our home is small. there’s not a ton of room for many decorations (if i could put a nativity scene on every single surface i would). so to enhance the feel of christmasness in this house, i treated myself to a selection of some candles for the holidays at the perfect petal in highland square. the smell of the holiday season is now wafting all about. not all of these scents are overtly christmas. but they’re enough musky and woodsy and smokey that it feels like a winter wonderland in here.
- illume balsam & cedar
- tokyo milk marine sel
- rosy rings neptune
- (also pictured are my himalayan salt candle lamp and beeswax candle)
what are your favorite scents or candle companies, holiday or otherwise? what small things to you do around the house to make it feel more like thattimeofyear?
p.s. another easy (and more natural) way to make the home feel more christmas-y is to simmer some pantry staples on the stove. megan has a great tutorial on holiday simmering scents, which i definitely plan on trying.
elsewhere
i’ve been compiling this list of links for at least three weeks now and i think it’s one of my favorites. enjoy!
- for mothers of daughters AND mothers of sons: i’ve started telling my daughters i’m beautiful.
- a new york times article about where we honeymooned. yes, i am totally bragging. and if you are planning an upcoming getaway and can handle some bit of backwoods, go here.
- caught on tape: random acts of love and kindness and surprise. i was bawling not even 30 seconds into this.
- watch andrea gibson perform her spoken word, birthday. it will give you goosebumps.
- i’m totally making these this december: yummy brownies from subtle revelry
- free download for sufjan stevens christmas (and other great music samplers on noisetrade!)
- expected paths of life can be a dreadful hoax. you are supposed to sing and dance while the music is played. (please watch this is if you have a hunch that, perhaps, there is more to life than school, work, retirement).
p.s. congratulations to emily who won the artifact uprising giveaway!
photo by Tessa Richardson
aahhhh, mondays. these are my intentional stay-at-home-and-do-absolutely-nothing days. the powerdriver family usually has lots going on over the weekend and max is transitioning back to spending his days with us (for the record: i have one baby but nanny another one during the work week). so i make sure monday is reserved for catching up on sleep (naptimes are often missed over the weekend) and getting the three of us back on the same page and in the same groove. i stay in my pajamas and rarely do my hair. we do not leave the front gate. today, for example, except for playing with the water table, we have not left the living room. it’s been spectacular.
our typical stay-at-home-and-chill-out schedule
- 6:45 ramona starts stirring. jp and i keep sleeping
- 7:15 jp gets ramona and brings her back to bed. i nurse her while jp and i chat about the upcoming day’s plans
- 7:30 it’s up an at ’em. jp is making breakfast and getting ready to milk the goat. i’m dressing mo and making myself somewhat presentable (“somewhat” being a loosely used term around these parts)
- 7:45 the three of us are usually eating breakfast and drinking coffee (mo doesn’t drink coffee but she tries to) when max is dropped off.
- 8:00 max and mo toddle around the first floor and front yard playing with toys and bringing me books and saying hello to each other
- 8:20 i feed max and mo breakfast
- 8:40 change diapers!
- 9:00 by this time both babes are in bed.
- 9:00 until whenever they wake up i catch up on various interweb things, clean whatever’s on my daily cleaning schedule, return emails, change the goats’ water, feed the chickens, tweet and pin, and package up any etsy sales and/or make any needed updates to the store. this is, hands down, my most productive time of the day.
- 11:00(ish) the kids are awake and we eat a snack (or sometimes it’s lunch) and then let them get some post-nap wiggles out. we read books, play with a very obnoxious tractor, and practice our animal sounds. we do this some more. we might head out to the water table, or go give scraps to the animals, or hop in the pool in the backyard, or climb through the vinyl tunnel, or ride the scramble bug, or climb the rocks. we just play play play. sometimes i’ll do something a little more structured but not always. it’s lots of just hanging out with them. snacks are involved. and getting them to do tricks for me (animal noises, responding to questions, pointing to body parts, generally showing off how smart they are 😉 ).
- 2:00 second nap. ramona usually will take hers. this is becoming just some quiet time for max as he doesn’t always fall asleep but will babble happily in his crib. i do, i don’t know what i do. write blog posts like i’m doing now. check google reader (again!). wash dishes. sit on my arse.
- 3:45 they’re usually both up by now and it’s time for max to be picked up! again, we’re playing in the living room. it is low-key, for reals. i know, you can barely contain your excitement for my mondays.
i should point out this monday looked absolutely nothing like what you see above. max still has not slept one wink (it’s 3:00) and ramona was a little grouch butt who only slept for one hour for her first nap and still, like her mother, has not gotten proper clothes on today. also, oddly enough, the schedule we seem to follow now seems weirdly similar and low-key to what was going on october when i first started looking after max and when the babes were much younger. except we go far fewer places as i am a slave to nap time (and you will be too once your child gets on some sort of cycle or schedule!).
what does your typical monday look like? any different than your other weekdays?
to continue yesterday’s topic of ways to keep babies cool in the summertime (if you aren’t blessed/privileged/lucky enough to have AC), here’s another thing i do with the kiddos to make the heat a little more bearable. after sunscreening them up we go out to the front yard where i have an old mid-century modern teak planter. i had high hopes of a little succulent garden in this thing but i have no green thumb. so it stood on the porch and faded terribly. until jp told me i should fill it with water and let the babes splash around. have i told you my hubby is a genius?
so we turn the hose on, fill the water table up, put toys in the water table, and let the kids get soaked. everyone is happy.
i advise, if possible, putting hats on your little one(s) to protect their adorable faces from the sun. i know what you’re thinking: max and ramona don’t have hats on. i know. i can’t. these little ones won’t let me. but i still advise it.
lacey is really a good mama.
the kids have grown much bigger now and it’s almost time to move them on to their new home (max’s parents are taking them!). but for now we love having these two frolickers around. they’ve been taken such good care of by their mama that we’re not really worried about how they’ll do out on their own. sounds sorta like how children work too, don’t ya think?
have a good weekend everyone!
line dry your laundry. it’s easy, relaxing, efficient. the clothes smell amazing afterward, there’s nary a wrinkle to contend with (though, dress shirts will, for eternity, be a pain in my ass) and the sun helps to bleach out spots. my whites have never been whiter and my clothes hold up a lot longer. laundry day is saturday and it’s a great excuse to get outside and make sure i’m getting some sun.
it doesn’t make for the most interesting photo-op but it’s one of my favorite chores (if only i could get to likin’ putting the clothes away).
psst. see the yellow dress, striped bloomers, and quilted jacket in the second-to-last photo? recent thrifted finds for ramona bean! these $5 sanita clogs in the above photo didn’t hurt the wallet either 😉
welcome
