its monday and i like things/4

wearing- 

my stripe collection to death. will never tire of a striped shirt/sweater and a bold lip.

i keep purging the crap out of my closet, and just yesterday went through the basement to donate some of what i had in storage...10 LARGE TRASH BAGS OF CLOTHING LATER... i'm feeling easy and breezy and like our house just lost some weight. 

fitting into some of my fave pants again! (the stretchiest of the stretchy ones, but who cares.)

beauty stuff-

still so much lipstick. current fave: Nars audacious lipstick in grace or claudia. they are mega pricy, but sometimes if you look on amazon you can find them for HALF the price. the formula is very comfy and they stay really nicely. beautiful colors, too.

oh! and from the drug store:

these are great.

HOWEVER. got a sample of the nars audacious mascara with my sephora order recently. NO GO. SO CLUMPY. do not enjoy.


used my little rebate sephora gift card for the bobbi brown blush i was excited about and i love it. you need about 1/100th of a swipe to get a pretty berry flush. 

cooking-

made this sausage, kale and white bean soup the other night and it was a win. brown sausage, deglaze pan with white wine and chicken stock, add more stock, simmer with kale and white bean, add parsley and lemon at the end, top with some parmesan cheese and serve with toasty bread with smashed roasted garlic. not pretty, but so tasty and warm. 

reading-

not much, to be honest. trying to get going on daring greatly by brene brown, and still reading loving to know by esther lightcap meeks, but ive been using reading time to get christmas cards addressed. hand cramps R US.


watching- 

nothing but survivor. we keep saying we're "saving up" the other shows we normally would be watching for when we get tired of survivor but we're on season 19 so... idk if we're going to stop any time soon. 

making- 

bought fabric for a quilt to make for a beautiful friend's wedding. writing this blog post. doing a lot of stickers with my liza girl. Oh! i did make an advent calender. And i'm wrapping a lot of presents.

do those things count as creative? they feel good, so i'm going to say yes.

made the grandparents these instagram friendly photobooks of pictures of the girls for christmas for the second year in a row.  really easy to make and so beautiful.



loving advent, longing for jesus to come back. that's about it. maybe one of these days i'll get my thoughts together about advent and how it changes and reinvigorates my faith every year and write them down. here's hoping.

its friday and i like things/ 3

wearing- 

a lot of red. maybe it's the leaves changing? it's been unseasonably warm here, so eliza and louisa and i have been leaving the house in jackets in the morning and coming home with a few layers removed.


beauty stuff-

a lot of lipstick. favorites right now: urban decay matte revolution lipstick (i have this shade), which stays forever and isn't uncomfortably drying. steady hand in application is key. kat von d everlasting liquid lipstick is also fun. i have a few colors and i'm eyeing this one.


did i already mention lash stiletto mascara? don't remember but i love it. i like long lashes (who doesn't?!) but do not like clumping or spideryness. this one produces long skinny lashes.


every once in a while because we buy through an internet rebate thing, i'll get a sephora gift card instead of cashing out. i'm thinking my next sephora purchases will be a new color of stila liquid eyeliner or a new bobbi brown blush- i've heard they last really well.


cooking-

scrambled eggs with basil and truffle oil for breakfast. one day we did it with feta as well, delicious.


baking pumpkin banana applesauce muffins. very very healthy and they taste like it. but eliza loves them. the child will eat anything.


oh! and we made some pickles (FINALLY, greg would say.) making pickles seems so daunting and susie homemaker but it is not scary. ill throw up my how-to (i hesitate to even call it a recipe) at some point if anyone is interested. this week we did some sweet and spicy slices for sandwhiches and snacking, some regular garlic dill cukes, carrots and onions. i think we finished them on wednesday and they are half gone.



reading-

finished liane moriarty's what alice forgot. i liked it! made me want to bring it in the car to read while i waited for eliza to come out from school, which is high praise. any time i'm so into a book that i need to bring it with me in case i get a few minutes... that's such a wonderful feeling. this was another one of those books that made me real grateful for my husband and babies. so that's a positive. easy and enjoyable read.


