Pieces of Home: A Peek at Some Recent Re-Organization

I'm nesting.

Hard.

But nesting is kind of my thing and... I kind of nest year-round, pregnant or not so it's not really anything new. I really like simple change; a change of colour, a change of paint, a change of layout... Lately, we've been kicking it into high gear for Rowan's arrival; purging, cleaning, organizing, wash, rinse, repeat.

One thing that has been my goal lately has been to make little vignettes or little altars of items we love and actually use / want to use more often. These are a few of our little set-ups in the living room. I'll be sharing more soon; all depending on when Rowan makes his arrival.

Okay, let me preface this by saying that I have no idea why I have a thing for fire and hell. I don't even believe in hell. But oh man, Damned is one of my absolute favourite books. Ever. So... go read it. Beside my stack-o-Satan is the adorable Vampirina Ballerina sleepover book; I can't get over how adorable these books are. And then our little collection of Edgar Allan Poe books. Matthew and I are both huge fans of his work, independently of each other.

The little elephant beside the Poe books held tea; we never drank the tea inside because we got it at a thrift store, but isn't the elephant adorable?

The Andy Warhol things hanging came attached to purses I bought back in the day. I'm a huge Andy Warhol fan; his name in his mom's writing was my first tattoo. Fun story; When I was pregnant with Lennon, Matthew told me he would love to go to the Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh for my birthday. (We live in mid-Ohio so it was a few hour drive both ways.) I was so excited I threw up! Haha. It was a great time; I really enjoyed viewing all of the work. I was so overwhelmed but so, so excited. I want to go back, though, because we were short on time (thanks, Pittsburgh traffic and my husband's total lack of directional skills; though I was the one driving... I now know to go with *my* directional instinct...) and because I felt really sick half-way through. But maybe this summer we can take the boys...

The art in the frame is by Lolle; it's a custom family portrait. I'll post a better photo of it soon. We are going to commission her again because our family is going to look different here very soon! She was a total pleasure to work with and, despite being an Italy-based artist, she has fantastic English skills. She sent updates super frequently and asked our input on every last thing. And, for being such an amazing artist, the cost was definitely justifiable; she *is* one of my favourite artists after all. (Probably second right after Andy Warhol; and honestly, if he weren't part of the reason I fell in love with all things art-related in the first place, she'd likely be first.)

Links to Lolle: DeviantArt | Etsy | FaceBook | Tumblr | Blog

I got this fantastic jewelry box at a rummage sale last year for just a couple of dollars. It's got some scratches, some dents, but it is so perfect. My original plan was to paint it but I actually really like it how it is. Even the little windows are perfect! So, that holds mine and Pooh's jewelry. I keep my body jewelry in there (not organized.. that's something I'd like to do soon...) I don't really have anything at all in there that is worth anything; most of it is costume jewelry; but as long as the quality is good enough to not stain my skin (and I'm super sensitive to that, so I don't have much jewelry,) it's good enough for me.

On top of my jewelry box is a candle holder, a Ganesha incense holder and sticks, two cone incense holders, a Ganesha box and a fake plant. (All plants in our home are currently fake save for our two cacti; with cats and kiddos, I want to keep it safe while still having green around...) Inside the Ganesha box are cat whiskers; whenever I find them, I pick them up and save them. I've read that finding them by chance is good luck. We've found so many.

The books beside the jewelry box are Vegan, schooling and parenting related. As much as I love Vegan books, I only have a couple of favourites so there aren't many here. And beside the books is our little Himalayan salt candle holder.

All of our Wiccan, Pagan, religion and self-care books can be found on this little dresser. Beside those is a beautiful elephant statue I got a few years back. He's one of my favourite pieces. There's also a little leaf container with nothing currently in it (made to look like real leaves; it's ceramic;) and my cat-and-sun candle holder that I received as a gift last year from my friend Corrine.

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I love looking at peoples' homes and getting a peek into how they live their daily lives. I plan on sharing many more of these posts as time goes on. And with how often I change things up, I'm sure they'll be frequent.

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Food Prep & Stocking Up: Staying Realistic

Top left: Ice Cream (cat), Stocked freezer (including homemade Vegan parm!), Bread pizzas with Vegan chee, our huge stock of Coconut oil.
Top right: Some of our groceries. Not even half.
Bottom left: Our fridge door (including lots of homemade goodness; ketchup / tomato soup, Vegan ranch dressing, lots of store-bought and homemade seasoning...)
Bottom right: Homemade mustard soaking up vinegar, Strawberry banana smoothie, Circe (cat), our smoothie ingredients (which are now in flat bags in the freezer.)

