sneaky squash smoothie

Ready for the smoothie of the week? I was looking through our leftover fruit this week and all I could see was squash! I’ve heard about putting broccoli and other veggies in smoothies so I thought, why not?!

It turned out pretty yummy! We went with a more tropical flavor:

frozen tropical fruit blend

fresh kiwi that was getting wrinkly

coconut water flavored with peach and mango

our regular seeds

one squash and a mini zucchini

great idea! squash is mild and sweet so I bet this was delicious 🙂

I blended the squash first with a little coconut water to get it to break up really well and then tossed in the rest.  The consistency was great, but there were still some chunks of mango at the bottom.  And you would never be able to tell there was squash in there! I want to give some to the hubs and have him figure out the secret ingredient, haha, he sure won’t guess it!

I love the speckles from the kiwi seeds and the flax seeds too.  Would you try squash in a smoothie? What other veggies can we throw in smoothies?

The un-garden

Our garden is growing like, well, like a weed, haha.  We went away this last week for a few days and came back to this:

Those sunflowers are c.razy! They’re actually blocking our tomatoes a bit, so we’re planning on moving the little guys out from underneath the mammoth sunflowers to get more sun.  But we’re not talking about our garden today.  We’re talking about the “other” garden.  Last year we started a compost pile near the other side of the yard that had a bit more shade and just threw in all of our grass clippings, leftover veggies, egg shells, leaves, oranges, avocados, coffee grounds, peals, everything. And just let it do it’s thing.  We don’t really do anything to it, except maybe toss it once a year? Well, color us surprised when plants started growing from it!

‘native plantings’ love it.

We have some gorgeous squash/zucchini looking plants. Some tomatoes and maybe a pumpkin?

it’s like a surprise every time you harvest!

And we already started harvesting and the squash is yummy!  So note to self for next year’s garden: Don’t worry about planting time, starting seedlings, hoses and irrigation set up, weeding, and weeding some more, and soil tests.  Just throw some garbage out in a pile and let it grow!

Do you have a compost pile? Want to help us weed our “real” garden?

Smoothies

I’ve always liked the idea of having smoothies for breakfast, but for one reason or another (mostly it’s just washing the blender) I don’t really get around to making them.  Well, that’s all going to change! Starr Lily really likes to drink her smoothies so I decided I would start off easy and make at least one smoothie a week.  Want to follow along?

Here are some of the basics I almost always have on hand for delicious smoothie making: chia seeds (full of yummy goodness with a fun texture), flax seeds (full of omegas) and hemp seeds (great source of protein) and for the base, orange juice and/or almond milk with some Greek yogurt.

To change the flavor and the color I mix up different “add-ins”.  Add-ins can vary from bananas, to kale, to strawberries, to spinach, to kiwi, to almond butter, to mango – you get my drift, almost anything you might already have on hand.

I don’t really measure anything, just a handful of this a sprinkling or three of that. There is lots of tasting that goes on throughout the smoothie making process and you want to know the best part of it all?! If I made too much and have leftovers, I pour the extra smoothie into Popsicle molds…

and voila! instant healthy dessert.

I sometimes often daydream about the day I’ll own a vitamix, but until then I’ll keep entrusting my little kitchen aid blender to whip us up some good smoothies.

So here is our smoothie for this week:

1 banana (leftover from yesterday’s snack)

1 avocado (looked like it needed to be eaten today)

strawberries (decided not to add them in last minute)

handful of spinach

1 mango

some flax seeds

some chia seeds

some hemp seeds

orange juice (just a little left on container)

almond milk

greek yogurt

I usually start with the leafy stuff fisrt so the blender can really break it down: throw in spinach, and oj.  Then add the rest!

I liked the green color it had going on, so we munched on the strawberries instead. Just throw it in a glass, top with a straw and enjoy!

Yum! This one was Starr Lily approved.  What do you like to add to your smoothies?

