Why hello there! It makes me sad that I've had to abandon my blog in the past few weeks. If I could compose blog posts directly from the thoughts in my head, then I would be one happy blogger. But alas...
I've had several challenges recently that have kept me from chilling in front of the computer or writing in a notebook. I am now 34 weeks pregnant! Thirty-four! What happened to those weeks of yore in my early pregnancy when I spent much of my time within running distance of the nearest toilet? What happened to those days when I still attempted to squeeze into my regular work pants without splitting the seams? Our due date seemed so far away. So, so far. And now look!
Now our days are becoming a mad scramble of baby preparation. We never properly set up the second bedroom when we moved into this unit last November, so it's always been "THAT" room- the room of the boxes that have no place, the room of accumulating piles of tools and magazines that you don't want to clutter the living room yet don't wish to throw away. You shut the door- the clutter goes away. Simple!
But with a baby on the way, there is no more ignoring this space. And so I started to get that "if we don't fix this room now I AM GOING TO FREAK OUT!" feeling. I think my husband started to feel that way too- a sign that we had indeed passed into a critical situation. We found a professional organizer (through a coupon deal at www.twobuckduck.com- a daily coupon website for Chicago businesses) and had her walk through our whole place with us. We learned a lot from her- where to store certain items, how to better utilize certain spaces in the apartment, and how to set up the baby's room. It was first time we ever had someone over where I didn't feel like I should clean or tidy beforehand, which was pretty nice!
We had been planning on going to Ikea to purchase some furniture for the baby's room, but the organizer gave us great tips on how to use the closet storage that we already had. We just needed to get the crap out of that closet before we could proceed. That took us to the next phase, which started a couple weekends ago. Nothing could happen until we went through and thinned out what we already had. We emptied the closet in that room completely. The process sent after-shocks into the remainder of the unit. The kitchen island overflowed with the crap that spilled out of that bedroom and the junk we brought home each day that normally would have gone back IN to that bedroom. Dirty dishes piled up in the sink (one residual pregnancy sensitivity of mine- I cannot stand the smell of any kitchen sponge we use! Blech!). Our clean laundry lay strewn across the dining room table for days before being folded and put away. The wave of chaos then crashed into the living room. It was a full on entropic assault.
I don't know about you, but when my living space becomes un-liveable, I need it fixed right away. But we couldn't attack it right away. This is the first free weekend we have had since July! Our time to work on this mess was relegated to the 2-3 hours of evening time that we had after work. But even our evenings have been busy! And, in the third trimester, it takes a bit of extra effort to be on your feet doing housework after working an 8-10 hour day. My daydreams of lying on the couch each evening of the last month of pregnancy, feet up with a bowl of bon bons at my side, were quashed.
This brings us to this weekend. This is the weekend when we will take on the offensive front in this battle. The pile for Salvation Army is growing. Baby clothes are washed and waiting to be put away. Our newly-purchased shelving system and storage containers are practically leaping off the wood floor in earnest, waiting to be used.
With all of this discussion, why am I still sitting on the couch typing? There is work to be done! Remind me that I need to blog more. I have to post about our lovely baby shower thrown for us last weekend in Michigan, the deals I've found on baby stuff, and how the joints in my hands are now so swollen and painful every morning that I must avoid tasks involving utilization of fine motor skills (just when I was coming close to finishing knitting that pair of socks for myself- rats!). And don't even get me started on our lack of food or meals to eat. God bless leftover Thai food!
Laptop in front of me, the once-rigid spine of our dog-eared Baby Bargains book stretched to its max, I am immersed in the task of looking up baby gear. And I have to say....at this moment it is pretty exciting. Early on in the pregnancy, however, I became very overwhelmed around other Mom's who, all with good intent, hoped to impart their experienced knowledge on my naive ears.
"Well there's the FillinTeds and the MountainBuggy but we really used our SnapandGo a lot and don't fall for the Graco those will NEVER get over uneven parts of the sidewalk but oh to change the subject you must get an exersaucer!" I felt my breaths becoming shallow as I bravely asked, "What...what's a snap...and...go???" Once I was able to look these things up on my own, I realized that what sounded like "fillinted" was actually the brand "Phil & Ted's," and that they made strollers. And that many families get more than one type of stroller for their baby based on the particular trip. Who knew?
