A Day In The Life

This is a post I’ve had planned for a long time, and finally got around to snapping pics for! Today, I want to share a typical day in my life through photos (and the occasional blurb from yours truly). It isn’t quite a photo-an-hour, which I’ve seen floating around the web, but I think this gives a better idea of an average day for me.

8am: Wake Up and Breakfast

9am: Screen Time

Clearly the best position for TV watching.

10am – 12:30pm: Playtime!

12:30pm: Lunch

1:15pm: Quiet Time

She heads into her room for quiet playtime before nap.

I usually spend my time with my kitty and a book, or gaming.

2:00pm: Nap Time

I tend to wait to start art projects until she’s asleep, since nap is never a guarantee.

4:00pm: Snuggles, Snack, & Chores

When she first wakes from nap, she always wants snuggles on the couch for a few!

5:00pm/5:30pm: Cooking

My little’s favorite: Quesadillas.

6:00pm: Dinner

7:00pm: Daddy Playtime

Since she’s with me all day, she likes to have time with just Daddy after dinner. It works great for me, as I get an hour of chill time to do what I like!

8:00pm: Bedtime

She always has Daddy do bedtime reading…it’s so adorable!

9:00pm – Midnight: Party Time!

And by party I mean doing art, playing board games, watching shows, or busting out some computer work!

So that’s a typical day of my life as a stay at home mum. I adore getting to spend so much time with my little miss; it is so unbelievably rewarding! Obviously, I couldn’t capture everything we do, but this is a pretty good roundup. The only thing not pictured is the amount of arts and crafts we do together, but of course in the two days I took these pics, my little wanted to do other things. I hope you enjoyed the little glimpse into my life!

What does a typical day in your life look like? If you end up making a post, feel free to share in the comments; I’d love to check it out!

Also, feel free to leave some feedback about the new layout! I needed a change, and switched to this. I’m not 100% in love with it yet, but for now it’ll do! There’ll be a few more small changes to come, mainly in the sidebar and pages (you may notice a few missing at the moment from the top menu bar…still working on ’em!).

Reeses Spreads: Tasty, But It’s No Nutella

Recently I received a jar of Reeses Spreads courtesy of Influenster to devour sample. I. Was. PUMPED. I didn’t even know this was a thing, but they had me and ‘chocolate and peanut butter spread’.

I set up a little spread for myself, the hubs, my daughter (who was beyond thrilled to get to have a treat in the middle of the afternoon), and we invited our neighbor over too, just to gather another opinion. The question was – what does this taste beston??

The options were: Apple slices, graham crackers, and wheat toast. Both my little and myself liked Reeses Spreads on apples the best. I am a HUGE fan of apples and peanut butter, and this is like a dessert version of that. Both my hubs and our neighbor liked it best on the toast.

How’s the flavor? I think this is where I was surprised the most. First off, it doesn’t taste like a Reeses Peanut Butter cup. In fact, when eaten WITH something, I feel like you hardly even taste the chocolate. It’s like a super sweet peanut butter. Good, but definitely not a great chocolate/pb combo in my opinion. We each tried a little spoonful just by itself, and I find that on it’s own it definitely tastes much more like a Reeses.

Overall, this is good, but I would not purchase this over Nutella any day. It has a good taste, but it’s really just like an overly sweet peanut butter. As someone who purchases natural peanut butter (as in, only peanuts – no added sugar) it’s almost sickeningly sweet, and it doesn’t have enough of a chocolate flavor to balance that out. I am quite intrigued how it’ll be to bake with though – I plan on making up some peanut butter cookies using this in place of half the peanut butter – we’ll see how they turn out!

I’m Just Going To Veto The Last Two Weeks. Oh, and Zines.

Seriously, I’m pretending the new year just started this past weekend. Why? I’ve been sick nearly straight through since the weekend after Christmas. In all honesty, I was due – I very rarely get sick, I’ve been under a lot of mental stress, and once the holidays ended my body just went, “THAT’S IT. WE’RE SHUTTING DOWN.”, and BAM! Bring on the plague.

