Wednesday Wish List

I figured I would start doing a wish list every Wednesday. There are just too many awesome things out there (that I find while browsing the internet aimlessly) not to share.

Today's wish list consists of one of my all time faves, products with quotes. I used to search high and low for the perfect quotes, print them out on cool paper, and frame them to give as gifts. Not sure why I ever stopped doing that. Once when I went through a nasty breakup, I framed a lyric from a Sheryl Crow song, "If you'd like to reach me, leave me alone." I hung it proudly on the wall in my new, single girl apartment to assert my independence. Every time I looked at it hanging there, I smiled and gave myself a mental pat on the back for being so liberated. Yes, I was a dork. Still am.

Now, on to the good stuff.

I love the color and fabric on this bright little cushion from Rockett St George. The quote is perfect. This would make such a cute gift. And not just for me. :)


I have admired Quotable Cards products for years. They make awesome cards, magnets, totes and journals like this one. It's more fun to pour your thoughts onto paper when you have something this cute to write in.


Not only is this You are my Sunshine chair unique and inviting, but I particularly love it because I sing this song to Will every night before I lay him down in bed. I have done so since he was just a peanut in my belly and he still doesn't mind that I'm off key. Kids are so accepting.

When I came across this hand painted picture frame found in HopeStudio's Etsy store, I teared up a bit. Don't tell anyone. Stuff like this really gets the mommy in me.


I LOVE this Antiqued Wooden Picture. The quote is fantastic and the distressed look of the wood makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. I need this in my home. Badly.


You probably noticed that 3 of today's 5 items were from the same store, Rockett St George. I couldn't help myself. I found their site yesterday and was sucked in immediately. Their stuff is to die for.

It's Wednesday. I can see the weekend from where I'm standing.

L

Tough Choices

Rob and I both work full time away from home. It's tough. It's hard not being with Will every day. It's hard dropping him off in the mornings, wondering how he is doing and missing him like crazy. Having a great sitter to drop him off with really softens the blow. It makes it so much easier to leave him when I know that he is in loving and capable hands each day. I can actually come to work and get my job done when I'm not worried about how he's being treated or if he's enjoying himself.

So, it was as if someone had punched me in my stomach yesterday when our beloved sitter turned in her notice. She has decided to home school her daughter and needs to focus all of her attention there. I completely understand and applaud her for doing so, but it makes things extremely difficult on Rob and I. Sitter shopping brings me to my knees. I can handle dirty diapers. I can deal with toddler tantrums. Sleepless nights aren't that bad. But searching for someone to care for my child on a daily basis is enough to send me into full blown panic mode. Leaving our children behind in the hands of someone else is one of the hardest things we have to do as new parents. You see all these horror stories on the news and you just get terrified to walk out that door and leave them behind. And I know there are wonderful people out there, but weeding through all the stinkers to find those jewels is no easy feat.

The last time we went through this process, we found this lovely woman to watch Will in her home. The first day we dropped him off, we pick him up to find that she has left him with her drug addicted daughter while she went to a Dr's appointment. He never went back there. We took vacation time off of work and continued our search. We met a woman who sounded perfect on paper. She had experience, she had references, she was CPR certified, and she had a nice and educational curriculum for the kids. When we got to her house, we were greeted at the fence by her three angry pit bulls. We squeezed our way past them only to make it into her home and find artwork of nuclear war and a pretty extensive book collection on Adolf Hitler. Oh, and she had about 4 teeth. And no, I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP. It all (unfortunately) really happened.

So if I seem a tad bit stressed and all my hair turns gray, herein lies the reason. I'm not trying to be a grouch, I just want someone great to care for my son when I can't be there. I want someone who pays attention to him and doesn't stick him in front of the TV all day. I want someone who will get down and play with him in the floor. I want someone who changes his diaper when it's full. I want someone who will sing with him and practice his ABCs. I want someone who reads to him. I want someone with nice small dogs. I want someone that isn't fascinated with Hilter. Is this really too much to ask? Where are all the normal people?

L

Playing Dress Up

I live my life in jeans. I'm not a sloppy person or anything, I just prefer jeans over most other pants, especially in the winter. You can dress them up or down. They are forgiving if you've put on an extra pound or two, and most importantly, they are comfortable when chasing around a toddler. I have my priorites. Being able to wear pretty much anything I want at my job makes it much easier for me to fall into the "jeans every day" trap. If it weren't for their lax dress code, I'd be in skirts and heels every day. Basically, I blame them.

