if you follow me on instagram then you probably already know i caught camden’s unfortunate bug and spent this weekend sick. i stressed myself out about all the things i had planned to get done over these days and now no longer could … until i realized i had to stop. my body and mind were tired and they needed a break … a bit of a rest. so i spent the weekend instead; lounging in bed (napping most of the time), listening to the rain, and going through the photos from the disposable cameras i had bought for camden to use while we were in moab. he has skills with disposable cameras … mad skills! i’ve been sorting through my favorite ones to share with you here and i’m hoping to have them up and posted sometime this week … p.s. kramer was sweet enough to pretend he was tired too and laid on the bed most of the days with me. i love that he still posed for the camera though when camden snapped the photo of me napping … he makes me smile:)

my very favorite dish towels are these white ones from walmart. they are one hundred percent cotton, super inexpensive, and each pack includes five … plus they absorb water better than any other dish towel i have yet to try. being inexpensive and cotton also makes them perfect for adding personal touches, especially with dye. i decided to add gray stripes to theses … not perfectly straight and evenly spaced stripes but beautifully random and natural ones instead.

you will need:

a bowl of very hot water measuring one cup
a small paint brush 
a teaspoon of black fabric dye
white dish towel


add one teaspoon of black dye for every cup of water. lay your dish towel on a flat surface (one that isn’t going to be ruined by the dye) and begin painting stripes from one end to the other. don’t worry about making sure each stipe is exactly the same size or space apart … it’s almost impossible to make them perfect and you’ll drive yourself crazy trying. instead practice making them different sizes and widths apart from each other. once you have completed the entire length of the towel, hang to dry (somewhere that won’t be ruined if any dye drips from the towel). once dry, either by hand or in a washing machine, wash towels separately from any other laundry (just the first time),  then hang or tumble try.



p.s. this pumpkin bread from starbucks is my favorite!

yesterday kramer had his very first teeth cleaning. ok ok, i know how this might sound … having your pet’s teeth actually professionally cleaned … sounds kind of doltish really …  at least it did to me before i found out all the negative consequences in not having it done a few months ago. if you really think about it however, it kind of makes sense, especially if you want to help keep your pet around for as long as possible. it was quite the dramatic day for kramer seeing as he also had to have two vaccines, blood and heart warm tests, in addition to going under anesthesia in order for the doctor to be able to clean his teeth. he was so out of it and goofy when we picked him up yesterday, he came home, plopped himself down on a comfy spot, and slept for the rest of the night. besides being a little sore from the vaccines, he is getting back to his regular self today, with a sparkling smile and all. –p.s. the little bandage on his leg is from the blood test and iv’s.

sleep … such and interesting notion, i think … and the thing is, we all seem to do it so differently. camden, for example, can fall asleep at the drop of a hat and stay asleep all night. he rarely remembers his dreams and will quite frequently mumble strange words or have entire conversations with no recollection of any of it the next morning. i, on the other hand, have a very hard time falling asleep and will often lay in bed for hours going over and over to do lists and/or just replay any number of nonsensical things that may pop into my head, having no real matter to the moment at hand, keeping my unwilling body awake anyway. i, unlike camden, quite frequently remember my dreams and have had more nightmares in my lifetime than i could ever count.


while we were in moab, i got a legitimate dream catcher … not one primarily to be used as decoration, but a real dream catcher made by hand, by a woman named sarah, a beautiful native american woman. i hung it above our bed in the hope that it might actually catch a few of those nightmares before i can actually dream them.

on our way home from our trip, camden came down with some sort of nasty cold. luckily, i have yet to catch it, but camden sleeping with this particular kind of sickness has always proved to be a little interesting for me to say the least. he has been knocking himself out with nyquil most nights to help him sleep, which has for some reason enhanced his sleep talking quite a bit. between this, the snoring, and the sudden outbursts of coughing … well, it’s been hard for me to really get much sleep at all, let alone have any dreams to speak of. the thing about sleep is, i’m one of those people who seems to need it to function properly … and when i don’t get enough of it, i turn into a irritable grump whose patience has gone right out the window. so grumpy i’ve been for the past few days, and let me just say, arguments can strike up rather quickly between a tired sick person and a tired tired person. feeling badly about this, last night i decided to make camden a home cooked meal, something he loves and something i rarely do (but should do more). i had bought some handsome carrots five or six days prior, mostly because they just looked extra enticing, and still had yet to use them. i found a beautifully simple and wildly delicious recipe online and cooked them up for us as part of our dinner … p.s. remind me to tell you all about them later … they helped relax all of our grumpy tension and breathe for a minute. i wish i could say neither of us were crabby the rest of the night but it wouldn’t be true … however, the end of our sick and sleepless nights look to be ending soon … we are keeping our fingers crossed anyway!