its time to kick the summer lazies.

im not going to lie, this summer has been an exceptionally lazy one. i mean, youve probably noticed that i havent been around much (or at all) right here, but blogging isnt the only area where ive let myself get lazy. part of it was due to james spending so long out of town, part of it was transitioning into full-blown self employment, part of it was burnout, and part of it was my fibromyalgia REALLY not getting along with this exceptionally humid summer. 

but reasoning aside, i havent been writing AT ALL, i havent (aside from preparations for create 2014) made (or even planned) ANYTHING for the shop, my jamberry calendar is empty until mid september. all my usual routines, structures, and busy-ness? thats all been a mess: the chore rotation is off, the errand schedule is a mess, and i dont even want to THINK about how much take out weve been eating. we certainly have NOT been keeping  close tabs on our finances.

but im not sorry, not one little bit. 

we needed the break. well, i guess it hasnt really been much of a break for james, hes STILL working tons and tons (fortunately in town, though). so what i mean by that is i needed the break. earlier this year i was working three jobs, rushing all over the place trying  to keep everything from falling apart, and for the last couple months, i havent had to do that. so i just sat back and enjoyed not having to do it. and it was awesome. 

but all good things must come to an end, and since school starts in two (!!!) weeks, now is that time. ive been easing myself back onto the meal planning/errand running/housekeeping/budgeting wagon, and for the most part, i can feel those things all getting back on track. 

and with the little things under control, im feeling a little less lazy and a little more ready to get serious about blogging again, about running the shop like a legitimate business, about planning AWESOME birthday parties for alice and i, about tackling home projects, and putting some major work into our long term family goals. 

like going on vacation. no seriously, were going on vacation next month. is this even real life?

p.s. everybody please notice my super amazing and adorable CUSTOM handmade (and surprisingly affordable!) bathing suit from beverly swimwear. shes amazing and will totally hook you up with the best suit ever (and she didnt pay me to say that). 

a bad week, bachelorette party, beach day, and weekly wishes.

so, let me tell you a little bit about the kind of week we had last week:

james was working out of town for the entire week, which automatically meant that our normal routine was going to be somewhat disrupted since i was taking care of alice by myself without any breaks. obviously i spent the entire week exhausted and frazzled (i believe i told my mom i was already completely over this week on tuesday morning). 

and obviously alice took full advantage of my weakened state by making some kind of huge gross mess for me to clean up every single day. im serious. james was gone for five days and i had five big gross messes to clean up. which honestly by the end of the week was kind of funny and not at all what made the week so bad. 

the bad part was that for the entire week (from some point on sunday all the way until friday afternoon) we had NO HOT WATER. none. at all. and our building manager didnt even notify anyone about the problem until tuesday evening (at which point i had already called her supervisor to find out what was up, because hello? were kind of paying for this apartment to have hot water). it basically turned the whole week into alexanders terrible horrible no good very bad day. 

but instead of spending this whole post talking about how much this past week sucked, lets talk about all the nice things that happened. 

like how on sunday i tried my first recipe from a beautiful mess:

this asparagus risotto was FANTASTIC (and a really great use for my homemade stock concentrate)

then monday alice had her last ballet class and it was adorable, as always:

but honestly im really happy that its over because this session she wasnt as excited about it and spent a lot of the classes being bad. not this last week though, she was pretty good about participating:

on wednesday i finished up my color theory class at the homeschool co op, and all the kids made awesome color wheels:

then james came home early on friday so we went out to lunch and the hot water came back on and everything was better. 

well, until the next day when i almost forgot to go to my friends bachelorette party. im serious. we all woke up saturday morning and lounged around watching pokemon and then i got bored and started finishing all the quiet, sit-down things i couldnt do while james was out of town and then james put alice down for a nap and went over to the card shop and i started doing some little cleaning projects and suddenly it was 4:30 and i realized, crap. i have to be at a bachelorette party in exactly one hour. i wasnt even dressed in real clothes. so i called james to have him rush home and hurried to put together an animal print themed outfit (as per the theme of the party), and some decent hair/makeup. i had about 20 minutes. i think i did ok:

