play

I woke up yesterday morning to the kids quietly playing with the dollhouse. I took this photo half asleep. (I thought there’d be kids in it but they had gone to check something outside.)

It made smile because of the car crashed over in the master bedroom. What’s that all about? And, notice the dining buffet up in the nursery.

Kids.

Ooh, I also have another favorite playtime photo from this week, of Adelaide getting into my jewelry. It’s wasn’t the best lit time of day and turned out a bit grainy but, you get the picture.

(She was chanting her “I’m the princess” song she made up.)

And lastly, Madeline babydollwearing, also from yesterday:

Such a good mommy.

You Capture: Play

black & white (okay, mostly gray)

You Capture: Black & White.

10 on the 10th (July edition)

1. I have several unrelated loose-endish things I’ve been wanting to jot down here, so Meredith’s 10 on the 10th is the perfect place for a random list!

2. We just came out of a very stressful week. I’m glad to be on this side. God is always faithful and always good.

3. I FINALLY took Arianna to get her first portraits done. (We always use Penney’s because it’s $5 for a whole package.) I was so good about doing the 6 wk, 3-6-9 mo, one year, 18mo, etc. pictures with the other kids but here she is, closing in on 9 months and I still hadn’t taken her. They turned out stinking cute. If you want a peek, I can email you the files but I’m not sure about the copyrights for posting them here.  Just let me know.

4. Remember I did that spring kids’ consignment sale? There’s an adult sale here next week and I’ve been procrastinating getting my old unused stuff and clothes ready to sell. It’s stressful adding such a huge project on top of four kids and a house. BUT, I want to use it for my personal clothing fund for the rest of the summer/fall, so I’m making myself get it done. And my, how my tastes have changed. (The sale is also taking household goods. Goodbye, attic miscellany.)

5. A couple months ago Andy and I went to a Crown Financial seminar and have been moving towards a cash system (as well as cutting various things out and downgrading others). It’s a lot of work but I know it will be worth it in the end. I will say that it’s amazing how much less we can live on with some effort and creativity.

6. Madeline has been begging me to wear her Easter dress again to church. It is in dire need of ironing, so I kept putting her off and then it was the 4th of July. So along with those items I need to iron for the sale, her dress must be done today. Need to get on that!

7. I took this photo of Arianna this afternoon and it made me laugh.

It also reminded me to mention that, yes, I AM still cloth diapering. (Probably about 85% of the time.) I’ve got a load washing right this very second.  (She’s wearing a GroBaby in that photo.)

8. Thanks to all you sweet bloggers who linked up to the first Fun Mom Friday. (And by the way, the linky will be open all weekend in case there are people still wanting to participate.) I hope you got a chance to click around; there were some good ideas out there!

9. Amanda wrote a good post on blog etiquette as it relates to commenting, so I wont rehash the topic (even though Mer and I were just discussing maybe doing a joint mini-series for the new-to-blogging-peeps). I KNOW that I could be better about it, but it’s also true that we only have so many hours in a day. For myself, I’ve considered turning them off altogether just because I’d waste a lot less time checking for email.

10. Since we’re not paying for anyone to be in Mothers Day Out or school during the summer, I hired a college-aged friend from church to come over a couple hours a week. I meant to work in the attic yesterday (for that blasted sale) while she entertained the kids, but instead Andy and I went to the bank, filled up his car, and grocery shopped. (I can’t decide how pathetic it is that we used our date to run errands.) But the funny part was, when we got home and parked, he opened the back of his car and the watermelon flew out, rolled down the driveway and across the street, landing in the ditch on the other side. (I was glad it had come from Aldi and wasn’t very expensive.)

So there you have it. Hope your Saturday is free of chasing stray watermelons!

A little bit of virtual housekeeping

First, I finally got around to rewriting my About Me page (up there in the nav bar). I’ll be honest, it’s probably still just a draft. I’m open to comments and suggestions.

Also, I’m excited to be working with a few new affiliates, listed under my BlogHer ads right there on the left. If you should choose, I’d make a small commission if you ordered anything through me from DaySpring (a Christian division of Hallmark), Tiny*Prints (a GREAT place to get your custom birth announcements, party invitations, holiday cards, etc.), and free baby samples at BabiesOnline. (That last one is simply to order free baby samples — they do not sell anything.)

