A Smidgeon of Creativity

The past week or so has brought about a tiny influx in my daily energy levels, and I can't express how entirely grateful I am about it! You know how you feel extra good after getting over an illness? Well, this first trimester has felt like a very long illness, so this tiny improvement has felt like new life! I have finally had a bit of creativity along with this new found energy, and I would like to share three small projects with you from this past week.

1. This one is a long time coming, but I have finally recovered the seat cushion of my granny chairs I blogged about here. This is what they look like currently. It's a big improvement, but I still want to paint them turquoise, the same color I painted my lamp table that I posted a picture of in that same previous post.

2. I got to bring home an awesome centerpiece from my sister's wedding. She had these branches in a smaller glass cylinder, but I moved them to a crystal vase that's been empty since we received it as a wedding present almost three years ago. Then I added tillandsia (air plants) to the branches! I love love love my air plants. I've wanted some for quite some time and finally found some closeout ones on etsy for about $1 each. They apparently have something wrong with them (that's why they were on closeout), but I think they're absolutely perfect. I still think it needs more color, but it's on its way to being something super cool.

3. My amazing, wise, kind, and generous mentor gave me a kindle on Sunday as a goodbye gift! I really still can't believe it even though I haven't let it out of my sight since then. Well, the first thing I did was make a cover for it! (I found a free tutorial online and modified it a tiny bit.) I used leftover fabric from the first dress I made, a scrap of fabric I cut from a decorative pillowcase I was never going to use, another random scrap, and a green hair tie. It still needs a button sewn on to hold it shut, and I have one picked out that I've had laying around for ages. I have to say that I love my homemade cover more than any other I could have purchased. I really enjoy sewing things, and I would do it much more often if I could get my hands on more fabric.

There are plenty more ideas rolling around in my head, but energy, time, and money force me to pace myself :)  I also want to wait for some of them till we've moved because it's frivolous to create even more things to transport and keep track of during a move. Over these next few weeks I'm going to try to channel my meager energy into clearing out so that we have less to move.

Wedding Festivities

Last week/weekend Clint and I traveled to Indiana for my sister's wedding. Clint drove us through the night on Wednesday (I can't have caffeine and therefore can't stay awake past about 9:00) to get us there super early Thursday morning. As soon as I woke up I went to the church to help decorate, and from then on the activities never stopped. And I mean NEVER. Not even for a second. I truly have never been so exhausted in my entire life. I was more tired after her wedding than after my own! Something doesn't seem quite right about that. Aside from all the work and lack of sleep, the wedding was gorgeous and the reception a blast. She also had one of the most amazing wedding photographers ever, and you can see some of the photos from the extravaganza here .  At the reception they did a photo booth and had all kinds of costumes and props to take fun and silly pictures. My personal favorite: The Nerd and the Superhero. Can't wait to frame it. I love my nerd more than I can say. He makes me laugh every day. He's the best.

Another just for fun.

 
And this one is priceless. It's my parents and their new son-in-law. My mom's response when I emailed it to her: "That makes me so proud of our family!" Hilarious!

And I can't sign off without posting one of the bride and me. Ah sisters.

Call for Entries

Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately. I've been exhausted and fuzzy brained the past ten weeks or so, thanks to Prune. And I haven't had much to discuss lately except for the prune, and I don't want to be one of those overly obsessed parents that has nothing to talk about other than her kids. But, I do need all of your help on that front. I need some name ideas! We like names that are unique but not too weird. (Although weird to me is much different than weird to Clint . . . He has probably vetoed half of my suggestions due to weirdness. Our kid will probably thank him one day.) I personally like names that are vintage and/or inspired by nature. Here's a sampling of some I might like so you know what I'm thinking. (These have not all been subjected to Clint's approval yet :)

For Girls: Iris, Viv (Vivian), Laurel, Ina, Lena, Sybil, Averie, Wren, Grey

For Boys: Leland, Asher, Warren Clinton, Linden, Sawyer, Phoenix, River, Winston

Middle: Lake, Day

Any ideas? Please do share!

