Yarn-a-holic

I have a ridiculous amount of yarn. Really ridiculous. I've slowly accumulated it over the years and while I've done well in refraining from purchasing more in the last few months, I haven't been able to part with anything from my stash. I look at a skein of yarn and see the project I had in mind when I bought it and of course a ton of other ideas pop into my head. Now that I'm home full time and will hopefully soon have the time to get into crocheting again I would love to figure out a way to store my yarn so I can not only see all of it, but also have it out of the way but still accessible and all in one place. Right now I've got it stashed all over the place in a variety of baskets and drawers. I found a few different ideas but nothing has really clicked as being perfect yet. Hopefully I'll figure out something cheap that we can DIY... Here are some options I liked online...

I like the idea of using a wine rack but something like this would be not only expensive, but take up a ton of floor space in our tiny dining room craft area.

Here's another option I really liked but unless I found something similar online or at a thrift shop that could be painted, I have a feeling it would be super expensive. It would also take up a ton of space but I like the look of it enough that I'd be willing to sacrifice some square footage.

Something like this would be cheap and easy, but since I prefer fat, bulky yarn, I don't think it would work well with my collection. One can for each skein would be crazy.

I liked this idea too, but it just looks a little too messy for what I'm going for.

 Winner! I really like the idea of having something on the wall so it's out of the way and yarn organized by color. With the big open spaces it would be easy to fit different sized skeins together. Now all I have to do is figure out how it was made and get my hubby to help me make it! I guess I'll be adding one of these to my "Honey, can you make me one of these?" list!

Adventures in Cooking

I have always been very open about the fact that I can't cook. Baking I can do- I enjoy it even; but cooking? No thanks. The most common response I get to not being able to cook anything that doesn't come in a box is "Can't you read directions?" Well yes... yes, I can but cooking decent meals has still somehow eluded me. Now that I'm home full time part of my "job" is cooking. It is going surprisingly well! I am shocked. So far I've made homemade chicken noodle soup (which turned out mediocre- but for me, that's a miracle!) and pepper jack and chicken quesodillas (hard to screw up and apparently turned out delicious according to my cheese-loving husband). Last night I tried making dinner with (EEK!) no recipe. It was lemon rosemary chicken, garlic green beans with roasted red peppers and garlic and herb rice (the rice was courtesy of a box). Surprisingly, it was really good! A jar of minced garlic is my new best friend. With my new found confidence, I'm attempting a pot roast for tonight. I got up this morning and tossed everything into the crock pot... fingers crossed.

I'm finding that I'm actually really enjoying cooking (for the first time ever!). My husband tells me at least twice a day how happy he is to have me home full time. That helps. He's so encouraging and I love getting to not only spend the day with our awesome kid, but getting to take care of this wonderful man who has taken such good care of me. I find myself thinking a lot about the Proverbs 31 woman and really striving towards being more like her. I am so thankful for this wonderful life I ended up with. It feels like a world away from the place I was at in my life 5 years ago. Even though I still struggle with forgiveness, I am so thankful for the tough years I went through that brought me Benjamin, brought me here. Those times have made me so appreciative of where I am now. Living in a home that overflowing with so much love and so much laughter makes my heart feel like it's going to explode in such a good way. God is so good.

Today Looks Like...

Doing my nails

Making Chicken Noodle Soup

Mopping the floor with Feist

Watching my boys cuddle

Sick Like Yuck

What a wasted weekend! This past Friday both Josh and I started feeling under the weather. I woke up with a sore throat that turned into coughing, congestion, sinus pressure, nausea, chills, body aches, the whole shebang! Josh has the same. We spent almost the entire weekend in bed either sleeping or wishing we were dead :) It has been a really long time since I felt this rotten!

We're both still not feeling very well and with Benjamin back home from his weekend away, I'm really hoping we'll both be feeling better when we wake up. Josh goes back to his regular work schedule tomorrow so it's sort of like my first day of "work" at home. I'm excited to get into my routine and I'm hoping I have enough energy to do just that! Especially since the house is totally trashed. Again. This time though it is covered in tissues and cough drop wrappers... yuck. And Charlie totally got into one of my plants. Boo!

