how we organize our papers, our first aid, and our gift wrap: a love story

February 21, 2021

this post is just another one of my gentle reminders to make your home work for you.

like, in our home, we have a linen closet.

and for the longest time, it was such a waste of space because I keep spare towels and spare sheets in the room they’re needed. like, our spare king sheets are kept in our bedroom in my nightstand. our spare crib sheets are kept in the nursery closet. our beach towels are kept under our guest bathroom sink.

so our linen closet was existing, but not well-utilized.

until I realized it didn’t have to be used for linens.

all those reading faqs

February 12, 2021

do you prefer paperbacks, library books, kindle books…? where do you buy your books? how do you afford books?

how i celebrate my birthday

February 8, 2021

i loved birthdays as a kid. loved.

and then I got older.

and it’s not that I disliked birthdays, but once I left teaching (where my March birthday was SO fun!), birthdays were kind of just another day. which wasn’t a bad thing necessarily - i had worked hard to prioritize things I love into my daily life - but it just wasn’t a celebration.

which got me thinking. I have, what? fifty more of these birthdays, maybe? i should make them special thing - growing older is a special thing.

and i want my kids to grow up and know that their mom loved her daily life, but she also loved holidays, traditions, and birthdays.

and because life is short. and i want mine peppered with joyful rituals and intentional celebrations.

so here’s my list of how I decided I want to make my birthday special, even with little ones running around.

how we store and display books in our home

February 8, 2021

woo, boy. brace yourselves. books are both hidden and displayed everywhere.

our yearly tasks + expenses list

February 7, 2021

ready for one of the greatest things we ever did for our household, our budget, our traditions, our home, our family, our health, our sanity?

i’m not even joking.

it’s that helpful.

I’m always talking about it on Instagram. I refer to it at least weekly, if not daily, in my own routine.

it’s our “yearly tasks + expenses list.”

it’s so stinking easy to make, yet so influential. and once you make it, you’ll wonder why you never had one before.

sunday grill and chill

February 5, 2021

when I was suuuuper pregnant with KK, Brett asked what I wanted for Mother’s Day.

so I said, “I want Grill and Chill. every Sunday. for the next year.”

let me back up a second.

when I was a teacher, I had a coworker

january 2021 favorites

January 30, 2021

let’s recap this month:

worked on replenishing our emergency stash + finally wrote about our prepared-ish home
worked through our january routines
- see how I create my list of monthly and yearly routines here
discovered THE perfect tee. perfect for jeans, perfect for leggings, perfect for knotting, perfect for wearing as-is, perfect for pregnancy, perfect for non-pregnancy, perfect for EVERYTHING. promptly bought four.
- bought several of the long-sleeved version, too.

White Script Burger Food Pinterest Graphic (1).png

our prepared-ish home

January 8, 2021

i briefly mentioned a glimmer of this on instagram and immediately was flooded with, “wait, wait. can you share more?”

so here we are, you lovely humans.

as always, let me start by saying this is just what works for us. if you have a better system that you love - great! I’m just sharing what i love. take anything you love, leave whatever doesn’t serve you. you do you, boo!

ready?

I ASKED MYSELF: “WHAT AM I PREPARING FOR?”

I asked myself, “What specifically am I preparing for? What worries me? What scares me? What annoys me? What irritates me? Can these potential (or probable) situations be avoided (and if so, how?)? And how can these unavoidable situations be made more comfortable?” to pinpoint what would personally make me feel better to have on hand. And because we all have different anxieties with different familial (and housing) situations in different areas of the country, your list of answers might look way different than mine. And that’s okay.

here’s my list:

december 2020 favorites

December 30, 2020

let’s recap this month:

created + ordered our Fall 2020 Chatbooks
- see this instagram post if ya want a visual + a peek at our Summer 2020 book
made a winter bookshelf for KK (link takes you to shop the bookshelf - see the “winter” highlight on my Instagram to see how it looks in our home!)
did a virtual color consult to find out what colors I look best/worst in, purged my closet, and now have the best direction for both getting dressed and ordering clothes online. can’t recommend enough.
made my favorite chicken noodle soup + froze leftovers

favorite things: postpartum edition

June 12, 2020

let’s chat about my favorite, favorite things postpartum: things I’m so glad I did + had + prepared. because of these, I’m so loving this postpartum period.

but first, here’s KK’s introduction post on instagram. weeee!

would rather read about my pregnancy + pregnancy favorites + everythingggg I did to prepare for baby? click here!

first off, prepare for worst case scenario. yes, not the most pleasant thing to do while pregnant - and I blame the majority of my pregnant nerves on this - but now i’m so glad I did because both me and my home were prepared for my heinous amount of tearing. because I was prepared, im able to recover in a level of comfort that wouldn’t have been nearly as easy to achieve if we had instead banked on a quick, easy postpartum recovery. and since i was mentally prepared for the worst, Im truly sitting here on my donut, with my horrendous number of stitches, sporting an obnoxious level of gratitude. like, “this isn’t bad at all!”
ALSO. here were my goals + expectations for postpartum, and I think that also helped tremendously.