What Do You Eat for Dinner?

I recently read an article about at-home meal kits, like Blue Apron and Plate. The idea behind these kits is to provide families and individuals with the ingredients necessary to try new meals. Why? Because the average American family eats out about 18 times a month and otherwise, they cycle through about 10 meals that they cook consistently over and over again. 

That fact--that the average family cycles through about 10 meals that they always cook--made me think about what my meal staples are. When the going gets rough and I don't feel like cooking, what do I make? 

1. Spaghetti. I would say that some form of spaghetti or pasta is on everyone's list of "go-to meals." It might be spaghetti with red sauce (like me) or alfredo or lasagna or something like that, but pasta is on nearly everyone's list in one form of another. 
2. Salmon with rice & sweet potatoes. This is a pretty standard protein+carb+veggie dish that I make all the time... and I'm sure others do. 
3. Barbecue chicken sandwiches with coleslaw. This is one of Danny and I's absolute favorite summer meals that we can make a variation of throughout the year thanks to my crockpot. However, after getting pregnant, I couldn't handle shredded chicken so we hadn't enjoyed it for a while. 
4. Tacos or burritos. Another very standard staple. I use fat free refried beans and ground beef to make a filling that's great for tacos, burritos, salads, etc. 
5. Pizza/calzone. I make a pretty awesome pizza dough (it's very easy), so I make pizza or calzone at least once a week or so. It's a great way to get the pizza fix without buying a pizza. This way, I can make it a little healthier. 
6. Hamburgers with box mac & cheese. This is probably the unhealthiest thing in my rotation, but I just love that orange box mac & cheese. 
7. Grilled cheese & soup. Soups are usually stew; chili; veggie; or potato. Usually homemade, but occasionally I buy potato soup. 
8. Breakfast for dinner. Pancakes or waffles, eggs, and bacon is my usual go-to for a quick and easy dinner. But if I feel like getting crazy, I will sometimes make biscuits and sausage gravy or some kind of fancy omelette. 

That's it. I can't even think of 10! I have 8 meals I usually make for Danny and I. I can think of some I make a few times a year, like rouladen and colcannon or flautas, but aren't "staples" quite the way these ones are. 

Writing these down made me realize how much I need to add variety to our dinners. (Full disclosure: from February to May, I think I cooked a real dinner twice. And that was because other people were coming over.) I have so many cookbooks that I never use. Maybe it's time to put them to use...

What are your go-to meals? Can you think of 10? 

On Pregnancy & Style

Maybe you know (and then, maybe you don't), I used to be pretty into fashion. I had a very specific style; I took outfit photos; I maintained a fashion blog. I was into it the way some people are into baking. I curated my wardrobe; I mixed and matched; I kept a notebook full of outfit ideas; I wrote down at least three outfit combinations before I bought a new item. I was dedicated. 

And then, one day, it stopped. At first, I stopped liking how I looked in outfit photos, but I kept dressing up everyday because I enjoyed it and I had the clothes. As time passed, my body changed and my carefully selected wardrobe started to not fit quite right. More time passed and everything fit even less. 

I ended up in a deep rut where my wardrobe made me deeply unhappy (but the thought of getting rid of anything literally felt painful). I put everything in boxes and replaced it with, essentially, sweaters, leggings, and flowy tops. I didn't feel stylish, but I felt I could at least come across as cute or passable most days. 

Then I got pregnant. 

Pregnancy makes you treat, and look at, your body in a completely different way. No longer is that pizza on a Friday night just sustaining you; a good portion of it is being siphoned into a tiny human being that is growing bones, a brain, and organs. No matter what you do, your body is going to change and it's going to be very obvious to other people (even if they don't know you're pregnant). 

I will never be one to be preachy about treating your body like a temple. Truly, your temple is what you chose it to be: that could mean it's a salad bar or it could mean it's a rave. Who knows? It's your body/temple/whatever. And I don't think pregnancy really changes that (except in the case of drinking and smoking). I will fully admit to demanding Taco Bell at least once a week, sometimes more. I will also fully admit that some days all I drink is Diet Pepsi (I'm so sorry about the aspartame, Forrest). To a certain extent, pregnancy is such a stressful time otherwise that to try and stop yourself from craving the things you want when you're ravenously hungry is just another building block of being miserable. No one likes the mean pregnant lady, that's for sure. 

