Operation Wake Up

So I've started working on a new project, which I call Operation Wake Up. The goal is to make it easier for me to get up in the mornings so that I can have some quiet time to myself to study and such before the kids wake up.

I've currently been trying to create a better environment to wake up in, that way I will want to wake up more. I'm also in the process of making different ringtones on my phone to wake up to. For weekdays, I have the beginning of the song "Breathless" by The Corrs. This is a song that I've loved for many years and that has always helped me "get up and go." I'm trying to get a song for Saturday and for Sunday now, but my Saturday song is stuck on Mitchell's old computer and my Sunday song is on a CD that's lost at my mom's house, so it will be awhile before I finish those.

I've been organizing things near my bed. I'm planning on eventually getting a diffuser to diffuse an essential oil to help me wake up. So I'm creating a space to make that possible. We don't have nightstands or anything, so we've never had a place to put things. Yesterday, I moved my bookshelf next to my side of the bed so that I can use it as a sort of nightstand. I dusted it and cleaned off fingerprints, and then reorganized my books. I think it looks so nice, and I love to have a safe spot to put my glasses at night.

Now I'm working on that lamp as a mini-project. You can't tell from the picture, but the shade is really just balancing directly on the bulb because it's missing a part, so we have to take the shade off when we actually turn the lamp on.

Kids' Clothing Organization - Part 4

On Saturday, I went to Kid-to-Kid again. I bought a lot of stuff for just over $175, including a snowsuit for each kid, a pair of snow boots for Joseph, and 2 brand-new costumes, Boba Fett and Sleeping Beauty. I should have taken pictures of the bags or the clothes, but they've already been scattered around the house and worn. I got Charlie a shirt, sweater, and pair of pants to wear to church, as well as 3 long-sleeve shirts and 2 jackets. Annabelle got a dress and a couple shirts. I think that might be everything we got...

Annabelle enjoys wearing her snowsuit around the house, which is pretty funny to see. It's a puffy, magenta, one-piece snowsuit, and you can hear her swishing when she wears it. I need to get a picture of her in it one of these days.

I've gotten almost everything on my shopping list for the kids. Annabelle and Charlie will need snow boots eventually and Charlie really needs some pajamas, but I'll probably complete that shopping a little slower.

Toy Organization - Part 2

Last week, I pulled all the boxes with toys down from the attic. Then I sorted through all those toys. That was an interesting process because the kids were so excited to see all these new toys, so they didn't want me to put any away. I had to sneak away all the ones I wanted to get rid of or store again.

Their room has been really messy since then because I didn't have containers for all the toys that were brought down. I think it's been a bit of a miracle that Joseph has been so good about cleaning his room, but when his motivation is video games, he does really well.

Yesterday, we finally went to IKEA to get the rest of the bins we needed for the toy sorter. We also got a couple other bins of a different type for keeping toys that will be kept in the closet. And we got a fun rug for them to play on. I'm excited that all of their stuff is going to be more neatly organized. I know that they are going to have more fun playing in their room, plus it's so cute!

I'm trying to decide if I want to make labels for the bins or just paint right on them. Any suggestions?

Kids' Clothing Organization - Part 3

I finished doing the inventory for Annabelle's clothes, and I have a shopping list all made up. Charlie needs the most clothes, but Annabelle needs almost as much; it's probably because they actually grow, haha!

I also sorted through the huge pile of stuff to get rid of. I came up with a box of clothes to take to Kid-to-Kid to sell. Their inventory was full, though, so they only bought one thing! I got less than $5... I was really hoping for, and expecting, more than I got, so I was really disappointed when I left. I was able to buy one pair of pajamas for Joseph with the store credit. They are a bigger size of his current favorite pajamas, so that worked out really well. Everything else was taken to DI, so now the living room is back to it's normal state of chaos, which is way better than it was.

I don't know if I want to drive all the way out to Kid-to-Kid to shop again, or if we'll just get the rest of their clothes at stores in our area. But that's all that's left! Shopping! Next week when we get the rest of our school loans, winter clothes shopping is on our to-do list.

Kid's Clothing Organization - Part 2

It took a few days, but I got ALL of the kids' clothes clean. Then I went through and inventoried the clothes Joseph and Charlie have for the winter. I'm using an Excel-type program to make the inventories in. I have each type of clothing (shirts, pants, etc.) and how much they need of each item in the rows, while the columns are the sizes. I would put it on here if I knew how to, but I don't know how and I don't really want to try figuring it out right now. I also finished going through the rest of the baby and girl clothes.

Annabelle's grow-into bin.

 Baby items that are used for either gender, which I'll gather as Charlie grows out of them.

 All the girl bins, ready to go into the attic.

I'm already part of the way through inventorying Annabelle's clothes. I'm getting so close to being done with this project!

Kid's Clothing Organization - Part 1

When I was first cleaning and organizing the kids' room, I pulled several disorganized boxes and bins full of clothes out of their closet. The pile of clothes sat in the living room for a couple weeks, but last week, I decided to start tackling it.

In the middle of the sorting process.

I've been sorting through the boxes and organizing them. I sorted out stuff I didn't want to keep and then sorted everything by size.