(quick outfit details: top: hot topic (very old, from my 16th birthday), skirt: poverty luxe, shoes: h&m, bag: vintage, glasses: zenni optical)

and yes, i did make it to the party on time, and even though it was a total lady party (and ive never been a big fan of lady parties) i had an absolutely wonderful time (with the exception of accidentally eating half a french fry that had a suspicious coating and panicking that i might have a gluten episode, but i didnt, so every things ok). 

then yesterday after church we went to the beach:

because, well, it was all kinds of hot and NONE of us wanted to be at home. it was beautiful. and apparently the dolphins agreed:

and of course alice did that thing where she befriends some stranger kid and basically joins their family and eats their food and plays with their toys because she enjoys making me extremely uncomfortable:

and that was our week. 

thankfully this week james is working in town, and im not working (at all!) this week, so things should be a bit more mellow around here for a while. 

and now its time for weekly wishes:

this week i did make some progress in our monthly goals, i did make and freeze one batch of beans, and im pretty sure ive figured out what i want to do about my job (spoiler alert: its not any of the options i discussed earlier). this week id like to get my financial aid forms done and take them in AND go to at least one running shoe store to look at shoes (though ill probably end up actually buying the shoes online so i can get a better price), which i hope wont be a problem since, you know, ive got the week off. 

so those are my goals for the week, what are yours?

weekly wishes #3 (birthday edition)

hello everyone! how was your weekend? ours was exhausting. james was gone all week, and friday night alice and i went to disneyland with his mom. we had alices birthday party saturday afternoon (i promise there will be a full post about that later), and then, after everything we cleaned up, we headed over to the beach, because, birthdays. 

and im so glad we did because it was the most PERFECT warm, breezy fall evening with a crazy low tide for tide pool exploring (also lots of lens flare):

then yesterday my mom invited us over for lunch after church, which, because my mom is so nice and i did not want to deal with anything that was waiting for me at home, ended up turning into lunch, afternoon naps, and dinner. 

today was supposed to be a mellow, catch up day at home to get ALL the party stuff cleaned up and put away, but alice had other ideas and decided to stop up the bathroom sink and make a big watery mess for me to spend the morning cleaning up. obviously this made for a VERY cranky unhappy morning, but the good news here is that the bathroom and floors are REALLY clean now. 

anyways, enough about that, its time for weekly wishes! lets start with last weeks wishes:

1. finish alices birthday prep by myself. DONE! this actually wasnt nearly as difficult as i had anticipated. 

2. dont let the house fall apart. honestly, this was way easier than i had expected. my goal was only to stay on top of my normal chores, but i was actually able to find time to go above any beyond most days, and at least until friday night (when i took alice to disneyland and picked up james), the house was even cleaner than normal. 

3. get as much blogging done in advance as i can. YES! i did it! AND i kept up with it so for the most part (with the exception of time-sensitive posts like this one) im working about a week ahead on blog posts! and just like i suspected, ive had WAY more free time to devote to other projects. 

so all in all, it was a GREAT week, despite james being gone and alice totally taking advantage of my lack of help (maybe she was staying up way late every night. maybe). and now that alices birthday is over, its MY TURN!!! so here are my wishes for the week:

1. finish cleaning up all of alices birthday messes. this one is actually almost done, i mean, the trash and packaging is all gone, but now i have to find new homes for all of alices new presents...

2. make plans for a date night at benihana. i got my birthday certificate last week (have i mentioned that benihana gives you a free $30 gift certificate for your birthday), and its only valid on weeknights, so if we want to be able to go out by ourselves were going to need to pick a night and arrange childcare, asap. 

3. take a little time off from focusing on work to enjoy my birthday weekend! i feel like this is really self-explanitory. ive got a few things planned, and honestly i dont think theres going to be much room for sewing or shop or blog work. and thats ok. 

so those are my wishes for the week, what are yours?