Cleanse Should Be a Four Letter Word

I learned something about myself this week. I am not a "cleanse" person.
Don't ask what prompted it, but I had decided that I would do a 3 day juice detox cleanse.
In theory it's a great idea. Flush all of the toxins that have been building up in your system from the crap food we eat, feel better, and give your system a little bit of a "re-boot", so to speak.
In reality it sucked ass. Like a lot.
Honestly the flavor was pretty good. I like juice. I like fresh juice I made myself. I even like vegetable juice. So for the most part I really liked the recipes. I went out and stocked up on some great, fresh produce, and set off to "cleanse".
The first day was a mental shift. Just wrapping my brain around the whole thing was difficult. And with some tweaking I was able to make my "lunch" turn out pretty good. I had a couple WTF moments, but I could do it.  I almost punched my husband in the throat when he had 5 doughnuts for dinner, but I could muster up some self control. This was my choice, not his, so I'll save my murderous rage for another time.
Oh, did I mention the no coffee thing? That should've been my first clue. No coffee? No good. People in my house have almost died because I didn't have coffee. This was not off to a good start.
The second day is what was my undoing. I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. My neck was sore, my head was pounding, my throat was sore, and I was just altogether icky. It was like a hangover without the snippets of fun bad decisions from the night before. According to my health-crunch friends (not a derogatory comment at all) this was the toxins trying to escape.
This is where I really started to lose my grip on my determination. But, instead of giving in I powered through. I made a really great juice for my breakfast and made myself ready to face the day. Once I got going with work, kids, and all the other crap I do in a day I was able to be more in my rhythm and felt a little better. I'm sure all the sugar from the fruit juice I had for breakfast didn't hurt either. I had been drinking water all day and by one o'clock still hadn't had any more juice (you're supposed to have one every 2-3 hours).  I just couldn't convince myself to get up and go make the juice. I tried making a salad out of the ingredients I was going to be drinking, thinking at least it was close. I could just not get up and actually make the juice.
I kept telling myself I can do this! I can do this!
Turns out, no I can't.
Well, that's not entirely true. I could. I don't want to. I couldn't pinpoint why I really wanted to do it in the first place. To look better in the bathing suit I'm not going to wear on our vacation to Mexico? Seriously, there's nothing I could do in the week that we have before we leave that is truly going to make any bit of difference.
I don't know if I'm just making excuses for giving up or if it's something more but I did have some pretty great thoughts. And if I can hold onto these I'll be much healthier than I would have been had I finished the cleanse. I will tell you that I'm pretty sure I heard a choir of angels sing when I finally said "I'm done" and opened a Diet Coke. Although I'm not 100% sure, it was slightly drowned out by the crying souls of my health-crunch friends.
Here's what I learned:
Right now I need to be OK with me. I need to not worry about the overall size of my ass or my gut. You know what? I'm 36 years old and I've had 5 kids. Two of those babies within 2 years of each other. When I met my husband I hadn't had a baby in 7 years, and I was still in my 20's (technically). Plus I'd just gone through that best-diet-ever-just-don't-recommend-it; it's called the Divorce Diet. It's amazing!! Lose that first 220lbs and the other 20 just falls right the F*** off! (If you don't get it, we can't be friends anymore. I'm sorry.) My baby cousin (19, and just gorgeous) recently told me "If I can look like you do when I'm your age and have had 5 babies, then I think I'll be doing damn good!".  I kind of laughed her off a bit, but it really stuck with me. You know what? She's right! I've lost about 50lbs in the last 2 years. I'm pretty sure I know a lot of women who would knife me in the eye right now to lose 50lbs. Amazing, beautiful women, that I would say didn't need to lose any weight, they're beautiful as they are, would be responsible for knifing me directly in the eyeballs.
My husband has learned in his 45 years, that it's best not to say anything at all when it comes to a woman and her weight. That's a Twix moment if there ever was one. My sweet husband, who still sticks his hand out to grab my ass as I crawl into bed most nights. The one who makes it obvious that he's not paying attention to whatever trivial thing I'm whining about because he's too busy looking down my shirt. He has told me when chastised about his lack of complimenting  abilities "I think you're beautiful, why should I continue to state the obvious?".  Apparently we don't walk around commenting that the sky is blue, so why should he say his wife is beautiful. There's a slight flaw in his logic, but that's another post entirely.
Bottom line, I'm not going to torture myself trying to re-boot a system that is currently running just fine. Could I be healthier? Absolutely. Couldn't we all? But with all that's going on in my life right now is this really something that needs to be my top priority? I don't think so. I need to feel good about myself and the state I'm in now. I'm not overweight. I'm considered a healthy range for my height and build. There's really nothing a little exercise can't fix. Later. When the chaos has settled a bit and I'm not dealing with such emotionally charged issues. Because quite frankly if a Diet Coke or a big bowl of ice cream is what makes me feel better right now then I am OK with it.
And as long as my husband is still trying to play grab-ass in the kitchen when the kids aren't looking, I should probably be OK with that, too.
So I will keep my juicer, because I like it and enjoy some fresh juice once in a while. But it will be relegated back to its position on the shelf in the garage for occasional use instead of taking up valuable, limited, counter space in the kitchen.  And I will worry less about the size of my dress, and more about keeping my husband's hands from it when we're in public.

