The Prissy Mommy Chronicles

Packing & Potpourri

So things are shaping up!  Derek left this morning at 9 am to meet the painters over at the new place.  They all drove over to a neighboring paint shop to pick up a few more supplies.  While at the paint store we both received a call on our cell from the delivery guys with the furniture.  The pieces were scheduled to be delivered at 12 noon but they said they were on their way and would be there in 20 minutes! *Yikes* However, Derek was able to make it back as they were arriving.  The painters began promptly upon their return, and really didn't take up any room at all, as they were just doing the one wall.

I actually googled it and found the exact shade we chose - a brown taupe. 

 
image source: Decor Pad

Yes, it does look this amazing in person!  I love this color so much.  Funny thing is, after we left the paint store last week, my confidence in the color we'd picked out slowly began to ebb.  I started to wonder: Should an accent wall really be brown? Is it too dark?  Will it look nice with the furniture and hardwood floors?  Have we made a terrible mistake?  However, once the wall was finished, we both just looked at it and smiled.  It really does look lovely, and when the furniture was placed I knew we'd made the right choice!  Next week our area rug should be done.

Let's see, these are yet more items we need to pick up:

♥ ottoman tray to place on our fabric coffee table (saw a few super cute ones at Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, Pier I Imports, Bombay & Co.)
♥ bookshelf/DVD holder of some sort
♥ little desk for Chase's room - he's getting Daddy's Mac and Derek is getting a new laptop. (Yes, Chase loves to play on the computer already.  What can I say, it's in his genes! lol)
♥ 1 end table + cute standing lamp for living room
♥ new high-chair for Chase
♥ [attractive] space saver for bathroom

♥ rug set for guest bathroom

♥ rug set for master bath

♥ shower curtain & shower rug

♥ bathroom art

I just have so many ideas swirling around in my head - little ways to make the place nice.  While I want to take my time and do this right, there are a few things we want to have done quickly because we'd like to have a small gathering just before the holidays (maybe Christmas Eve).  So something like the window treatments - I want that complete!   But choosing art for our walls?  That can't be rushed, you know?

Spoke to Sibo this afternoon and she'll be coming up on 12/5 to help us with packing and also watching Chase when the movers come the following day. Yesss!!!! Thanks Sibo!!!! My mom is coming the following weekend, because she's the queen of organizing/unpacking/space-saving and I.Need.Her. Thank God for family! 

So.... tomorrow the exterminator, and my goal is to pack two more boxes: Chase's books and our towels/linen, and begin to gather clothes to donate to Goodwill. Sometimes its hard to give away really nice clothes and I struggle with this - but I've come to realize that, if I haven't worn something in over two years, I probably *ain't* wearing it again. So I'm going to do my best to emotionally detach while sorting through my "stuff." 

*sigh* So glad things are coming together.  You'll have to really pardon these next few blog posts, as I'm totally free associating and I'm sure they'll be similarly one-tracked.  This really is my only way of mentally tracking my progress and staying organized/sane during this process.  I figured I could either disappear from the blogosphere for another week, or just begin to include you all in the process.  So.... welcome to the chaos that is now my mind. :-) It'll all be over in a couple of weeks, and pictures of the new digs will be forthcoming too!

My decorating-nistas... would love to see your home decor inspirations.  Can you share either your fav interior decorating websites or even flicks of your living space?  Muchas gracias!

Busy Little Bee

image source: Mollie B's

Hi folks!

Please pardon my absence.  I've had my hands overflowing with numerous projects and deadlines, both personal and professional.  We're also in the process of packing to move and, for anyone who has ever moved in the past, you know just how draining and arduous a task that can be.  Sadly, this is the most disorganized and chaotic I've ever been when moving.  I guess I've never done it before with an almost-walking baby and also working full-time. I covet Chase's naps now like a little kid sweats Christmas Day!  It's the only time I can really get anything productive done, with regards to packing and such.

Our move date is December 6th and we've got like 6 boxes packed. *smh* The good news is that I've booked the movers (and got a sweeeet deal!!!) and also have arranged for Goodwill to come for the furniture that we're not taking with us.  Derek has booked the Direct TV guy for the 5th, and we've got exterminator and painter coming tomorrow - we're getting one accent wall painted in the living room.  The new furniture we ordered is getting delivered tomorrow as well.  Shoot, I meant to schedule my window-treatment consultation. *mental note to do this once I post this blog*  Hmmm, I guess things aren't as disorganized as they feel - but we've got to get on top of packing this place up. Somehow, looking around at a barely packed house a little over a week before movers arrive just feels... scary.  Well, the great thing about moving is that you have an excuse to throw crap away, and we plan to do.just.that!!!