For me, those moments of newbie panic demonstrated that, while I am really ALL about hearing the advice of others and what worked for them, I need time to look into these things myself first. Knowledge brings me confidence. Give me time to learn what the heck you're talking about, and I will gratefully receive your thoughts. Saying this, I am so fortunate to have many friends who have imparted their baby knowledge on me at moments when I am not feeling overwhelmed and can listen without hyperventilating into a paper bag. We are already the recipients of several hand-me-downs from friends. We've gotten a baby swing, a baby papasan chair, and a bumbo baby sitter (we already wore out the batteries just watching the empty swing sway back and forth). Last week my friend came over and passed along to me her breast pump. Not only that, but she showed me all the pieces, accessories, and how they all worked. Yea, now I know how a pump works! We went out again, and my husband was greeted with a countertop full of breast feeding and boob paraphernalia when he got home from work. Good times.
But, like I said at the beginning of this post, I am now really enjoying looking up baby stuff. I've made myself a "baby planning" notebook where I write down things that pop into my head (like the one morning at 4 am when I couldn't get to sleep because I remembered we would need to get baby nail clippers. And how easy it would be to forget to buy baby nail clippers. Don't worry- I know I am crazy). I am halfway through Baby Bargains. I look up the Baby Bargains-reviewed items on Amazon and add the winner to our wish list/baby registry. Rock on. I am really loving this.
Well hello and happy Sunday! I find myself in the middle of a 3 day weekend, as our office is closed on Monday for MLK Day. This is probably the one day of the entire year that I have off that many people do not, including my husband. Not that I won't enjoy it, don't get me wrong. But I am already anticipating that I'll feel like I'm playing hooky!
As you can tell from previous blog posts, I've been off my game recently with the weather, darkness, work, etc. We have been in our new place for almost 2 months now, but you would think it's been far less than that based on the appearance of some of our rooms! We have all this new space but nowhere to put anything, and very little motivation to actually go about trying to solve this dilemma. The issue is most prevalent in our second bedroom. I spent several hours in there last Sunday, kicking around boxes and stuffing files into our file cabinet, while muttering to myself, "Just put everything away- organize later!" I have a grand plan to turn that room into a nice cozy workspace...but we're just stuck for now! This was one pile that we cleared out yesterday, in preparation for our new dining room table that will be delivered next week. Yay!
Typically, I do really enjoy meal planning and preparing good meals. It just makes me feel good. I rely greatly on looking forward to things, and there is nothing like getting through your work day by knowing that you plan to make a good dinner that evening. We watched the movie Julie & Julia last night. It was a cute movie (though I do need to talk to someone else about the ending- did Julia really not like what Julie was doing?). At one point, Julie comments that no matter how tumultuous your day is, you can always find comfort in the consistency of ingredients coming together to make a dish. I agree with that whole-heartedly. It does take some planning, which is what I've neglected recently. Yesterday morning I woke up, sat down with my cookbooks, and planned some meals. I then placed a Peapod order, and now we find ourselves with a full kitchen and a week's worth of meals to make! It feels awesome. Our fridge is stocked with so much produce- cherries, clementines, blueberries, leeks, parsnips, broccoli, cilantro, mixed greens and arugula, and red peppers.
This week's meals:
Cuban braised beef and peppers (in the slow cooker as we speak!)
Pasta with lentils and arugula
Spicy black bean cakes
Creamy parsnip soup
Broccoli and 3 cheese lasagna
YUM!!! I like to rotate cookbooks for simplicity when I meal plan, and this week I have chosen a mixture of recipes from Real Simple magazine and the Martha Stewart Everyday Food cookbook. I will make sure to post any good outcomes! As part of my New Years resolution, I am cutting back on my meat consumption, so today's braised beef dinner is the only non-vegetarian meal we're having this week.
Another new thing I have done is created a "Featured Recipes" tab at the top of my blog. If you click on that, you will find the different dishes I have posted in the past. I am hoping this makes these recipes more accessible.
I will leave you now with the dish that we made last night. I obtained this recipe from my friend Christina over a year ago, and it's a good one. It is so easy to make, and we've designated it as our "go to" fancy dish for evenings when we're clueless on what to make for dinner. You just need to stop for basil, veggies, garlic, feta cheese, and couscous on your way home and then you're all set.
