Well, at Least I Finished the Hat...

Where have I been?!

Well, let me tell you...Settle in, this could take a bit...You might already know some of this from Facebook if you follow me there.



Last Tuesday was Luna's two month check up! She's healthy and really short, basically. She's in the bottom percentile for height, but in the 10th for weight (9lbs 11oz)! Growing well though so no concerns. She had her shots, poor thing, and on the way home from the appointment I began to feel poorly myself.

See, the day before, after Mike left for work, I ended up with a really bad cramp in my left side. The heating pad I tried did nothing for it, but I took an Ibuprofen and called Mike to ask if I could go to urgent care to get it looked at. He agreed and we went over there together. They told me I had a UTI and my side pain was just probably a "pulled muscle." Well.

Okay, back to Tuesday. The horrible side pain comes back while I'm driving. By the time I get home I'm just praying how thankful I am that I got us home and I walk through the door, tell Mike he has to unload the kids, and go to our bedroom to try to lay down and cry. I couldn't get comfortable. It was excruciating. I read online something about ruptured appendixes and kind of freak out. Tell Mike and we agree that he will drop me off at the ER because it's not getting better and I'm feeling nauseous on top of it all.

Mike drops me off at the hospital to go put the kids to bed because we have no idea how long this will take. I tell the nurses I urgently have to use the rest room and they tell me to take a sample. There's not much coming out, but okay. They tell me I'm severely dehydrated and start fluids as well as two different pain killers. I'm throwing up in a bag as she's trying to get me the meds. They tell me next is to relax until I can go for a CT scan. The scan uncovers an 8mm kidney stone and they also let me know I NEVER HAD A UTI. I've never had one before in my life though so I didn't know to question that! The nurse said the urgent care just assumed that from the presence of blood in my urine...which was quite annoying for me to have wasted money being misdiagnosed. They should have sent me to the ER the previous day.

ER sends me home with painkillers and I'm still super doped up from the IV, which means Luna has to take formula for the first time ever. She's my first kid to ever have even tried it. I only had two bottles of "mama water" (what Otto calls breast milk) pumped in the freezer. This upset me quite a bit, but once I get home and Mike says she took to it no problem I relax a bit, because this is a dire situation and was my last resort. Fed babies are happy babies, I remind myself.

Bros being big helpers while I was ill. 

Wednesday I meet with the urologist. He says I might have to wait until Friday or Monday for the surgery I need because of Thanksgiving. He calls the hospital to check. They are going to be closed Friday too. He asks me when I last ate and I tell him...and thank god, they get me in that night! Our lovely friend watched the kids so Mike could be with me. I wake up with a stent and super hungry.

The next day was Thanksgiving! I did too much and it was quite tiring, but I was in a cheerful mood because that horrible (seriously, horrible. I'd rather have contraction pain) pain was gone! Mike did a great deal of the cooking, bless him (yes, we STILL hosted Thanksgiving here)! I was planning on making two types of rolls from scratch, but you can see we bought some instead. I did make the stuffing myself and the wild rice and tangerine salad. Mike took over the cranberries for me, made a pie, and spatch-cocked the turkey on the grill. The other side dishes were brought by our guests.

Luna's so cute...enjoying being passed around on her 1st Thanksgiving

After Thursday I rested a great deal. I thought about working on the hat for Otto I've been posting on the Yarn Along posts, but sleep is much more satisfying than knitting (and knitting on pain medicine would probably be a disaster for me). My routine was pain pills, read Outlander, and fall asleep until Luna needed me. It was a glorious three days of rest that I feel I've been needing for four years! Only wish I didn't have to go through what I did to get there. Happily, I was able to resume breast feeding too.

All day Sunday I was an anxious wreck because the stent had to come out and the surgeon told me to remove it myself. I'm very proud to say that I accomplished that and I did take a picture once it was out of me, but I won't post it here because I want to keep the few blog readers I do have ;)

We also put up the Christmas tree Saturday. Oops. I'm going out of chronological order here. The Ninja Turtle ornaments were my idea (Pinterest) but Mike and Orion bought the components and assembled them. All of us helped make the cranberry garland, which was actually pretty enjoyable and took less cranberries than I imagined. I'm quite thrilled the tree looks different than the past few years! And we decided the boys are old enough now that we'd try putting it back inside. The past two years we've put the tree out in the sun room until Christmas morning. So far, so good, but Otto will still try to dismantle it if he is unattended and in a feisty mood...