We both really love the new place we're moving to and it's only a few blocks from where we are now, which means we won't have to look for new services and amenities (i.e., Chase's pediatrician, my OB/GYN, grocery store, our housekeeper - all that can stay the same).  Unfortunately, the lease to this place doesn't actually end until January 31st... so we'll be paying two rents for a couple months.  Not ideal, but such is the life of a NYC renter. You find something awesome and you grab it!  Although we technically have keys in hand now, we don't necessarily have to rush and move right away... but we both really want to be moved and settled before Christmas, which is why we're trying to go ahead and make that move.  This Christmas promises to be extra special for a couple of reasons.  The obvious one is that it will be Chase's first Christmas!  But also the past couple years, for various reasons, we haven't had an opportunity to really celebrate the holidays the way that I like (we didn't even have a tree last year!). It's been depressing for me, as Christmas is my favorite holiday and extremely important and sentimental to me.  So this year we'll be doing a full, wonderful Christmas and I'm sooo glad about that.

Thanksgiving was nice. We spent it with Derek's family as we have for the last few years, and Chase seemed to enjoy himself (which, frankly, is all I really care about).  He was throwing down on that Thanksgiving food I was feeding him, with his two little teeth - tearing up some yams, potato salad, mac and cheese, and turkey like there was no tomorrow. *smh* I guess he's officially not a vegetarian anymore, as I'd been aiming for.  Oh wait, that ended a couple weeks ago when I let him chew on a blue cheese-covered chicken bone to prevent him from melting down at a restaurant. Bad Mommy!  Bad Mommy!  Hey, don't judge me.

Hope everyone's holiday was swell!  I'm so glad I took today off - I needed this.

Wordless Wednesday

Chase In Lotus.
6 Months, 2 Weeks, & 3 Days

Music Together and Chase

 
image source: Picture Book

Hi girls!

I'm so happy!  A few months ago Chase's day care center introduced the Music Together program, which is an internationally recognized early childhood music program for toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartners.  The program was created in 1987 and pioneered the concept of a music curriculum based on the recognition that all children are musical, and can learn to sing in tune, keep a beat, and participate with confidence in the music of our culture, provided that their early environment supports such learning.

So at day care Chase is in the Red Room, which is babies to pre-walking tots.  The Music Together program wasn't extended to the Red Room.  You see, the curriculum consists of sharing songs, instrument play, rhythm chants, and movement activities and (for budgeting reasons) it was determined that the Red Room wouldn't be enrolled in the program.  Apparently the program is way expensive, and the center directors preferred to wait until the babies are old enough to fully engage and participate in an active way.  So the program was instead introduced to the Purple Room, Yellow Room, and Green Room. 

I actually wasn't even aware that the Music Together program had come to the center, as Red Room parents weren't formally notified (I guess they figured it wouldn't be relevant to us until our babies transitioned to the Purple Room). I only found out about the Music Together program when I was informed by the director of the program that Chase had been selected from the baby room to participate.  Apparently, his interest in music caught the attention of folks in the center and they began to realize just how much he loves it!  So they now pull Chase from his class room Fridays at 9:30 am and he attends Music Together in the Purple Room!

Derek and I were freaking thrilled to hear this!  I mean, we both knew that our baby loves music.  His favorite toy is his Learn and Groove Musical Table, which has 15 musical activities and more than 40 songs and melodies.  The kids' programs he sweats are the music-based ones, ie, "The Fresh Beat Band" and "Yo Gabba Gabba!" along with "Blues Clues" and "Ni Hao Kai Lan."  However, we had no idea that his passion for music was so great that he stood out amongst his peers.  Wow!  This actually became topic of discussion at the last meeting for the Board of Directors, where I recently became a parent member.  I just sat quietly, beaming with pride, as the director read her report and updated members on how the Music Together program is going, and how they selected one baby from the Red Room to participate.