Basil Veggies and Couscous
2T minced fresh basil
2T balsamic vinegar
1T olive oil
1/4 t salt
2 crushed garlic cloves
2 medium zucchini cut into one inch slices
1 medium yellow bell pepper cut into one inch pieces
1 red bell pepper cut into one inch pieces
1 medium red onion cut into 8 wedges
1 8oz package mushrooms
3 cups hot cooked couscous
feta cheese
pepper
Preheat oven to 425. Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl. Add zucchini, peppers, onion and mushroom. toss well to coat. Arrange in single layer in shallow pan. Cover and bake at 425 for 35 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Spoon veggies over couscous. Top with feta cheese and pepper.
Hello all! I've been meaning to post several recipes that we've made in the past month, all featuring pork- the other white meat. And no, bacon is not featured in these recipes (mmm bacon...) but rather healthier cuts of pork tenderloin or pork chops. Sometimes we just get sick of chicken breast. And, all these pork dishes are SUPER easy. So here is one from Rachel Ray- Pork tenderloin with sauteed apples. It is so good, and while many of Rachel Ray's recipes require a zillion ingredients, this one doesn't. Much of what it does require are foods found in the home anyways, and you can always use dried thyme if that's the only thing you're lacking in regards to produce on hand at home. For some reason I love having green beans alongside this dish.
The next two dishes we made in the past week, with some days in between so as not to get porked out. I got them both from last month's Real Simple magazine, which featured recipes for 4 weeks worth of meals. I made the mistake doing very extensive meal planning for a week that ended up being really busy. It was not my best organizing moment in that respect, because I over-planned for the time that we had available. While the food was terrific, it was way too stressful! I felt like I was rushing in the kitchen either before or after our evening events. Each night we ended up having something to do, but I HAD to use up the parsnips and radishes and avocado and other perishable items that I'd bought (no worries- the parsnips, radishes, and avocado did NOT all go into the same dish!). I made too many dinners using perishable foods on a week when we needed greater flexibility, and this lesson has been learned. I found it is also better to plan your week to start off with fresh produce before tapering into meals that you can make with canned and frozen foods (hence, our Cuban rice and beans was saved for Friday night- that was at least one thing I got right).
Here is the first dish we made last Thursday- roasted pork with brussel sprouts and dried apricots. Let me tell you, this was fantastic, especially for those of you like me who LOVE brussel sprouts. I had purchased dried apricots (from Walgreens of all places) a few weeks ago using a coupon, thinking they have a longer shelf life and are seen in many dishes. I popped raw almonds (buy in bulk from Costco- I have not found a better deal than that) into our toaster oven for a few minutes, careful not to burn them (I don't have a good record with roasting pine nuts). This meal also heats up very nicely the next day for lunch (another reason we enjoy pork tenderloin is for the leftovers).
And the last meal is pork chops with garlicky broccoli. I used broccolini from Peapod (on sale!) instead. This meal is great. Make sure you use low sodium soy sauce- regular soy would just be too salty for this dish. Peapod had a sale on these Birds Eye Steamfresh white rice packets which are really convenient. I see from their website that they also have brown rice. I now think it's really worth it to stock up on those bags if they're on sale. Regular rice is terrific, but when you don't have time to cook it for 45 minutes, having this frozen kind on hand is really handy. The whole meal cooked in about 10 very easy minutes last night. I will say that the basic Steamfresh bags had just enough for Jim and me, so for a family you may want to heat up a couple of them.
I hope you try at least one of these! Enjoy!
mmmmm yummy! Homemade chicken enchilada with rice.
Eh never mind. Who am I kidding? This is a Lean Cuisine. For several years I have prided myself in the fact that I have not caved in to having a frozen meal for dinner. Don't get me wrong- I am a big proponent of using a frozen meal for work lunches. And frozen pizzas for dinner I'm all about (especially Newman's Own, California Pizza Kitchen, or Gino's East frozen pizzas. Even Digiorno pizzas with the self-rising crust are good). Yet individual frozen meals, in the little plastic containers with the separate sterile side dish holders, don't exude the warmth of the social dinner experience that I so enjoy.
