A Day in the Life of Kristin - August 2014

A few years ago a friend challenged me to do a Day in the Life series where I spoke in all too great detail what an average day looked like for me. I thought I would tackle again with just one day - as we are in a unique phase right now being in our new home, commuting via train, waiting for this baby to arrive...

Life is busy but blissful. We have mostly settled into a new home and a new routine. August was definitely a "survival" mode for me as we had just moved in, had lots of company, and I was working an obscene number of hours trying to make a big due date at the end of the month. Things have slowed considerably now fortunately, and I am just in the waiting mode...

5:30 - Alarm goes off. Try to hit snooze.
6:00 - Drag yourself out of bed. Shower and get ready quickly. Throw together a packed lunch. Probably hummus, carrots, frozen dinner... maybe a piece of fruit, granola bar or some veggie straws.
6:40 - Out the door with John to head to the train. Train leaves at 6:56, and it waits for no one. Enjoy reading a chapter of scripture or two with John. We are in the New Testament right now and loving the time we get together on the train.
7:30 - Train arrives in Downtown Boston - walk 10 min to work through beautiful brown stone buildings in the South End neighborhood of Boston towards the Office.

7:45 - 6:15 pm: Work! Work right now consists of creating and reviewing training materials for a new system we are implementing. We have created the materials, and spend time working with our client to review them. We also have a few status meetings in there, some mock demos of the system, system testing, lots of email and following up on issues...

6:15 pm - Rush downstairs to hit the shuttle for the 6:30 train! Unfortunately in August I was taking even later trains far too often because I was a) working too late or b) not getting to the train fast enough...again it waits for no one! But the 6:30 was always my goal.

7:20 pm - If all goes well I arrive back in my town and walk back home. John and I try to take the train together home, if we don't he picks me up from the Train Station.

7:20 - 8:15 - Change into some comfy clothes and eat some dinner. John makes me dinner many many weeknights, especially lately. I am usually wiped from work and being pregnant. Dinners are simple during the week. Our favorites are quesadillas, pita pizzas, open face sandwiches, salads with the goods from our farm share, and occasionally something a little more involved...

8:15 - 9:30 - Hang with John, usually watch a tv show together or just talk.

9:30 - I usually head upstairs and read /go to bed. Sometimes it is even earlier! Being pregnant wears me out!!

And a few photos from life lately...

Us in front of our new home in August...

Farm Share is amazing... John picks it up at work every other week

Couch Breaking and other East Coast Adjustments

Moving to Boston has been such an adventure. Slowly I am beginning to fall in love with this city and all of its strange oddities.

 The first two months we lived in Corporate Housing downtown -- which was a real treat and gave us time to find something more permanent while exploring the city. While we were there, it still sort of felt like a vacation, it had definitely not sunk in that this was a "move". I walked around this historic town with the song "Boston" in my head in the cool rainy spring, almost summer weather. I often laughed, because  the lyrics almost held true... "where no one knows my name...."

 We rode our bikes to Bunker Hill, went on evening walks near Paul Revere's house, got our hair cut right next to the Boston Massacre site (odd, but true!) It has been fun to be in an area with such rich history.

Finding housing was a fairly frustrating process. If you are looking for small/old/out of date housing for triple the cost of your last place, move to Boston! It was really hard to stomach. We probably looked at 25 places before making a quick decision to go with our current place. We still feel a little bit of buyers remorse at the cost -- but we are overall very satisfied with where we live and now our getting all settled in.

Once we finally moved in we realized, even with the fairly spacious place we have for Boston, none of our furniture fit! As in --  the only room we could  get our couch was our bedroom (just painted purple...only room with a closet that fits hangers...). This would mean the only room we could have as our bedroom was our living room (no closet, no door to the room....eek!)

I posted something on facebook about this and got the suggestion from a friend to look into couch breaking. And since we are adventurous (and cheap), we decided to do it ourselves. So here is our brand new couch in pieces as we got it down our narrow hallway!

Do you know the only thing holding your couch together is staples?

Arm of the couch we took off.

Even with the arm off, it barely fit in our doorway.

SUCCESS!

There was a point in the process where John and I were stuck between the couch in our narrow hallway and it seemed like there was no way it was going through. We tried numerous options for about 30 min, were sweating profusely and about to give up. Then, we decided to say a prayer. We knelt across from each other with our massive, hallway consuming coach between us and pleaded for Heavenly Father's aid. And what happened next? It was like our couch shrunk 4 inches. It went through the hall immediately without any issue.

It always amazes me how Heavenly Father is involved in the details of our lives. I have such a testimony that he hears our prayers, and is always with us. We just need to humble ourselves and ask.

Our couch is now in one piece, and already has been enjoyed by many visitors. We will have to pull apart when we move, but I think it was worth it if only for the spiritual lesson learned.

Window Treatments

Since we moved to Little Rock, I have done a bunch of fun house projects. I volunteered to host a baby shower man shower* for a colleague, and since the whole team was coming over I wanted the house to look nice. I am not the only one who has crazy nesting urges before entertaining, right? I sure hope not.

