Rants and Ramblings

It's Wednesday and it's time for another one of the Let Your Blog Shine weekly writing challenges. This week's theme is rants and ramblings.  Well doesn't that just sound like Festivus?  Should I air my grievances?  I'm kidding, but here are some (light hearted) rants and some just silly ramblings from me this week.
--Rants--
Why is it so hard to find jeans that fit??  If they fit my hips and big bootie, they're too loose on other parts of my body.  If they're tighter on other parts of my body, they don't make it up past the hips!  I know I'm not alone in this.  I think I found a perfect pair at Target this week though.  We'll see.
On that front, why does it seem like whatever size I currently am in pants, shoes, shirts, etc is the one that everyone else seems to be as well leading to selections being super picked over?  Does that mean I'm super average?  
I wasn't home when it aired live, so I watched some clips of the Saturday Night Live 40th anniversary special online and I have to agree with most of what I'd read about it - they could have done so much better.  There were some funny/creative moments (Looking at you JT and Jimmy) but otherwise, yeah.  I'm glad I didn't sit and watch the entire thing.  
It is near impossible to change the diaper of an extremely active toddler during the day.  At night he's too sleepy to notice, but during the day?  It's near impossible.  Dear Oliver - if you would just sit still for five seconds, the whole process would go so much faster, would your cognitive skills hurry up and realize that please? Love, Mom.
Ok enough ranting!  Let's go with some ramblings now!

--Rambles--
I know I just ranted about him, but my son is the cutest ever lately and sorry not sorry, I'm going to gush a bit - he learned a new skill over the weekend that melts my heart.  He can sing.  He loves Baa Baa Black Sheep and will sing "Baa, baa, baa" and he also can sing the EIEIO part of Old Macdonald.  There is nothing cuter than a singing toddler.  And the Elmo love has started in my house and while I'm a huge Muppet fan, I used to kind of resist Elmo - but again, my little cold heart melted when my little guy saw Elmo at the store and said "Elbow?"  He also says "Oboe" for Elmo as well, but anyway, I now love Elmo too and I just love that he loves a Muppet, even if it is not one of my favorites!
We're on a bit of a wellness kick at our house as I mentioned in my Weekend recap post because Nate's been wanting to lose back some weight he gained after Ollie was born.  He got himself a fitness tracker and I'm looking at getting a Fitbit too.  Do I need to lose weight?  No, but I want to maintain and as Ollie nurses less he's not going to help me burn calories as much, so I just want to start to be more mindful of how many steps I'm getting, etc.  I'm pretty excited to have the Fitbit and all the data it's going to collect for me!
And that's what I got today.  Anything you want to get off your chest?  Rant away!  Anything you just want share?  Ramble at me!  

The bird is the word

I took advantage of the lack of rain this morning and quickly took pictures outside.  Supposedly more rain is coming.  I know we need it but come on now!  Although, my skirt must have worked a bit yesterday, we did get some sun for a little bit.  

It's chilly again today so we're back to pants.  I have to laugh with this little bird sweater.  I always get complimented on it when I wear it.  I bought it at Target years ago.  Obviously it's held up well.  I still adore it because come on, it's got a bird on it!  How can you not love the whimsy of a little bird?

So wow, Dick Clark died yesterday.  I was kind of floored by that news.  He's never been the same after his stroke a few years back, but I love that he still came on New Years Eve every year even with his struggles.  I don't think New Years will ever quite feel the same without seeing him on TV.  

I think I might head to my favorite consignment shop this weekend with some of the items I've decided to get rid of from my closet.  They have this loyalty card program and every $10 you spend they give you a stamp on your card and when you fill it up you get 25% off anything, even designer items (which is how I actually own a couple of Coach bags).  Anyway, this weekend they said in honor of Earth Day if you bring in items to sell, for every $10 they pay for your stuff, they'll also give you a stamp on your card.  I don't expect to make much more than that on my items, but hey, I'll take what I can get!