Sadly, this week that all fell apart. With my husband away at a music festival last Sunday, I found myself with a newly organized bookcase but no plan for dinner. And so I heated up this meal that you see above. And yes, I plated it because doing so made me feel like less of a slacker. Now, I can forgive myself for this, but it happened again last night when my husband was off chasing President Obama around Lincoln Park. For the past few weeks I have fallen into a meal planning slump. Yes I posted the Jerk Chicken recipe last Friday, but that was a true anomaly compared to how I've felt for most of my dinner plannings. Heck, we even went to the grocery store a couple weeks ago WITHOUT A LIST. We walked around with my coupon book, and actually did pretty well on our produce, cereal, yogurt, and other staples, but no true meal planning was had.
I guess it's been one of those months. I've been swamped at work, and that's even with having a fairly routine clinic and no complicated patient issues this week (thank goodness). In attempts to prioritize my work load, I came up with 4-5 options that all tied for the top. Wednesday evening rolled around and in considering my "to do" list I thought, Oh no, how can it already be Thursday tomorrow?! We had family in town earlier this week, and I didn't even have munchies to set out for them!
It gets worse. I laid on the couch contemplating a nap until 8:30 this evening, when my husband and I decided that, indeed, we needed to eat. While getting ready to head out to the Mayan Palace, Dateline NBC came on with Keith Morrison. "It was a happily ever after ending...or was it?" he squeaked. We looked at each other and decided, yes, we would rather spend our Friday evening on the couch watching an investigative report on a man who may have killed his family rather than sip margaritas on the rocks in a room full of jovial and energetic Friday night-Chicagoans. Absolutely.
And so this was our dinner tonight:
I've always loved beautifully organized bookshelves. Bookshelves are such a focal point in a room, and as a renter, rearranging your bookcase is really the biggest decorating outlet you have (without risking losing your security deposit!). Quite a while ago, the Red Eye Chicago featured a "how to spruce up a small space" article, and one of their suggestions was to color-coordinate the books in your bookshelf. I've been strongly considering it ever since and this afternoon decided to take the plunge! Come to find out through doing a Google search that this is a newer trend and a lot of people have done some really cool bookcase makeovers using this technique. My friend Kim didn't think she could do it because her collection is so large and she likes organizing her books by topic. I can definitely see where this technique wouldn't work for those die-hard book fans. My husband and I don't hang on to every book that we read (it's rare now for us to buy books from the bookstore instead of getting them used or from the library) and recently in an effort to de-clutter, we rid ourselves of many of our books, which honestly felt great! Some people have told us that they could never get rid of their books. I think I felt that way once upon a time, but living in a teensy space for this long has prompted me to try to shed as many of our possessions as possible (don't get me started on my husband's magazines!). Perhaps after we've moved into our mansion we'll work on building up our library again :-)
Here is the before:
Here's the after:
When we moved to Chicago 3 years ago, we decided on renting an 18th floor 1 bedroom unit in Lincoln Park. The place has a great view of Diversey Harbor, Lakeshore Drive, and Lake Michigan. Looking south from our balcony we can see the Hancock building. The inside of the place is small but it works just fine for the two of us. However, when you live in the same place for 3 years, stuff begins to accumulate. And in small confines, the level of disorder increases ten-fold.
My wonderful cousin will be arriving in a few days from England for a 10 day Chicago vacation. We're excited to have him stay with us, and he claims he doesn't mind sleeping on our aerobed in the living room. I love how having a house guest opens your eyes to all the work that needs to be done in your living space. We've become comfortable with our little table collecting magazines and junk mail- it doesn't really matter when we're the only two who ever see it. I've walked past the picture frames needing dusting for weeks but have done no more than acknowledge that fact. We did go through some of our things a month ago and filled a blue storage tub in our living room with items to sell or donate. But then the cat decided he liked sitting on top and we even set a towel on the lid to increase his comfort. Needless to say, the bin remains, full of the things we intended to rid ourselves.
