Ronald McDonald House Benefit

I'm really not trying to give Anne a big head but once again, I owe her kudos for this weekend's plans as well.  (Hey girl, what am I doing next weekend??)  This weekend was the first Ronald McDonald House benefit that was thrown by our Resident Spouse Association (which Anne happens to be in charge of social events, and thus largely responsible for pulling off this shebang.).  Basically, we wanted an opportunity to wear fancy dresses and dance to a band and eat yummy little finger foods -  once you outgrow sorority formals and most of your friends are married off, you have to create your own events for these pursuits.  Although it is always best if you can spend another organization's money to do it...and then raise money for charity at the same time.  Win!

 
(I also failed to take any pictures once we there so I am unapologetically borrowing these off our RSA website.)

It was a super fun night, fancy dresses, great band, finger foods and the likes.  Our friend Rebecca's brother-in-law was the music of the evening and he was great - one of those bands that could go from playing a Michael Buble song to a Ke$ha song and make both dance floor worthy.  Yes, Ke$ha.  (In fact, I think I might have liked their version of Tik Tok better.)
 
And we raised some money for a great cause...hopefully this is an annual benefit and hopefully I'll find a way to swindle myself an invite even though I will no longer be a resident's spouse anymore! (Woohoo!)

My only two pictures are off my phone… showing off my dress that I love which was actually a bridesmaid dress from Pam’s wedding in 2009 and the other is with my husband date, the resident portion of Resident Spouse Association.

Page A Day Inspiration

More thought provoking questions from my Happiness Project Page-A-Day Calendar.



- What's the most helpful advice you've ever received?
Because I can never answer a question succinctly, I have to answer this in 3 parts.

"Just take it one day at a time." These wise words were actually uttered to me by my high school boyfriend, who was wiser than his years at 16 years old, as I sat bawling my eyes out one day about being scared to go off to college. (I am one of those rare freaks who absolutely loved high school...). He said that to me then, and I've said it to myself a hundred, million times whenever I'm going through something that I'm scared or frustrated about. And it makes me giggle that a high school boy was the source of such sage wisdom.
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle."
I can't remember where I heard that advice but again it was sometime around the end of high school or early college, and it's remained my favorite quote ever since. I try to remind myself of that when someone does something I don't understand that seems hurtful or ignorant, and in my job as a coach I often get the rare opportunity to peel back the layers of people to learn about the hard battles they are fighting. Reminding myself of this piece of advice gives me pause when I find myself about to judge someone - including myself. (This quote is generally attributed to Plato, although I'm not 100% certain of that. Anne G could probably verify that!)
Will this matter in one year?
This was a very recent piece of advice I came across and I've started trying to use it as a gauge for how much energy and attention I should let my monkey mind devote to any sort of issue that arises. Sometimes it's works, sometimes even when I know the answer is "of course not" I still want to wallow in stressing out for the sake of my own pity party. (Please bring cupcakes.)

Those are my top 3 pieces of advice, although I also had to refrain from quoting line by line the entire book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie which is the best book of advice I've ever read.

-What's your happiest time of day?
I love going to bed. I love the act of getting in bed, piling the covers around me, grabbing something to read, situating Buddy nearby for snuggles, chatting with Matt if he's not working.... and then falling asleep. I hate to admit it, but my favorite time of day is bedtime.

-What were the last 3 books you read?
- Bossypants by Tina Fey
- Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
- My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler (my book club's pick)




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Pinterest Party

I often refer to my friend Anne as our "social chair" - and this is fitting considering she is technically the social chair of the one and only organized club I belong to here in Winston, the Resident Spouse Association.  Whether it’s RSA functions, tailgates or dinner parties, Anne is always my one friend who is constantly scheming up new get together ideas.  The best part is she's very creative in her ideas for get together - which I love about her. 
 
