Up To Lately

With The Big Move on our horizon, I haven't had too much leisure time to troll the internet for fun finds to blog about. SO I thought instead of sharing another cool Etsy shop with you guys, I'd just tell you about some of the things I've been up to lately.

Reading Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood by Jim Fay and Charles Fay, Ph.D. Lately Graham has been yelling a lot. And throwing his food. Also biting occasionally. It's getting pretty tiresome. I remembered a mom I nannied for long ago had me read (ok, skim) this before I started looking after her son. And I remember being amazed at how no-nonsense and effective it was, even though he was only 18 months old at the time. Have you guys ever read this before? Or know of anything like it that you could recommend?

Hitting up some neighborhood yard sales, where I found this awesome hexagonal child's table for a mere $10! There's going to be some serious coloring book action on this thing one day. As soon as Graham figures out crayons are for drawing, not gnawing.

Researching my dream kitchen. According to my Pinterest Kitchen board, I tend towards a colored lower cabinet and white upper cabinet set-up. White subway tile is also a total no-brainer in this department. And I definitely want a pull-out trash bin. Wow! The things that get me going these days.

Following the Eat Your Heart Out Diet. Full disclosure: I normally hate talking about weight (it's so boring as a conversation topic and too personal) and don't tend to go in for quick loss schemes. I've done my fair share of Weight Watching, sure, but the promise of high return in such a short span made me curious. It also seems like more of a jump start "cleanse" I guess, because of it's focus on healthy fruits and vegetables. And! You can eat as much as you want of whatever it says on the designated day. It also came highly recommended from my mother- and sister-in-laws, so I thought I'd give it a try. Today's my last day and this Miracle Soup! is not all that miraculous. I added red pepper flakes to make it a bit more appetizing, but overall cabbage soup is pretty blech. I do feel like I have more energy than usual and generally just good about all of the healthy things I'm putting into my body. I cannot wait to eat a peanut butter sandwich tomorrow, however.


- Cathleen


[Images via booksforpeas.blogspot.com; ME; apartment therapy; theeatyourheartoutdiet.blogspot.com]

Lighting Inspiration

I have a serious lighting issue in my kitchen. About 6 months ago our toilet overflowed and dirty toilet water was pouring through the kitchen ceiling. It was one of the grossest moments of my life. Grossness aside, it caused us to rip out our existing and totally uninspiring light fixture and to live with holes in the ceiling and table lamps on the counters. I have been planning to install recessed lighting along with a statement piece pendant. The pendant I had in mind was $800 until I stumbled upon this beauty at Land of Nod:

Super cool, fresh, and edgy. The price is perfect at $169. Yay Land of Nod! 

-Grace

She Brakes for Art: Julia Child

Cooking is one of the most delicious artforms there is and Julia Child was unquestionably a headmistress in the school of French cuisine. Her tools of the trade were her many copper pots and pans, and of course, her mad fine cooking skills, but it was her visual organization techniques that most impressed me. The photo above is of her instruments outlined and displayed on a pegboard in her Cambridge, MA kitchen, a system she and her husband Paul designed. 

"It did my heart good to see rows of . . . copper pots at the ready,” Julie wrote in her 2006 bestseller My Life in France, “I could hardly wait to get behind the stove.”

Photo of a white gloved curator tending to the kitchen's installation 

in the National Museum of American History. The entire kitchen and all of its contents were donated by the Child family to the Smithsonian in 2002, while the coveted copperware collection was later acquired in 2008. 

- Cathleen 

[Images and quote sourced from smithsonianmag.com]