SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO

Two things you need to know about me. #1- I am a perfectionist. #2- I am very indecisive. I count those both as faults as they tend to get me into a lot of trouble and wasted time. This is where they get me into trouble in the blogging world.

PERFECTIONISM:
My favorite blogs are not only the ones that have fresh DIYs and down to earth bloggers behind them; they are also the ones that have amazing layouts. The photos are big and crisp, the background is cute, the fonts are handwritten or unique. I don't have any web design skills and also don't have Photoshop (maybe someday), so my blog has been pretty basic and DIY by trial and error up to this point. I look back at posts and think how I should have done the photos differently or not posted certain things. At this point the perfectionist in me says I should start over and leave my old blog with all its mistakes behind. Blogger has the capabilities to post bigger photos now and hubby recently gifted me with a DSLR, so I told myself I could start over and when people look at the archives of my new blog, it won't look so silly. Then I started looking at the archives of the "perfect" blogs I follow. None of them started out with the amazing photos or designs they have now. And then I realized that looking at their archives of silly, badly lit photos doesn't make me say "ewwww," but rather inspires me seeing how much they've learned.

INDECISIVENESS:
Welcome to my inner monologue: "Maybe I should start a new blog. I could give it a cute name and start fresh and have nice photos. But I've been blogging on Crooked Shmooked for 3 years, do I really need to start a brand new blog and leave Crooked Shmooked behind? Would a new blog be better? Oh gosh. It's such a hard decision to leave Crooked Shmooked behind. Oh My Goose Nest would be a cute name! And it can be about the family and DIYs and thrifting... It would be so cute." Then I spent a few hours designing Oh My Goose Nest and said my goodbyes to Crooked Shmooked. Then next day my inner monologue and doubts came spilling out my mouth to hubby as I asked him if I should just stay on Crooked Shmooked. His reply, "I don't know, sugar pie honey bunch." Okay, he doesn't really call me that, but he should. Fast forward a couple weeks. I find out my favorite blogs didn't have it all together from the beginning. I start to feel like I let the perfectionist side of my personality take the driver's seat in my blogging decision and that rarely ends up being a good thing. New inner monologue begins: "I shouldn't have started a new blog. I can change up my blogging, start posting better quality photos and do a new blog design and still be on Crooked Shmooked. Can I seriously go back to Crooked Shmooked after already saying goodbye and starting a new blog? Gosh, I am so indecisive. Ugh. This is ridiculous. I am going to look so stupid. Oh well. This is who I am. I guess I'll just explain it all. It is one of my new desires to share my failures along with successes. Ha. How can I be okay blogging like that if I am leaving behind a blog that has some failures to try to present a perfect design on a new blog? Okay. I'm going to do it. Crooked Shmooked it is."

So here I am, returning to Crooked Shmooked. I will be deleting Oh My Goose Nest and moving its two blog posts over here. Feel free to laugh or roll your eyes at me. I am doing both of those too. Heidi, Heidi, Heidi...

INSTAGRAMS & WORDS

Things have been crazy around here lately, but really, when are they not? I have a 7 month old and a 2.5 year old (...aaaaand as I type this I see the boy has lodged himself under the TV console - don't worry - I saved him). The miracle cold-busting juice turned out to be just plain old juice. What a disappointment. The cold took us all down one by one, but somehow the hubby managed to avoid it. That was lucky for him because he had wrist surgery days after the cold struck. So now we are all well and he has an arm in a cast and is home for a couple of weeks to (excuse me while I pull a shoe out of the boy's mouth) heal and get off cloudy pain meds. We have literally (any Parks and Rec fans?) been in sweats every day for a week- oh, nope! I can think of a day that I wore an actual out-on-the-town outfit all day.... before changing into sweats for my post-kook-bedtime relaxations.

The boy is getting more and more frustrated as all he wants to do is scoot around the living room but is blocked by the kook every minute. Poor guy. He's going to have to learn some defensive moves to use against the big sis. He is saying "dada" all the time and trying to participate in conversations with baby jibber-jabber. I love it. Unless I'm really tired and he's decided 1am is play time and he's jibber-jabbering my ear off.

The kook is getting kookier by the day. Oh my goodness. I don't know where she gets her kookiness from. Except I do. Guilty. Sometimes she'll do things and hubby will turn to me and say something like "well, she's with you all day". Yes, I know. Sorry, child. You are kooky for life. There is no escaping it. Today I was watching So You Think You Can Dance with her and she started doing the most awesome dance moves. Between my affinity for SYTYCD (hello, longest acronym ever) and old musicals, she's going to pick up some interesting techniques. I can't wait to get her into jazz or tap or ballet or all of the above someday in the next few years. Lately she has been into pretending her blocks are ice-cream and fills her ice-cream up at our wall heater which she has decided is the ice-cream machine. I've also caught her talking to her goldfish Dorothy like Elmo and the kids do in Sesame Street. "Hi Dorothy. This is how I play!" Every day she is crazy hilarious, and tries my patience like no one else.

This last week I did my first at-home shellac mani and pedi, rearranged some living room decorations that were feeling stale, and started hand-stitching some hanky and doily curtains for the kitchen. It's always nice to acknowledge that I accomplished some little things that I enjoy in the midst of cleaning up toys and dishes non-stop. With my shellac mani, I can do as many dishes as I want and not worry about polish chipping and peeling off in a day. Yay for things that make mom life easier!

(You can find me on Instagram as heidijo. My photos are set to private but if I can tell from your photos that you aren't a spammer or a creeper, I'll probably let you follow.)

