Ode to the Crispies

Ode to the crispies who bake by the pool from 10-2 (or 3 or 4), daily. The rotisserie roasting, bake by numbers, rotate every hour mc-crispies who are browned to an improbable color. Ode to the crispies who look at the pool but never get in, reading romance novels and other chicklett delights. How are you not fried to a crisp with that spf 2, or maybe it's -2, lying in the sun for 5 hours straight?

I admit, I am a little jealous of your tans, your potato crisp skin all gleaming with oil, er spf, er whatever that stuff is that you spritz yourself with every 15 minutes while I apply a second, make that third, no make it fourth coat of spf 35 or is it 70 to my bleach white gams. I watch as you laze in the sun for your 5 hour baking session, waiting for the thermometer to pop saying, well done! I on the other hand alternate between baking (5 minutes please) to swimming (ah, the water is so nice!) to hanging out in the shade (uh, 80 degrees is hot!). Ok, so when I am not pregnant, I am more apt to spend time in the sun like the crispies-but somehow, I always end up with a burn of sorts and have not mastered the art of the Magda tan.

Um, back to the Ode? Ode to the crispies who will return to the mainland with their awe inducing tans, their potato crisp skins screaming to all who look, I just got back from paradise! At least I can rest assured of one very important thing... I will not look like this in my old age:

15 weeks - popping out

Dear Baby

You took your first plane trip to Hawaii. It was a hot and long 5.5 hour flight but we made it to paradise! We are still in Hawaii and having a blast (other than the occasional headache, btw - mommy would really love it if these headaches would go away). This is definitely the most subdued vacation I have taken in a long time. An afternoon rest is a must (otherwise the headaches) and there are no glasses of wine with dinner or sangria by the pool, but this new kind of vacation is very restful! I have been very careful in the sun for fear that I might make you a little too toasty, the tan will suffer, but it's worth it! Keep baking little bear! As always, I hope you kick hard enough for me to feel soon.

xoxo
Momma

14 weeks and the official end to trimester 1

**Written on 3/24 


Dear Baby,

This past week has been very interesting. Headaches, stuffy nose, mommy threw up on the kitchen floor (you heard that right, even mommies don't always do it where they should) but don't worry, your silly doggy was there trying to help clean up. I know, that's what I said, eew yuck!  When I sneeze, I have to find the right position to do it in, otherwise it is painful and makes me worry that I just squeezed you a little too tight! I hope you are enjoying yourself and all that room you have in there! Keep enjoying hash-browns and mashed potato's, mommy really likes to eat those. Oh, and try to stay away from the sweets. Usually mommy doesn't have a sweet tooth but right now, I can't get enough! Just remember that sweets will ruin your teeth little bear, and we definitely don't want that!

xoxo
Mommy

Is 13 weeks the end of trimester 1?

**Written on 3/16

Dear Baby,

You have been kind to mommy the last 2 days! Could this be the end of the dreaded first trimester? I sure hope so. I have continued to obsess over what gender you will be! It is fun to guess and wonder about you. I still wonder if there is really someone growing in my belly. I wish I could knock on my belly and have you give a little "I'm here!" knock back. I cannot wait to feel you kick and move so that I can assure myself that you are really there! When we saw you on the ultrasound two weeks ago, you were moving all over the place, I wonder if you are moving all over right now. I hope you are warm and comfortable, and I hope that you continue to give me a break from feeling sick and getting headaches. I hope you have a good day and enjoy the turkey cranberry sandwich I plan to eat later today!

XOXO
Mommy

One Third Complete! (written on 3/9/11)

**I wrote this on 3/9 and kept it as a draft until I was ready to share the news on the blog. I borrowed this idea from Joyful Abode and I loved the idea, so I have been doing it weekly. I will post the other two weeks in the next few days. I know I need to take pictures. I don't have a camera, my husband does, so it makes it really difficult to keep up on pictures. I need to just go to Costco and get a point and shoot. We want to get a nicer DSLR camera (probably a lower model Canon Rebel) before the baby comes. Anyway, I will take pictures like Joyful Abode did at some point. And yes, I have to either wear yoga pants, elastic or maternity pants-even though I am tall, I am all legs and no torso so it makes sense that my compacted torso would show much earlier. I'm pretty much ok with anything that happens. Besides, when you carb-load like I have over the last 8 weeks because other food just doesn't taste very good, it makes sense that I would put on a ponch!


Without further procrastination, here is the dear baby I wrote at 12 weeks pregnant. 