In the White Room, With no Tile…

The part I was dreading about this remodel the most was what I like to call Dustmaggeddon. Flashback almost 3 years ago, Doug ripped up the tile in our living area. There were three different tiles on the floor in one room, reminding me of a tile showroom through the decades (since of course none of them coordinated with each other in any way). Doug just got it into his head that he should take up the tile and brought in an air chisel and went to work….without covering any furniture, or even closing the laptop. EVERYTHING was covered in a thick layer of black dust throughout the ENTIRE house. I moved out for a few days so I could breathe (I was pregnant, Dexter was 1….neither of us were so good with this process). It was probably a week of chiseling and then 2 weeks of cleaning (with tile installation in the middle). But I expected better this time since Doug knew we were going to prepare for the tile rip up. I start making dinner and then I hear it….the air chisel. He had said it was a few days away, but apparently changed his mind. My whole bedroom was quickly covered in the dust, but luckily it was localized to the bedroom. Since then, I’ve managed to clean it all up and he has found a better way to remove the tile without creating such a disaster (renting a tool from Home Depot that does a better job with less mess), but I still feel like I can’t breathe very well. Sigh.

Big progress since the last post though is that ALL the tile is up. The whole step up to the throne is gone now. I still shuffle my feet walking in there anticipating the step though. The shower tile is also gone, as well as the triangular step that was in there to reach the pit. I’m freaked out by the shower a little but Doug assures me it will look great. We finished up the foam board insulation and then Doug wrapped the room in vapor barrier…next up was a day of me cleaning up tile mess and we started installing concrete board and dry wall. Oh wait, back up a little. Before the room got wrapped Doug decided to change up the electrical a little so that the vanity lights are on a different switch than the recessed lights (SO GLAD he did that). We wanted to in the first place, but since the recessed lights were an afterthought it was a little more difficult than it would have been had they always been a part of the plan.

I made a diagram with measurements of all the wood boards on the walls before we covered them up so they would be easy to find when we needed to screw into them. It came in handy as we hung all the drywall, and it will be nice as we install everything else too.

Doug spent the weekend building the corner linen closet and finishing up the drywall work….lots of mud and sanding, as well as skim coating the shower ‘tub’. Not sure the proper name for that since its not going to be a pseudo tub anymore, but is still a step down…well? Chasm?  Trench? He also redid all the plumbing shutoff knob dealies and drains (they have to sit more flush to the wall with our cabinets) and put in a new toilet drain since it had to be lower with the step gone. Next up, tile! Any wagers on when it will all be done??  Here’s some bad iPad pictures since Doug has taken both our camera and back up point and shoot to work and left them there.  Awesome.

The kids’ room – paint and furniture

The kids’ room has been an ongoing project for… well, since we moved in almost 2 years ago! I wish I had a before picture to show you, but I’ll just say that the beige motif of the basement was in the bedrooms too. Everything was beige. Walls, ceiling, carpet, closet doors, trim, closet hinges, windows… everything. And we love color! At least we had a clean slate to work with. The very first thing we did was pull up that carpet and found beautiful wood floors underneath. We had those refinished and stained a rich dark brown before moving in and that was the. best. idea. ever. No dust to deal with and they were done in 4 days. Amazing!

During my “nesting” phase while preggers with Stone I just HAD to get this room the house painted. Isn’t it funny how these moods just hit you?! I knew I wanted to use Anne Marie Horner’s fabric from The View Along the Way’s nursery for the curtains. Isn’t her nursery super cute? I wanted stronger colors on the walls though and went with a blue and a green(or is that more yellow?) from the fabric. I felt it was still a bit girly without screaming girl’s room! I ended up going with Sherwin William’s nugget and the blue I can’t recall and had no left over paint to reference. It might have been Watery, but I’m not sure. Anyways, I love the color combo and the plan is to use corals and blues and yellows and browns for accent colors.

so bright and cheery! Love those hooks.

 

With all the crazy color going in there the furniture had to be white. Since the plan was for the kids’ to share this room we looked for a bunk bed and got a great deal on a Craigslist find.

The armoire we had from before and is super useful since we have little closet space and the little dresser was a Craigslist find as well! Can you tell we’re sort of obsessed with Craigslist?

I’m a sucker for that look. Your kids room will match my bathroom cabinets 😉

 

The changing table is still in there, but I’m thinking of selling it soon. Space is a limited commodity in our house and oh yeah, the hubs accidentally ripped the door off with the cargo pockets on his pants. (I told him those went out of style years ago!)

Yup, I think it can go.

