Peck Life

This Week.

The most beautiful photo of my favorite type of flower – peonies, taken by Lisa Warninger and Chelsea Fuss.

This week has been hard and long. I hate to be a complainer but like my friend Rebekah says, it’s good to document the daily ups and downs to remember that things aren’t always perfect or wonderful {although she says this much more eloquently than I do…}.

On Wednesday night, Sky came down with a stomach bug and was throwing up every 10 minutes until about 3 am. We went through every towel, every linen, and I stayed awake with him until 2:30 am when I proceeded to nudge Josh that it was his turn to take over. We don’t really know what was wrong but he’s feeling better now. It was just a very long night of sleeping on the floor and holding a bowl over my little one.

The stress of work and preparing for leave, preschool hunting and potty training, a leaky roof, a broken flower planter {our big one that was going to go by the front door..}, a garage, nursery, and storage unit that seem endless and daunting, never seeing my husband, not enough waking hours to blog, and scheduling a million different appointments before baby boy joins us has me a little bummy and a lot overwhelmed.

There is a bright side though – not one but TWO gatherings with friends this coming weekend and an overnight date for Josh and I at the end of the month. I was hoping by now we would have something fun planned but that’s not the case. At this point, sleeping a solid 8 hours in my own bed sounds glamorous. The person covering for me during my maternity leave is almost fully trained and I should be able to start transitioning work over the next few weeks….hopefully lightening my load and allowing me to finish some project work that has been put on the backburner.

Here’s hoping to calmer weeks ahead! Happy weekend friends.

P.S. - Daylight savings time is this weekend! Don't forget to spring ahead!

Piles

It’s been a long week. On Sunday, we packed up our first home that we’ve lived in for 6 years and moved. There is still stuff at the old house – we probably have at least 2 more trips. But, for the most part, we are officially “living” in our new place.

The new house is great, but in a tornado-like state. There is so much I want to do. So much I want to clean. So much I want to put away. So much I want to buy and rearrange. So much I want to decorate. It’s just not in the cards right now so we live in piles and work little by little with a toddler at our feet. Even though it feels chaotic and unsettled, we are very lucky to have a warm roof over our head and a short commute to everything we need.

Apart from the house, I’ve been trying to make it a holiday season for Sky but am feeling guilty that the tree and decorations are not up, and we aren’t in the kitchen baking gingerbread and creating cute kid-friendly Christmas crafts. There has been no visit to Santa or trips to Snowflake Lane. Christmas cards have not been ordered. I might get a little more depressed if I have to see one more adorable advent calendar or holiday garland on a blog {which is so unlike me}. Who knew not getting to craft could make one so angry and bitter? To add to the stress, little mister will be THREE on the 18^thand there are no special party plans other than a cake and hopefully some balloons with our immediate family. I hope he forgives me someday!

In the grand scheme of things, we are happy, healthy, and lucky. Things will settle and get better. Come the new year, we will probably be well on our way to feeling back in the swing of things {hopefully?}. If not then, at least by April when little mister #2 will join the chaos!

Ummm, so yeah.

I know I don’t normally vent much in this space but I just have to tell you….this week has been ROUGH! Maybe it’s pregnancy hormones {I don’t ever remember having these big mood swings with Sky}, but I’ve been feeling like I’m drowning and it’s making me cranky!

My biggest stress right now is the sale of our house. We have a solid offer and waiting for the banks to approve, but the amount of paperwork required to get this all done is just insane! We submit packet after packet and just when we think we are all done we we get another email {and another email….and another email} – “hey guess what?! ANOTHER PACKET WITH THE SAME INFORMATION YOU FILLED OUT BEFORE”! &%*$#%. The daily bank phone calls on my cell and work number AND the certified letters sent to the house AND the piles of “reminder” notices make my blood boil. I just can’t wait for it all to be over.

Sky has been sick with a nasty cold this week, too. He’s so full of snot and coughs so much that he throws up, usually at night where he’s also waking up every few hours. Too bad for us all the extra bedding is storage – the laundry cycles have been non-stop. Thankfully, Josh has been around to help when I lose it and can no longer deal and has been keeping me entertained at work by texting me cute pictures of him and Sky. I feel like a horrible parent because Sky has barely been bathed, stays in his jammies most of the day, watches WAY too much TV, and I feel like by the time bedtime rolls around, I am so short tempered and exhausted I have nothing left to offer.