(You know, so I can save up some pennies for the next vehicle repair.)

I’m going to be updating some of my other pages soon, too, when I have the time… I know my blogroll page at least is…ancient. Does anyone use those anymore?

Redesign!

So, as you can see, I did get a new design.  (Feedreaders and email subscribers will have to click through to see.) A few of you snuck a peek before it was finished and actually, it’s still only at about 95%.  But, even so, I’m very happy with it!  (Thanks, Jo-Lynne!)

I left my camera here at the house yesterday and just enjoyed being in the moment with my kids and frying myself laying in the sun.  Drew was a crazy maniac on the boogie board; Andy was a little shocked at how enthusiastically he got into it.  Fun to watch.  The storms were blowing in so the waves were higher but the sandbar was really shallow.

In the afternoon Andy took Madeline to this little beach memory shop and let her pick out one thing.  She’s been begging ALL WEEK to go buy a shell there.  She ended up picking a stuffed dolphin instead.  (I shouldn’t have been surprised.)

We didn’t get dinner in the oven on time so we ended up getting a couple of pizzas. Some friends were supposed to come spend the weekend with us and decided it was too much; so we ended up with more of a down night.

I’m off to enjoy our last full day of vacation! (And my coffee!)

A Two-Second Post

I’ve been flying around this week feeling like a headless chicken, if I’m honest. I pulled all the outgrown clothes and baby items down from the attic this afternoon and have an absolute mess in my living room. Hopefully pricing and tagging won’t take too long and I can get this stuff to the consignment drop-off SOON.

I just wanted to say (and remind myself) that I KNOW I still haven’t made all the return visits from the delurker day, and I WILL get to it eventually. In-laws are coming next week for the final stage of the kitchen renovation (countertops came in this week!) and with this kids’ sale and some other things going on, it’s just a little bit crazy right now. Bear with me!

Here’s your chance

to say hi!

(And like Steph said, I also promise you a return visit, if you have a blog.)

10 on the 10th

Except it’s the 11th.

My good bloggy-turned-real-life friend Mer does a little 10 on the 10th carnival and I have never participated but I always mean to. (Thought that counts?)  I’m just going to do a (really) random list of current things (mostly) about me…

1. In her post, she mentioned unplugging from the computer on Sundays; they limit their kids’ screen time and thought not being online would be a good way to set a good example for their kids.  I took that as inspiration and kept my laptop completely closed all day yesterday (it’s sort of like a personal tithe on time).  Hence the 10 on the 11th for me.  ;)  I think I’m going to keep doing that, unplugging completely on Sundays. (Even though it was hard.)

2. The last several days of last week I was on a complete organizing FRENZY.  I have no idea how I got that much motivation but I just rode with it.  (Could have something to do with the success of the laundry sorter.)

On Friday sweet Ellen came to play with the kids so I could run some errands w/out them and I picked up several container-ish things to help me in my organizing quest.  Like these little wire mesh boxes that now reside on the desk in the kitchen:

That used to be a huge messy pile of papers and other crap items that inevitably got tossed there.

3. Notice that fruity wallpaper? It’s about to get ripped out. I’ve restrained myself from not starting another huge project until the bathroom is finished but it should be done very soon (maybe even today). Next on my list is to paint several of the kitchen cabinet doors, replace all the knobs/pulls, and replace the wallpaper with paint.

We’ll also replace the countertops sometime in the near future to match the paint. I’m SO excited about this — the kitchen was sort of the last frontier in our house that we’ve never actually liked but never made our own. (I’ve painted every other room this whole house through.)

4. Since it’s been so very cold recently, every time we go out I’ve been bundling the kids up and the girls have been wearing their scarves.  Drew asked me where his was.  (Uh…)  So, not wanting to neglect my only son, I let him pick out some yarn and I’m making him one, too.  He picked blue (no surprise).

5. Andy has started singing regularly with our church choir.  (He sang with them for their Christmas concert and decided to continue.)  What this means for me is, that we have to get there VERY VERY EARLY on Sunday mornings.  And if you know us, that is high near impossible, especially with a nursing baby thrown into the mix.  I told my friend Gretchen yesterday that this choir thing just might kill us. (Keep in mind that Andy gets home from work Saturday nights usually in the wee hours of Sunday morning.)

