Thoughts
I just about let September coffee talk slip on by me. Probably because it still feels a lot like August? We had a few mornings that were slightly less than 80 degrees if you got out nice an early, but even that simple luxury seems to have slipped away for the meantime.
Anyways, if we were having coffee, here are some things I may ramble about:
// Preschool starts next week and I’m actually super sad about it. KB is at an age that’s really fun and knock on the wood in the world, kind of easy. Since nothing lasts with kids, I’ll miss having him with me every minute. I don’t think I’ve been away from him for more than 2 hours since May. {Should I have admitted that?}
// Speaking of school, it’s probably good that it is starting even though it makes me sad because the self-employed work/be a mom balance gets a little crazy in the summer. I wouldn’t change it for the world, but it’ll probably be good for my professional life to have a few dedicated work hours consistently back in my life that don’t happen in the wee hours of the morning or past my self-imposed bedtime. I’m in the process of reworking my current nutrition programs to broaden the scope of my offerings and I’m pretty excited about it. {Side note: if I talked more about working at home/ being self-employed, is that something you’d be interested in? I get a lot of questions about it…}
// Pure Barre. If I knew I’d still be obsessed I would have laughed at myself. It’s such a good workout for me and luckily has continued to be during pregnancy. I haven’t been going quite as often and I’ll probably wait til after baby to renew my package when it runs out {maybe, we’ll see if I can resist}, but I’m so glad I tried it in the first place. I think the focus on the tiny muscle groups helps keep me injury-free {and I’m super injury-prone so that’s a huge bonus}.
// House. We live in our new house! It’s mostly unpacked {except for all the boxes still pushed in corners that I’m ignoring} and we’re starting to get used to it. We still have some work to do, but it’s nice to start to feel settled. Not knowing where we were going to live for awhile there was driving me about bonkers.
// That’s it. What are you up to this weekend?
*PS Excuse all the blog formatting and commenting issues. I’m having lots of technical difficulty and haven’t had the time or knowledge to sort them out properly yet. {See school comment #1.
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linking up to the Ultimate Coffee Date – swing on by!
Thoughts
It took me forever to title this post because I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what day it was. I spent the first half of the week thinking it was almost the weekend and the second half thinking it must be closer to Monday. As long as I keep my deadlines straight I’m perfectly ok with not having any clue what day it is. C’est la summer. Anyways. I have so many posts in drafts but since I rarely get to my actual computer {or more accurately, rarely does it work in the moments I have on it} those drafts are doing me little good. Sooo here’s a little catch up post of things that have been happening lately. A little glimpse at every day life. * First and foremost, we found a house!! These past few months of transition and ‘not knowing’ have been rough on me. I’m not 100% in love with the house yet but being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel has been amazing for my mental health and sanity. Right now it’s just a house we picked out of thin air, but I know soon we’ll be able to make it a home –our home- and I can’t wait. 
* My little guy has been a trooper through all of this. I’m so proud of him. Three can be a tough age but he is so so much fun. Summer has only just started and we’ve pretty much done nothing at all but I love just hanging out with him. I’m soaking up all of the days with a nearly empty to-do list before things get a little crazy next week with moving, painting, and projects.
* I had a hard time figuring out how to fit my exercise routine into our new daily life when we moved. We’re about 25 minutes from everything we used to do and trying to figure out how to balance everything and make it all work without dragging the kiddo around all day long was tougher than it should have been. It’s still a work in progress but I’m moving in the right direction. The three year old still protests gym childcare with a vengeance {but we’re working on it} and it’s nearly 100 degrees outside already {literally}, so I’ve been turning to Pure Barre and at-home workouts to get me through. I’ve been toying with the idea of seeing if a different gym will give us a better experience but I love my gym {and the price} so I haven’t made anything near an actual decision yet. I’ve put in a request for our new place to have a little room for some workout videos without kicking fans and coffee tables – we’ll see how that goes. 
* I tried to get KB in swim lessons before summer but all the classes were full. I finally got him in some classes across town but it’s worth it. Plus they’re indoors which is nice because we don’t have to worry about it being hot or slathering on sunscreen. He used to love the water but over the winter decided he was against it if it had anything to do with his face or head. He’s enthusiastic yet resistant. My goal for the end of the two-week lessons is for him to just put his face in the water already! {Which he had no hesitations about last year!} 
* I’ve been using these hot summer days as an excuse to test out all the different ways to use Starbucks’ coconut milk in iced and frozen concoctions. Some are winners; others not so much. {Spoiler alert: frapps are winners, lattes & macchiatos are not.} 
* For probably the 100th thousandth time, I love working from home. Especially during the summer, despite the sometimes craziness that goes along with it. So so grateful.
That’s all for now. 🙂
Home
I sort of accidentally sold my house.
See, the grand plan was to live here until it was time for KB to head to kindergarten, then we’d move to a better school district. We wouldn’t really need to move until high school time, but if we know it’d need to happen now, we might as well start in the right track.
