5 on Friday 1/29

 1. What do you think about wardrobe holes? Meaning, you shop specifically for things you need. I told myself I would stay out of the Target this year, when it came to clothes. I actually stopped this last fall when I realized many of the $7 shirts/tanks/etc I'd been buying for the last two years just weren't holding up in my rotation of things I wanted to wear. 

Then, on Wednesday, I had time to kill so I was walking around Target and I found myself going through the clothes because I knew I had a few gaps in my everyday wear. This is where I realized that I was looking for what stores had to offer me, instead of what I needed to look for in the store. It's like the backward version of intentional shopping. I think I started this back in 2012ish, when I'd go into the clearance at Target and just browse when I was bored. I'd found some real steals back then, so you never know when you'll find something great, right?

I got this turtleneck for $10 the other day. It reminds me of the tissue mock turtlenecks that they used to have at the Gap. Maybe they still do? But I used to wear those a lot in the winter because they're not too hot and good for layering. I saw this and, for the price, it fits exactly what I need. I definitely am missing a lot of pieces like this because I got rid of many when I stopped working in 2018...most were just worn out from repeated wear and/or didn't fit the way I wanted any longer. 

I'm not a fan of the $45-tshirt-phenomenon. I don't think things have to be expensive for you to get a lot of wear out of them. But I do think they need to fit well. Most of what I bought from Target in 2020 just didn't excite me with the way it fit. 

2. 

I've been doing this a lot lately. Boxed brownie mix (always superior) with homemade peanut butter frosting. It's a horrible habit to have gotten into. 

3.  

Speaking of my solo Target trip: I went in there with a giftcard for myself and ended up with a cartful of things for Wells for Valentine's Day...I put most of it back. 

Also...

Let it be noted that the next person who buys him something will be maybe ex-communicated and all of the bought item(s) will be donated. 

You can buy him clothes. I'll take clothes for him. 

Any toys are going right back out the door and/or I'm wrapping them up for a future holiday. He will not know of their existence. I'm not even kidding. I packed up a lot of stuff last night in a fit of (what I can only assume is) parental rage. 

4. I will happily get as political as you want me to be in this space. I am the one telling myself that politics are fleeting, and being informed and being permanently annoyed are different things; you can be informed without being permanently annoyed. 

However, if I see you wearing 2+ masks, I may not be able to keep my thoughts to myself. 

5. The Bachelor. I did it: I read the spoilers. I don't know if I meant to, but I found myself on Reality Steve's site the other day and, you know, I was pleasantly surprised by the season's results. However...it also seems like Matt isn't as great as we may perceive him to be. Essentially, RS has all kinds of evidence that the last thing Matt wants to do is settle down. 

And Sarah doesn't seem like she was that great either, according to RS. So...I'll share what I know if you want an email! Truthfully, I just find the season so much more fun to watch when I know the ending. I'm not on anyone's team at this point. They all seem perfectly awful, to tell you the truth. There's no reason to be there, aside from wanting a moderate amount of fame at this point. AND, if you thought Here to Make Friends is normally racist, check out this week's episode. They have a guest who is worse than usual and they spend an awful lot of time classifying women by their race. And I quote "we love to see it" when a black woman gets a group date rose. 

Anywho. Three-day weekend for me and we have a doctor's appointment today for a 2.5 year well-check. Thoughts and prayers. 

Wednesday, what's up.

What we're eating.... I made tortilla soup on Sunday and, while I'm working on a 'dinners lately' post for next week, I wanted to share that I get three meals out of this one crockpot.

Day 1: soup with tortilla chips/cheese

Day 2: grilled cheese/salad and soup

Day 3: I freeze the rest and we eat it at a later date. 

What I'm reminiscing about... warm weather? Like, I am over winter.  I'm just ready for warmth (but not too hot, of course). We have a snow day today, which is NICE, but it's so complicated when you have things to do, otherwise. I have a dermatologist appointment and still have to have the babysitter come over later. 