Then there’s work. OH WORK. It’s so very busy right now and some days I wish I could just quit everything and not go. But, then I quickly remember that wouldn’t work – both for my sanity and our budget. I don’t know what was wrong with me but I also volunteered to help with our corporate Giving Campaign for the month of October and it’s been a HUGE time suck. We are in the home stretch!!

There’s also a bunch of silly little stuff that is NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL but for some reason just compounds the fact that I feel frazzled and poopy. For example, none of my clothes being able to fit but my maternity stuff being too big, no food sounding appetizing to eat, long commuting in the dark pouring rain, forgetting half the time that I’m even pregnant {poor kid #2!!}, frustration that baby gliders I like are $1,000, our power randomly going out and Sky screaming because his night light doesn’t work, never seeing Josh {actually, this kind of is a big deal}, the laundry mountain in our guest room, not feeling caught up on blogging/emails…and on and on.

Sometimes when you write this stuff down and put it out to the universe, it all of a sudden changes and either gets better or go away. Maybe that will happen?! I could sure use a little boost!

Being Still

Sky did me a solid and is sleeping in this morning. It’s crazy how happy the simple pleasures can be; for example, being able to drink a cup of coffee while it’s still warm. We are 2 degrees above freezing today, a sign that fall has surely arrived and I’m just trying to enjoy the quiet and be still for a few moments before the crazy day begins. On the bright side, only 13ish more hours and I can snuggle up in bed again!

A Life Update

Oh my goodness guys, can I just tell you…? Life has been stressful lately. There is so much change going on, a lot of which you’ll hear more about in the weeks to come but for now, I’m just trying to take things day by day. I tend to do this thing where I think about EVERYTHING at ONCE and totally overwhelm myself in a matter of minutes….when really, I should stop jumping so far ahead and just focus on one thing at a time. It’s a bad habit that makes me overly anxious and crabby. Even at night when I go to bed…..exhausted from the day, my head starts spinning with the to-do list, the future, this and that, plans, stresses. I know I’m not the only one.

 As you read this, I’m at the ocean with Josh and Sky. Our first REAL family vacation alone all summer. It’s only for 2 nights and it’s not very far away from where we live, but it’s still nice to get away. The mighty pacific always makes me feel better and calms me right down so I’m looking forward to keeping my phone tucked tightly away and just enjoying our time on the beach.

Now, onto some happier news!

• I was listed as one of the top 20 home and garden blogs by Weatherables! I hardly think I deserve to be on this list but I’ll take what I can. It was such a nice surprise!
• The lovely Kim from Diary of a Jewell also did a feature about me! So lovely!
• A few new favorite blogs I’ve discovered lately: Somewhere Splendid, Ampersand Design Studio, and The Fresh Exchange. All beautiful.
• I’ve temporarily removed glitchy Disqus commenting from my blog and instead, just have my trusty old TypePad comments. I try to make it as easy as possible for you to comment so hopefully it works for everyone. Comments are always loved and appreciated!

All images via Terrain – because they just so describe what I love about fall.

Unplugging: August 2012

Welcome to the third and final of a summer series about taking the time once a month to “unplug” {here’s month 1 and month 2}! If you unplugged this month, feel free to link up below!

After only three months, I feel like this whole “unplugging” thing is becoming second nature. At this point, it’s just NOT a big deal and has instead, turned into a day where I can shut the part of my brain off that constantly dings at me to check blogs, respond to emails, work on a post, edit photos, or even do mundane things like balance the checkbook and pay bills {since I use the computer for so much of that}.

This time around, the day was spent keeping Sky busy {seems to be my life these days!}. Power wheels, playing trucks, and a trip to grandma and grandpa’s for a some play time at the lake, cheeseburgers, ice cream, and torturing of Scottie the cat.

Although it didn’t happen on my actual unplugging day, I also baked a cake recently. I figure anytime I choose cooking over blogging should be noted, right? I used the last of our Italian plums to make the plum cake I mentioned in my July garden post. In addition to plums, I added some fresh blueberries picked a few days earlier. The consistency of this cake borders on scone-like, but it is also very moist and not heavy at all. It goes PERFECT with a cup of coffee in the morning.

