thoughts on pregnancy, the second time around.

ive been meaning to write this post for a long time, but i kept pushing it back as i realized just how huge and complex of a thing pregnancy is, and how depending on the day, my feelings about it vary pretty wildly. especially when you take into consideration that theres my thoughts/feelings about pregnancy in general, my personal experiences, and this particular pregnancy. i really wasnt sure what i wanted to say or how i wanted to say it or if i really needed to say anything at all but with just a few short weeks (actually, only about a month!) left, and having not really talked about pregnancy at all over here, i figured it was about time to take a minute and share whats been going on in my mind about going through pregnancy for the second time: 

its the same. physically, this pregnancy has been very similar to my pregnancy with alice: i was so, so sick for the first four/four and a half months, had terrible insomnia for the middle part and now that were at the end, im exhausted, in lots of pain, and my weight gain is getting way out of control. honestly the only noticeable difference ive seen is that last time i got terrible skin and awesome hair, where this time i got awesome skin (like, clearer and smoother than its EVER been at any not-pregnant time of my life) and the worst hair. 

but its different. when i was pregnant with alice i was mainly alone: living in a small, unfamiliar town with no job, friends, family, or hobbies, and this time, i have a lot more going on, and its things that i actually like: school, blogging, jamberry, disneyland (plus, i already have a kid to take care of). while at times this has made things harder or more tiring, its also been so much easier mentally and emotionally to have other things besides pregnancy to occupy my mind/time. 

im trying harder. with alice, i really didnt try hard at all to be healthy, active, or prepared to be a parent, i kind of just assumed everything would take care of itself and id be fine. for the most part, it did, but at the same time it made recovery and adjusting to life with a baby much harder than it needed to be. this time ive put way more effort into improving myself, my lifestyle, and our home for the new baby. 

but im also not trying so hard. at least where it comes to shedding my personality and interests in favor of "mom" things. i havent changed how i look or dress or act or any of my life goals to try and be more "mom-ly" the way i did last time. on the one hand this is scary because i really do wonder if ill ever have more than one mom friend, but on the other, its pretty liberating to not be trying so hard to fit in with the other moms, because i know i never really will. 

im more confident. this time i know that i just prefer to be more private about things than is typically expected of pregnant women, and im much more comfortable standing up for myself about the things weve chosen to do differently than the norm (like not finding out the gender or sharing our name choices or moving to a bigger apartment) or giving an honest response to unsolicited advice/opinions, which i was never able to do when i was pregnant with alice. 

but im still terrified. i know alice is three and a half, very smart, very healthy, generally well behaved, and definitely 100% still alive, but that does not change one bit that i spend every second questioning my ability to care for a baby and raise it into a decent human adult without messing everything up. 

im more prepared. last time i didnt buy anything until the last minute and as a result really made a lot of poor registry/purchasing decisions. this time ive actually researched what kinds of things we want/need and even bought my maternity clothes, nursing bras, and stretch mark cream in advance so that i already had them when i needed them. 

just kidding im totally not prepared at all. have i ever mentioned that alice was c-sectioned out long before i went into anything remotely resembling labor? i have literally no experience with contractions, or labor or birth or any of the gross things that go along with that, just the worlds most boring c-section. so yeah, i have no idea whats going to happen here, and i have like, a month, tops, before i find out. 

so yeah, thats whats going on in my mind right now. what are you up to these days? 

alices vintage star wars party.

on sunday, alice turned three. so obviously we threw her a party. on saturday. because saturday is a little more convenient and (also obviously) we wanted to spend sunday at disneyland and thats just how we roll. 

so yeah, birthday party. 

this year it was a little tricky to pick a theme, seeing as alice IS old enough to have interests and preferences (as in, now she has tons of friends and likes to play outside so the party HAD to be at a park), but shes NOT old enough to understand the gravity of picking a birthday party theme. wed ask her about all the different things she likes, "do you want a princess party? a my little pony party? an alice in wonderland party? a dr who party? a dinosaur party? a harry potter party?" and the answer was always "yes". 