I also went out Black Friday for some thrifting (Orion grew into 4T pants overnight) and found this sweet little snow lady for $1 to add to my Christmas mantle. My mom had quite a collection of snowmen/snowwomen she put out every year and this one certainly reminds me of her <3

Sunday my friend Kristen and I both took our oldest kids to see Moana together. I loved it! My favorite character was the grandmother. Orion choose sour skittles and chocolate milk for his movie snack, which makes my stomach churn but he was happy. I drank a huge overpriced bottle of water because I'm too afraid to drink soda now and ate a lot of popcorn. Afterwards, they came back to our house and Kristen took some family photos for us so I could put together our Christmas card. I'm so pleased with how they turned out but I'm not posting more here because they will be on the cards!

But don't think my health woes were over after all that fun!!!

My next hurdle was my tooth. My front right tooth had been causing me a lot of pain since the vomiting-at-the-hospital incident. So I had to waste precious time going to the dentist to be told I need a root canal. Joy! This appointment was scheduled for Wednesday, but the surgeon had a death in the family and now I wait until next week.



So, can you see I've been a little too busy to post? It's funny because I've never had a reason to distrust my body before but it seems to be revolting. There are also lovely symptoms of having my good gut bacteria killed off from the antibiotics I was prescribed after surgery....*sigh*

Anyhow, I am still supposed to be taking it easy, but it is HARD. I told myself to ignore the dishes this morning and do something fun instead. So I finished Otto's hat! The pattern is Barley by Tin Can Knits and you can find my notes on the project at my Ravelry page.

He told me he liked it, but then declared that it is a "skateboard!" and not a hat at all...

Finally, here we are. The week has gone by very fast and that's one of the best things I can say. I am looking forward to maybe squeezing in a nap if we are lucky...and I'm hoping to get back to church because Advent is one of my favorite times of the year. I'll leave you with these two cute photos of a super happy Lu. She's definitely the most smiley baby out of all my kids!

Everybody Wants to Know About: Books!!

One of the most common and polarizing topics that inevitably comes up when discussing minimalism or simplifying one's space is the topic of books. Specifically, should we hang onto them after we've read them? Should we even buy them or just borrow them exclusively? Should we go 100% digital with our collections?

All these methods work with differing amounts of success for different people, unsurprisingly.

My personal method is cobbled together from all three.

We will start with a little talk about my Kindle.

Between seven to eight years ago, Mike and I were living in Ohio. He had decided to try attending services at a church maybe thirty minutes from our house. I was not in a spiritually minded place at the time and really didn't enjoy going, but went along with it for support and especially because we fell into a very nice after church ritual of lox bagels at Einstein Bagel (which, WHY are there none of these chains around here? Big Apple Bagel is a joke and after getting sick the same day as eating at Good Earth, I am fresh out of bagel options in the Holland area...but I digress) and then hitting up the Boarders Bookstore across the parking lot. It made me so happy and giddy to have these weekly bookstore trips, but we were spending at least $40 a week on books!

So, for Christmas that year, Mike took action and bought me my first Kindle (and Boarders went out of business, so we had a huge spending spree at that sale and then it was bagels only, poor me). I was slightly resistant at first, but warmed up to the device quickly. In fact, I now have a Kindle Paperwhite, and Mike has inherited my original Kindle. I love seeing how it has inspired him to become a more prolific reader (he takes it on all his international trips) and my Kindle has become invaluable to me, especially during the days/nights of seemingly endless breastfeeding. Much easier to hold a Kindle than even a paperback while supporting a baby. I also use the Kindle for night time reading and for travel. I would say 60% of what I read is through my Kindle. Even though the experience is different, it is not to be discounted, especially for a busy young parent.

The Kindle can be expensive though, because unlike buying used books through Amazon, local thrift store, book sale, etc, you usually need to pay around $10 for the average book in the Kindle store. I don't read Kindle singles or many small self-published books....just not my style/I haven't been impressed with the quality of those I've tried, but they are more reasonable priced ($2.99 ish). I do ask for Kindle gift cards for holidays, make small amounts of money that gets put in my Amazon account through Crowdtap, and utilize my library's free ebook sharing site (I have about 20 books on my "wish list" that I download from whenever I want something new). There are other various ways to acquire ebooks for free, but the legality is maybe in a grey area so I won't discuss that. Also, someone with a Kindle can loan you books from theirs, so that's one more option as well.

Moving onward, this is the current state of my bookshelf. 

I just did a "deep clean" of the book shelf this Spring and it was looking pretty sparse, but I recently allowed myself to add quite a few books to the current selection by attending the yearly book sale at our library. Over two separate trips, I spent $30 and gained three bags of books. Most of what I choose to add to my collection falls into a few distinct categories: Spiritual/Self-Help, Parenting, Cooking/Food Memoirs. My most-loved cookbooks are on the third shelf in the picture, left hand side. I usually purchase 2 new cookbooks a year (or "new to me") and only after careful consideration--since I love to spend time in the kitchen, these become well-used and loved. Eventually I hope they will have their own home in my kitchen area. On the right side of the same shelf are Mike's piano music books.  