However, when summer comes along, though I do still wear lightweight jeans, I also start wearing a lot of skirts. Southern summers are just too dang hot to walk around in demin all the time. I like to throw on a flowing skirt, a tank and some flip flops and call it a day. Since our humidity reaches about 110%, you really have no other choice. You might melt into a puddle on the spot if you aren't dressed appropriately. This change in my wardrobe brings on many questions and comments from my friends and co-workers though. I wear a skirt to work and they're all, "Oh, you look nice today," or "Well, look who is all dressed up," or "What's the occassion?" I find myself wanting to answer them, "Don't worry, I don't have an interview." The office chauvinst did come up with another possible reason for the absense of my jeans this morning when he asked, "Didn't get a chance to wash a load of jeans yesterday, huh?" I bit my tongue and resisted the urge to say, "No, Rob does all the laundry for our family," though that isn't true in the least. He hates laundy and trades back rubs to get out of touching it. But that's another post entirely.

Hopefully everyone will realize as the spring and summer drones on that skirts are just going to be a part of my life for a while. Otherwise it's going to be a long few months of questions and surprised looks. I promise that when November rolls back around, I'll jump back into my beloved jeans and everyone can breath a sigh of relief that the world is as it should be.

L

Nagging

I have been complaining to my husband for quite some time about our camera. It's a cheaper digital and just doesn't take the kind of pictures I would like for it too. Since I have taken photography classes and have owned much nicer cameras, having to make the step down and use this one bothers me to no end. So, I would scour the internet and dream about all these nice digitals that I just knew Rob would never agree to. I emailed him links and would say things like, "Ooooooh, look at this one!" and "Imagine the kind of photos we could take of Will with this one." I hit him where it hurts. He loves our child more than anything, so I had to plant in his head all these super nice images of Will we could capture. I'm evil like that.

On Wednesday, Rob comes to my desk and hands me a box. He tells me that this was suppose to be my Mother's Day gift, but if I don't like it, the time is running out to return or exchange it, so he needs to give it to me now. I hesitated for about 1 second and then ripped into the paper to find my dream camera. He knew I was going to love it, because it was the exact one I had been whining for in all those guilt emails I sent him.

I can't wait to get out and take some pictures with it this weekend. If this experience has taught me anything, it's that nagging your husband does pay off from time to time. Persistance is key. Oh, and I have the best husband ever. But I already knew that.

Have a great weekend!

Leslie

Wednesday Wish List

I stumble across some amazing design and products while browsing the internet. I would love to buy each and every one of these, but until I hit the lottery and no longer have to operate off of a family budget, these beauties will remain on my wish list. If nothing else, it's nice to admire them and dream.

Since it's going to be sunny and 80 degrees this weekend, this Fatboy Headdemock Hammock looks awfully appealing. I close my eyes and just imagine swaying in the breeze.

This trio of vases set is quite possibly one of the prettiest things I've ever seen. I especially love the dandelion design. These and everything in Pretty Random Objects Etsy store are original and beautifully made.


I love this Tulip Field photograph, because as you know, I love tulips. And the fact that spring is nipping at my heels isn't doing anything to help lessen this obsession. I may need a tulip intervention.



I would love a couple of these Red Letter Pillows to toss on my bed. So simple and chic. I think they are just delicious.

Wallpaper has come a long way since the days of uninspiring floral patterns. Rob would never let me get away with it, but I adore this Explosive wallpaper and a ton of the other designs on Trends site. You definitely make a statement with a rooms like these.


A girl can dream....

L

Baby Fat

Something unexpected happened to me when I found out I was pregnant. I became really hungry. Not just regular run of the mill hungry, I mean like, chew your arm off hungry. Eat an entire gallon of ice cream hungry. Knock people down and push my way to the front of the Taco Bell line hungry. You get the point. I found myself famished at all times. I wanted to (and did) eat everything in sight. I figured since I was eating for two, an extra serving of mashed potatoes or 8 more slices of pizza wouldn't really hurt anything. I was very emotional about food too. I would throw toddler style tantrums and find myself crying my eyes out if I couldn't have food in my mouth at the very moment my stomach decided it was time to eat. I once even hallucinated that Rob was drinking whiskey at 10 in the morning because I hadn't eaten breakfast yet. Turned out that ominous whiskey bottle I saw sitting on the counter was ketchup he had set out to go with the hash browns he was cooking me. He never made me wait for breakfast that late again.

