Stripes

Tile
After I dropped Avery off at school, I spent the morning looking at tile to go around our fireplace. I wasn't sure what I wanted, but I had a general color palette in mind. Once I started looking at tile, I quickly knew what I didn't want. I showed D the tile that I liked last night and he approved.   It's the 2" x  2" squares. The more I looked at tile, the more I didn't want the typical natural stone or smooth, marbly type tile like we have now.

The 2x2 squares in the center. 

I also really like the one in the center of this picture. However, I don't think it'll work given we have such a small space we're tiling - only 3" on the sides and above the fireplace. 

D doesn't want the hearth in the same tile, but rather a complimenting, solid tile, so I'll need to find that once we determine the color we're going with. I also need to get a sample of this tile so we can look at it in the space and against our furniture fabric swatches.

In trying to envision the tile on our fireplace, I found another use for my Silhouette software. I grabbed a single tile in a screen shot, converted it to a .bmp file, imported it into my software, then used the trace function. From that I was able to create this mockup. I did the mockup originally thinking we'd use larger pieces of the same tile for the hearth. D nixed that idea immediately, rightly so. Too matchy-matchy. I'm also wondering if we should do a line of all vertical tiles on the inner or outer edge. I guess that'll be determined when we see the samples in person. Heck, I might see the samples in the space and hate them.

School Friend Playdate
Today I'm hosting two of Avery's friends from school for a playdate. I'll drive both girls from school to my house. The mother of one will pick her up from my house; the other one I'll drop at home before Avery's swimming lessons. This is a different type of playdate in that it's girls entirely of Avery's choosing with no parental influence from me. Elise, Henry, Josie and even Lily are all friends of Avery's in part because of my friendship with their mothers. It feels like a new step.

People Puppy Chow = Too Much of a Good Thing
I made myself PPC as a treat for our movie going this weekend (we saw two - one and date night, then we took Avery to see Hugo on Sunday). Since I've been struggling to feel well lately, I was very pleased that it didn't make me nauseas or give me a headache to eat it. These days, anything outside of brown rice, chicken, and veggies seems to be a risk for that. Then Monday rolled around. I felt just fine physically, but I was so very down in the dumps. The drop wasn't just an "off" day. It was similar to the extreme drop after I ate the bag of Hershey Kisses.

This brings me one step closer to admitting to myself that I can't binge on sugar and be OK. I'm not there yet on fully banning myself from eating sugar, but I am at the point where I can admit to myself that there is a price to pay in the days following a sugar binge and it's very much related to my mood.

I'm quickly heading towards eating a healthful diet simply because I have no choice. Come to think of it, this is how I landed in the very, very rare drinker category. My body just flat out says no making it a non-choice for me.