Bulk Cooking in My Life

So a couple of weeks ago I thought I would take on a pretty big challenge and do some bulk cooking. Honestly, I don't know what the hell I was thinking. I have a tiny, almost useless kitchen, no counter space, and a standard sized refrigerator that's supposed to hold enough food for a family of 8. Where exactly am I going to put all of this that I decided to make? And what possessed me to do this in the first place? Apparently I drink. And heavily.
It started when I made a trip to Sam's Club for some Booster cookies (We were selling cookies and water at a band performance). Since we had finally gotten through the 40lbs of chicken quarters I had bought on my last oh-mah-gawd-look-how-cheap-these-are spree I decided I should pick up "just a few things".
(This is the point I should probably share some background. When I was growing up we were poor. Not just broke, but poor. Like living with family, food boxes, and eventually when I was in high school, we moved to the projects. There were times groceries were scarce. I may have food issues.)
So my "just a few things" turned into a 10lb pork loin, 8lbs of pork chops, 5lbs of flank steak, 20+lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and some frozen meatballs. I get home and realize I have no idea what the hell I'm going to do with all of this. We've been spending a lot of money on fast-food lately. Which in our house usually means pizza (McDonald's is a $60 adventure when there's this many people. So not worth it. Have cereal). I've been lazy and under-motivated with dinner. It bothers me. Here is my chance to get back on the bandwagon. I need to get my family back to having a reasonable dinner every night. Being the Pinterest addict I am I did a little digging and found some good sites, recipes, and ideas for my big bulk cooking idea.
Let me tell you, this went way smoother in my head. If I had a regular kitchen with counter space and outlets it would have gone much smoother. I worked with what I had. It took me two days but I made it happen. There was only one small problem. Remember that whole "standard size" refrigerator I mentioned earlier? And its standard size top freezer? Yeah, we're gonna need something bigger. I do have a freezer. A big freezer. Like if my ex-husband ever goes missing at the same time as I get a new freezer don't ask kind of big. It'll fit two, maybe even three, bodies car loads of groceries. But it's been in the garage for a year. Not plugged in. And is partially buried under boxes. Long story short, that bad-boy is now in the kitchen. At least one of my many kitchen disasters solved. Thank you a LOT to my wonderful husband for doing most of the heavy lifting, moving, and cleaning to make this happen. It's amazing how little I was involved in this part of the process.
I will tell you that I had this post all buttoned-up and beautiful in my head.  There were pictures. And links. All the fancy shit that I looked at that sparked this fabulous stupid-ass idea in the first place. I had a lot of people ask about recipes and the menu. Here's what I made. I'll link where I can.

• Chicken Pot Pie (2 - enough for one meal - it has been requested that this make it in the normal rotation from now on. Win!)
• Lasagna (2 - two meals)
• Chicken Caccatorie(2 bags. It tasted great. I added the noodles and I screwed it up some how. The kids didn't like it. I was only mildly fond of it. Considering I couldn't keep out of the pot for the sauce there has to be another way to serve this)
• Cilantro Lime Chicken (2 bags. Makes some kick ass tacos)
• Chicken Taco Soup (2 bags)
• Honey Maple Chicken (2 bags)
• Cilantro Lime pork chops (2 bags - recipe wasn't for a freezer meal but it should come out fine anyway)
• Beef and Broccoli (1 bag)
• Beef Stroganoff (1 bag)
• Enchiladas (4 pans - two meals)
• Shepherds' Pie (2 pans - one meal, minus the potatoes that go on the top. I don't like the texture that happens when you freeze potatoes.)