However, I am finally feeling pretty much 100% again and can’t wait to dive into my goals for January (which I am epically behind on)! Despite being sick, it was actually really nice to spend nights just vegging out with Netflix on the couch, and forcing myself to just RELAX. Yeah, the sickness part sucked, but I am so happy with myself for using all my free time to chill and recover, and not try and be working on projects and goals through the whole thing. It was a much needed break.

Today I want to talk about zines! As I mentioned in my yearly goals post, I really want to start reading zines. Why? Simply put, I feel they are right up my alley. I love memoirs, and personal blogs, and zines just seems like a fabulous mini-version of that. Plus, with every purchase I am supporting an indie business/artist/writer, which is yet another thing I love to do. So all around, it just seems like something I’m going to love.

I have to thank the wonderful Sonya Cheney for introducing me to the term ‘zine’ last year. As a zine writer herself, she had a few posts about them when I first started following her and I was instantly intrigued. Recently, she put together this post highlighting her favorite zine distributors. It’s an amazing jumping off point. There are pages and pages of zines to browse through! Here are my top picks for my first order:

Via Pioneers Press:

Anything by Julia Eff. I was drawn in by the titles, and after reading the descriptions, they sound amazing.

Better Days: Stuff That Helps With All This Anxiety by Sarah Rose. Given my anxiety struggles as of late, this sounds perfect.

Via Stranger Danger:

Always and Forever: A Zine About Friendship

Dig Deep, any of them.

 

I still need to decide what to order, but you can be sure they’ll be a post on my January picks! Do you read zines? What are some of your faves that I should check out?

Onward to 2015!

While I thoroughly enjoyed the holidays, I am actually really excited for them to be over! It’s such a hectic time, and it is a blast while it’s happening, but at the end of it I am so ready to get back to our regular life schedule. I always feel like it takes me a week or so to fully recover from the craziness that is the Christmas season  and it is really nice to have an entirely fresh new year beckoning, ready to be filled with ideas and plans!

That being said, I actually don’t have too many massive plans for 2015. When I was sitting down making my list, I was scribbling down all these ideas and thoughts and had the realization that I needed to take a step back. I don’t want to start my new year off overburdening myself with ideas, as I know it will lead me to get disheartened. So I’m taking a simpler approach. I focused on major goals, that I can make sure I get done for the year! I will still also be making monthly goals, which is where the little things will come into play.

Life Goals for 2015:

• Get my anxiety under control. I’ve touched on this a bit here on my blog, but lately I’ve been having a serious battle with anxiety, and in way more cases than I’d like – it’s winning. I’m ready to write about it, and there will be a post on it in January, but this is pretty much my top goal of 2015. Find a way to deal with my anxiety so I can start feeling like myself again.
• Start reading and buying zines. This was a goal I made for 2014 and failed utterly at. I didn’t buy or read a single one! Luckily, I follow the ever awesome blog of Sonya Cheney, and not only does she write zines she has some amazing resources for them too. In fact, stay tuned for a post from me about one in January – I backed my first zine thanks to a post she had!
• Pay off our credit card balance. It’s not actually that big, but we’ve kind of been dragging it out and the interest is killer. We need to just suck it up, and start paying it off in big chunks to get it done.
• Keep the 1AM Promise for the entire year. I’m pretty sure I did this for 2014, but I’m not entirely sure as (for some reason) I didn’t write down my purchases each month! So in 2015 I’ll actually keep a record so I’m accountable each month. The best part is, this will tie right into zine buying!
• Give my art a direction. I put a huge focus on my art in 2014, and it was amazing. It felt wonderful, it’s a big confidence booster, and I am so glad I chose to dedicate the majority of my free time to art. But in 2015, I’d like to give it a bit more focus in terms of what I’m doing with it. I’d like to open an online shop, push commissions a bit more, and really promote my art more in general.
• Begin playing piano again. It is a point of personal shame that I haven’t really touched my piano in close to two years. That NEEDS to change. Even if it’s just for ten minutes a day, I need to be making time for it. Music is so incredibly therapeutic, and I need piano playing back in my life.
• Read 35 books. This is just my new minimum. I had a goal of 30 books for this year, and I killed it – reading a total of 49 books (though that includes graphic novels). I actually just looked it up and that’s WAY more than I thought I read so yay!! Anywho, 35 will be my minimum for next year.