What I'm loving... my new phone case! I got this Loopy one and it was worth the money. 

What we've been up to... nothing out of the ordinary. Just, as always, awaiting what the army is going to ask of us next. It is like this giant unspoken elephant in the room at all times. It's so awkward. 

Speaking of awkward...my SIL got me this blanket and I am obsessed with it. Everyone knows it's mine (Wells knows, Scott knows, Jett hasn't even tried), except for Scout. I let him have it when he wants it. Because that's how this household operates. 

What I'm dreading... more winter weather, but I also have a feeling tornado season will be a blast. 

What I'm working on... cranking out true blog content. It takes more thought than it did 8-10 years ago. If anyone can recommend a seamless Wordpress transfer tutorial, I will take it. 

What I'm watching/reading... I finished this book yesterday. If you like moderately suspenseful thrillers with sociopath narrators, the Jane Doe books are for you. It's so weird and there are triggers galore but Jane is oddly endearing. I just like her. 

I also started watching Flack. It's...interesting. I don't know why but I'm such a sucker for anything with Anna Paquin. Like, I'll at least try a few episodes. 

What I'm listening to... The usual. I am listening to nonfiction audiobooks on the weekend (This weekend it was The Quest for Cosmic Justice by Thomas Sowell), and then I listen to Ben Shapiro, Allie Stuckey, and Bachelor recaps during the week. You can't tell me my interests don't vary. 

What I'm wearing... pretty basic when it comes to clothes. And it's cold so I don't care right now. But...

I grabbed a few BeautyCounter products last week so technically I'm wearing them. This C serum is amazing. A lot like the tripeptide one; it's like a filter for your skin. It smooths everything out. In addition, I tried the charcoal mask and the overnight resurfacing peel.* No complaints from me. I hate how much I love their products. 

*I got these two in the "free gift" size for signing up for Band of Beauty. I weighed the cost/benefit there and $30 (with membership perks) was cheaper than buying just one regular sized charcoal mask when I didn't know if I'd love it. 

What I'm doing this weekend... I have a 3-day weekend, so having an extra day to recoup from the week is always nice. 

What I'm looking forward to next month... (I literally could not remember what month it was when I typed this and almost said spring ...LOL, right?) I/we don't really have any plans on the calendar for February unless our orders come through and then we can house-hunt. Seriously though, even an RFO (request for orders) coming through would be a gigantic relief. We're looking at our 4th move in 3 years and while we think-think-think we know where, but army can pull that rug out whenever it wants. If I let myself think about that for more than 6 seconds at a time, I start panicking. 

What else is new... I canceled my Balanced Life Pilates subscription. I had been tossing around the idea for awhile but finally pulled the plug. They asked me why and I told them and they responded with the typical surface-level PC answer I expected. Oh well. For the last year, I'd really only been holding onto it because I was grandfathered in at a really reasonable price. 

Instead, I downloaded the Peloton app because I've decided to become one of those people. I must say: I adore the functionality of it. I'll keep you posted on what I'm doing there. My username is kristineliz (the downside to being one of the later bandwagon jumpers is that your desired username may already be taken). 

In other news, I've taken an Instagram sabbatical and love how my screen time has gone down. I still hop on the browser version once or twice a week just to check for any DMs and I'm "allowing" myself to post whatever I need to post once a week on the app.

It's amazing how I feel like a whole person again. I can't understand some of the people who spend their entire day living post to post (I can give you fantastic examples of a few dislike-follows I have :)

I highly recommend this strategy. 

Are you ready for spring? 

Who else needs an Instagram break?

Linking up with What's Up Wednesday. 

This weekend...

 ....Wells had his first Kansas playdate. 