My growing pile of giveaways.

I've been concentrating mostly on the boys clothes first. After a few days of sorting and organizing, I think I've taken care of most their stuff.

These are the bins that will be going up to the attic until their needed.

And these are the ones for putting the clothes they are currently growing out of and into, which are kept in our storage closet.

As part of the project I'm also inventorying their clothes for the upcoming season, so that I know they have everything they need for the winter. This means A LOT of laundry because I haven't washed clothes in forever. So that's what I've been working on the past week, along with being sick.

Toy Organization - Part 1

On Saturday, I wanted to find one of Annabelle's bracelets so she could wear it to church. I went in their room to check the toy box, but I couldn't find it. Their room looked like this:

We bought Joseph the loft bed the week before, but I never finished putting the room back together, so that made things even worse. I realized how much their toy mess has been driving me nuts. Even if we tried to have them clean their room, there wasn't enough room in the toy box for everything, so it could never really get clean.

I decided it was time to do something about it. First, I went to IKEA and bought this (but I got different buckets):

Putting it together on Saturday afternoon just about killed me! I'm just such a weakling! My muscles were so sore on Sunday. After it was together, I started sorting through the toys and organizing them. I have a bag of toys that are going to DI as well as a box of toys that will go up in the attic for a bit.

As I started getting toys put away, I realized that I didn't like the layout of the room very much; some things were hard to get to and some things just didn't have a place. I have had too many disastrous attempts at rearranging rooms only to find out the arrangement won't work, so I decided to make a plan. I measured everything and made a floor plan on graph paper with each square equal to 6 inches. It seemed like my idea for the room arrangement would work, but I wasn't sure, so I decided to take my floor plan idea one step further. I made a floor plan with each square on the graph paper equaling 1 inch. This floor plan did take me over an hour to put together, and now it's in the trash, but it confirmed that my arrangement would work, and that's what I wanted.

In my next post, I'll have pictures of the new arrangement, each of the toy areas I tried to set up, and, hopefully, a printable of the labels I made for the toy storage.

Project Blog

After much deliberation, I've decided to have this become my project blog. However, I will still try to do a variety of things and try a lot of new things out as well as labeling what hobbies pertained to each project. I'm excited for this new direction, and I'm currently working on a project that I should be ready to post about by the end of this week.

Direction Needed

In case you haven't noticed, I've taken a couple weeks off of trying hobbies. I was starting to feel pressured, so I was forcing myself to try to do "something" every day ,and feeling guilty if I didn't. I didn't like how things were going, so I decided to take some time to think about my options.

1) Continue on doing more hobbies after the vacation I've had.

2) Go back and do a second week of the hobbies that I enjoyed or didn't really experience much of.

3) Start "pinteresting," which would just mean me trying out different projects from Pinterest and blogging about them. This would also end up covering many of the hobbies I have tried or was planning on trying.

4) Keep track of other projects that I've considered working on. (Recently, I've been looking out for nightstands to put in our bedroom.)

I'm not really sure where to go with this. I guess I feel that if people are actually reading and enjoying this blog, then it would be good to continue on with it, but I'd want to blog about what my readers found interesting. Give me some input, please?

Sewing Week - Days 5, 6, & 7

The past three days, Charlie has been sick, and I was even feeling a bit sick. So I wasn't up, or really able to, do any sewing.

Summary of Sewing Week:
I didn't really do any sewing, sadly. I did sew a button on Mitchell's shorts, which made me feel useful and good, but that really doesn't seem like much. I want to try this again so that I can really get a feel for it.

Sewing Week - Days 2, 3, & 4

I've just spent the last 3 days working on laundry to clear a space for my sewing stuff...

Sewing Week - Day 1

This is Sewing Week! Today, I went through the bedroom closet to find all of my sewing stuff. Then I organized it all. I also started work on getting a sewing area set up. The big problem is that I have HUGE piles of laundry there that desperately need to be washed first. So I guess this is also laundry week...

Gardening Week - Day 7

I watered my plants today. And I pruned a few more bad leaves off of my jar herbs. Just waiting for things to grow right now.

Summary of Gardening Week:
I really enjoyed Gardening Week. I liked working with the plants and I liked that it made me go outside more. This gave me a good feeling of fulfillment, and excitement and hope for my plants. This was definitely a winner.

Gardening Week - Days 5 & 6

The past couple days, I've just "pruned" my herbs, taking the leaves out that aren't doing well in the jars. And I've checked to see if my pots are still moist. Not very exciting, but it's nice to have something like that.

Gardening Week - Day 4

Today, I cleaned out my planters. I had four that I bought several years ago, but haven't used in forever (like, since we lived in Virginia 3 years ago). I washed them with soap and water, then I soaked them in our tub with some added bleach for an hour. I decided to get two things done at once and ran the jets of the tub at the same time. It worked pretty great, except one of my small planters cracked. Then I let them air dry.

We also went to Home Depot. We bought potting soil that's formulated for starting seeds and cuttings more quickly. We bought spinach seeds. And we bought a trowel.

