{T} is for Tiny Home

Tiny homes have my heart. Although I am not quite sure if I would be able to have one in the future since we want to have a big family, and I don't know how it would work with a family of eight or more. Featured below is Jessica's tiny home.

This home was recently featured in Martha Stewart Living Magazine, and caught my eye while I was skimming through Pinterest. This is a 540 square feet home, where Jessica lives with her family. Only 90 square-feet more than our little apartment, but this place has quadruple the curb appeal.  Here are some amazing photos of this dream tiny-home.

Can you imagine having a cozy  bedroom like that? Beautiful! And look at that claw-foot tub! I cannot even imagine how relaxed I would be taking a warm bath in my future tiny home. I am determined to have this in my future home.

                                    

               

(Source)

Lately...

This is a quick post. So let me not rant too much. This past week was my eight-teen month post op from gastric bypass, looking back, I am SO very fortunate to have been able to get the courage and have this procedure done. More on that later.

This Wednesday coming up, Liam turns six-months old, and his eyes are still green. We're enjoying every minute of their presence since I doubt they'll stay that way much longer. My baby boy is getting too big! I am a proud momma of my twenty-pound and twenty-eight inches long six month old. WOW, that was a lot of numbers.

Lastly, I have made the promise to my myself and my family that at least once a week, we will be having dinner in the back patio. Why have SUCH a beautiful outdoors space and never use it. It's spring/summer time, time for spaghetti tops and flip-flips in Miami.

The Yard Sale Epidemic

Living a life with a small budget gets tough. Especially since we have been living on our own for the past two years. Being young parents, we want to be able to give our son everything, without wasting too much money so our piggy-bank doesn't get anorexic.

Needless to say, our "styling" habits are a bit shameful. We know we have style, but there's no way in hell we can ever express it with our budget. Sometimes I enter Target like a horse with blinders on, to not get tempted, and not get jealous, and being a girl in Target is like an obese-spoiled-American-kid in a chocolate factory.

DO NOT LOOK AT THE PRETTY CLOTHES CECILIA! (My mind yelling at me)

So lets talk about yard sales.

Today on my over-used Facebook, I started a Yard Sale Junkies group for my town. In hopes that this will make it easier to yard-salee's to get together and make huge community yard sales for me to attend. Or maybe, one day I will have my own, or maybe host one. Either way, looking around the inter-web, I found this How to Have a Successful Yard Sale.  Where I found these nifty FREE Yard Sale printables to make your house more attractable to roaming hoarders. Enjoy and check out the group, {Yard Sale Junkies}.

{photo source: Belly Feather Party (dot) Blogspot (dot) Com}

Misfortune & Miracles

I have abandoned my site for the past week because so much has been happening. So to all those twenty-something followers I have, I must apologize.

Misfortune: This past week has been very hectic, I lost my phone at a sticking' Target, which when I went back five minutes later, it was gone, of course. (My poor Blackberry). I have NEVER felt so lost in my life. My phone was everything to me, I wanted to have a hissy-fit and cry like a twelve-year old girl who has told her tits were tiny. Then it hit me, all this time I have been trying diligently to be the best Buddhist possible, and I have attached myself to a material object that only causes of pain when we lose it. And no, I am not going to stay without a phone because in this day in age, living without one is social suicide. But I am going to detach myself with the idea that without my phone I cannot communicate with the world. Obviously, I am doing it now and haven't had my phone in over four days.

Miracles: And this we're not completely sure if it's a miracle yet or not. Papa Rebel owed about two grand in student loans, that we were slowly paying off. Yesterday, we logged in to his loan agency's site, and its ALL paid off. We were like "HOLY SHIT! NO WAY, WE GOT HACKED!" Instead of thinking maybe the government finally went through with the Student Loan Forgiveness act of 2012. We're still not 100% sure what's going on, but for now we are enjoying the happiness it brings us that he no longer owes that crap, and now maybe we can finally buy ourselves a new pair of shoes now and then. I am still wearing the same shoes from three years ago. 

Miscellaneous: On other news, I finally got to take Baby Rebel to the doctor, the insurance problems I was having earlier were fixed yesterday, so the second I found out I rushed to his doc's office. He got his set of vaccines, and cried for two seconds, and then was a happy baby all over again.

Liam is starting to eat baby food, started him with Peas and now he is also eating Sweet Potatoes. I buy Earth's Best for his foods that are still on trial, now that I know he's not allergic to most of it, I am using my Baby Bullet a lot more. Thanks to my dear friend that bought it for us for our baby shower. Very thankful! 

Veggi-Licious!

