Lots to Feel Good About This Friday

Check out The Girl Next Door Grows Up . She has an awesome blog, and I LOVE her Feel Good Friday posts!

Here’s what I am feeling good about this Friday:

1. Awesome weather and beautiful sunshine – which is a rarity here in Michigan this time of year! I will never underestimate the mood lifting properties of sunshine and warm weather again!

2. Dinner with a great friend of mine yesterday. I met her when I was a teacher. She is awesome! I don’t miss a lot from my teaching days, but she is the definitely one of the things I miss most about teaching. It also felt good when she asked about my blog and the story I wrote. I feel that when I talk about blogging, people often get this glazed over look and quickly change the subject. Not her! She was genuinely interested in what I had to say about blogging and writing! Gee, I miss her!

3. Watching my daughter dance to her Princess Music Station on Pandora. Pure joy radiates from her while she dances.

4. Bonding with my sister-in-law about blogging and motherhood. Even though our blogs are different (check out her photography blog here: Footprints in Time Photography), we do our thing (whether it be writing or photography) because we love it. And for the first time since we became moms, we talked about how encompassing motherhood is and how easy it is to lose ourselves. It was such a nice afternoon with her and my nephews!

5. This one I am turning a negative into a positive. I recently met up with a mom that I befriended shortly after becoming a mom. We hadn’t seen each other in awhile. I used to feel intimidated by her; she would come over and always try to call the shots. I would feel insecure, being a new mom and all, so sometimes I’d let her run her game and other times I wouldn’t but feel sick to my stomach about holding my ground. Not this time. Not only did I stand my ground, I didn’t feel one ounce of guilt or anxiety doing so. Our last encounter made me realize how far I’ve come with being secure in myself as a mother. I felt pretty proud of myself.

6. My free monthly piece of Godiva chocolate for being a card-carrying member of Godiva Chocolates – enough said, right?

Have a great weekend!

If Monday is the new Sunday, then Tuesday is the new Monday

Ever since I have been a SAHM, I feel like Monday has been the new Sunday. Usually the weekend is busy with stuff that is not our routine weekday stuff. Also, with Harrington home, the day just has a different flow. So when Monday rolls around, it’s kind of quiet and laid back. . . as much as that can be with an active 1year old with no fear or boundaries and busy-body almost 4 year old. Usually, we don’t HAVE to be anywhere .

So Tuesday really feels like my Monday. We have important Places to go that are prepaid and important, like preschool. After I drop Marie off, I have exactly 2.5 hours before I have to pick her up. In that time, I have to give Thomas his bottle, put him down for a nap, usually meet up with my wii trainer, spend a bit of time on the computer, wake up Thomas, put him in the car, take him out of the car, put him the stroller, rush into the school, and pick up Marie. I’ll spare you the details of our after school routine. Tuesday has that Monday feeling.

I am going to savor every last drop of this delicious flow because next year it is OVER. Marie will be in 4 year old preschool which is 3 days a week starting at 8:45. Yikes, I know.

So Happy (Monday) Tuesday, Friends!

****I have one, itsy, bitsy small favor to ask of all of you. I am dusting my Twitter account for the 3rd time. I'm also newly on Facebook. Won't you please stop by and say hi? I feel like the new kid in the cafeteria with no one to sit by me. And I really want me and Twitter to work out. Thank you so much!

Taking Care of Business

One of the things that I struggle with being a mom is how to take care of myself. It’s so cliché-sounding but after taking care of the Babes, some days I am too tired to do anything for myself. However, it’s also clichéd-sounding that I have to put the oxygen mask on myself before putting on my Babes’ because how good will I be if I am lying in a heap unable to breathe? All clichéd, but all true (at least for me).

With my first, I totally didn’t get this. I thought that if I was tired, I should just sleep or watch TV or relax. All of that is good, but I slept A LOT because I was always tired. In retrospect, I probably had PPD or even PTSD. Either way, I did learn that doing something for me that wasn’t baby related or sleeping also fills the tank. With my second, I get this. Sometimes I forgo a nap or going to bed early because I like that feeling of filling my tank for the next day.

