In which I am a little boring and a lotta vain

So, that 30-day self portrait challenge. I’ve been kind-of keeping up with it.

Without further ado, I’d like to present a look at my past week via pictures of myself on the days I have experienced within the past week!

when you’ve got a baby attached to you pretty much all of your waking hours, this counts as an accurate self-portrait. she’s a pretty cute one to be stuck to, though.

a road trip! a ten hour road trip, to be precise. two of them. I had plenty of time to be a goof and take pictures of my face [when I wasn’t trying to feed or entertain or soothe my child, that is…]

a more accurate picture of my roadtrip, breastpump not included.

this one is pretty neat. my hair is pretty long.

this is the scar that I got from a sledding accident when I was sixteen. I wore a bandage over it while the wound was healing and sometimes it looked like a Hitler-style moustache. Oops.

b-day present from the in-laws! birthstone and initial rings for my Daisy. love them. they’re from KerriAnn Designs on Etsy!

and here we are with today. woke up feeling wonderful…but the day went downhill after about 2pm and culminated in a delicious made-from-scratch dinner catching fire in the oven. Glorious. My house didn’t burn down though, so that’s a good thing, and the smokey smell is mostly gone…

So, there’s that. Daisy and I enjoyed a short trip with my family, to meet her great-grandparents last weekend! We enjoyed Oregon very much! But we were both grateful to be reunited with the hubs/pops.

I didn’t skip as many photos as I thought I did, which surprised me. It’s been interesting trying to take photos of myself each day…I feel slightly ridiculous, but it’s good to be consistent about something and it does make me feel good. It’s an easy thing to do to for a little bit of “me” time, and I enjoy the challenge of thinking up new ways to see myself through a crappy iPhone camera lens each day.

Because you were such a good sport and put up with staring at my face and such through this post, here is a treat for you:

when I start doing things like this and laughing hysterically….it’s a good sign that I need more sleep. being a single parent is hard, yo. I now have mad respect for all of you single parents out there, and I only had to go it alone for a long weekend. If I could see each of you in person right now, you would get a huge hug.

love, Rach

Liebster!

My awesomesauce cousin, the one and only Jubilant Jessi, nominated me for a Liebster award! I love silly-fun-blog-things like this, and hope you can play along too 🙂

FACTOIDS:

1. I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. But I also moved away eight years ago, my memory of the area is pretty foggy, and I feel a little phony claiming to be “from” there.
2. This year, I have baked 5 full size pies.
3. Last year I baked 19 full-size pies.
4. I handmade all of the flowers for my sister’s wedding [in May].
5. Funfetti is my favorite kind of cake.
6. Mint chocolate chip is my favorite flavor of ice cream – I like to critique different brands and pretend I’m cool or something when I compare the chip-to-ice-cream ratios and such.
7. One of my favorite scriptures that I’ve found recently is Ecclesiastes 7:12 (KJV) “For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.”
8. I have two younger sisters and three younger brothers. The birth order is girl-boy all the way down the line.
9. I am officially one-eighth Mexican. Not that you can tell by looking at me.
10. I am a Mormon! The monthly magazine published by our church is called the Ensign. The August issue arrived in my mailbox today, and I loved this article: [No Corrupt Communication] and these articles that were referenced in it: [Parental Sarcasm] [The Science of Sarcasm? Yeah, Right.] [The Tongue of Angels]
    Definitely gave me some food for thought today.
11. I recently read this blog post about a “30 days of self portraits” challenge. I think I might do it. Here are two from today:

• 

Q&A:

1. Why did you start blogging?

Because I have a lot to say [sometimes], and I liked the idea of publishing it somewhere where people could drop by and read it if they wanted to, but it wasn’t going to pop up on a feed [or clog their “bulletins” on Myspace, etc]. I actually started out with a Myspace blog….and then switched to Blogger in 2008, and then to WordPress in 2012. If you go back in my archives, I’ve actually saved some of my best posts from my Myspace blog and transferred them to the different platforms I’ve had over the years!

2. Where is one place you have always wanted to go?

Fiji! The Truman Show was my favorite movie for a long time….so Fiji was always my answer. I guess I’ll stick to it.