Blog Goals for 2015:

• Move my blog over to being self-hosted. I’ll still use the WordPress features, but being self-hosted gives me way more customization options. I’m actually not too thrilled with what I’m paying for using WP Custom Design.
• Redesign my blog. Nothing major, I’m just ready for a change again. I do like my little header images, so those will probably stick around (in some form), but overall I’d ready for a bit of a new layout. The question is, do I attempt to do it all myself knowing I suck at design, or do I save some money and pay someone who has a clue what they’re doing to do it for me?
• Start artist interviews on my blog! This is something I’ve had planned for ages, and then finally decided to hold off until the new year before I started them. But throughout the year (I’m thinking twice a month?) I’d love to be interviewing artists for my blog.
• Promote a bit more. Whether it’s via button swaps or social media, I need to be a bit more active about sharing my blog work, and ideally garner a few more readers. 2014 was a really big year for me and my blog – I finally feel really comfortable writing posts, and publishing content. I’ve got some awesome readers, and I follow some amazing blogs that have led me to fantastic internet groups and friends! I really hope to continue that trend in 2015!

I hope you have a wonderful (and safe!) New Years! As for us, we’ll be ringing it in at a friends house with some board games, in true geek style. See you all in 2015!

2014 By The Numbers

I wanted to write a wrap up post for 2014, but I kept starting and deleting, starting and deleting. I just couldn’t get it to come out right! So I decided to do it in a list form since I love them so much! Overall, 2014 was pretty great!

21 graphite portraits drawn

6  watercolor paintings made

3 camping trips

1  brand new car

11  plushies made

5 hiking trips

175 blog posts written

1 completed oil painting

3 new video games played from start to finish

1 surgery for my cat

9 postcards exchanged via Postcrossing

2 garden beds built

26 letters my daughter learned to write

2000+ photos taken (holy cow, I take a lot of pictures.)

I’m sure there’s more, but those are the biggest things that stood out to me for 2014! What were some of your favorite things of 2014?

Merry Christmas!!

Popping in to wish you all a wonderful holiday, however you celebrate. We had our little family Christmas at home today, and are spending the rest of the day lazing around in our jammies. Tomorrow will be spent with our families (my mum’s in the morning, his parents in the afternoon) and I’m excited to spend the rest of the week on full veg-out mode!

Our annual in-front-of-the-tree photo on our Christmas morning!

Christmas is such a special time for me. Between seeing all of our friends and family over the week, gift giving, my hubs being home from work, and the constant sounds of laughter, it’s impossible for me NOT to be filled with joy during this time of year. It’s my absolute favorite!

I also just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to all those that participated in my first holiday card swap! It was much more of a success than I was originally planning on, and it filled me to the brim with Christmas cheer! So thanks to everyone who sent cards, and I hope you all enjoyed receiving them as well!

Our DIY Rainbow Party

Last Thursday, my daughter turned four. We had her party on the 14th, as it was the only weekend we had to do it all month! Lucky for me, my little asked to have a Rainbow themed birthday and I was pumped. There were about a million options to choose from for what I could do, and even more fabulous, it wasn’t going to cost a lot. Here’s some pics of how I threw together a rainbow party for my little miss, with lots of help from my tall hubs!

The rainbow ceiling was by far the biggest challenge of the decorations. It wasn’t that difficult to actually do, it just took a lot of time. But totally worth it. It’s still up in our kitchen! We used streamers and white balloons from the dollar store, and that’s it! In fact, including the plates, cups, and plastic tablecloths, the total cost of the party stuff was less than $20.

We decided to have a rainbow brunch for everyone attending, simply because it sounded like fun! The top image is the table area (pre-food) and next is where the main food/drink area was located. The menu consisted of sausage, turkey bacon, rainbow waffles and rainbow pancakes. Drinks included ‘Birthday Punch’, OJ, and water & milk for anyone that wanted any.

Rainbow waffles are so fabulous. I had a picture of the pancakes too, but apparently I deleted it in the shuffle. Poop.

