Just Do SOMETHING.

About a week ago, my friend shared a link on Facebook to this great little article called Perfection: the thief of good enough.  I haven't stopped thinking about it ever since.  Wanting so badly to "do it right" and ending up doing nothing instead is a phenomenon I am very familiar with.  It's more like a lifelong friend to me, actually.  Except it is NOT my friend.  Right.

Anyway, this is something I realized about myself years ago and have worked hard to combat, but for some reason this article made me see it from a different angle.  I'd always thought of this paralyzing perfectionism in terms of projects, but it reaches into so many more aspects of my life!  This is not just about not waiting until I can afford the perfect first-in-first-out self-rotating shelf system to organize my food storage.  It's taking just a 15-minute nap before the babies wake up so I can be a little nicer/more fun through dinner & bedtime.  It's still reading one book to Miles even if I don't have time to read the whole stack like he wants.  It's enjoying a low-key morning even if I don't get to laze around all day.  And really, it's life in general - still trying even though I'm imperfect.  But wait, there's more!  I can skip the Oreos although I already blew my diet.*  I can refrain from yelling at my naughty kids even if I've already been grouchy all day.  Any one step in the right direction counts, no matter how many steps you falter the other way.  For another great article about this specifically, check out my friend Janelle's blog here.

Woah, this is getting deep.  I didn't intend to get into all of that.  I intended to show you my kitchen window.  Oooh, here's another example - I failed to take a "before" picture, but I'm still posting the "after!"  Take that, perfection!

So, my awesome husband sprays our house for bugs every 6 months or so, and it makes SUCH a difference in the amount of unwelcome guests around here.  We used to pay someone to do it but Devin found the stuff at Home Depot and we've just saved that money ever since.  Yay!  I highly recommend spraying for bugs yourself.  But back to my window.  Devin sprayed for bugs about a month ago.  It was a little overdue.  And the time before that when he sprayed around my kitchen window (you know, the one I stand in front of for about 6 hours a day), the stuff dripped allllll down the window.  It looked terrible.  I didn't clean it up right away because I thought it should have a chance to dry and do it's bug-killing magic.  This was maybe a year ago.  But then I continued to not clean it up.  For months.  In the winter I started noticing how gross all my windows were and I wanted to have them cleaned professionally.  But I wasn't about to pay a bunch of money for clean windows that will only last until the next snowfall.  So I waited, and the windows stayed dirty.  I finally called someone in the spring.  I got a bid.  It seemed high.  'I should get another bid, see if someone will do it for less,' I thought.  So I waited, and the windows stayed dirty.  Especially that one in the kitchen.  Then it was time to spray for bugs again, and I certainly wasn't going to wash the kitchen window then.  It would just get dirty again!  So he sprayed again, a month ago like I said, and it dripped, and I didn't wash it, etc. etc.  'I should just wait until I find the right company to wash the outside of all the windows, and then I'll wash all the insides and it'll be great.'  That kitchen window that I look at so many times every single day continued to have sticky streaks all over - streaks that remind me of dead bugs.  Until today.  When I looked at that window for maybe the 17th time today, I thought about the article from the other day.  And I grabbed a rag.  I washed the inside and then, wouldn't you know it, I had the time & energy to wash the outside too.  So I popped out the screen, took my squeegee out there and just did it.  It was kinda fun, so I washed two more windows outside, including the huge one in our living room that regularly gets splattered with bird poop.

