Should it Stay? No!

So, my last day of work was Thursday! It has not sunk in at all yet and if someone woke me up tomorrow and told me to go to work, I'd just...go and everything would be business as usual. I'm rather confused right now and sort of feel like I'm simply on vacation.

Anyway, I figured this big transition from working lady to stay-at-home mom warranted a complete wardrobe overhaul and the first thing to go would be stuff I have kept only because it's "good for work." Now I know we'd all like to only wear "things we love," but that's not always realistic, you know? Sometimes you just need something to wear to work and it's not the BEST or your LOVAH, it's just a shirt.

As it turns out, though, I liked most of what I wore to work (which was business casual and not fancy at all, so perfectly appropriate for being at home.) Aside from the items I had earmarked in advance, I threw out hardly any work clothes and a BOATLOAD of crappy stuff I kept to wear on off days so I wouldn't "waste" my work clothes. Nothing bummed me out faster than wearing my favorite work-appropriate shirt on a Saturday and then getting to Monday morning and wailing "I have nothing to weaaaaaaar." I apparently had a lot of good-enough-for-the-weekend-but-not-for-work stuff. And, again, my office was pretty casual, so the bar wasn't particularly high.

This was just my first pass at half of my closet. That's 3 pairs of pants and 32 shirts. That I am getting rid of. FROM HALF MY CLOSET. If you can believe it, I didn't know I had a problem until I thought I should take a before shot and looked through my lens to see this:

I mean, I knew I had an organization problem, but I really didn't realize how many items were in this closet or how out of control it truly looked. (Probably because the messy areas are below eye-level.)

I wasn't kidding when I said I could keep up Should it Stay Monday forever if I wanted to, using just what's in my closet. At this point though, most of it should be a no. I've been through most of the clothes I had questions on, so Should it Stay Monday will be on an as-needed basis now instead of every week. There will definitely be closet organization posts, though. Probably both at Style All Over and here, so get ready.

52 Date Nights, Week 13: Make s'mores indoors

Previous date night posts here. Free stay-at-home date night ideas PDF download here. (Not sponsored.)

The past week has been one of those weeks where Thomas and I haven’t gotten more than 15 consecutive minutes together and are mostly just passing each other in the hall on the way to unpacking/laundry/making dinner/putting kids to bed. I guess we did have time one night to take the Christmas tree down together and assemble this to put in its place, but unfortunately I couldn’t find “play with easel magnets” on the date night list.*

{Edited to add: I knew I was going to forget to put in the picture I wanted here. It's on Thomas' computer and I meant to get it! Here's a blurry one from Amazon.} {Also, doesn't that little girl look just like Michelle's Peanut? You didn't tell us she modeled, Michelle!}

My parents got this for Margaret and both kids love, love, love it.

So, when opportunities for a date night look slim, you can either think: bummer, not going to happen this week OR you can grab one of those 15 minute stretches and use it to set things on fire with your gas stove.

(This picture was staged because we are FAR TOO COMPETENT to accidentally set marshmallows on fire.)**

Chocolate graham crackers because they were what we had and I didn’t want to buy a whole new box. Extra dark chocolate because I’m fancy. And kind of a snob. Baileys because…you know. Why not?

Thomas opted for a Reeses minis s’more and it was quite delicious.

*Neither was “assemble pieces in the wrong order, screwing up the whole process and making your long-suffering husband fix your mistakes.” Weird.

**OK, fine, we did set a couple on fire briefly. The picture was staged, though – the next morning, when Thomas was gone. I was alone in the kitchen setting things on fire with one hand while trying to take pictures with the other, all while the kids were eating breakfast in the next room. Safe!***

***This won’t affect my homeowner’s insurance rates, right?

2012 Reading Goal: Completed

I’m not a fan of resolutions, but I do know one thing I’m planning to do in 2013: not read so many dang books. I read a lot when I have tiny babies, especially since with an iPad and Kindle, turning pages while trapped under a baby is easy. Last year I had time to read in the middle of the night (thanks, Paul!) and time to read while pumping at work (3x a day at 20 minutes each is an HOUR per day I was reading at work!) I set a goal of reading 100 books in 2012 and by June I was blowing that goal out of the water. I think I was at 71 already.