All I'm saying is: being pregnant changes how you view your body, and yet, there is no stopping or changing it. No amount of salads or sweet potatoes or kale is going to stop your body shape from changing, your waist from thickening, your abdominal muscles from separating to accommodate your fancy, improved uterus. 

Since getting pregnant, I have thought a lot about clothes. From the very start, you know your body is going to undergo a monumental shift, but you don't really know how or when. The knowledge is there, but the important part is the details and that's what really matters. You try to prepare the best way you can. For me, this meant making a truly bizarre decision to try not to buy maternity clothes. This didn't work, obviously, because I'm wearing maternity pants right now. 

A little less than 3 weeks ago, all my shirts were suddenly tight in a place where they hadn't been before (that is, across the belly). My pants could no longer button (but, brilliantly, still fit everywhere else). Most important, I could wear my leggings, but the cutting in of the waistband was torture. I had to do something. 

I bought maternity jeans and maternity leggings. I bought a maternity dress. I bought a pair of somewhat dorky maternity cargo pants. I bought extra long tank tops at Target for summer.

The unifying factor of all of these decisions? I bought them, ultimately, out of desperation for something to wear that wasn't my uncomfortable leggings. I didn't buy them necessarily for max cuteness or because they fit my style. In fact, they really don't. 

But part of that desperation was the desire to look better. It's true: I could wear sweatpants and baggy t-shirts for 9 months and call it good (and considering my workplace, this is entirely possible). But I started to realize if I dressed nice everyday (maybe not stylish, maybe not perfectly) I would feel a lot better about the fact that I was slowly becoming more spherical. If nothing else, if I looked pulled together, I would feel less like people were judging me (because my baby bump only really looks like a baby bump if you know I'm pregnant). 

Personal style is a tricky subject to begin with. Some people have an effortless style that they fall into without having to do much work for it--there is no curation for them, no hours of trying on items. Some people are on the opposite spectrum, never quite achieving the look they want and never really knowing where to start. Pregnancy can make things more difficult, with different sizes and larger price tags, for both sides of that spectrum. 

I actually started a Pinterest board to give myself ideas when I feel like pulling a WFH and wearing my Batman onesie the whole day. (As an aside, I love the bloggers who start doing "How to Dress for Pregnancy!" pins at like 8 weeks with their perfectly flat stomachs. Just wait, guys. Just wait.)

Mostly though, while I work my way through pregnancy, I want to try to improve my self-image to be the best it can be--baby bump and all. 

Give Me All Your Breakfast Foods: Or, Why We Shouldn't Be Afraid to Try New Things

My mom would probably be the first to lament my hatred of breakfast as a child. I distinctly remember going through a phase where all I would eat was chocolate chip Costco muffins--but I only ate them 1) microwaved and 2) upside down. Oh and 3) I only ate the bottom half, never the top because the texture freaked me out. No, I don't know what was wrong with me.

I distinctly remember tipping the top parts of Costco muffins into the trashcan in my family's kitchen, the thunk of it against the garbage bag, then carrying my plate to the sink. What a waste. 

Other weird things I ate for breakfast included burnt toast (something I still have an affinity for) and mini-bagels microwaved with slices of American cheese inside (something I would still eat today if it didn't fill me with shame). I would eat pancakes, but only with butter, no syrup. I would eat scrambled eggs only in a sandwich with toast, never on their own. I didn't like bacon or sausage. I liked cinnamon rolls, but, like giant Costco muffins, that's not really a balanced breakfast. I ate Eggo waffles, but like pancakes, only with butter. I only liked dry cereal and usually only Cheerios or fruity, sugar-coated cereals--but I didn't like eating them for breakfast.

I was a breakfast weirdo, an anomaly in breakfast-obsessed America. In general, I just hated breakfast. I never felt hungry in the mornings and none of the food appealed to me. I went through most of middle school and high school never eating breakfast--not because I didn't have time, but usually because I didn't like any of the foods available to me. 

It wasn't until my sophomore year when I took a walking/jogging class in the accelerated 6-week term that I started eating breakfast consistently. This was also when I started to get really weird about logging, or writing down, everything I ate, a habit that continues to haunt me (I write, as a reminder on my phone chirps so I remember to log my lunch into LoseIt! so I can track my protein intake). After jogging a mile or more, I knew I had to eat breakfast or I would slowly transform into a werewolf throughout my Shakespearean literature class. Just kidding, but seriously: I would get cranky. 

