The Load of Laundry That Changed My Life

Well, maybe not...but "The Load of Laundry That Was A Tangible Example of How My Life is Going To Change Once I Have a Baby Boy and Everything's No Longer Pink and Purple" seemed like a bit of a long title.



Let me just say that I'm THRILLED to be having a boy. And not just because we'll "have our boy" and can stop. God-willing, this is just the beginning to a wonderful "quiver full" of arrows. And I'd have been THRILLED to be having a girl...I hope (as was my feeling when I was packing away infant girl things) that I'll again have a little girl to wear the pink monkey sleeper :) among other things.

All that said, as I was doing laundry tonight, I tossed a load from the washer to the drier. It was mostly girls' clothes....and it was a light colored load. I noticed that each toss (my washer and drier are diagonal from each other) was a motley of pinks, purples, and whites...and was really girlie. And I had a moment.

In the next few months, my laundry will change from pinks and purples to blues and greens. It was just a moment when I got a glimpse into the future. Made me think of all the other things that are going to change.

That's What They Tell Me....

Word on the street is that I'm nesting. Well....praise be to God! I'm super glad that I'm pregnant then, because this house is a disaster! Wait....I'm glad I'm preggers because babies are always and only a blessing....yeah, that's right. But this nesting thing is a close second.

We've got a long way to go (especially if we ever plan on letting outsiders in the front door ever again), but every little bit helps....and I'm trying to do a thorough job as I go. I got into this mess because I would clean clean clean...and then "sweep whatever was left under the rug" (ie, in one continuous motion, toss it into my craft room/office and shut the door quickly before anything escaped). Thus, the craft room would be my audition material for "Clean House".

But we're getting there.

Over the last few days, I've set my timer (small children, indecisive thyroid, pregnancy, dogs, husband-who's-a-bigger-pack-rat-than-even-me....I run out of steam quickly) and gone into the office armed with industrial size (ok, maybe not, but the big, black ones) garbage bags and I've been ruthless! My inner crafter and tree hugger had to be bound and gagged a few times, but my love of repurposing is part of what got me into this mess....literally.

It's a little frustrating to spend time, effort and allergies (cleaning kicks up a looooooot of dust around here) and not feel like it even made a dent in the problem.....but then I just go out and look at the big, full garbage bags and I feel better.

And then there's the storage containers....

I FINALLY got through some of the toys in the toy room. I have an awesome storage thingy from IKEA with little pull out tubs of different sizes. I had visions of the girls taking out one tub at a time and making the toy room a little more toddler friendly....they could choose what they wanted and be able to handle it all on their own. Great idea....

but what we ended up with was kiddie junk drawers. Not cool.

So far so good on the clear boxes. Maybe I made a bigger deal of it. Maybe (for now) it's more organized. I've always been a person who will put something away EVERY TIME if there's a clear place for it....it's all the extra "stuff" that I struggle with....and so now....all the extra "stuff" in the toy room is still strewn about waiting to be pitched, donated or settled...somewhere.

In the mean time, the girls have been so excited about the boxes and I've seen them play so well with the "new" toys in the boxes. We've had dinosaur trains, doll birthday parties, tool bench creations and much more. The big one never realized we actually had that many blocks....and the little one feels like such a "big girl" when she can "do self". She's sooo good at putting away!

Now on to the craft room. I don't have a *real* before picture of the closet....to ugly for capturing. But as you can see in the first picture above, there's a floor now (we (Ben) tore out the shoe ramp in the bottom so there'd be a flat space), but there are still a few hanging items left over from when it was the nursery....as well as some random luggage (see, I don't have a set place for the luggage to go, so I think there's a suitcase, back pack or brief case in just about every room of the house!). But...God-willing...at the end of the day, there'll be a beautiful craft room/kid craft/homeschool materials storage system for me to declutter the world! Well, at least the craft room.

More to come.....

Rainbow Eggs

Ok, so everybody knows I've been on this "know where your food comes from", "eat happy animals", "buy local" etc food kick over the last...year really. And it's been pretty great. The kids get excited to go to the farm, I get warm fuzzies about helping to support a local family (that goes to my church even!) and we eat animals that were well cared for, ate what they are supposed to eat and had plenty of recess and friends to play with. (and for the record, I have zero ethical issue with eating animals. I do not (no matter what my hubby says) think that "animals are people too" (thank you Mr. Morra)....but I DO think that by being put "in charge" of the animals of the earth, we must take care of them and not abuse them)

Back to happy animals.....

So the girls have gotten a kick out of being closer to our food....being involved in picking it out and knowing where it comes from. But there's been a recent additional thought running through my head lately.

After getting eggs from a farm for the last year, I've noticed that eggs come in alllll shapes, sizes, colors and even textures. It's pretty fun to open a carton of eggs and have pink, green, blue ish, and brown. Some have freckles, some are pointy and some look like runofthemill brown eggs you have to take a second mortgage on your house to pay for in the store.

But here's the difference: Even the organic, free-range, brown eggs in the store are allllll exactly the same shape and size. We pay extra for "happy" eggs from the store....but what happens to the funky pointed ones or the ones with freckles or the ones that are just a little bigger or a little smaller? Are they pitched? Are they sold as "odd bulk" at some store I've never been to?

Anyone who knows me knows that waste, particularly food waste drives me a little batty. I'm known to collect food scraps at other people's houses and bring them back for our green cone...just so they won't go into the garbage....yet producers of "happy" brown eggs don't think we can handle a carton of eggs that doesn't look all the same...and just like the last carton we bought.

It just bothers me to think about the amount of waste still happening even when you're paying extra for "better" food.