still reading loving to know by esther meeks. so much underlining happening. a snippet:


"it has been ingrained in us that we should keep our emotions, our selves, out of the information, as you would strive to keep contaminants out of a water supply. small wonder that people are bored, when personal commitment and passion are subjective items we must check at the door, small wonder that we are bored, when we presume that information is ever only dispassionately derived or held to be true. dispassionately gleaned information, dispassionately conveyed and dispassionately apprehended, spells boredom. it suggests that knowledge has little to do with what is meaningful in life."


BOOM.


watching- 

my girls sleep. just kidding but not really. i feel like i'm attached to the video monitor at all times.


still mega into survivor. although some seasons just don't do it for me. season 13 i loved, season 14, not my favorite. can't put my finger on it.

new nursing show- aka what i watch during the one feeding i have where eliza is not awake and i can sit and nurse in front of the laptop. fixer upper on netflix. cute couple makes inexpensive real estate in texas (i guess there's just so much land out there they're giving it away?) look cute. he thinks she's smart and amazing and it's always fun to see husbands behave that way. seems so genuine. i mean, the show seems to take for granted that absolutely everyone wants a white kitchen and that all furniture should show signs of distress, but its sweet. and its a design show that doesn't make everyone's house look like it should be a doctor's office waiting room. I'M LOOKING AT YOU PROPERTY BROTHERS.


making- 


my commitment to continue making things regularly has continued! finished up another quilt top, just have to find an appropriate backing fabric. and i took a strange mumu robe from the thrift store that i had loved the pattern of but never found the right way to wear it... and made it into a dress. will surely be included in the next OOTW picture. i love how it came out, sort of 70's in print, 20's in silhouette.


eliza and i have been gathering rocks on our walks, as per usual, painting them inside, and then adding them to a special rock box. she plays with them on the kitchen floor while i make dinner most days. it's like a set of blocks she made herself. she makes "calaces" castle/palaces. ha. before you tell me i'm a creative parent i should tell you that it weighs approximately one thousand pounds, this box, and is sort of terrifying to watch the two year old play with it in close proximity to the two month old. so whether this was a dumb idea or a good idea should play out in the next few weeks.

WIL/ October

pictures from our little beach trip this october. <3 

hmm. what i learned this month. 

so cheesy, but i love birthdays. this year, the actual day was a bit of a bummer, to be honest. greg had to leave for work before i or the girls were awake, he came home after the girls had already been put to sleep. eliza acted up at a friends house so we couldn't stay. (one of those moments where you put your foot down and then regret the ultimatum because it punishes you also.) it was lonely and a little stressful. i made all the meals, did all the dishes. there was much screaming and gnashing of teeth (from the girls).

greg really felt bad- he was so upset to not be home. if i remember correctly it was an unexpected thing for him to be gone the whole entire day. i kept thinking to myself wow this is a bummer. but what i learned is that i can handle it. it's just nice to think back to five years ago and wonder- how would this have gone down then? i don't know if back then i would have been cool with a "oh let's just celebrate my birthday next weekend instead." 

and then the next weekend came! beach weekend! so much fun, so much daddy time. i didn't have to change a single diaper. it was so, so fun. not restful, but so fun. greg and i kept looking at each other like OK BUT WHEN DOES THE NIGHTTIME COME? we miss dates, we miss leaving the house at night, we miss getting to choose what to do during the day without taking into account 12,000 factors like naptime and feedtimes and crabbiness.  OF COURSE WE DO IT WAS AWESOME. 

but what have i learned? we can also handle it. we can handle that hope deferred. we're taking care of each other and we're different and better as a couple than we were when we could run around free of those 12,000 considerations. we love deeper and are better teammates and know each others drink preferences for after the girls are asleep. 

october just seemed to be a good month for discovering that even when my resources seemed sort of depleted, i actually by god's grace had a storehouse of riches. god's grace has changed me and has changed greg and i together over time, and i'm feeling sustained and prepared and grateful. 

