Amateur Hour with Meg

I don't know about you guys, but I have very little patience for broken crayons. As much as I try to contain my kids' art supplies and make them clean up after themselves, I always end up bending over scooping up tiny crayon pieces and then not having the heart to trash them. So awhile back, I started collecting them in a little baggie for a project. I tried to bribe my kid by saying she could only help me with this if she cleaned up her toys. I guess the project didn't seem cool enough, because she refused. She sure liked watching each step of the process though. NOTE: I highly recommend getting your kids to do the dirty job of peeling the paper off the crayons. I kind of forgot I'd have to do this, and it took way longer than I expected. How to make crayon disks 1. Chop crayons 2. Spray and fill muffin tin Spray the muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray. There are other ways to make these (microwave and Dixie cups, for example), but I had this on h...

I decided to revamp our hall closet and turn it into a book nook for the kids. Our hall closet is a super awkward L-shaped space under the stairs where we used to store Christmas decorations etc., and later, baby gear lying in wait for baby #2. Since said baby is no longer a baby, and we've given most of that stuff away, I figured now was my chance to realize my tiny-space dreams. I've always loved those Pinterest ideas where people make use of weird little spaces in their houses, and I secretly long to live in a tiny house one day. Maybe this would satisfy my craving for smallness. Of course, before I could transform it, I had to organize it. Let's have a moment of silence for some of my running gear that I found buried and ended up donating. I'm not running any more half marathons anytime soon, and if I do, I will just have to purchase another dorky water belt. We still use the front part of the closet for shoes and coats, etc., so I wanted to have a way of...

I'm at it again with my coffee fix! This time, I taste a couple big-name brands alongside some local SoCal offerings. (P.S. How do you feel about the word SoCal? I think it's a convenient contraction, if not a bit surfery. Wait, IS it a contraction??) Go here for part one of the coffee tasting reviews. Trader Joe's Coconut Cold Brew I looove the idea of this one, but it's SO bitter. It works a lot better heated up with milk for a latte. Stumptown Cold Brew Very smooth; toward the sour end (vs roasty). I felt "meh" about drinking it black. With cream and added ice, it was delicious. And now, for the local companies' offerings... Secret Squirrel Cold Brew (Black) This brand is out of Anaheim. I forgot to taste it before adding cream. Oops. It's really nice; nutty and not bitter. "Warning: consuming this beverage may cause you to change the world." Bold Brew Coffee This one comes to us from a local company starte...

Ohhh, you guys. The hours—HOURS AND HOURS—I spent looking at tile. On Pinterest and in real life. Eyes glazing over, scrolling through images on my computer. Ogling super expensive cement tiles, waffling about cement-LOOK tiles. Schlepping kids around and trying to prevent them from breaking everything in the tile stores. Grabbing samples and returning them, and grabbing more samples, and starting the process all over again. Here are some of said samples: Cliff would call these "public bathroom" tiles There are too many tiles in the world This thing was SO heavy and awkard! Give me actual samples, please! I was 99% certain that for the shower, I wanted white subway tile. Easy, right? Ehh... Not so much. There are so many different sizes and kinds of tile and different companies and opinions and warnings about tile being warped or broken, etc. etc. And of course all my decisions were questioned and fact-checked by Mr. Engineer. Which is totally a good th...

Bathroom remodeling is so fun and sexy IN THEORY. But I'm writing this post lest I ever forget about all the unglamorous stuff—the MESS. Also, I apologize in advance for the huge uptick in ALL CAPS words. In my previous post , I talk about the plumber situation and the weird pipe that held us up. These were just a few of the contributing factors to the disaster zone we've been living in for months now. The demo caused lots of mess, obvs. This, I expected. Our entire sideyard has been lined with countertops, fiberglass, a broken toilet, light bulbs, and plywood to name a few. This is maybe 1/8 of the original mess—after four months of garbage pickup In the course of demoing, Cliff broke the bathroom window. Oops. Again, one of those things that we weren't planning on redoing but had to take time away from the actual project to fix. Yay for YouTube. And a HUGE shout-out to Stuart's in Escondido. The old school dude basically coached Cliff over the phone in g...

Hubby decided to leave the bathtub to the professionals. Which is a great idea—if the professionals know what they're doing. Ready for a bathtub! Cliff found a company with great reviews on Yelp. They told us it would take a few hours to install the bathtub and move the shower head up. Well...They ended up being at our house ALL day and made four separate trips to Home Depot. I thought I was going to have a heart attack watching/listening to them carry the bathtub upstairs to the second floor. Eeeeek! Cliff took one look at the bathtub when he got home and realized it was totally wrong. There was a one-inch gap between the floor and the bathtub. These dudes! They should've known they couldn't sneak something past an engineer. The gap would still have been a problem if Cliff was using cement backerboard under the tile. He was using Ditra, which is even thinner, thus making the problem even worse. The owner agreed with Cliff after he sent him pictures, but the soones...

Funnily enough, I'm sipping hot tea as I write this. Iced coffee just doesn't feel as great on a sore throat as hot tea. I'm a newb to cold brew coffee. 99% of the year, I drink hot beverages. Yes, even on hot days. But the last few weeks have been especially humid and yucky, and while I still love my hot coffee in the morning, I'm really starting to prefer my afternoon coffee on ICE. Here's what I've tasted over the past couple weeks: Chameleon Mexican Coffee - Love the cinnamon and almond. Probably not for regular rotation, but a nice treat now and then. Lucky Jack Old School - Smooth, nutty, not bitter at all. But maybe not as flavorful as it could be. High Brew Mexican Vanilla - Really tasty; maybe too desserty for me. Chocolatey, but there's no actual chocolate. Shrug. I don't like the lingering sweet aftertaste on my tongue. Stok Un-Sweet Black Cold Brew - This is my least favorite so far. It's very watery, and the coff...