I am moving on from Fab Brunette. I will no longer be blogging at this url, for a more proper explanation please click here. I will be blogging at a new blog, and if you wish, please follow me there! For memories sake and until I decide what to do with it all, I will be leaving this blog up for the time being, but all comments will be closed.
Thank you for reading my words here.
xo
Fab Brunette
I woke up today with one goal on my mind: to do nothing.
But of course, life always seems to get in the way of that plan! Sleep when baby sleeps! That was my intention. But as soon as baby got to sleep I thought of all the wonderful things I could do while baby was napping - laundry! meal planning! meal prep! cleaning! blogging! – and I just knew I couldn’t sleep the morning away.
The past couple of days I’ve been helping my husband set up the company office. It was fun to see a dreary and boring space turn into something a little more professional with a slight female touch added. Once it is completed, I will take some pictures, all that’s left is to hang up some frames, some art, and little more organizing and the place will be perfect! But it’s definitely been a bit of work, especially with a baby in tow.
I have to admit that my weightloss has taken a bit of a back seat at the moment. After losing 12 pounds last month, I was stuck with a few days of a baby who wouldn’t sleep, and when baby doesn’t sleep, mama doesn’t sleep. No sleep = a carb breakdown for me. When I’m that exhausted coffee can’t even help – only spoonfuls of Nutella & Peanut Butter will. Seriously. Try it. It’s heaven. Except for your ass.
While I haven’t gained anything back, I’m definitely looking forward to getting back on track. This Monday I start a jogging stroller circuit training class, which goes on twice a week for 8 weeks, and I’m hoping it actually makes me start to enjoy jogging more and want to eat healthier foods again. It’s such a silly thing, this mind over matter thing.
My mind knows that there are “bad” foods out there. I know that when I eat bad food (ie. ice cream, nutella, white bread) I feel like crap afterwards, almost immediately I get a sugar rush and then I’m stuck with a downward spiral of getting more and more sluggish by the second…. until my next bite of something sweet or chocolatey!….
SIGH… Do you know how hard it is to hear your thoughts with 2 kids shouting in the bathtub?
Along with this busy week of mine, I’ve also started working on a side project to Fab Brunette, which I’m super excited to share with you guys as soon as it’s ready…. which may be never as I hardly have time to update anything without my daughter shouting from the bathtub… “Hey mommy! Hey! Look! You don’t want to miss this!”
LE SIGH.
(that’s a sigh in french…)
I should get back to my super exciting life of drying off kids, putting one to bed and watching Harry Potter with the other one.
Bon nuit. More to come soon when I have a chance to gather my thoughts. In peace…
xo
Fab Brunette
These past few months my husband & I have attempted to adopt a more budgeted lifestyle. I think after looking back on 2012 and wondering what we spent our money on (answer: pizza, beer, dining out, impromptu hotel stays, and a new vehicle), we’ve decided to cut back on the “luxuries” in life and try to focus on necessities. I quoted “luxuries” because obviously my definition of a luxury & my husband’s would not be the same, I digress.
Regardless of what’s a necessity and what’s a luxury, I’ve slowly been teaching myself to save money and shop more conscientiously. Online shopping is almost non-existent nowadays, and I’m certain I was a problem case because the POST OFFICE LADIES commented: “We never see you anymore! No big packages anymore? No more online shopping? Good girl! I’m sure your husband is happy!” I am not joking. This exchange happened multiple times.
Most recently I’ve been thinking more and more about how to save money on groceries. It started when I spent a whole day planning 3+ weeks dinners in advance. In one day I prepped and froze over 20 dinners. Not a day goes by where I have to wonder what we’ll eat, how nutritious is it, are we getting our vegetables, etc. And buying a lot of groceries in bulk actually worked out to my advantage – imagine shopping for 21 dinners at once – it cost me $250.00. And that’s before I started couponing.
I’ve recently discovered whole blogs devoted to couponing, as well as places online to print coupons from, and companies that mail you coupons. I’ve started looking in the clearance bin at the store. I have trouble buying things full price now - I want to use a coupon! I want to save money!
….Who am I?
I wrote this post about Extreme Couponing, the TLC tv show, a while back – and I still watch it occasionally and am still always in awe of how these people shop. Now, you don’t have to worry, I’m not about to stockpile 72 bottles of mustard or 12 packages of paper towels, no no. But here is what I did today:
Shoppers Drug Mart was having a ‘secret’ Optimum points special – spend $50 & receive 18,000 points (which equals $10+ for your next purchase) with a coupon. So my goal was to spend $50 before taxes. I have a stack of organized coupons and I started shopping. Here are some of the deals I found:
Basically I’ve ‘stockpiled’ coupons, sorted them into mini folders (Food/Baby/Cleaning/Pharmacy/Misc), then I go shopping for what I need. I needed wipes, I had coupons for both Pampers wipes and Huggies wipes, but the Huggies big box was on sale, with my coupon, it was a great deal. I just kept looking to see what was on clearance in the store, what was on sale, and matching it up with a coupon to get the best deal.