Dear Baby:

You have been growing for 10 weeks (even though I am 12 weeks pregnant, silly doctors!) Your Daddy and I got to peek in at you when you were 11 weeks 2 days old (I am counting like those silly doctors) and you were busy getting a workout in! On the menu were crunches, arm curls and leg kicks (the better to kick me with when you are a little bigger). You are making it more difficult for me to wear my normal clothes and I had to buy skirts with elastic for your first trip to Hawaii in 2.5 weeks (don't worry, we will take you there when you can enjoy the sunshine). You have made my life very interesting over the past 6 weeks making me feel nauseous, getting headaches, eating tons of carbs, losing my dinner and making me very sleepy but it has all been worth it knowing that this will likely result in you being healthy which is all your Daddy and I wish for you, that you be happy and healthy. You must really love Hash-brown's because I can't get enough of them!  We cannot wait to feel you move and kick which should come in the next 6 weeks or less. Keep growing little bear!

xoxo
Mommy

Surprise-some great news!

We are just thrilled to share that we are PREGNANT! We are due September 21 which means I am in the second trimester and moving right along through this pregnancy. The picture above was from 11 weeks 2 days and it was an absolute joy to see baby Bear moving, kicking, waving and doing crunches in there.

I wish I could report that the pregnancy has been a breeze but I have not been that lucky. I have been nauseous (mostly at night), lost my dinner, had headaches, been exhausted and gagged a whole lot when around food that doesn't smell quite right. I am definitely not going to complain because I am just thrilled to be at this point in my pregnancy and thrilled that things are working out this go around!

I had all kinds of ideas to share the wonderful news but I was just so thrilled that the stick said pregnant that I called Nick and blurted it out. I called my parents, told friends, announced to Nick's parents all without any kind of specialness. The first go around (last May), I didn't tell anyone and I regretted that because I had to share bad news at the same time I was sharing that I was pregnant. This time, I told anyone that I would have told if I had problems, that way they could support me no matter what the outcome.

I think about this little bear all the time. I debate the sex, I think about what it will look like, I wonder about how it will feel when I can feel it move, I think about how we want to raise it, I pretty much just wonder about everything all the time. I am excited beyond words to be this far along! I never wanted to be in the third trimester during the summer, but I don't even care. I didn't want to be huge for my 10 year reunion but again, I don't care. All I care about is that I am growing a little life and that we will have the pleasure of meeting this little person in late September or early October.

Here is me as a baby:

And Nick as a baby (he is a little older in his photo than I was in mine!):

I bet our baby will be born with dark hair...I am excited to share this journey with you.

Intruders

A nasty intruder hitched a ride into our house on some doggy treats given to Trooper.

Meet our intruder:

Nasty little things called red four beetles. Call me a sissy for not cleaning them up myself and waiting for Nick to come home and save the day with the shop vacuum. So anyway, a whole lot of food got tossed. That sucks.

This prompted me to make a trip to the Container Store where I purchased some of these bad boys:

They are the OXO click it storage containers. They are air tight and no pesky pests will be making their home in our food in the future. 

That said, living in the country has been very...interesting. In the 3 years we have lived here, we have had an ant infestation, 2 mouse infestations (3 if you count the one that happened before we moved in) and now a red beetle infestation. Nasty. I don't like mice, I don't like ants and I DEFINITELY don't like beetles. The mice seemed to be the most difficult in that we have only ever caught 1 mouse and the only way we know they have been around is because they steal Troopers dog food and put it places it doesn't belong, like inside Nick's shoes (these were tossed), in a shoe box (tosses), on top of the dishwasher, which by-the-way is installed and really isn't that easy to access (no, we did not toss the dishwasher), inside the bottom of our leather chair (also not tossed) and under the kitchen island (yes, we tossed this). It gives me the creeps just to write about it!! I hate crawlies being in my house!

I hope that all of you are staying creepy critter free!

Wednesday's Weekly Product Review

I had a product all lined out to review and it was going to get a D, but then something happened yesterday that caused me to want to review something else.

I have a very active, very cute, very fun toy australian shepherd dog named Trooper. Yesterday, Trooper - or Stinky as I called him yesterday - decided to get into something absolutely nasty and came back into the house stinking to high heaven. Ralph. Super ralph. And guess what stinky did when he came back inside? If you guessed that he jumped up on the bed and trounced all over the sheets and clean laundry on the bed, you guessed right. Needless to say, everything went back in the wash and the bed had to be stripped and washed. Stinky had to take a bath. 

This is Stinky (Trooper)

We have always been concerned about Trooper's products, he is our first-born son after-all! He eats grain free, all natural food and many of his toys are natural. So, naturally, we bathe him with all natural dog shampoo. Which brings us to the product I am reviewing. 