COLD-BUSTING JUICE... i hope

If you know us in real life, you know about our months of back-to-back colds and flus after Otto was born this last February. Adelaide was sick right after Otto was born and he ended up with RSV at 16 days old. I had to stay in the hospital with my poor sick newborn for 4 days while he was on oxygen fighting that horrible virus. That virus was the end of our sanity for a few months as every flu and cold virus out there circulated its way through our family. Then one day when Otto was probably 4 months old, I stopped what I was doing and realized we were all well. There wasn't a cough or sneeze to be heard in the house. I didn't verbally acknowledge the lack of illness because I knew as soon as I did, we would be jinxed and I'd be kicking myself in my untoned mom butt. It's been a glorious 2 months of being well, but yesterday the sniffles attacked the kook's nose and now I have a sick girl on my hands. I am motivated to keep the rest of us well if possible or at least boost our immune systems so that other colds don't hit us while we're down.

Yesterday I broke out the fruit and veggies and hit up Nana and Papa's garden to make some fresh juice. We aren't daily juicers and really only seem to do it when we are feeling really crappy, but I am hoping to get more into the habit of doing it through this coming flu season. I've found that adding lemon to the green juice really helps lessen the intense green flavor and cucumber adds a nice fresh flavor. Go ahead and try out this recipe or make your own. The amount of each ingredient doesn't really matter. I just used what I had. You can add more lemon if you like the bite or even throw some ginger in if you aren't a ginger wimp like I am. This juice made a little more than a gallon. And yes, I realize it's not really green, but I'm calling it green juice because it has a lot of greens in it. If this juice kicks the kook's cold out of her system in a day and keeps the rest of us well, I will be sure to let you know that it's a miracle juice.

join me over at OH MY GOOSE NEST

Hello, old friends! It's been a long time. Long enough for me to have a baby who is 6 months old without posting anything about his birth! Excuse me while I shudder with embarrassment. The truth is that I started Crooked Shmooked to share about my remodel and decorating and introduce you to fun decorating and fashion products, but I am now in a place where the remodel is done and while decorating is a never-ending task, I just don't want to invest the same amount of energy in looking at things I don't have when I have 2 little ones that demand my time and I should be doing and appreciating rather than sitting and envying. I want to start fresh with a blog that is just about my family, parenting, crafting, thrifting, and maybe a bit of fashion as I rediscover my style as a mom and have fun dressing the kids- which is one of the most fun things ever, by the way. I also have some DIYs up my sleeve already that I'm looking forward to sharing with you. So I have started Oh My Goose Nest, to share about my home of silly gooses. I would love it if you would join me over there. I will finally introduce you to the sweetest, most beautiful baby boy ever and you won't believe how my kook Adelaide has grown! Thank you for reading Crooked Shmooked and I hope to see you over on Oh My Goose Nest soon!

xoxo

hello + MATERNITY PHOTOS

Yes, I have returned for the time being. Our little guy will be arriving on February 21st so I don't for a moment think that this return is permanent, but here I am. We haven't had a reliable computer with a sturdy internet connection for quite some time now, but tonight hubby presented me with my "push present." Have you heard of push presents? They are a present a husband gets a wife for birthing a baby. Mine is technically not a push present because I get to be sliced open rather than doing any pushing, but I don't think I want to call it a slice present. Oh yes, so what did he get me… a MacBook Pro! I was more than a little surprised. And more than slightly surprised. Pretty much totally surprised. Hello, wonderful husband man! I guess it's safe to say he loves me. The feeling is mutual. So here I am, on a fancy new laptop, able to blog again.

It seems like there should be a lot to fill you in on, but I can basically sum it up like this-- I have a 21 month year old running around like a crazy little midget and I am pregnant, so that has taken up about 80-85% of my energy for the last 9 months. I've thrifted here and there and missed sharing my finds with you, but I am sure I will thrift again and have new things to share. Right now I'm in the process of moving the gal out of her teeny nursery and into what will be the shared nursery. Just as it took me a year to decorate her nursery, I don't have plans to have decorations done anytime soon, but just having the furniture in there will be nice. And her little nursery will be turned into a small office/craft room. I realize I'm a little behind in the game being that I have less than 2 weeks until I have a newborn and I am just now swapping the rooms, but that's life!

So to start some catching up, I have to share the lovely maternity photos my dear friend April of April Christine Photography did for me. She also did my last set of maternity photos as well as Adelaide's newborn photos. I love her photography and there's nothing like having a friend be the one who you get to hang out with while she takes the photos. Here we are- a family of 3 soon to be a family of 4!

the PERFECT minted wedding invitations

When Minted contacted me to review Valentine's Day cards, I declined as I still haven't sent out the lovely Christmas cards they supplied me with (hi, I am the queen of late cards), but I recalled my soon-to-be-married sister-in-law's favorite wedding invitations were from Minted and they agreed to help her out.

After looking at wedding invitations on many sites, my SIL couldn't help but keep returning to the Banner and Branches Invitations. They match her wedding colors and theme perfectly and are invitations she'll love looking back on for years to come.

It isn't hard to find unique wedding invitations and save the dates from Minted that you'll love for life. I can look through their collections and find several I would rather have used for my wedding 5+ years ago than the boring ones I did use. But all of my wedding plan regrets are a story for another day. If you have a wedding coming up, check out their selection if you're sick of going through site after site of the same old traditional invites. Between all of the gorgeous fonts, graphics, and designs, you will definitely find something you love.

(FYI- These are my actual opinions about Minted stationary. I will never endorse a product I don't love.)