While I recognized my need to eat breakfast, I still didn't necessarily like breakfast foods. At least, not until Danny came to live with me, exactly three years ago. 

Danny is a breakfast eater, especially on the weekends. When he moved in, I would make breakfasts on the weekends and that's when I started to enjoy them. 

I'm not sure when the switch happened. I can't exactly pinpoint when I started to appreciate pancakes or waffles or eggs-sans-toast, but it happened. Something just changed. I even started to like bacon and sausage. 

Being a lifelong picky eater, it's always weird how one day something you always hated becomes something you don't really mind. Like red onion: I've always avoided raw red onion, but six months ago, I ate a sandwich with raw red onion on it and... I didn't die. It tasted good. Why am I so difficult with food? 

I do remember the first day I tried a fried egg. I've never been a big egg eater--and to be completely honest, I don't like eating eggs plain, period--and I'd always rejected fried eggs. I'd learned to make them for Danny, but I never ate them myself. However, when I was between jobs last year, I convinced myself that trying new things would be good for me. So I ate a fried egg... and I loved it. 

Obvious statement alert: tastes change. Things I once thought were disgusting, I now love (and I'm sure being pregnant isn't helping this) and things I once loved, I now find revolting. When I was 14, I redecorated my room to feature orange and teal flowers (I loved orange obsessively at this age). The idea of having an orange and teal room these days sends me into a panic. How did I sleep with orange curtains, orange bedding, and teal accents? Just as my taste in decor has changed, so has my actual, literal taste. 

I think too often picky eaters (like myself) are terrified to try things that feature foods they've always disliked... even if they don't really remember why they started disliking that food. They (and not just "they", but "we" to include me) are afraid to simply try a new thing. All it took for me to start enjoying, and eating, breakfast was to try it, to try different foods, from fried eggs to bacon to pancakes with syrup. It sounds basic as all hell, but to the picky eater, it can be monumentally hard. 

You've probably clued into the fact, by now, that I'm not just talking about picky eaters needing to try new things. It's just the best metaphor available, because lots of people are picky eaters. Picky eaters often spend their time trying to figure out how to avoid the foods they don't like and are unwilling to try again. They're terrified of having a bad experience. 

But if I had been unwilling to try breakfast (waaaay back in June 2012) when Danny came to live with me, I would have never experienced the joy of lazy weekend breakfasts. And what kind of life would that be? 

All I'm saying is, trying something new every once and while, with no schedule or no motivation to change, can be a really, really positive thing. 

Help Me: I Officially Need Maternity Pants

A week later and I'm even bigger. 

I told myself I wouldn't. I'm not going to buy maternity clothes, I thought, feeling very superior in February. I might need them, but I'll get by!! I will!! I will survive!! Persevere! Fortify!

Not only was this a really weird thing to try to do, it was also really stupid. Because let me tell you, even if you can get a normal waistband on when you're pregnant (either in legging form or pants form, and if it's in pants form, let me say, I'm impressed), you probably won't want to. Because if you're anything like me, the cutting sensation of a waistband hitting right underneath the burgeoning, if quite small, baby bump is potentially the most painful, annoying, frustrating thing in the world. 

I really thought I could do it at the beginning. I really thought I would be able to make due with my leggings and jeggings, and a belly band to cover up my unbuttoned pants. I really thought it would be ok.

First things first, the waistband of normal leggings hits at potentially the worst spot in the world for pregnancy. About 11 weeks in, I bought a pair of Aerie high-waisted leggings (my favorites) two sizes bigger than I normally wear. My logical thought was: I can pull this up onto the belly bump when the time comes. I seem to have forgotten the lifelong struggle I've had with things riding down if I try to wear them at the "right" spot. Basically, if I'm wearing a top, it will ride up to my waist; if I'm wearing a skirt or elastic waist anything at or above my belly button, even if it's tight, it will ride down to my hips. This is just home I'm shaped, but I really thought things would change. They wouldn't. As I got more spherical, my Aerie high-waisted leggings still rode down to sit just above my hip bones--a.k.a., the place where I could not stand to have a waistband. I sobbed, I whined, I pleaded with my body to just let me have this one thing. It wouldn't because my body is an organ that basically does what my DNA and brain, not my feelings, tells it to. I broke down and bought maternity leggings, which are not as thick as I like and have weird, baggy crotches. I'll make due. 