Last night was one of those nights where I was so tired, but I pushed on to do something I wanted to do. I went to a new writer’s group with some new writer friends. It was great! I feel like this group was a good match. When I told them I blogged, I braced myself for the eye roll, the blank stare, or the back-handed compliment of “Oh I wish I had time to blog, but I am too busy. It must be nice to have that kind of time.” No, these people got it! We may blog for different reasons, but they didn’t fluff it off like I was an idiot. The moderator was very good, and I feel like there are things I could learn from these people. I feel the more groups like this that I attend and the more blogging that I do, I am really, truly embarking on a new career. In fact, it really hit home for me when the moderator said something along the lines of me starting a new career and how I should make sure that I ask my husband for help to make my writing a priority. I don’t know why it took a stranger to say something like that to me to finally solidify the feeling of starting a new career, but it did. And it felt awesome!

I also feel that when I have been taking time to write and giving myself a night off from the bedtime grind, I feel like I am a happier and have more patience which makes the Babes happy which then makes everyone happy. So I think I am going to shift my priority on this whole writing thing from “a want to” to “a need to.”

So there, Friends, I am taking care of business!

And for those who were wondering if I finished my story, I did! It feels so good to say that, too! For the next two weeks, I am going to write my query letters and get everything in order to send it out. Yeaa!

Feel Good Fridays: This Week’s Happiness

Thank goodness for Feel Good Fridays! It helped me think of positive things while I cleaned the bathrooms (which were beginning to look like neglected dorm room bathrooms had I waited one more day, but let’s not dwell on the negative stuff),

Here’s what made me happy this week:

1. My parents really helped me out this week by picking up Marie from school. I was feeling like I was going a little crazy with the grind, and they stepped in to help me out. I didn’t think it would make big difference because she only goes two days a week, and the school is only 5 minutes away. But that extra half an hour of getting Thomas up from his nap and putting him in the car and then out of the car and then back in the car and then Marie in the car really does make a difference! In addition to the car pool support, my Mom was there (like she always is) to give me some extra emotional support. I am really lucky to have such great parents! Thanks, Mom and Dad!!


2. Not too long ago, I came across Wendi Aaron’s blog. She’s pretty funny, but this post really made me laugh out loud!

3. I took Wednesday night off while Harrington took care of baths and putting the kids to bed. Again, I didn’t think that it really took two hours to do the whole bed time routine from start to finish, but it does. And with those two hours I made some room on my desk to work AND wrote my last post about writing.


4. Which brings me to my next happy thought: I received some very uplifting comments on my last post. One especially from my Aunt Diane. Read it and come back. Don’t worry, I’ll wait. What did you think? So sweet I teared up! Know why? Because I think it’s a full circle moment when one of the people I looked up to when I was growing up says I inspire her! (I mean, she was one of the reasons I became an English teacher)! Not to mention that I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I inspired someone. It feels good, and I am glad that I have her in my life, cheering me on!

5. I had a play date with one of my friends that I have known for 20 years. I love that our kids play so well together. It’s nice to have that kind of friend that has known me forever, and we can talk about anything. After hanging out with her and her kids, I always feel refreshed and energized.


6. Harrington and I went to the Tigers baseball game with some friends to celebrate his birthday. For someone who strongly dislikes sports with a passion, I love going to baseball games with Harrington. What is it about beer, peanuts, Italian sausage, Dipping Dots, good company, and hot lookin’ guys out in the field that makes for such an awesome afternoon?!

So overall I guess this week was pretty good!

Hope you have a great weekend!!

Sabotage!

I have a confession to make. I don’t think I have said these words out loud, so here I go. (Takes a deep breath and exhales). I think that I have been sabotaging my writing dream. At first, I thought it was just life getting in the way. Yes, I have been busy with ear surgeries, birthday party season, and Easter. And then I thought if I only had a place to go in my house for some quie;t so I have been cleaning the office space in the basement. Then there was the stretch of time that both babes were not sleeping through the night. And now I am realizing that although those circumstances are all true, I think that fear is getting in the way of finishing my article and sending it out to magazines. And not just the fear of being published, because I really don’t think I am afraid of that. Even though I have a healthy fear of rejection, I don’t think that is the only thing holding me back. So I did some super sleuthing that Darby, Tigger, and Pooh would be proud of and realized that I think it’s the fear of making my dream come true while being a mom.