Usually the military is a great place to meet people, but gatherings are pretty limited now and were especially so during the summer when we moved here. There's no FRG or the like happening. I remember telling my counselor long ago that I couldn't just make friends, or friends for him, in a Pittsburgh playgroup and she seemed confused. I need the structure of a military friend group or coworkers who live a similar lifestyle. I need people who understand what our life is like without me having to explain it. They don't need to be in the same place, metaphorically, but it took me months to realize that I had become burnt out and exhausted and numb from explaining things to people in Pittsburgh. It's a bit of an existential experience to constantly be telling people about your past, present, and future, which is what I always ended up doing (as succinctly as possible) when it came to answering questions about army life. People who understand career trajectories, acronyms, and know where locations are without me mentioning base-city-state are usually easier to talk to in real life. 

Okay, that got a little deep. 

Anyway, we also went out to eat and Wells did better than expected, considering he hadn't been in a restaurant since he was 19 months old. He and his new friend shared french fries, mostly. 

... I cleaned the regular coffee pot and ground some beans. Our Keurig is slowly dying. We don't know what we're going to do about that yet. And sometimes I just get the urge to do regular coffee. I know many of you set up your coffee at night but I cannot fathom the idea of adding one more thing to my nightly clean-up/prep routine. 

... I cancelled things. 

 Thrive Market, as I said, isn't worth the membership when I can hunt down the few products I really want (probably the laundry stuff) elsewhere. As for The Balanced Life, it wasn't serving me any more. Most of what she/they post is motivational material and tips/techniques/modifications. Nope. I just want workouts and all of that is pretty much free on Youtube these days. In addition, they've really become a dislike-follow for me over the last few years. 

I kind of want to try the Peloton app. I have had the urge, over the last 6 months, to really get that delayed muscle soreness that you don't get from Pilates. Some people dread DOMS. I love it. I mean, the goal is to get to the point where you don't have it all the time ha ha ha. So, here's to new workouts. 

....I made tortilla soup. I also made a skillet cookie that didn't turn out that well. 

...I listened to this book while I did 6+ loads of laundry. (including put-all-of-that-laundry away)

...and I more or less let Wells do whatever he wanted. 

Thank goodness for independent play skills. 

5 Friday Things 1/22 + 2 Questions

1. Wells had his first dentist appointment ever this week. As I mentioned, I front-loaded dentistry like crazy last weekend and then I bribed him with ice cream. You see, he was already in a bad mood. And while he's a friendly little extrovert to the extreme, he's not fond of doctors. He figured out around 12-15 months that the doctor was where you got shots and he does not go quietly when I take him for check-ups. The dentist was going to be a whole big thing. Especially since I had to physically restrain him to brush his teeth up until about October 2020. 

So...until you have that child who loves everything and everyone, but will pull on you like a dog trying to get out of the vet's office and scream and kick and hit at the same time...maybe you'll try ice cream too. I figure if I can get two dentist appointments out of him a year with some Sonic, I'll do it. I made it very definitive by going through the Sonic drive-thru and he kept saying "I want ice cream..." while I was trying to order. 

And he did earn his ice cream. 

He chatted everyone up, commented on everything he could see, smiled when they took his picture, took Lambie and a dog toy* with him into the office (filed under: battles I'm not fighting), crawled all over the multiple chairs, learned how to press the buttons to make the chair go up and down, danced like Blippi, introduced himself with "I am Wells E!!!", and let the dentist count, brush, AND fluoride his teeth. 

I really had thought he'd forgotten about the ice cream until the second we hit the sidewalk and he said "go get ice cream". So...we got ice cream and that's what he had for dinner. 

*Wells "bought" Scout a toy for Christmas. Scout doesn't care about toys. Wells has since claimed it as his own. It's an alpaca.

2. 

Nighttime picture alert

I reluctantly jumped into Thrive Market because there were a few things I wanted so I figured I'd share. Someone was kind enough to share a code with me, so I got 30% off but not the free gift. I think it's a bit of a racket, but I'm not willing to drive all over town, and they do have the best prices for certain items. I browsed a bit and this is what I came up with:

-Organic non-GMO applesauce. For Wells. I normally just buy unsweetened because I'm concerned with the sugar content but I figured this would be the next step. It's not cheap, but it's not expensive. Still cheaper than buying pouches so it's a middle ground between that and the vat of unsweetened Great Value brand. 

