Don't Be Jealous

I do not mean to offend, but I definitely have the best family and friends on the planet. You may argue your case, but I cannot be persuaded. Thank you all for helping me to usher in my 28th year with style :-)

Laundry Detergent Blues

We do a lot of laundry. Too much for just two people. Yes, we go to the gym so there are workout clothes that add to the day's pile. Yes, Matt washes his referee uniforms frequently during basketball season. Yes, we have two dogs that seem to be messier than a fleet of toddlers at times. And yes, I have been known to forget about a load and have to rewash it a time or two. We just plain go through detergent REALLY quickly.

I've been thinking about making my own laundry detergent since it is, according to the where website I found the recipe, about 1/4 the cost of traditional laundry detergents. I just don't know. There are plenty of environmental reasons to do it. It wouldn't be expensive to try it, and it would save some money, but it is enough to make the effort worthwhile? It is only three ingredients...Just mix them and store or wash... But would the life expectancy of our clothes go down after plenty of washings with the homemade stuff?

We just purchased a bottle of off-brand, super watered down, liquid suds last night. Maybe after that is gone, I'll try it out and report back about whether or not it's worth it.

Menu for Jan 9-16, 2011

This week we will be eating:

1. Ratatouille

2. Pumpkin Harvest Soup

3. Pot Roast Beef Stew with Guinness

4. Golden Chicken with Tomatoes and Olives

YUM.

Does a Dog Really Need a Bed?

I am not a dog "parent." I do not think of my dogs as my children. In fact, I've actually thought about how great it would be to find someone who wanted to adopt them, but still allow me visitation rights. I do love them, but I'm not going to make my own organic vegetable and quinoa dog food or take them to a canine psychologist.

So Bama has a dog bed. He sleeps in it all day while we're gone, sometimes when we're here and then again when all the lights go out in our house at night. We keep it in the back room because I just don't like looking at it. We've noticed that Bama tries to sneak onto the couch (which they are NOT allowed to do EVER) when it's cold outside. Griffin has never really had much interest. In fact, he chewed on the last bed we purchased and spread the fluff around the living room. Dog bed privileges revoked! We weren't worried about his lack of a cushy place to sleep since he usually spreads out on the tile or wood floor to sleep - he's warm-bodied.

Little did we know he'd be stealing Bama's bed and using it for himself this winter. Bama was sneaking the couch when we discovered Griffin hogging the bed in the back room. Now we were in need of two beds, but I wasn't about to buy another one for him to chew up. So I made one instead.

I took two bleached and faded towels we had already designated as towels for muddy dog feet and such. I sewed them together on three sides, turned it inside out, stuffed them with the fluff from the chewed up dog bed and then sewed up the open end. Insta Griffin bed!

I'm pretty sure he likes it :-)

What I'm Reading #1

I've decided to keep track of everything I read this year. I started 2011 a few pages into a book Matt gave me for Christmas. It's called Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. I have wanted it for a long time - ever since it was recommended to me by my aunt. I've now finished 164 of its 356 pages. So far, I like it.

It is considered fiction, but it is an account of the real life affair between Mamah Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright in the early 1900's. She and her husband hired him to design a home for them in 1903 and that is where their story starts. What amazes me is the way this affair rocked the world of all the people around them - not just their families, but random people in the city of Oak Park, Illinois. Once word of their affair was public, they were outcasts - she feared being unable to get a job or see her children, he was afraid he would not be hired to design buildings and that his wife wouldn't grant him a divorce. The times were different and this was new territory.

There is a strong thread of feminisim throughout the novel - Mamah constantly thinking about her changing role as a wife and mother, a romantic partner, a citizen, etc. This was a beginning to women's rights and it's interesting to see those beginnings through the eyes of a woman who was living it, and who valued her independence much more than her peers.

And granted, I'm not finished yet, but I like these "characters" so far - both Mamah and Frank have made choices that have hurt other people and changed their lives forever. But despite their choices I can't hate these two.

The website for the book is fantastic - pictures, background information, letters, an interview with the author and much more. This whole topic has peaked my interest. Anyone want to take a road trip to Oak Park, Illinois to check out the setting in real life? Take a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio? I do!

It's a New Dawn, It's a New Day

I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't post about the calendar switch from 2010 to 2011. I have no idea how it will turn out - probably with a set of ups and downs similar to the year we just put to rest. We at the Chipley-Foster house had a pretty awesome summer - our favorite yet. You know, that whole marriage thing feels like it will be hard to beat :-) Even still, we anticipate only great things from the twelve months before us now.

In true New Year tradition, we made some resolutions, well one big resolution. The way I see it, we have a pretty great thing going these days and a lot to be thankful for. So instead of taking an about face or shooting off in some new direction, we're fine-tuning. We're improving. We are growing.

There are all kinds of ways we feel like we could be better people, friends, employees, etc. Knowing that we can't tackle everything we'd like to change all at once, we discussed it and it seems like most of the areas we'd like to improve would be categorized under a the big umbrella of organization. We aren't terribly organized people - not scatterbrained or total train wrecks, but we certainly aren't as streamlined as we could be.

We threw out all kinds of resolutions and we decided that some seemed to work under our big umbrella term. Fitness goals? Diets? Goals for work? Keeping up with laundry (which is totally mine - Matt has this one down already)? Money management? All organization.

I can come up with any any excuse to skip the gym, but if I'm organized enough to have my gym bag packed, I go. In order for my gym bag to be packed and to have enough time in the morning to work out before school, laundry has to be organized and so does my food situation. I've got to have breakfast packed if I'm going to work from the gym and lunch packed no matter what. Well I can't do those things if I haven't been organized enough to go to the grocery store.

And how does any of that fit with money management? Well pretty much all of it is related in some way, since everything we do is now included in our newly revamped 2011 budget. That wasn't what I'd call a fun day, but we took a few hours to hash it out and we feel good. Well, we at least feel like we know where our paychecks are going. So, food. We have always had a food budget. Easy enough, but with a diet plan that cuts out all processed carbs, the old food budget doesn't seem to stretch as far. All that processed food is CHEAP. We knew this already, but we were really surprised to see the impact of buying so many more sources of protein and vegetables. Man, we wish we could add that weekly pasta dinner back into the repertoire... So, in order to make the monthly food budget work (we are stubborn and refuse to change the dollar amount just yet), we have to carefully plan meals. Food organization! And off course, all that organization applies to all categories in our fancified budget.

The gym, the diet, the laundry, the budget....all organization. We resolve to increase that part of our lives and hope that all the other dominos fall into place. So far, so good.

• January 1st marked my first trip back to the gym after a hiatus that is too long to admit...
• We've been relatively processed food free today after our Christmas/New Year's eating vacation
• I currently only have one load of laundry in rotation - ready to be put away!
• We started January with the budget in place - excel spreadsheets and envelope for our date night fund ready to go
• And today, we sat down and planned four meals for the upcoming week, wrote a list and then shopped - for just the list items and staples. We've done this before, but our goal is to be a little more consistent this year.

We feel more organized already :-) Happy New Year!