I figured to make my goal relevant again, I’d just re-set it. Half of the year left = read 50 more books. So I changed my goal to 120 and suddenly found out that since Paul had just turned one, reading wasn’t going so smoothly. I was spending much more time picking up after my (walking!) one-year-old than sitting on the couch nursing. Thomas started handling a lot of the night wakeups (yay for Daddy!). I no longer pumped at work. A little over 8 books a month started to seem like a…lot. (As a comparison, I read seventeen books in May.)

By the time November and December rolled around, reading was a big struggle for me. After 102 books already that year, I was pretty sick of reading. I wanted to watch TV. Page through a magazine. Anything but look at the stack of library books taunting me. I wanted to stop thinking about how 11/22/63 should totally count as 4 books and how my goal had turned into “read 120 books I can review on Goodreads,” meaning the five I couldn’t didn’t count.* (So, yes, I read one hundred and twenty-five books in 2012.)

I considered dropping the goal back to 100 and saying ‘done!’ I just couldn’t. I set this wacky goal and I was GOING TO MEET IT. No matter how much it made me hate reading! (Not counter-productive at all!) I did meet my goal, on December 30^th and was very relieved to be done with it. Now reading is for pleasure again, instead of feeling like homework. We’re eight days into 2013 and I’ve only finished ONE book. It’s so nice to have permission (from myself) to read one chapter before bed and have that be IT for the whole day. I think I’ve established that meaningless goals are probably not a good thing for me. Resolve to be a better parent? That’s a good thing. Resolve to spend all my free time doing one thing? Not so much.

*Three were books I just couldn’t admit to reading where anyone on earth could see. (Guess what they were!) (NOT IN MY COMMENTS SECTION.) The fourth was the beta version of the Office Crush book and the fifth was a book written by a relative of mine that I really don’t want to review.

52 Date Nights: Week 12, Sing Karaoke

Previous date night posts here. Free stay-at-home date night ideas PDF download here. (Not sponsored.)

Karaoke is a date night that requires extensive preparation in the form of alcohol. Unfortunately, we decided to squeeze it in after several hours of packing for our family trip to Memphis and absolutely no drinking. I don’t feel as if we did the activity justice.

This is the site the date nights PDF linked to. It was…OK. But
you can’t beat free, right? That’s really all we’re looking for.

I was pretty tentative, but after Thomas belted his song out I got a little more into it. We wanted to try a duet, but apparently you have to create a paid membership on this site to do that. Who knows, maybe we’ll search out a karaoke bar in Memphis!

Thomas belting it out at the bar. (The bar in our basement, that is.)

Should it Stay Monday: Yellow Shirt

I’m in Memphis as we speak (…read?) wearing this exact shirt. I went to Kohls a couple weeks ago desperate for something I could wear out to the bars in Memphis that would show I’m there as an Iowa State fan (for the Liberty Bowl) without being a plain team t-shirt. I was thinking a red and yellow striped sweater, but I couldn’t find anything, shirt or sweater, that was red and yellow. 

You know what I've gotten better at through Should it Stay Monday?
Flattering photography. I'm fairly certain this shirt looks worse in
person, but maybe it's better than I think?

I found this on the 90% off rack. If I didn’t have a specific purpose for it, I don’t think I would have bought it. But it was $3 and I thought it would work pretty well with a red sweater. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find one of those, either. I ended up wearing it with a red zip-up sweatshirt, which isn’t as nice as I’d hoped, but works well enough for my purposes. I’m still not sure about it on its own, though. (FYI, I'm sucking it in pretty hard in that picture. (That's what she said.))

Should it Stay: Yellow Shirt

P.S. If you’re reading this during the actual game (which starts at 2:30 central) I’m actually wearing something quite a bit warmer.

He's a total ham

Margaret was really excited to meet Santa, so we hoped her enthusiasm would lead Paul into following along. We stood in line for almost an hour and he seemed excited when it was our turn. When I tried to set him down next to Santa, though, he freaked. Santa suggested rearranging so Margaret would be in between him and Paul. He still wouldn’t sit. I figured, well, this happens, and just got in the picture and held him on my lap.