-Primal Kitchen Ketchup. For Wells. Maybe for us, if we like it. I don't do lots of ketchup so Wells never experienced it until he was closer to two. I figure if I can make this swap now, good for me. 

-Cacao nibs. The only place I could find these priced decently. For smoothies. 

-Smoked paprika. It's hard to find, so I thought I'd grab some while I was shipping a box anyway.

-Chicken/Maple Jerky Sticks and Blueberry Acai Cookies. For Wells. My goal is to keep better versions of snacks he already seems to enjoy on hand, especially for when we're out of the house. 

-Laundry detergent and dryer sheets. I have been really weird with false/fake smells over the last few years. Since I feel like we do so much laundry (and it's probably nothing compared to those of you with multiple children!), I figured it's best to use the most natural ingredients possible and get rid of the additives. I'll try these, anyway. 

So yeah. Not super exciting. Cheaper than Amazon, for sure, because I did do a few price-checks but I could probably grab any one of these items at Whole Foods if I really wanted them. 

3. Clothes were boring this week. 

Mostly just because I was too lazy to take my coat off, but figured I'd show you anyway. I need to be better about this. 

4. I finished a book. Then I took a book back to the library, untouched, because I'm not sure what I was thinking when I reserved it. Also, I have a library book about raising a Montessori Toddler but I may just grab it from Audible instead. 

It was 100% a page turner.

5. I know the U.S. has been through a lot in the last year. I am always quick to point out that we're *supposed* to be the abnormal ones. WE are the experiment. THIS has never been done before. We should always be proud of that. So for all of you who like Celsius and the metric system, Canada is probably waiting...

I have set aside my weighted blanket for a few reasons. I'm back to multiple comforters. Sigh. 

I've been Zoom teaching all week. ^^^

Now. 

1. Who has the Peloton app? Do you love it? Why?

2. I need some recipe inspiration. I'm going grocery shopping today. What should I make?

2 1/2 years of Wells

Wells turned 2 1/2 last week. He's had a big 6 months since moving to Kansas and turning 2.

Wells can:

Count to 20. He does it constantly, on a loop.

He's working on identifying numbers and letters and he knows all of his colors. 

Sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. He does it constantly, on a loop. He also sings the "finger song" and Baby Beluga and Jingle Bells He's tries the ABCs but he doesn't have them quite yet. He also makes up a lot of words as he goes along in his songs. 

He repeats everything. I've figured out that this is how he processes and makes sense of the world. If you say something to him, he repeats the last few words of it. His vocabulary is enormous right now. 

He says "good morning" to each and every person he encounters, no matter the time of day. 

He says "good morning, I love you" to me or whoever when he thinks he's in trouble or about to be redirected. 

He can say his first and last name. 

He loves playgrounds. 

We are in a better place with sleep than we've ever been. He takes a nap for 2-3 hours every day, without a fight. If we're out of the house, he can also get by with no nap or just a cat nap in the car. If we're at home all day or most of the day, I make him take a nap, but I don't schedule our life around his nap like I used to. He sleeps from about 7/7:30pm until about 6am. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night to say he needs to use the bathroom or he's thirsty. He's still in a crib so we help him with that, obviously. He does not understand that cribs can be climbed out of so we'll keep him in a crib til 3 years old.

He's totally potty-trained, Praise the Lord. I never intended to train him this early but he did it on his own back at the end of October. I would say it was about two weeks of hardcore "training". Now he tells me when he has to go and he makes sure I shut the door behind him and he does what he has to do. This weekend, he even learned how to push his stool over and turn on the light by himself. I was going to do an entirely separate potty-training post, but decided against it. If you want that info from me, I'll pass it on! He was shockingly easy to potty-train, when you consider the fact that I never was able to completely sleep-train him.

Here's the gear we used for potty-training: This is it! I did not go with bells and whistles and surplus here. There were no celebrations or bribery.