Then some city-wide construction plans were released, and while they’ll be great for the area when they’re finished, they’d be happening right when we were trying to move and selling a house amidst construction sounded like a terrible idea.
So I casually put the word out we were going to put our house on the market soon and before I knew it we were signing a contract. Fast-forward all the things.
We’re fortunate things worked out so quickly, but holy wow. Even before it sold I was completely and utterly overwhelmed with the prospect of moving. I know we won’t end up really far away or in a completely new city, but we will be farther away than we ever have been from our life as we know it and the prospect is terrifying, overwhelming, and anxiety-inducing. We won’t be near our friends, our activities, our favorite spots.
I know things will work out fine. I know being in a good school district is more important {to us} than other more frivolous things, but it’s still hard to swallow. I know I will adapt once things actually happen, but right now, we have a closing date with no good prospects of a new house or even what part of town. The not knowing and the what-if’s and the I-don’t-know’s are killing me. Let’s not even talk about the fact that we’ll be leaving our first home, the one we put blood, sweat, and tears into, the one we brought our baby home to. Cue all the tears. I know, I’m being dramatic. I’m allowed.
There’s really no point to this post except eep yikes. That’s what’s happening right now…
{and in the middle of the chaos a certain little someone turned 3!}
Recipe
Recently I’ve gotten more than a few comments/questions about the way my house is painted. I’m guessing it’s from my ‘I love lamp’ post? Who knows.
So with that in mind today I’m channeling my inner Young House Love and sharing some before and after house pictures with you. 🙂
A little background: The husband and I bought our house two years ago, after the rental rates at our apartment sky rocketed and we were tired of being harassed by our neighbor (that’s a story for another day.) We looked and looked and looked and looked. Just as we were about to throw in the towel and succumb to inflation and badgering, we stumbled upon this “beauty”.
Now, this was when we were newly employed, newly wed, and newly grown-ups. We barely had a dime left by the time the process was done- we considered things like beds, console tables, and kitchen chairs a luxury. I’m not kidding: we slept on a mattress on the living room floor, and our high end furniture consisted of mismatching camping chairs. There was a lot of work to be done on the house, and no money to do it.
So what did we do? We worked on it ourselves. Little by little. With the cheapest things possible. [Read: paint & elbow grease.]
And with that I present Casa de SoS:
The Kitchen
Before:
After:
The Living Room
Before:
After:
The Dining Room
Before:
After:
The Office:
Before:
I kid you not on this one. It gets worse:
After:
Oh how I wish I knew of Young House Love before I embarked on this process. I’m pretty sure they’re now my heroes.
Cookie Time
To reward you for suffering through my house pictures, I’ll present to you my award winning cookie recipe. Ok, they’re not award winning. Unless you count “Oh my gosh these are amazing!” as an award.
(Why cookies + house? Because baking cookies before an open house is supposed to make it sell faster!)
Caramel Filled Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookie Recipe
1 c butter, softened
1 c granulated sugar
1 c brown sugar, packed
1/2 c egg substitute (or 2 eggs)
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp warm almond milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 c all-purpose flour
1 c whole wheat flour
1 c oat flour
1 c chocolate chips
1/2 c toasted pecans, chopped
12 caramels
(See, even I can leave a recipe unveganfied. Although I had to whole grain it up, I couldn’t help it.;))
Cut caramels in half. Put in freezer for at least an hour.
Cream together butter and sugars.
Add eggs & vanilla.
Dissolve baking soda in warm almond milk. Add to bowl with salt.
Mix in flour 1 cup at a time. Mix just until combined.
[To make oat flour just spin some oatmeal through the food processor. Try not to spill it everywhere.]
Oops.
Steal some cookie dough to eat. (I don’t like chocolate so I like to have some dough before it gets tainted.)
Stir in chocolate chips & pecans.
Feel free to add in double the chocolate chips. (Again, I don’t love chocolate. Let’s move past this. ;))
Tip: toss the pecans in the oven while it’s pre-heating to easily toast them. Just don’t forget about them!
Here’s the fun part.
Make cookie dough balls as you normally would, but stick a frozen caramel candy in the middle and roll the dough around it.
This is a good time to use one of those silicon baking mats if you have one. Parchment paper will work too.
Put the formed cookie dough balls in the freezer for a few minutes (your hands warm them a lot.)
“Clean” bowl while you wait. And yes, by clean, I mean lick. I do not fear salmonella. (Ahem, consider this your disclaimer. This is what I do- not what I suggest as an professional haha.)
Bake at 350 for ~12 minutes. (Cooking time will vary depending on how long you left them in the freezer.)
Let cool for a minute, then move cookies to cooling rack. It’s probably a good idea to spray your spatula with cooking spray (those caramels are sticky little devils.)
The caramel may melt out of the cookie. It’s ok- just stick it back in there. After they cool a little bit you can turn them upside down if you want.
Mmmmm. Delicious cookie with a surprise in the center.:)
YUM!!