Anyway, one of my first projects was to figure out some window treatments. I knew more or less what I wanted them to look like, and since I couldn't find them in a store I decided to make them myself. For the living room drapes I followed tutorials from the House of Hepworth's,  They were fairly simple to put together, and came out nice. I bought the fabric fairly cheap from one of my favorite spots in Dallas, Best Fabric Outlet.

We also got some new furniture shortly after moving in, but yikes were the pillows that came with them ugly. So, with the help of John and my Mother in law, we bought some fabric and made our own pillows. 

This is our dining area - I went back and forth about how I wanted to do these, but decided to go with a valence. These would have been beyond easy if I had done them, I initially just slapped some fabric on a styrofoam board with some masking tape. John knew better, and did some fancy hole drilling and stapling to make them more secure.

*I don't have a ton of female colleagues. So I get desperate and throw the men I work with "man showers" when the time comes.  This one was mustache themed and so much fun...will have to follow up with another post.

new techie toys: home appliances

So remember when I had that no-good-very-rotten-bad-day?

Well that same week both my blender and vacuum died. As in... would not work at all anymore and required replacement.

And with all bad news... must come some good news. We replaced both with nicer models and are VERY Happy.

We got this fancy Dyson DC-24 (a splurge, we know!) and are loving it. John is determined to vacuum every day until "we get the cat hair under control", ie we don't have to empty the whole cartridge every time we use it. Our first run we filled it for each room in the apartment... strong vacuum or disgusting apartment? You decide.



We stumbled upon a Health Master at Kohls for a great price and snatched it up. It is similar to a vitamix in that it can do more sophisticated blending (nut butters, can boil soups, make ice cream and sorbet). We have been making sorbet virtually every other day with this-- it is so tasty. Also having creamier soups, and hoping to try on hummus soon.

What kitchen or home appliances can you not live without?

P.S. does this post put me in the league with folks who are jazzed about vacuum cleaners for Christmas? YIKES. Adulthood is here. I mean I didn't even see the midnight premiere of breaking dawn!! Life is virtually over*.

*cue sarcasm.

Works for me Wednesday: Bedside Buddy

Lately we have been doing a major overhaul at the McElderry House. We would like to be more intentional about having a "house of order" and for us to be able to enjoy more of the simple things in life and not get so caught up in the mess. In this pursit, we have been trying to establish a place for everying, and processes to help us keep things in their place.

Household organiztion does not come very easily for us, but we are slowly making progress in removing some of the stress and anxiety associated with cleaning, dishes, laundry and storage.

One fun solution I whipped together was a bed side buddy for our scriptures, journals etc. We always want these things by our bed so we use them often, but we don't have a very big bedside table to keep all of these things for both of us.



I used a long piece of fabric from an old bed sheet, and stitched up the side edges so that they were finished. I then folded one edge up a ways onto the fabric at a depth to make a good pocket. I stitched up the sides (be sure you not stitch at the top or you will close your pocket!). Finally I stiched up the middle of the pocket to be a divider, and voila! A very quick, simple solution.

To keep the bedside buddy in place, I put the length of the fabric between the mattress and the boxspring, just having the pocket peeking out so I can use.



Hoorah for quick sanity savers, and spring cleaning!

Texas Bridal Shower

My mom and sisters threw me a really awesome bridal shower back home. I just stumbled upon these pictures again today. We really had an incredible time.

Apartment Revamp: Complete!

**I am going through my old posts that were drafts and that I never published. This one is from August!! Hope you enjoy anyway :)**

I mentioned earlier I was working on an apartment revamp, and also a few organization projects. For the most part, this has been finished in my main room/kitchen.

Here are the super quick curtains I whipped together one evening. To make I reviewed the previous curtains I had (

fun calendar for my kitchen :)

Recently I made a pretty cute calendar for my kitchen.

I started with a baking sheet (mine was one I had used from Ikea). I painted the outside of it red with a few coats of paint, and then sealed it with modge podge (ie miracle glue) so the paint wouldn't scratch right off.



Then I used a 3/4" paper punch to cut out small circles, and I stamped numbers 1-31 on a circle.



I used glue dots (small adhesive dots, you can find them at any craft store) to adhere the circles to some 3/4 magnets (found at Hobby Lobby, very very very magnetic).

With the magnetic dates for the calendar, I will beable to put dentist reminder cards, or any other kind of note under each day. They also make it easy to remove or add items, which I really like.



Next I did a zig zag stitch on the ends of some supercute fabric (cut into a 12 by 12" piece) I found at a little fabric shop in Columbus, OH. Then I used tacky tape (another essential scrapbook item, it literally will stick to anything, found at most craft stores), to adhere the fabric to the cookie sheet.



Then I used my friend's Silhouette SD (I dream of owning one), to cut out the letters for each month. You could just handwrite it or use stickers if a diecute machine is not handy. These I affixed to white pieces of cardstock (I attached this with a sticky dot, will attach a new one each month. I am thinking about using velcro instead...)



Then I put the dates on the board, and uses white cardstock scraps to write some of the stuff we have going on this month (weddings, vacation, wisdom teeth-- oh my!)

And Voila! A pretty calendar that sure brightens up my kitchen.