Earthbath Pet Shampoo For Puppies

The goods:

• Smells like Cherry
• Removes even tough grease from automotive and other greasness
• Removed the smell of death from Trooper
• Is all natural and good for the earth
• Comes in an easy to squeeze bottle for quick dispensing when you have a wiggly pet who doesn't want a bath
• Has a cute label, hey, packaging is important!

The bads:

• Is more expensive than other pet shampoos (but can be purchased online for the low price of just $7, which, lets be honest is pretty great!
• Does not suds a ton so I probably end up using more than I need because if there is no suds, it is hard for me to remember that it is actually still working. 

My overall grade of this product is an A- and as far as pet shampoos, I would recommend it to my other pet mommies!

Dilemmas

The grass is growing, duh, it's springtime! We have had 3 dry days since February 11, that's right, 3. Our mower battery ran out of juice. Our grass is growing like crazy and we look like that horrible family on the block that hasn't mowed. I sure hope that it is actually dry this weekend like the weatherman says it is supposed to be!

We have a canopy bed in our guest room and an oak and brass bed in the garage that is smaller. I am thinking about replacing the canopy bed with the brass and oak one because we only have 8 foot ceilings  and the canopy bed makes the room look really small, even though I love it. I haven't done the switch yet because I feel like oak and brass is a little geezerly and not really my style but the bed would definitely add dimension to the room. What do you think? 

No, that is not my actual bedding. 

We have some high quality Montana built oak furniture and I am not in love with the oak look, but again, they are super high quality and really nice. Do I just leave them the way they are and just deal with it or do I, gasp, paint them?

And because I want to be able to remember current events, I just wanted to say, my heart goes out to all of the people of Japan who have endured the Earthquake and following Tsunami that killed thousands and destroyed many cities. 

Organic Gardening and Baking (How Domestic!)

Somehow I have managed to be quite domestic today. We have been growing an organic garden for the past 2 years and this will be our 3rd. The first year was marvelous! Everything grew, we had more produce than we ever knew what to do with and it was quite an ego boost for a first time gardener. If you have been following my blog for a while, here are some flashback photo's of that garden:

It must have been a particularly good growing year because I really knew nothing about gardening and I had so much produce it was incredible. We planted everything at the same time and ended up with a massive amount, so much that I couldn't even give it all away and much of it went bad. The next year, we decided to plant things in weekly or bi-weekly increments. Last year was a particularly BAD gardening year. None of my tomato's yielded fruit, my carrots didn't grow, my peas didn't grow, my strawberries rotted as soon as they were ready to pick, the onions rotted before they were ripe, the mint took over a section of the garden, the lettuce variety we chose was bitter. It was a very sad year for our garden. I heard most people had trouble, not just us. The weather was horribly wet, it was cold far into the summer, it never got particularly warm. 

I have high hopes for this year. I got a Farmers Almanac this year and I plan on following the planting date recommendations. I trust that they will know the right time to get things into the ground. So, with that, I planted 3 items in my garden today, just in time to miss the sideways rain but not in time to avoid stepping in dog poo, gross (thanks Trooper).

For the first time, I planted Broccoli. I planted 1 row now and I will plant the next row in a week or two so that they grow at different rates (unless we have a repeat of last year)

I planted some Carrots and I hope they grow because the first year, these little guys were so tasty. I planted 1 row and will plant another in a week or so and they are next to the Broccoli. 

Finally, I planted some Sugar Snap Peas. Again, 1 row to be followed by another in a week or so. Last year the peas didn't grow so here is to hoping we don't have a repeat. 

After planting and making it inside just in time to avoid the rain and wind, I prepared chocolate chip banana bread with the old mushy bananas that were staring at me from the counter. I just pulled it out of the oven and it smells delicious! I followed the recipe from the Better Home's Cookbook which has been a good resource in the past when making zucchini bread (using zucchini's from my organic garden of course!) and pumpkin bread (again using garden grown baking pumpkins). 

I feel like I am on my way to being a domesticated wife. The process is slow and sometimes painful, but I am working on it. And I feel so rewarded when I grow my own organic veggies and cook delicious baked goodies, I just have to keep myself motivated and remind myself how good it feels when I accomplish things. 

Pretty soon, I will be a regular domestic!

Wednesday's Weekly Product Review

I am starting a new weekly post called Wednesday's Weekly Product Review where I will review products I am using or trying out. The use of the word product is broad and can include anything from food to health and beauty to home decor. It is wide open but should be fun none-the-less.

