Constellations

I think this summer The Monkey will be old enough to stay up late and look at stars. I bought a deck of constellation cards along with a Smithsonian book about how to find constellations and where they are in the sky. There's also some awesome free constellation apps too. 

We live in the city so stars can be difficult to see from our house but we live close to a park with a very large sledding hill so I think I can take a blanket down there some night later this summer and we can look at stars. 

I have no idea how interested she is - sometimes she can be pretty fickle and other times she says she's interested because she knows Bimmer Man or I am interested in something. So we'll see if this summer activity is a hit or if it's a total bomb!

The Kids' Rooms

The Monkey is super excited to be a Big Sister and we want to keep her feeling like she's special too - because I know when this baby comes, it's going to turn her world upside down and she's probably not going to feel as good as she does now. I get it - she won't be the center of attention anymore, a little kid will be in the way, a baby will be crying, she'll need me but I won't be able to help right away... Oy, big changes!

I'm going to change up The Monkey's room - her walls will be getting a fresh coat of paint (a super warm gray instead of the bright blue, which I've ALWAYS HATED), and she even helped pick out a bright pink over-dyed rug which should be coming in the mail in the next week or so. This means that I get to do bright pink accents (I made a hot pink wreath awhile ago, and I need to find some fun vintage Barbie posters that would work well in her room). I would love to do a minimalist garden art theme - as in simple line drawings of plants and flowers but I have to remember - this is HER room, the items that go into HER room need to be loved by HER and they need to inspire HER. If that means Barbies and Princess stuff, then so be it. She'll probably want to change it all by the time she's a teenager anyway. So it's hard to convince Bimmer Man of the same for the new baby's room - I want simple because in approximately 4 years, I'll be doing the same thing, changing up the boy's room (referred to hereafter as "Chewy") with things that Chewy likes - which may NOT be cars.

Children are their own persons, they have their own likes and dislikes - if The Monkey doesn't want a Ferrari flag in her room and only agrees to it because she thinks her dad wants her to, then that's not ok with me. Children need to be allowed to say NO to things too and to feel just fine with saying no. As a parent there are times that you need to advocate for your child's choices - not force a choice upon them because you as a parent like it. I'm sure I'll encounter this debate again in the future regarding decor with both children. That's fine with me. I'm just not painting any of the rooms black, dark pink, or dark blue or any other dark color besides Benjamin Moore Ashley Gray if either child wants a dark color. Dark colors are a pain in the ass to paint over.

Besides that, I'm going to swap the children's rooms when The Monkey is a teenager and suddenly realizes the front bedroom has a larger closet. I absolutely know that will be a HUGE contentious debate at some point.

For furniture for Chewy's room I'm planning on buying the blue Hemnes dresser from Ikea -

The Monkey has the same dresser in white.

And confession:

I am in love with this linen cabinet:

I want to put it in our upstairs little dressing area that Bimmer Man has or even in our bedroom so we can hide away all the linens we have or books...because I have to sell a bookcase which means we each need to sort out and get rid of half of our books. Each of us had a bookcase that was mainly our own books but sometimes we'd stick each others books wherever so...books need to go. BOO. I guess that's just part of having a baby - plus downsizing, er, decluttering, er, minimalizing stuff is really great anyway, right?

Oy, The Monkey's new rug comes on Wednesday so today, if we don't do a playdate, we're going to Home Depot to get 4 gallons of paint and recycle old light bulbs. I'll update with photos next week.

Oh, and order new "vintage" Barbie prints that The Monkey has picked out herself. 

Tuesday's Frugal Mission

Mer.

Frugality.

Frugal.

CHEAP.

Frugal doesn't necessarily mean cheap. Frugal means thinking about where you're spending your money, what you're spending your money on, and actively making a choice on how you're spending money.

Some days I'm great at being frugal. Others... not so much. OY. I think it's like that for a lot of people.

In any case, today I had a BRILLIANT idea. I saw these awesome curtain rod strings at Ikea and thought - I NEED THOSE FOR MY BACK PORCH.

And then I remembered that I bought the same curtain rod strings - in fact I bought them to string up in the dining room to hold The Monkey's art work but I never got around to it (and I've determined I really like the painting we have in the dining room anyway so I bought magnet clips for the fridge). I thought I might have donated the string or maybe sold it in the last yard sale that we had but no, I didn't do anything with it. Instead the curtain rod string thingy was just hanging out in a basket in the closet.

I even have leftover home decor fabric from when I made curtains for The Monkey's room when I was pregnant. SCORE.

All I need are 4 extra corner holder thingys from Ikea and some type of hanger clips and I'm all set to hang up some curtains - instead of using the tension rods which keep falling on The Monkey when she's playing back there (it's sort of funny. I mean you suddenly hear something snap and then a 3 year old screaming "GHOST! IT'S A GHOST! I CAN'T SEE!!!").

So the total cost for these curtains AFTER finding what I already have in my house will be under $10. WOO HOO!!!

My NEXT frugal mission after Ikea and the curtain rod string thingy is to go to the library.