For the table spread we had a fruit rainbow and a veggie rainbow. Fruit consisted of strawberries, oranges, mango, green grapes, blueberries, and blackberries. The veggies had cherry tomatoes, carrots, yellow pepper slices, broccoli, and what SHOULD have been purple cauliflower. BUT, all stores in my area decided they all had to be out of stock of purple cauliflower just in time for this party!! So we substituted blue corn chips instead. You do what you can.

For the ‘centerpiece’ if you will (besides the cupcakes) was the yearly birthday photo I make. I use my favorite photo of her from the family photoshoot, and list her favorite things all around. Below is the actual image. I blurred our her name as I never use it online. I’m aware that in reality, that probably doesn’t do much ‘protection’-wise, but it makes my mom brain feel better. 🙂

The rainbow cupcakes (a necessity at a rainbow party) are actually super easy to make – click here for the tutorial!

I spiffed up our entryway chalkboard sign with a fun little rainbow birthday message!

And of course, the obligatory OM NOM NOM cupcake shot. She got this winter hat as a gift and loved it – kept it on the whole party in fact!

Overall, it was a super successful party! I like to do a lot with decor and such as my little’s birthday is so close to Christmas. Which means that every year, the house is always decorated fully for the holidays, and I never want her to feel like her birthday gets the backseat to Christmas! Therefore, she picks her own theme and we accommodate. Plus, now we have a fabulous rainbow kitchen ceiling for awhile! 🙂

 

 

Sunday Fun Day Tag!

Natalie, over at Natalie Patalie, tagged me for this fun little tag where I answer some questions that she has provided! This is pretty much perfect timing as I was going back and forth about whether or not to post today…Sunday is usually a Life In Photos day, but I don’t really have enough pics to write a whole post, and now I don’t have to worry about it! Plus, random facts are fun. 😀

1. If you could have one superpower for a day, what would it be and what would you do with it?
This is a hard one. But if it’s just for one day, I’m going to have to go with mind reading. It would bring people watching to a whole new level. Now that I’m writing it, it really sounds a bit creeper-ish, but I would completely love to be able to pick up strangers thoughts. I’m just fascinated by people’s inner workings – I think it’s why I love personal blogs and memoirs so much.

2. What’s your most bizarre pet peeve?
The only ones I’m thinking of are grammar related. When people misuse the word ‘literally’ – I want to slap them. And when people use the word ‘loose’ when they mean ‘lose’, as in, “I hope I didn’t lose my wallet.” ”Loose’ means ‘too big’ as in, “These pants are too loose.”. I constantly see ‘loose’ being used in place of ‘lose’ online, and it drives me FREAKING BANANA SANDWICH. ….end rant.

3. Tell us about the person that knows you the best.
My first though was, hey, I know me best! But really, I think the person that knows my personality best is my mum. We’ve always had a very special bond. She knows how I’m feeling without me having to say it. And, when I was younger, on the two occasions in my life that I locked myself out of the house (pre-cell phone time) she always showed up about five minutes after I got home, having left work early just, ‘knowing something was wrong’. Pretty crazy, but pretty awesome.

4. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?
Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell. It was the first book we read in the NovelTea book club, and I just adored it. The characters, the story – all of it. Excellent.
5. What’s your favorite wintertime drink?
Tea! But that’s really my favorite anytime drink. I could also say the ‘Birthday Punch’ we make every year only on my daughter’s birthday. I got the recipe from my BFF”s mum and it’s so great: Cranberry-pomegranate juice + seltzer water + gingerale. Serve with ice. Yum!

I’d like to tag Nerd In The Brain, Dezpresso, North East Nerd, and Sonya Cheney, if you’d like to participate! Here are your questions:

1. What’s your favorite meal to cook?
2. Tell us about one fictional character you absolutely loathe.
3. What is the first/your oldest memory you can think of?
4. Pen or pencil?
5. Describe the location of your perfect house, and the house itself if you’re feeling ambitious!

Four Years

At this time four years ago I was in a hospital, snuggled up with my five hour old baby girl. She showed up unexpectedly three full weeks early. I was lying in bed at home around eight in the morning, and all of a sudden it was like I was peeing everywhere. Without my doing it. Needless to say, my brain was all what the f***. As it turns out, roughly 10% of women have their water break without any sign of labor whatsoever. I was one those women! So we headed to my OBGYN, who confirmed yup, your water broke, and I got checked into the hospital.