so james and i agreed on star wars (disclaimer, alice DOES love star wars, and science fiction/fantasy in general), but since star wars is a pretty standard party theme (and i refuse to acknowledge the existence of prequel films), we went with a vintage star wars theme. 

because it was at the park (and we had QUITE an extensive guest list) we kept things simple with just treats and a piñata. i got a plain cake from costco, made pretzel lightsabers (which, by the way, is incredibly difficult without a microwave), and my brother just so happened to have a nice selection of actual vintage star wars toys to use for table decor:

oh, and there was the very, very important, not at all negotiable even though it was way expensive custom death star piñata: 

(sidenote: continuing last years tradition of birthday dress fiascos, i accidentally made alices dress WAY too big and had i had to make serious alterations the morning of the party, but thankfully no one noticed)

honestly since the majority of the kids at the party were preschool age, i was NOT expecting the party to last very long, but a friend brought some pool noodle lightsabers to share, and all the kids spent a good half hour playing contently with them:

 and totally ditching the party to go play on the playground:

but dont worry, everybody came back when we started painting cookies:

cookie painting was my moms idea, i had already bought these (also embarrassingly expensive) cookie cutters for the party: 

and with just a few jars of icing and a pack of paintbrushes, they were instantly transformed from just a snack into a super fun activity that all of the kids LOVED. seriously, my mom knows whats up: if youre having a party with lots of kids, cookie painting will always be a hit (thanks mom!). 

obviously since we had cookies, we were also going to need some milk to go with them. and whats a star wars party without BANTHA MILK!!!!

(pause for the like three people who know what im talking about appreciate what i just said)

after cookies and milk it was time to smash that piñata: 

sing happy birthday:

(btw, alice was SUCH a good sport about pretending to blow out the candles like six times so i could get a nice picture. i like her.)

and opening presents:

overall, this was a MUCH mellower party than last year (even though there WAS a similar jamess work fiasco for the two weeks prior to the party AND it was way too hot), despite the fact that there were about five times as many kids, which was totally awesome. and i dont think any of us could have been happier with how it turned out. 

especially alice, and thats what really matters. 

life lately.

its been over a year and i still havent really written a "life lately" post. i mean, its just not really the kind of thing that id really planned on doing with this blog. i guess i just always thought that id be able to stay on top of content development and post scheduling and whatnot and that youd never have to read a long rambling of my current thoughts. 

well, turns out, i thought wrong (as i often do). 

the past couple weeks haven't exactly been a time of productive writing (or researching, or planning, or crafting, or any kind of productive business activity). mainly because jamess school week, the end of my semester, and the beginning of my last homeschool co-op class all kind of converged into the same two weeks and i just didnt have any kind of mental energy to put into this blog. 

thankfully casey and jessica were so kind as to step in with some (rather lovely, i might add) guest posts, and the blog hasnt been COMPLETELY dead. 

but, since im just taking FOR.EV.ER. to recover and get back into a productivity groove, and may's editorial calendar hasnt even been STARTED yet (and were halfway through the month, epic fail), youre getting the life lately post. 

so here are a few things that have been happening/on my mind lately (in no particular order, please bear with the randomness and incongruity of this post): 

my first (ok, eleventh) semester of college is DONE and im all registered for next semester! ill be taking three classes (only seven units though), which im a little nervous about, BUT its really exciting to FINALLY actually be on my way to my dream job (which is, in case you didnt know, stay at home/homeschooling independent fashion designer). yesterday we celebrated with ice cream: 

i recently started using essential oils to treat my myriad of ailments (and poor little alices allergies that seem to last for half the year), and wouldnt you know it, theyre actually working. i dont even know how many alternative medicines ive tried over the years to no avail, and i was SURE that there was no way some little bottles of oil would actually be much help, but sometimes (actually, kind of a lot of the time) i feel like a normal person. its pretty awesome. obviously you can expect a full blog post about this soon. 

