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Apr 2, 2013

It’s Time For A Diet Tune-Up

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Confession: I’ve gained about seven pounds this winter. Ahhhh, that feels better to admit.

Wait…no, it doesn’t.

I always gain a little weight between Halloween and the end of Winter. I enjoy the holiday eating, and I’m not as active during the cold season. I don’t mind a few pounds of gain, but seven is on the upper end of my comfort zone.

Hibernation season is over now, and it’s time to get back on track.

I’m choosing to start by restructuring my food, which is easy considering all of the junk we’ve been eating lately. Step one is getting all of the bad stuff out of the house. Since I don’t want to throw it all out, that means this week is eat all the food week.  And OH we have a lot of it.

 Please note the Nutella shown here is no longer an issue.

Once it’s all gone, we’re switching to a diet of real food. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, lean meats and limited grains. It’s not quite paleo, since we can’t give up dairy and beans, but limiting our grains should be easy. Aaron is gluten-free already, so his grains are already limited. The goal is to limit processed foods to less than 20% of our diet. Baby steps, folks.

And we’re slowly detoxing from diet soda. I have a hard time giving up my diet soda, but I know it’s for the best because of all of the chemical junk in soda. At the moment we’re not buying soda to keep in the house and only drinking it when we eat out. This has left me with some massive caffeine headaches, partially because our Keurig machine has decided it’s coffee brewing days are done. I broke down and ordered another one, but it won’t be here until the end of the week.

Eating better isn’t just about losing weight. My children also have fallen into some poor eating habits. Mira used to eat apple slices and bananas almost daily, but now she holds out and begs for processed snack crackers instead. (Cordy still eats apple slices all the time. She has a limited list of fruits she’ll eat, but at least she’ll eat some.) It’s up to us to set the right example to get them back on track, too. If there’s less junk food in the house, there’s less unhealthy options for meal and snack time for all of us.

Plus? It’s all about giving myself the best chance to live a long, long time. I lost all of the weight to begin with because I didn’t want to be unhealthy around my kids. Now that I’m a few years older, it’s not just about being unhealthy around them, it’s about living long enough to see grandchildren someday. (Which I want to be a LOOOOONG way off, just to be clear!)

I’m a lot smaller now, but my insides still aren’t so healthy. I’m lousy at full-life adjustments, so it’s about baby steps and making tune-ups to my habits, and now it’s time to tune-up my diet again.

What are your best eating natural tips? I’ll be stalking all of your Pinterest boards for easy recipes this week.

Filed Under: daily life, healthy living, home, me me me ·


Mar 19, 2013

Domesticity, Conferences and Dresses

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Over the weekend we moved a little closer in my goal of making this house look like it has permanent residents and not just transients passing through. Two more rooms have curtain rods! Like, real curtain rods screwed into the walls, and not spring rods. That makes twice as many as we previously had.

 Please ignore the bad lighting, ugly ceiling and lack of paint. Work in progress, folks.

The living room curtain rod (which I bought over two months ago and has been sitting in a box) is also now in place, although still lacking in anything to put on it. But now that it’s in place, I’m more motivated to buy curtains. Mira’s room also has a new curtain rod and new curtains. No surprise, she picked pink striped curtains.

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I’m also making progress on my desk area. I bought this file organizer at TJ Maxx and can’t wait to hang it on the wall and start using it:

I love the chalkboard panels on each pocket. I don’t have a lot of papers I need for work, but if I hang it just off to the side of the desk, I can also use it to organize school papers, tax info, etc. There’s a lot of possibility with it.

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Mira recently asked me to make her a shawl. She had noticed the shawl I occasionally wrap myself in and when she found out that I made it, she wanted one, too. It’s been over a year since I knit anything, mostly due to an inability to carve out time for myself, so I thought this might be a good way to get me back into knitting. I clearly had no idea what I was agreeing to, however, when I took her out on Sunday to pick out the yarn for her project:

Ouch. Hot pink with bits of metallic shimmer. Well, at least there will be no way to lose her when she wears it. She’ll probably be visible on Google Earth maps.

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I’m going to the Blissdom conference later this week in Dallas. This will be my first trip to Texas, not counting changing plans in Houston a few times. I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting lots of new bloggers and generally immersing myself in the blogging world for a few days.

Going to blog conferences now (for me, at least) isn’t so much about picking up new tricks for blogging as it is about networking and getting inspired. I’m fairly set in my ways, but I love finding new folks to read and hearing the “we matter” blogger pep talk that refreshes me and keeps me writing.

I still have to pack everything for the trip, which is the worst part of going to any conference. It seems like the minute I need to pack for a trip, my entire closet of clothing is suddenly too tight, too loose, or doesn’t match with anything else. Frustrating.

