Set in motion.

It was silent here last week. 

Mostly due to a sick little monkey who passed it on to me.

Ahhhh motherhood.

It was also a kind of transformative week as well.

My fast officially ended on Friday the 16th.

Part of that fast, as I mentioned before, is not only clearing our bodies of waste but our spaces too.

I had already had a few bags going.

One for Goodwill.

One for this friend and one for that friend.

#7 on my 2012 TDL can be checked off too.

My goal was to empty 2 of the nugget's clothes bins...I emptied all of them.

I cherry picked the items that were in excellent to new condition and gave them to friends and family who are expecting new little ones very soon.

Of course, I do have one box that I keep for very special items that I want to keep. Only to be passed on to my sister, Danielle, or Iris herself.

This is what the back of my car looked like the day of 

the "big drop".

I have to tell you, I have not stopped.

I already have two or three more bags going, for various distribution.

Now, back to the physical aspect of the fast.

I felt amazing.

I looked ....

how do I say this without sounding like a jerk...AWESOME!

The bloat.

Gone.

The bags under my eyes.

Gone.

Eyes.

Bright.

 Mood.

Bright.

Here's proof.

This fast gave me tools that I will use for the rest of my life.

More than the fast itself.

I recommend it to anyone looking to make a shift in there life.

I believe Laura Emily will be doing another guided fast in August.

We celebrated the end of the fast by trying a new restaurant. 

So me.

I had heard great things, and as it is a Mediterranean restaurant,

 I new I would be able to make healthy choices.

Falafel.

Babaganoush.

Zatter bread.

Oh my!

This little one loved it as well.

My adventurous little eater.

Spring cleaning is, and has been, under way around these parts.

I hope to keep it going.

2012 TO DO LIST!!!!

I finally sat down and wrote a few things in my notebook. 

Things I'd like to accomplish this year no matter how small or silly they may seem. A couple of them are carried over from last year.

Here is last year's list if you missed it the first time.

It keeps me focused.

This is what I have so far.

1. Chalkboard paint and frame out the bulkhead in the kitchen.

2. Reorganize my Pinterest boards.

3. New curtains in the dining room.

4. New hummingbird feeders.

5. Laundry room renovation

6. iPhoto overhaul. Delete/Albums/Save

7. Empty at least 2 of Iris's "old clothes" containers.

8. Grow some of our own food.

9. Update/Reorganize some blog stuff.

10. Tap the maple trees

Much shorter than last years.
I may add a thing or two, but then again, I may not.
I've got a jump on some of these things.


#2. I've started juggling some things around, deleting some pics, and generally just trying to make it make more sense ...
 to me at least. 
I even added a new board. 
I'm one of those Pinterest users who actually uses it the way it was intended, to remember ideas, recipes, products, fashion, and the occasional visual and verbal inspiration.
I've noticed with it's growing popularity that some people post total nonsense. No one that I follow, just stuff I see on the "Everything" page.
It's just one of my peeves.
Done ranting.


#8. I pulled out my seeds and some containers. We live in the woods but our back deck gets lots of full sun so it's an ideal spot for container gardening. I have a small herb garden in the front yard. G. (who is a stone mason) built it for me some years ago. 
I even called my local Borough Hall to contact the manager of the community gardens in our town.
Danielle and I belonged when we were in our early twenties and it was a blast. We grew some outrageously good tomatoes amongst other stuff.


Here's Nuggie watching Daddy move a small tree that was about to shade out my herb garden.
Don't you just love that sweater. 
It was hand made by her Aunty Allison!

If you look behind her you can see my herb plot.

A little worse for ware at the moment.

#10. Well, I got my supplies so I just have to tap.

That needs to happen soon.

So there it is. As promised.

The 2012 TDL.

What's on your list this year? I'd love to know!

WTF.

How is it December? How? How? How?

Well, I am just knitting my little heart out trying to finish the 2 projects I've got going.

One is taking precedence over the other right now as it needed to be finished yesterday...literally.

Eeek!

The other, not until Christmas.

Shew.

Meanwhile I added another little feature to my workspace/dressing room.

From the door the the closet was about a 14" strip of unused wall space.

I used to have pictures hanging there but moved them to another wall in anticipation of doing a project like this.

Little tip... I used chalk to make my marks for the hooks. It wipes away easily.

I bought ceiling hooks and wooden dows at the size I wanted. 

This could vary depending on where and how big a space you wanted to do this in.

I envision it holding sewing-projects-in-progress or just pretty fabric.

Here's my little helper.

Here's the finished product.

As if this wasn't accomplishment enough I made this little mobile for Iris's room.

I bought the stars back in September for her birthday and with the impending holidays I thought it would be perfect in place of the butterfly mobile we had up in the spring and summer.

I used the inner ring to an embroidery hoop to attach the stars and used some clear string I had from my jewelry making supplies to attach it to the hook in the ceiling.


Yay for progress!
I've made some headway in my mending/alterations pile as well.
I'l be revisiting the 2011 TDL soon also. 
The year is almost over.
It's time to take stock and start compiling a new list.
I may even have a resolution or two.

#9. Check.

If you missed the sneak peek you can read about that here.

Let me first tell you I ended up buying the bookshelf new. Why? Well, the person I was going to get it from on craigslist took to long to get back to me and in the end I would have had to drive too far and it came with a coffee table that I didn't know what I was going to do with. In my book it was a wash. I still got the desk for $20 and sold my Trofast system for $50 so I only ended up spending $20 total in the end. Not too bad!

