Let's Get This Party Started

[This post is part of the January Cure project. Read more here: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14]

DAY 7: Get Your Get-Together Together - Date, Guests, Invites

Thursday, February 7th

Plan Your Get-Together for the Weekend of February 1-3

I'm taking a bit of liberty with this one. Instead of planning for a random get-together to celebrate my somewhat more organized apartment, I'll be using this task to get ready for Harrison's first birthday party! Only two months to go - when did that happen? Didn't I just pop this kid out?

I have lots of ideas for his first party, and I'm going to try not to go overboard but I promise absolutely nothing. I like to plan, this is my first child's first birthday party, and I like to plan. Did I mention I like to plan? As in I've already been planning this party for a month. You should see the monstrosity that is the Pinterest board I've set aside for the occasion. Except you can't, because I made it invisible muahahaha. Anyway.

I already have the (tentative) date, the guest list, and a rough idea for the invitations. In fact I just got side tracked for about an hour looking at inspiration invitations to nail down what I really want to go with. I briefly thought about doing an online invite - there are sites like Paperless Post that have a lot of insanely adorable designs. But in the end I just like the idea of sending out a hard copy. Plus, it's always fun to get real mail.

I'm keeping the details a secret because it's way more fun that way, but I will say that I'm tying it in to his nursery theme (Little World Traveler). And I totally plan on having a smash cake because nothing makes me more giddy than the thought of Harrison in a diaper, completely covered in icing. Think of the glorious photos! I mean look:

source | via

source | via

source | via

swoon

DAY 8: Weekend Chores - Flowers, Kitchen Cleaning, & Make Yourself a Meal

Friday, Saturday & Sunday, February 8th - 10th

Kitchen Organizing & Cleaning, Find a Recipe and Try it Out

So apparently when there's a day labeled "weekend" it actually means the entire weekend, not just one day in the weekend. I got confused the other day when I took a look at the entire list for January and there were only 23 days listed and I was almost positive there are 31 days in January. At least I'm pretty sure that's what we learned in elementary school. But it actually works out perfectly through the end of this month, so we're on track.

I'm not going to lie, I totally dropped the ball on the kitchen overhaul this weekend. Partially because we were gone the entire day of Sunday and partially because I kind of forgot about it completely on Saturday. I still plan on making it up down the line, but for now I don't have anything to report. Oops.

I'm not buying flowers again because the ones we bought last week are still looking perky-licious. In fact I decided to spread the cheer by clipping off a few stems and putting them in a small bud vase in the hall bathroom. Want some tips for keeping your blooms all pretty like? The following is a winning combination of my previous knowledge, common sense, and the internet.

• Trim the stems just a tad every day (at a 45 degree angle) and change out the water every other day
• After all this trimming if your bouquet starts to become too short for your large vase, split it up into several smaller (shorter) vases and spread them around the house for some bonus decor.
• I used the flower "food'' that came with the flowers, plus an extra packet I snagged from the bowl at the store. When that ran out, I started adding a dash of vinegar and a small spoonful of sugar to the water instead. 
• I put a copper penny in the vase? Apparently that's a thing, according to the internet. Not sure if it actually does anything.
• Keep them out of direct sunlight
• Smell them often (this is more for you than the flowers, though who knows, maybe flowers like to have their ego stroked a bit)

As for the "make yourself a meal" portion of these tasks, I basically do this every night now, thanks to a meal planning Groupon I bought from a company called The Fresh 20. $24 for the entire year (usually $48) and every Friday they send you the next week's list of meals, a shopping list, nutrition information, and even tips and suggestions for preparing stuff ahead of time so that cooking times on the night of are reduced. You have no idea how much stress this has alleviated. I essentially used to rotate between 8-10 recipes over and over again so we never went more than two weeks without repeating a meal. Plus, they weren't always healthy. And I always had a lot of leftover ingredients (or not enough). Most of the meals have been pretty dang good and I'm even eating (and enjoying!) things that I never would have picked out myself (cod! salmon! shrimp! basically all seafood!). And we're eating lots of veggies. The health factor of our meals has increased tenfold since we've started giving Harrison whatever we're eating for dinner. I love that we're making balanced meals that I feel good about serving him (and us).