That's two and a half weeks worth of meals. Plus left overs, so almost 3 weeks of food. I also made

• Pork Sloppy Joe's. In  the future I'll stick to cooking the pork loin in the crock pot with some Manwhich. I liked the semi-homemade sauce. The kids did not.
• Shredded pork, meal to be determined later
• 5 "cans" of cream of mushroom soup. I needed it for a recipe so I just made a big batch and froze it in 1 and 1/2 cup bags. 

I have the makings for pasta and meatballs with various sauces for two or three meals, a skillet dinner, a couple of casseroles, and breakfast for dinner a couple of nights. I even have the makings for pizza should I feel slightly more ambitious.  This should get us through the month.  I've been good about going to the store and only getting what we were out of. It's working so far. I spent about $500 initially. On the outside I think I'll spend another $300 on groceries. $800 sounds like a lot to me, but when I think about the 8 people in my house, it's really not so bad. Especially since that includes 2 grown men and 3 teenagers. We have salad every night, and sometimes bread/rolls and that helps round everything out.

And I would absolutely do this again. If I was more organized I could tell you what we were having tonight. But I'm not. I'll pull something out of the freezer later. It's easier if I pull something the night before and let it thaw overnight on the counter, and toss it in the crock pot in the morning. We'll probably have a casserole or something like that tonight. Once it starts to get hot out this will be my go-to planning. I hate cooking in the summer and this will definitely keep down the time I have to spend with the oven on. Next time I'll plan out a little better!

I Actually Made Something From Pinterest!

I know!  I was shocked, too! I've managed to dwindle down my Pinterest time to something a little less embarrassing lately. It's usually where I spend time when I've refreshed Facebook 8 times already and it seems no one is up to anything more and I'm stuck on hold with an insurance company. In my wandering the other day I found a recipe for DIY coffee creamer. We're big coffee junkies here. I like my coffee sweet and creamy; usually just *this* side of a latte. Coffee creamer is expensive since I've stopped couponing and I'm always looking for recipes to make my own anything. Not that I actually make most of it, but I still want to know that I can should a magic fairy ever come down and suddenly make my chaos something less time consuming.
I found a recipe that seemed simple enough - equal parts sweetened condensed milk and milk or milk substitute (almond milk at my house), and some flavoring (I used coffee syrup). D'uh. Even I could do that! And I actually did! I need to be careful I don't pull something with all the back patting I'm doing.
Now the original blog has all these fancy pictures and stuff. Had I thought of it as I was making it or was that fancy-pants enough I might have done something similar. But, if you've been here more than once you know something like that doesn't really happen all that often.
End result? Awesome! Love it! Total cost for 20oz was $1.85. That's all I spent on the condensed milk. I had the almond milk and  the flavor syrup already. I used the sugar-free caramel syrup and added some cinnamon. Of course I had to make myself a cup to try it out right away. Yummy!
I will say that I could taste the "milk" in the first few sips. I'm not a fan of milk and  neither is my tummy in any kind of high concentration, but this seems to be OK. After the initial taste it was gone and I don't notice it. Certainly not for the lactose intolerant or anyone with milk allergies. I just find the stuff nasty and since I don't drink it and use a rather small amount of dairy other than for cooking I noticed the taste.
This is one of those recipes for something I could just as easily buy in the store that I think I'll keep using. Making your own convenience foods isn't always worth the effort, but this definitely is!
I better head to bed so I can get up and have more coffee (and) creamer...

Getting Ambitious!