I held strong on the jeans front. I bought an Ingrid & Isabel Be Band at Target (for kind of a ridiculous price tag) early on and thought, "Yes, this will work." 

BeMaternity® by Ingrid & Isabel® BeBand from Target, $16.99

It does not work on my body. Ok, maybe it's just me. Maybe my body is just the random integer in a set of data, the outlier, the weirdo. But I don't think so. The band stretches out, both at the top and the bottom, so it sags, rolls, shifts, falls down. It stops fitting. It rides up, it rides down, it exposes your unzipped pants, it lets your pants ride down. When you wash it and dry it, it doesn't shrink back up. I bought the right size, according to the packaging, but I'm beginning to suspect that no size would make it work. It just wasn't going to work. Too small of a size would be unbearable to wear the beginning, only for it to inevitably stretch out. 

So I broke down. I bought maternity jeans, the thing I said I would never do. I bought them, feeling strangely excited to be able to wear jeans instead of leggings again. And I'm glad I bought them when I did: my trusty Target is gradually phasing out the normal colors of maternity jeans (aka dark) and replacing them with stone washed frayed capris and white jeans. Honestly, it's like they want women to suffer. 

Since then, I have delicately begun to search for maternity clothes elsewhere. Last week, I spent a terrifying 40 minutes in my local Old Navy looking for their maternity section (the Old Navy website insisted they had one); I eventually found it in the baby section, sort of behind a display of superhero-themed clothes. They had one rack, a messy shelf of maternity tank tops (all XS and XXL), and a clearance section consisting of about 5% maternity clothes and 95% leftovers from their plus-size collections. It was painfully disappointing. 

You'd think with the proliferation of online shopping, physical stores would step up their maternity clothes game. I can buy tons of maternity clothes on websites like Zulily and Amazon, but if I want to try them on before purchasing or have the fun thrill of going to a physical store, my options are incredibly limited. Pregnant women get to choose between a series of frumpy tank tops and tee shirts, horizontal striped dresses, and ill-fitting maternity jeans. What's up with that? 

Like plus size clothing, maternity clothing doesn't seem to have fully caught up with the rest of the shopping industry. There were a proliferation of fast fashion shops for conventional sizes, but if you're pregnant and/or larger than the standard sizes, you have to shop online and that is only if you find items that are actually, you know, flattering. 

So, this is where I ask you: fellow moms, where do you (or did you) buy maternity clothes (or clothes that come in a wide variety of sizes that you could perhaps customize for maternity wear)? What items did you need the most? What could you not have made it through without? What worked for you? What didn't? Tell me about it! 

On Scrapbooking With Less

I love scrapbooking blogs. 

In fact, I would say they are one of my favorite niche blogs to read. Over the past six months, as I've moved away from fashion and beauty blogging, I've followed more and more scrapbooking and organizing blogs and Instagram accounts. Maybe it's the baby, or maybe it's that I'm returning to my first favorite hobby. But either way, I've gotten into scrapbooking again for the first time in a long time. 

However, there seems to be an overwhelming theme to most scrapbooking blogs (and organizing blogs, now that I think about it). What's that theme? Acquiring stuff. 

Funny enough, this is one of the things that made me a little, well, exhausted with fashion blogs and then beauty blogs. The constant acquiring of new things: new tops and skirts and shorts and dresses and belts and purses; new foundations, powders, blushes, bronzers, lipsticks, blushes, eyeshadows, palettes, and nail polishes. It gets exhausting to even think about keeping up with the rate at which some bloggers just seem to acquire. Some stuff might come from sponsors, but it still seems like the bulk of what bloggers write about is... stuff they bought with their hard earned cash. And if you add up the totals at the end of the day, the numbers aren't pretty. 

One beauty blogger that I follow spend about $500 in one week. In one week on random dupe purchases, multiples of products she already owned, and other random beauty supplies. She admitted in a video to owning over 50 bottles of lotion, but she'd still bought three new tubs of Body Shop body cream. She also admitted to owning an endless supply of lip scrubs and lip balms, but had bought five more of both in the same week. She just wanted to review them, she said, for us, her viewers and readers. But did she really? Or was the desire more for the product? 

There is nothing wrong with acquiring things. My thought is if you like something and use it, you should buy it. But I've started to get very wary (and this might be because I'm an adult with bills to pay, who simply can't afford to drop the equivalent of a mortgage payment on lotion that I already own) of bloggers that seem to just spend, spend, spend. Bloggers can definitely make good money from blogging--but they can't make that much money. 