This past Friday, Pooh and I went grocery shopping. We stocked up on everything I could think of and then some. My friend Corrine helped me sit down and think of a basic grocery list to start from. That was a huge help! We spent the entire day out and went to four different stores. (Three of which are local!)

We tried to be realistic when it came to buying groceries and stocking our pantry. Usually, if we buy fresh food, we tend to get over-excited and buy more than we know what to do with and it ends up being wasted. So sitting down and really deciding what we wanted to make before-hand helped. We'll see how it ends up working out, but so far it's been amazing.

Saturday we had some errands to run (we needed more tomatoes!) and then came home and made a ton of food from scratch. Sunday hubs and I didn't feel very well but we still spent the entire day making more food. I ended up making some homemade ketchup but, despite following the recipe exactly, it turned out more like tangy tomato soup; so I tried taking some of the tanginess out and we had it for dinner last night as tomato soup (along with some Vegan grilled cheese sandwiches!)

I'm really proud of us because usually, whether or not we feel well, we don't really bother to spend a good amount of time in the kitchen actually working on making food... And if we feel less-than-stellar, you can usually count on us lying around, playing video games all day. And while we still totally got in some video game playing time, we spent, by far, the bulk of our time fixing up food in the kitchen.

THAT is the difference in our lives. THAT is progress. And I am so excited that it just is coming naturally. Granted, I need to make a point to take it easier and realize that I'm far along in my pregnancy and can't push it too hard, but... When I became pregnant, I would always tell myself "active pregnancy!" I knew I couldn't just sit there and let hubs do everything with the excuse that "I'm pregnant!" Not that he wouldn't; he definitely would do anything for me, no questions asked. But I am not okay feeling lazy. I spent a couple of years after I gave birth to our first boy feeling that way and... never again. (At least not when I am totally capable of doing something... Usually.)

I have an appointment with the ultrasound technician every Monday and Thursday; and this Thursday, I also have a full-ultrasound and also see my OB. This Thursday I'll be 34 weeks along. I'm 33.5 weeks now; if I have Roo at 37 weeks, that's 3.5 weeks away. And if I have him at 40 weeks, that's just 6.5 weeks away! Both are so close!

I wish I'd gotten a picture of our girlie Charlie (our third cat; the top left is Ice Cream and the bottom right is Circe.) But Maybe she'll pose for me soon enough, haha. She was quite the snuggle butt this weekend. Man, I love our cats.

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Getting Ready

My blog is currently under construction but I wanted to share what we've been doing to get ready for Roo lately!

In regards to the blog, instead of going through every old post and resizing photos manually to fit the new width of my blog, I'm leaving them as-is. It's not the most aesthetically pleasing, but no matter.

This past weekend, we took the doors off of our upper kitchen cabinets. We had contemplated doing it for some time, but finally took the plunge. We also purged a lot of our dishes and random kitchen supplies. We cleaned the fridge, stove, floor, dishes, cabinets... you name it, we took care of it!

We are so in love with our kitchen now. I love peeking in there in the middle of the night and just breathing a sigh of contentment. We have such big plans, though! This summer, we are planning on painting most things in our kitchen white and then painting a couple random things (window trim, top cabinet trim) green! We also want to add some shelves in front of the window to add more beautiful planties! We have two cacti currently; I definitely want to bring more in! We also want to add a tiered fruit hanging basket and maybe somewhere to dry herbs. Ooh, it's going to be so perfect!

All that really needs done is some more organizing; mostly because we'd just like to purge a decent amount more before Rowan gets here. We don't want or need so much. But our hospital bag (and Lennon's bag to take to Gran and Poppy's house) are mostly packed, baby stuff is washed and organized... The carseat is installed and we have basically everything we need, thankfully. We are all set! I'd like to write a review for all of the lovely items we've recently bought from Etsy. I will do that as soon as the last few things arrive.

I'm planning on sharing my little remedy for sinus and allergies on the blog soon. I sure know it's been a blessing to us here!

I have been so blissed out today. I have so many wonderful ideas for my blog. My amazing friend, Corrine, who blogs over at Wolf Den Holistic Farm, inspired me to get back into active blogging. I've spent a good part of the past couple of days over on their blog, helping them make it fit their lifestyle. I love that my friends appreciate what I'm good at. Thank the Stars for good friends.

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