 

And that’s it! I have lots of plans on how I’d like to finish decorating:

• we have some hooks for bags and sweaters at Starr Lily’s height already, but I want to make more things easily accessible for her (ie, shift clothing to lower drawers she can reach in)
• curtains
• incorporate birdcages, maybe over the armoire and clear off all the stuff up there now
• some sort of bin to hold the stuff animals currently on the top bunk
• a mobile for Stone
• a pretty handmade quilt (or two)
• some artwork (did you see my Pinterest “yarn S” fail on the changing table?)
• under bed storage for extra books, or something on the wall in the bunk bed
• change the fan lighting
• maybe a rug

I hope to have some mini projects completed and get this room in shape! How do you all decorate your kids’ rooms? What do you use for inspiration?

Meal Plan for Remodeling Craziness

So I did cook this past week, but tried to be more flexible than usual.  I am trying to not buy foods that NEED to be eaten on certain days, and making meals out of mostly pantry items.  Here’s what we had…

Monday: Homemade Pizza, Focaccia, and Caesar salad (focaccia and pizza dough were from rtisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day). I used some tomatoes, caramelized onion, fresh basil, and slivered garlic to top the pizza, along with marinara and mozzarella. Super yum.  Side note, someone needs to teach me how to use a pizza peel.  And give me a pizza peel.

Tuesday: Doug and I worked pretty late ripping up tile. My mom watched the kiddos and sent over some dinner (chicken and spaghetti, a childhood fave)

Wednesday: Thai style Stir fried Noodles with Chicken and Broccoli, from America’s Test Kitchen.

Thursday: Lasagna with Goat Cheese and Chicken Sausage, from Barefoot Contessa. With a salad. Does anyone else have dinner party at Ina’s on their bucket list?

Friday: Doug had man night with the guys and had burgers with them, so the kids and I had leftover lasagna. I did whip up some vegan black bean brownies and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, with coffee, for the wives to hang out during guy night.

Saturday: Tofu Ramen Soup with Spinach and Cremini Mushrooms. Pretty much every food item Doug hates most in life but he had seconds. Just like last time I served it.

Sunday: Father’s Day cookout at my brothers house. I provided a blueberry and romaine salad with goat cheese, homemade yogurt dressing and candied almonds. All made up based on what was available in the fridge.

This week I have lots more flexibility planned, but the following should make an appearance….

Spinach and Mushroom Ravioli with garlic bread
Eggplant Parmigiana and salad
Pork Carnitas with wheat tortillas
Shrimp Fried Rice
Homemade pizza
Buffalo Wings with some sort of blue cheese/celery/romaine/tomato salad
What did you guys have? What do meals look like during a remodel for you?

Related articles

• Meal Plan 5/20 (derivingmommyhood.wordpress.com)
• Meal Plan 5/13 (derivingmommyhood.wordpress.com)
• Meal Plan 6/3 (derivingmommyhood.wordpress.com)

Lights, Action, and Cockroach Poop

This is the second post in a journey to demolish an ugly bathroom and make it beautiful (and more functional).  I started out our bathroom remodel while Doug was at work by cleaning out all the cabinets and getting us all set up to use the second bath.  I’m actually a little happy that Charlotte isn’t potty trained (or training) right now so there’s less of a line for the one bathroom we have left.  We are also working on convincing Dexter to flush on occasion now.  When Doug got home from work and saw the clean slate, we were ready to jump right in and remove the gigantic mirrors (which were just barely attached o.O) and the vanities (that he hacked up with a circular saw.  Not sure that it was necessary to do it that way or he just wanted to cut stuff up.  I set aside things that I could take to Habitat for Humanity ReStore as we went (the ceramic soap holders, medicine cabinet, sink faucets…so not the best stuff out there but I felt pretty awful tossing EVERYTHING in the room) and the rest got tossed in a truck that we borrowed from a friend (Thanks, Monique!  Doug already misses it).  We carefully removed the toilet and put it in the garage to go back in later (instructing Dexter that he can’t use it in the meantime….).  From there Doug took over and carefully removed attacked all of the drywall with a hammer.

Woo hoo!

