster oven and cleaning the top of the stove and moving everything on the counters and wiping under it. It also means taking stock of the fridge and freezer, throwing out anything that's been neglected (hopefully not much anymore, thanks to the meal planning) and making note of what needs to be bought on grocery day.

All week, we keep the kitchen in check together; Todd handles the trash and recycling and also helps with meal prep and dishwasher loading/unloading. I do the majority of the cooking and intermittent dishwashing.

SUNDAY- Rest
For real. I need practice, and since our Sundays are usually packed from 8-1, we need a day to chill.

*Since we've recently begun cloth diapering, I actually wash a load of diapers nearly every other day. But it's just one load, so not a huge deal. The kitchen, the trash/recycling and the diapers are three things that require daily maintenance-- there's no avoiding it.

This simple system has made a huge difference in our house and stress levels the past 3 weeks. No more arguments because of a laundry pile monopolizing our sleeping space. No more scrambling to vacuum before everyone arrives on Wednesday. And no more wearing myself out worrying about all the things that need to be done at any given time. Everything has its day-- rest included.

What schedules (big or small) have made your life easier?

Adventures in Domesticity: Meal Planning

Y'all. I meal planned this week-- and it was amazing! I am SO pleased with all the meals I made AND with how incredibly efficient our dinners were this week!

I just wanted to share in case anyone else has been thinking of trying this. I'm going to try and a make a habit of this, because 1) my daughter isn't getting any less mobile, so I need to maximize my efficiency at everything and 2) because it made my *grocery shopping day WAY less stressful. As in, I actually stayed UNDER budget for once because instead of buying a bunch of things we might eat for dinner, I only bought what I needed for these meals.

Thanks to Pinterest, it's a new dawn, it's a new day. :) Here's my meal plan from last week:

MONDAY- I'd planned on cooking this (via one lovely life), but Todd brought home Bread Co. leftovers from a late meeting and we had that instead. So we'll be eating this NEXT week. :) And I'm excited about it because I've never had quinoa before!

TUESDAY- Chicken Gyros (via The Girl Who Ate Everything)

Todd made the marinade (which is delish) on Monday night and we threw half a package of chicken tenderloins into it and let it marinate till Tuesday evening. We cooked it all up in less than 30 minutes and had enough left for lunch the next day. Also, we didn't make our tzatziki-- Trader Joe's sells a yummy one for like $3.79, and  I'd bought it last week in anticipation of making these. (And also ended up eating it with beef quesadillas and on pretzel thins. Yay fusion!) This super easy meal will definitely become a staple in our house.

WEDNESDAY- Garlic Parmesan Chicken & Noodles (via BHG)

Before work, I threw a package of 3 chicken breasts into the crock pot, submerged in water with a bit of salt and cooked them on low all day. When I got home, I shredded all three for use over the next few days. Tuesday night, I made this super easy one pot meal. I used half and half instead of cream and I did not make my own bread crumbs, because I had a box of panko-- and I love panko. It was yummy, and since we didn't have company, we had 2 portions left over.

THURSDAY- Sweet Potato Topped Chicken (via BHG) 

Rather than using canned yams (and because I knew I'd need more later in the week) around 4pm on Wednesday, I peeled, chopped and boiled 4 smallish sweet potatoes. I mashed them up with a bit of butter, put half in a tupperware for use later in the week and then used another 3rd of my previously shredded chicken for another yummy one pot meal.

FRIDAY- I had planned to cook, but ended up being treated to dinner at City Diner with the in-laws. Yay meatloaf and mashed potatoes!

SATURDAY- We had a pool party/cookout to attend during lunch, but for dinner, we finished up the leftovers from Wednesday and Thursday.

SUNDAY LUNCH- Sweet Potato Burgers with Avocado (via Healthy Happy Life)

Y'all know I love meat. So the fact that I didn't miss it at all while eating these burgers is really saying something. Truth be told, I've been looking forward to making these since I pinned the recipe 2 weeks ago so I had high expectations-- and this did not disappoint one bit! We didn't have lettuce, so we went without. And I didn't have white beans, so I used black. It didn't matter. Also, we halved the recipe and had enough for 4 patties. I used dijon mustard on mine, like the recipe said, but Todd chose to slather his with BBQ sauce (which is what he always uses as dip for sweet potato fries) and said it was delicious too. 

Addendum

SUNDAY DINNER: Chicken Noodle Soup & Grilled Cheese (via Cooking Classy)

I had leftover ingredients from the week (a bit of shredded chicken, some onion, baby carrots, a few stalks of celery, egg noodles and grape tomatoes) and I found this recipe on Pinterest tonight. So, I adapted it, using what I had in the cupboard. It turned out delicious! Todd insisted on having grilled cheese as well, but we only had two slices of bread because I'd forgotten to take a new loaf from the freezer. However, I still had one pita left-- hence the modified grilled cheese you see in the pic. :)

I'll be trying to meal plan again this week-- but this time WITHOUT going grocery shopping. Our food budget is maxxed out till next month. But fortunately, we're stocked with frozen veggies and fodder for side dishes-- and one of our amazing friends brought us back a cooler full of grass-fed beef cuts, courtesy of Southern Farms (her Daddy's farm) in Louisiana. So we'll manage. :)

*That's right. I have a grocery shopping day now. I'll share my life-changing chore schedule in another post.