I didn't have to make dinner Saturday or Sunday but Friday we had Teriyaki Chicken Burrito Wraps. YUM.

The Little Things

This weekend Charles and I ran a ton of errands we had been meaning to get to, which involved us trekking around to what felt like half the stores in Austin. The upside of our romp around town was that we ended up over by the nearest Crate & Barrel where I happened to have about $30 worth of store credit. That's like free money, yo! I love C&B but the sad thing is that I can only afford about 1/8th of what they offer on a regular basis, and thirty bucks doesn't go too far in the grand scheme of things. However, I had recently gotten their new catalog in the mail and a couple of their new kitchen towels caught my eye. I thought they'd be a great way to spice up the kitchen for Spring.

Our old towels are dark red & white striped cheapies from Walmart, so it was nice to bring a splash of color into the room along with some good ol' quality as well. The towels are huge - they're three times as long and wide as what you see above.

I love how with just a little change it can instantly brighten up a room or help you to pause and be thankful for all of the little things in life! You don't always have to do a renovation or complete overhaul of a space to look at it in a different light. 

I originally planned on only getting a couple of the Emily towels, but they only had one in the store and when I saw the Stock Pot towels in person I loved how they went together (and how different the textures were too), so I offset the one Emily style with two of the Stock Pot. I also threw in a Stock Pot Mitt for good measure.

 What changes are you making for Spring? I'll be back later this week with a dresser update!

My New Best Friend

Okay well "new" is a relatively loose term, I suppose, since I've had this particular product for seven or eight months now, but it is still very much my bff in the kitchen. When the husband and I got married last October, we received a new cookware set that we had registered for from his wonderful family as a wedding gift. I was super psyched to get them since I had been sporting a $20 set from Ross since sophomore year in college and I was done with that cheapness! *

One thing I didn't count on was my new pots and pans looking anything other than beautiful and right-out-of-the-box shiny forever and ever. I quickly realized that without a non-stick coating things tend to, well, stick to the pans. This is largely combated by generous amounts of butter and oil, but even if you prevent things from getting stuck, after awhile the pan starts to look like this....

Mmmmmm!

Pleasant, isn't it? Yeah, it looks like a layer of gunk, but we do wash our pans, thank you very much, and this is as clean as it gets! That is, unless you know my good friend.

Super cheap on Amazon

Yes, this aptly named can of powder is pure magic (though I suppose Harry Potter might argue that "scourgify" is a bit faster). In fact, if you visit that link I put up there in the first paragraph to our cookware on Amazon, the one thing it tells you that most customers "frequently bought together" along with the pots and pans set is this stuff. Easy to use? Why yes, yes it is. Are these visuals necessary? Probably not, but ignore that point and enjoy the pictures.

STEP 1: Wet the pan and dump out any excess water.

STEP 2: Put a generous amount of the powder on the surface that you want to tackle.

STEP 3: Start scrubbing with a cloth that you don't particularly care much about. Make sure it's wet as well so that the powder starts to make a paste. Depending on the severity of the surface, you might be doing this for awhile.

 STEP 4: Realize that the back of your pan has foreign markings on it as well and scrub some more.

 STEP 5: Rinse well and hand wash to remove any remaining residue.

Already looking better...

And now for a before and after, because those are my favorite things ever:

I don't use this stuff every day, but when I notice a pot or pan looking a little worn, I like to bust it out and make them look nice and shiny again. This powder will get out pretty much everything. If it can be removed, it will be, as long as you're persistent enough. This one pan only took me about 2 minutes. So if you have stainless steel cookware that needs a pick me up, I highly recommend it!


Do you have any "must haves" around the house?



* I realize this makes me sound like a horrible person, but you would agree, had you used those terrible pots and pans for so long.