6. I’m nearing the point where I’m starting to think about/get inspired to start losing the baby weight and recover from the holidays. (I said I’m thinking about it. Ahem.)

7. Drew started school back again today. I’m SO relieved to be starting our schedule again. We were getting increasingly stir-crazy being home for days on end without daily structure and things to do/places to go. It’s been too cold to be outside for any length of time and the kids’ energy in our tiny house was about to drive me a little batty.

8. Whatever the problem with our dryer was, it must have been something to do with the thermostat. Because now it’s MUCH hotter and ALL our clothes are shrinking. (Which doesn’t help ANYthing.)

9. I just bought a new double stroller. We ran our old one INTO THE GROUND. I figured since I just had a new baby, we’ll be using it for the forseeable future. It handles so, so much nicer than the other one. And doesn’t creak, which is nice.

10. This was where I got stuck and asked Andy for help… he said “you can say you have a little problem with a caffeine addiction” – AMEN. Don’t plan on changing THAT anytime soon. (Dreaming of Starbucks…)

We also ran out of half n’ half yesterday. Conveniently we did still have some heavy whipping cream which got me through this morning (hey, I was desperate) but that SURE doesn’t help with #6 above.

Happy Monday!

2009, Blog Redux Style

(Really this is supposed to be the first line of the first post of every month. I’m being lazy and just giving the titles.)

January
Happy 2009! (Don’t waste your time on that one.)

February
Busy Week Ahead (And also? She did start blogging.)

March
It’s Monday – time for a meme (i.e. old school blogging).

April
Madeline, The Storyteller. The end of this (”Adelaide can be… the crab”) still makes me howl.

May
Six Children Five and Under is too much for two mommies in Costco. And now we’d have seven, six and under. Still too many.

June
A Very Full Sunday. Oh my word, Adelaide, so cute.

July
Ready for the 4th, Part II. More Adelaide cuteness, patriotic style.

August
I’m here, I’m here.

September
Hair Flowers.

October
One of the easiest desserts ever. Now I’m hungry.

November
Day 3 (of Arianna’s life).

December
Where We Are (DPP Day 1). The bathroom project that is still unfinished (don’t laugh).

Fashionably late to the party

I haven’t done a link-up post in forever but I feel almost obligated to write this one since I know both Jo-Lynne and Robin in person and it would be all kinds of rude to ignore these lovely ladies and their fun bloggy party. (And Robin just lives down the proverbial street.)

(More or less.)

So… I’m Moriah, I’ve been blogging for a couple of years now and am a happy wife and mother of 3.5 kids (I’m due in the fall). My oldest will be going to half-day kindergarten this year and I’m very excited for him learning to read since it’s one of my favorite things.

(I also love shoes, shopping, blogging, meeting friends, hanging out with my hubby, watching movies, good coffee, and traveling.)

(And parentheses, apparently.)

I grew up moving all over the place with a military-career dad but have lived in the South for last ten-ish years (minus a one-year fling outside of Philly). I stay at home with my kids and occasionally even do the laundry. I contribute bi-monthly to Jo-Lynne’s fashion and beauty blog, Chic Critique.

We are Reformed Christians and are as involved in our church as much as having three little people will allow. (Let’s just say I’m fond of the Wednesday-night nursery.)

I like to stay busy and take my kids to do fun things. (I also spend way too much time on the computer.) I blog about my life as a mother of almost-four, my fun sewing projects, food occasionally, and my love of hairbows.

Hope you’ll stick around, I love new bloggy friends!

Cute as a button

Isn’t this cute?

My little salt shakers would be quite honored to come live in your sidebar. (Just copy the html code in the white box.)

Thanks again, Jackie!!

In Real Life

One thing I love about the blogosphere is getting to meet online friends in real life. While I was at Dolly’s, Trina from Fabulously Frugalicious was able to come over and spend Saturday afternoon with us.

Ruthie (age 5) took our picture. I cropped out a lot. (She was at tummy level, can you blame me?) And I would just like to note that Trina is wearing heels and we were wearing flip-flops. So there is a little discrepancy in height (and yes, I’m totally making myself feel better).