I'm excited. It feels a little like the night before the first day of school.

A Day at the Park

With time quickly running out before Josh has to return to work (tomorrow! BOOOOO!!) we're trying to take advantage of our afternoons. Yesterday that meant taking a drive out to Anacortes to visit Washington Park. Joshua had never been before. I was shocked.

 There was hanging

 And laughing

 And sliding

 And photos against my child's will

 And swinging

 And attempted kisses

 And just plain kisses

 And zombie attacks

 And rock skipping

 And spinning

 And running

 And deer sightings

 And victory dancing

It was an all around great time. As much fun as I have hanging out at the park just Benjamin and me, it was really delightful to have Daddy with us to share the fun. I am so thankful that my partner in parenting is just as silly as me and willing to make a fool of himself to make our kiddo laugh. I am one blessed Mama!

Normalcy... Whatever that is!

Joshua is home! Hooray! That sweet man was expected around 7pm on Tuesday; instead he left Sasquatch early and surprised us by crawling into bed around midnight on Monday night. I am so glad he's home! Our house feels less like home when he's not here. We spent the day yesterday cuddling and catching up and last night we had a pizza/movie night. Staying up late watching bad horror movies on a Tuesday night? Priceless! I still haven't quite gotten used to being home with Ben. I have a routine in my head (and on paper, no less!) but first with Joshua gone and now with him home and off of work it's been a little hard to find my groove. So I'm treating this time like a vacation. When he goes back to work, my work will just be beginning. While he was gone I did cross a couple of things off of my to do list including cleaning out all of the cabinets in the bathroom! Would you believe I found 17 pairs of nail clippers?! SEVENTEEN! Another bonus about me staying home is finally getting organized. We'll stop buying things we already have because we either can't find them or forgot we had them. Needless to say, I think we're pretty set in the nail clipper department.

I feel like every day I get some sort of little confirmation that we made the right choice for our family.
I fall more in love with my boys every day and I am so thankful to have this opportunity to take care of them full time. It's good to be Queen!

Epic Fail! ...Sort Of.

In case you were wondering... which I doubt considering I haven't updated here in a couple of months- the crafting every day is still going! We've done well in honoring our commitment to craft- not so much with the blog posting. I get so "in the zone" when I'm working on a project, I don't want to stop to take photos. Then when I go to grab a camera to snap a picture of the finished product, I generally run into some random issue. Like today- suddenly, all of the memory cards in our house have disappeared! There aren't any in any of the cameras. The extras we bought are also hiding. I think it's time for some spring cleaning up in here. Then of course there is the whole hassle of blogging itself. Our lives have been so busy lately it feels like we're either on the go or sleeping. Which I'm sure can't be true, but it certainly feels that way.

Anyway, our crafting projects have certainly evolved. Joshua and I have been working together on making custom fragrances. He is better at it that I am :) I have made some seriously delicious smelling soy candles in the process. Seriously, I will never buy another candle again. We love candles. We (used to) buy them all the time- a new series of scents for every season. While I've been mixing and melting, Josh has been working on a label and logo. He's so talented. In the meantime, I've been individually packaging everything. An added bonus- those suckers burn FOREVER! We have been timing one of the small ones to figure out how long they burn.... that thing is closing in on it's 15th hour and it's still going strong.  Woot!

Benjamin is doing well. As per usual he is blowing our minds on a daily basis with his awesomeness. Today in the store he patted Josh and the chest and said, "Daddy... You awesome" It was cute and sweet and everything that our little dude is. We are such proud parents. He keeps us on our toes and we feel so blessed to have such a little beam of sunshine in our lives. One of my favorite things he's doing now is he'll sit down and say, "Come sit by me... Let's talk" and he when you do, he will sit and talk to you about the most random things. Today it was a recap of the birds he chased at the park. His vocabulary astounds me.