By the end of my pregnancy, a funny thing had happened. I had managed to pile on 65 pounds in the 30 weeks since I had found out I was pregnant. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that eating all that mess is going to make you fat, but I must say, I was quite surprised when I stepped on the scale at the hospital the day I delivered and put up a big 195. I was equally disappointed that Will didn't come out weighing 25 pounds, because his mere 7 pounds and 4 ounces meant that the weight attached to my body was all me. This hateful nurse at my OBs office had been warning me that this was going to happen. She lectured me about gaining too much and about how it was going to make it so much harder to get off once the baby comes along. She even wrote down my weight gain in my chart with red pen at one of my visits to signify something along the lines of an "F" for nutrition and willpower. I wouldn't listen though. I ate more just to spite her.

Let's see a visual demonstration of what can happen after too many cheeseburgers, Milky Ways and extra cheese pizzas.

Pre-pregnancy Leslie

Leslie 3 days post pregnancy
Yowers! Not only do I look as though I may eat that sweet baby I'm holding, but you will also note that my boob post pregnancy is about the same size of my head pre-pregnancy. And that was a day before my milk really came in. My body was an animal I no longer recognized.

So I've decided, if I become pregnant again, the way to remedy my excessive eating is to stick this picture of me with the two chins and ginormous boobs on the fridge. Every time I go to grab an extra pudding cup, I'll remember how hard I had to work to get all this weight off and go for an apple instead. I'll think about the early morning treadmill runs and my trainer yelling, "No breaks, push through the pain!" I realize that gaining weight is a natural and necessary part of any pregnancy, but the way in which I packed on the pounds was far from healthy. The weight I gained got me disapproving looks by the evil nurse and red marks on my medical records. I'm determined next time around, to stick to weight gain that only requires blue pen.

Leslie

Still Alice

When I was in my teens, I volunteered at a nursing home in my little town. We did different things for the residents, filled up their thermoses with ice, dropped off their mail, read books and newspapers to them, painted the ladies' nails and wheeled them down for dinner. It was a humbling and rewarding "job." Visiting the patients there gave me perspective that a lot of 15 and 16 year old kids didn't get to experience. Two days a week, I was surrounded by more combined wisdom that I had ever been around before or since. I know that I walked away from that place gaining more than I actually gave.

Volunteering there was the first time that I ever came face to face with Alzheimer's disease. A member of my extended family was a patient there and she had the disease. It made me sad to see her knowing that she didn't know who she was anymore. She had been a preacher for many years, but the disease had turned her in to a person that her family didn't recognize. She cursed and was angry a lot which was totally out of character from the woman she once was. I figured I would be pretty angry too if I woke up every day not remembering the one before or knowing where I was or how I had come to be there. She (of course) wasn't the only patient in the home that had Alzheimer's. There was one poor old man that we would find wandering out of his room naked all the time. He was so disoriented and had no hold on reality. He didn't know he was naked. He probably didn't grasp the concept of what naked was anymore. I, being a weirdo teenager, was a little scared of him and the others that were like him. I didn't understand the disease and the way it affected the mind and I had several misconceptions about it that stuck around with me into adulthood.

Last night, I finished reading the book, Still Alice about a successful Harvard professor who in her 50s is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. Before reading it, I naively assumed that Alzheimer's only struck old people. I never considered it as disease that someone as young as my parents could be diagnosed with. This book really opened my eyes though. It is beautifully written and you get sucked in to Alice's world immediately. You follow her through the first signs of the disease presenting itself in small ways, to her shocking diagnosis, and throughout the progression of the disease. It is a heartbreaking account. Although you know already that there is no cure for Alzheimer's, you still root for Alice and hope that by some miracle, she will get better by the end of the book. I won't spoil it any further, I'll just say that I think everyone should read this book. It will touch you. I will scare you. It will open your eyes. I pray that no one in my family is ever hit with this terrible illness and I await news that researchers and doctors will find a cure for those that are afflicted. Until then, there are going to be many real life Alices out there living and dying with Alzheimer's. It's a sad story, but one that I needed to hear.