OOTW/4

notes:

burgundy clogs- good investment. want to wear them everyday. 

brown flats- have actual holes in the bottom. should replace. terrified. takes me forever to find a good flat. greg makes fun of me, but when the front of a flat shoe points UPWARDS I CANNOT TAKE IT. i have a slight pickiness about it. however, several days the past week and a half were rainy and my feet were soaking wet... so. new flats soon.

jumpsuit on the left column, worn with leopard vans. old navy, got it for 15$. easy to nurse in & makes me feel like sort of a bad ass mechanic. 

a lot of lipstick lately. i may have to wear it daily to cheer myself up- these days where its dark early are ALREADY making me sad. 

extroversion, technology, and giving myself a break

there are about 1 million open letters, essays, etc. out there on the world wide web talking about how moms need to put down the cell phone and engage with their kids. how it is ever so sad to see a mom on her cell phone when she's at the playground with her babies.



i totally do understand where these writers are coming from, in general. i just think we need to give each other some slack. usually, i'm grabbing my phone to take a picture of one of the girls. but sometimes i'm not- sometimes i'm connecting with someone else through text messages or social media. sometimes i'm mindlessly scrolling through instagram.



i love, love, love my life. but there are days when i don't see another adult for 12ish hours. eliza is very verbal, but she doesn't quite grasp the upcoming election or the most recent episode of SNL. i love talking to her, but i need to feel connected more broadly. and that's fine. maybe someone just lost a loved one, and i'm texting them at the grocery store, while eliza is whining about not being able to eat a bagel out of the bakery case. that's fine. maybe i'm allowing eliza to play on my phone longer than i usually would so i can have a good talk with a friend who came over. fine.



the essay that has resonated with me most in this whole technology/motherhood intersection is this one. i dont feel like washing my dishes in a dishwasher makes me a worse mom, so why would being able to connect better with others on my phone make me a worse mom? in past years, mothers would have been reading a magazine while their children were playing, so why is it so bad that we play a game on our phone or look at beautiful or inspiring images or read interesting articles?


obviously don't ignore your kids, right? but i think we're all on that same page. and you know what? if you've had a really crazy day, you might just be at the park so they can run around safely and you CAN ignore them for a few minutes to regain your sanity.


basically, i'm learning it's fine. no matter what anyone else thinks, it's fine to be on your phone.

its friday and i like things/2

wearing-


basically just comfy things that fit right now? exciting.


my new clogs! i got these in burgundy for my birthday and i'm so into them. greg is less than enthused so far. i will make him a believer. when we met he didn't like high heels or lipstick.. so...


beauty stuff-


a lot of bright lipstick lately- it's generally a pick me up for me, and these days... it's needed. also- i don't need to do anything else to my face if i'm wearing it. which, if the morning does not go as planned (aka ALL OF THE TIME), is helpful.


short hair. yay. i'm loving it. trying all the different barrel sizes of curling iron on it, one at a time. its been two weeks and i already feel like it's growing out! Ah!


cooking-

made my first roast of the season yesterday. best feeling to come home to that SMELL after playing at the park.


babkas! technically baking, but still. i went off recipe and did a dark chocolate and pumpkin one recently and it went over pretty well. i loosely follow this recipe.



making-

i am coming to terms with the fact that even if i never make anything "good" or "noteworthy" or "resplendent" (lol) in my life, i still need to make things, relatively consistently. to be a good and happy and energized person. this week, eliza and i have been doing a lot of painting, whenever lucy's sleeping and we have a free moment, she breaks out the water colors and i break out the acrylics. the freedom to just ploodle around for whatever 20 minute chunk of time we have is so nice.