(currently writing this as I munch down a TURKEY burger before the hubby gets home)

Papa Rebel has been obsessed with this one Tumblr page that constantly post why being a vegetarian is like the "most amazing thing ever" and he has been asking whether or not we should try, (for the second time) to make the switch and become vegetarians. 

So today I drove Baby Rebel and I to our local market and we did a mini-grocery run to see if Papa R. actually would eat what he said he would.

Here are some photos of the groceries. I bought a lot more food than this, but only posted the basics that  are "veggie-friendly".

 All Natural chocolate chip cookies for todays desert. My favorite!

 I havent tasted this yet, but it seems VERY tasty. 

 When you feel like making a quick spanish dinner, 

I completely recommend the Nueva Cocina Rice Mixes.

I always either make Liam's baby food in the baby bullet, or I buy Earth's Best.

The Horrible "Happy" Mothers Day

I told myself the night before, “tomorrow will be just like any other day”. I closed my eyes content with the fact that Mother’s Day is a money making profitable extravaganza for our country, and that I wanted to make sure that my expectations were not bigger than any other Sunday.

I was so wrong. I woke up the next morning, happy and slightly worried. I didn’t want my happiness to end, I wanted to soak up the beautiful Miami sun and prance around flaunting off my five month old Mother’s Day gift to the world.

My husband hadn’t bought me a present and at first I was fine with it. He knows I don’t fret over things like that, and I knew how incredibly busy he had been that week a work, and how when he is NOT busy, I want him all for myself. But as the day went by, I became more and more irritated at the fact that their still had been no dozen of roses, and box of chocolate, all the cheesy and money-making gifts I had so harshly criticized before.

And to top it off, my husband had told me that when we were to visit the mother-in-law, he was planning on taking her hill of trash to the dump (waste management) for her. Now this, you see, ticked me off.

“It’s Mother’s Day!” I yelled like a hormonal lady pregnant with sextuplets.

I thought, how dare him? Take time away from me? On Mother’s Day? Any other day I honestly wouldn’t have cared. I would have encouraged him to help her out, especially since that meant not dealing with hearing her negativity for the time being.

But nope. Not this day. Mother’s Day. I took it to heart, and everything came crashing in. No present!? I thought to myself. And the stupid, shiny, sunny day. I became angry with the world, and I am sure by the heat that came through the car doors, the world was angry with me. It was like the world laughed in my face, saying how dare I not take a day like today serious.

The day ended better, I was eventually given a Mother’s Day present by the one person that knew how important this day would end up for me, my Mommy. (Yes, I get the right to say Mommy when I’m sad). After the whole day ended, I sat down and talked with my husband to explain how next year's Mother’s Day should pan out differently. And now I know that I underestimated my attachment to the silly money-making made up Mother’s Day.

I guess all I wanted for Mother’s Day was to be worshiped and treated like a queen, and you have to admit, what mom doesn’t deserve that.

Original post on BlogHer

Mothering in 400 Sq-Ft

Mother's day is this Sunday, and although I would like to say that I will have time to get on and do a post, I doubt it would actually happen. I am hoping that everyone will have an amazing weekend, and hope all you Mommies out there get plenty of hugs and kisses from your little ones. 

To know more about our little family, Henry and I are young parents. I moved out of my mothers house at seventeen and have been gallivanting with him ever since. We are our own kind of nomads, no house will suffice unless we are together. We have lived with every family member, lived in whats considered the "hood", and have now settled (we never truly settle) in our small humble abode.  

Our place is 400 Square Feet of freedom, and I am loving every minute of raising Liam here (for the time being). Because living in small space only drives you crazy if you let it, and we find that it makes things so much simpler. It's compact, but definitely simpler.

Our living room consist of our small office area, the microfiber sofa that we got at a garage sale for $30, our beautiful flat screen TV with the corner, Liam's play area where his jumperoo is currently taking over, and very useful storage ottomans to one corner.  Although this sounds incredibly tight, I can admit it is compact, but has never felt cluster-phobic.

The bedroom consist of the basics; our queen-sized bed, one nightstand (because two would be too much), Liam's crib, and a mix-matched book shelf that we're currently using as Liam's dresser.

These iron boots book-ends are hand-me-downs from Henry's grandfather.

Mothering in such a small space only gets tough at night. We had a co-sleeper for the first 4-months, but now Liam has his own crib right next to us. When he decides it's time to get up and coo for two hours straight, we have to half-sleep our way through the night. Aside from that, our place never drives us insane.

We decided to put ourbed sideways, like if it was a day-bed, to help with space saving. I thought it would be a bitch to deal with, but we became use to it very quickly and now I can't imagine any other way for our bedroom to be.

AND, luckily for us, we have these two very necessary factors about our little cottage that makes a WHOLE LOT of a difference. Our separate  kitchen, and a walk-in closet in the bedroom.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, we have a small park literally behind our place, so once he's big enough, we can walk right over.