after a few months of nothing, things with my etsy shop seem to be picking back up, and now i have enough paypal money saved up to start actually planning poverty luxes first craft fair appearance (probably at the silverlake art craft and vintage, ill keep you local folks posted!). james still needs to build me some clothing racks though. 

james and alice gave me the best mothers day present ever on saturday: they went to the park so that i could have an afternoon by myself. it was lovely. as were the tacos at my moms house the next day: 

even a year later, im still struggling with my diet. for the most part ive gotten used to the gluten free thing, and recently it seems that my immune system has calmed down a bit and i can tolerate corn, nuts, and peanuts without an issue, and ive finally worked my way back up to a weight im happy with, but unfortunately it seems that in order to maintain this weight, i basically need to eat junk food ALL. THE. TIME. and well, thats starting to feel almost as bad as not being able to eat anything. so right now im torn between needing to clean up my diet and get more exercise, and being afraid that if i do that i wont be able to continue to stay at a healthy weight. 

weve lived in our current apartment for two years now, and it finally feels like home. when we moved here i had hoped and prayed that it would only be temporary, but it turns out, small spaces actually have a LOT of advantages. i will admit that its been feeling a little too cluttered and crowded lately, but thankfully my mom is having a garage sale this weekend, so were in MAJOR purge mode. and it feels great. 

i bought a plant today. if you know me at all you know that this is SO not like me. but i hate buying fresh herbs when we only need a tiny bit and the rest gets thrown away. so well see how this little mint does. and if i dont kill it, maybe well branch out to the rest of the herbs. 

i am so, so thankful that jamberry came along when it did, im in love with working from home, especially now that im back in school (also, holy not-spending-the-entire-summer-teaching-kids-classes-while-alice-goes-to-the-beach-with-my-family). today i made my second set of fast start goals (hello $100 credit!), and i am *this* close to making my second promotion (and still not far from the next one, which is the first level with a CASH promotion bonus!). i didnt think id do well with this, at all. but i am, and its awesome. 

i feel like a terrible blogger. to be completely honest i havent been reading or commenting on blogs much lately, and ive been letting my sponsorships expire and i just havent been that involved in the blog community and i feel bad. 

the time has come for some big business decisions here at poverty luxe. and by that i mean, i feel like its time to get really serious about growing this little business into something big. i scored a MAJOR discount on a lifetime handmadeology pro membership, which i plan on studying over the summer, and im also considering the new blog life ecourse from a beautiful mess (is anyone doing this, what are your thoughts? is it worth the money?). 

and lastly, it is too, too hot. it is literally hotter today in coastal southern california than it ever was when we lived in arizona (northern arizona, but still). james and alice and my sister went to the beach while i taught my color theory class, despite the fact that we went to the beach yesterday. its a rough life, i know. 

see, even alice is SO over this heat wave (i mean, what even is that face?). 

now that ive gone on and on about ME for so long, what have you been up to? what are you working on? how have you been? 

lets catch up, please. 

the time we went to an art show

(note: this post does involve the fine arts, so some images may be considered by some to not be entirely safe for work/small children/people who dont appreciate art)

if i were to pick a favorite, favorite part of not working at joanns anymore (i have to say favorite favorite because everything about not working at joanns is my favorite), its that i dont have to spend almost every saturday at work. 

meaning, we can totally do fun family stuff on saturdays. seriously, i just looked at my calendar to confirm that we have, in fact, had a fun family outing EVERY SATURDAY since i quit (thanks jamberry nails!). 

this past saturday was no different. well, in the family fun department. it was actually very different because we got to take alice to her very first real-life serious fine art gallery opening (actually, considering that serious fine art gallery openings arent exactly a thing that people who didnt go to art school do, it was probably jamess first opening too). 

and it wasnt just any gallery opening (because really if i payed closer attention we could probably go to an opening every weekend, which i highly recommend because they are always free and usually have free wine), it just so happened that my dad emailed me multiple times that my FAVORITE PAINTER EVER (mark ryden) was opening a show in hollywood. 

obviously, we HAD to go. and the email said dress fancy. so we did:

all of us: 

even alice: 