Here it is hanging in my kitchen :)



Enjoy!

organizing my apartment

Little by little, I have been trying to create a space that is more sustainable to maintain. A space where almost everything has a place, is in its place, and if it isnt it won't take me too long to get it there. Consistency in housework is not exactly my forte, so working on this has been a goal of mine for a while. Here are a few of the my recent "apartment revamps".




My lovely spice rack was taking up prime real estate on my kitchen counters, so the spices are on my stove now. Hanging above are some bulky utensils and measuring cups, which are cramping the style of my limited drawers.




John built me (YES! BUILT ME!) this nifty pots and pans rack. We were inspired by Martha Stewart's "Good Things For Organizing". We had looked for pots and pan racks online and in stores, but most were around $100-250. John did this little baby for about $20 :) The best part is, now my cabinets are clear to hold my small kitchen appliances!



So this might be silly and simple to all of you-- but my fridge was out of control cluttery. I kept anything everything that was mailed to me in the previous 6 months and most recipes I used. My magnets were a random assortment, so I used felt and buttons to add cute flowers that matched my dishes, and voila! I was inspired to create and sustain a new process to govern how long things last on the fridge...



Another simple fix-- I needed a place for my dish towels! I dont have any handles on my fridge or oven so they had all been stuffed in a drawer or sprawled on the counter. Now with a few command strips and hooks, they can dry and have a nice place to live.



Finally, I made this cute valence tonight. It was super easy, required NO pinning and no pattern. And it ties my little apartment together :) It's the cute stuff (and making the cute stuff) that motivates me to get everything more organized :)

How do you stay organized?

Blessings :)

Hello! I want to start posting 10 blessings I have felt this week every Sunday, because I am so joyful for what the Lord has done for me- and I think it is important to share these things. So here we go, enjoy!

1. I went bowling with my family this week- this was one of the first family outings I have been on in who knows how long, and it was really fun and refreshing. Having the opportunity to be home was such a privilege and a blessing.

2. I saw the sun EVERY single day last week. Not just regular sun, but warm sun. The sun constantly reminds me of God's love for me :)

3. Today was Fast Sunday, and I gave my testimony and felt the spirit really strongly. I love being at Church and feeling a genuine nearness to my Heavenly Father. What a wonderful blessing to have the freedom to worship my Lord as I chose.

4. John helped me clean my dorm today- he is the most wonderful man in the world. And, probably one of my greatest blessings. Ay the things he puts up with for me!

5. One of my best friends got engaged last night! I am grateful for her friendship, and super excited we get to plan our weddings together :)

6. John and I are going to pick a date sometime soon (as in this week I think!) We have been feeling really stuck in molasses and devoid of progress waiting to move forward with wedding plans, so it is a great blessing to be able to move forward.

7. I spent a ton of time with both my Mom and my Dad this week. I love being with them, and I feel closer to them every time we get to talk for a long time or do something fun together. I also got to learn a lot about their courtship- which was really incredible. I am so blessed to have parents who love each other so deeply, and who love me more than I can ever understand.

8. I met up with one of my best scrapbook friends this week! She is like another mother to me, and it was so great hearing talking with her and reminiscing on all that has changed since we last saw each other. Friends are best, and some of the sweetest blessings.

9. I read 5 books this week (one a day Monday-Friday), almost completely catching me up for my English Class. And the great part- I was able to focus on them all! Yay. I read the Host (okay this was for fun), Persepolis, House on Mango St., Baltimore Blues, and Lucy. I am so blessed to have had a clear mind, and an opportunity to catch up on much needed school work.

10. I did some visiting teaching today. I just love meeting with other sisters and sharing my love for them and the gospel. It is such a great blessing to be able to serve others- and let them serve you!

Bubbles: A myth from my childhood

This past weekend I went home for Thanksgiving to spend it with my family. In a sad sequence of events, I got really sick on Sunday night and was pretty much glued to the bucket beside my bed. Needless to say, I was in no state to take my 7 am flight (considering my last bucket adventure was at 6am). As much as it was awful being sick, I spent the rest of the day just me and my mom laying around and relaxing (well I laid around, she was productive). It felt amazing actually, and my mom and I had some great conversations. She suggested to relax a little bit (and get all squeaky clean) that I take a bubble bath complete with candles and calming music in her world pool tub (the great kind that has jets). This was relaxing to say the least, and herein is my discovery of a childhood myth.



Myth: You can NEVER have enough bubbles.
Reality: The bubbles will attack and consume your bath time.

Maybe my parents were just kind of scanty on how much bubble mix I could use... but I was sure that there was no end to the need for more bubbles. So upon my adult bubble bath experience, I read the directions and it said to "pour generously" from the bubble bath mix. Needless to say, with the jets on and enough hot water I was drowning in bubbles - like 6 or more inches of bubbles.

I still enjoyed my bath, gosh I can't remember the last time I had taken a bath. But, be warned! Those bubbles will get you! (or at least prepare to shower to rinse off the bubbles!)

Take care, hopefully you survived (and enjoyed) my silly bubble post!

Kristin

My Dorm Room

This is my desk, I think it has a real sense of my personality. Hopeful, crafty and not exactly organized!