No Cooking Sunday

No Soup. No Salad. Papa Johns Pizza delivered to our door (by my husband since I refuse to pay the delivery fee and tip the drive when the pizza place is less than 1 mile from our house).

Although I didn’t do any cooking this weekend, I did spend nearly the entire weekend in the kitchen. Our pantry was emptied out, scrubbed from top to bottom, painted, and organized.

Why?

We have those nasty, annoying, gross, hard to get rid of moths!

We were lucky enough to get them last summer. While we thought we got rid of them, they reappeared again this winter. Again I thought I found the source of the problem. After a short vacation, they are back again. Just as I was having enough, Brittany at A Healthy Slice of Life was also battling these annoying pests. I decided to follow all her suggestions since she had already done the research for me. If you have the same problem, go read her blog. She explains it all.

Christian and I have had it on our to-do list to tackle a pantry remodel since we moved into our house a year and half ago. In fact, I swore up and down that the 1980s mirrored pantry doors would be the first thing to go when we moved into our house. Like all things in life, priorities got rearranged and we are still living with those lovely doors…

Don't mind my outfit (I was grabbing a snack before Race for a Cure 5k). It's the only picture of our lovely doors I could find. (and a great motivator to keep loosing baby weight!)

…until today. They have been removed and our now on our back porch waiting for trash day.

After putting both boys to bed on Saturday night, I set out to sanitize every inch of our pantry. I removed every food item. I threw away all items that could possible be infested (luckily our pantry isn’t well stocked right now). I scrubbed the walls. I scrubbed the floors. I scrubbed our makeshift shelves (Absolut Vodka display cases courtesy of Christian’s job).

This is what my kitchen looked like when I went to bed (those silver things were our shelves)

Today I tackled the rest. I scrubbed every surface again. I painted the pantry a bright sunny yellow. I love a closet/pantry with a fun splash of color. I had the yellow paint leftover from Chet’s closet. I think the paint on the pantry walls was original to our house (1960, even older than the lovely mirrored doors).

The walls were so happy to get a fresh coat of paint

Once the walls were painted, I really didn’t want to put the old “pretend” shelves back in our pantry. Christian head to Home Depot to find a new solution for our empty closet. He came home with a great shelf and a new container for the dog food. After some assembly and some reorganizing, our pantry is coming back to life (hopefully removing the life of any moths that avoided my cleaning frenzy).

Sadly I don't have a before photo since I wasn't planning on a complete makeover until half way through this project

Tomorrow I will be buying canisters for all of our baking ingredients. I will be scrubbing our baking cabinet from top to bottom, and all the items will be moving into the pantry. Next weekend we plan on installing new pantry doors.

Although completely unplanned, it is always fun to breathe life into our 52-year-old house.

Next on the priority list…a new front and back door!

You say it’s your birthday….

…It’s my birthday too!

Yes! I always wake up with The Beatles singing in my head on my birthday.

Even better than The Beatles singing to me this morning was the sweet baby boy snoozing on my chest. For the past few weeks, Chet no longer wants to snuggle with his mama in the early morning hours. I always try to keep him in bed with me after his last nighttime feeding, but he wants nothing to do with it. Instead of wasting precious sleep time trying to make him comfortable, I put him where he really wants to be – his Moses basket. This morning he woke up to feed at 5am. As I was feeding him, I considered putting on my running shoes after he was back to sleep. When I put him up on my shoulder to burp him, he got incredibly cozy and drifted off to sleep. We slept and snuggled until my alarm went off at 6. I will take all the baby snuggles I can get at this point.

After getting myself ready, the rest of the house came to life. Cole woke up. Christian woke up. Chet woke up. The boys spoiled me with a bag full of running goodies – new shorts (since my old shorts fit but it isn’t pretty!), Nuun of my own (that I don’t have to share with my husband), new sweaty band, and post running goodies. Even though I always insist that I don’t want/need anything (and I really truly mean it. I’m not a big fan of being spoiled, seriously! It makes me uncomfortable. When I tell Christian not to buy me anything, it isn’t a trick so I can get mad at him when he doesn’t. I really don’t need gifts), a bag full of new running things always makes me happy.

Tonight I plan on going for a 3.2 mile run in my new shorts (seems fitting since I am now 32!). Christian is going to cook me dinner (as always). And I plan on snuggling my two boys as much as they will let me.

Mr. Bald and Mr. Hair

My email, cell phone, and Facebook has been flooded with Happy Birthday messages today! Thank you all! I got one from my sweet friend Heather that really made me smile. Thank you Heather!

A happiest of birthdays to you, Kristy! Your joy ripples outward 🙂

There is something incredibly satisfying about this stage of my life. With each new layer of love I embrace in my life, my world feels happier and more full and alive. 

31 was pretty darn good to me. I can’t imagine 32 being any different.

Soup-er Sunday gets a makeover

Now that spring is here, I’ve lost my loving feeling for warm comforting soup. Out with the Soup. In with the Summer Salads. My favorite part of Soup-er Sundays is that I make dinner on Sunday evening and the leftovers serve as my lunch throughout the week. Now that temperatures are rising, I’m craving yummy fresh salads.

