January Reflection/ rhythm and routine and the tripod of happiness

My one little word for the year is Reflect. And so far it has been the most fruitful little word I could have ever chosen. My hope and goal is to spend time at the end of each month, reflecting on how we spent our time, how I reacted in certain circumstances, how I want to change in the month ahead.

Intentional Reflection is a powerful thing. It means that in the moment I take the time to think. Why am I so frustrated right now? What is making me feel like this? Why is this a part of my life? What could I change to make this improve?

After getting the root of these questions, I found some helpful insight that helped me make some changes. Here are some concrete reflections I jotted down throughout the month.

+Rhythm and routine turn mayhem into order. And I love order.
I discovered this during a huffy moment in the laundry room. I was at my wits end at the perpetual nature of laundry. Never ever done. Never ever all put away. Never ever ending. So I took some time to think through this one and realized that I could pick a day, just like Ma Ingalls, and do the whole shebang. Wash everything. Put all the clothes away, stack up those empty laundry baskets and kindly inform the rest of the family that I would be happy to do their laundry next Monday, a full seven days from now.

Oh my. What a life changer. No kidding. We're going on our third week and it still makes me giddy to think about. My favorite quote was Rory, "you know, since I know these jeans won't be washed until Monday, I'm going to wear them a few more times." And now we can see why I was in such a tizzy about the laundry. And we can see how sincerely life altering Laundry Day has become.

More on Rhythm and Routine another time. Wait until I tell you about Grocery Night. er...maybe I just did.

+I have a Tripod of Happiness.
If one of the three legs isn't being met, I might fall apart (or tip over as the imagery here would suggest.) My Tripod was discovered by my husband, who tends to simplify my frustrations and emotions for me. The 3 legs: Sleep, Connection and Productivity. If I'm not getting good sleep, like say for the last six months, I can be quite temperamental  If I feel disconnected from friends and life giving relationships I feel sorry for myself and isolated. If I "don't have anything to show for my day!" then it is time to get out the modge podge, write a blog post or sort the junk drawer. Which all seem to fulfill that leg.

+Not watching TV actually does mean you read more books. 
I cannot recommend Hannah Coulter enough. If you have anyone dealing with the loss of a loved one, this novel will help heal, I am convinced. The wisdom and truth written in these pages made me remember the power of a great book. I loved The Long Winter, as I have loved all Little House books at age 31. Keep thumbing through Writing Down the Bones, a favorite I return to again and again.

+When I eat good and healthy foods I feel good and healthy. When I eat crappy foods I feel crappy.
This is a great, elementary learning. I still crave the crappy food. But if I remember this little truth, I can usually convince myself that I can eat something better and will feel better after.

Dear Elsie/ 6 months

Oh Elsie Belle. I cannot get enough of you.

You are six months. What on earth?!! You are rolling over from back to belly, you babble and gab all day long. You popped your first tooth just last week and constantly have something in your mouth whetted by a whole lot of drool. You are happy, you are calm, you like to be held and up off the floor and tonight you took a bottle! Oh Elsie! We are so proud and hopeful! 

Your dad calls you gorgeous. All the time. So now your brother does too. "Hello Gorgeous," Ivar will say in the mornings. He loves standing on your crib looking in at you. And he loves having you join him in his crib to sing songs before his nap. You two look at each other and you touch his head and he yells, "Elsie tickle Ivar!" And he thinks you are so silly, which makes you laugh too.

You have very strong abs and can do a good crunchie if your laying in your bouncer and would rather be upright. You still tip over without pillows, but propped with a barricade of cushions you can hold your own for a bit. You have now gotten used to rice cereal and oatmeal, sweet potatoes, pears and peaches. And wow can you eat. You are messy, but you are turning out to be another great eater. We're so glad.

Elsie, I can't wait to get you outside once springtime has come. This winter has been filled with hibernation, but I am excited to get you out and on a blanket, taking in a Minnesota summer. Until then, we'll just snuggle up and delight in the joy of having a baby to cuddle. 

Love, 

Mama

Jill McDonald

The day Elsie was due, we were walking around a mall, killing time the best we could. While in Pottery Barn Kids I found a book that was so lovely, I bought it. Which is a big deal for me as I am rarely that impulsive. But it was the most adorable art, colorful and happy, a mix of fabric collage and stitching and I loved every page. The artist was a woman named Jill McDonald and the book was called Who's in the Garden, but around here we just call it, "Mama's Favorite Book."

At some point after having Elsie I looked up this artist, and actually emailed her to see if I could hire her to design a new blog header for me. I sent the email with high hopes and then decided to look around her site to get a feel for anything else she had done.

Heh. Hysterical. It was then that I realized she's a big deal. A really big deal. Like contracts with Land of Nod, Pottery Barn Kids and Target. That kind of big deal. I realized I've seen her stuff everywhere.