Luckily my Mother-in-Law decided to pay us a visit to watch the kiddos while Doug and I made great weekend progress.  I begged, but she didn’t want to stay until the project was complete.  A lot of the furring strips (I looked that up a few times, really thought it was firring) had to be removed and replaced because they were moldy or rotten, and Doug added in some strips of 1×4 so that we could mount all of our cabinetry without worrying about studs.  Such a smartie sometimes.  There was a ridiculous amount of cursing as he drilled into the concrete block, enough that his mom even came in and yelled at him.  Had she had soap handy I think she would have washed his mouth out….

Aww, I remember that little shop vac. Doug helped Morgan install new floors a while back and that little vac was there too help too.

I removed the weird diagonal wall, (imagine me flexing my reciprocating saw muscles….the plan as of now is to make that corner into a linen closet) and we dry walled that portion of the ceiling so as to contain the cockroach poop avalanche, then I assembled all of our cabinetry (the Hemnes series from Ikea) so that we could try it out in the space and figure out where things would go.  Good thing I build a lot of Lego models with Dexter….Ikea cabinetry was pretty much the same. Doug ran new electrical so that we could have a light over each vanity…and when we turned them on, we realized that it was not enough light.  Don’t tell Doug, but I’m also not 100% sure I like the lights we picked…what do you think?  Maybe I’ll have to wait and see after everything else goes in.  We forgot how dark the shower was and how great it would be to have a light in there….so another trip to the store and we had two recessed lights to install for some more light.

He’s kind of like R2 D2, no?

(They didn’t have the shower trim kit in stock that we wanted for the light, so that will go in when we get to a store that has it)

Doug added some more electrical boxes too so that he could have an outlet near his vanity and we could have outlets underneath to plug in some under cabinet lighting.

(Imitate R2D2sounds here.)
Beep beep beep bop?

I spent Monday cleaning up the space from all of our work and installing some insulation (since three of the walls in the bathroom are exterior walls).  Great progress so far, even if it doesn’t look like much yet.

I say you build a closet for R2D2 here.

Next up, wrap the room in vapor barrier and install new dry wall and concrete board.  We will also take on ripping up the floor (and hopefully remove the step–we originally thought it was poured into the concrete slab, but noticed during demolition that it’s concrete block on top of the sub floor…should be removable!)  Once the floor is out and dry wall is up it will come together pretty quickly I think.  Or at least look better as we go since it will be new stuff going in instead of old stuff left behind.  And less dusty.  I sound pretty awful from breathing in all that yucky dust.

What do you think?  What would you have done with that corner?

Guest posting over at Montessori Mischief

Hop on over to Aubrey’s Montessori mischief blog where we guest post part 1 of our semi-Montessori corner today. I just love her blog and all the great ideas she has for her little ones as she incorporates her awesome Montessori skills. Make sure to peruse her blog too!

Father’s Day

Father’s Day is upon us once again.  I think it’s no coincidence that it immediately follow’s Mother’s Day.  It’s still fresh in our minds if our husbands did something amazing or completely forgot.  Or did the ever popular “It’s Mother’s Day!  I’m going to go golf/boat/sleep in the hammock so you can spend time as a mother….you’re welcome!” or decided that they needed to do nothing to celebrate you as a mother because “You’re not my mother.  The kids are supposed to do something for you, not me” as my child stares at me with what I’m sure is the “I’m loading up my diaper with something special just for you” face.  But not all husbands are like that, and I refuse to call mine out right now and let you know which scenario(s) described our Mother’s Day around here.  Instead we move beyond that, and have the kids make something cute for Daddy for Father’s Day.

For past holidays, I’ve had the kids make cards or artwork, but Doug would literally throw it away the same day.  Sad, really….but what do you do with artwork anyway?  It can pile up pretty quickly.  The other popular gifts don’t really apply either, Doug does not wear ties, and one can only own so many “World’s Greatest Dad” shirts.  Instead, we here at Deriving Mommyhood decided that a luggage tag would be a good idea.  Both of our husbands travel sans family for work fairly regularly, or haul a briefcase around at all times.  A small token to hang from their bag would be a sweet reminder of the children back home….and THEN we ran across this idea over at Meet the Dubiens.  So. Cute.  I decided to merge the two ideas….

