Posting A Contest

Because doesn't everyone want an iPad?   :)  And  I get multiple chances to win if you enter too!  So it's probably a bit selfish on my part.  But look at all the fun toys you can get!

Yarn Purge

On the topic of getting rid of stuff.  This past week I went through my yarn stash to pare it down and make some room for future baby toys.  Up until last week I kept my yarn stash in an ottoman in the living room with a briefcase upstairs for all my needles.

I decided the ottoman is going to be far better used as a toy box.  Hopefully this will keep the living room a little neater (I can dream can't I?).

It was a bit of a struggle to get rid of some of the yarn I did.  There is always that "don't waste it, it might be useful one day" thoughts.  But I was fairly ruthless.  Realistically I'm not going to be doing that much knitting for the next while with Mr. Small guy.  By the time I'm doing a lot of knitting again, I'm not likely to want to knit the "possible projects" I've got waiting for me right now.

So I feel fairly accomplished with that purge.  I still have to go through all of my knitting needles, but that can wait for another day.  And going through that is just to rid myself of duplicates.

Hmmmm....I wonder what the next purge should be?

Too much stuff

I recently read The 100 Thing Challenge by Dave Bruno.  He also has a blog.  He managed to live with a whole year with only 100 personal items.  I don't think I could do that myself.  It seems far to minimal. However, many of his ideas are smart and I should adopt them because:

I have too much stuff!

There I said it, it's true.  I live in a small house with my husband, baby and two cats and we are drowning in stuff.  The house is full.  And it's only going to get worse as my little man gets bigger.  The solution is to get rid of stuff.  That's the hard part though.

So my first step I think is to avoid bringing in more stuff.  The problem with this is that I like shopping and see things all the time that I want/think is useful etc....  Mind you at the same time, I am on Maternity Leave which means a reduced income so that will probably help with that.

The second step is getting rid of stuff.  This part is harder I think because of a few factors

Time

Lack of time.  I have a small person now.  He seems to take up all my time now and who wants to sort and clean when their child is napping?

Ease of Removal

Small trash/recycling is easy.  Out the door it goes.  Anything bigger is harder.  It often gets stuffed in the basement to wait until we go to the dump (rarely).  It was easier when we had a truck, now we have to borrow a trailer.  Then there are all the items that aren't trash.  Some of it goes to charity, some we should sell and some we should give away.  All of these things take time and effort.  Items to charity isn't so bad.  We just have to get around to dropping it off.  Still the messy pile waits until there is enough to warrant a trip.  Selling items can be a pain in the rear end so i put it off (although I did list something on cragislist this morning).

Emotional Attachment

This I think is the hard part.  And the emotional attachment is even....I will use it some day.  I find for many items you aren't going to actually use and it is the idea of using you are attached to.  Mr. Bruno addressed it in his book and I found it super useful to think about while going through things.

I think we have to attack the idea of less stuff with a vengeance this year as I think I'm going to go batty tripping over everything we have in our house.  I'm hoping it will free up some of the clutter in my mind too!

Momzelle

Since i've gone and had and offspring i've obviously become more interested in clothing that facilitates breastfeeding.  For the most part I've been very disappointed.

I bought a couple of nursing tops from Thyme Maternity.  They were on the expensive side for glorified T-Shirts and after about 2 washings they looked like I had washed them about 50 and they looked a little on the worn side.

Then I tried a Gap nursing top I got from ebay.  I was much happier with this, however I did have to get my mom to modify it a little bit so it wouldn't gape.  Also, the V-neck is a bit low for people wearing nursing bras.  Their sizing is on the larger side so I should have bought a medium.  Mind you I did get a medium about a week ago and it still needs a bit of modification.  The up side though is that is is super comfortable.  The Gap does have comfy T-Shirt material.  The other downside is that you can't buy them in Canada as they stopped selling them in Canada reasonably recently.

I did find a really good shirt.  And it's a Canadian company too which makes me happy.  This company Momzelle makes fantastic t-shirts.  I ordered 1 and  tank top.  They are super comfortable, the openings are easy to use and they just make me happy.  Also in the grand scheme of things they aren't that expensive.  They are more than I would ever want to pay for a t-shirt or tank top, but at the same time they are less expensive than many of the other nursing tops out there that can go for about $70.  I would recommend these shirts to anyone.  I bought the V-Neck Nursing T and the V-Neck Nursing Tank.

Chicken Fajitas

When I was at my sister's place a couple of weeks ago, I borrowed her copy of Jamie's Food Revolution because I was interested in seeing what it was like.  They also told me it was a pretty cool book.

I've been perusing it and thinking of which recipes to try.  I really do have to get a bit more organized to have all the ingredients on hand.  Anyway, the other night I tried his Fajitas recipe.  It was really tasty and so much better than the made up recipe I've been using for years.  I will use that recipe in the future.  I think I may have to purchase myself a copy of the book.  

Vanilla Chai Cupcakes

Awhile ago I tripped across a recipe for Vanilla Chai Cupcakes on a blog I follow called What Megan's Making.  This blog has many tasty looking recipes.  She has a bunch of pumpkin recipes on there that i need to try as well.  I've been wanting to make these cupcakes for awhile as I love chai, but hadn't gotten around to it.  Today we'll be celebrating Easter with my husband's family and I'm in charge of dessert.  So I thought these would be great.  They turned out pretty well as far as I'm concerned.  They are tasty and they don't look half bad (I'm not always so great on presentation).

My only issue with making these cupcakes was with the cloves.  All I have right now are whole cloves and silly me thought grinding them in a mortar and pestle was going to be easy.  Not so much.  It smelled great, but took forever.  I will be looking for some ground cloves for the next time I make these.

some of the million cupcakes I made

Chicken & Dumplings

I've been a little brain dead lately, most likely due to the sleep deprivation that comes with babies.  This means I haven't been the most creative with the cooking.  To remedy that I've been trying some new recipies.  I did try one from Chatelaine's April issue last night.  It was Chicken & Dumplings.  I was a little disappointed in the results.  It was kind of bland.  I may try doing it again adding a little more spice.  Perhaps that it's that I like a little more spice and flavour, but it was a little sad.

Chinese Restaurant Almond Cookies

Well, I tried the  Chinese Restaurant Almond Cookies this week.  They were tasty, but didn't turn out quite as pretty as the ones my Mom made.  I think that's just due to her talent at pretty cookie making and my lack thereof.  Next time I will remember to take pictures.