It's been a long time since I left you

You like my new bathroom? Don't get used to it's pristine, orderly condition. I've yet to put actual bathroom stuff in there. But I'm totally in love with the colors. I have this really adorable owl picture to hang up but alas, I forgot my hammer when I went over there last.

We are still not yet moved in. I'm slowly packing and carrying things over here and there but I don't expect to actually be moved in for another two weeks. So I'm afraid you'll have to deal with my sporadic posting for a while yet.

Wanna see what I wore to church on Sunday?

So would I! But my new camera cord doesn't work. Boo, yes?

How about a pic from the week before? It's not as if I don't owe you a couple weeks' worth of Sunday OOTD. Truth is it's been a while since I put something really cute together. Except last week's. Go figure, right??

I should have taken a better picture of pinky's dress. I started it last summer and only now got around to finishing it. It was a fairly simple dress, just one of those things I lost interest in midway through. It's made from the leftovers of last year's Easter dress. See? Fabric hoarding can be useful, no?

Excuse me, miss

I know my posts have been few and far between of late but I promise you, I have not fallen off the wagon. I am still housewifing away, slowly but surely amending my habits as promised.

So what has kept me from posting?

Perhaps you guessed by the header picture but I'm moving.

Yay to a new place, a new cute place, mid-century little Tudor-y looking house nestled on a tiny plot downtown. Room for the woo woo, a garden, and an opportunity to start anew with a fresh place.

And yet, booo to the actual process of sorting, packing, dropping off clothes I haven't worn much less seen in years at the goodwill and all sorts of general irritation that comes with moving.

Despite my grumblings I am thrilled we found a place and one with a vintage flair. As a bonus, I'll be living in a two story house for the first time in more than fifteen years. I'm not sure why but two stories are my absolute favorite.

Oh! I almost forgot the best part.

There's a SEWING ROOM!!!

Ooooooooooooooooo!

today is the greatest

Spring has sprung!!

For you in the Northeast, you're looking eagerly for warmer weather, for daffodils and such poking up through the cold, cold ground.

Unfortch, I live in the South. Granted, it's nice and warm here, 80 and above most days. What's so unfortunate about that you wonder? I was blessed with a wretchedness called ALLERGY SEASON. It might be warm but who the hell cares about warm when you've gone through an entire box of kleenex, have to dab vaseline under your nose despite fancy promises from thoe obnoxious puffs with lotion commercials and every surface of your house, car, and dashboard are coated with a fine layer of pollen?

::sigh::

I'll stop whining . . . eventually.

It's a kind of magic

They say if you do something for 15 days in a row it becomes a habit.

I hope so because having only twelve days to go on this eating breakfast and being productive ish actually seems manageable. The kids were fed, lunched, and ready for school early this morning and you know what, I like that feeling. I even sent them out the door with a warm slice of cinnamon swirl bread in hand, courtesy of the wallyworld bakery, of course.

I've done an entire sink full of kitchen, went over my daughter's spelling words with her while brushing her hair, started a load of dishes and cleared off the table all before sitting down and eating my peach cottage cheese double.

I feel so . . . accomplished, so awake and I'm not even dressed yet.

Better get on that last bit if I'm gonna keep up my momentum, yes?

Electric Avenue

So I was doing my blog stroll when I came across this beauty posted on Sarai's blog and nearly fell out.

There are few things in the world better than bias cut, perfectly draped silk. And so I find myself longing for the days when one routinely had a reason to own such a gorgeous creation. I say one because, well, that same era would require girls like me don a servicable dress and an apron while jealously and meticulously steaming this beauty for someone else to wear. At the end of the night, I would be shuffle sleepily down the hall to help the lady out of said gown and while she fell into bed drunk off her rear end from gin and tonic, I'd stay up an extra hour to make sure this gown was put away properly.

So maybe I don't love for the era so much as the dress.

This is how we do it

See how I used my purty flowers to detract from the hot mess that is my desk??

I'll get to that eventually but for now, lookie, lookie. Breakfast two days in a row!!!

Strawberry cottage cheese double and a tall mug of some cappucino mix they sell at the commissary.

The kids had oatmeal and toasted cinnamon streusel bread.

Baby steps, people. Baby steps.