So I started off filling out the questionnaires with my kids.  Now I realize they are both a little young for this, but it was still fun.  Here’s where we got:

This actually looks like Doug!

“hee haw hee haw!” lol

Dexter says he drew Pirate Daddy.  And for the record, Doug has only ever cooked them pancakes (and they are great) so not sure where they got their answers there.  Also, Dexter hasn’t played trains in months but apparently it was fresh on his mind today.  I do think it’s funny that some of Charlotte’s answers make more sense than Dexter’s though.  For her drawing, she says that vertical line is “Tall Daddy” and the line coming from it is his arms.  He must have really long arms in her mind.

Anyway, from there, I copied the questionnaire at 35% on my printer, cut it out, glued both to either side of some scrap cardstock, laminated it, and put a ring on it (I know you just sang the song in your head.  admit it).  And it became a luggage tag!

Wish you lived closer so I could borrow your laminator!

Now it’s all wrapped up and ready for Doug’s next trip!

Now he can always find his bag!

What do you do to celebrate Father’s Day?  Do you let Mother’s Day dictate how it will go?

80s glam + mold = a mega huge bathroom remodel

We live in what can only be described as a fixer upper and we have tackled a lot of spaces so far, but the kitchen and bathrooms are now the only rooms left on the list. Fear and finances had prevented us from taking on Operation Rid the Ugly in those rooms so far, but now that everything else is pretty much how it should be it’s time to put on our big boy/girl pants and make it happen.

No remodel is complete without super horrible before pictures, so let’s start there. So many people say “Oh my bathroom is so ugly…” and I just would nod and smile. They had no idea what was behind closed doors at our house. Luckily this is the en suite master bath, so it has been hidden away from pretty much everyone that comes to visit.

Why does your bathroom remind me of Martin Scorses’ Casino??

 

We have been ripping so much tile out of this house since we moved in, but this master bath tile has got to be the worst. 3 different original tiles, one horrible patch job, some tile in the shower is held on with packaging tape…and all.that.grout….Oh yeah, and how awesome is that wrought iron? Who is jealous yet? And that shower is actually supposed to double as a bathtub, for those who want to bathe in a tile pit. Some sort of Grecian tub I’m told? What it really means is that we have to step down to get into our shower, and there’s a random bath spigot.

The countertop flakes off. Constantly. I think someone must have left a curling iron on for three days or something. Amazing the house didn’t burn down.

360 mirror action – suweeeet!

 

Yup, dual sinks are a plus. That many mirrors? Not so much. And I know the only thing you are thinking now is how much you want a closer look at those lights….

Oh, yeah. The antique bronze highlights the crazy pineapple texture I think. Someone told me it reminds them of an old church in there.

That step did Morgan in the first time he walked into your bathroom. I believe he went flying and landed in the awesome pit of a shower/tub. Too bad all the tile blends in and you can’t really tell until it’s too late.

 

But this step has got to be the worst. It took a long time to get used to. Picture it….middle of the night, get up to use the restroom, stumble in the darkness…bam, trip on that step, headfirst into the iron hand rail. No fun. Heading into the project we were pretty sure it would have to stay, but now we are hopeful we can level things out and not have our throne on a pedestal….

The last remaining wall is just lots more tile. We’re looking forward to not seeing all of that anymore. Why was it so popular to make a tile box back in the day?

Doesn’t really fit in with the awesome 80’s look…

 

This is the only thing that will stay. We replaced the toilet less than a year after moving in because the original one (that was 30 years old) was that bad. I couldn’t even tell what color it might have been originally. Plus it seemed like a kiddy toilet it was so comically small.

I do have pictures of all the mold that never would clean off, despite many hours of me scrubbing with everything Pinterest promised me would work….or the fact that the larger vanity is mostly for show, because at some point the sink must have leaked a lot and the whole bottom rotted out….

As you can imagine, this is a complete gut remodel. We are not repurposing anything. Oh how I wish we could, but there’s no way I’m keeping that tile…or the busted vanities, rusted sinks, tarnished faucets…sigh. Stay tuned…we are ripping this baby down to the studs and going to have a nice pretty shiny bathroom soon. And doing ALL work ourselves. For around $2500. Hopefully I can maintain some sanity along the way.