She was kind enough to reply to my email. Her rate wasn't terrible, but it was out of my price range.  I humbly replied, "Dear Ms. McDonald, I had no idea who you were when I emailed you first. I now realize asking you to work on my blog was about the same as asking Barbara Streisand to sing back up on my demo cd. Thanks so much for your time."

And then she wrote back, "I love Babs!" ...and I was excited she replied, because I was completely of star struck.

Anyway, here is the link to her website and a link to her etsy shop. She's great. Enjoy!

menards

With our move to the country, we've lost our quick access to the mall and the zoo. So now on winter days when we need to get out of the house we go to Menards. It's a lot like a mall...big, bright, smiling people, things to buy. But better than the mall, it has race car shopping carts.

This is just a quick note to say we're experiencing some technical difficulties lately. One of our computers is using up a lot of bandwidth or something like that. And we keep getting stuck with a bill at the end of each month and can't figure out how we're using so much bandwidth. So Rory has disconnected all computers from the internet, and one at a time he is watching each one, waiting to see if there is one computer to blame.

All this to say: I don't have internet on my computer. Haven't in days and it is giving me the shakes. And some bad moods. Might have a dependency problem here.

I still have a post in my head about Rory's cabin in the woods. And a little picture tour of the inside of our house. But until I get connected to the internet, you can imagine me pushing my sweet children through the aisles of kitchen faucets and ceiling fans.

Elsie's Room

I love it when other people post their diy decorating ideas. And I appreciate it when a blogger I follow lets me look into their home. It's sort of like watching an episode of House Hunters. So I thought it would be fun to show you around.

Some of you will care. Others of you can just scroll through the pictures and consider this post read. Like you, Rory.

There is another perk. Having taken these pictures for my blog means that I have taken pictures of all of the rooms in my house when they were once clean. (You should know they were not all clean on the same day.) This is a little gift to myself so that I can look at these pictures later and say, "oh that's a nice room when the laundry is all put away and the garbage is emptied and Ivar's toys aren't spread out everywhere."

My photography isn't amazing. Wish I had a wide angle lens like the guy who came and took pictures for selling our Minneapolis house. Those pictures were lovely. But I tried my best.

Elsie's room is a fun room to start with because it was basically one huge diy project. I didn't have money to spend on her nursery, so I had to get creative. And I did. See those three pictures over her crib? I bought the frames at a farm sale in Nebraska years ago. I think they were 3 for a buck and are handmade. And the art inside is from my favorite kids book with the artwork by Jill McDonald. More on her another time...I adore her. But all this to say, I bought the book for ten dollars and filled four (one frame is on the other side of the room) frames by cutting up the pages.

It felt a little terrible to cut up a book, but I have another copy of this one. And now I  can look at and love her art every single day.

The next diy project cost three dollars. I found this butterfly wrapping paper at a local gift shop and loved it. Wasn't sure what I would do with it, but knew it was for Elsie's nursery  In the end, I used modge podge to stick it on top of an end table. And I filled three frames with the leftovers. I already had the frames from Ikea...so for four bucks I got more art and a cool table.

When we were staging our home to sell in Minneapolis, I bought a few frames at Ikea. Turns out you can paint them without having to prime or sand them. And they look great. I painted these for my Hymn Cards.

The whole nursery color scheme was based around this little horse pictured below. This was Elsie's first gift, given by my Grandma B at her funeral. Someone (was it Sarah? Aunt Louie? Aunt Jan?) had the good idea when Grandma was dying to have her snuggle with a new stuffed animal for each of the great grandbabies who were still growing inside of their mama's. When it was given to me I thought, if this baby is a girl, we're decorating a nursery around these fun colors.

The pennant was from my sister-in-law Lisa and the dresser was the biggest splurge, from Ikea and worth every dime. The drawers open smoothly and the height is perfection for a changing table. Ivar has the smaller version and I'm thinking Rory and I may get the tall and skinny model. Our home may very well be sponsored in part by the Hemnes Dresser from Ikea one day.

And finally, I initially hung this baby quilt in the window as a temporary "until I make a curtain that fits." The colors are more pastel than the rest of the room, but I do adore the quilt. And it comes with special memories. However, whenever anyone sees Elsie's room for the first time they mention this quilt-as-a-curtain idea as their favorite part. It makes me laugh because I spent time and thought crafting the rest of the room, and this curtain has become the main talking point! And those socks had to be added. Every time I see them I hold her a little longer. Babies grow so fast! How on earth did those socks fit her once?!!

That's my design on a dime. Literally, dimes. Other than the dresser, I maybe spent forty bucks on the whole thing. I give all the credit to the hours of my life spent watching HGTV. 

**Just looked through this post and realized I am lacking some very helpful wide shots of the whole room...I'll work on that for future home tour posts. :)