(in retrospect, a black corduroy dress was NOT a good choice for a 90+ degree day in hollywood, now i know how everyone felt at my wedding) 

and then we looked at some paintings: 

now, probably the best part of seeing a mark ryden show in real life isnt just the paintings (though, like i said, they are my favorite paintings), its the frames:

 goodness gracious those frames:

 i just want to frame everything in our apartment in giant hand-carved surrealist-baroque wood frames. and decorate my living room in a pink-and-gold abraham lincoln motif. ahem, this is exactly why i dont decorate, people. 

anyway, back to the paintings. remember how i briefly attended art school? well, funny story, i cant paint. at all. and especially not in oils. so looking up close at beautifully rendered, intricately detailed oil paintings that are literally huge:

is just, awe inspiring (especially when theyre completely smooth and you cant even get acrylic paint to lay straight). also, can we just talk about those pink walls? i just about died (and then maybe looked to see how much it would cost to buy a house so we could paint it pink and then cried because thats way more money than we have). 

in addition to the oil paintings (which is what mark ryden is mainly known for) there was also a room of graphite/watercolor drawings:

and then there was whats probably my most favorite thing that ive ever seen in my entire life: 

its a coin operated automaton diorama. i could have stood there and watched it all day, but, you know, i have a family to take care of. my photo really doesnt do it justice, but theres a video of it here (again, dont click that link if youre one of those people that hates art). 

obviously, we had a grand old time, and even though i swore UP AND DOWN going into the show that we were NOT, under ANY circumstances going to buy the book, we bought the book (but i justified it because we can totally use it for homeschooling when we do a unit study on surrealism in contemporary art). 

since it was alices first art show, we let her have the honors of signing the guest book:

and considering she behaved herself very nicely, and we only had to tell her not to touch the paintings once, i think there will be a lot more gallery openings in our future. 

happy half birthday alice!

today was a very special day. today alice turned two and a half. also, i quit my job at joanns, but thats a topic for a different day. todays post is all about little miss alice:

after alices last half birthday, when i made her favorite dinner and half a cake, i decided that in the meyers house, half birthdays are a thing. maybe not a big thing, but definitely a favorite dinner and special dessert thing. honestly, since alices half birthday fell on a saturday this year, i really would have liked to go out and do something fun, but i had to go to work. 

so instead, we decided that it could be a lazy stay at home and not get dressed and watch tv kind of day, and after i got home from work (which was only three hours or so), we could have her favorite dinner and a special dessert. 

and everything went according to plan. well.... except for at one point while i was cooking dinner we found that alice had apparently helped herself to some crafts. in the form of real scissors and an index card:

good news though! alice totally knows how to use real scissors! (just, dont ask me why shes wearing her cinderella dress tied around her waist like an apron, because i do NOT know). 

then it was time for dinner, now, alices palate has matured slightly since last year, and her favorite dinner is now grilled salmon with roasted broccoli and accordion potatoes:

 

though i accidentally bought the wrong size of potatoes this week so i invented a new way of making crispy potatoes instead. stay tuned for the recipe post as soon as i perfect the cooking time because these were the BEST potatoes ive EVER made. 

after that, because alice was a very good girl and ate almost all of her dinner (im not being sarcastic), it was time for cupcakes:

 

 funny story: as i was getting the stuff ready to make the cake batter, i asked alice "which do you want, little cupcakes or a big cake with slices?" to which she responded, "i want frosting on it", which i suppose was a relevant request, but not what i was asking. so i asked again, and she said "i want four", so naturally i say "four of what? four is not an answer as to whether or not you want cupcakes or a big cake!". "four cupcakes". so, cupcakes it was. 