It's hard to capture his love of music into words.  So above is a little video I made the other day of Chase grooving to his musical table - dancing mad hard and playing different tunes.  I wish it was taken from the front, but it was a very impromptu little web cam flick I made in the middle of his dancing.  If you'll notice, toward the end, he starts sampling different tunes (like a little d.j.), then glances back at me to make sure I'm enjoying myself.  He does that with me and Derek - he really loves to play music for us, and he'll check to make sure we're both happy and dancing before he allows himself to dance and let go.  lol. It's super cute.

Anyway, just had to tell you guys how proud and overjoyed I am that Chase is being stimulated musically both at home and school.  That is important to us, as we really want to nurture his interest in various forms of music and encourage him to develop this aptitude.  I'm just so pleased that his day care is supporting us in these efforts - they rock!

Wordless Wednesday

 
Busted!
Chase @ 10 Months, 1 Week, and 6 Days Old

Wordless Wednesday

Chase with Grandmommy and Ron in Maryland
Chase @ 9 Months & 1 Week Old

Grocery Shopping + Penny Pinching

 

image source: Getty Images

Grocery shopping is the bane of my existence.  It's a necessary evil that I dread each week.  I shop during my lunch break at work, generally on a Monday - it's a hurried, dispassionate experience.  Shopping during lunch isn't ideal but really is the only time I can find in the week to do it, as Chase is tired after I pick him up from day care at 4:30 and it really wouldn't be fair to subject him to that 1.5 hour ordeal so late in the day.  Anyway, he goes to sleep for the night by 7 pm, so those couple of hours after we get home are our special time.

 

I must admit, with the state of the economy so crummy, I find myself wondering what other families are doing to make it (especially single income households).  I think about money a lot - certainly more so than my husband.  Maybe it's residual paranoia from my days of living alone and having to penny pinch as a broke grad student...  Now that we're a "team" money isn't the issue that it was for me then, but I can't get out of that mentality.  And frankly, I don't want to.  I’m going to be honest here, as it’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of - I shop on a strict budget and have majorly cut back on unnecessary items.  I aim to keep our grocery bill as low as I possibly can.  Because we are both gainfully employed today does not mean that our circumstances couldn't change tomorrow, and I try to keep that in mind.

Unfortunately, keeping the grocery bill low can be a challenge when many of our favorite, staple dishes are pricey (salmon; dishes made with cheese) and sometimes I go over my self-imposed spending limit.  This is frustrating and, at these times, I often wonder how these moms I read about are spending under $100 per week, for families larger than mine!  I also speculate about how our grocery bill is going to skyrocket once Chase is a big boy and there are now two grown men/appetites to feed.  Omg, the amount of water and iced tea Derek goes through in a week....  Now add to that a big, strapping teenage boy who will likely play sports - dear heavens!

So if I'm to fit everything in during lunch, and also stick to my budget, my grocery shopping really has to be an organized and calculated experience.  Well, I try my best to make it that, anyway.  I have a few hard and fast rules that I stick to:

♥ make weekly meal plans
♥ before we plan for meals, I see what ingredients are left and try to plan meals around those

♥ never ever go shopping without a list
♥ stick to my list religiously

♥ member of the grocery rewards program

♥ use coupons when I can - don't have the time/patience to clip them from the paper, but I use what Waldbaum's gives me with my receipt

♥ try my best not to shop on an empty stomach - but sometimes I do, and I always end up with some random box of cookies or chips in my cart

♥ uneaten leftovers become my next day's lunch (since someone isn't a fan of dinner leftovers, unless it's one of his favorites :-)

I'd love to know about your grocery store experience.  What self-imposed rules do you follow, and how do you manage to save money?  I'm also curious to know how many people are in your household and what you spend monthly (if you're comfortable sharing that information).

Honest Scrap Award

Erika Ward of Blu Label Bungalow graciously gave me this Honest Scrap Award. This is my very first blog award - yaaay me! LOL!!! Thanks Erika! 

Now I have the honor of passing the award along to the next fitting bloggers.

The Skinny:

• Say thanks and link back to the presenter of the award.
• Share "10 Honest Things" about myself.
• Present this award to 5 others whose blogs I find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged me.
• Tell those 5 people they've been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines upon receiving.

10 Honest Things:

♥ watching the news (especially local) generally depresses me, so I avoid it. This is good and bad. Good in that I don't have to face the ugliness of the world when I'm not in the mood.  Bad because I'm sometimes out of the loop in terms of what's going on in the world around me - and that's embarrassing.

