The Fourth

4th of July felt very uneasy to celebrate this year what with our border “situation” but we got to spend some low-key time with great friends watching the kids play, throwing pop its, and enjoying time together. It feels like such an immense privilege to be able to do all that. To have a cozy house to come home to, regardless of its unfinished state. To be able to move freely to visit friends. To get to tuck my son in at night and read him stories and sing him bedtime songs. I know so many mothers out there would give anything to have that. Instead of spending money on frivolous 4th of July stuff (okay, other than that $1 flag— Jack wouldn’t let me leave Target without it, haha), I ended up donating to TogetherRising to help stop the child detainment and separation at the border (though RAICES is also an amazing organization too, if you’re looking to donate!).

Since Dan had the day off work we did some tiling and we’re in the home stretch now (well, for the kitchen. we still will have to do the bathroom and the laundry closet). Everything now is just edge cuts so I’m back on duty as resident tile cutter. If you’ve never cut tile with a tile saw, let me tell you… it’s pretty fun. But maybe my idea of fun is a little different than yours, haha.

Life Lately | June is crazy

June, guys… whew! This month has been crazy town. I can’t even believe this has been one month, it’s felt like ages. We haven’t even lived in the flip house for a whole month yet! I can’t believe we moved in on June 1st, so weird. I guess if you didn’t get the news, we moved out of our other house, turned that one into an Airbnb and are now living in our not-yet-finished flip house. I’ve been given a crash course in managing and turning over an Airbnb because we had guests every single night during the month of June except ONE night. Holy moly. July is looking to be just as busy and while it’s a lot of work to clean and do the laundry on a nearly daily basis, I’m super thankful for two things. One: we are making enough on that house’s Airbnb income that it pays for itself plus some! and Two: I get to work and have my kid hanging out with me the whole time!

One thing that ‘s been hard for me after having Jack was the fact that I wasn’t financially contributing to the family. I know that what I’m doing as a mom is arguably far more important than bringing in money, but as someone who has always contributed to our income, I’ve just felt like a drain on our finances, so being able to do something that brings in an income while also getting to spend time with Jack during the time we go clean the house between guests has been really nice.

While it’s been nice to be bringing in a more steady income (I was doing the odd blog/instagram sponsored post before, and some photography gigs here and there, so not nothing, but also not steady), it’s also been pretty hard adjusting to living in a house that is basically still partially unfinished. The master bath is down to the studs and we just taped up plastic over the doorway to it. The kitchen floor has been plywood for 3 weeks and now, as we’re starting to prep for tiling, we don’t have any of our appliances in the kitchen because they all have to be out so we can tile under them. So our living room is full of appliances and the kitchen island and we’ve been eating take out for almost every meal which sounds great in theory, but really I’d just love to be able to cook a meal again. And have a living room that doesn’t have an oven, refrigerator, and island in the middle of it.

And in totally unrelated news, I finally bleached my very grown out roots and re-dyed my hair! I finally got the color I was originally wanting! It ended up more neon green the first time around, and this time I got the more mustard-y chartreuse yellow I was looking for. If any of you are crazy like me, it’s Arctic Fox Cosmic Sunshine and I added a little Iris Green into it.

Blogging as it was

When I started this blog in 2008 it was both an online journal and a way to share myself with others and, in turn, be inspired by other bloggers. It was on a really random internet rabbit hole adventure that I found fashion bloggers and having recently gotten more into personal style I just decided on the spot to start one as well.

None of us had any idea that blogging would become a huge industry. No one knew what we were even talking about when we said we were “bloggers.” Back in those days, sharing our daily lives and inspirations wasn’t about getting clicks, affiliate link income, and landing sponsorships. It was just connecting with others and enjoying the creative outlet of writing and photographing our days. Poorly lit photos and all.