also- back to quilting. making a receiving blanket for my baby birthday twin, evie. blocked out two birthday presents for some of my favorite little boys. my needle broke in the middle of the quilt i'm currently doing and for some reason i'm having the HARDEST time getting motivation to fix it. i am not a mechanic. i'm having like a mental block so i'm literally just hand quilting instead, when it would be 10,000x faster if i just took fifteen minutes after the girls went to bed and fixed the machine. get your act together, holzer.




reading/ watching-


in the same vein as making- i need to be reading. i've realized that my consumption of movies and tv is largely in the hopes of conversing with someone about it, even if it is eventually. i do not have an introverted bone in my body, really. so if greg's working late, and we're not watching something together (aka- i don't have anyone to talk to about what i'm watching) i actually cannot finish anything. nothing is that interesting to me. what a weirdo.


ANYWAY. greg and i are going through old seasons of survivor that they have on amazon prime. highly recommend if you are an aspiring social psychologist and obsessed with production and editing. aka me.


other side of that coin that i am also fascinated with - america's next top model. it's like cartoon sociology. the personality types that are drawn to the competition are caricatures, and it's fascinating to watch them interact, compete, and to watch how production creates story line. another one i cant watch without someone to talk to about it. ha.


reading Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry for my fiction fix. how does wendell berry craft such beautiful, meaningful prose? how does the man make you feel so deeply, both pain and beauty, and make you feel grateful for the life you have? idk but i love him.  this is not just fiction for the story line, this is immersive. you don't want to get to "what happens next". you are in it, feeling and loving and praying and... ugh. i just love it. i could write more intelligently about this but liza's waking up from nap and i'm hoping she doesn't remove her dirty diaper and fling it around so i'm doing my best here.



just finished Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. a little bit woo-woo, if you know what i mean, but there was a lot of wisdom in it, and a lot of encouragement. it was SO light and yet somehow felt important to read. it was well timed, for me. what especially hit home for me was her description of her parents, and how their commitment to making their own lives with intention gave her the format and also the permission to live creatively herself. cool stuff.


big magic talked a lot about creativity and inspiration having a desire to work through humans, and it reminded me a lot of subsidiary focal integration, which I heard about during a conference at Cairn from Esther Lightcap Meeks. I immediately remembered I had wanted to read her book after her presentation and then promptly forgot about it. (lulu was about to make her arrival.) hopped on amazon and bought it, and am starting it now. will keep the two of you who read this blog updated. ; )



grabbing the psalms anytime i have a free minute in the morning. after eliza, psalm 3 really resonated with me, and again, i find myself praying it over and over after sleepless (or less than ideal sleep) nights. (I lie down and sleep; I awake, because the Lord sustains me. 3:5)

OOTW/3

1- gap sweater, old navy rockstar skinny jeans. nails are a combination of essie's stylnomics and sally hansen almond over the top. 

2- old navy jersey dress, ankle chain flats from probably 10 years ago. (aldo)

3-gap red sweater with side slits, grey gap fit leggings, madewell flat ankle boots from last year. 

4- banana republic striped t shirt with a scoop back, thrifted skirt, landsend flats

5-hand me down target polkadot dress, blue sequin j crew flats, burberry rose gold watch

6- abercrombie swing t shirt, forever 21 open cardigan, old navy rockstar skinny jeans, leopard print vans, fall foliage!

first picture, no shoes because in all likelihood i did not leave the house this day. wow. this little experiment continues to surprise me- confirming to me that i should really only keep around what i actually want to wear (SHOCKER), but also that having this little post schedule makes me even more excited to put outfits together, because it feels like an added creative element. silly, but the formatting the six squares actually makes me feel like getting dressed is still a creative exercise, like i'm still making something, even if i don't leave the house or i get spit up on 6 million times a day. 

OOTW/2

1/ max studio grey knit t with batwings and v neck (thrifted), gap riding pants (old), thrifted men's oxfords (that i seem to always wear when there's a light rain.)

2/ abercrombie flannel, gap cords, pink tretorns (my mom wore tretorns all the time and i love that they remind me of her), bracelet was my mom's, my sister has the other identical one. 

