Temporary Housewife

You might be wondering how I'm faring doing the 9-5 job nowadays. You might not! Regardless: I'm going to provide a sneak peek of my work space and reveal to you how you can have a serene, positive work environment for yourself as well. 1. Stay hydrated throughout the day.  I prefer water bottles with straws, and it's important to choose one with enough heft to keep Post-Its sticking to your desk top.  Also consider having a little mirror and tweezers at the ready for when those moments of Thoughtful Chin Stroking reveals an annoying stray hair that must be plucked immediately. 2. Good lighting is also important.  It reduces stress on the eyes.  I recommend using one that barely survived a cross country move, where the bulb just sort of leans inside the lamp.  It gives the area a light, casual feel.  Also be sure to keep an old, empty coffee mug at the ready.  You never know when you might need to lift it to your lips, only to realize tha...

So the good news:  I have a job! The bad news: It's temporary! Basically, I'm going on temporary leave from being a temporary housewife, to go and be a temporary employee, after which, if I do not find permanent work, I shall return to being a temporary housewife. Let's be honest: after almost 10 months of unemployment, this was looking less and less temporary, AMIRIGHT? Admittedly, the first part of my unintentional sabbatical was fraught with loads and loads of guilt, topped with a generous dollop of humility and a solid whack to my self esteem.  I was inundated with the memories of my first attempt at staying at home (with an infant) and recalled the horrid feelings of inadequacy that I had at the time (post partum depression AND psychosis for the win!). Luckily, I slowly realized that I'm not suffering from PPD/P anymore, I don't have an infant anymore (puppy really doesn't count)... and I actually grew to like my position in the home.  Well, I wasn...

G has this nifty tablet with lots of free books on it.  Out of this treasure chest of adventure and knowledge came a book on how to do origami. Back in my day, we used to make origami an art form!  (because it is not already?  moving on!)  Paper cranes, M.A.S.H. chomper thingies, footballs, and, of course, unnecessarily complicated folded notes to our friends and crushes. So when she asked me to do some origami with her, I said yes.  Not immediately of course.  Because, hello, email. But after 5 minutes of finishing up some emailing stuff, we got to work on making some origami. Depending on how you look on it, it went extremely well (great bonding time) and also quite horribly (we barely got a pig to look like a pig). First attempt at making some sort of a flower, furiously thrown to the other end of the table.  How is this for kids with folds like that, I ask you? The beginnings of our pigs.  Folding paper. IT'S SO EASY. ...

I’ve been hemming and hawing about sharing this publicly, because it’s just… I just don’t think the general public is ready to understand.  Certain feelings that go deep for other individuals can make others uncomfortable.  Love like this isn’t fully embraced, even in these modern times.  And yet, I can’t keep this inside anymore.   I met someone.  She’s changed my life in so many ways.  She’s made me really rethink about how I treat myself.  She’s been kind, nourishing, validating, powerful.  So please be kind. This is Veronica. A little selfie action with my love My husband has been extremely supportive, as he's noticed my consumption of green whole food juices has increased exponentially. Unfortunately, she’s only staying at our house until the end of February when I need to return her to my mom.  Yes, Veronica belongs to my mother, true, but my heart belongs to Veronica.  For almost a week now, she has shown me thi...

Whelp, we've gone beyond "Stingy September" or "Frugal February". Miserly March. ... Anti-Spending April?  Yeah, I'm out of money saving themed names for months. Ever since the great recession of Aught Eight, America has embraced frugality.  First, it was out of necessity for many of us.  Then, it became the cool thing to do.  Pinterest and frugal blogs boomed with ideas of how to save money.  To this day, you can Google a ton of ideas on how to be frugal.  Here I offer up my own little list of what to do or avoid to pinch those precious pennies. 1.  Accept that Target is the devil. Yes, I know we all know this, intrinsically, and yet the bulls-eye hypnotizes most of us to come in anyway.  I think we can all gather around the electric fireplace to share our most shameful Target runs that began with the need for a deodorant and ended with a complete set of silver charger plates, an insulated water bottle, two clearance shirts, a package ...

*WARNING.  The tone of this post is a little bit uneven, but stick with the soppy sadness of this first part.  It gets silly.* The growing up part of childhood has been more pronounced as of late, and I haven't been collapsing into myself (yet) with the realization of the pace of time or that she's becoming more and more of herself every day.  I mourn the passing of each little milestone, true, but the tears are all colored with a sort of happiness.  I'm glad she's advancing and that she's healthy and she's encountered no more than the normal trials and tribulations of growing up.  However, the the passing of time (when I actually take the time to reflect upon it) is painful because it is something that is lost and can never be recovered fully. Yes, I remember a lot of things, but even science proves that the finest details of a moment are lost forever once it passes.  "A done bun can't be undone" as they say, and for me, that loss hurts if I t...

While I Big Puffy Heart Norwex, this post is NOT about that magical product, nor the similar e-cloth product. This is about making your own cleaners for that nice fresh clean. First, you need The Internets and a Search Engine.  Like Google. Type in "DIY home cleaners." Pick one.  GO. I'm partial to Clean Mama recipes .  She's brilliant. For my counters and appliances, I use this .  Or just Norwex. I like the daily shower spray concept, but since we are budgeting, I didn't want to purchase a new bottle.  So I made this and mixed it up in the old bottle.  I use it in all showers, and have been for about a week now.  Smells delicious! For my fridge, I use Norwex then goob it with oil .  I thought it was supposed to resist finger prints, but my brother immediately poked it and produced a giant print, so there goes that theory.  But boy, does it shine!  With a finger print.  For my tile floors, I use the lemon pepper...