The next thing is I wanted to use the desk in a formation that it was not made to be used in. I new I'd have to do some retrofitting of my own but in the end I would have exactly what I wanted.

We used metal brackets to secure it to the book shelf and I leveled it (since the bookcase on it's side was a little taller than the desk) by shimming it up from the other end.

I also want to address why I chose the dark brown bookshelf with the white desk. 1) I didn't want all dark wood in that room as it is already lacking in natural light. 2) I like the idea of a simple white worksurface especially with patterned fabrics and sometimes small objects that could be hard to see on anything but white. 3) The dark brown and white combo is the same as Iris's furniture and I thought it might one day make a good place for her to do homework if we ever decide to move it into her room.

I spent alot of time rearranging, repurposing and reorganizing all sorts of things so that this new configuration would work for all it's purposes.

This person didn't help much.

Just to name a few... I moved a hanging organizer out of the closet to use as storage for fabric and took what previously resided in it (pants, pajamas, etc.) and placed them on the shelves (pictured below) of the ikea closet system that I was not utilizing (bad girl). Then I moved Iris's old yet organized clothes (you can read about that here) into her closet and also maximized some use of space in there. That freed up a three drawer rolling storage (bonus) which slipped perfectly under the desk. For now it remains empty but will soon house some of the clutter that still lingers.

This room is doing overtime and busting at the seams (puns are fun) but for now it works for me. 

It's like a puzzle. You just have to experiment and find where all the pieces go.

Tomorrow is the reveal of the Pinterest Challenge! I've been working feverishly to complete my challenge and so far I'm pleased with the results. I hope you will be too! Betcha can't wait to see what I chose to do. I'll give you a hint...You'll find it on the board titled Nugget.

2011 TDL: Checking In

Well here it is again with just a few more things checked off.


1. purchase mushroom growing supplies and make preparations for logs

2. pot rack for kitchen
3. organize phone and message center in kitchen
4. clean and organize under kitchen sink
5. purchase supplies for maple tapping for next spring
6. new couch for living room and general living room design
7. paint dining room
8. figure out a better situation for shoes/recycling by the front door
9. finish reorganizing and clean dressing room
10. clean windows

11. start and finish handmade gifts for Jenny, Helen, Becky, Melissa, Allison, Carol, Sarah and Pat.

12. new lighting for Iris's room

13. organize and backup iphoto

14. clean out pantry and wipe down shelves and bottles (ANTS!!!)

15. find and purchase vintage ceramic egg holder

16. sort through wardrobe and donate, trash or repurpose

17. learn one new knitting pattern

18. learn one new crochet pattern

19. paint giant urn and candle stick holders

20. finish mending and repurpose projects

21. plant salad greens, tomatoes and kitchen herbs

22. keep blog up to date

23. start etsy shop

24. buy more vintage and hand make more of our clothing

25. run in at least two 5k's 

26. organize baby's outgrown clothing

I crossed off #21 even though I didn't plant any salad greens. I have to let myself off the hook for that one. That window of opportunity was consumed with baby-learned-some-new-tricks-and-mommy-needs-to-babyproof time. I did get my herbs in and we were gifted a tomato plant. 

However, #26 is DONE. It actually took less time and containers than I thought (about an hour when you factor out the baby-chasing time). I was originally going to buy 8 containers but when I went to buy them I thought I better just start with 6. Storage is at a premium in this house so I have to be careful not to shoot myself in the foot by overpurchasing storage solutions. Sounds looney, right?

Anyway, this was my inspiration.

And now I have this...

It's hard to see the labels but they are in order of size. One container houses socks, bibs, boppy covers, bassinet sheets (all organic cotton), etc.

Six containers with room to grow (pun intended).

The purple bag on the right is the stuff I want to keep for either my sister, best friend or even for the nugget herself. There is a coveted Bob Marley onesie, the onesies people painted at my shower, things I personally purchased, amongst other things.

She's proofreading my labels. 

Progress.

This is getting ridiculous! Apparently It's not just the vintage gods smiling on me but the fabric gods as a whole.  I was handed this entire bolt yesterday by a family friend.

It's a simple print. I'm not sure how many yards it is exactly but the number 15 is scribbled on the top. I see a picnic/beach blanket, some kind of roll up bag for tools or brushes or maybe some farmer's market bags I have been itching to make.

I also picked up my gallon of paint for the dining room project (#7 on the 2011 TDL). I purchased Rendezvous by Olympic (Zero VOC of course).  There is very little wall space so I should be able to bang it out in a couple hours. I'm treating myself to more babysitter time today so I'll try to tape off the room that way I can just start painting when the opportunity presents itself.

#9 is STILL in progress. Here are some before and during shots below. I don't like the white curtains in this room. They just sort of disappear so I'll probably put the ones I had in there back up. It doesn't look much different than the before shot but some organization has taken place. I've purged a bunch of clothes and shoes (#16), put a shoe organizer on the back of the door, organized all my reference books and art/craft supplies and hung an organizer from the coat rack.

Before.

Believe it or not there are 2 storage ottamans under those clothes. There trash now.

I keep my long dresses in the actual closet.

During.

If you look to the left of the book shelf those bins are  the beginnings of #26.

Lots of shhhhhstuff on the floor still.

Obviously this room is doing double duty as a closet and a place to store all my sewing/craft/art supplies. But hopefully someday I'll have this or this.