It seems like a new way to showcase, and excuse, a shopping addiction. It also seems like a weird competition: who can review the newest thing first? Who can have the most products in the most pristine condition (because really when you have 20 different blushes, you can always photograph one looking pretty and new)? 

That's why I stopped reading a lot of beauty and fashion bloggers. 

I didn't expect to see the same kind of frivolous spending among scrapbooking bloggers, but I was wrong. At first, I didn't notice: as I scrolled through my Instagram feed, I ooohed and aaahed over the meticulously decorated and scrapped planners, the gorgeous Project Life pages, the books, the washi tape, the stickers. Then, I started to notice something. I started to keep count. 

A popular trend among scrapbooking blogs is planners. Yes, planners. Those pre-dated little books you can buy in a variety of shapes, sizes, orientations with different timelines and what have you. Super popular among scrapbookers. From Filofaxes to Erin Condren planners, some people do some amazing things with them. 

But as I started to do a counting experiment: in one Instagram account of one scrapbooking blogger, I counted 20 different planners. She owns 20 different planners... and scrapbooks in each. and. every. single. one. In her mind, each planners serves a different purpose: this one records her appointments; this one, she journals about her day (this is separate from her scrapbook journal and her visual journal and her Project Life scrapbook and... and...); this one, she uses just when she's camping; this one, for her kids; this one, to keep track of her expenses; this one, for another thing; this one, just because she likes it. It's exhausting. How can she keep up? I barely have time to write a paragraph in my journal!

That wasn't the end of it either: there seemed to be an endless list of things she'd bought "just to try." Scrapbooking subscription boxes. Piles of Midori folders. Different Filofaxes. Every single Project Life kit available. Sticker printers. Label makers. The Cricut machine. It wasn't just planners. It was everything. And then, finding different and creative ways to organize everything, which of course included buying more stuff: Ikea carts, Container store desks and shelves, and more.  

I had unwittingly stumbled into the same kind of niche as before: the niche of purchasing new. Instead of focusing on scrapbooking and showing the pieces of art you can create in the simple space of a journal or planner, bloggers instead get caught in the trap of having something new to show off, to demonstrate, to review.

The fun thing about scrapbooking is that you can use basically anything to do it: pictures, washi tape, notebook paper, Sharpies, pressed flowers, leaves. You don't need to buy 100 different kinds of stickers. You don't need 27 different rolls of washi tape. You don't need all this stuff. In trying to hard to document life, you spend so much time doing it that it almost feels like you don't have much of a life to document. The most fun part of scrapbooking is doing it after a long period of not being able to. Those weekends of binge scrapbooking are so fun and relaxing! 

And I felt like a lot of the blogs and Instagram accounts I had followed had lost that. They'd lost the simplicity and fun of scrapbooking from, well, scraps. That's why it's called scrapbooking! While I oohed and aahed over the pieces they created, something about them started to feel hollow. While they are creative and beautiful, they also seem a bit empty, a bit lacking. There is something overly processed about them, even though they're handmade. It's probably because I realize now that they aren't created just to create; they're created for the process of showing, of demonstrating, of reviewing another purchase. And that's a bit sad, isn't it? 

I love Project Life and Simple Stories packs. I love them because they reduce a lot of the stuff you need and you can easily mix and match pieces and cards. I don't feel the need to buy a bunch of new packs when I want to start a new project. I ordered $20 worth of new stuff for my baby scrapbook (only because I'd simply run out of things for it). I keep my scrapbooking hoard to a minimum (and I try to keep it minimally organized). I'm proud of my scrapbooking hobby and my abilities in it (it's one of the simplest art forms to get into), but I worry about falling into the trap of acquisition, the siren call of wanting to try the newest planner, the newest pens, the new stickers or buttons or whatever. 

I've set rules for myself. As much as I want to scrapbook in planners (because they do really look cool), something about that just seems to... time consuming. I only buy new pieces when I start a new album--and I only start a new album for a major life event. I have a scrapbook for my Disney vacation, my wedding, my honeymoon, the baby. I want to start a general (big) scrapbook for everyday bits and pieces: weekend trips, barbecues, documenting my pregnancy. Otherwise, I'll do a little scrapbooking in my journal, but nothing extreme, nothing too hardcore. I'll do listing challenges and make albums out of leftovers and bits and pieces. I won't go overboard. I won't order 30 different planners. 