I’ve been wondering lately about infusing some of that back into this space. Adding anything into my life these days is a process of vetting it for worthiness of taking up my very limited time. Is writing little diary posts up here even something I want to spend the energy doing? I’m not sure. But what I know is, we don’t need any more perfect blogs or perfect instagrams filled with professional photos of perfectly posed “candid” shots, and kitchen renovations done in a magical month. So I guess, I just want to share more of what is really happening, in my life, on the regular. Like, hi guys! I’m a person! I do lots of stuff (too much?) and have way too many thoughts about all the things.

So I’m gonna take things back a little bit here. Back to blogging as it was. We’ll see how it goes.

Jack's first Easter egg hunt!

We went to Jack’s first Easter Egg Hunt today! Last year we spent Easter weekend with my family out on the peninsula so we didn’t go to any egg hunts. This year we stayed in town and as I was playing with him in the park one day last week I saw a sign advertising an egg hunt in the park, so I took note and made a plan for us to go. I was excited because I knew he’d have a blast, two is a super fun age.

I got this super adorable bunny hat before Jack was born and have been waiting and waiting for it to fit him and this year it fit him perfectly! I didn’t have any “easter-y” baskets but I stole a basket from one of my house plants for him to fill with eggs and it worked just right! We’ve got a neighborhood egg hunt tomorrow so I’m debating going to that one too, but we might just chill for the rest of the weekend and enjoy the sunny weather! I hope your holiday weekend is wonderful!

Making messes and memories

Thank you Vanity Fair® Napkins for sponsoring this post. Take on everyday messes with Vanity Fair® Extra Absorbent Napkins!

Growing up, on special occasions like a birthday, my Dad would make “Daddy’s Special Pancakes” or DSP’s.  They were always Swedish Crepes, and he would fling them to us from the pan, across the island, and we’d try to catch them on our plates. I still love making DSP’s (though I guess if I make them, they’re MSP’s right?), but for Jack’s little birthday morning we just went with the old classic stack of fluffy buttermilk pancakes. I haven’t yet introduced him to the joys of chocolate chip pancakes, we’ll save that for a later birthday. The amount of sugar he got in the syrup alone was more than enough for a boy of only two.  But oooh boy, you’re gonna be excited about chocolate chip pancakes one day. And blueberry ones too (or booburies as he calls them right now).

Jack was a huge fan of pancakes, and he kept asking me to do “mo’ snow, mama!” with the powdered sugar.  Making a pancake breakfast with a toddler, though, holy cow, talk about a sticky mess. I think I used like ten Vanity Fair® Extra Absorbent Napkins just to clean up spilled syrup and pancake batter by the time the morning was over. Normal napkins die a horrible death at the hands of a toddler, so the paper-towel thickness and toughness of the Vanity Fair® Extra Absorbent Napkins is perfect for our mealtimes, and a welcome break from having to wash a bajillion dish towels a day.

Vanity Fair® Extra Absorbent Napkins  are “made for life’s unexpected mealtime surprises” but really, with a two year old, mealtime surprises and messes are anything but unexpected.  Even if my kid doesn’t eat his food, it’s still all over the place.  

Trying to avoid a messy life with a kid is a fool’s errand, and the antithesis to learning and fun in my opinion. Having lots of clean-up is the name of the game, but the memories and the joy will be the lasting impression, at least for them. I’ll probably remember all the cleaning up I did, though I’m sure the giggles will overshadow the cleaning when I look back on days like this.

I can’t believe my little baby is such a kid now.  He’s chattering up a storm all the time, loves reading books, and will sit and play creatively with legos while I drink my morning coffee now, which is a godsend.  Just watching him sit on the counter and nom on pancakes like a grown up boy was such a surprising moment. It’s so weird how the time flies by and also moves slower than molasses.  The first 18 months were the hardest of my life, but now that he’s playing and talking, I’ve found my groove in the mother role. I know there are a lot more messes to be made, a lot more tears to cry, a lot more tantrums to be thrown, but I’m looking forward to this next year as he grows into a bigger kid.  And hopefully those sticky messes like this one will come along with fun, happy memories that make the hard days worth it.