A Little of This & That... Renovating, Decorating, DIY Projects & Family
I am honored to be guest blogging over at A Mama Collective today about my journey with breastfeeding my two girls. Jenna is honoring National Breastfeeding Week by turning it into a month long celebration with various moms sharing their stories.
And the HAPPIEST news! Jenna had her third baby girl Friday!! Congratulations, momma!
Many of you know that I’m a full time working mom and that while it’s a necessity for us (Kevin has been a full time student and is now starting his own business), I also really enjoy it. I find a lot of fulfillment in strategizing, planning and forecasting for the many challenges and successes of the company that I work for, and while I don’t know if I’ll be doing what I’m currently doing job-wise forever, I do anticipate working in some sort of capacity for a long, long time.
About a year ago I discovered this article by former director of policy planning for the State Department, Anne-Marie Slaughter. She describes a society that can’t support a woman who ‘wants it all’ but openly challenges business as we know it today to build a society that can, without abandoning the morals and principles that many of us moms hold firm (namely, the family). She left her chance-of-a-lifetime position in Washington DC to be with her family (and to continue her more flexible role as dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs). I found her article (and I read it word for word – you’ll love it I’m sure) very compelling and very in line with what I hope we are growing towards. In a very coarse summary, she shares how she believes companies can create flexible working situations that support both the family and a growing business. She also discusses the various stages that we’ll encounter as women in life and how we are constantly changing and evolving our role. Employee, employer, mom, entrepreneur, student, volunteer, business owner, c-level vp, grandparent… so many different stages. We don’t necessarily have to do it all at the same time.
I’m fortunate that my day job offers me the flexibility to be a good mom and a good employee. It takes a lot of organizing and a lot of self-sacrifice, but finding that stride feels good. I was honored when Corinna (also working mom) of Track 8 asked me to guest post as part of her series on working moms. Check it out here.
We are traveling to Florida for a wedding and a little R&R this week and haven’t had much internet access while on the go, but I do hope you’ll pop over to Corinna’s blog to check it out!
Liv & I traveling for work last year (here are two posts on traveling with babies & toddlers as well).
There is one last little nook in our den-to-kitchen space that is yet to be finished…
From the perspective of the office (or the front of our kitchen), the kitchen looks pretty complete. Especially considering that it started out as a den (wood paneling and all) five years ago.
But if you were to look to the right of this space, you’d see a clear glass door that looks like this:
Harmless at first glance, but if you open it up you’ll find a half complete shelf space lined with random cleaning supplies, dog gear and bulk paper towels from Costco. I keep waiting for it to be finished finished before filling it with food and using it as intended.
It has plans to one day be a fabulous pantry, one of those organized, pretty pantries that come complete with labeled shelves and cute baskets and bins sorted by type of canned veggie.
But on the bright side, at least it’s not here anymore!
A pantry will be nice because the kitchen actually has very little storage (much like the rest of our house) thanks to last year’s transformation of three closets to a full bath.
The bathroom is worth its weight in gold and getting rid of closets has caused us to streamline our saved gear (jackets, boots,etc) or find new homes in places like the garage for rarely-used clothing. The lack of house storage is starting to take its toll three years in. Good news for the kitchen! As you can see from the above layout, when we built that new bath we also built in a small pantry space. A small, underutilized (until today) space that I can’t wait to finish up.
I shared here how Kevin had basically dreamed up a man-cave pantry complete with beverage cooler for his craft brews and pallet lined walls for that rustic look (with rope lights no less).
Kevin insisted upon a clear glass door while I suggested we frost it. He agreed to be very organized when it came to canned goods so I agreed to give the clear you-can-see-everything-inside a go.
Let’s just say that that’s not working out so well…
So now it’s my turn to dream up a lovely pantry interior storage solution! Happy to get my paws on those bags of dried beans…
Jars and baskets and bins, oh my! Can’t wait to get started when we’re back from our little R&R trip to Florida…
PS More Kitchen Makeover posts here.
