A reveal of sorts

The new couch.

. . .with the tag still on. It's a bit more retro than we thought was our style, but we love it. And I've officially become that mom who is always yelling at her kids to get their grubby hands and feet off the new couch. lovely.

The other half of the room where the loveseat once was is still a bit of a work in progress. It includes a chair found on Craigslist (credit goes to Alisa for that) that needed sanding, staining, and reupholstering. All have been done except the last coat of stain, which is again at the mercy of the blasted Oregon rain.

So really this is only half of a living room update/reveal.

On keeping the house full of food for hungry mouths

bring your own canvas tote--medium, found here

On Saturday I went to the grocery store and brought home more food than I have in a long time. With no children, except non-running-through-the-aisles, non-begging-for-everything in sight Henry in tow, I took my time, browsed the aisles and bought whatever looked good.

Lately I've fallen into the bad habit of avoiding the large grocery trip in favor of small, $25-$30 trips every few days. This really isn't my style, and if you're familiar with these trips, a few things always end up in the cart that are too expensive and not really needed. Those things just eat up my grocery budget, until I find myself with too much month at the end of the money, if you know what I mean.

So I decided to do a major stock-up on everything we always run out of. I even bought things that we weren't out of yet, but would be soon, which is very unlike me. When I got home and unpacked, I told Jeff that I was done grocery shopping for a--while, and felt great relief in saying so.

The next morning, I opened the bread box and discovered there were only four pieces of bread left. I got out the egg carton to find three eggs left, and two were going into my cupcakes for dessert. And when breakfast was over, I found the last milk bottle in the house less than half full.

Geez. Here I was on my high horse about being such a great grocery shopper, coming home with seven large bags stuffed full of food, and I neglected to buy the staples of all staples, milk, bread and eggs--the very things that are usually the catalyst for those $25 grocery trips.

So, this very morning, I had to make another trip to the grocery store--and luckily I got out of there only a few dollars later.

And now, I'm really, really not going to the grocery store for at least two weeks. In fact, I'm going to try to go this entire week without even stepping foot into any store. Being the homebody that I am, this sounds like a dream.

One entire week without spending any money in any stores. Lofty goal? Perhaps. But I really want to do it.

Shop Update: Reusable Sandwich Wraps

New to the shop this week are reusable sandwich wraps. These will be made out of many different fabrics, but so far these four are available:

These are an item that can help to reduce lunchtime waste. I did a test run of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, where I left it in the wrapper for 8 hours. The bread stayed soft and the sandwich tasted fresh.

I have been researching what fabrics are food-safe to use as a lining and decided to use ripstop nylon, as it is waterproof, lightweight and washable. I think being able to throw it into the washing machine is an important benefit.

New totes

The first of several new listings to my shop:

seen here

and seen here

Hopefully tomorrow I will have reusable sandwich wraps to show off. I'm doing a test run to make sure they really do keep sandwiches fresh.

Various and sundry

**I am officially the proud owner of this beauty, except in a red/grey color scheme. It retails for around 300 bucks; I found it on craigslist for $75. I emailed the seller of this stroller one hour after she listed it, and then three other times in three days and never heard back. I was super sad because I wanted it so bad, but just gave up because what are you going to do if peeps never respond? Then yesterday, six days after the original posting, it was still listed, so Jeff emailed her and she responded within an hour. Maybe my emails went to her spam filter? Who knows. But we went to take a look yesterday evening and it was practically brand-new looking.

The third child gets a new stroller because the mama is sick of pushing around the old $15 graco variety bought at a garage sale. Lucky Henry? I think lucky me. I can't wait to go everywhere with this smooth, awesome piece of baby equipment.

**In other news, our new couch finally arrived last week, and I'm waiting for a sunny day to clean up and take a good picture of the new living room. As you know, in Oregon that might take some time, but it is on my to-do list. Who am I kidding--the cleaning up might take longer than waiting for a non-rainy day.

**Reason #500 why i love living here: on Saturday this local non-profit had their annual fabric sale where they sell all pieces of donated fabric from people and businesses for 50 cents a pound. There was some great stuff, and I filled this giant red shopping bag for $4.50.

Soon much of it will be made into totes for the shop, as I am leaning that direction for limabeanhome right now. I'm going to ditch making diaper bags & purses for a little while and go back to basic shopping totes, and hope soon to add reusable sandwich wraps in a new style.

Heaven knows my shop needs a little love and attention right now.

**And one more thing: Ellen and I have been working on a new bag for Classichound and it is very exciting. Soon it will be for sale in both her shops, and we hope it will be a big hit.

And that's all.

Buddies

Yesterday I had one of those parenting moments I'm not proud of. Soon after it happened, I tweeted my sisters: sometimes I get so mad at my kids I scare myself.

I am aware that every parent is allowed a few of these without totally screwing up their kids. In fact, often they prompt a powerful teaching moment about how sometimes mommies are wrong, sometimes they do things they shouldn't, and can you please forgive.

I sometimes wonder what kind of legacy I'm leaving for my boys. And by legacy I mean what am I doing, cooking, wearing, and saying that is sticking with them for more than their few-minutes-long attention spans. Will they remember me as a grumpy, yelling nag? Will they remember that we had any fun together? I will. But will they?

Later on, a bit after my not-so-proud-moment which included a tearful apology, I said to James, "can we always be best buddies?"

"Sure," he said.

"Because pretty soon it's not going to be the cool thing for you to be best buddies with your mom."

But he reassured me that he still would.

Now it has been documented. I just need to remember to quit yelling and do what it takes to deserve it.

Christmas presents

Santa Claus knows that the Fuller boys spend a lot of time lying on the ground drawing. So the Crayola Floor Pads and True to Life Crayons he left under the tree and the aunts and uncles who gifted new colored pencils and whatnot are being used and used and used again.

Tonight we finished off this busy day on the floor together, drawing stars and Super Mario characters and shapes and tigers. James was a little more talkative about his school day than usual, and my little Owen was in good spirits, super proud of the stars he was learning to draw.

Pleasant time spent together, creating.

A magical moment.