 So I'm getting a little ambitious around here. While I'm not concentrating on much that I'm should be doing and I didn't spend any more than ten whole minutes on this I'm rather proud of it anyway. I planted tomatoes. The hope is that they'll love this warm California sunshine and thrive; giving us fresh and yummy tomatoes.
I was inspired during my visit to Wisconsin to see my best friend, Michelle. She and her husband have this great garden where they're growing most of their own produce for the summer. I had some of the best tasting veggies while I was there. I'm so jealous. While I would love to have the amazing garden they have I know that's not realistic. I don't have the space or the attention span. I've tried very unsuccessfully to grow tomatoes when we lived in Washington.  I felt a little better about it because the people with the amazing gardens didn't have a whole lot of luck either. Washington just doesn't get enough heat or sun, even in the prime of summer, to produce good tomatoes. After doing a little research I found that it is possible to grow tomatoes here year-round. I feel better that I don't have to try and sneak in planting during some plant-season-window that I couldn't find with a GPS!
I think that Fiona will love to watch the plants grow and seeing that food we buy in the store actually comes from something other than the large bins we pick them from. Maybe she can help me with them. There's no way she could do any worse than I will! We'll see how excited she is when she comes home from day care today.
So here are my budding tomato plants I picked up at Walmart for $4 each. I spent $25 on the whole set-up; plants, pots, soil, and cages. Hopefully I won't be posting about my poor dead tomato plants in a month or so. Fingers crossed. There's so much garden stuff I would like to do, but this is me and while I can dream big, I don't always have great follow through. Not for lack of trying or willingness, mostly for lack of time. I'll be moving these over to the other side of the yard later so that they get hit with the sprinklers and I don't really have to even think about them. I'm going with the theory that the less I do to them, the happier they will be. Keep a look out in a month or so. We should either have great, ripe, yummy tomatoes, or dead plants in the garbage.

Make It SHINE!

Disclaimer: This here post is what’s known as “over-sharing”. If the knowledge that you’re going to be reading about something that happened to my va-jay-jay is a little more than you can handle I totally understand.  For the rest of you… you’ve been warned.

I bought a deal on Living Social for a Brazilian and eyebrow wax. Or, what I like to call the “Eye-brow and Thigh-brow” combo pack. This is something I’ve really wanted to do for a long time but never been able to scrape up the courage to actually do it! Toss it at me at 50% off and add in an eyebrow wax on top of it? Amen! I’m in there. Well, more accurately, the salon lady was “in there”, but we’re not that far in the story yet. Anyway. I was telling a girlfriend that I had actually bought the package and I was going to go do it.  She asked if I was nervous.

Um…d’uh! Lady with hot wax gonna pull the hair off my lady-parts! Yeah, nervous seems to cover it. Apparently what scared her the most was having to walk in the salon and saying “Hi, here’s my junk! Now wax it and make it SHINE!”. See, these are the people I hang out with.

I get to my appointment this morning and I’m nervous.  Jessica, the gal at Fleur de Lis Spa and Boutique, was super nice. She asked if I had done this before and if I was nervous (see above). Now understand that the salon was beautiful and there was The Beatles playing softly in the background. Could it be any more perfect? She hands me a “spa-panty” and tells me to get undressed from the waist down and put them on and she’ll be back.  I’m not really sure of the reason behind the spa-panty. Are we really trying to preserve my modesty when I’ve paid you money to rip hot wax off of my vagina with a narrow strip of muslin? I’m pretty sure there are 17 states in this fine country of ours where I’d be arrested for being in a room with no pants, another woman, hot wax and a box full of popsicle sticks in the first place. Modesty is really no longer an issue.

I’ll skip too much detail but will say that surprisingly it wasn’t that bad. No really. Like getting your eyebrows waxed… only not. There was only two spots where I was really questioning whether or not I could leave right then and have to later (willingly) explain to my husband why I had a partially bald vagina. 

Jessica says: “there’s usually one spot that feels like your vagina is actually getting ripped OFF” Gee, ya think.

I will say that the Brazilians are some twisted, Commie bastards.  I learned one inalienable truth of the universe today: Any time you’re laying on your side in a spa-panty and someone says to you “now don’t let your cheeks touch” nothing good is going to happen!! You’re not about to win the lottery. The Easter Bunny is not going to leave you a basket of jellybeans. Your husband is not going to finally take out the fucking trash without being asked (ok, that one might happen but I think that’s a different type of blog you should be looking at and I’m pretty sure you’re gonna need to be 18 and have a credit card). Oddly, not the worst part of my day.

For those that are wondering, totally worth it. And yes, I’d do it again. Are you really surprised?

My Newest Project–Part 3 of 3–Fail!

Back in December I posted here and here about my hatred for my current living room furniture and my desire to do something about it. I had grand plans of recovering it in an economic yet fashionable way and making it look like a million bucks on a budget. Kind of a Bite-Me-Martha thing.

Yeah, well… so much for that. 

