A happy kind of exhausted

I am completely exhausted tonight, but its a happy kind of exhausted.  I put in a very long, very full, and very productive day.

I'm getting into my new college routine, and my classes are going pretty well so far.  I had an extremely busy night at work, which was great because we were doing a lot of business.  Best of all, I came home to dinner with my family, and my two precious boys helped me clean up the kitchen.

I don't mind feeling tired on a day like this.  I may be worn out, but I got that way because I got a lot accomplished.  I can go to bed feeling good about the day, looking forward to what tomorrow holds.

WMW preview!

Tomorrow is Working Mom Wednesday!  Now that I have blotting capabilities on my Droid, I can post a preview of the questions.  :)  So for tomorrow...

1. Share a favorite recipe

2. The hardest part of being a mom is...

Be sure to link up tomorrow!

The New Tasty Tuesday Blog Hop & My Favorite Website

I've been thinking about this for a long time, and now I'm excited to offically kick off the new Tasty Tuesday blog hop!  Every Tuesday, post a recipe, cooking tip, or favorite recipe website, then grab the Tasty Tuesday button to add to your post and link up on my blog.  I'm looking forward to hearing from everyone!

Today I'm sharing my favorite recipe website.  I discovered food.com (formerly Recipe Zaar) years ago and it became a fast favorite!  With almost half a million recipes to choose from, there's always something new to try.  Food.com was my introduction to OMAC (once a month cooking), which, although I don't do regularly, has given me many great freezer-friendly meals.  I also found one of my favorite recipes, Mexican egg rolls, there.  You can find my recipe for it here.

Working Mom Interviews

I was really excited a few weeks ago when I saw that Steph at Be Positive Mom was looking for working moms to interview for a new project that she was putting together.  I signed up for the interview series she's starting, and now she's launching her Working Mom Interviews newsletter.  You can sign up on her blog.  I'm so excited to be featured in her first interview on working mom guilt!

I've blogged a lot about working mom guilt.  I think that guilt is something all moms face, working or stay at home, and I think that just talking about it with other moms helps overcome it.  Check out Steph's blog and her interview series to learn some great information from lots of working moms!





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Could it be a hint of fall?

I decided to sit outside on our patio this

morning while I had my quiet time.  It is so nice!  After weeks of suffocating heat and humidity, this cooler, drier weather feels great.  It has me ready for fall...or as close as we get to fall here in coastal Texas.

I have to admit, that's one thing I really miss about Arkansas.  The saying here is that we have two seasons- summer and February.  That pretty much rings true.  I never put my kids summer clothes away...they've needed shorts in January before.  Most of the time, I love the warm coastal weather here.

But when September rolls around, I start missing Arkansas.  I miss those crisp fall mornings with the sun rising over the trees, whose leaves are turning spectacular shades of red and orange and gold.  I miss the days when its just cool enough for a long sleeve shirt and a light jacket.  I miss those days when my horse would prance with energy and excitement, just as ready to hit the trails as me.

Fall is my favorite time of year.  I'm looking forward to it, even if we just get a tiny taste of it here.

Working Mom Wednesday!

Wednesday came fast this week...it's been a busy one!  Here are today's prompts...

#1. Birth stories! {I loved giving birth and love hearing other birth stories... share one of yours!}

#2. Do you have your own bank account or do you share with your spouse? (If you have your own, why?)

 

Well, my oldest son's birth was amazing, but overall pretty uneventful - my labor was induced, everything was planned out...then my youngest came along.

 

I'd been having some problems with pregnancy #2, but I thought it had all settled down.  Then I went to my eight month checkup (on a Friday) and was told that I had already started dilating and that I needed to stay off my feet.  I went home, called my boss (I worked very part-time) and told her I couldn't come back to work until the baby came along, then I stayed off my feet.

 

Fast forward to Monday...I needed to pick up a few groceries, so my hubby went with me to help.  First, though, he had to go to jail - not as bad as it sounds!  A church member's son was there, so Robby (who is a pastor) went to pray with him.  When he went in, he had to leave his cell phone, so I had no way to contact him...and he ended up being there for 45 minutes. 

 

Meanwhile, soon after he went in, I started having contractions.  I thought it was Braxton-Hicks, which I'd been having for weeks...but 45 minutes later, when he came out, I was still having them.  I casually mentioned it to him, but I still wanted to get groceries.  Thankfully, he insisted I go to my doctor.