But I stopped there.  This house has something like 18 windows.  I just washed three of them, and only one on the inside.  But you know what?  I feel this enormous sense of accomplishment right now (not that enormous, I'm not delusional).  Actually, it's more of a feeling of satisfaction.  And I can't stop looking out my kitchen window.  I'm super happy with it and just wish I'd done it sooner.  It doesn't even bother me that there are lots of other windows in this house that are not clean right now.  I DID something and now I have a better view.  That is a step in the right direction, period.  I know someone reading this may be shocked that I let such a prominent window go unwashed for a year.  That is pretty bad, really.  But I have other priorities and cleaning is just not my strong suit.  That doesn't mean the dirty-for-a-year window didn't bother me.  It totally did, every time I looked at it!  But my perfection paralysis took over and I felt that I had to have time or money, or have it "together" to have a clean window.  So the good news is that if I want a clean window, I can just clean the dang thing.  Even if I don't clean it very well, it'll be an improvement.  This looked better even before I washed the outside.  And if I want to be healthier, I can exercise.  Even if I only do it once, it will do my body some good.  The best part is that when you do good, you feel good, and you want to do more good.  It's self-perpetuating.  I am NOT saying that you will only do good from that point on.  That is completely not the case.  But just taking action is the thing (dare I say the only thing?) that will lead to taking more action, and more importantly, to satisfaction.  Even with perfection nowhere in sight.

Just a note on what I see out the blessed kitchen window: this huge, shamefully unkempt tree/bush? that we've basically ignored for the last six years.  It's beautiful when it's in bloom, but it's gotten really out of control.  But I won't let it bother me, because we did some yard work on Saturday and took care of some long overgrown bushes and things and that's good enough for this week.  We could have just given up on our whole yard and waited until we could hire someone to come in and clean up the whole thing, but no, we'll just work on it a little at a time and eventually we'll get there - or maybe we won't, but we'll keep trying anyway.

I am committing to taking action, to just doing something.  One little step.  Most things need to be done one step at a time anyway.  And the bad things I do won't cancel out the good ones.  I won't be perfect, but I will keep making effort.

*When I say "diet," I mean a kinda sorta effort to lose weight and become stronger and more fit.  I set a ridiculous goal to lose 10 pounds this month, which is absolutely not happening.  But I have been a little more mindful of what I put in my body and I have been trying harder in the exercise department.  It all fits in perfectly with this subject, but this post is long enough!  More on that later?

It's all about the hair spray, baby!!

Fragging hair.  We all have to deal with it, one way or another.  I've never been great at it.  I blame my older sisters for always wanting to do it for me.  Oh, and it's never been like, my top priority, so I have yet to read a book or take a college course about it or anything.  However.  I have, like everyone else, spent some amount of time on my hair about every day of my life.  And I say, if you're going to spend time on something, you might as well feel good about the result.

So when you're pregnant, you have awesome hair, right?  It's a hormonal thing - the hair that would normally fall out doesn't while you're pregnant, so you end up with luscious locks.  And thank goodness, since you don't exactly look great in any other way.  Somebody threw us a bone there!  But after the baby's born and you don't have all that wonderful hair-retaining estrogen anymore, it all falls out.  At once.  It sucks!  This has happened to me, well, four times.  But this last time, I never recovered.  A year and a half later I still have super-thin hair that falls out a lot, as well as loads of little wispies growing in all around my hairline and the nape of my neck.  My search for a nutritional/hormonal answer is another story, but in the mean time, I still have to deal with my lame hair!

But now I get it.  I now know why some of my sisters always complained about having thin hair - a problem I never had before having babies.  Because when you don't have much hair to start with, it won't DO much.  And since looking at cool hairdos on Pinterest won't actually make more hair grow out of your head, and videos of "quick and easy" styles don't actually make the styles quick or easy to do, you end up feeling incompetent and ugly, and wondering if there might be some hair-doing gene that you just didn't inherit.

Well, none of this stopped me from trying.  I have had some success in the past with copying styles I see... but only the day after I hair-sprayed and flat-iron-curled my hair.  You know, it had body.  And when my hair was like that, I really could do a quick messy bun or... well, I'll be honest here, that's the only thing I've really been able to pull off.  Lay off me, I'm a beginner!  So I knew it was possible, but I thought that "texture" and "body" had to come from either curled or dirty hair, or both.  Or, from having been born with "hair that just works," which I clearly wasn't.  By the way, my hair has been a lot more oily since my last baby too, so the dirty option isn't great for me.*

So, having seen my hair actually do something before, I couldn't give up hope that it could do it again, and maybe, just maybe, without having to take 20+ minutes to curl it first.  Besides, after I've painstakingly curled all my hair, ain't no way I'm pulling it into some updo so just the curled ends can hang down.  I want credit for every bend!  But I just can't get my plain ol' hair to cooperate like it does with day-old curls.