3. What was your worst cooking disaster?

Oh dear. One time I tried to cook rice and I didn’t have enough water in the pot, so it burned…badly. The residue never. came. off. I was cooking something else to go with it too, and it also burned and got stuck. I think my parents ended up throwing all of those pots/pans away.

4. Best thing on the internet?

Left Handed Toons. You’re welcome.

5. Favorite family activity?

Dinner time! Kind of simple, but sitting around the dinner table with my whole family was [and still is] my favorite part of the day.

6. What’s your best crafty creation?

Probs my wedding dress. It turned out exactly as I wanted it to!

7. Just how cool are you? 🙂

I’m so cool that I’m attempting to sew my own cloth diapers! I’m turning my basic prefold diapers into fitted diapers. It’s going well enough, considering I’m not using a pattern. I’ll keep you posted…

8. What book should I read?

Anything written by Agatha Christie! Miss Marple mysteries are my absolute favorite.

9. If you could learn a new skill, what would it be?

Probably the skill of being multi-lingual. That would just be awesome. So far, I’ve mastered really-pathetic-broken-Spanish.

10. Sugar or salt?

Oooh. Depends on the day, but usually I’ll go for sugar.

11. What do you do when you’re up late and can’t sleep?

Read a good book until I get drowsy eyes. It usually works!

I TAG:

hmm. anyone else who enjoys surveys and random facts and blog linkage! comment if you’re carrying on the trend and I’ll link you right up 🙂

and here is a Q&A from me:

01. What is your name?

02. What is your quest?

03. What….is your favorite color?

04. Did you get that movie reference? And do you know the air speed velocity of a fully-laden swallow? ; )

05. What is your favorite movie? [or, favorite movie in each of your favorite genres?]

06. What kind of blogs do you like to read?

07. Are you a blog-stalker???

08. How would you decorate your dream home?

09. What is your favorite meal to cook?

10. What are your favorite pizza toppings?

11. How many times in your life have you utilized public transportation?

and that concludes this edition of yet-another-stream-of-consciousness-veiled-as-something-constructive. thank you for listening, and please join us next time!

life off the grid.

It’s been nearly three weeks since I nearly eliminated my online presence.
And you know what??

I am absolutely loving it.

I did go through withdrawals, and have periods of time when I would pick up my phone and stare blankly at it for a moment when I realized I had nothing to “do”.
But now? I don’t even miss Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Pinterest. I don’t think I ever want to go back. I set up a Chrome extension to block the websites just in case I caved and tried to log in, but after a test run to make sure it was working, I haven’t even thought to visit any of the sites.

Well, okay, I did re-activate my Pinterest account for all of five minutes to look at my boards again and see if there was anything I’d pinned that I was interested in purchasing for my birthday. There wasn’t. I then remembered that I had survived my entire life without Pinterest, and realized I did not need to “curate boards” in order to know what my personal style is or to keep track of recipes. And I promptly deactivated my account again.

Now, I am still just as good at wasting time as I was before falling off the grid. I still check Bloglovin a couple times a day, and should probably weed through the blogs I follow. I’ve found good books that while away the hours nearly as well as checking Instagram. I have friends that actually talk to me (gasp!) and spent about 3 hours of today chatting on the phone and texting them. But overall, it is an improvement, and I am content!

I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the feedback I’ve gotten for this decision. If anyone thinks I’m nuts, they certainly haven’t told me so! I’ve had quite a few good face-to-face conversations with people about “unplugging”. A surprising number of dear friends got in touch with me right when I announced my decision, and have made an effort to keep up with the haps. I have picked up a fair number of pen pals as well, which is a lot of fun! And people even remembered my birthday yesterday without Facebook to remind them 😉

I feel very fortunate that I am able to take this leap. I completely understand that social networking is entirely necessary these days – it’s practically essential to any modern business or livelihood. I am so blessed to be able to care for my daughter and our home each day. I am blessed with a rich network of friends and family nearby that keep me sane on a daily basis, a well as friends and family who are further away but excellent at keeping up correspondences. My life is so, so good  and I thank the Lord for it every day 🙂