And of course there’s the flying part. I still hate flying. Here’s hoping it’s a smooth flight so I don’t grab the arm of the person next to me if there’s turbulence.

Anyone else going to be at Blissdom? I’m usually not hard to find, since I rarely stay in one spot for long. As long as you’re in one spot, I’m sure I’ll pass by. On Friday night, you’ll probably see me in a dress that looks a lot like this:

Only mine has cap sleeves and is longer.

I’ll be reviewing this dress soon. I received it for review from eShakti, and (spoiler!) I love the dress and the company. I’ve yet to find anywhere else that will customize a dress to fit you perfectly. (If you’re already interested in shopping for a new dress, I have a coupon code for your order – just use the code MMMYSTRY for 20% off.)

Now everyone think good thoughts that I don’t spill something all over myself or fall down stairs or completely offend someone with an ADD-moment or do something else to embarrass myself while I’m at Blissdom. (I’ll also chicken out on karaoke to keep myself from absolute embarrassment.)

Filed Under: Blissdom, daily life, domestic zero, home, me me me, Mira, reviews, travel ·


Mar 11, 2013

Creating My (Tiny!) Home Office

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It’s been nearly a year since I started working from home. During this time, I’ve wanted to have a home office of my very own, but didn’t have the time to design anything or find the space for it.

So my office has been the corner of the loveseat with an end table to place my laptop and a folding table in front of it to hold my notebooks/glasses/pens/etc. It wasn’t my intention to keep such an unofficial (and cramped) work space for such a long time, but hey, at least it’s a comfy place to sit.

Earlier this year, my aunt bought a new house – a larger house – and I saw an opportunity to create some space here for myself. I had been visualizing the area between our living room and the dining room as the perfect spot for a mini-office.

The only issue was the piano taking up all of that space. The upright piano is mine, a gift from my grandmother after I taught myself to read music and play piano when I was a kid. I love the piano, but it hasn’t had a lot of use lately. I rarely get a chance to play it, and both Cordy and Mira have shown zero interest in wanting to learn to play. 

So I asked my aunt if she would take the piano for us, at least until we (someday) have a bigger house where it might fit. Since there was plenty of room in her new house, she gladly accepted it (she can play as well), and offered me her desk in trade.

I had planned to find my own desk for the office, but when given the option of a free desk and chair, it’s hard to turn it down. Free trumps even IKEA prices.

My new office space now has a basic structure to it, which leads to the real dilemma: how do I transform this area into a super-usable office? I’m starting (nearly) from scratch with it. This is the current set-up:

The kids’ bookcase on the left will be moving a little further to the left to give me some space. To the right is a small filing cabinet with the printer on top of it. The desk fit perfectly where the piano used to be. Realize this will be a very small office crammed between two other spaces – for reference, I’m taking these photos perched on the staircase.

 (There’s still cleaning to be done, of course. And I need to move that framed art hiding under the table at the moment.)

Kinda bland, eh? I still need to scrub down the wall to remove the years of dust from behind the piano, but as you can see, it’s a blank canvas, waiting to become a beautiful office.

I’m begging for ideas here. What does this space need? I’m already considering some shelving on the wall and possibly a calendar. I might add a roll-out filing cabinet under the desk, too. There’s very little natural light in this area of the house, so maybe a lamp? Or bright artwork to make it more cheery? (My Happy Light will likely be joining the desk space as well.)

Because this area is the connector between the living room and dining room, I’ll also have to find a way to make it look like it’s own defined space without walls, doors or room dividers. I’ve got just under 8 feet of width along the wall with four feet out from the wall to work with – anything further out will cut off the walkway between rooms. 

I know several of you are gifted with the creative gene, so I’m hoping you’ll help me brainstorm ideas for transforming this into a bright, cheery office that I will look forward to working from each day. Once it’s all in place, I’ll do a big before-and-after reveal.

I can’t decide if being excited about having a real home office space is normal or just proves I’m old?

Filed Under: daily life, home, me me me · Tagged:


Feb 28, 2013

Recycling Your Old Technology

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In cleaning out the clutter in my bedroom last week, I found a few items that I hadn’t seen in a long, long time. Buried in a box of cables was my old Handspring Visor, along with the Palm device I used when I was in nursing school.

The reason those once expensive pieces of technology were gathering dust in a box? One of them no longer worked, the other was simply obsolete after I purchased my first iPhone. And to be honest, any handheld device was obsolete to me after the iPhone.

The devices of techie years past.

Those items were once very useful to me, but as technology has advanced, they’ve gone the way of the cassette tape and camcorder. And as much as I love all things tech and geeky, I really do need to learn to let some of them go when they’ve outlived their usefulness.