I’d love to hear about your unplugging attempts/successes! You can link up below or just share your thoughts in the comments. A huge thank you to everyone who participated over the last few months!! For me, it was a great exercise to remind myself just how often my nose is in a device, and forced me to be more present and find better ways to use my time. I hope it did the same for you!

Unplugging: July 2012

Welcome to the second of a 3 part summer series about my experience unplugging for a full day. I’ll be doing it once a month all summer and invite you to join in the fun! You can read part one here.

If there’s one thing I gathered from unplugging this month, it’s that one day might not be enough. What I thought would take me months to warm up to, has quickly become rooted and left me only wanting to do more. One day is great for quieting your mind and catching up on things that have fallen to the wayside. But to truly reinvigorate creativity and relaxation, more days are needed.

My actual unplugging day this month wasn’t anything special. We stayed home and did chores, played, worked in the garden, and I think we drove somewhere {although I can’t remember why?}. I just remember being in the car and consciously having to tell myself to not check my phone. Although, more and more there isn’t a strong urge to constantly check when I remind myself that I’m not missing much. I’m finding that the summer has been a quieter time in blog land and I like it. Do you feel like people are online less in the summer? Everyone seems to be taking their own mini-breaks, posting only when they feel like it, and generally staying busy with other activities like vacation, being outside, and playing with the kids who are on summer break.

To give you a glimpse of how I’ve been spending my time when I’m not online or at work, here’s a peek into our adventures lately:

Sky likes to make messes, but not in a destructive intentional way…..more in a “I’m a boy and this is just what I do” way. Last week, he climbed up into one of the empty raised garden beds and started playing with the dirt. I indulged him as you can see…

I got a new lens for my camera – a 50 MM 1.8 and I LOVE IT. I’ve had so much fun playing around. Lily was nice enough to sit still for 30 seconds so I could take a picture of her ear.

July has brought with it the daylilies, daisies, crocosmia, black eyed susan’s, and spirea in the garden – all perfect for flower arranging. We celebrated 2 birthdays so far this month – both of our moms! So, bouquets were a necessity.

We attended a local street fair and all Sky wanted was an ice cream cone. Sweet boy got his wish and proceeded to bounce off the walls for the next 2 hours. The shoes, the giant band aid, the entire package….he’s too cute.

When I was little, picking huckleberries was one of my favorite pastimes. It was how we spent our summers. I’m happy to report that my boy is a little huckleberry hound as well and we enjoy picking anywhere we can find some bushes {mainly in nana/poppa and grandma/grandpas yard}. The crop is robust this year!

Yet another mess we’ve made lately has been with BEANS. They keep Sky entertained for quite a while with all of his trucks. They do get everywhere but thankfully any beans too small to be picked up can just be vacuumed!

I’d love to hear how you’ve been unplugging this summer and welcome you to link up below!

Unplugging: June 2012

Welcome to the first of a 3 part summer series about my experience unplugging for a full day. I’ll be doing it once a month all summer and invite you to join in the fun!

Well, it happened. I turned off my phone and the computer around 11pm the night before, and didn’t check anything until 9 am the day after my full day of being technology-free. I’m not sure why I was hesitant to do this or acted like it was the end of the world, but it was not as scary as I envisioned! It was actually really liberating and it felt SO GOOD not to check anything and just be present in the day. Sometimes it's easy to feel like you need to be connected all the time and that you can't miss out on that one comment....or tweet....or photo. But in the big scheme of things, does it really matter? Does it make your life so infinitely better that you need to see it right away? For me? No, definitely not. Does it make my life infinitely better to enjoy my actual surroundings and spend time with my family, go outside, or work on projects around the house? YES.

My new hanger collection from grandma’s

On this first unplugging event, I spent most of the day helping my parents clean out my Grandma’s house. Since she passed away in early May, we’ve been slowly going through the many, closets, drawers, and cupboards figuring out what needs to be saved, tossed, and put aside for the estate sale. It’s a daunting task, especially since she lived in a big house and there is over 40 years of STUFF in there. After Grandma’s, we were pretty lazy {and tired} the rest of the day…..hanging out at home and puttering. I gathered a couple of bags for the goodwill and managed to go through lots of piles of STUFF that had just been collecting dust. The evening was quiet and I went to bed at a decent hour for once!