 Potty  // Oh Crap! Potty Training // Bjorn potty

Favorite shows: Blippi, Coco Melon, Pororo, Robo-Poli, Dinos, any monster truck mini-show on Amazon...sometimes he asks for Baby Bum and will watch and listen all afternoon while he plays. Mostly Blippi, though. He is a non-fiction fiend most days. He's wants to be shown things and explained to. 

Favorite foods: applesauce (we recently moved away from pouches entirely and he just eats from a bowl...so much cheaper), crackers/chips of any kind, smoothies, Cheerios and milk, milk, "tea" (La Croix, Gatorade, Pedialyte, or chamomile tea diluted with water), Scott's scrambled eggs (not mine, obvi), fruit leather...he loves him some cookies or some ice cream and I feel like he's gotten a lot in the last few weeks. All in all, he eats whatever we eat: I give him whatever is for dinner and he eats it. If he won't eat it, he will become super interested in it as soon as it's on our plates and then he'll eat it. And if he doesn't want to eat, he doesn't eat. 

He is not shy about going to where he wants in the kitchen to dig out what food he's looking for..."I want dis one" "sometin in here" "hmmm" "I very hungy" and so one. 

Lord help us all if something ever happens to Lambie. He has a brand-new identical one and he won't touch it. 

He is constantly talking. There is a never-ending stream of words and song coming from his mouth. He never stops.  He talks to everything, repeats everything, and comments on everything. I mean, it's constant.  A few examples: No licking! Go away! (to the dogs and he doesn't just say it once, he says it 5-7 times in a row), Where'd daddy go? (If I say work, he says daddy get in truck and go to work. If I say hunting, he says where'd Jamie go?...Jamie is Scott's friend he hunts with...If he asks where Jett-Jett go?, I say hunting and he he starts the hunting questions all over again. I can't say Daddy is outside, because then he'll want to go outside I have to say Daddy is outside working and he'll come back at me with Daddy outside working on tractor? and it turns into a whole tractor conversation that has to end with tractor go nap, Wells, because if the tractor is ASLEEP, Wells has to leave the tractor alone. 

If he goes to time out, I ask him if he knows why he's in time out and he says "because I hit Jett-Jett". We've utilized time-out a lot in the last 6 months but, lately, we say "do you need to go to bed?" and he says "NO" and generally stops whatever it is he's not supposed to be doing (usually bothering the dogs or crying about something of great consequence to him). 

Anyway. Constant talking and constantly repeating and asking questions and telling me what he's doing or what he is planning on doing. Just the other day, he started "I done crying now" when he's done being upset about something. Though, he got a terrible bump on his head the other night and after 10 minutes he said "I done crying" and I think that's because that's what he thought we wanted to hear. 

On a separate note, there will be no more running on the tile floors.

He was saying smiiiiiiile, because if I ask him to smile, he says it instead :D

Birthday (Cake) Ice Cream Cake

I really thought I had this recipe on my blog somewhere. It took me a few minutes to find it. Since it's been 7 years, I figured I'd repost the whole thing for you. But the pictures of the original are better, so you can go check it out if you'd like. 

I lovelovelove cake batter/birthday cake ice cream. The problem is that it's hard to find and I cannot be bothered with making homemade ice cream these days. I also haven't unpacked my Kitchen Aid and we've been here for 6 months, so that wasn't happening. I went to three different stores in search of it for my ice cream cake this year, because I wasn't trying to make life harder. I couldn't find it anywhere. So I had to make my own. 

There's multiple ways you can go about making your own. You just need cake/frosting. I did a bit of a semi-homemade version. You can just buy and freeze cupcakes or you can make your own cupcakes. I kind of balked at the idea of making homemade cake or cupcakes for this. Truthfully, I was so burnt out after baking three three-layer birthday cakes for Wells over the summer (one practice cake and one for each of his two parties)...I'm probably not making cake again until his next birthday. 

No comment on the child's fist in the cake. 