One more thing before I go

Forgive me, Lord for having lust in my heart.

And please let some pretty bird drop $81.00 on my doorstep.

Amen.

P.S. If you could magically give me her abs while you're at it, I'd be eternally grateful.

Google Panache Lucille if a little birdy has visited your house recently.

It's been a long time since I did that stroll

Allow me to tell you my deep dark secrets for a moment. The reason reason I haven't been blogging very much lately is because I was avoiding this very post. It's been a long time coming, I've been thinking about it for a while, and it's the whole reason behind starting this damned thing. And yet, I've been hiding.

You see, if I put it on here, then I kinda, sorta have to follow though, yes? Lest one of you ask me and I'm forced to admit that I have failed. It's a double edged sword because while I have all these lofty goals of a sparkling clean house, everything in order and a cheerful disposition, getting off my ass and getting it done is counterproductive to everything I know.

In the end, I know it will be better for me, for mr man, for the kidlets. At the end of the day, I'll feel all accomplished and have earned a sense of pride. Being able to have people over without worrying what the house looks like, being able to locate a pair of socks that match without combing through three piles of clean laundry stashed in three locations, not rebuying stuff I already own because I can't find it. All these things appeal to me.

But the idea of actually getting it done??

I feel you, soul sister. I feel you. (Incidentally, I despise that stupid song and I screamed at the TV when it won a grammy but that's neither here nor there.)

Isn't that apron adorable??

But, as always, I digress.

So what, you ask, am I going to do about it?

For starters, while getting up in time to make the niblets' lunches is a vast improvement over rousing from bed long enough to make sure they were clean and fed before falling back into bed until 11 or so, it's clear I need to do more.

Because again, dark secret time, I was getting up and making them lunch, yes. I was even getting fully dressed and doing my hair and make up . . . before going back to bed and thus defeating the purpose.

Hopefully, my hair looked cuter than that. Although probably not when I woke up.

So, it's time to, once again, step up my housewifery game.

I started out with a bang. This morning, my kids headed off to school with a nice hot breakfast of bacon and eggs in their little tummies. And miracle of miracles, I didn't choke the life out of my whining seven year old. It was enough to tempt me back to bed. But watching her chow down of a cheesy pile of eggs almost made up for the sniveling.  Now I'm not planning to make them bacon and eggs for breakfast lest you fear for their tiny little child arteries. But I will be overseeing breakfast from here on out. I even bought a loaf of cinnamon bread for the petester. In the future, I might even make some kind of bread of mufflin every week.

The niblets won't know what hit them.

Now, don't go worrying I've lost my ever loving mind. I can't imagine a thing on earth that would compel me to get up at 6:30 in the morning and don a pair of heels. You know, in case you were worried or anything.

I'll also be making a concerted effort to eat breakfast and lunch, around normal breakfast and lunch time. I sort of succeeded this morning. I forced myself to polish off the blueberry cottage cheese double I bought yesterday at wally world. I say forced, not because it was such a large amount of food but because eating breakfast is a foreign concept to my bod, unless you count ordering from the breakfast menu no matter what time of day I head to Denny's.

All went well until I walked into the kitchen to toss the empty container and spied leftover scrambled eggs with delicious bits of bacon peaking out from a blanket of melted cheddar cheese.

Oh, good intentions, how quickly thoust flee in the presence of temptations.

I consoled myself with the reminder that I'd actually pulled my ass out of bed before daylight and deserved a reward in the guise of tasty, tasty bacon.

Sweet lord, is this post long enough???

I'm gonna be nice to you and to myself and pick this up tomorrow.

And so I say good-bye for now.

Pray that I actually get my behind out of bed again, okay?

You don't bring me flowers anymore!!

That's not entirely true. Mr man is really good about sending me flowers and not just your standard roses either. Red and white tulips with evergreens for Christmas, shades of pink roses just like our wedding bouquets, irises, etc. I have no complaints in that department.

However, I discovered recently that I like having fresh flowers on my table. A couple weeks ago, Kroger was selling off their Valentine's roses $6 a dozen. I bought a dozen of white and a dozen of red. I paired some with some cream and raspberry alstromerias and the overall effect in my red vase was so pretty I decided to try to buy flowers every two months.