I finally got down to some planting. I planted the spinach seeds in my biggest planter. And put some green onions in my second biggest planter. I'm waiting for some herbs to show signs of rooting before I waste soil and planter space on them. The kids had fun helping me water the seeds and onions, too. They are so excited to see things grow.

Gardening Week - Days 2 & 3

The past couple days, I've done tons of research about gardening in containers and what to plant this time of year and other such things. I probably could have spent even more time because I'm kind of obsessed with researching things until I know "everything," but that wouldn't have been very effective or interesting for the blog.

I bought several different fresh herbs at the store yesterday, and I'm going to see if I can get any of them to root with just water and sunshine. I know it's kind of unlikely, since it's been awhile since they were cut from the original plant, and many herbs don't usually root without rooting compound, but I'm willing to at least try. I am also rooting green onions in a jar. I've done that a lot, but this time I'm planning on actually planting them.

Parsley (Italian, or Flat-Leaf), Thyme, Green Onions, Rosemary, Tarragon, Basil, Mint, Cilantro, Oregano, Sage

While sorting through each of the herb bunches and prepping them to be put in the water, I learned that I don't like the smells of Tarragon or Sage very much. Tarragon is okay, but Sage smells really bad to me. I like the smells of all of the other herbs a lot, but those two are just not pleasant to me. I wonder why?

Gardening Week - Day 1

I'm starting Gardening Week. All I was able to do today was browse at Home Depot. I checked prices for soil, fertilizer, and seeds. Because I'm starting in the season so late, the only thing I'm going to try planting from seed is spinach. I'm also going to be researching how to sprout and plant a few herbs.

I'm excited about doing this. Gardening obviously isn't something that can be done in only one week, so I'll try to keep track of how things go in the long run.

Cooking Week - Day 7

I made bread bowls and Broccoli-Cheddar Soup with Potatoes. I loved the soup. It was really delicious. Mitchell wanted it it to stay chunky, so I didn't put it in the food processor and make it smooth like most Broccoli soups are. Even Joseph ate all of his soup. The bread bowls were just made with a defrosted loaf of Rhodes bread, so they were easy, but really delicious as well.

I also finally got out the Berry Cheesecake Pops that we made earlier in the week. They all broke off halfway in the mold, which was really disappointing. The flavor was interesting and the cheesecake part froze kind of weird, but that may be because I didn't layer and mix as much as I should have when I poured the pops. I still liked them, and I ended up scooping the rest of mine out with a spoon. The kids seemed to like them, too, but they were really tired, so they didn't finish them tonight.

Please ignore the shirtless Agent Booth on the TV screen. ;)

Summary of Cooking Week:

I had fun, but I kind of knew I would. It was still stressful, especially on Mitchell because he usually ended up taking care of a cranky baby while I cooked. This is definitely a skill that I want to continue developing, though. Especially more as my kids get older.

Cooking Week - Day 6

Another day of breakfast. I made Baked Oatmeal. It was really good, but it was also very sweet. I think it would need some bacon or something to go with it, to offset the sweetness in flavor and the sugar in the diet. The kids liked that I let them sprinkle chocolate chips on their bowls of oatmeal. They ate it right up, too.

Cooking Week - Day 5

I made breakfast again today. I love breakfast foods, they are totally my favorite. Today, I made Tropical Smoothies, as well as eggs and bacon. I really liked the smoothies. My favorite part was putting in the cream of coconut. I could eat that stuff right off the spoon! The recipe calls for pineapple sherbet, but I couldn't find any at the store, so I used raspberry sorbet. I think it made the flavor a lot stronger, but they were still so good.

Cooking Week - Day 4

I had a really difficult time getting motivated to cook today. I've had some personal stuff going on that has been affecting my depression, so that was a huge part of it. I also get frustrated with cooking in my small kitchen. But I was able to get myself to make dinner.

I made Asian Lettuce Wraps and Mango Rice. I didn't like the flavors really at all. In fact, I didn't even finish my lettuce wrap. The kids also hated it. I don't know what Mitchell thought because he took his to work and he's not home yet. I think that many people would actually like these recipes, they just aren't for me. And they took a lot of work! It probably would have been less if my kitchen wasn't so crowded and I had more clean dishes, though. And more time, since I was rushing to finish before Mitchell went to work.

Asian Lettuce Wraps and Mango Rice

I also had time to make Berry Cheesecake Pops, but they are still freezing right now. I'm excited to see what they are like tomorrow.

Cooking Week - Day 3

I started out trying to make breakfast, but a lot of stuff got in the way, so we ate breakfast for lunch. I made Breakfast Taquitos with Lime-Chipotle Dip.

I made the tortillas myself, and I'm not very good at it yet.

 This is the dip. It was basically sour cream with some lime juice, salt, and chipotle powder.

This is the only taquito that actually rolled and looked nice. The rest kind of folded because my tortillas were too stiff. We also had sugared berries.

I liked the taquitos a lot. I did forget to put the Tabasco into the eggs, so they could have used a little more flavor. And I need way more practice with making tortillas, so they didn't work too well. The tortillas were a little overcooked to start with and then putting them in the oven with the egg inside them really made them get crunchy. The dip was really good with it, too. Mitchell said the dip redeemed the taquitos from being a little overcooked and bland.