Ultimately, this is a sign of the problems with niche blogging. Ultimately, the niches begin to revolve more and more around competition, over who has what and who has reviewed what (and who reviewed it first). It becomes about acquisition. It doesn't matter the niche. It seems to happen everywhere. But that doesn't mean you should give in to it. 

You Shouldn't Feel Bad About Getting Your Nails Done (But That Doesn't Mean You Shouldn't Support Change)

If you haven't read the New York Times series Unvarnished, I highly recommend you do. And if you, like me, immediately feel uncomfortable after reading it, then the following is also something for you. 

If you don't have time for a several series investigate journalism piece, I'll sum it up for you: in New York City, one of the most expensive cities in the world, manicures and pedicures are cheap. Like, dirt cheap. A mani-pedi that might cost me perhaps $50-60 here in Oregon would cost may $20-30. Yeah, that's a big difference, especially considering that the cost of living in Oregon is staggeringly cheaper than New York City. 

Want to know the big reason nail services are so cheap in New York City? Surprise! It's because it's essentially slave labor! 

And it's probably not just in New York City, too. Several large chains are being investigated, which means that mall-based salons throughout the country are going to be under a microscope for their labor procedures. 

The main problem is that many of the manicurists working in New York City are here illegally; they don't speak much English; and they are desperate. The primarily groups are Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese workers, as well as some Spanish workers and other Asian minorities. 

There are lots of horrible stories in the first part of Unvarnished. You read about a woman charged $270 (more than her average paycheck) for accidentally dripping nail polish remover on a New York woman's sandal, and then being fired; she concludes with, "I am worth less than a shoe." You read about a woman paying $200 to start working in a nail salon--common practice, a fee for "training"--and then working for three months without being paid. When she is finally told she will be paid, she finds out her daily wage is less than $3. There are more stories: tips are skimmed or stolen by the owners, women go months without being paid or are charged for supplies and services they use in their work. Some women hand their entire paychecks over for childcare. Women suffer miscarriages from the fumes or get sick. 

It's devastating. The entire series so far is devastating. 

And if you enjoy manicures and pedicures, it can start to eat at you.

I occasionally get pedicures at a salon in my hometown. It is very small and owned by a Vietnamese family; the manager is their son, who has a degree in mathematics. The workers all seem to be family. They are friendly and seem very happy. I tip well when I go there and chat with them. If they happened to accidentally spill nail polish or drip remover on my shoe, I wouldn't freak out; accidents happen. 

The responses to Unvarnished vary. Lots of women feel guilty. And lots of others get mad about why anyone thinks it is ok to get a pedicure or manicure. "Doesn't it just stink of servitude to begin with??" one comment says.  The answer is, no, not really. It's like any other salon service, like getting your hair cut or colored. Yeah, you could do it yourself; but it's nice to occasionally have someone else do it. 

As long as they're paid accordingly, of course. 

The issue at play here is this: The minute we read about something horrible happening, it's a natural human instinct to think (or potentially say), "but how does this effect  ME???" 

The answer is: it doesn't. This issue doesn't really touch you, unless you are one of the hundreds of manicurists working slave wages. You can't think of this issue in terms of you and your feelings and your guilt. You have to think of it in terms of: What can I do to ensure it improves? 

Already, New York City has taken steps to make changes to their salons. There will be sweeps of all nail salons in the city. That's a big first step. If you truly want things to change, you shouldn't focus on what you feel about it; instead, you should make steps to ensure public policy change. Ask at salons you visit, write your senators and governor, sign petitions. Do something.

You don't have to stop getting manicures or pedicures, especially if you like them. You should support measures that would protect salon workers and ensure them fair wages and safe working conditions (including further testing on the chemicals used during acrylic manicures and their long-term health effects). You shouldn't be paralyzed by your own guilt, but you also shouldn't ignore the issue. 

"Studyblrs" Make Me Wish I Was Still In School

Photo Credit

They started popping up on my dashboard on Tumblr a few months ago. Studyblrs. Pictures of notebooks with meticulously illustrated notes, carefully framed with still life objects: carefully strewn pens, a calculator, mason jars. 

Studyblrs. Or study blogs.

