Resolutions

February is a month to celebrate black history, your labor of love in a relationship, and that it's the shortest month in the year (hey, Mr. Popular...but only for cogs in the wheel of Corporate America). Fevrièr is not the month to make a life resolution nor revolution.

But that's what I did. I began the month with a plan which consisted of the following:

1) Map out a meal plan for the month because
2) No more grocery waste is to be tolerated and
3) I need to adjust my relationship with food so I...

A. Created an initially overwhelming and constantly changing spreadsheet tracker for Groceries which had a cash tracker AND a meal tracking tab for each month. Phrew, anxiety attack from Miss Perfection over here.

This was definitely the easiest aspect to creating this file.

Then...
B. Mapped out my month of meals through the end of February. I was encouraged because it (object: February) was about one week shorter than the rest [of the months] so if my plan failed I wouldn't feel too terrible and I...

Boom, detailed. Thank you, Pinterest and my brain for coming up with majority of these meals.

C. Broke down my grocery categories into: Fruits, Vegetables, Meat, Dairy, Grains, Canned goods, and Sundry items. Note: Avocados and tomatoes are fruit, garlic is a vegetable, liquid egg whites are disturbing and contact solution is expensive.

Please note the yellow lines and cue the wop wop noise. That would be some waste of mine [but at least only partial!]. Foiled!

I've learned a lot from this tracker of mine. Let's keep going on the lists, shall we?
I. Fruits and vegetables took about 25% of the overall budget but I purchased double the amount as in any other group.
II. Meat and dairy were in a neck and neck race to the bitter end to become the highest % and $ but ultimately meat won. Organic baby.
III. I wanted to keep my canned goods group small and my fruits and vegetables large: mission accomplished.
IV. Living is espensive. Like. Really expensive. Eating for 1.5 people (Tanner hangs around for a few meals) costs a lot. Yes, buying fresh adds up. Yes, buying organic does too. But these are both okay in my book because I'm keeping my future health costs down (hopefully).

I fully intend on continuing this trend of mine. Mapping out meal plans weeks in advance while still remaining open to spontaneity. Scripting my grocery lists for each Saturday on what I will need for the week and what items I can purchase in advance. I only want to see the friendly faces at Kroger's or Trader Joe's once a week and no more than that!

So far so good! Wish me luck in March (I'm going to be cleaning my crockpot a lot.)

Editor's note: I've now updated the spreadsheet to include a Grocery Lists tab because I was fed up with losing/leaving my lists everywhere and re-writing them over and over!

(Potentially) Never again

A while back I visited my parents to pick up a few items of mine lying about the house and garage when my eyes fell upon two cork boards just chillin', mindin' their own business. I immediately asked my dad what their intended use was as the dream that had been niggling in the back of my brain was given legs to run.

"Can I have those?"
"Sure!" And into my car they went along with a horse lamp and some baby blankets. I've since found a new home for the lamp. And it is prominently displayed in my living room. So yeah...I was obsessed with horses for a very long time but that's neither here nor there...

Back to the good stuff.

It took me awhile to sort out my plan. Did I want two ribbon boards? Did I want a new piece of art? Where are these going and what are their intended uses? Once I'd answered these questions, I saw my future bedroom wall art and a ribbon board for the kitchen. Voila!

Oh, so now I have to pick out fabric? The dreaming was the easy part? I worked so hard to think of what I wanted though...

Ok, how much fabric do I need? What's a yard? Hey, this one's pretty and so is that one over there. Do you two wanna hang out, maybe, just a little bit? I think these other two want to too because I'm dreaming of a basketweave pattern that surely isn't going to be a huge challenge to undertake. Oooooh, look at the burlap!

Lessons learned so far:
1) A yard is a LOT of fabric, especially for small projects where you only use a small cut/strip.
2) Jo-Ann's has really good prices on said fabric and really nice ladies to help!
3) There is too much fabric to choose from. Kinda like how you load your plate up at Thanksgiving and your eyes are larger than your stomach...that's how I felt when I suddenly realized I was toting around 6 different fabrics. I was intimidating myself and I was the one that kept stockpiling the fabric patterns!

Let's get this party started!

Project numero uno, wall art for my bedroom. Some yummy Paris print burlap and a creamy linen to offset.

This should require a license...there were definitely a few *gasp* worthy moments. ALL DIGITS STILL INTACT!

It's working! I'm actually doing this and it's working!

Lessons learned (cont'd):
4) Find a way to NOT have to sit on the cold, hard tile floor for umpteen hours on end without once standing up. The bum gets really sore, just saying.
5) Iron your fabric prior to use (but CAN you iron burlap?)
6) Putting measurement marks in the corkboard frame works...until you cover them with fabric, then you're SOL and left to eyeball.
7) I'm pretty good at eyeballing*.

Finito! *TOLD you I was only pretty good. I'll fix this bad boy eventually...surely.

I was beyond done when I wrapped up this project (get it, wrapped...because I wrapped the fabric all over it?) so I decided to postpone my basketweave.

Dear basketweave, you were a great concept, you were beautiful in my mind, but you did not tell me how difficult you would be. After finishing the Paris piece, I spent a few days mulling over my plan of attack on the weave. But, as with most other things, I planned a little and trudged ahead a lot.

I really dislike ironing, but at least these were very small squares rather than oddly shaped collars and pant legs.

After ironing all four of my patterns (!), I set about cutting them. Which brought me to conundrum #1: how do I layer these horizontally and vertically without overlapping the fabric patterns too often or at all?

And thus began the first of many layouts on the floor of my dining area. Conundrum #2: Does this one work here? Oh, it needs to tuck under...but...that other one on top is blocked by this guy over here. *rolls eyes*

Finally, inspiration (and loss of desire to keep fiddling) struck and I had my pattern!

Up high!

Down low!

And thus began the next two hours of my life. Conundrum #3: If this piece goes here, and this one here, then this one can be stapled now but this one can't. It was a lot of that. I built this bad boy layer by layer both horizontally AND vertically.

Conundrum #4: Trying very hard not to tip all the fabric off the board as I slowly attach each strip. Thankfully all the fabric were super buddies or something because they stuck together like glue! Thank you, static electricity for bringing this beautiful union to fruition.

Yes, that is my pajama pant leg on the bottom of your photo screen. I had to jury rig this picture taking somehow! Granted, using a small Rubbermaid box as compared to my shaking leg was probably best. No cameras were harmed in the taking of this photo! Though not for lack of trying on my part.

The hours passed, my legs waxed and waned sleeping status and my back reminded me that it didn't like being hunched in this position and was sore from bowling a 116 (whatwhat!) earlier in the day. Can you please KNOCK IT OFF? No, back...I rule this roost, you keep working!

Finito! The cards are part of a new system I've devised for myself to 1) cut down on calories and 2) cost during a month's time. Ideally, check out the bottom left pocket that got formed by the end of this process. C'est parfait!

Exhausted. Back, you win. We go rest now.

In all, I really enjoyed this little project of mine and I can't help being immensely proud of myself for actually following through on one of my art projects. I have a terrible track record but completing these two just brought my average up from 1 to 1.2. Game on, life, I'm coming for you!