Cooking Week - Day 2

This morning for breakfast, I made One-Bowl Zucchini Banana Muffins and scrambled eggs. The muffins were so good! They were super moist and flavorful. Mitchell and the kids liked them a lot, too.

I also went shopping again for tomorrow's ingredients. But I didn't have time to do any other cooking because we just ended up being so busy. We'll see what happens tomorrow with the recipes that I have planned.

Cooking Week - Day 1

I decided to do Cooking Week. I love trying new recipes and new cooking techniques, so this seem a natural hobby choice for me. However, I struggle with having little kids bug me and mess me up, so that's going to be a challenge this week.

This morning, I spent forever planning out a long menu with at least 4 new recipes per day. That's obviously not going to happen, but I can at least try, right? We also went grocery shopping for today's, and some of tomorrow's, ingredients. Also, pretty much all of the recipes are from my two Our Best Bites cookbooks.

I tried out 3 new recipes today. For dinner, I made:

Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade

Creamy Roasted Garlic and Asparagus Soup

 and Grilled Summer Vegetable Sandwiches

There were mixed opinions on the food. I loved the lemonade and it wasn't really difficult to make either. The soup and sandwich took a lot of work, but I didn't really love them. I think part of that may be that they are different flavors than I am used to eating; I'm more of a PBJ or steak kind of girl. I didn't weigh the asparagus when we bought it, so I might not have had enough, which made the garlic flavor of the soup kind of overpowering. Mitchell liked it, though, so it might just be me. The sandwich was pretty good, too, but I think I tried putting too many vegetables on, so it kept falling apart. And I've been realizing that I'm not a big fan of eggplant, so that was a problem for me, too. Mitchell liked the sandwich, too. His only problem was he felt the meal needed something else to be complete. I took half of the soup and sandwich to a sick friend's house, and she loved the meal. She said everything was like eating at a cafe. So I guess, it turned out better than I thought myself. Oh, and the kids only like the lemonade and the bread, nothing else. 

Sick Leave

I am sick. So I won't be working on any hobbies this week. Come back again next week, though!

Cake Decorating Week - Days 4, 5, 6, & 7

I haven't had much time for posting, so I'm going to bundle all into one post.

Day 4 : I baked 12 cupcakes and 1 9" round. I also frosted the cupcakes with blue frosting.

Day 5: I only had time to work on the cupcakes a little bit. I covered half of each cupcake with graham cracker crumbs.

Day 6: I put a Teddy Graham on a square of Fruit Roll-Up and put those on each cupcake on top of the graham cracker crumbs.

Day 7: I put little umbrellas in each cupcake. They became little beach cupcakes; a perfect summer treat. (Please forgive the bad pictures...)

I also pulled the round cake out of the freezer and worked on it. I cut it in half, and then stacked the halves to make a half-round cake. I did the crumb coat, froze it, and then did the frosting coat and froze. I did that in purple. Then I did the rest of the frosting in a darker purple and pink. I made a half-birthday cake for a little girl in our ward. Earlier in the week, I called a member of the Primary Presidency and asked if any kids in our ward had birthdays the last week of December so that I could do a half-birthday cake. There was one lucky little girl who did. It was fun decorating the cake, and just as I was finishing, I felt like a was sort of getting the hang of things.

Summary of Cake Decorating Week:

I had fun! It was a lot of work, though. And a bit frustrating at times, especially because I don't have a lot of the right tools. The frosting kit I have has to pros and cons, so I learned a lot working with it. I think it would be great to get better at working with the frosting, as well as learning to make my own cakes and frosting from scratch. I think there's a lot more that I can learn from this. And I think, with a lot of practice, I could get a lot better at it.

Cake Decorating Week - Days 2 & 3

On Tuesday, I spent forever trying to get the cake decorated. I did the crumb coat at one time, then much later I was able to do the top coat of frosting.

This is after the top coat of frosting. I think I did pretty good for my first time. There was hardly any crumbs in it.

I was finally able to decorate the cake after the kids went to bed. They had requested a rainbow cake, so that's what I decided to do. I used a new little decorating kit that Jason, my brother, got me for Christmas. I ran into a few problems, but was able to work past them. I'm  not really good at a lot of the decorating techniques because I haven't practiced them enough, so I was a bit slow and everything was pretty uneven. The kit comes with 4 bottles that you attach the tips to, but that led to a few problems because I was using 7 colors. What I tried doing was starting with the red, then I mixed yellow dye to make it orange. The problem is that the bottles are accordion shaped so that they are easy to squeeze, but that means all the dye and frosting get stuck in the folds. It definitely made the job a bit more difficult than if I'd used icing bags, but that's okay. It still came out pretty cute. (I haven't put Photoshop back on my computer yet, and I'm too lazy to do it now.)

This morning, I was woken up by the kids and Annabelle was asking for her hands to be washed. It took a minute to sink in, but then I asked her why she needed her hands washed and she told me, "From the frosting." So I ran into the kitchen and looked in the fridge, where we'd stored the cake so the frosting didn't melt, and the cake now looked like this.