My first product review is the Clarisonic which can be purchased from Nordstrom and other fine retailers and sells for $195. You can get a smaller version called the Clarisonic Mia for $145.

The clarisonic works the same way that a sonic toothbrush works. It vibrates and is said to cleanse your skin 6x more than normal washing. The brush does not spin and each unit comes with 2 brush heads, one for normal skin and one for sensitive skin. You can purchase re-fills for $25 which includes 2 new heads. I have owned my clarisonic for 2 years and have never had to purchase the new brush heads.

Things I love about the Clarisonic:

• It really does clean your face way better than normal washing. After using mine consistently, my face is baby soft and rarely breaks out
• It is easy to use 
• It only takes 30 seconds
• You can use it with any cleanser (I have been using Philosophy)
• It lasts a long time on one charge (well over a month) and re-charges quickly
• It can be kept in the shower (unless you are charging it)
• It is not abrasive or harsh on your skin

Things I don't like as much

• It's expensive (I received mine as a gift)
• You generally break out when you first start using it and for the first week or so as it removes build up from your face and cleanses deep into your pores. 
• I have to use lotion after using it because it removes pretty much all the natural oils from my face when I use it. 
• My mother-in-law can only use it every other or every third day because she has dry skin. I can use it every day because my skin is much more oily. 

Overall, I love the clarisonic and really struggled to come up with things that I didn't like about it. I had absolutely magnificent skin in high school and then got acne as an adult. This unit really has brought my skin back to the way it was in high school. I would give it an A and would happily recommend it to others. 

Changes - Accidentally Domestic Wife

I am starting to explore the wide world of the web and have decided to alter this blog. My original plan was to start over with a new blog entirely but I need to spend some time exploring how websites work in order to do that. This blog really didn't have a purpose and truthfully, it won't have a whole lot more purpose now but whatever. What it will have is a direction.

So here it goes. As you can see, I have changed the blog title to "Accidentally Domestic." I fell in love with the title "The Accidental Housewife" but upon Googling it, I discovered that someone else had it. I played with synonyms for Accidental but didn't really like the way they sounded with housewife. After about ten minutes of brainstorming and Googling various names, I determined that Accidentally Domestic Wife is not in use in case I manage to figure out how to make a web-site out of this. In the mean time, I just have to hope that no one else takes it as a domain name in which case, I would have to ask myself to come up with a new name.

So why would I name my blog Accidentally Domestic Wife? Because I, by a complete fluke, went from a crazy 50-70 hour a week job that paid well, had me wearing business casual, had me running around like a chicken with my head cut-off, had me opening my laptop in bed to get some client work done, eating lunch out daily, filling my car with gas 1 or more times per week, neglecting housework to being a full-time housewife.

I am not a self described Martha Stewart and I am not a natural at anything crafty, cooking, cleaning or decorating. I am learning, stumbling, failing and at times discovering that I can be domestic, sometimes. I have definitely failed. I turned on the gas stove, put the teapot on and then promptly forgot about it and headed out to garden. I came back to a bright red teapot, minus water, minus acrylic in areas with the flame still burning. I took off the chrome coating of the bathtub drain trying to bleach the grease from the bathtub bottom. I haven't crafted anything. I still enjoy eating out because I have what I call the grocery store conundrum. I go to the store and blank out. What the heck should I buy? And generally, I come home with yogurt, fruit, bread, boxed risotto, not exactly Martha. I learned that you can avoid streaks when cleaning windows with a squeegee, the one I bought had little indents that smeared.    


This blog will still follow our lives, but I want to move toward being more organized and maybe writing a little more about becoming domestic. I read many blogs about being domestic and I admit, I am jealous at how easy it seems to come to these people. I always have to wonder if there are other people like me, who don't seem to have a domestic bone in their bodies, trying to navigate their way through laundry, dusting, decorating, window washing, cooking, sewing (oh wait, I don't even know how to operate a sewing machine) and all other things domestic. 


So here we go, this is my journey and my husbands journey as we try to navigate a new life with a stay at home wife. And just FYI, I may change the name again because to be honest, I was so in love with "The Accidental Housewife" that I can't quite fall in love with anything else at the moment. 

Like

Ok, I admit - I feel like a bit of a negative Nancy having written the post on February 10 and then writing nothing until my post titled "Dislike" above. To redeem myself and convince every one that I am not really that negative, I felt compelled to follow that post up with a post about things that I like. And yes, I admit that sometimes I am not particularly the best at being Miss Positivity. I try - but sometimes I am not particularly good at it.