We had a great time hanging out and gabbing — I knew it wouldn’t be awkward (and it wasn’t AT ALL). Even the kids all played well together:

If you have a chance to go to a bloggy meet-up, DO IT!!!

My decision to switch (I know, finally!)

Several of you have asked me why I decided to switch to self-hosted WordPress. If you were one of those people, well, today is your lucky day!

There were a few major reasons, and then several little ones (icing on the cake) and I’ll get to both. But I need to state up front, if you are a beginning blogger and have no idea what CSS or FTPing is, stick with the training wheels of Blogger.com for now. It is the easiest and most beginner-friendly platform. I was (mostly) happy with it while I was there.

(Except, yes, you can shell out $150+ to have someone switch everything over for you and show you around your new and improved blog. I did not have the money to do that and so I did everything myself. Trust me, it’s INVOLVED. Shout out to Lisa, who helped me with a few tweaks.)

The first major reason was my pesky blog address. It used to be www.pleasepassthesalt1(dot)com. That “1” was a detail that people would have to remember. I wanted to drop it, but pleasepassthesalt(dot)com is unavailable, and has been as long as I’ve been blogging.

The next best option was pleasepassthesalt.net, which I’ve actually owned for over a year but couldn’t use it on Blogger. So there was a time-sensitive issue with my domain name (or “web address” or “URL”) and I decided to take the plunge and have it transferred, so I could actually use it. I can now tell a stranger pleasepassthesalt(dot)net and they can easily remember it. Or at least that’s what I hope.

The second major reason was the clunky photo uploads into Blogger. I HATED how when you upload a photo, it would automatically go to the very top of the post, even if you wanted it down under some text. And if you uploaded more than one photo, they’d usually be all out of order and I’d have to cut and paste several times. WordPress inserts photos how and where you want them. (I was running out of free storage on Blogger anyway, so there’s that (although yes, you can code them in from places like Photobucket OR purchase more storage space from Google).)

After I began writing for Chic Critique, which is run on WordPress, I began to notice how much better the photo uploading system is. There’s also a media gallery where all photos, videos, etc. are stored in a central location (instead of solely within individual posts on Blogger). You can also add or edit photo titles and descriptions. Oh! And you can edit or resize photos, even after they are in the post — no having to delete and start over.

The third big reason was the WordPress Preview feature. LOVE. On Blogger you can ‘preview’ a post but it’s within the posting box and you really don’t know where the text is actually going to fall within a published post. The WordPress preview loads a separate page of the WHOLE BLOG and it looks like a fully-published post. I can see EXACTLY what my words and photos are going to look like.

Now that I’ve been here a little while, I would also say the Dashboard is more streamlined and functional, once I got used to it. I can see recent comments, quick edit posts, add in sidebar links and all that kind of stuff very easily without having to click around much. Drafts also have their own little space.

I like that WordPress lists my permalink to a post, even in draft. Handy. WP gives you details like the word count for your posts. The Categories (like ‘labels’ in Blogger) are also a little easier to apply.

More technically speaking, I like that I can have static pages (i.e. the links under my About section right there to the top right) and WordPress also has thousands of plugins that make the platform even more customizable and functional. You simply have more control with absolutely everything. And it’s MINE. I host myself, Google doesn’t.

(Which brings me to another thought; there IS a difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.com is another free platform that uses the WordPress software (but you’ll have wordpress.com in your URL and you have to purchase an upgrade in order to customize your stylesheet, etc). It is hosted (not by the blogger). WordPress.org is where self-hosters download the software to use on their 3rd party server and it’s an open source. However, you also have to pay for the hosting whereas Blogger and WordPress.com are free.)

A good explanation of the difference is here. I chose BlueHost for my server and downloaded WordPress.org onto my server. Then I chose a customizable theme on the internet, downloaded it to my computer, uploaded it to my server, and then made it look like my blog is supposed to look. (It’s a little bit more difficult than that, but I’m sure I’ve bored everyone to tears by now anyway.)

So basically, WordPress is better, more powerful software (“industry standard”), you have total control and ownership, more room to grow and way more options. BUT AGAIN, unless you’re wanting to take your blog to the next level and willing to pay someone to help you make the switch (or are committed to teaching yourself how to do it), I’d recommend sticking with Blogger. Especially if you’re just starting out with this thing they call blogging.