 

He sped across town to my ob's office.  We ended up being followed by a cop, lights flashing, who just told my husband to have a nice day after I waddled into the office.  It was there I found out that I was now dilated to a four - surprise! - and in full labor.  He sent me straight to the hospital.

 

Mass panic ensued.  Still almost a month from my due date, my bag wasn't packed, the diaper bag wasn't packed, my house was a wreck, our camera and camcorder were at home, and we still didn't have any groceries.  My family was several hours away, leaving me in labor with no one to watch our then three year old son.  Robby is never rattled by anything - he's always the calm one - but I have never seen him so nervous.

 

He left me at the hosptial, taking our son home to get a few things together.  We were both hoping desperately that Spencer wouldn't come before Robby got back!  He made it back with our stuff, and a church member showed up minutes later to stay with our oldest son, Bobby.  My family made it, too.  I temporarily lost all movement and feeling in my right arm (still not sure what happened but it was pretty scary) and finally, a little after 8:00 p.m. our little guy arrived.

 

The adventures didn't end there - he spent 8 days in the NICU - but in the end, we went home with a perfectly healthy baby.  It was quite an adventure...so much so that we decided two kids was enough!  lol  Of course, it was totally worth it all.  And of course, being a proud mom, I have to include a recent pic of both my precious guys...

 

 

Tasty Tuesday - New Blog Hop Coming Soon

There's been quite a delay in my Tasty Tuesday posts...I didn't intend to drop them for so long, but with my summer class schedule, blogging was put on the back burner.  In all honesty, I wasn't even doing much cooking during my summer class - we were living off of hot dogs, pizza, and frozen lasagna.  Now that I'm back into a more normal schedule, I'm enjoying doing some cooking and experimenting with new recipes again.

I'm always looking for new recipe ideas, so I've decided to launch a new blog hop next week for Tasty Tuesday.  You can share a favorite recipe, a great website, or any cooking or kitchen tips.  I'm really excited about it!  I will be working on a button and getting everything set up this week, so check back next Tuesday and link up!

Manic Mommy Monday - Family Command Center

This week I'm doubling up for MMM and Works for Me Wednesday...



It never fails to amaze me how many notes, papers, dates, times, lists, and random ideas our family of four generates.  Sometimes I feel like the CEO of a corporation trying to juggle everyone's schedules and to-do lists.  A few years ago, I decided that we needed one central location for all of our pieces of information, and our family command center was born.  It's one place to keep everything from schedules to shopping lists to instructions for dinner, and it costs next to nothing to create.

The first step in creating a family command center is finding the right location.  It needs to be in a central area where everyone has easy access.  For us, the kitchen was the obvious choice.  We do a lot of our homeschooling there, plus the kids hang out there with me a lot while I'm cooking dinner.  I chose to use the side of our refrigerator.  (It drives my poor hubby, who hates having things on the fridge, crazy, but it's the best place.)

Next, decide what you need.  For ours, I have a family calendar (I use Mom's Plan-It calendar), a combination dry erase/bulletin board, a dry erase weekly menu planner, and magnets for anything extra we need.  I found both our board and our menu planner at Target for $5.00 each.  In the past, I've also used it to post for homeschool charts and assignments.

Everyone's schedules are recorded on the calendar, so we all where we all need to be every day.  My kids have learned to check our menu when they want to know what's for dinner, plus, since it's a dry erase board, I can easily rearrange plans if I need to.  I use the marker board to leave instructions for meals or what time dinner will be done in the slow cooker, or just a note that I miss my guys.  It makes life so much easier to have one central location for all of our information!

Menu Plan Monday - August 23

Monday Lunch: baked chicken
Monday Dinner: slow cooker baked potato soup

Tuesday Lunch: hot dogs
Tuesday Dinner: white bean and sausage skillet

Wednesday Lunch: baked chicken
Wednesday Dinner: slow cooker baked potato soup

Thursday Lunch: white bean and sausage skillet
Thursday Dinner: breakfast & hash brown casseroles

Friday Lunch: hot dogs
Friday Dinner: Mexican egg rolls

Saturday Lunch: breakfast & hash brown casseroles
Saturday Dinner: Eat out w/church

Sunday Lunch: Mexican egg rolls
Sunday Dinner: Eat out w/church

Working Mom Wednesday

I've been thinking a lot about relaxation this week (since I'm out of college for a few days) so this week you can blog about any working mom topic, or you can answer one of our questions...