Excited to have found these envelopes, un-used!

The next day when I was connected again, I quickly realized that I didn’t miss anything important on Facebook or Twitter….the world was still revolving….and nothing bad happened. If anything, my mind felt clearer and re-set and ready to do even more unplugging {once i felt confident that i could do it!}

Really vintage pillowcases courtesy again, of Grandma.

I'm excited to hear about your unplugging experiences and welcome you to link up below! We'll be sharing stories on the 20th of each month so even if you didn't get a chance to unplug yet, there is always next month. :)

A Summer of Unplugging.

Happy Tuesday Friends!

I know I briefly mentioned this topic here, but I wanted to post some follow up details for those of you that may have missed it and would like to join me!

The challenge:

This summer (once a month in June, July, and August), I’ll be unplugging for a full 24 hours and then sharing my experiences here on ye old blog! I spend a lot of time on the computer and probably equally as much time keeping up with social media and email on my phone. I sometimes find myself thinking too much about what’s going on in my virtual world that I forget to put it all away and be present in the real world. Not to mention, it’s a total creativity suck. I wanted to try to go one full day a month without these distractions and just enjoy the day….fill it with things we all did before the internet existed.

3 easy steps to participate:

1. Pick one day a month to “unplug” in whatever capacity you feel is right for you. For me, it will consist of no phone (unless there is an emergency), no internet, email, social media, or TV for a full 24 hours. I don’t own a kindle or iPad so you can use your own judgment on if those count. I’m still planning to use my camera to photograph the day {limited}.

2. Blog about your experience. How hard was it to not check twitter for 5 minutes? Did you think about your email all day…? The blogs you needed to catch up on…? Or, was it easy to forget? How did you spend your free time? How did you feel at the end of the day?

3. Share your post here on the 20^th of each month. This is when my post will go live and there will be a link-up option for you to share your blog post too! Feel free to use the image in this post if you need one.

My hope is that by sharing our experiences and practicing a little restraint, we may come to enjoy these gadget free days and remember what it was like before we looked at our phone every 10 seconds! Who knows! Maybe it will turn into a regular thing! We already have a great group of bloggers on board and definitely welcome anyone who is interested {the more the merrier}! See you on the 20^th!

P.S. – my first unplugging day is going to be this Saturday!!! I’m scared!

Pictures, Plugs, and Summer Planning

Life has been so full lately, both with good and bad things. I feel like I’m on one of those merry-go-rounds at the park…spinning really fast, which no chance of slowing down anytime soon. Serenity now, please.

Here’s what’s been top of mind for me this week:

Photography. My first online class was a success and I now know what it means to shoot in manual....I think. I can take a picture but there is still a very long road ahead and so much more to learn. Practice, practice, practice. Something I'm struggling with: When I've maxed out all my manual settings and the photo is still way too dark, how do I use a flash in manual mode? There must be some trick because everything is coming out really over-exposed. As you can see, I’m still a complete novice and obviously have no clue what I’m doing.

My new favorite sandals from Mod Cloth. I need a tan…..bad.

Quieting my brain. Besides work….blogging, email, and social media fill my head from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed nearly 16 hours later. I have a love/hate relationship with my phone. I am contemplating having a "black out" day once a month for the summer where there is no email checking, facebooking, tweeting, pinning, blogging, commenting, internet, or TV....and then documenting how I spent my time and what it felt like to be completely liberated from electronics for the day. Don't you think it would be nice? Should we make this a group activity? Email me if you're interested in participating and let’s blow this up!

Unplug poster by Frederic Terral

Summer Vacation and Family Days. It's true that I am going to New York City in August for BlogHer (with no husband or child) and I do feel a little bit guilty about that. I also miss my boys and want to make sure we do some fun things together while the sun is out. I'm working on a summer bucket list and we are also planning a few fun local getaways. Vacation funds are not endless but spending time together is more important right now.

What’s been on your mind this week?

P.S. – I’m taking Monday off {FAMILY DAY!!!!!!!!!!} so I’ll see y’all on Tuesday.

P.P.S – I just finished a banner for my friend Melissa’s blog. You should check it out.