Without further ado, here are the things that I like (at the moment)

1. Sunny days because you can go outside and get something done (there has been a lack of sunny days and maybe by writing that I like them, they will return and this blasted rain will quit)
2. The cold part of the sheets under the blanket (once you are toasty warm of course). Don't ask me to explain, I just like it. Maybe it is a contrast thing. 
3. Dance music, Britpop and Bubblegum pop because I am finally mature enough to admit that all those Brit Brit CD's I had in my car for years in fact belong to me, not my little sister. 
4. Celebrity gossip because their lives are so enthralling and they are always getting into trouble! When a marriage lasting 2 years is a life time and movie stars are talking about chopping off their baby mama's heads-putting them in a box-and mailing them to baby mama's mother it's like a train wreck you can't take your eyes off of. 
5. Dining out because as much as I want to "pretend" that I am domestic, I don't particularly like to cook. I think this is due in part to several things. 1. I don't really know how. 2. I am not patient enough to learn. 3. I hate the clean up. Don't judge. 
6. My puppy dog because he is just that cute and awesome. 
7. Modern amenities because they make my life convenient. Have you ever heard anyone say I wish I lived back in the day when life was more simple. Um, I don't! Let me see here. Women used to die during childbirth all the time, life expectancy was like 40 or 50 and people would die from diarrhea, no thank you. Walking to the town square to get water for the day? No thank you. Showering like once a month? Gross. There is plenty of bad breath to go around even with good dental care, can you imagine how ralphtastic it must have smelled when someone opened their mouth before dental care. I could go on and on. I like modern life and wouldn't trade them for anything. 
8. My Uggs (or as I like to call them, my Ugglies) because they are soooo comfy and plush! 

Dislike

I love my puppy. He makes me laugh. I decided to try yoga on a DVD at home because the gym I used to go to with yoga was expensive and I didn't renew my membership. Trooper decided that yoga was not a good idea. The warm up, where you focus on your breath and finding your center just wasn't working for him. He brought 3 toys over and squeaked them non-stop. He stepped up onto my leg and sniffed me. Not particularly relaxing. Thanks Trooper-I still love you.

Lately I have been keeping better tabs of my pet peeves not because I am a negative person but because I when I think about them, they are pretty funny.

1. Baby on Board car decals - because we are all going to see that and say "oh, you have a baby on board? Allow me to drive extra careful around you" or "Hey, you bleepedy bleep, you just cut me off! Wait, you have a baby on board? Well go right on ahead!"
2. The Truvia commercial because if you are going to write a jingle or a song, pick a person who can sing and write some lyrics that are catchy. 
3. I went to Goodwill to find some pitchers that I could spray paint which was a total bust. I decided to see if they had the book Water for Elephants. They don't alphabetize their books or organize them in any kind of order. Tell me, how do you intend to make money from book sales when people can't find what they are looking for? It took me 30 minutes to look through the books and determine that they didn't have it. No wonder I don't shop at Goodwill. I don't have that kind of patience. 
4. Gas prices because I don't need to explain this one. 
5. Cooking at home for one because the food companies do not make food packages for one. I can see why most people who are single live in big cities where they just go out or order in and use their ovens for things like shoe and handbag storage. Once I open something, it has to be used within the next several days. Maybe I want cheesy poofs today but not tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day...
6. Remote controls because I think I say at least one time a day, "where's the remote?" I did something with the living room remote about two months back. It is gone. Probably somewhere with all the rogue socks that go to socks-ville when I launder them. Who even knows where the remote went - the good news is, we have the same brand of DVD player but that still doesn't fix the missing nature of the remote or the fact that somehow I misplaced it and it has not re-appeared. 
7. Rogue socks because I have two feet. Nick never has rogue socks. I have a drawer full of them. I am tempted to get rid of them because they have been in there for so long, but like the key that goes to I-don't-know-what on my key ring, I just can't seem to part with these singleton socks because I fear the mate is lurking somewhere. Where do they go anyway? My dryer doesn't eat my underwear and they are equally small and edible?
8. People telling you that you look tired because it is a nice way of saying, "you look like crap." The worst is when you get like 10 hours of sleep and actually spend a bit of time on make-up and hair and then someone is like "you look tired." And being the nice person I am, I usually just say, yea-I didn't get much sleep last night. I should in fact say, "I got tons of sleep last night and primped this morning, just tell me what part looks like crap so that I can do it differently next time."
9. When people say "your hair looks different." Ok, that can go a whole lot of different ways. The insecure part of me's mind starts racing. They didn't say your hair looks good, and no one is actually going to say your hair looks bad so therefore "different" must mean it looks bad? Ugh. If it looks bad, I wanna know so I can fix it. 

There you have it. My "dislike's" of the moment.