We are far from done with decorating our place, it's a long process when a 5-month old is involved, but there will be some painting, and some DIY projects coming up very shortly!

On Tea Time & {Boys}

Our boy-filled home gets exhausting sometimes. Because for some reason boys seem to make more messes than girls, and our dog is no exception. 

This weekend was a lot more relaxing than usual, (even with TOM in town) no tea was needed this weekend. Some time ago, I found the organic tea I had been looking for. I personally like it chilled with lemon slices, but everyones taste is different. 

Here is the Gypsy Earl Green, has Ginger, Rose, Bergamot & Orange for Digestion Balance & Rejuvenation. Best Aromatherapy around when your going for something cheap that works.

The only thing I regret about this weekend is that we didn't go to the back patio not ONCE. I just don't understand us sometimes, we have this beautiful patio that we can use whenever we want, to have lunch outside, sit and talk, daydream, meditate, whatever we want (not to be thinking dirty, but that too) and yet we barely go to the backyard. 

Which, I might add, might be getting bigger soon, since our landlord is working on lowering the amounts of fish ponds we have back there. Sitting in our patio, all you tend to hear are birds chirping, water flowing into the ponds, and sometimes we hear children's laughter, since we have a public park right on the other side from our back fence. Magically peaceful, sadly under appreciated. 

It so sweet to see both my boys laughing, and I know these two will be best friends in the future and plot horrible pranks against me. Honestly, I hope that next time those those pink lines how from a pregnancy test, will mean that a girl is on her way to us. It's both lonely and empowering to be the only woman in the house. 

Henry and everyone we know says that we're probably going to have all boys.

Gulp. 

Even photos of boys. This is a photo of my husbands dad that passed away about ten years ago. I found this photo while I was organizing the closet a couple of days ago and decided to put it up so whenever Henry looks at himself in the mirror before walking out, he see's his father's image and takes him wherever he goes. My secret (not-so-secret) protection charm. 

D.I.Y for our patio

The Water Bottle Chandelier D.I.Y Project

This is an amazing D.I.Y Project and I can't wait to have a free weekend so I can get this done for the cottage. I HAD, HAD, HAD, to post this one of my favorite sites, OH HAPPY DAY.

I have finally settled with the idea that we will be staying in the 450 square foot apartment that we are currently living in until further notice (which will hopefully be for a couple of years) and so the D.I.Y project list had been slowly growing. But this one is DEFINITELY on the top of my list.

I am planning on doing this and putting the chandeliers in our back patio that is in desperate need of lots of color.

To find the completely instructions on how to do this please visit,  OH HAPPY DAY and getting creating!

This is where the will be once I finally get them done. Very excited here guys, I want to spice up our back patio, which by the way, will probably be getting bigger once our landlord lowers the amount of fish ponds we have back there. Exciting!!!

For the Love of Biggie!

“Girls pee pee when they see me. Navajos creep me in they tee—pees.”

— Biggie Smalls (lyrics)

So yeah, I am not really talking about the rap start at this moment. Henry was  exaggeratedly obsessed with the notorious rap star Biggie Smalls at the time, so when we got our first dog ever, yeah he named our mutt chihuahua Biggie. Now I can't really picture his name any different. 

We found this youngster on the streets of Homestead in August of 2009. We fell in love with him the second he jumped on to the couch and laid right next us, it was like his way of saying, "Yeah, this can work out". 

When I write about Biggie, I need to know that you understand that this is NOT just a dog. Or at least in our hearts he is not. I know all dogs are loyal, but when I think of this little guy I get chills thinking of how "human-ish" he seems. 

Sometimes, when were having a nice night in, Liam's asleep in his crib and Henry and I are getting are giggle on (no, that's not code for anything, I truly mean laughter), we both look over at Biggie and it's as if he really knows what we're talking about. Sometimes we swear he's about to bust out talking to us and that would be the biggest trip fest ever. 

And then the next question we ask ourselves is, "what accent do you think he would have?"

Like dogs automatically need to sound different than how we sound. "Maybe he'll sound Mexican since he's mostly Chihuahua." 

He's is more than just our dog, he's the first dog/pet that Henry and I have had together. He was the "practice" baby that helped us learn responsibility way before Liam was even conceived. But best of all, he's our best friend. Everyone should cherish their pets.

Oh, and also! 

Do yourself the favor and if you are in search of a new pet or ways to help out these furry friends, check out The Homeless Pet Advocates website. They provide rehabilitation for animals, foster care, training, etc. If you could give a donation they would greatly appreciate it, and if you are looking for a pet of your own, you can give a doggy or kitty a second chance to a great life.