Okay, enough ego boosting for Anne. The point of that intro was to say who else would come up with an idea like she did this weekend - a Pinterest party!  It was a simple concept - bring the makings of a craft or food item you've pinned on Pinterest but haven't made yet… and make it.  Such a great idea!  I have 65 items on my crafty board and it is by pure self restraint that I don't have 6,500... yet I rarely make time to do them.  What a better way than for me to put it on my schedule AND know that I was going to be in the company of good friends making their crafts too.
 
(Even better was some people had food pins to test out on us…happy guinea pigs, indeed.)

It was very fun and we all made good progress, if not finished, a craft or recipe.  Katie and Anne did needlepoint, Tommie and Anya worked on crocheting hats, Akanksha made a mason jar soap dispenser, Sarah painted the cutest little "P" using a pencil eraser, Jamie made a jewelry tray and I tackled DIY mercury glass. 

 
My mercury glass project was easier than I expected it to be, but it was just one of those things I had been putting off getting started on.  I bought all these little vases at Goodwill for 25 cents a piece and found the spray paint at Wal-mart for $9.  I read a bunch of tutorials on how to do it and they all seemed to say about the same thing – spray, dry, repeat 5 times, spritz with vinegar, wipe down.  (For more specifics, this is a good example of one of the tutorials I read.)

While my glasses were drying, I even tackled a 10 minute t-shirt scarf project.  Bonus craft!

We had a little mascot overseeing all our crafts…

I loved Akanksha’s mason jar soap dispenser… that might be next on my to do list.

 
I was really happy with how both of my crafts came out.  The mercury glass especially came out lovely – I love seeing them twinkle on my mantle now!

And I’ve already worn my t-shirt scarf/necklace out once…

Obviously I loved, loved, loved this idea for a party.  We all definitely agreed that we need to do it on a regular basis - and we're going to leave it up to Anne to schedule it.

16 Weeks

It’s amazing how a week of vacation will take you from looking like you hit the Golden Corral buffet a little too hard to legit pregnant.  Bam.  Just like that.

I definitely prefer this – while I’m still at the stage where a stranger might think twice about asking if I was preggo lest they stick their foot in their mouth (even though someone *did* do this to me at EIGHT weeks) – I am definitely feeling more comfortable in this version of my pregnant body than the first not-pregnant but not-normal couple months.

I’ve also been fortunate enough to feel really, really good the majority of this pregnancy so far.  I had a few days early on with some sickness and the infamous fatigue of the first trimester was annoying, but I really have so very little to complain about so far.  The first few months I didn’t have much of an appetite – nothing made me sick, but nothing sounded good either.  (Except for Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Chick-Fil-A chicken nuggets.  I am quite sorry, Baby Cline, for you did not start your life off with an all organic, non processed food diet.  I hope you like cheese-powdered foods as much I do.)  That’s gone away as well now, and I unfortunately no longer have a great excuse for skipping the entire produce section on my grocery trip.  I’ve been able to keep doing Body Pump and Dance Trance, which I think has actually kept me feeling really good.

I should probably stop talking now before I tempt the fates or piss off my friends who did not have such easy first trimesters. 

It took me well past 12 weeks to really and truly believe that I was pregnant, so it’s kind of bizarre to think that in another month, I’ll actually be at the halfway point! 

Palm Springs Instagram-Style

A collection of iPhone pics of our vacay…

Chicken a la Arnold family & tomato salad a la Jenny P – Early morning quiet – My brother the computer programmer whiz

Peach & Sausage breakfast bake – Poolside blogging – Starbucks destination walk

Café Rio goodness – Palm Springs Aerial Tram – Hiking – Time to Go

Palm Springs: February Break 2012

We had a really wonderful time in Palm Springs.  You know how some people like to go on vacation and do lots of activities and some like to go on vacation and lay low, and the result of those different types of people going on vacation together is that everyone ends up feeling a teensy bit grumbly about their vacation expectations or concerned about other people’s vacation expectations?  Yea, that…. didn’t happen.  This trip was one of those rare vacations where there were activities for the activity people and lounging for the lounging people, and just enough occasions to meet in the middle where everyone was happy.