.

It still tastes good, and I was able to salvage enough (after she got to it again on the counter) to share with the kids' friends. Besides eating cake, I didn't do anything for cake decorating today because I was just too busy.

Cake Decorating Week - Day 1

I got a big bucket of butter-cream frosting on Thursday at a Relief Society activity, so this week is Cake Decorating week! I bought a bunch of cake mixes at the store today. And I baked a chocolate cake and got it into the freezer, but that's as far as I got with all the activity and stuff going on in my house.

Yoga Week - Days 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7

Although I tried getting up early enough to do yoga everyday, Annabelle has beat me to it every day. And though I constantly looked for opportunities throughout the day, they never came.

And today's Sunday, so I won't be doing any yoga today.

Summary of Yoga Week:
I didn't do any yoga at all this week. But I'm actually feeling relieved that it's over. It was stressful constantly trying to find a way to do the yoga. I was always trying to find ways to get my kids to sleep early or take naps or stay occupied just so I could do yoga. And when I would think I finally had the chance, something would happen so I couldn't do it. So I'm glad Yoga Week is done because it just doesn't fit in my life right now.

Yoga Week - Day 1

This week is going to be Yoga Week. I didn't decide that until late, though, so I didn't have the chance to do yoga today. I was originally planning on doing gardening, but realized I didn't have the money for soil and plants right now. I'm going to have to do yoga in the mornings before the kids wake up because they get really crazy if I do it when they are around.

Viola Week - Days 4, 5, & 6

The past couple days, I didn't really have time to do anything for Viola Week, nor did I really know what to do. Last night, I did start looking up more ideas for slipping pegs.

So today, I pulled my viola out and tried one of the ideas. I used some fine sandpaper to roughen out the areas that were all smooth and shiny on the peg. That seemed to be working, so I went to the piano and started trying to tune the string. I was tightening and tuning, when suddenly, there was a huge SNAP! And my bridge had broken in half...

Now that my heart has mostly stopped racing (it was really loud and scary), I can think about what might have happened. I haven't really touched my viola in several years, so the strings and everything are old and haven't been maintained. I think that the strings were just so old that they couldn't get to the right note without being over tightened. I'm obviously not a viola expert, so I don't know if that's true, but it's my theory.

While I have another bridge, I don't have anymore strings and I don't know how to replace a bridge or strings. So Viola Week has come to an end.

Summary of Viola Week:
I feel like I didn't really get to do anything. I'm excited that I have an idea of how to tune my instrument, but I never got to play. So I think I will try Viola Week in the future, when we can afford to have it repaired.

Viola Week - Day 3

Today, we walked to a music store to ask about fixing a peg that slips. We were told we need "peg dope."
It costs $13.95, but we are flat-broke right now, so I have to wait to get it. I'm not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow... maybe research another DIY way to fix the peg.

Viola Week - Day 2

Well, I tried putting candle wax on the peg for my "A" string to keep it from slipping, but it didn't work. I didn't have the chance to try it out until just now, so it's too late to really try anything else. I think I'm going to look up a music store in the area that we can take it to and I'll ask someone there if they know how to fix it.

Viola Week - Day 1

So, today is the beginning of viola week. Today, I pulled out my viola and tried to get in tune. It's really sad, but I never knew how to tune my instrument by myself. I think part of it's because I am not naturally able to do things "by ear" and that was how everyone tuned their instruments in my high school orchestra. I never had a tuner and I don't remember a piano that we could use. So I always thought I was just unable to tune my own instrument. It's been 9 years since I was in orchestra and I've only pulled my viola out a very few times in those 9 years. Whenever I did, I couldn't seem to figure out how to tune my instrument. Today, I was much more determined to actually do it. I, mostly, succeeded. My "A" string is having some trouble; at first I thought it was the actual string, but I realized that the peg is just slipping. I found a tip online to help loose pegs, but I didn't have time to try it before Charlie woke up. It felt great tuning those other strings, though. I feel like I'm finally making steps toward something I should have learned more than 10 years ago. My poor viola has been through a lot in the past 9 years, including 5 moves in 3 different states. All of that seems to have been a little hard on the viola; one of the seams looks like it's starting to separate and the varnish is cracked a little bit, but I don't think it's a huge deal because it seemed to work just fine today. Tomorrow I will do more inspecting and see if I can get that peg to stay in place as well.

Running Week - Day 7

We walked to and from church today, but I wasn't going to do more than that because it's Sunday.

Summary of Running Week:
Running Week totally did not work. A big part of that was due to my legs just not being physically up to it. I don't have the necessary strength in my leg muscles and my bones aren't able to handle that much shock or weight. Another thing that kept me from really trying again was a major attack of hives that swelled my ear to twice its normal size; I was taking Benadryl nearly every 4 hours for 2 days, and then I needed time to heal up. I think I want to have a Running Week 2 later, after I've had time to keep walking and do some other exercising.

Running Week - Day 6

My kids woke up before my alarm even went off, so I wasn't able to run today. We didn't even end up walking anywhere today because it was so hot.