I reserved 5 books - two are urban homesteading books which are all about turning your yard into a vegetable garden and basically making the most out of a 1/4 acre of land. Here in the city we have like an 1/8 of an acre - but with the tree coming down in the back, I can start to take advantage of all the sunlight we're going to get next year and plan out more vegetables and determine how to PRESERVE what I grow. That's the tough part - you can only eat so much while it's fresh so knowing how to preserve homegrown food is really a good thing to know. I'd like to do lasagna gardening in our front flower beds for vegetables and move all the flowers into the actual yard - but make some sort of patio for chairs and a table (yes, we hang out in the front yard here in Minnesota, sometimes even in the garage!). First I need to read HOW to do some of this shit and determine how much sun the front gets to know if I can actually move some flowers and how bad chicken wire will look from the street. Maybe I should start looking at what grows best for vines... Meh, whatever... I have lots of months to think about gardening and to write down which flowers did the best this year.

Three books are just for funzies - one stupid Nora Roberts book (the last in a trilogy which will take me two or three days to read); another last-of-a-trilogy book in the Grave Mercy series which won't take me long at all; and the 4th book in the Logan McRae series by Stuart MacBride (if you can't tell it's a book set in Scotland by a Scottish author).

And the last frugal thing that I do today:

Make lunch with leftovers from dinner - some type of veggie wrap or quesadilla with the grilled veggies from last night.

Cook dinner with the last of our CSA veggies from last Thursday. Tonight = roasted veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, beets, turnips) with rice pilaf.

If you notice, there's no meat listed above. Basically we get enough veggies where I don't really need to cook meat with a meal. There's no way we can eat everything if I include meat. We become partial vegetarians in the summer with the amount of vegetables we receive with our CSA and with what I supplement from the co-op or Cub or Target or Byerly's. That doesn't mean we don't have meat - in the freezer there's pork chops, chicken, ground beef, fish, and shrimp. I have meat so when we do need some protein I can just pull it out of the freezer instead of running to the grocery store or wherever to get meat. It's a cheap way to eat meat - I buy when it's all on sale (and I don't buy the cheap stuff, I buy organic free range chicken, organic grass fed beef, organic fed pork, etc...) and then I toss it into bags with marinade in portions for 1 or 2 people.

So.. I think that's all we're up to today.

Happy Tuesday!!!

Free Things I Love To Do In The Summer

Kids are freaking expensive, and places where you usually bring your kids for entertainment can be REALLY expensive - hence why we've never been to Underwater World (See here for ticket prices) or Valley Fair or to the rides at the Mall of America or even to the Minnesota Zoo without someone that has a membership. 

Am I denying my child a fun childhood? NO.

I'm being a smart parent that likes to save money.

So we do other things instead.

Saint Louis Park offers free concerts in the park on Wednesday nights.

I did end up buying a pool pass for each of us, however, we've used it 5 times in a week so that's already paid for itself. 

The local neighborhood park is always entertaining.

We bike to Lake Calhoun and stop at the parks around the lake, bring a snack/lunch/drinks and people watch. 

The LIBRARY. OMG. It's the best. I swear, I come home with two new books to read and The Monkey comes home with BAGS full of books. Do they all get read? Not every week but we sure do have fun picking out books - her current favorites are the Fancy Nancy series and all books by Mo Willems (if you haven't heard of Knuffle Bunny, you need to get on that shit, best kids' book series ever!). 

We also just bought a new tag-along bike trailer so The Monkey can sit and pedal along (it's called a WeeHoo). It doesn't have the storage like the full-on bike trailer but it sure is easier to ride and a heck of a lot more fun. Bimmer Man can get up to 17 miles per hour (probably even faster if we were really biking) and I was going along at 13 mile per hour around Lake Calhoun - one guy was happy enough to give us our speed and an enthusiastic thumbs up to The Monkey for being an awesome "biker."

LEGOS. Our basement looks like The Lego Movie. 'Nough said.

Gardening in our yard. The Monkey is happy with a shovel, a bucket, a rake, and a garden hose. Dirty? Yes. Memorable? Yep. I'm starting to teach her how to identify plants. So far she knows a few herbs, lilies, tomato plants, and butterfly bush. And yes, she's only 3.

Cooking/Baking. She helps dump all the ingredients into the bread machine to make bread. She smashes eggs (please note, I didn't write "crack" eggs), stirs what needs to be stirred, scoops cookie dough onto cookie sheets, and is a pretty great "helper" in the kitchen. 

Splashpad. It's free for residents. Generally The Monkey only lasts 15 - 25 minutes anyway, so we don't go as often. Andplusalso because it's free it gets busy and the older kids can be a little nuts. Some parents don't actually watch their kids and the older kids ruin the fun of the younger kids. 

CLEANING. Put your kid to work. I give The Monkey a cloth and a squirt bottle of water and I just say... "Have fun cleaning! You said you were bored!" It doesn't last long... but I also haven't heard "I'm bored!" in quite a few weeks.

Sooo... there's my list of ideas of things to do that are free (or mostly free if you already have the supplies). Summer is a ton of fun and I really like to make sure that we're enjoying the great days outside when we can. I LOVE summer... and I LOVE to enjoy these days while we can - because in the middle of winter I really do miss the 90 degree days of the summer!

Wordless Wednesday

The Inevitable Ill-Placed Band-Aid

And sometimes you don't get to choose where your child gets her boo-boos.