3/ j. crew toile cropped sweatshirt, mustard muscle tank (thrifted), old navy skinny jeans, thrifted chambray sneakers. 

4/ yellow ann taylor wind breaker, forever 21 wrap sweater, leggings, hunter boots.

5/ bass oversized crew neck sweater, gap fit grey leggings, black clark boots (with white soles!)

6/ i guess i only wore 5 outfits this week? woops.

waaay more neutrals in these little experiments than i was expecting. if this continues, i can definitely/should definitely get rid of more of my clothes. i'm already loving the streamline without feeling like i have to follow someone else's rules about how many clothes i can have in my closet. 

WIL/ September

i love the idea of writing out some bullet points of what i learned each month, on the first of the next month, SO. what i learned/september edition.

* two kids is hard. and also i forgot about how hard infants are? like i feel like i had my brain wiped. 

*it gets better so much faster than you think it will. right now i'm still regularly overwhelmed, and bedtime is still CRAY. BUT we have systems for things, i feel like im getting to know this kid, and we're eating normally again. i get a shower 6 days a week. it gets better so fast!

*on that note, oh my goodness i love cooking. its so nice to be brought meals when you've just had a baby, and it's not like i was going to whip up a gourmet meal right after coming home from the hospital, but i realized this month how much fun i have putting together meals. i love planning meals ahead of time, i love cooking things i've never made before, i love knowing my girls and greg are getting nutrients. it's honestly one of only a few creative things in my life right now. energizing! not draining... but i don't think i necessarily knew that before this month.

* i need to give myself more grace. always true, but i was feeling it this month. feeling the pressure of when i should bring my babies out for long errands, when i should be comfortable with people holding them, when i should be cleaning my house. this month was another lesson in God's grace for doing things imperfectly. i can't be the exact same mom i was for eliza now that louisas here... and i cant be the exact same mom i was for eliza when she was a newborn for louisa. it's so hard to give up this imagined ideal for me, but grace helps me live in reality. the messiness of doing my best. 

*getting out of the house is great, but i love my house with new babies. we've done a lot of great little baby trips out of the house on the weekends, and it's been wonderful. helps eliza feel like she's getting her little adventures (and greg too), stretches me to be more flexible, and is just fun. but i'm also learning that with little, tiny baby newts like lucy, i need to just express when i need to be home. and man, i'm so grateful for our house. little things, like a thrown together gallery wall, garage sale rocking chairs, or a two minute walk to the park down the street remind me what a good thing we've got going here. 

Fall To do List 2015

*cocktail party with friends. i'm thinking hot toddy's and a good pot roast.


*apple picking with liza and lucy.


*fill up some disposable cameras- always my favorite pictures, but i tend to only do them in the summertime. i don't want the babies to grow up thinking we did nothing the other three seasons. ha!


*send greg to work with a love note. one of my favorite things to do, but it's been so long!


*host new people for dinner- we're overdue for some getting to know neighbor dinners. it can be intimidating to host people you really don't know well, but afterwards i always feel like it was so worth it. also, this way people could know us beyond just "the people who walk around their yard/the neighborhood in pajamas everymorning."


*take family pictures for our christmas card! so excited about this one.


*cairn homecoming! i've got eliza practicing her cheerleading and this morning i heard her cheering for the guy that delivers our groceries.


*catch a westfield high school soccer game with the girls!


*get mums and pumpkins for the porch


*some zoo and museum trips


*the annual LBI fall trip- two years ago it was Eliza's first trip out overnight, and this year it will be lucys!


*get to know the other parents of kids in eliza's little class.


*get to the library more often! before eliza's school day, maybe? I'd love to make it a part of our little routine one of the days she goes to school, since the library is so close. it would be good for my reading list and good for the girls too. can't wait to read Cranberry Halloween and Cranberry Thanksgiving with them this year! My mom used to read them to me and i loved them.