Weird, a family vacation where everyone was happy?

Myself, I’m about 75% do nothing, 25% do something on vacations.  I love vacations for the chance to sleep without an alarm clock, catch up on books or writing, and lay by a pool / beach / lake.  Give me water, cold drinks and printed words and I’m a happy girl.  After 3 days of literally doing nothing except reading and catching up on my blog writing, I decided maybe my laziness was getting a little out of hand and my mom and I went for a walk.  I plotted a course to the nearest Starbucks and back and it turned out to be a 5 mile walk.  (In the desert.  It was hot.)  But it actually felt really great to move, and that’s where I realized my 25% do-something has to come in to play on vacations too. 

We also took a short road trip up the highway to go to Café Rio (a must on every west coast visit) as well as a nearby outlet mall, went out to dinner a few nights, explored downtown Palm Springs and did the Aerial Tram and a short hike through San Jacinto State Park.  Since we were staying in a house, I brought a handful of recipes I had had in my saved files forever and hadn’t had a chance to try, and made my family be a guinea pig for my culinary adventures. 

Matt, who is probably about 75% do something and 25% do nothing on vacation, went golfing 3 out of the 5 days.  Palm Springs is apparently some of the nicest golfing in the whole country, so he was pretty content with these outings.  My Dad and brother-in-law went golfing too, and my sister and brother spent a few days doing some long hikes in preparation for their summer backpack trip to Yosemite.  My mom and I vacation pretty similar, so she was my reading buddy, cooking buddy, perusing baby-stuff-online buddy, chatting about life buddy and 5-mile walk buddy.  She might have not appreciated that last one as much as I did though!

All in all, it was a pretty great vacation considering – you know – how spending 5 days with your 7 family members in 1500 square feet could go.  Everybody left a little more relaxed, tan and content. 

A few pictures from one of the nights we went out to eat in downtown Palm Springs

My morning routine: some light reading by the pool plus I love the view of the mountains past the palm trees!

Culinary adventures (shrimp, tomato & feta pasta // summer rice salad)

Took the aerial tram to the top of San Jacinto Mountain and looked down into Coachella Valley.  Then we hiked a short trail {in the snow, despite the fact that it was 88 down in the valley!} to some overlook points.

My mom & brother played a lot of backgammon and they talk smack to each other all week in between games.  The evenings were pretty low-key… even vacations require some cable & wi-fi time!

Time to go home…

The One in Which I Make Homemade Laundry Detergent

Pinterest: the place where I am most likely to get inspired, in over my head, buy too much at Hobby Lobby or Whole Foods and make a big mess.

But this time I was actually successful with a pin!  I keep seeing pins for homemade laundry detergent and I don't know why, but the idea just intrigued me.  I told Matt it was because I wanted to find a way to save money since the cost of laundry detergent makes me think it must be made out of powdered unicorn horns, and he said "Let's be honest - you just want another craft to do."
 
True.
 
I reviewed a bunch of the different recipes and saw a general overlap of two options: one that involved boiling stuff and the other that involved mixing dry stuff.  I went with the latter.
 
Here's the recipe I followed.

 
I'm happy to report it was easy, successful and very satisfying. I made a huge tub from one Fels-Naptha soap bar that cost 99 cents that should last 40 loads.  The arm and hammer soap and Borax each cost $4 and have enough for many, many loads to come.  (If any of my local friends want to try this, I'll give you a cup of the Borax and A&H soap.  I feel like I'm going to have these boxes around for awhile.)  So far, everything I've washed has come out clean to my satisfaction.  I was a little nervous, because in the past I've used some eco-friendly (Seventh Generation, Method) detergents and they didn't get out cooking oil which is my #1 stain.  I'm a messy cook.  So far, this has not let me down.  I do still have one box of Tide that I'm keeping on hand, and I figure if I have any heavy soiled items or a stain that won't come out with this, I'll use that for back up.