I’ve had luck in sending some old technology to new homes through garage sales and passing them on to others (my mom inherits my older iPhones), but some devices no longer work or just aren’t even worth making the effort to sell them.

Electronic device trash is (not surprisingly) the fastest growing form of waste on the planet. Throwing away old tech isn’t a smart move, but our city recycling won’t accept electronic devices in our recycling bins. There’s a local shop that recycles old TVs and computers, but you have to pay a fee to dispose of anything. That makes it hard to not clutter up landfills with plastic and computer bits that could be put to better use.

I recently found out about Best Buy’s electronics recycling program, and I’ve already made good use of it. You can bring your old technology to any U.S. Best Buy store where they will safely and responsibly dispose of it for free.

It doesn’t matter if it’s your grandmother’s old 1960’s TV or a new iPhone 5 that your child sent through the washing machine – aside from a few exceptions (that vary by state), they’ll take it all, including computers, audio equipment, TVs, and even fans and vacuum cleaners. Best Buy recycles 387 pounds of electronics per minute – more than any other store in the industry.

My experience was super easy. I took three items (the limit per day in Ohio) to my local Best Buy, asked where to drop them off, and then handed them over to a Best Buy employee.

It turns out that my iPod Nano, which still works well, could be traded in for a Best Buy gift card instead of recycled – bonus money! The Handspring and the camera were not in great shape and so were sent off to be recycled. Any pieces that can be reused for other products will be salvaged, and any hazardous materials in the devices will be properly disposed of. Best of all, I didn’t have to pay a thing to do it.

It feels good to finally have a place to get rid of the old devices adding to the clutter in my house. I had held onto the handheld devices for so long mostly because I didn’t know how to get rid of them without throwing them in the trash. Now that I know where to recycle electronics for free, I’ll be bringing more of my devices to Best Buy.

And if you’re in the market for replacements for your recycled devices, Best Buy also carries a line of Energy Star certified products to help promote energy efficiency, too.

You can find out more about the Best Buy recycling program, and what your state’s Best Buy stores accept, by visiting their website.

Do you recycle your old technology, or do you still have old devices collecting dust in your house, too? Please tell me I’m not alone in having electronic device corpses hidden in closets!

Disclosure: The reviewer has been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free.

Filed Under: geek paradise, home, reviews, sponsored ·


Feb 19, 2013

Weekends Aren’t As Much Fun As They Used To Be

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I remember loving three-day weekends when I was younger. As a kid, it felt like a nearly endless time of playing, with no schedules to keep, staying up late, and plenty of time to watch cartoons.

Even once I was in the working world, a three-day weekend meant an extra long weekend of fun, relaxation and sleep. Sometimes we’d go on a trip somewhere, but most of the time it was just extra time to be lazy, hang out with friends, and have a TV-watching marathon.

Or take a long afternoon nap, like this bear at the zoo.

I occasionally miss those days.

Now weekends in general are “chore and errand catch-up days” and a three-day weekend is a challenge to get as much accomplished as possible while also fending off children who may say they like weekends, but in reality prefer the structure and routine of the weekdays. I can only be their cruise director for so long before I’m out of ideas. Sadly, “let’s fold and put away the towels” isn’t a game they enjoy all that much.

The past three days involved little extra sleep or fun. There was lots of cleaning to be done that we can never seem to get to during the week. Lots of laundry, too. Haircuts for the kids. And grocery shopping. See all of the FUN we’re having?

Then we put new tires on one of our cars in preparation for our upcoming anniversary trip. Both of our cars need new tires, but only one gets the prize at the moment. (Tires are EXPENSIVE!)

You know that little trick they tell you to check tread depth, where you stick a penny into the tread upside-down, and if all of Abe Lincoln’s head is showing it’s too shallow? You could probably have seen his top hat with our tread, should he have been wearing one. It’s no wonder that the tires had trouble gripping the road, even on clear, dry days.

We know how to live it up on long weekends, yo.

And if all of that wasn’t excitement enough, our Saturday ended with a bang. No really, it was a loud bang as our garage door opener broke it’s hinge and the part that runs along the ceiling came crashing down into our garage as I tried to raise the door. One part shattered, with pieces found everywhere, including wedged into the door hinges.

Even though it was a holiday, garage door repairmen are available on Presidents’ Day. So Monday was spent waiting for the garage to be repaired. $135 later, we have a working garage door again.

At this point I think I’m ready to trade in my adult membership card for a weekend of acting goofy with friends and sleeping until noon.

How was your three-day weekend? (Or regular weekend for those of you outside of the US?)

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Filed Under: daily life, family time, growing up, holidays, home ·