1. What is your most stressful time of day and why?



2. If you could have one day all to yourself, how would you spend it?

Ooooh, a whole day just for me? Where would I start? Actually, I have dreamed of thought of this before…it will probably sound totally selfish, but I don't get much time just for me, so here goes...


The perfect day for me would have to be a crisp, fall day…one of those days when its just cool enough to need long sleeves but not cold enough for a coat yet. I would start the day by sleeping in a little, then start the morning by curling up with my coffee and my Bible. I'd eat breakfast, enjoying a little quiet time, not rushing to be anywhere at any certain time.

After breakfast, I would grab my jeans and boots and spend the morning at the barn, riding and grooming horses…maybe a riding lesson, followed by a long, relaxing trail ride. I starting riding when I was 12 and owned a horse for several years. It's been years now since I did any serious riding, and I really miss it.

After a long hot shower I'd have lunch with friends, laughing and being crazy together, then I would spend the afternoon being pampered - a massage, a manicure, and a pedicure, and maybe catch up on some reading between my pampering sessions. At the end of the day, I'd head home to hang out with my family - play games with my kids, watch a movie with my husband, and just enjoy being with my awesome family.

Manic Mommy Monday - Downtime

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind for me as I took my first ever summer session of college - anatomy and physiology II in five weeks. It was crazy! Now I'm enjoying some "downtime" for a few days until the fall semester starts. It's not a lot of time, and it's not completely time off (I'm still working and teaching my class at church) but just being out of school is definitely relaxing for me.

Downtime means a lot to me these days, since it comes much less often than it used to. I've learned how important it is for me relax.  I can juggle a lot, and I can push myself pretty hard, but I learned the hard way how far is too far and when I need to put on the breaks and unwind a little.

I only have a week left until my fall classes start, but I'm trying to sqeeze some reading (Obsessed, by my favorite author, Ted Dekker, as well as one that's been on my list for a while, Same Kind of Different as Me).  I'm also planning on finishing up some projects I started months ago at our church, and bringing some order to our chaotic master bedroom...it seems to be the place where items that don't have a home land.  Of course, my biggest goal is to spend a little extra time with my husband and kids this week, too.  Hanging out with my family is my favorite way to spend my downtime!

Finally!

Wow, what a crazy month I've had...I'm so glad that my summer class is over!  I knew it would be intense, but I really didn't know what "intense" meant until I did this class.  Honestly, I thought I could keep up with my blog - after all, it's just five weeks.  Well, obviously from my blogging the past few weeks, that wasn't the case.

Of course, it wasn't just summer school...it was summer school, plus my job, plus heading up Vacation Bible School, plus teaching children's church every Sunday...  I have a hard time saying "no" if you haven't figured that out already!  I guess it's no such much saying "no" as it is not wanting to give up the things I love doing in life.  I'll stick with what I love, no matter how much of a juggling act it brings.

It's such a relief to be done with this class and to be one step closer to applying for hygiene school.  I'm so grateful to be getting back to normal and to have a little downtime to relax before school starts again on the 23rd.  I'm going to get back into my normal blogging scheudule...and to my normal life schedule!

Working Mom Wednesday

I know I have been a stranger to blogging lately...Working Mommy Wednesday is the only thing I'm keeping up with since summer school started!  Thankfully I only have a week and a half of class left, then life will start getting back to normal.

Here are today's questions, or you can blog about anything related to being a working mom...

#1. Sare your favorite recipe, organizational tip, or money saving tip!

#2. Would you rather have more money and less flexibility at your job, or less money and more flexibility?

I chose question #2, because it's one I've had to answer!

I love my job, and one of the reasons I started working at the gym is because of the flexibility of it.  My husband is a pastor, and I'm very active in our church, so I really needed something that could work with our crazy, fast-paced schedules.  Flexibility means a lot to our family lives too - I can usually get off work for major events.  The women I work with are awesome, and we fill in for each other whenever we need to.

A few months ago, though, I started thinking about the fact that if I have to work, I want to make better money, but still have a flexible schedule.  That's when I started thinking about becoming a dental hygienist, and finally decided to go back to school for it.  It's a career that combines the best of both worlds - flexibility and great pay.