Running Week - Days 3, 4, & 5

On Tuesday, I got this crazy rash that got worse and worse over Wednesday. It slowly started getting better yesterday, but I'm still super itchy. So running has not been on my mind the past few days. I'll probably be walking to the park today, but that's the extent of it until this rash isn't so bad.

Running Week - Day 2

I tried running this morning. Apparently, my bones aren't ready for that kind of thing. I was trying to do the Couch to 5k, so I started with 5 minutes of brisk walking and then tried alternating 60 seconds of running with 90 seconds of walking. As soon as I started running, my left tibia was protesting. It was so bad that I was limp-running. I tried it a couple more times, but it was just too much, so I walked the whole way home. I was out for 20 minutes, though, so I know that was good. I guess I'm just going to have to walk more and build up what my leg can handle.

Running Week - Day 1

I usually decide what the next week is going to be on Sunday night. Last night, I was thinking of doing Gardening Week, but I realized this morning that we can currently fund that project, so I had to change. I decided on Running Week. 

So I didn't do any running today because I'm planning on doing it in the mornings before the kids are up. It's okay, though, because I'm going to do the Couch to 5k, and you only run 3 days of the week. So today, I just found the routine and pinned it to the start screen of my phone as well as two pages with recommended before- and after-run stretches.

I'm a little bit scared to do running because I haven't really done any running since my surgeries and I don't know how my legs are going to take this. I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed and try my best. I'm excited, though, because I used to love running and I've been wanting to pick it back up for years.

Piano Week - Days 5, 6, & 7

I didn't play any piano the past 3 days! I had a migraine on Friday, so I didn't really feel up to playing then. And we've hardly even been home yesterday or today, so I didn't have time to play. It's kind of sad because I enjoy playing.

Summary of Piano Week:
I had fun! I loved pulling out my old books and playing again. It wasn't as difficult to find time to practice as Singing Week because I only really needed Charlie asleep. And I didn't feel as self-conscious about having people hear me practice. I think I will try keeping the keyboard out and still try to practice somewhat regularly.

Piano Week - Day 4

I played for less than 10 minutes today. Too many external things got in the way. One thing I noticed in my brief bit of playing was how worn out my fingers were; I think they've been getting a better workout than I first realized. I also noticed a bit of my memory kicking in to help  me remember the songs that I've been practicing a lot over the past few days.

Piano Week - Day 3

I practice for about 30-35 minutes today. I kind of felt like I was a little kid again. I was practicing a song that I learned and passed off about 16 years ago, but the song was hard again. I was really working at playing with both my right and left hands together. It was fun, though. I did some warm-up exercises, practice a couple songs out of the lesson book, then I had fun and played through a Disney song, and I ended with practicing "Come, Follow Me." I figure I should know at least one hymn, in case a pianist is ever needed at church.

Piano Week - Day 2

By the time Charlie went down for a nap today, I had a migraine. It's still hanging around, so I just decided that there won't be any piano playing tonight.

Piano Week - Day 1

This week is going to be Piano Week. We have a keyboard that I pulled out and I'm going to try to play for around 40 minutes every day. Today, I pulled out my John Thompson 2nd Grade book that I never finished and decided to just start at the beginning again. It's been SO long since I've played the piano, so it was more difficult for me. My fingers aren't used to that kind of use at all, and they weren't "cooperating" in the way I wanted them to. I enjoyed playing a lot, though. One frustrating thing is the keyboard itself. There isn't the same resistance in the keys as on a piano, so dynamics are extremely difficult to play. It seems like I can only play really loud or really quiet. I also tried giving Joseph a little piano lesson. He was really excited to play the piano like me, so he was willing to try. He does not get the idea of using different fingers for different keys, but he did learn what middle C is and he's very proud of that. It's easy for him to remember where it is because there are some stickers on the keyboard. We'll see if he wants to keep doing "piano lessons" after today.

Beauty Week - Days 6 & 7

I didn't do anything for Beauty Week on Saturday.

Today, I tried one more new thing. After my shower, I mixed a little bit of baby oil with my regular lotion before putting it on. It was awesome! It's the first time that my legs haven't felt super dry after shaving. And my skin looked so soft and nice for a long time after my shower. I really liked doing that a lot.

When I put my makeup on, I just used a bunch of the tricks that I've tried throughout the week. I think it all came out alright.

Summary of Beauty Week:

It was fun to try out some new things this week, and I even got a couple new things to try out. However, it felt like so much work! I'm so lazy about stuff, so removing makeup every night before bed felt like too much work. And I felt like I wasted a lot of time getting ready everyday just so that I would have something to blog about. I guess it's because I'm married and a mom, but I just don't feel like wearing makeup and looking "pretty" are that important right now. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it! And I think it's fun to do on occasion. I do like looking nice, but I don't like that I have to spend forever putting on makeup to look nice. I think I'll just stick with my occasional wearing of makeup and other such beauty things.

Beauty Week - Day 5

Let's see, today I tried out a few more things.

I wanted to try out this primer that has some shimmer to it, but Sephora doesn't carry that brand and that's where we went. A guy at Sephora recommended a different product, which I found out I was allergic to, but it led me to an illuminating primer that I tried out. It was an okay product, but I'm not super sold on it. There's already a primer that I know I like, I guess I was just looking for a good illuminator/highlighter.