My first Summer Salad Weekend was kicked off on Friday night (instead of Sunday) and the leftovers only made it to Sundays lunch. So much for leftovers at work this week. Not only did I fail at making lunch for the week, I also failed to take photos until lunch today. Oops. I promise to get better as weeks go on.

Today’s lunch:

Please excuse my awful photo. I'll remember to take photos next time before I am about to eat the last bowl.

Ingredients:

Whole Wheat Pasta

Red, Yellow, and Green Bell Peppers (diced)

Asparagus (diced)

Chickpeas

Spinach

Parmesan Cheese

Salt

Pepper

TJ’s 21 Seasoning Salute

Directions:

Saute Peppers and Asparagus (or whatever veggies you have in your produce draw) in olive oil. Season with salt, pepper, and seasoning of choice. Add to cooked pasta. Add Chickpeas and Spinach. Top with Parmesan Cheese.

So easy. So simple. So good. And it’s a great way to use up veggies that are about to go bad.

Since I won’t have salad to eat tomorrow for lunch, I decided to make a dinner that would have plenty of leftovers. I found this yummy looking recipe on Pinch of Yum. Everything is currently cooking in the crock pot. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Skinny Chicken enchiladas

 

I survived

My favorite time after work

Somehow I did it. I survived my first week as a working mama. Some days were easier than I expected. Other days were a lot harder than I expected. Tuesday was the hardest day all week. Chet woke up to feed at 6am, my current wake up time, and he wanted to do nothing but snuggle. It broke my heart in two to put him back in his Moses basket so I could take a shower before work.

I expected the heartache. I expected to cry on my way to work. What I didn’t expect was a surprise result from returning to work. My returning to work has defined our family of 4. Each of our roles in the family has become less blurry and more defined. Knowing that things would change as soon as I returned to work, I think we were all in “get by” mode. The things that will define our schedule for the a lengthy amount of time are now in place. Although I would much rather be at home with my baby, it is nice to have the anticipation of change behind me.

My new daily routine looks something like this:

  • 6am wake up, shower, feed baby, pump
  • Wake up Cole, get him ready for school, and drop him off at school on my way to work
  • Work
  • Arrive home by 4:30pm, feed baby, snuggle baby
  • Homework, baseball practice, dinner, baths, and bedtime routines all get juggled between 5pm and 8pm.
  • Crash on couch and if I’m lucky stay awake until 10 (although this week I’ve been asleep before 9 most nights).

While I feel like Christian and I have a good handle on all the day-to-day work and family tasks, the one thing missing is exercise. I need to find an hour in my day to run or practice yoga. There are some things I’m not willing or not able to comprise in our daily routine. Work is work. I can’t make that go away. I am also not willing to give up any of my mama and Chet and mama and Cole time. After work is all about family time. I wouldn’t be happy any other way.

Both of my sweet boys

I have two options: work out after 8pm bedtimes or work out prior to my 6am wake up time.  Since I feel like I hit a wall as soon as both boys are asleep, I know I will rarely find the motivation to work out at night. It looks like my wake up time is going to have to get pushed up to 5am if I’m ever going to run faster than 11 minute miles, if I’m ever going to touch my toes again, if I’m ever going to fit into any of the clothes in my closet, and if I want to keep my mental sanity.

I might have to give 5am a chance starting next week. It wouldn’t seem so early if Chet would just start sleeping. He was doing pretty good prior to going back to work, but has definitely taken a step backwards this week (I’ve read it’s normal for a baby to wake up more when mom returns to work. Baby is trying to makeup for lost time with mama during the day). Last night he went to bed at 8 and then woke up to eat at 12:30, 3:00, and 5:30.

A surprise hello from Chet while I was working (thank goodness for text messages and camera phones)

The Next Chapter

Today’s blog post is brought to you by the seven dwarfs

Hi Ho Hi Ho It's off to work I go

and the Little Engine that Could

I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.

Both of these chants were stuck in my head as I started my day today.

The day that I have been dreading since my positive pregnancy test in April 2011 arrived today. I went back to work.

Today was both a little easier and a little more hard than I had expected. I cried when I left, but I had a happy 7-year-old in my backseat who was so excited to get dropped off at school again instead of riding the bus. Cole put a smile back on my face. I remained strong as I arrived at work. The day flew by at work. It was good to catch up with people I’ve missed. It was good to get things organized that I knew were waiting for me when I got back. While catching up and organizing, my arms missed my baby more than anything. I missed his weight in my arms. I missed his drool on my shoulder. I missed hearing all of his noises. I missed his cries. I really missed his chatter. Chet has become so vocal this week. He talks nonstop. I don’t think I could have done it without breaking down if Chet wasn’t staying with my mom while I’m at work. THANK YOU MOM. If Chet can’t be with Mom or Dad, Grandma is certain the next best thing.

With both the good and the bad, it is such a relief to get it over with it. I’ve been dreading the first day back. It is now behind me. We’ve made the transition. It is now up to me to embrace each day and make the most of the time I have with my boys when I get home from work. This new chapter in my life is about quality not quantity.

I’m learning as a I go, but I made it through today.

And there is nothing better than coming home to your baby boy. He let out the biggest squeal when he saw me today. He half laughed, half cried. It felt like he was so happy to see me he didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. He then spent the rest of the evening in my arms, talking to me, and enjoying lots of mama kisses. I am one loved mama.

Busy Sucking his Thumb