Five Favorites: Our Area

It's no secret that we live in a tiny house. It's a townhouse with under 1000 square feet. It makes storage and cleaning a challenge, to be sure, and having more than two kids someday will be difficult with that little space and no yard. I have a habit of looking on Zillow every so often to try and keep an idea of prices in the area and...well, it's a little discouraging. Home values have increased, and while that means we have more value on our house, so does everyone else.

That said, there are some things about our area that will make us make do with our space for as long as possible, because we really, really love it. Here they are:

1. Geography

Some of this has to do with being so close to so many outdoors options - lakes, rivers, mountains, beaches - with such a short drive. If I really wanted to, I could drive to some huge caves at Luray Caverns and still be home in time for dinner. But this has more to do with family location.

As I've said before, Nate and I were both military brats, so being able to see our grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins was a rare treat. Now, we live within about a half hour drive of both of them. That is heaven. It certainly came in handy last week when I was sick and able to call in some reinforcements to make it through the day. But we're at the point where both Rosie and Freddy recognize and willingly go to their grandparents and aunts and uncles because they see them on such a regular basis (Rosie would not let her uncle put her down tonight); if we were far away, I can imagine that there would be a lot more clinginess whenever we would visit. 

Five Favorites: Children's Books

Rosie loves her some books. I have more pictures than I can count of her pretending to read or being read to because that's one of her absolute favorite things. People have given her books that are...well, tedious, but I have no problem reading some of these over and over again. Generally, the following books are beautifully illustrated and the words are carefully chosen so that they flow wonderfully. I love all of them. Just pretend that I say that before every single one of them.

Disclaimer: all book links and pics are from Amazon, but I don't get diddly squat out of it other than the satisfaction of introducing someone to something awesome.

1. Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges and Trina Schart Hyman

It took a while for Rosie to actually sit still long enough for me to read through the whole thing - it's kind of wordy - but it's awesome. It's got enough adventure and action that my nephew took it to bed with him when we gave it to his for his birthday last year - I mean, c'mon, it's got a knight fighting a dragon and getting the girl. What's not to love? Oh, and the wedding scene gave me completely unrealistic expectations for wedding dresses. Dropped waist is a mistake on me.

Five Favorites: Pre-Baby Luxuries

Maybe I'm a little cranky because Freddy decided to wake up sca-REE-HEE-HEAming around 3 am this morning and then again at 7ish, but I spent a little bit thinking of all sorts of things I took for granted before I had kids.

1. Sleeping when I want for as long as I want

Forget just sleeping through the night - I miss being able to go to sleep late (night owl insomniac here) and sleep until I wake myself up, skip breakfast to keep sleeping, sleep sleep sleep. I lurve sleep.

Five Favorites: The Zoo!

I took Freddy and Rosie to the zoo for the first time on Monday. Since it was Veteran's Day, both my dad and my FIL had the day off, so they, plus my mom, MIL, BIL, and SIL, were able to come. We would have taken advantage of the sequester to take them before it got cooler, but, well, the zoo got closed then, too. Luckily, the day was sunny and clear, even if it was chilly.

I have to say, I enjoyed the zoo much more as a parent than I have in the past as a teenager or childless adult. I mean, I've always liked seeing the animals and learning about them, but seeing the wonderment of a child is kind of awesome. That said, here are some of my favorite parts of the trip.

Five Favorites: Hodgepodge

Gotta do this quick, because I don't know how much longer the babies will be down and I still need to make pizza dough for tonight so it can rise, so here's a few things off the top of my head that I'm enjoying.

Five Favorites: Facebook

I'm just going to put it out there: I love creeping on my friends. I love knowing what people are up to and how their lives are going. Don't lie, you know you do, too (as Miss Manners snarkily put it: "No, there is no polite way to tell someone that you want to know their personal business but don’t actually want to talk to them. This phenomenon used to be known as gossip, and in Miss Manners’s opinion, Facebook has ruined its fun for everyone."). But there are a few things that I really, really enjoy more than others.

Five Favorites: Shopping Edition

My dad says that he read that self-made millionaires got that way because they never spend more than $10 on a bottle of wine, and though my mom will sometimes sulkily say, "Sometimes I wish you would," I'm convinced that the price usually has fairly little to do with the quality. I actually don't really like spending money, plus getting out and about with very small kids isn't exactly an easy feat; when I have to do it, it's more of a chore than anything. Sometimes, the stores I go to make it very, very worth it. The following places generally help me keep within our budget (me being a SAHM with two kids while we live on a single teacher's salary in an area with one of the highest COLAs in the country) and maybe even make it feel like we're living large. So, here are my 5 favorite brick and mortar places to spend money!

My First Five Favorites

I've never done a link-up before! How exciting!

In the spirit of Wednesdays in this house (I make pizza and we invite our siblings so the kids get aunt/uncle time), my list theme is Favorite Foods/Drinks to Make. Om nom nom.