7QT: March 20, 2015

Linking up with Kelly for 7 Quick Takes!

1) Happy first day of spring! It is flipping snowing.


2) This is the end of my second week back to work after maternity leave. I miss my little man, and he misses me. So far at daycare he's opted to eat or sleep, and not a single day has he done both. His record for eating there is something like 10 ounces of breastmilk in a whole day (so much is getting wasted! Waaaaah!), and yesterday he drank four. All day. Four ounces. This from a kid who is not even three months old and already weighs 15 lbs. But he slept over five hours, so there's that. And he spends his evenings like this:

Blooooooooob.

3) I got so much work done these past two weeks; my job depends so much on having a full pipeline and obviously after twelve weeks off my pipeline is somewhat diminished, so that's a big deal. As a reward I spent my lunch break yesterday seeing Cinderella. Disney has a history of getting things very wrong, in my opinion, but they got this one right. I give the credit to Kenneth Branagh -- although I really want to know who's responsible for Helena Bonham-Carter's teeth. She couldn't talk around them! And that is literally my only complaint. I'll be buying this one for my daughter, who at two is not ready for the movie theatre.

Have courage, and be kind.


4) During my last week of maternity leave, my husband happened to be traveling for work. My mom and sister came into town from Pennsylvania for two of the four days to help me out with the kids. While they were here, we sent the toddler to daycare one day and we did an epic cleanout of my closet. You may remember that my Lenten sacrifice has been shopping; I had enough clothing for... I don't even have an apt comparison. It was a horrorshow. I opened my closet door and my sister actually gasped. I didn't take a "before" picture, even though it occurred to me to do so, because it was so bad that even for the sake of an extreme before-and-after I just couldn't show anyone.

We went through every. single. item. My sister went home with a whole new wardrobe; my mom took quite a few pieces too (plus some for a couple of my other sisters and my sister-in-law). When he got back, my husband still dropped off 8-10 garbage bags of donation items. And my closet is still full. Just not over-full. Look!

To the left, to the left.

Straight on.

Aaaaaand the other side!

Furthermore, I'm implementing a strict "item-in, item-out" rule when I'm allowed to shop again, but I think I'll be doing less of that anyway now that I know what I have. Being able to see what I own and being able to find what I need are amazing.


5) I had a bunch of stuff that was brand new with tags or very gently used that I don't need, so I'm going to be selling it through ThredUP. I ordered a cleanout bag from them but I haven't yet sent it in. I have a laundry basket full of items to send in and now that I've seen how big the bag is I think I'm going to need at least two more! I'll report back on my experience.


6) Did I mention that it's snowing? I am so completely over winter, you guys. This year just seemed particularly horrible. I had a sweet baby to snuggle, which helped some, but it was so cold and icy all the time that I never took him out so we were just in the house all the time. I'm ready for spring to get here for real and stick around!


7) As someone who struggles with meal planning, I have to say I did really well this week! On Monday I made ham-and-cheese quiche, on Tuesday for St. Paddy's I made shepherd's pie...

This is before the baking step, obviously. I used Irish cheddar for the top too, obviously.

...On Wednesday I forgot to defrost the frozen chicken so we had leftover shepherd's pie, and yesterday I made roast chicken with asparagus and creamy parmesan rice. And tonight I am OFF DUTY.