OOTW/1

An experiment to see what I actually wear. Hopefully I'll snap a picture every time I actually get dressed... which means there will probably be like 4 ish pictures a week. TBH i'm sitting here in yoga pants, so... not picture worthy. 

Clockwise from top left:

1- target khaki joggers, old navy pink sweater, vans

2- abercrombie dark chambray, abercrombie tee, gap black cords, birks, watch

3-abercrombie tee, gap skirt, lands end chambray flats

4-gap swing grey striped sweater, black cords again! vintage cuff, frye flats

5- thrift store (mens! lined with fleece!) flanel, abercrombie tee, lucky jeans, chambray flats

6- same dark chambray! same black cords! same birks! i guess i have favorites! yurman ring

so basically... here's hoping it gets more exciting. right now the getting dressed priorities are as follows:

*can i nurse in it?

*can i sit in it without feeling like i gained 1000 pounds during pregnancy?

*if eliza ran away in the parking lot COULD I CHASE HER?

it's friday and i like things

beauty stuff:

wearing this on my nails- the perfect navy alllllmost black. 

super into bright blush and a matching toned lip lately. suggestion- 

nyx flamingo blush with Mac Candy Yum Yum lipstick

ran out of this moisturizer this week and i'm mourning it. i basically bought it thinking OH NO WAY this will justify its 18$ price tag. and now i stare at the empty container of it on my vanity ever night. it's so good i don't want to throw out the empty package. dysfunction! but just fyi- it feels like a dream... and i don't really have dry skin at all. 

since lucy arrived i've been de-cluttering (or TRYING) like a crazy person and trying to simplify. it's like reverse nesting and it is FAR more real than nesting was for me. i went through my nail polishes and put the ones i'm most likely to wear in the fall towards the front and the ones i'm least likely to wear in the back. fall favorites- dark blues and greens, lots of nudes, and metallics, always. 

of course eliza only wants barbie pink polishes, so we've been reaching for those pretty often. (maybe should have thought about that when i did my organizing.)

feeling like my beauty look this fall will likely alternate between a cat eye and bold lip with a bare face, like this, and a more graphic, colorful cat eye with naked everything else, like this, this, or this. 

wearing stuff:

this blog is thought provoking. 

i am 100% not a minimalist by anyone's definitions, but this post about a personal uniform (and it's part II) was surprisingly informative. first post on wardrobe from the whole capsule perspective that felt freeing and not limiting. 

it's narrowing down my search for the perfect things to use my upcoming birthday money for! i'm super into these hi top sneaks for skinny jeans and dresses, these perfect clogs with tights, and this nursing friendly (AND REVERSIBLE AND GORGEOUS) dress.

cooking stuff:

OH MY WORD this autumn lasagna. Made for my in laws the other day and died. went to heaven, came back. made extra sauce and froze it because i want to continually surround myself with it. that good. that autumnal. so much delicious in your mouth.

these crock pot carnitas were also a giant success but word to the wise: a 5 LB ROAST IS HUGE. it is huge. it will feed your family for many days, even if your husband is a giant and eats like it and your toddler eats 6 full meals a day. we had many carnitas themed breafast, lunches, and dinners. LOL.

eliza and i made some pumpkin chocolate cookies with pecans for us and neighbors... google the recipe, any recipe. cant go wrong with those ingreds. ours were weird looking because eliza is two and did not use a spoon to get them on the baking sheet. still yummy.

reading stuff:

hoping i get back into the swing of reading soon. so many exciting things on my list to read.

still trying to finish Jurgen Moltmann's The Crucified God.

reading thru 1-3 John right now. is it just me or when you haven't read the bible in a while, when you come back to it it's almost like your fluency is rusty? yeah... my fluency is rusty. NAP BABIES NAP. 

have about 1000 social psychology books, novels, and things by brene brown in my amazon cart, just waiting to be purchased and read. hopefully soon!

ok i think we're going to whole foods to pick up our ninetyseventh pumpkin of the (just started) season and drink smoothies. WEEKENDZ.