Well, the cat is out of the bag

We're about nine weeks pregnant! I put a little pregnancy ticker at the bottom of this blog. It shows how big baby is in fruit sizes. So cute. It's the size of a green olive this week and is now officially considered a fetus. Pretty much everyone knows by now, but if you're one of my dear co-workers reading this blog, please don't tell our other dear co-workers. I would rather NOT be the center of CP drama. I'm sure you understand. Otherwise, I've been feeling pretty sick lately, but not too sick. No throwing up yet, so that's a good sign. And my appetite for produce has slowly been coming back, which is the biggest relief ever! I hadn't been too thrilled about only wanting beef and fast food. Yuck. Although I have no problem with my daily donut craving and am quite looking forward to that little treat later today. And I positively cannot wait for a slice of my sister's wedding cake next Saturday. It's going to be glorious. I just hope I still fit into my bridesmaid dress by that time! That's all for now. There are still seven more months for plenty of pregnancy talk, so I'll try to keep it to a minimum!

Mango Sorbet

For breakfast this morning I'm sipping on one of my favorite concoctions: mango sorbet. It's so easy. Toss some frozen mango in the blender along with some coconut water and blend to a smooth consistency. So refreshing and delicious! (Sorry for the terrible Photo Booth photo.)

The Cleanse

It's time to begin the cleanse I talked about in a previous post. I have been eating well lately, so I'm not going to spend long on the pre-cleanse elimination diet. I'll do that today and begin the 21-day cleanse tomorrow! The main format is two liquid meals a day: breakfast and dinner. Breakfast is a blended smoothie, and dinner is a juice. You eat solid food for lunch. I was skeptical about the program when I first heard about it. I never jumped on the juicing bandwagon because juice is not a whole food, but the reasoning in the book makes lots of sense, so I'm embracing it fully. I'm very excited to see how this goes. Below is the list of yes and no foods for those of you who are curious. And again, I would recommend reading the book for a full explanation of everything. It makes a LOT of sense. Stay tuned for updates!

Recap of our trip

I'm sure you've all heard about the horrible tornadoes that have been ripping through the South. Well, those violent storms prevented us from camping earlier this week. We decided that we didn't want to be in a tent on a mountain during a tornado or lightning storm, so we stayed at Clint's dad's house instead. We were really bummed that our camping trip didn't work out, but my father-in-law lives in Athens, so we took advantage of all the fun things to do in the area in lieu of camping and hiking.

One of the first places we visited was the Fernbank Science Center because it's free. None of the indoor exhibits were too exciting, but Fernbank Forest was great! Clint and I were pretty much the only ones in it, and it was so beautiful. We walked through it snacking on honeysuckle and enjoying the beauty of nature and each other's company.

We ate lunch one day at my new favorite lunch spot, Last Resort Grill. Um, YUM, and somehow, CHEAP! We got three meals and a dessert to share for $35, including a good tip. All their stuff is local too. They have a whole section on their website about where they get their food from. This will be a definite go-to spot for us whenever we're in the area!

This is painted on the side of their downtown building. It was love at first sight.

Yum. A picture of some salmon/kale dish from their website. Whatever it is, it looks amazing!

Probably my favorite part of our trip was the State Botanical Gardens. Swoon. I loved it! And it gave me even more weird ideas that poor Clint is going to have to put up with once implemented. Some of my favorite parts of the Gardens were the herb section, the succulents, and the tillandsia they had hidden everywhere inside the conservatory. This is another place I would love to visit again!

A view over some of the grounds.

The conservatory.

Clint and I also had some free movie tickets, so we thought we would take his dad to a movie. We weren't real thrilled about anything that was playing, so we took a guess at what might be entertaining and went to see Hanna. I have only one word to describe that movie: weird.

Our last day there we went to the Georgia Aquarium. Apparently it's the biggest aquarium in the world, and it's really cool. My favorite part was the variety and intensity of the colors of all the different fish. They were so beautiful! It made me sad though; I just hate seeing any creature in captivity. Those whales, sharks, and dolphins were made to live in the huge, vast ocean! It would be like never being allowed out of our apartment. All our needs would be met, but I would go insane. And, we didn't even visit the dolphin exhibition after watching a documentary called The Cove. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it.

My final most favorite thing about the trip was our quick visit to Earth Fare. I think I just drooled a little bit thinking about it. I got a three salad sampler from their deli in a compostable container and was in vegetable heaven. Go there if you get the chance!