Margaret stayed to tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas while Paul and I went over to choose a photo. When he saw himself on the screen his eyes went really big and he got excited. I said, look! It’s a picture of you and Santa! and it was like a lightbulb went off in his head. “OH! Mommy wasn’t just leaving me on some random guy’s lap and running away! It’s a PICTURE! I can do that!”

He pointed back at the couch urgently and I asked if he wanted to take another picture. He nodded emphatically and the elves said ok. I ran over there, plopped him down and the little stinker threw a huge grin at the camera.

Margaret was a little thrown by the sudden re-takes, but that’s about as good of a smile as you can get out of a three-year-old anyway, so we were really happy with it. Santa photo = success.

December books, part 1

Prospect Park West by Amy Sohn
This book was not at all what I was expecting. For starters, it was way dirtier than I expected from chick lit. Not that everyone was having sex (though they did), but it was all they could think about. Also, no one liked themselves or anyone else and whatever they had, it wasn't enough.  Basically the whole book can be summed up as sex and unhappiness, with a side of craaaaaazy. I did read all 400 pages in a few days, though, so it was definitely addicting. Having learned Amy Sohn's newest book follows some of the same characters, I really want to know what happened to them.

Talking with My Mouth Full by Gail Simmons
This was blah. It didn't read as a novel, but like she was interviewed about her life and the transcript was typed with minimal editing. "So, Gail, how do you feel about weight issues relating to women in the public eye?" "Funny you should ask! I have lots of rambling thoughts on that issue."

I suppose you could say that's a good thing, that the book felt conversational and I could hear her voice. But it wasn't compelling reading. I think whomever gave her a book deal had a great idea. Her career trajectory and each job she has had seem really interesting. It just didn't come out right. It kind of made me sad to see all of the super-interesting stuff turned into such a boring book.

I don't necessarily not recommend you read it or regret that I did. As I said, there is interesting stuff underneath the stilted writing. You just have to kind of work for it and slog through at times.

What the Cat Saw by Carolyn Hart

I used to read everything Carolyn Hart wrote. There were two things that should have led me to skip this one, but I ignored them. 1. It was published by Berkley Prime Crime, not her usual William Morrow (Step down? Right? I don’t really know publishing) and 2. “She understands the thoughts of cats when she looks into their eyes.”

It was awful. Really awful. Besides the whole cat thing, it was just a bad book all around. The mystery was boring and the love story was ridiculous.

“If you were smart” – her voice caught in her throat – “you’d stay away from me.”

“Not,” he said quietly, “in this lifetime.”

COME ON.

Dead in the Family (Sookie Stackhouse Book 10) by Charlaine Harris

Interestingly enough, the cover quote on that one - "What the Cat Saw will surprise and engage any mystery reader." - was by Charlaine Harris. I realize most of those are quid pro quo kind of things and/or required of authors with the same publisher, but still. Interesting.

I can't really say much about the Sookie series that I haven't already, but I liked this one. I wasn't feeling up to a heavier book and deliberately went for the brain candy.


A Touch of Dead (Sookie Stackhouse: The Complete Stories) by Charlaine Harris

This book explained so much. When I started book six, I checked several times to make sure I hadn’t skipped a book, because there was a fairly major plot point I seemed to have completely missed. I was sure I’d forgotten to read the last chapter of the previous book (nope, checked) or misremembered what book I was on (nope) or was just plain going crazy. Turns out all the answers were in a SHORT STORY. Now how was I supposed to have known that?

I had noticed there was a book of short stories, but I had no idea they were required reading. Pretty much every area I was fuzzy or confused about from the series originated in one of these stories. I’m kind of mad actually.

Some of the stories stand alone, but it’s helpful to read them all, at the appropriate point in the series. Even if that’s not feasible (and why would it be? Unless you BOUGHT the short stories book?), you definitely should read “One Word Answer” before book six. Or ask me for a synopsis.