♥ I haven't combed my hair in about a month.  I wear it in a bun each day.

♥ I wish I had more time in the day to get to know the folks who comment on my page/support my blog - I mean, beyond a superficial level.

♥ I'm having second thoughts about wanting a baby girl. I might just be content with a second boy... Funny, in the past it's all I thought I ever wanted. Now I don't know if there really is room enough in the household for two princesses.

♥ I don't know why I make commitments to write for other sites when I can barely keep up with my own.  I guess I enjoy the networking and exposure aspect of it - but the reality is that I probably should keep my original content for my own blog, since my cup doesn't exactly runneth over with great posts these days.

♥ Chase is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

♥ l wish all my old Xanga buddies still blogged - I miss those days a lot.  We were such a close-knit, private blogging community.

♥ I feel a little sorry for folks obsessed with SEO.  It seems that must take some of the pleasure and freedom away from blogging.

♥ I'd love to have D.J. Lance Rock's job from "Yo Gabba Gabba."  I think I'd be a natural.

♥ When I was pregnant with Chase I was scared that he wasn't going to be cute, based on his 3d ultrasound pics.  But I could only admit this to a few folks: my best friend, my sister, Derek.  When you're honest about that type of thing with most people you run the risk of being called superficial, ungrateful, selfish, etc etc. 

5 Bloggers:

• Kenesha of The Baby Head Diaries
• Tara of The Young Mommy Life
• Nikki of Blasian Baby Notes
• Kristina of Mom On The Rise
• Tatianna of Sex and the Southern Belle

Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

Hi folks, I'm taking part in the Dove Real Beauty Campaign, which is an initiative designed to help girls recognize and appreciate their unique beauty, rather than embracing society's standard of beauty.  I would LOVE it if you'd check out my blog post about how you can help out.

In a nutshell, I'm asking those of you with daughters/nieces/cousins/whomever to (1) take a few minutes to interview that special little girl in your life and create a brief, 30 second video asking her what she feels makes her beautiful. (2) We'll submit it to the Dove campaign and then (3) you would leave a comment on my blog post telling me that you made this video. With each video submission to Dove we're raising money that will go toward self-esteem programs/workshops.  Just that simple!

Please join me in this wonderful initiative to teach girls how to deal with the media hype about body image as well as the importance of loving the skin they’re in!

Separation of (Blogging) Business and (Blogging) Pleasure

 
image source: Getty Images

Lately I've been feeling that my once "mommy blog" has become consumed with product reviews and contests.  Though I've made no secret of the fact that I welcome and enjoy PR, I fear I may have somewhere along the road lost sight of the original reason I started this blog in the first place - to give long distance family/friends an opportunity to be part of Chase's ever-evolving life each day, and to also document this very special time in my life (a cyber "baby book," if you will).  But these days it seems I spend more time engaging in PR business than sharing personal experiences/reflections.  And while reviews are fun to do and giveaways my way of "thanking" those of you who have been loyal/supportive of the blog... I wonder if it isn't unfair to those readers (namely family) who come to my blog, eagerly expecting to read a funny/silly/cute Chase/mommy anecdote, but instead see yet another contest.

Now in the same token I think product reviews are extremely invaluable tools.  It's no secret that women have tremendous buying power.  But more specifically, I learned at Blogalicious that women of color actually control 85% of all purchase decisions made today!  So naturally companies are coming to us mom bloggers for review and assessment of their products.  Word of mouth is a powerful animal and we sure use it - in our church groups, our PTA meetings, our message boards, our book clubs and sister-friend luncheons...  I think the reviews I do are important and I want to continue providing a young, African-American mom perspective to those companies/campaigns that value feedback. 

However, what I don't want to do is mix "business with pleasure" any longer.  I want to find a way to continue enjoying both worlds - blogging about Chase and the prissy mommy life, and also sampling and reviewing new, cutting edge products that could impact me and my household.    

So with that said, Ive decided to create a "sister blog" of sorts. It will strictly be for PR.  I'll of course announce contests on this site (and tweet about them), but those posts will now be reserved for The Prissy Mommy Reviews & Giveaways.  I hope you all support me in this new endeavor!

Muchas Smoochas!