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Showing posts from June, 2015

Master Bath Gets Rugs

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Our master bathroom is begging for a remodel. But unless I win the lottery or dig up a few thousand dollars in my garden, it's not going to happen. The floors are ugly beige (beige!) tiles, the counters are ugly, we have enormous mirrors with the hollywood lights above them. And all the fixtures are builder-grade. Blah. But last week I took a good look at the mismatched bathmats on the floor and decided if I was going to put any money in this bathroom, that would be the biggest bang for my buck. I did some comparison shopping and decided the fewer rugs I could do, the better. The floor space is kinda large, so there's much ground to cover. And I wanted something low-pile and brightly-colored. Okay -- so after some browsing, I decided on Flor carpet tiles. Again. They're just so AWESOME! They have rubber on the bottom, so the squares don't slip. Configurable, so I could make some decisions on how to install. Great color choices. Made from recycled material. Mold re

A New Shelf in the Dining Room

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Before: Old Buffet Furniture gets moved around in my house. Quite often, in fact. It's a hobby. But sometimes, moving things around makes me feel like a decorating GENIUS. And I do a cartwheel. So, I bought a new shelf from Crate & Barrel (doesn't it always start with that...). It was 50% off, so I HAD to buy it. I had been crushing on it in the catalog for months, so there was no choice. Click! I wasn't exactly sure where I'd want it. I had three spots in mind when I clicked "purchase" and was just going to see what it looked like when it arrived. Dave built it on the day before Father's Day, because he's really awesome. It's HEAVY, just so you know. But we tried it in two spots and the second spot is where is now lives. (See, I didn't even ask him to haul it up the stairs, which was a possibility, because I'm a kind wifey.) Pushing the old buffet out of the dining room was the key. The height and open shelving adds more

Seeking: Lunch Box Mojo

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With summer day camp comes two boxed lunches each day for the kiddos -- and no hot lunch option when I'm not feeling "into" food assembly. Toward the end of the school year, I got uninspired and used too many (by my standard) prepared food. So, I'm attempting to get some of my lunch-making mojo back by snapping a few pictures of the little creations. Here are a few from this week: Leah: Apple Slices and Blueberries, Yogurt, Ham Sammy, Carrots and String Cheese Alice: Applesauce, Watermelon, Ham, Tomatoes and Rice Cakes Leah: Toast Crackers (No Bread in the House), Turkey, Banana Chips, Watermelon, Blueberries and Yogurt By the way, the awesome Ziploc lunch containers that never leaked (top picture) were discontinued. Ugh! I'm so upset with myself that I didn't buy a surplus when I had a chance. Needless to say, I'm treasuring the few I have left.

My Thoughts on Weddings ...

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Brides Are So Pretty Remember when summers were spent at friends' weddings? In lieu of vacations, you'd take weekend trips to wedding destinations, get dressed up and dance with all your friends. Really, it was a pretty great way to spend your summer weekends. Then, you get into your late 30s and find no weddings on your calendar for a full year or more. That's just how these things go, I guess. We went to a wedding last fall in New Jersey, and that was the first one in about a year. My brother, who is in his late 20s, has seven weddings this summer. Seven. And it got me thinking about weddings in general. First of all, if I had had Pinterest  or Instagram before my own wedding 11 years ago, things would have gone down a lot differently. I am completely jealous of all those lucky brides planning their own weddings with access to that brain trust of ideas. Not to mention TinyPrints and Etsy (where were you when I needed you!?) I mean, you girls have no excuses

Ice Cream and an Orange Quilt

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My weekend in two pictures: Homemade French Vanilla Ice Cream!  Now everyone is my family is getting a ice cream maker for Christmas this year. This is so phenomenal! The Orange Quilt The couple refuse to learn the gender of the baby before the big day. So, perfect excuse to use the orange fabric for a crazy patchwork and continue practicing my quilt squares. Related posts: Other random weekend stories

The Thing About Summer Transitions

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And just like that ... school is over and the girls' day camp program is up and running. Suddenly, we're done with bus stops and homework, and thrown into packing swimsuits, sun screen, lunches and water bottles in a daily backpack. Soccer is also over for the season, which opens up our evenings and empties our weekends. So now I'm looking at a handful of weekends open for adventure. Of course I'm thinking about road trips, travel and house projects to take advantage of the three months of tolerable weather here. I'll make a list with the best intentions. But, as usual, we'll probably enter the Fall regretting all the hours we squandered in the house. But for now, let's be optimistic. It's summer! Related posts: More summer planning

For the Love of Soccer!

The Women's World Cup is underway, with the US Women's team playing tonight!! Here's where I get reflective: As a girl growing up playing and loving the sport of soccer, it was a very rare occasion when we actually got to see professional women play soccer. I mean, can you imagine playing/loving football or baseball and never seeing a professional (of your gender) play your sport? On TV? In front of fans?! As if! We'd talk about Michelle Akers and then Mia Hamm in reverent tones, and via second and third-hand information, during our warmups. Such as, "my aunt saw Mich play last week. She scored three goals, one from the top of the 18." And "I heard she is so strong, her legs are the size of tree trunks." The stories often took on mythic proportions. Anyway, I don't take the progress women's sports has made in my lifetime lightly. I mean, I was in college in 1996 when women's soccer was added as an Olympic sport, for Pete's s

A Second Career?

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Recently, I got a linkedin update from an old coworker of mine. He did a crazy career 180 -- going from music business executive in NYC to a social worker in LA. Not overnight, obviously, he'd quit and gone back to school for this new career years ago, but you get the idea. When I moved out to Illinois, I thought about going back to school to pursue a completely different career path. I was feeling burnt out with what I've been doing for years. And the move would provide a fresh start. But, I didn't. I kept coming up with excuses. The hassle of the schedule. The financial repercussions. The kids, oh what would happen to the kids?! And, the biggest, I wasn't really sure what I'd want to pursue anyway. What am I more passionate about -- career-wise? But seeing this guy do it (and he's older than me and has younger kids), even just from the very very very outside, has started that string of thought again. Is there a second career path out there that I'd

Thinking Like a Pro

Being a new head coach in a youth soccer club, I'm learning a lot and quickly. Like, don't talk to the parents. No matter how much you want to make adult friends. Just don't. Some parents are jerks and don't get it. And some are cool. And there's no way to tell who will fall into what category. And hanging out with a team of girls is maybe the best thing ever. Especially if one of them is your kid. This week we're holding our annual tryouts and building out our teams for next year. And given all the emails I'm swapping, players we're moving, parents freak-outs we're considering, etc. etc. I feel like I'm in the throes of a mini-NFL draft. Even though I'm new and feeling like a novice, I quite like it.

The Clothes They Wear

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Leah as a two-year-old was especially outspoken about what she wanted to wear each morning. So early on in this mothering-thing I decided one thing for certain: I was not going to argue over clothes. As long as it was weather-appropriate, so be it. Pick your battles, moms, and this is one bridge I wasn't going to die on. Besides, clothes are a form of self-expression. So why curb it if she was so insistent on choosing? Because of this, I am often amused by the outfits they pull together. Alice's outfit today was a doozy. Long sweater shirt, non-matching skirt, knee-high socks (because it's chilly today), a polka-dot sweater two-sizes too small and red shoes. The Whole Look Knee-High Socks with Inside Out Characters Totally adorable. Brief aside: I do break this rule on trips, because I pack for them. And when they ask me to help them decide what to wear -- which Leah almost never does. Of course.