Some of the books I own are also titles I have on my Kindle! An example of this is the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. I read it on the Kindle soon after it was released, but a like-new copy appeared at the library sale and I snatched it up quickly. This way, I can share it with someone in the future (because it is a great read) or go back and read it slowly with a highlighter in hand. There is just something about highlighting in some of my more beloved books that the Kindle function cannot compare to. I'm sorry if the highlighting thing seems abominable, but I promise I don't fold the corners of the pages in my books!

One of the major reasons I added so many books back to the collection soon after paring it down quite a bit was because of the fact that I am currently raising very small children. It just isn't feasible for me to get us to the library as often as I would like and, honestly, when I do take us all to the library, it is a major endeavor with a two year old who wants to run the whole place and an almost four year old who somehow learned that they sell cookies in the library basement, plus a pregnant mama who has to lug at least one huge bag of books out to the car because she has no restraint in a library... This way, I have many new books on hand that I am interested in and can pick up leisurely from my own personal "mini library." No hassle of inter-library loans to deal with either. 

When I am done reading a book, if it isn't one I will be coming back to, my usual course of action is to either donate it to the Little Free Library down our street (which isn't a financial loss of any real concern because of the fact that I acquired 90% of my books used--Oh, local tip: The Salvation Army in Holland has a great book selection & sells them for a quarter apiece) or pass it on to a family member or friend.  

The top shelf in the picture is a few more cookbooks that aren't in regular rotation but are still used, reference books, a few precious magazine issues (Taproot and old Mary Jane's Farm from my mom), and children's books my kids are still too young for. Oh, and on the right hand side of the top shelf is where I currently stuff all my old journals...

To give you an idea of a better perspective of this space in my house, here is another photo:

There is a matching built-in shelf on the other side of the fire place, but it hold only one row of Mike's books and half a row of children's chapter books (such as a box set of Roald Dahl). The other shelves hold Mike's video games, our small DVD collection, our "paper collection" area, and office supplies that need to be kept away from small children. 

Lastly, kid's books! This is the area I have the most trouble with. I definitely want them to have a wide selection of books available, but I do feel like there is such a thing as too many books (especially because they all get pulled out, stepped on, and scattered around the house too often). 

Recently, we consolidated most of the kid's books to a small impromptu "reading nook" in the living room. I do have a system of swapping out some of their books for the different seasons and holidays, but mostly the collection just grows and grows...We do have talks about treating books nicely and I finally have a good system for keeping tabs on library books (which, thank goodness for library books, because another thing about owning kid's books is that I am SO SICK of reading most of them)! I just can't bring myself to sort through their books with the same sense of discrimination that I can with my own personal reading material. 

I do get this nice warm feeling when I walk in the room and see them snuggled up with a (let's face it) mess of books all around them and looking at one intently...so the inevitable mess and lack of minimalism in this area is worth it to me personally :) 

Thanks for joining me for a look into my not-so-minimal but definitely mindful way of handling our collection of reading materials in our house! I look forward to hearing from you in the comments (and if you are a fellow book enthusiast, please feel free to add me as a friend on Goodreads)!

Amazing Thrifting Finds! 1/9/16

Second only to libraries, thrift shops are my favorite places to go and lose myself. Sometimes even just trying on five dresses that I'll never buy will turn my mood around. However, I found three dresses I loved while browsing on Saturday. All of them fit! And one was on sale for .69 cents! From L.L. Bean and while most these days might not find it stylish, it is comfortable, well-made, and I look pretty good in it, if I say so myself...

While my dress was a steal, the really amazing find was something I wasn't even looking for, but definitely needed. I popped into the secondhand shop next to our small local grocery when I realized I had forgotten potatoes for the night's dinner at Aldi. Imagine my surprise when, after picking up a pair of pants for Orion, I found a perfect winter jacket for $5! It is Columbia brand, which is an expensive and well-made coat which is perfect for the intense winters here & will keep me warm during all the snowblowing in my near future. Online I see the Interchange Jacket (which is very similar to the one I found) retails for $175 new! There are no rips and hardly any wear on the jacket, save for some dirt stains on the cuffs, which washed out. I am very pleased and warm now! :)

(Sorry this photo came out so blurry...I don't have time to retake one right now).

I'm very lucky to have amazing places to shop secondhand here. It definitely helps our budget and is a gratifying activity because I quite enjoy the "hunt."