As my cousin's arrival date gets closer, I've started a list on our dry erase board. Currently it reads:
1. Replace shower curtain liner (the one we have now is disgusting)
2. Scrape mold off bathroom ceiling. Get rid of cobwebs.
I mean, these are all things that we should be doing just for ourselves, I understand. But having visitors gives you that good kick in the pants to get up and start to make things more presentable. This weekend is our pre-visitor time to get the place back in working order. But I have to say that as I sit here on the couch waiting for that motivation to set in, I still just keep thinking, "ugh, do I have to?" Yes. You do. You really do.
At the start of this winter, we decided we wanted to get serious about our spending. Thankfully, both my husband and I are fairly thrifty, and if we make any large purchases it is done with some serious consideration and planning. However, we know that all those little purchases quickly add up- a coffee here, a lunch out there- and we wanted to create some type of a system that helped us monitor where our money was going each month.
Prior to starting our plan, we consulted Dave Ramsey's website for some help. While not regular listeners of his radio show, we do catch it from time and time and always enjoy his advice on financial planning and saving. Dave Ramsey recommends that you document every penny coming and leaving your household each and every month, all the way down to zero (he calls it a zero-based budget). And it's not that you're spending it all, but rather that you know where it is all going- $X to the emergency fund, $Y to the vacation savings, etc. He also is a big fan of paying for things in cash. Let's face it- it's definitely harder to pay for things when you can feel the money physically leaving your hand!
Being the end of May, we sat down this afternoon to do our end of the month recap. What we have done thus far with the budget has truly been a work in progress. We started off in February using Dave Ramsey's cash envelope system, where you carry cash in different envelopes (a restaurant envelope, a grocery envelope, etc). However, we found that the cash system didn't really work for us because of the preparation involved. We didn't feel we needed to use cash as a restraint to overspending (but for some it's a good way to go).
So, we changed things up and decided to go ahead and spend as we usually do with our combination of debit card and cash. It's a lot easier for us to make sure to write down every expense. I found an ipod app called "Xpense Trkr" that allows you to input all of your purchases and break them down by date and category. There was a free version to try out which only allowed you 5 entries. We splurged and actually paid for the regular versions of the app (that has unlimited entries), and so far think it's a good system for us. We'll enter our purchase onto our ipods right afterwards, or I'll throw the receipt in my purse to enter in later. Similar to how a food diary keeps you from overeating, writing down each expense keeps you from overspending.
At the end of each month (and this gets a little dorky, I admit), I enter the month's "data" into an Excel spreadsheet that I put together. I enter in our paycheck amounts and the totals for each of our spending categories (ex: Housing, Utilities, Food, etc). This part has, I admit, been a bit more time consuming. It's also been challenging because it's when we combine our data that we realize the kinks we need to work out and the adjustments we need to make ( not only with our spending, but also logistically with how we're going about this).
In our spreadsheet, I subtract our expenses from our income, and try to get it as close to zero as possible. And by "money out," again, it doesn't mean that we've spent it all, but rather that it's been allocated toward something, such as savings. Ramsey recommends that you do this with your budget (prior to spending anything- and then you only spend the amount you've budgeted). We've augmented it so that we figure out what we've actually spent and compare that to our income. If we ever find that we're going over each month (which I hope never happens!) then we'll go back to actively budgeting out our expense categories.
Dave Ramsey recommends that our income be allocated the following way:
Charity (10-15%)
Savings (5-10%)
Housing (25-35%)
Utilities (5-10%)
Food (5-15%)
Transportation (10-15%)
Clothing (2-7%)
Medical/Health (5-10%)
Personal (5-10%)
Recreation (5-10%)
Debts (Hopefully 0%)
His website has a feature called "Gazelle Budget Lite" (the free version), where you can plug in your income, and it automatically figures out the budgeted amounts based on the percentages listed above. While we've made donations every month that we've been doing this, we've decided not to donate as large of a percentage of our income as he recommends. Maybe in few years, but for now we're doing what we can. We make sure that our expenses fall within his recommended ranges, and find this particularly helpful with housing and utility costs. We will draw upon this as we consider our next move in this increasingly expensive city.
What works for us may not work for everyone. I have a few books by David Bach and Suze Orman that may contain different recommendations (and if I'd ever gotten around to reading them I'd be able to tell you!). I feel that as long as we are all cognizant of our financial means, the better off we all are. To be comfortable about going out to eat because you are aware of where you are financially for the month is a great feeling! We all work too hard to not be able to enjoy it :-)
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