It took a while to check out, but at the end of my shopping trip, I spent $54, and saved over $45 – Meaning my total cost would have been almost $100 and I spent only $54. Plus I got Optimum Points for my next visit!
I sound crazy. I feel crazy. But I’m saving money, and it feels great.
Do you save money on groceries? Do you have any tips to share or questions?
xo
Fab Brunette
This is me in 2007, my hubs hated this Victoria Beckham-inspired haircut!
The other day I found the first blog I ever created, still online, still intact, all the way from 2007. I had forgotten all about it, but there it was, in all of its’ pre-crazy blogging days. No fancy schmancy design, no mind or matter, no over-thought posts – it was just me. My life, extremely unedited.
It’s fun to read old blog posts, almost like unearthing a journal from your elementary school days – you are reading your own words and you know that they belong to you, but it’s almost like a different side of you that you had forgotten about. My hopes & dreams for the future back then were so different, things I hardly remember, but there they are in black & white on the screen to read.
I learned that when my little Princess was a year and a half old, I did indeed suffer from baby fever – I was insanely broody in some posts – in other posts I was considering becoming vegan (I had just read the book Skinny Bitch and was tres inspired!), I was constantly writing about trying to lose weight, I posted pictures of expensive shoes, I wrote about opening my own salon & spa one day, and I was trying to learn to cook by using my crockpot.
Which goes to show that although some things seriously change, some things have always been there – my current slow cooker adventures are proof of that!
One thing I did not ice is that my blog lacked any nuances, it was the voice of a less mature, starry-eyed young woman. She lacked any sense of “homemaker-ship” and was the complete opposite of frugal, rather spoiled, I would say. But she was unapologetic in her ways, her opinions weren’t edited & she certainly didn’t care how she appeared.
I’m not sure what I would say to her if I could go back in time. Would I let her know that “leggings as pants” will indeed be her future? No, no, let her be idealistic and young.
I think I would just let her know that no matter where life takes her (and it’s going to take her everywhere BUT Paris!) that she’s going to be okay. Better than okay, her life will be perfect, in its’ own way.
xo
Fab Brunette
ps. What would you tell your 2007 self?
It’s finally happened, my little Prince is officially really sick. No sniffles and germy fingers – he is full out sick! Hardcore cough that keeps him up at night, after a visit with the doctor he’s also been prescribed an inhaler to open up his airways because he’s having difficulty breathing with all the mucus inside. All day he’s pretty much the same happy little guy he always is, but when he starts to get tired he gets a little crankier than usual. And his sleep? Gone. Finito.
He wakes himself up with a cough every twenty minutes or so. I’ve let him sleep in my bed most of the night, but at times he awakes crying, wanting his own crib (for maybe an hour, then it’s back to mama!). So from the sounds of it at my house, you could probably tell that I’ve given up on my appearance.
I haven’t worn makeup in days. My hair is a disheveled mess – it alternates between a braid at night to a ponytail during the day. It’s clean, because I forced myself to take a shower during the spare 20 minutes I have while I pray that our baby stays sleeping. But it’s a mess. And as soon as I drop off Princess (who is recovering from her cough and flu!) at school, I change into a tank top and a lightweight robe. The yoga pants are uniform now.
I’m trying to incorporate more activity into my day, even thirty minute walks would help, but I honestly, really don’t feel like it.
You know what I really want?
Is a pedicure. A massage. A whole spa day – no sick kids, no food to cook, no house to clean – a whole spa day WITH my own TV set to all the shows I DVR but haven’t caught up on yet (Hello, Downton Abbey, I haven’t yet watched a single episode, but I will, one day!). Is that too much to ask for?
For now, I’ll be dreaming of a day just for me, but I’ll really be doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, and cuddling my two sick kids.
xo
Fab Brunette
My life has become so extremely busy these past few months – and in finding more time to devote to family, our home, and myself, I usually wind up not finding much time to blog. That isn’t to say that I don’t want to blog – I am constantly creating blog posts in my mind! I will think of paragraphs and phrases for posts, I sometimes write them down, but usually those ideas are pushed to the back of my mind until they resurface at another time when blogging is near impossible!
Recently I’ve been trying to reorganize many parts of our family life – from planning out our dinners for the month (more on this later!) to sporadic spring cleaning to scheduling our time better – I’ve realised I should also make time for me. And what am I without writing? Writing is a large part of my thought process, it’s how I figure things out, create new ideas, fix problems and feel better about life!
Today marks the first day of April (how have 3 months of the year already gone by??), and we have been having incredibly beautiful weather! And when you live in BC or anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, you know sunshine is hard to come by, so when it’s here – you take full advantage of it! We are getting spoiled with sunny days and warm weather, and this means that many trips to the park, afternoon walks, bike rides, and hiking is happening! It means there’s been t-shirts and sandals and less layers and more outdoor fun happening!
This month I’ll be continuing on trying to find balance in a healthy lifestyle, eating right, exercising, having fun (which includes blogging!) and giving thanks for all the wonderful things in my life!
What are you looking forward to in April?
What are you thankful for right now?
xo
Fab Brunette