Contractions didn’t show up until the afternoon, and at 1:22am on December 18th, my little miss was born! My memories/experience of birth are actually all good! I mean yeah, pain, but overall, nothing feeling like it was so horrific I couldn’t do it again. My hubs end of things however, not so much. I won’t get into the gory details but suffice to stay I kind of kept bleeding and didn’t stop. And apparently it was worrisome. I thank the amazing hospital team for not cluing me in a bit, as I had no idea this was happening and was in total joy land with my newborn.

Just born!

Fun side story: We opted not to find out the sex of our baby, so when she was born I had no idea if she was a girl or a boy. The staff was preoccupied with that whole bleeding thing, so no one told me. I finally remember screaming, “Oh yeah, what is it, what is it?!” Nobody had even checked in all the commotion! So they had to unwrap her all to just to let me know – it was a beautiful baby girl. 🙂

I remember being amazed at how tiny she was. That a living breathing human could be so small. When she started walking, it looked so silly because she was still so miniature! Like a living doll, just wandering around.

My tiny girl! Also, we soon learned that there really is no ‘gender neutral’ colors haha. Babies are so androgynous, that unless they are head to toe pink, there is no way to immediately identify ‘female’.

Today, she is four. And a little firecracker. She amazes me constantly, with things she can do, words and phrases she says. She’s just such an intelligent little being. It’s amazing to think that I created her. That she started out as just a teeny tiny little gummy bear shaped blob, and has grown and flourished into such an amazing little person.

Seeing how she has changed over the years amazes me. And makes me a bit sad. Every parenting cliche about time flying once you have kids is so true. And sometimes I have serious mom guilt about it. As a stay at home mom, I am with my child nearly 24/7. Which I really do, truly adore. It’s the only career I’ve ever wanted, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. But there are days where I snap at her when I shouldn’t, or yell despite all efforts to keep it together. Some days I get tired of playing pretend, or playing Pet Shop adventures. And I understand that’s normal. But then I remember that all too soon will come a time where she doesn’t want me around her 24/7, where she doesn’t want me to play with her anymore. And that can be a heartbreaking thought.

But, it also helps me keep things in perspective, and enjoy the time I have with her fully. Do I expect to be perfect? No. There will still be days where the last thing I want to do is play another round of princess tea party. But those days are few, and far between. For now, I’ll stick to embracing the little moments when I can. Relish the times she asks to snuggle in my lap, and melt with love when she randomly says, “Hey Mom? I love you.”, completely out of the blue.

Happy Birthday, my little wonder. 🙂

5 Fandom Friday. On a Tuesday. Frick.

I spent the majority of last week doing all the prep for my daughter’s rainbow birthday party we just had this past Sunday! It was a big success, and they’ll be a post about, but getting everything clean, made, decorated, and all around ready for the party ate up pretty much all of my week. Therefore, blogging fell so far behind. So it’s time to play a little catch up!

This past 5 Fandom Friday topic (hosted by The Nerdy Girlie and SuperSpaceChick) is a great one – Presents I Want Santa To Bring Me! My list includes all the outrageously expensive gifts I didn’t put on my Christmas list for people as they just cost Way. Too. Much. Thus, perfect for Santa!

1. A (giant) set of Copic Markers. I’m going to contradict myself now, as I actually DID include a set of these on my Christmas list just for the heck of it, but not one this big. This is my #1 item to save money and purchase for myself next year as I am dying to use them (and have so many ideas for them!).

2. This portrait lens. You’ve seen it already on my Camera Wishlist post. Yup, still want it. 😀

3. Completely unnecessary but completely fantastic video game figurine/statue thingies. My geeky collectible shelves are dying to have some of these on them!

4. A laptop. We are planning on buying one next year (no idea what kind yet), but it’d be amazing if one just appeared under our tree.

5. A WiiU. I picked WiiU over PS4 for this as I have no plans to buy a WiiU. I’d like it, but it would a complete and total frivolous purchase. There are only a few games I actually want to play for it, and I hardly have time to play console games at it is. But I’d still love it!