Everything changed the other day when I watched a(nother) video on how to do some 2-minute top knot or something.  This one showed a professional stylist doing someone else's hair.  It was long.  It looked thick.  I soon decided the style wouldn't work on me.  But I watched anyway as the stylist sprayed the crap out of the hair before doing anything else.  Then she teased it.  And then she put it in a ponytail and sprayed and teased it some more.  By the time she was ready to do the actual style, the woman looked like she'd been struck by lightning.  There was just a head with a huge, puffy fuzzball on top.  Then she twisted it around or whatever and - tada! - of course it looked great.  The end.  But something had clicked for me.  I finally understood the key to all my problems.  When hair is sprayed and sticky and teased and messed up, it's BIGGER.  And when hair is bigger, either from having been curled and slept on, OR sprayed and teased 10 seconds ago, it cooperates.

This means that I have options!  I have tried this on my own sad, thin, depleted hair, even when it's squeaky-clean, and it works!  It stays where I put it!  It flows up and out instead of falling flat!  It gives me something to actually work with!  Incredible!  I may be the last person on earth to learn this universal truth, but hairspray is magic, folks.  And if you can tease your hair too, even better.  And while my hair is still not my top priority (by a long shot), it's something I have to live with, and knowing that there IS a way for even me to do my hair and like it, makes me feel like a real live grown-up.

Is my use of the phrase "grown-up" here a little telling of how far I still have to go?


*About six months ago, I actually had a human (not a video) show me how to use dry shampoo and I've got to say, it's great.  It really does help a lot.  So maybe the dirty hair thing is kind of doable after all.  But I don't think dirty necessarily equals workable.

Awesome Food-Storage Tacos! Yay!

Every time I make tacos, Devin says "We should have tacos once a week."  And he's right.  They're a crowd-pleaser, they incorporate some vegetables, and they can be as simple or as fancy as you like.

I grew up thinking tacos had to be made with ground beef, since that's the only kind my family ate - and they were still great.  Even now I sometimes sub-consciously think, 'Too bad we can't have tacos tonight.  No ground beef.'  But there are so many more options out there!  And with toppings, too - the possibilities are endless!

This is good news for me because 1) I don't really like ground beef that much, and 2) it's always so stinkin' expensive!  Most the time I just can't bring myself to pay $3.99/lb or whatever only to watch half of it melt into grease.  Besides, I don't really like touching the stuff and it just generally sort of grosses me out.

So.  More options.  Right.  I make some creamyish lime chicken tacos sometimes, and of course there's sweet pork ala Costa Vida, etc. etc.  But my new thing is making food storage tacos from canned roast beef.  I got the idea here.  Thanks, Crystal!  I haven't seen a ton of her stuff but it seems like a great food storage site.

Basically, 2 cans beef (with some or all of the broth) + 1 can green chiles (drained, so the kids don't moan about spiciness) + something for flavor (taco seasoning, dehydrated onion, cumin, whatever) in a pan for a bit and you're done.  I've been using beef from Costco, but I'd like to find a cheaper option.  I swear it used to be $10 for 4 cans and now it's $15!  And when I opened it up last night, it looked like this:

I admit that I had already drained some broth. But still!

I should have weighed it on my kitchen scale* right then to see if it really was 12 oz, but I just dumped it in the pan instead.  Oh well.  Next time!  Anyway, I love this stuff.  And it goes with any toppings you have around.  I think we'll officially start having Taco Tuesdays around here.  And with Pizza Movie Night on Fridays, and Devin's new suggestion to have hot dogs once a week (not sure I agree with that one though), that's a significant chunk of meal planning I won't have to do.


*This was a Mother's Day gift from Devin "to me" but really mostly for him.  He's been wanting one for a long time and I've been resistant to the idea because I figured it would win me over to measuring ingredients by weight and then I'd become a baking snob or something.  Well... ya.  It's happening.  Measuring by weight is magical!  And you dirty a lot fewer dishes!  I am kind of in love.  But I promise to keep in touch with my teaspoons-and-cups-and-close-enough roots.