Today I picked up some pink snap dragons, purple alstromeria and blue hydrangea. As you can tell in the above picture, perhaps I should pick up a book on flower arranging.

The colors look beautiful together but otherwise, meh. I love them anyway.



Looking for some hot stuff, baby

If you take nothing from the fashions of previous eras, please remember this. Your unmentionables are the best thing you can do to get a good fit with your clothes. In previous eras, you simply couldn't make the popular silhouette look good without the proper undergarments. In the Edwardian era, a corset was the key to the highly sought after S-curve and Anne Boleyn wouldn't have looked very tempting at all had she tried to don a Tudor style gown without the necessary stays.

So what does this mean for us modern girls?

Simply put, a well fitting bra is the best thing you can do for yourself.

And here's a link to Bravissimo to help you decide if you're sisters are getting the proper treatment.

'Cause She Takes Corners on Two Wheels

For Susan:

Hope your date night with mr man goes decent and that neither of you end up crying in your hurricanes.

BTW, if you bought this damned cookbook when I told you to, I wouldn't have to type this hot mess up for you, now would I? So would you buy it already?????

Skillet Jambalaya via Cover and Bake

4 bone in, skin on chicken thighs
salt and pepper
5 tbsp veggie oil
1/2 lb andouille sausage, halved lengthwise and sliced into 1/4in pieces
1 med onion, chopped
1 med red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and chopped
5 med garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 cup long grain white rice
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes, drained
1 8z bottle clam juice
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 lb large shrimp (31-40 count) peeled, deveined and rinsed
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

1. Dry chicken with paper towels then season well with salt and pepper. Heat two tbsp of oil in a skillet just until smoking. Lay the chicken thighs skin side down and cook until golden, about 4-6 minutes. Flip chicken and keep cooking until that side is golden too, about 3 minutes more. Off heat, remove from pan and pull off the skin.
2. Pour off all but two tbsp of the fat left in the skillet and turn the heat up to medium high until oil is shimmering. Add the sausage and cook until lightly browned, about three minutes. Transfer sausage to a small bowl and set aside.
3. Add the remaining 3 tbsp of oil to the skillet and return to medium heat until shimmering. Add onion, pepper, garlic, and 1/2 tsp of salt. Cook, scraping up the browned bits, until onion is softened, about five minutes. Add rice and cook until the edges turn translucent, about three minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, claim juice and chicken broth into the rice. Gently nestle chicken in the rice. (Yes, the recipe said nestle. You think I'd say that? Uhm no!) Cover and reduce heat to low and cook until chicken is tender and cooked through, 30-35 minutes.
4. Transfer chicken to a place and cover with foil to keep warm. Stir the shrimp and sausage into the rice and continue to cook, covered over low heat for two more minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat and let stand, covered until shrimp are fully cooked and the rice is tender, about five minutes. Meanwhile, shred the chicken using two forks. Stir parsley and chicken into the rice and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

Kiss This

I hate lipstick.

Finding the right color is a big enough pain in the ass but I've yet to find a single brand that didn't make my poor lips wanna shed layers like a molting iguana.

Not a sexy look OR feel.

I defaulted to lip gloss as most colors work but who wants to feel like they've been sucking face with a jar of vaseline?

Enter Neutrogena's Lip Balm. The package promises your lips will feel and look better than they did before you slathered this stuff on them.

Fat chance, you say?

SHUT YO FACE, I SAY!

No lie. My lips feel great with it on and even better afterwards. No more peeling lips and I get a lovely sheen of color in the bargain. I smear it on over a coat of Cover Girl's lip stain, another product I recommend. The color is subtle, yet pretty.

So try it.

And try the lip stain too, especially if you're a fellow lipstick hater.

Make Me Bad

I know, I know. I've been a grade a slacker. More than a full week without a single blog post. I've even slacked in my general housewifery. Booo toooo meeee!

So please forgive me and I am back with a vengence, I promise.

Don't ask about that damned contest entry. I'm cutting to.night. I swear!!!

Speaking of bad, I just won this via ebay. (Shaddup, Amy.) I really need to figure out a way to make it a full on summer dress. Can't you just see it in an adorable cherry print with green gingham trim?