I got the chair cushions done. Twice.  After an accident with a sippy cup and some red soda it needed to be done again. Then I got the sofa cushions totally done. I got most of the ottoman cover done (Still working on that due to a slight “design flaw”.) And that’s about where the project stopped.  The thought of tearing apart the couch was daunting.  I wanted to do it. I know that with a little bit of help and some time I could do it. But having the help and the confidence is where I fell short.  Damn it. 

I was recently told that I “get really excited about stuff and then it just fades away”. This was not done as constructive criticism but pointed out as a glaring character flaw. This is something that really hurt my feelings and stuck with me.  It made it difficult when faced with what to do with the couch when I realized that I had bitten more than I could currently chew. 

Admitting defeat is not something I do well. I will say that I do tend to take on a lot at one time. Projects, commitments, just general to-do crap.  Admitting when maybe that list has gotten to be more than I can handle is not something that I’m good at.  I am controlling. I am demanding. I know that. I think it comes from growing up and having almost no control over the chaos in my life. Or not knowing how to control it. And then moving into adulthood and a marriage that was equally beyond my control.  So here I am, at 34, a self-proclaimed Control Freak. It would be in good taste to say that I’m working on it, but let’s be realistic – I’m not. Nor do I really have any intention of it. Isn’t admitting you have a problem the first step?  Screw the other steps, I’ve got too much else to do.

So, to come back from Tangent Land…

The living room furniture will not be recovered in some uber-snazzy, look-how-crafty way.   Thank you to Target clearance and Overstock.com I purchased two slipcovers.  The couch now looks fantastic!  The slipcover actually solved one of my biggest pet peeves about the couch. Because the seat cushions are not connected to the couch in any way they are constantly needing readjusting. Something that seems beyond the ability of my children/husband to see or fix (how you don’t notice you’re sitting on a cushion that is hanging off the furniture by 3 inches is beyond me). The slip cover holds them nicely in place and only requires a daily re-tuck! *insert angels singing here*  In about 2 minutes I took my icky couch and made it into something that I could really love. Why the hell didn’t I do this months ago? Oh, that whole control thing. Right.   The cover for the chair will be here on Thursday. 

I will be posting pictures once everything is here and together.  We’re working on re-doing the floors, too. But, that’s another post all it’s own.

My Newest Project - Part 2 of...

Part 1 was getting a little long, so I thought I'd break it up a bit. 
I did get started right away yesterday.  I'm struggling to not drop everything for the next week and finish it. So I'm going as I can. Hopefully it doesn't take too long.  I did warn Doug that our living room is going to be in a state of half-mess until I get this done. He said he's fine with it. (Can anyone find me the process for declaring someone a living saint please?)
So I didn't have the sense to start taking pictures before I started tearing things apart.  Oh well. 
I figured I would start on the chair first. It's a little easier - read smaller - than the couch, but will give me more impact than the ottoman.  I removed the cover from the back cushion and pulled the seams apart. I wanted to use it for a basic pattern and to make sure I got the size of everything right. Then I ironed the pieces and cut the fabric.  Putting in the pleats was challenging.  But, when you're trying to put 12 layers of fabric through a home sewing machine, your bound to find some problems.  I was able to salvage the zippers that were already there.  Which is great, and something I didn't think to do when I was planning all this. But, they're the right size and are actually pretty easy to work with, plus they're FREE!  I was really  happy with how the back cushion came out. The pleats don't match up perfectly on one of the corners, but it's really not something you can tell.  I think I need to add some more batting to it.
The T cushion was a little harder. Getting the cover off to make the pattern was a pain in the ass! Those things are on there SNUG! But after some cussing and pulling I was able to get it off.  The T cushion was a little more difficult to sew.  The rounded edges in a box shape is complicated. But I made it work.  I came into a little bit of an issue at the end when I was trying to finish off the zipper. It just wasn't matching up right. So I put the cover on the cushion - it looks awesome - and figured out what the issue was. When you're cutting pattern pieces from an old cushion there are a couple things to keep in mind. The pattern is not exact like from the factory. I cut a little wide to give myself some bigger seams.  Also, I was patterning from a piece of material that was not in the best of conditions.  It was frayed, worn and stretched out.  So, I'll be closing up the final hem by hand.  I think it made putting it on a little easier so I'm not going to complain. It's the back of the cushion anyway so no one will ever see it.
So, here is what I have finished so far. It took about 6 hours. I wanted to start pulling the couch cushions apart to be ready to start today but my right hand was hurting too much to mess with the scissors (I have arthritis in that hand and pregnancy induced carpal tunnel - whee.) Let me know what you think!