Outfit rundown:

Sweater - Xhileration, Target (old)

T-shirt - Old Navy

Pants - Maurices (old)

Shoes - Steve Madden (thrifted)

Necklace - Bead for Life

Earrings - thrifted

This and That

It's kind of wet and damp outside today, so I decided to do my pictures inside.  And show off my cute Ikea pantry apparently.  I have to say - the pantry is one of the best things we've bought for ourselves so far this year!  I never used to be an Ikea girl, but I've kind of been converted.

The adorable Kelley of Threads and Buttons wore a shirt tied at the waste a couple of weeks ago and ever since then I've wanted to style a shirt like that.  I used to wear them like this all the time when I was younger, but haven't in a really long time.  I like the look of it today, it's just a different way to style this shirt.  Plus, double the stripes again for the Stripes challenge!

I'm so jazzed it's almost the weekend already.  This week has kind of flown by.  I'm hoping to convince Mr. Monkey to go see a late night showing of The Hunger Games tomorrow night after our music group rehearsal.  I'm crazy excited for this movie and there's a smaller theatre not far from us that I've gone to late night showings before and it's never terribly busy.  Added bonus, it's right next to a pretty awesome bar that happens to have really great Happy Hour specials, so you go have a beer and then go watch your movie and it works pretty well.  So I'll have to see if I can convince my Pants Monkey that this is a good idea.  We will see how things go!  Anyone else super excited for this movie?

Outfit rundown:

Tank top - Old Navy

Button shirt - Mossimo, Target

Pants - Old Navy (old)

Necklace and bracelet - Stella and Dot

Shoes - Mudd via Kohls

Hobby ADD

I imagine by now most of you know about the craze of Pinterest - man is that place addictive! I see all these cool crafty things that people make and I'm like "I want to do that!"  It is a fun site, I really enjoy it, but it does not help me with my hobby ADD.  Yep, you heard me, I have hobby ADD.  See, I get really interested in something and decided I'm going to start doing it in my spare time but then something else catches my eye as something I want to try and before you know it, I'm bouncing from hobby to hobby.  Honestly, blogging has been the one hobby I've consistently stuck with, all the others I've tried, not so much.

I have recently started baking homemade cupcakes as my newest "hobby" (thanks once again to ideas I kept seeing on Pinterest).  So far I've made chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting and then vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting.  I even bought decorating tips over the weekend to make the icing look prettier on top!  It's been fun trying out these recipes and I have ideas for more elaborate flavors now that I have the basics down, but I think I'll take a baking break this coming weekend so I don't get burned out on this hobby - and so the Pants Monkey and I don't each gain 20 pounds!

So what are the other hobbies I've dabbled in?  Let's see: Decoupage, scrapbooking, learning guitar, learning piano, jewelry making, crochet, knitting.  But I either lost patience with some of them, didn't have the time for some of them or simply lost interest in them.  The Pants Monkey and I have a shared hobby of homebrewing beer - it was really his hobby first, but I've gotten to where I enjoy helping him with it and I've even come up with a recipe of my own!

Getting back to Pinterest, it's really a very dangerous site for a person like me, but I just can't help being addicted to it!  I've added a "follow me on Pinterest" button to the side of my blog - feel free to stalk me and my boards and if you do, I'll follow/stalk you back.  Because even if I do have self proclaimed hobby ADD, I still like finding new ideas and fun new things to try!  If you are someone who hasn't received an invite to Pinterest yet (I think it's still invite only) let me know in the comments and I'll be happy to send you one.

So, are you like me and bounce around from activity to activity?  Or do you stick with one singular thing?  I have to say, I don't really mind being this way so much, because I like experiencing and trying new things and life is never boring!

Outfit rundown:
Thermal shirt - Mossimo, Target
Sweater - Aeropostale (old)
Pants - Nine West thrifted via Clothes Mentor
Necklaces - jerseymaids via Etsy (gift from friend), Stella and Dot
Shoes - Mudd, Kohls