(even though alice isnt gluten free, i had this mix from cherry brook kitchen lingering in the pantry so i used that, and, they werent terrible. not as good as actual cake, but not bad). 

so that was our day, happy half birthday alice, and heres to many, many more!

march in review (another blogger meet up, an outfit post + weeklywishes)

is it just me, or did march TOTALLY fly by? i feel like we were SO busy ALL month i didnt even notice that it was almost april! since this month has been somewhat of a blur, im especially grateful that i had already to committed to this whole "month in review" thing to recap everything we did, otherwise i might have forgotten that march even happened!

seriously, SO much happened in march:

we got a really bad start to the month when we spent a whole week without hot water and i almost forgot to go to my friends bachelorette party. but then i remembered and everything was ok! 

plus, since my dear friend shannon got married, i got to do some embroidery:

which i really, really love doing but for some reason can only find the time when somebodys about to get married. (conveniently, about eight thousand people i know are getting married right now, so it looks like the future will hold a lot more embroidery! yay!). 

also, poverty luxe turned one year old! this is totally insane because i never thought id be doing this for a whole year. but still awesome. 

we took alice to the zoo for the very first time.

and we welcomed a new member to the meyers family. meet B:

(obviously alice is totally obsessed) remember that time my sister rescued a kitten and named it gaston? well, it turns out gaston is a lady, and one of my moms cats (a fat, lazy, potato of a cat named ronald) apparently CAN NOT handle sharing his litter box with a girl, and despite living in a one bedroom apartment, ive been getting antsy to have more cats. so B lives with us now. its great. 

and in big, exciting, life-changing news: i started college this week AND dove into a new business adventure as a consultant for jamberry nails. 

i really wish i had something more profound to say about starting college again after so many years, but, i dont know, im taking two one unit classes for eight weeks. it doesnt even really feel like im in college right now. come back in september and im sure ill have more to say about it. 

jamberry, on the other hand, i just cant keep my mouth shut about that. dont worry though, poverty luxe (the blog, or the etsy shop) isnt going anywhere. the only thing that might be going somewhere sometime soon though is my job at joanns. i wont say yet that im quitting, but i will say that my first week with jamberry had a rocky, underwhelming start and i still made about what id bring home on a good week at joanns. so...

oh! saturday i got to go to another awesome blogger meet up hosted by melyssa and the bloggers giving back crew! this event was called well boxed: 

 and we had pizza and wine and put together care packages for the troops stationed overseas:

it was an awesome time getting to do something nice for someone that probably really needs it, while also getting to spend some quality time getting to know some other blogger ladies better (AND even meeting some new friends!). 

now, i noticed that amidst all of the crazy busyness of march, i havent been doing much in the way of outfit posts. even though thats totally my favorite kind of post and i swore that id do more of them they just havent been happening. so as of right now, im stepping up my game. heres what i wore to the well boxed event:

                                       

outfit details:

top/bandeau: diy (tutorial coming next month!)

skirt: poverty luxe.

shoes: shoemint

bracelet: vintage (james bought it for me when he was a scrap gold buyer)

glasses: zenni optical

nails: jamberry in diamond dust and cup of tea

i dont really have a whole lot to say about this outfit, other than i did make most of it (and the shoes i won from another bloggers giveaway), so i didnt really pay for any of it, which i guess is neat. also, lately ive really been working on finding different ways to style my poverty luxe skirt, since, you know, actually wearing the things i make is basically the cheapest marketing there is. at the blogger meet up i got a lot of compliments on my top, which was actually a really simple diy project, so stay tuned, because in a couple weeks I'm going to show you how to make one too!

so there you have our highlights for the month of march. 

well, that and yesterday james did that thing we do now and again where we dress up as dr. who characters for no reason and it becomes glaringly obvious why exactly we dont have any adult friends:

(but, i mean, if i was someone else, id totally want to be friends with us)

now dont think i forgot about weekly wishes!

last week i wanted to get a good start on my classes and order my textbooks, and i did both! in fact, i was SO excited about having homework to do that i did ALL of my homework for both classes on thursday. plus i saved like $80 bucks by buying my textbooks used (and ill probably get almost as much as i paid for them when i sell them in a couple months, so stay tuned for a post about how to work the textbook system!)

