Thinking Out Loud {#11}: Tiny Houses, Figs & Pinterest

So you might remember from this post that my mom has been visiting us again, and this morning she left after two wonderful weeks here. I'm not sure who's going to be more upset when they wake up tomorrow morning: me or Sully. I decided to leave the house this morning around the same time my mom was taking off so that it didn't feel as much as goodbye, although I still started crying as I pulled away. After the library and a bunch of errands, we got back in the car to head home and Sully goes "LET'S GO SEE GRAMMA!" Gah, heartbreaking. I told him that Gramma wouldn't be at home and that we wouldn't be seeing her for a little while. "Well, let's go get her, Mama!". Sigh, I wish we could, little man, I wish we could.

{at Elbow Falls with Gramma}

I meant to get this post written up last night and posted this morning, but I figured it was better to spend my mom's last evening here with her.  Watching Season 6 of The Walking Dead of course. No spoilers since we are a whole season behind, but my goodness, the first few episodes are SO frustrating! I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I much prefer to watch a show in which I can binge watch it, because I don't know how people wait a whole week (or more!) in-between episodes!

Speaking of shows...I was at the dentist earlier in the week for a cleaning and the TV was tuned to HGTV. Tiny House Hunters was airing and I was immediately engrossed (and I usually find TV incredibly annoying to try and watch while someone is blocking your view while scraping your teeth). Anyhow...this show! I'm mildly obsessed (I may have gone home and recorded the whole series) and yet, I can't fathom wanting to live in something that's about as big as the shed in our backyard. I get the whole minimalist fad and the desire to pare down the things you own, etc, but I could NOT live in 150 square feet. I don't even think I would feel safe sleeping in such a small space. I mean, if we had a playhouse in our backyard of roughly the same size, even if there was a lock on the door, there's no way I'd sleep out in it!

{source//this literally makes me LOL}

OK, so, in my post on nesting, I mentioned briefly that I meal planned for this week (which is going awesome by the way), and I'm really hoping that I can keep this up for the rest of my pregnancy. I know, meal planning - it's nothing new, everyone does it - but for some reason I have a hard time being consistent with it. I'm even trying to bake one new "treat" each week, and I've had some pretty good success with my recipes considering I'm not a baker. I utilize Pinterest a lot for recipe ideas, but my recipe board on there was getting a little bit out of control. I had every single recipe that I either wanted to try or had already made pinned to the same board, and it was getting time consuming to go through it for meal planning inspiration or to remember something I wanted to make. So, last weekend I also organized my recipe boards into "RECIPES TO TRY", "DINNER RECIPES TRIED & TRUE", "BAKING RECIPES TRIED & TRUE", "BREAKFAST RECIPES TRIED & TRUE", and "SNACKS/APPETIZERS TRIED & TRUE" (the links will take you directly to each board). Anyway, I'm already loving this little bit of organization and if you want to follow any of the boards please do! Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by Pinterest recipes because there are a billion out there but how do you know for sure something is actually worth making? Consider me your guinea pig! ;) I also add comments/notes into the comment portion of the pin on my tried & true boards so that you can see what I thought or any changes I may have made to the original recipe.

One more thing about food. FIGS. You guys, until last week, I had never eaten a fresh fig in my adult life. I would say my entire life, but my mom promises me that I ate them as a kid. We were at the farmer's market two weekends ago and my mom bought a flat of figs for us. It was one of those things were I was like, these are SO delicious, but I also kind of wish I hadn't tried them because now it's all I can think about. Unfortunately, fresh fig season is short and they are really hard to come by in stores! I've spent more time this week than I care to admit, trying to track down fresh figs. Thankfully, the Italian Store came through for me today and I made sure to get down there and buy two clamshells. I choked a bit at the price at first (almost 10 dollars a pound), but then I thought, "wait a minute, why do we freak out at buying something expensive that is delicious and healthy for us, but it's no big deal to go buy a case of beer or a bottle of wine?!" And considering I can drink neither of those right now, this mama bought herself $20 worth of figs today. I do not plan on sharing!

And lastly...I'm sorry...I clearly have a lot I want to talk about today!...yesterday I had my second doctor's appointment with my OB team. There's only 3 more months to go before this baby comes and I'm finding that crazy to think about! I'm also at that point where I can't imagine my belly getting bigger or stretching anymore, even though I know it will. I remember in my first pregnancy dreading being weighed at each doctor's appointment. This time around, I don't care. In fact, I didn't even take off my boots on the scale, that's how little I care about the number that shows up. I may have gone into this pregnancy weighing more than I would have liked, but I don't feel like I've been eating out of control and my weight gain has been very slow so I'm comfortable with where my body is at. I'm still trying to get to BodyFlow at GoodLife Fitness when I can because I know it's worth the effort to get myself there. Also, I passed my gestational diabetes screen, so yay for me!

If you're still reading, then you deserve one of my figs! ;)

Happy almost Friday everyone!