I was a little more deliberate and careful when I put my concealer on today. I have terrible under-eye circles that are difficult to cover up. Today, I waited a bit after moisturizing before putting concealer on, then I applied a foundation, and I followed up with my powder, which I applied with a smaller brush to make sure that it got on and stayed on. I feel like the extra care was worth it because my concealer seemed to work longer.

I tried a new trick with my mascara, where you hold up a card on the other side of your eyelashes so they don't bend away when you're applying the mascara. It didn't seem to make much difference to me, but that may be because I'm blessed with good eyelashes, so I don't need extra care. It might work great for someone with light colored or finer eyelashes.

I also carried around my chapstick with me, which I haven't done in years, and remembered to apply it multiple times during the day, so now my lips are nice and soft.

I tried getting photos a couple times, but the sun wasn't really my friend when it came to that. However, here they are:

Beauty Week - Day 4

Today, I tried doing a few different things. I put hand sanitizer next to my computer to use whenever I sit down because I read that one major cause of chin and jaw acne comes from resting our face in our hand while looking at the computer, which I do all the time. I also learned that it's best to use a lighter face wash in the morning and a stronger one at night.; it removes your makeup and all the dirt at night without drying out your face from over cleansing.

For my makeup, I blended a drop of liquid foundation with my moisturizer and then put it on. I loved that because my face felt hydrated and the color was evened out, but it wasn't cakey or too overdone. When I put my eyeliner on, I put black liner on my top lid and brown on the bottom lid; I layered the black with pencil first and then liquid and I used a liquid marker type liner for the brown. Doing that is supposed to give a softer look. I don't normally where liner on the bottom, so it was a heavier look than I usually have, but it was definitely softer than having black on top and on bottom. I also lined the rims and corners of my eyes with white liner to brighten and open them up. I bought the most amazing liner for that! It's Buxom Insider Eyeliner, and it's the smoothest, softest liner I've ever used. I highly recommend it; it's the only liner I'll buy from now on. My first two pictures where taken right after doing my makeup, but the last was taken much later in the evening.

Here's a close up of the eye makeup:

Full face:

It's hard to see past my glasses, but the makeup lasted all day, so that was really great.

Beauty Week - Day 3

Today I went shopping at Sephora. I tried out a few awesome products and I bought a couple new things. I can't wait to really try them out tomorrow.

Beauty Week - Day 2

I rinsed my hair this morning and then styled it. It really didn't seem any softer. I think I might have been using the wrong kind of product. We were so busy cleaning our house and stuff that I didn't do anything else today.

Beauty Week - Day 1

Today is the first day of Beauty Week. During Beauty Week, I am going to try out different techniques for makeup, skincare, nail painting, etc. I used to do stuff like this all the time before I got married and started having kids. I even worked on creating a "Beauty Book" a long time ago, which was a big binder full of beauty tips collected and collaged from magazines (apparently Samantha stole it from me).

One of the main things that I'm going to do this week is actually wear makeup, do my hair, and take care of my skin. Confession: I usually only wash my face 3 or 4 times per week.... This week, I'm going to do it twice a day! (If you want to know about any of the products I use, just ask. I don't swear by many beauty products because I love trying out new stuff, but I do have a lot of stuff that I like.)

I'm probably going to use things I've posted on Pinterest for ideas of what to do this week. Today, I used different ideas from an article on Shape.com called "Beauty Secrets from the People Who Know Best." I just used ideas from a couple tips today. I took some napkins from the Starbucks in our Barnes and Noble because they are supposed to be good blotting tissue, but I haven't tested that out yet. I've been trying to drink more water because it's good for your skin. I tried to "preserve my blow out" with dry shampoo and a little fluff with the blow dryer, but it didn't really work for me. Maybe it's because my hair is too short and just looks weird when I sleep on it. I'm also using a DIY recipe of dry shampoo that doesn't work very well. And I washed my hair and put in a deep conditioner a little while ago and I'll be rinsing it out tomorrow.

The last thing 2 things I did were with my eye makeup. I layered my eyeliner by putting on pencil first and then putting on liquid, then I warmed up my eyelash curler with my hair dryer before using it. Both of those techniques are supposed to help your makeup last longer. I feel like my eyeliner did last all day, but my eyelashes didn't stay curled all day. So I would recommend the eyeliner tip, but not the eyelash curler one. Here's a picture of me right after putting on the eyeliner and doing the hot curler thing (I didn't Photoshop it because I felt like that would ruin the whole testing-things-out aspect):

 It's really not a special picture and I took it at a weird angle, so my nose looks HUGE, but I don't hate it and I usually hate most pictures taken of me. I don't think there's anything that special about the makeup, but whatever. Maybe tomorrow will be more exciting...

Singing Week - Days 5, 6, & 7

I didn't do any singing the past 3 days. I was planning on going to Ward Choir Practice today, but I wasn't feeling well, so we stayed home and I slept through church.