You can see the sorry state of the rest of the chair. The shape is good, but there is no amount of cleaning that will help that.

Here's the sorry looking couch in it's full "Before" glory.  This is generally what my couch looks like.  Now you know what I'm dealing with.

So that's it folks. I'll be updating and uploading more pictures as I go along.  Hopefully it doesn't take too long. I would like this done before the baby comes. (That was totally sarcastic, I swear)

My Newest Project - Part 1 of...

I hate my couch. There, I said it.
Let me clarify a bit. I hate the state of my couch. It's dirty. It's fraying at the edges.  The couch itself is great. We were given the set - couch, chair and ottoman - by some friends when they got a new couch.  I thought then that I could "easily reupholster" it. Not one of my brighter thoughts I know. If my mom and my aunt can spend a drunken weekend reupholstering a couch and have it turn out great I can do it, too. Right?
I have been hit with an urge to nest lately that would send even the most non-OCD person into a tizzy.  So I look around my house and see all the things that need to be done. Plus, we are trying really hard to move to another state and transfer Doug's job (more on that in another post I'm sure).  That has me in a moving mindset. Not a good place for a nesting preggo to be. All I can do is look around and see the things that need to be organized, donated, updated or cleaned.  The fact that I'm not on anything stronger than Welbutrin is a miracle.
So the couch has been taunting me. There's only so much I can do with it. I can't scrub it. I could but it wouldn't do much could. Who is the dumbass that makes white couches anyway?  We talked about getting new couches and realized that it just wasn't practical.  We could spend $500 and go to the cheap furniture stores and get something that looks nice, but won't last but a couple of years. We have four full size people, soon to have two little kids, two dogs and two cats. Our furniture receives a pretty good beating.  We could go to somewhere like Thomasville or Broyhill and spend $2000 plus on a good set of furniture and hope to get eight years out of it.  Quite honestly, the thought of spending $2000 on anything right now is not something I'm interested in. And I do like our couches. I like the shapes, I like the style. They're deep enough to be comfortable for my long-legged husband. They're comfy. They're long enough that Doug can actually lay down on them and not be uncomfortable. Plus, if you take the back cushions off they're perfect for us to lay together and watch a movie, or for someone to sleep on if we have a surprise overnight guest. OK, like that last one ever happens, but it could. So, to my frugal way of thinking, why get rid of a perfectly good couch when I can just recover it?
Is it going to look new? Probably not. Showroom quality? No friggin' way. But it's something that will work for our family and not cost a ton of money.  So I made the decision to reupholster it and started the research.  If you know me you know that I've spent HOURS on the internet reading and shopping and soaking up everything I could possibly find out about reupholstering furniture.  I thought about just making a slipcover and realized that it'd probably be less work just to actually cover the whole thing - so scrap that idea.  Then I started researching fabric and pricing the stuff. Holy tapestry, Batman! That stuff is expensive. I'm looking at roughly 20 - 25 yards of fabric. Good upholstery fabric can run anywhere from about $10 a yard UP! WAY UP. Like $30+ a yard up. Screw a bunch of that! So I started to look at how to bring down the cost without sacrificing the quality.  
Insert trumpets here...Coupons! D'uh. Did you really think I'd get into this project without coupons?  JoAnn's fabric runs 50% off coupons pretty frequently. And the cotton duck fabric is usually about $10 a yard - so really $5 a yard. That I can handle. I found a good spot in the budget to pull the money out of and yesterday headed off to the fabric store. Now, I had a basic idea in mind. I wanted a chocolate brown for the couch itself.  Then something in a blue to go with the beach-y theme that I'm trying to pull off in my living room.  I didn't have anything really set in stone, but I know what I like and I'm pretty good putting colors together so off I went.   I ended up with 10 yards of a chocolate brown duck for the couch, and 5 yards of steel blue for the chair. I bought a big floral blue/tan swirly thing for the ottoman. Of course, sometime over the course of the project I decided to use the floral that I bought for the ottoman for the cushions on the sofa.  It all pulls together nicely.
We'll see what the finished product look like!  Lots of pictures to come.