Whatever your preferred terminology, they are essentially a community of students (most of them are female) that are just really, really into studying (or "revising" as the British studyblrs say). Most are in high school or their first years of college. Most have an obsessive goal they are attempting to reach: a certain GPA, a certain college or university, a career. They're dedicated and man, do they show it. 

Photo Credit

As a teenager and college student, I was very dedicated to school--and I was also kind of a weirdo about my notes. However, I never got the urge to illustrate my notes, or decorate them with stickers, or to admit to spending hours upon hours rewriting, studying, and, essentially, doodling. I had Netflix to watch, I guess. 

But part of me wishes I hadn't just been weird about taking notes--but that I had made them beautiful enough to keep. I mean, my notes were mostly a smeared frenzy of half-cursive, half-print with random highlighting and confusing bullet points. Sometimes, I made an effort, but sometimes, I just needed the information. And sometimes I, horror upon horror, typed up my notes, turning them into Times New Roman boring outlines. Perfect for studying, but not really cute for posting on a dedicated studying blog. 

Not only do studyblrs spend hours revising/studying, writing out their notes, reading, and more, they also dispense advice on their blogs, from specific studying techniques to notebook and pen reviews to how to study for specific subjects and tests. (The SATs, ACTs, and British GSCEs are a big factor in many studyblrs.) Some blogs are huge. One of my favorites, Revise or Die, has a massive following, answering anonymously submitted questions several times a day; she also posts printables, illustrated notes sheets, her own study set ups, reviews, and more. She also dispenses advice on the best pens to use, her preferred notebooks, and recommendations for software. For being so young, she's incredibly knowledgeable and helpful--way more than I would have been as a teenager! 

It's amazing that such a community of high achievement has popped up on, of all places, Tumblr and it's nice to see how many notes each post gets. It's comforting to think that students still care deeply about their grades and their future. 

I was never very good at doodling, though, when I think about it; I'm not very talented in artistic methods that don't involve pre-made elements (scrapbooking, basic graphic design). I never would have been a successful studyblr, but that doesn't stop me from wishing, more than anything else, there had been such a community when I was in school and could have used their advice. 

A Few Really Good Things

One of my oldest blog friends, Sian, recently posted about some "Good Things" and included me in her blog post! It made me realize that I haven't written something that just celebrated the good stuff in my life (without also dredging up my current pregnancy-driven hormonal upheaval). You can read Sian's post here... and here are a few of my own good things! 

1. Baby Clothes. 

Is there anything cuter than teeny tiny baby clothes? Finally knowing the little guy's gender has opened up a lot of possibilities for clothes! I'm a big fan of the Cool Like Dad onesie and the wee knitted high-top shoes on the upper left! On Mother's Day, my sister also brought me a tote of my nephew's clothes from when they were babies, which was very exciting! 

2. Maternity Photos. 

A few weeks ago, Danny and I did a set of "maternity photos" (basically "we're expecting!" photos), which basically serve as the last pictures of us (professionally done) before we always have to wrangle a child in them! I really like the results, even if I look a bit bloated in all of them. (Truth: I was a bit bloated in all of them. It's not just a look thing!) 

3. Baking

A hobby I went a long time without indulging, but this past weekend, I really got my baking on! I forgot to take a picture of the baby onesie cookies I made, but they turned out quite cute! I made teal-blue cupcakes for my barbecue this past weekend and I made myself some mocha donuts for breakfast that morning. Because I could. 

4. Naps. 

One of the overwhelming narratives of my life lately is: I'm tired, I need a nap. And I do legitimately need a nap. This is where working from home comes in handy; I can send out an email, excuse myself, and pass out for an hour or two (with Remus on my head). It's strange how I can go from working happily to "if I don't lie down, I'm going to fall down." 

5. Sunny days. 

This past weekend was a gorgeous, glorious, beautiful May weekend, kind of a strange thing here in Oregon. It was lucky it was Mother's Day--lots of barbecues to be had! I spent most of my day outside Saturday planning my own generally baby-themed BBQ and then Sunday, I spent time at my parents house while Danny finished up homework. 

6. Relaxing

This post does not really encompass the crazy-busy pace of my life in the past two weeks. Unfortunately, one of my coworkers was out sick for nearly a month--which meant that his 40 hours of work were split between me and one or two other coworkers!! The past two weeks have been a blur, so being able to kick back and relax (even with cooking and planning and everything else) on the weekends is really important. And probably why I need so many naps!