And I think guilt is fueling the fear fire. Here is a list of things that makes me feel guilty:

-Guilty for doing something that I love would get in the way of being a good mom. (I know this is ridiculous because there are plenty of good moms out there doing things that are self-fulfilling).

-Guilty that I get to stay home with my kids AND do something that I love while my husband is out there wishing he could spend more time with the kids and doing a job that isn’t in love with.

-Guilty that being a mom, although is great and awesome, is not enough to make me feel like a full, well-rounded human being.

So why bother even writing a post about this? I could have flown under the radar without anyone being any of the wiser of my evil plan to kill my dream. I mean, the truth of the situation was barely visible to even me. I feel if it’s out there, then it’s not in my brain taking up valuable real estate needed for more productive things like, I don’t know, focusing on finishing my article?! Plus, it’s about accountability. If I admit to self-sabotaging in a public forum, then I have to be accountable to change it.

So instead of hiding behind grocery shopping and taking Marie to her yoga class on Saturday, I am going to stay home and finish my article. Wish me luck!

So, Friends, what are your fears?

Feel Good Friday: “We are back! We are back, we are back, we are back!”

I recently found the blog of The Girl Next Door Grows Up. She is awesome! So she does a weekly meme called Feel Good Fridays. So I chose the prompt: Write about something that happened to you this week that really made you smile. Was it your child, husband, or maybe a complete stranger did to you?
My husband lost his job when Thomas was six weeks old. He was devastated to say the least. Leading up to this, he was pretty miserable at this job which meant he was pretty miserable at home, too. To make a long story short, he found another job in less than two months, which is pretty unbelievable in the state of Michigan. Actually he found two jobs, and he wasn’t sure which one to take: the one that had was less money, but the company seemed like a good fit or the one that paid a bit more, but didn’t give such a warm and fuzzy feeling. It came down to the wire, and when he asked me, I told him we’d be alright with the less money because it was only temporary. He agreed, although he felt nervous about the money. He took a huge pay cut, but it was a good job with good benefits. He’s been doing really well there and the “only temporary” part is over. The company has acknowledged his hard work with some nice monetary compensation. I saw a twinkle in his eye and pep in his step that I had not seen in a long, long time. I told him over and over how proud I was of him. And then he told me, “Thanks for all of your support through the past couple of rough years. I could not have gotten here without you.”

That really made me smile. As a SAHM, I feel like a lot of my job is behind the scenes, more like the producer rather than the star actor. It felt nice that he acknowledged me during his moment of glory. It’s hard for me to remember that I actually have a part in this because I am not the one getting all dressed up and going to The Office to Work. So I feel like we pushed through a very difficult time in our marriage and came through better and stronger. I really feel like we are a team. And that makes me smile.

Happy Friday!

Love, From A Member of Aunt Becky’s Merry Band of Pranksters

Aunt Becky asked her Band of Merry Pranksters to write a blog about her. And when Aunt Becky asks me to do something, I do it, damn it! Some of you may wonder why I would follow orders from someone from the internet I never even met before.

Well, let’s just say she is awesome! Earlier this year, I was in a difficult spot in trying to adjust to being a Mom of two. I felt like I was losing any little bit of myself that was Me. Then Aunt Becky stated that this was the year she was Bringing Aunt Becky Back. When I saw someone else scraping herself out of the bottom of the barrel to be true to herself, I was inspired. I saw that it didn’t have to be Me or The Babes. So I started to take my blog a little more serious and also joined a writer’s group. I have always wanted to write, and now I feel is the right time to do it. And I feel really good that I found something just for me.

So that’s why I would write a blog for her. She inspired me, and in return, I got her back.

Now go check her out!!