Questions for you!

Figs: love 'em, or hate 'em?

Tiny Houses: could you live in one?

Linking up with Amanda from Running with Spoons for Thinking Out Loud! 

*This post was written as part of the GoodLife Fitness Blogger Ambassador program, 

however all opinions expressed are my own.

A Slice of Brie Book Club: October's Pick!

Hello Book Clubbers! Well, I wasn't sure which book was going to win as the votes were all very close to start with, but Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children started to creep ahead and stayed there. With the movie adaptation just coming out, and considering I already own a copy of this book, I am happy that I will finally be getting around to reading this book! I also think it's a fitting book for Halloween next month!

Synopsis from Goodreads:

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of curious photographs. 

A horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive. 

A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows. 

If you're new to book club, then welcome! You can read more about book club in this post, but here's the gist of it:

• Book Club for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will be on Wednesday, October 26. My post with review and thoughts, along with some discussion questions, will go live the morning of. This gives you exactly 4 weeks to read the book, which is plenty of time considering it's a young-adult book and has pictures in it ;) 
• Come visit the post, share your feelings and opinions on the book and participate in the discussion! (Of course, participation isn't mandatory - you're more than welcome to just read along quietly!)
• There will be a link-up for bloggers who have written their own review post, or have reviewed the book in another post. You can use this graphic to link back, or grab my button from my side bar. Writing a post is totally optional and not mandatory.

• EVERYONE is welcome! You do not have to have a blog to participate. My blog is just the space where I host the book club, but I encourage everyone to join - tell your friends! :)
• On October 26, we will vote for November's book pick, and then book club will take a break until the new year. I'd like to do a Christmas or winter theme to the books we vote on, so if you have any books you'd like to suggest for voting on, please let me know and I will try to include them!
• Most importantly, have fun! There's no pressure or obligation to "sign-up" or "RSVP". You can choose to read the book now, or closer to the date we meet to talk about it. It doesn't matter to me! 
• For my local friends: the hold list at the Calgary Library is ridiculously long. I'm sorry for that! You can also order this book through Chapters right now for $10 (<---affiliate link), or Amazon. I also see this book at Value Village a lot. 

I hope you'll be joining us next month! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask! Otherwise, happy reading and I can't wait to meet back in a month to talk about this book! 

Nesting: Not an Urban Legend

I never, ever experienced "nesting" while pregnant with Sully. I read all about it, and I had people tell me about it incessantly, but it never hit. I remember anticipating the day I would be overcome with the desire to do all the things, dreaming about how clean behind my fridge would be and how organized my underwear drawer would look. I had days where I thought about doing something, but laziness always won. Needless to say, since then, I've scoffed at anyone who talks about "nesting", either as something they are experiencing or as something they wonder if I'm going/gone through. In fact, I even had a friend post about it recently on Facebook, and I'm pretty sure I commented with "NESTING IS NOT REAL".

How's that old saying go? About eating your own words? Ya, that day came this past weekend.

I was standing in the kitchen, marvelling at the inside of my clean and sanitized dishwasher when I yelled for Jim to come look at it. When he ooh'd and ahh'd enough for me, I made him look at the sparkling kitchen sink, inside the gunk-free garburator and at the newly decalcified tap head. Then he goes, "so this is nesting, is it?" I laughed, ready to say there was no such thing, but then I thought for a moment and said, "ya, I guess so! And it's awesome!".

But that's not all I did this past weekend. On Friday, I emptied out our entire pantry, wiped down the walls and shelves, repackaged things into jars and organized everything neatly on the shelves. This project has been on my to-do list since we moved in over a year ago. When the movers were unpacking us, I shoved everything into the pantry with no forethought, planning to organize it later on...that never happened and the pantry has been the place where cracker boxes go to die and anything without a home is abandoned.

I'm sharing pictures because I find it oddly satisfying to see what other people's pantries look like.

Saturday, after returning home after gymnastics class and running errands, I emptied out our spice cupboard, threw out anything that was old or never, ever used, and organized it all back on the shelves. This in turn had me organize a few of the other kitchen cupboards.

Sunday, I cleaned the dishwasher filter, wiped the sides of it down, and then ran vinegar through a sanitize cycle. While that was going on, I cleaned the sink with vinegar and soap, including the disgusting-ness that occurs underneath the drain of the garburator. I decalcified the tap head and wiped out the fridge shelves.

Then I pulled out my neglected day-timer, wrote out all our appointments and classes for the next month, meal planned for the week ahead (something I haven been severely lazy about lately), and made my grocery list. I debated going out for groceries that evening, but I was tired and my mom suggested I go in the morning while she watched Sully. Sold!

So ya. Nesting. It's not an urban legend after all. I know nesting is said to hit people in the later stages of pregnancy, but hey, I'll take it whenever I can!


Pregnant mama's (past and current), have you ever experienced nesting?