Bits and Pieces

It can be frustrating learning about medical stuff.  Doctors rarely explain a lot about what they're doing or why they're recommending something, and of course they can't agree with each other, or even if they do agree, they're all going to change their minds next year.  I've learned that I have to be bold and ask ALL the questions and even if I'm obnoxious and/or they treat me like an idiot, I gain a lot more understanding that way.  I've learned that medical knowledge, like any other knowledge, comes in bits and pieces, with lots of trial and error in between.

Poor sweet Sam has pneumonia.  The process through which we arrived at that diagnosis was a little scary, although I felt pretty calm through it all.  He's home, he's getting better, and things are going to be fine.  He's taking cefdinir and azithromycin.  I also have a bottle of cefdinir sitting here for Eliza's ears, which I haven't given her yet.  Here's what I know now about antibiotics:

• OK, they really can be a good thing.
• Even people like me, who generally hate antibiotics, will turn to them when we really need an infection gone fast.
• They only kill bacteria, not viruses.
• The reason they always say to finish the course, even if you're feeling better already, is that if you don't, the bacteria may not be totally gone and may learn to fight off the antibiotic in the future.
• If you take probiotics along with an antibiotic, it helps it not kill ALL the good stuff.
• Some antibiotics have a shelf life (like cefdinir - 10 days), so if you choose not to give it right away, you may not be able to use it later.  This is (surprise!) what happened with Eliza.  I just didn't feel great about giving it to her, and then she started puking so I really didn't want to, and now that she's better & I'm giving it to Sam & feeling like it's fine to give to her too, it's too late.  It will go bad before she finishes the course, which could cause the problem listed above.  So it's better not to take it at all.  Luckily, she seems to be getting better and I can still use the leftover ear drops that I have.  I got all this info from the pharmacist.

I also learned some things about fevers, viruses and bacteria:

• Letting a fever run its course is generally a good idea, but in kids, there comes a point where the fever makes them not feel like eating or drinking, which causes further problems, so at that point it's better to control the fever.
• Fevers are not very effective against bacteria because bacteria can still grow in the heat.  A virus has a small temperature window where it can grow, so a fever is more effective against it.
• Bacteria start in one spot and grow out from there.  Viruses spread out all over the place and then grow everywhere they are.
• A virus (Sam had Rhinovirus) can cause a common cold, which will sometimes damage lungs and weaken them enough to where bacteria can take over - hence the bacterial pneumonia.  The pneumonia itself is not contagious, but whatever virus caused the damage in the first place is... or was.  By now, that virus is probably gone, or not catching anymore at least.  Viral pneumonia also exists but I don't really know anything about that for now.  You can tell by looking at Sam's x-ray that it's bacterial b/c it's in one spot and not all over.

And a couple things about x-rays:

• Air shows up black in an x-ray.  Even I could tell something was wrong in Sam's lungs because they didn't look the same.  But I was thinking, 'Yikes! What's all that black stuff?' when really the black was good and it was the cloudy, spider-webby white stuff that was the problem.
• Collar bones are like little twigs sticking out at weird angles, scared and alone in the middle of nowhere.  It's no wonder people break them all the time.

And just so it's down somewhere, here's what I already knew about fevers:

• A fever is your body's way of fighting something off with heat.  Fuel the fire by eating and drinking lots of fluids to help it burn up the attacker.
• However, when a fever gets too high, it can start to damage your body (including your brain - scary!) so you need to watch it and bring it down if it gets high.
• Scary high for kids: 105
• Scary high for adults: 103/104
• Kids can go higher without as much concern because their bodies are smaller and their temp can swing back and forth more quickly.  By the time an adult reaches 103/104, their big body has some serious momentum and things can get really out of control.
• Peppermint essential oil is the fastest fever-reducer I've ever used, and won't give any side effects like tylenol or ibuprofen.
• If you do go the tylenol/ibuprofen route, you can alternate them & take one every four hours.  But only take/give it if you need to.