Ingredients:

1 package Birthday Cake Oreos

2 T. melted butter

3 cups of vanilla/yellow cake chunks, frosted 

1 large container of vanilla ice cream 

1 tub of Cool Whip (do not use Redi-Whip or canned whipped cream, as it doesn't spread or freeze well)

Sprinkles of choice

So the basics are...

I bought a package of Funfetti Mug Cakes. I made all four, frosted them, let them cool, then diced them up. 

I softened a container of vanilla ice cream and folded in the mug cake chunks.

[ i know. pictures would be great here, right? ]

I crushed the Oreos using a potato masher in a big bowl and then stirred in melted butter. 

I pressed this crust into a 9x13 pan (again, with the potato masher) and froze it for 30 minutes. 

Smooth the soft ice cream/cake chunks over the frozen crust. 

I refroze the cake at this point, while I softened the Cool Whip. 

After about 30 minutes, pull the pan out of the freezer and smooth the Cool Whip over the top. 

Cover in sprinkles of choice. I was so wholly unprepared that all I had was sanding sugar. But it did come out as a pretty iridescent color. 

Refreeze. Keep in the freezer for as long as you'd like! It stays good a very long time. But obviously in our house, it lasts no more than a week. 

---------------------------------------------

You can play with the ingredients and the method and get as creative as you'd like. It's a method, not a recipe.

Mint Brownie Oreo Ice Cream Cake

Candy Cane Oreo Ice Cream Cake

(Original) Birthday Cake Ice Cream Cake

This weekend...

... I stayed off of Instagram for a few days. I know everyone has their social media triggers. Mine is IG. Facebook is just bothersome and Twitter is informative. IG is an absolute time suck and comparison trap. 

... I cleaned/Cloroxed the trash cans and did a vinegar rinse on the Keurig.

....I highlighted my hair. I was so pleased with this Clairol version of highlights. I was not seeing results at all from the Loreal version anymore. This one turned my hair more of a golden, rather than just a blonde. The directions said something about "leave it on longer if you see a red tint". I see maybe more of a red tint than I've never had before (also, I've never had a red tint), but I like it. It's very natural/autumnal. $10 well-spent. Maybe next time I'll try balayage. You know what? That's a good goal for 2021. 

[picture to come during daylight hours]

....went to the local grocery store instead of going to Walmart. Wells broke the eggs at the checkout.

...Scott's friend came over for lunch and we had Panda Express. We're very high-brow. 

....I finished Bridgerton. Meaning, I watched 6 episodes back to back. 

... I finished one book and got halfway through another. 

...I watched the Chiefs game. We're like barely Steelers fans anymore. Something about them is just...off? Scott has been a Bills fan forever and I've always loosely (v loosely) followed the Chiefs because my brother loves them and they're in the AFC and I tend to only follow AFC teams. Now we're living in the Kansas City area and EVERYTHING is red, white, and yellow in these parts. Better than blue and orange, I suppose. 

...I placed a Beauty Counter order, and joined Band of Beauty. I only did this because I wanted two products and one of the products I wanted was the FREE gift for joining and it cost less to join than it did to buy the product. So I got two free products, the other product I bought, and the perks of B of B membership for a calendar year. 

...I bought a Loopy phone case. It's a thing I do: I buy phone cases. I don't know why/where this comes from, but it's a thing.  It's one of those running jokes that's not quite a joke because it drives Scott insane. Anyway, Verizon sent me a refund debit card for a bill we overpaid, so I used it to buy a phone case, among other things. 

....I front-loaded Wells on dentistry. I did this with potty training and it was a success. I bought a potty book and we read and looked at that thing every day for 3 weeks and then, all of a sudden, he was ready to potty train. This past week, I bought a dentist book and we look at it 2-3 times a day in preparation for today's dentist visit. Thoughts and prayers, please. 

...I also bought a regular doctor book this weekend, thinking maybe I can reason the hysterics out of him by reading about the doctor every day. He has his 2.5 year check-up next week. 

Linking up with Hello Monday!