Winner

Okay, so I totally forgot to do this yesterday.

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

47

Timestamp: 2009-04-04 15:01:27 UTC

Commenter 47 was Karen! Congratulations, girl!

What I learned this week

When you decide to change your URL to make your domain name a little more streamlined, make sure your old address does not expire for a VERY LONG TIME (and thus stop redirecting your traffic).

Otherwise, you’ll leave well over a hundred readers and countless links stranded in cyberspace, up a creek and without a paddle.  Yes, I learned this little nugget firsthand.

And also?  That sometimes Motherhood kicks my rear.

To read what others have learned this week, click back to WILTW.

Resorting to Bribery

When Emily (chatting at the sky) changed her URL, she hosted a giveaway for her readers who had updated their links/subscriptions and I told her I just might have to use her idea – because it was GENIUS.

So. Here is how to win a $20 giftcard (she used Target, but I think I’ll let this winner choose, although who doesn’t love Target?):

1) Leave a comment telling me that you updated my link in your sidebar/blogroll/whatever to www.pleasepassthesalt.net. (Or you can link to me now for the very first time; it doesn’t matter.) But it MUST be my current link to win. (And yes, I’ll check.)

2) Leave a comment telling me that you updated your subscription to my current address (www.pleasepassthesalt.net) or feed (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/PleasePassTheSalt) in your feedreader of choice. You do not have to have a blog, just be subscribed – and you know, it’s free! You can also enter by subscribing now for the very first time.

3) I’ll allow an extra entry by your posting about this giveaway on your own blog to help me spread the word. Just leave a separate comment with the permalink to your post (not your main blog) saying you posted about this giveaway. And I’ll be indebted to you forever.

(Or at least until I give away the gift card. Then we’re even.)

So basically, you could have up to three entries! (And make sure they are all separate comments.) Doesn’t matter if you haven’t commented here in a while or never have – perfect day to de-lurk, don’t you think?!

I’ll leave this open all week and choose a random winner on Friday.

Did we all make it?

Welcome to my new bloggy home!  PLEASE let me know that all my trouble has not been in vain and that you are HERE! If you were subscribed to me by my feedburner feed, you shouldn’t need to change anything.

(That would be http://feeds2.feedburner.com/PleasePassTheSalt, just fyi.)

PLEASE also update your sidebar links and blogrolls – all you have to do is change the “1.com” to “.net”…

I’ve still got a few sidebar kinks to work through, so bear with me a little, but hopefully all the major legwork is finished and we can get on with the program.

Thanks!!

Teacher, teacher! Pick me, pick me!

If you’ve been around the blogosphere for any time at all, you’ve most likely heard of the She Speaks conference put on every year by Proverbs 31 Ministries.

It’s basically a writing and speaking conference for Christian…you guessed it, female writers and speakers! Last year they added a blogging track as well and we happened to be moving across several states at the time and going just wasn’t an option then.

After attending both Blissdom ’08 and Blissdom ’09, I know firsthand the value of going to a blogging conference where information, resources, and expertise are right at my very fingertips. But what is more, those friendships formed and renewed – well, no one can put a price on that.

She Speaks for me has always been a that-would-be-so-great-but-I-just-can’t-afford-it item on a wish list. Until today.

Jo-Lynne, who is my designer of choice and whom I had a BLAST with at Blissdom, AND is speaking at She Speaks, casually mentioned in her post today that Lysa TerKeurst and Proverbs 31 Ministries are offering one scholarship worth the cost of registration for the conference this year.

So, wala! Welcome to my entry post. I want to go because there is always room for improvement with everything we do, this side of heaven. Blogging just happens to be my current outlet. I want to go because I want to hang out with Jo-Lynne and Emily again and whoever else I met at Blissdom that will also be there. I want to meet the fabulous Lysa, and hear Boomama and THE Big Mama talk about all things blogging.

But this conference in particular? THIS is where blogging intersects with Christian ministry and faith-sharing — admittedly something I don’t do very often. (Maybe this conference will teach me to be more bold?)

Andy had mentioned a while back maybe we could try for me to go but the fact of the matter is, we still can’t justify the cost. At least this way, I’d get to go without a hit to our checkbook. And all Andy has to do is survive the weekend with three small kids and a new puppy.

No biggie.