Summary of Singing Week:
Even though I love singing, it really isn't something that works with my life right now. Part of it may have been that I was trying to do the lessons from the book and they require me to record myself, which I don't want to do when my kids are awake. Another part is that I feel a bit self-conscious and awkward practicing when Mitchell and the kids are around. But finding time when they aren't awake/around is nearly impossible. The one time that I really did some singing, I really enjoyed myself. I wish that it had worked, but I'm glad that I learned from this experience. I've been considering/talking to Mitchell about me taking singing lessons for years. I'm glad that it never got past the discussion stage because we might have wasted a lot of money. Maybe this is something that I can come back to in a few years when my kids are older and I have more time to myself.

Singing Week - Day 4

I didn't do any singing today. It's so hard to find time to do it! I'm not sure how to make the time, either.

Singing Week - Day 3

I didn't do anything from my book today. I couldn't seem to find any time to do it; the kids woke up early, they didn't nap at the same time, and they went to bed kind of late. Now I'm so tired that there's no way I can sing. 

I did sing the kids to sleep, and I even sang more songs than usual because Annabelle and Charlie weren't settling down. I tried to think about how I was singing while I was doing it. Normally, I just sing and don't really think about what I'm doing. But today, I tried to remember to use the "vocal pathway" and lift the sound up. I also focused a bit on the shape of my mouth and my pronunciation while I was singing. I even tried singing songs in different keys so that I stretched my range a bit. 

I need to find a time to actually work on singing...

Singing Week - Day 2

I had a hard time getting started today. I was feeling very reticent to start practicing and wasn't enjoying the idea of "Singing Week." Which is weird because I love singing and I always have. I took voice lessons for a short time in 11th grade and loved the practice. I was also in choir that year and loved it. I tried out for and made it into the next level choir for 12th grade, but ended up moving and missing out on that. I did a little bit of singing with my Aunt Mary the Fall before Mitchell, and I got married and I loved it then. So I was trying to figure out why I didn't want to sing today. As I thought about it, I realized that, because of the method in this book of recording yourself, this was the first time I'd really heard myself sing. And I don't sound as good as I thought I did... I was having a lot of trouble getting my "Yoo-hoos!" to sound right, too. I've always had people tell me that I'm a good singer, so I've always felt good about my singing, but now I worry that they are just saying it to be nice.

Even though I was feeling all of this, I decided to just practice anyways. I'm glad I did because I really enjoyed myself tonight. I practiced some more "Yoo-hoos!" and then I did several more exercises. I sang "Ah-ha!", "Whee!", "Oh, No!", and "Hey, Ray!". Then I sang the alphabet, but I had to sing it high-pitched and legato. That was all of Chapter 2. I started Chapter 3 and read about vocal imagery. Then I sang "Mary Had a Little Lamb" like an opera singer.

Now I feel really good! I actually feel kind of like I was working out. Singing actually is a good workout for the lungs. I'm excited now to keep trying and work on making my voice better. I'll finish up Chapter 3 tomorrow, which will have more of me using vocal imagery to sing like different people as well as listening to different musical artists. It's always awesome to learn about great singers.

Singing Week - Day 1

I'm going to try singing this week. I've always loved singing and it's always been an important part of my life. It would be impractical and too expensive for me to take private lessons every day this week, so I'm going to be working out of a book that I got a while back. It's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Singing. It's meant for a purpose just like this; you use the book to work on your singing and to help you decide if you want to invest in voice lessons.

For the lessons in the book, you listen to the exercise on a CD and then you record yourself performing the exercise. I thought about making little videos and posting them, but Mitchell and I decided against that. We figure that people really don't want to listen to me doing warm-ups and vocal exercises, so I won't post them and make you feel obligated to do that.

Chapter 2 is where things really get started in the book, Chapter 1 is mostly a history lesson. Today I did some exercises where I compare saying phrases to singing phrases. It's supposed to help me learn to recognize the physical difference between speaking and singing. I have a vocal background, so I really understand this pretty well. Instead, I am trying to learn to mimic what I hear in the recording and figure out the feeling of that.

Today, all I did was practice speaking and singing "Yoo-Hoo!" That's all I was able to do today, though.

Photography Week - Day 7

I wanted to take some amazingly beautiful photos today and do a bunch of Photoshopping, so that I could create an awesome post for the last day of Photography Week. But we spent a fun-filled Mother's Day as a family, so I didn't have much time to spend on things. I did try taking photos when we went to the BYU Botany Pond (aka the duck pond), but my children weren't really cooperative; they did NOT want their pictures taken. But here's what I got:

Waiting for the train to pass so we can get home from church.

 Annabelle running around at the duck pond. I think of these as her "Rapunzel" pictures.

 Lots of pictures of Charlie.

 Summary of Photography Week:
I had so much fun!! I've really enjoyed taking pictures and learning to use Photoshop this past week. I looked forward to doing photography stuff every day. I want to continue with what I've learned and keep taking and editing photographs. I want to get a better camera when we can afford it so that I can expand my abilities. However, I'm going to continue searching for now. And it's for two reasons: 1) I don't have a camera, so taking pictures isn't very satisfying, and 2) it would be great to have something extra to take pictures of.