whats up for this week? not much, really. obviously I want to keep doing my homework early, but my big projects for the week are finishing Aprils editorial calendar (and deciding if Friday posts are coming back or not....) and starting a big list of all the home projects that need done/things that need to be replaced (with James working full time and me NOT working three jobs, we totally have the time and money for projects for the first time in over a year so its already a long, overwhelming list...)

what was your favorite part of march?

the time we went to the zoo.

on saturday we took alice to the zoo for the very first time. honestly, im a little embarrassed that it took us almost two and a half years to get her to the zoo, but for one reason or another weve just never been able to make it happen. but lately alice has been asking almost every day if we could go to the zoo. so last weekend I MADE IT HAPPEN. even if it meant going the morning after a night wedding on a weekend where james was playing on the worship team at church and i inadvertently made james miss dorks and dragons night. 

none of that really matters, because what matters is that we finally went to the zoo. 

and alice loved it:

now, i havent been to the la zoo in a long time. probably six or seven or maybe even more years (i remember my family had a membership when i was 15-16 and im pretty sure we went at least once after that but im not sure when that was), and apparently theyve done a LOT of work to the old zoo that i do NOT remember from the last time i was there. 

for instance, one of the first things you see when you get past the gift shops is this giant sea world status tank for the seals where you can actually see them swimming and playing instead of the old, sad concrete enclosure they used to live in. alice really liked watching the seals swim:

the next thing we checked out was the brand new reptile house, which despite being a little crowded and claustrophobic (it was saturday, after all, i imagine its not nearly as bad on a weekday), was really, really cool. especially because most of the exhibits have perfectly kid-height windows:

alice really liked all the snakes, she was particularly enamored with this one:

 (though she kept calling them "giant snails", i guess we need to work on that)

my favorite part of the reptile house was these cute cuddling lizards:

after that we headed outside to look at some more animals before lunch, with such highlights as this komodo dragon eating from the HUGEST bone ive ever seen:

and alice asking me to drop her in the kangaroo cage. im not kidding. she just really, really wanted to hang out with the kangaroos i guess. 

then we took a short break for lunch (where i noticed that i accidentally bought tuna pouches with soy sauce in them and almost had a panic attack because i only had snacks for the whole day but then we got ice cream and everything was better), and looked for some more animals. the gorilla exhibit also has some really great kid-friendly windows so alice got to get really close to the gorilla:

then something funny happened. i was trying to take a picture of james and alice together, and she would not look directly at the camera lens. shed look at my face, or at my hands, or at james or anything else but not the camera. so i pointed to the camera lens and as im trying to explain to alice where she needs to look james says "the camera has an eyestalk, just like a dalek. look at the eyestalk"

and then boom:

perfect picture. because apparently "dalek" and "eyestalk" are more relatable to alice than "camera" and "lens". not sure if this is a parenting win or fail...

now alice had two requests as far as animals were concerned: lions and elephants. well when we finally found the lions, they were closed. no lions, just a sign reading "this exhibit is closed for the day". so while alice didnt get to see the lions, she did have fun with the telescope thats supposed to be for looking at lions:

so much fun, in fact, that i had to physical pry her away from it kicking and screaming in order to go look at the giraffes. its a rough life when your mom makes you look at giraffes:

(this is alice upset because not only am i a mean bossy pants that made her look at giraffes, i am also a big fun sucker for not letting her get into the cage to play with them)

then came my favorite part of the day, when we sat on the shaded amphitheater thing to watch the chimpanzees do chimpanzee stuff:

normally im not a big fan of chimpanzees but there were SO. MANY. BABIES. it was adorable.

after that, we looked at some more animals, took a little break at the playground (i totally forgot the zoo had a playground), and then we saw the black bear get a snack and that was cute:

now my one chief complaint about the la zoo is that the layout is really confusing and even with a map its difficult to see where things are in relationship to each other and the twisty paths that connect them. so the elephants that alice specifically requested to see? we didnt even find those until the very end of the day after she had fallen asleep. 

but we did end up getting a membership for the year, so well be back. and alice will finally get her lions and elephants.