Weekending

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We had a busy week last week! Valentine’s Day brought little parties for both kids in schools, Joe working late and us attending a board meeting.  I did make a delicious lasagna for dinner and even both kids gave it “all the thumbs up!”

As for celebrating? I stopped into the Dollar Tree and scooped up just a few little goodies for our babes.  I knew they’d get a ton of candy at their V-Day parties, so I saw these adorable heart baskets, and filled them with a chocolate heart, a stuffed puppy, a little workbook and a balloon.  They loved it!  They even loved the workbooks; Brooke did hers right away and Bradley worked on his at lunch; he did a wonderful job tracing the words for each color!

Bradley did cry a little bit Friday morning saying his ear hurt, so my mom instinct kicked right in and I took him right into the Drs. Sure enough, he does have an ear infection.  I’m grateful it’s nothing crazy like the flu, but I know ear aches are awful!  Poor guy.

I am trying so hard carve out time to read our newest book club book. It’s a thriller and a page turner, but I can’t really read it at night–I don’t want nightmares!

  • Update: I actually was on page 77 Sunday night and decided to try and read a little…and well, I just stayed up until 1 am reading to finish it! If you love a page turning thriller, scoop this one right up!

Hubby and I did get out for our first date night of the year!! 2.16.19. We had not gone out since the weekend before Christmas, as he was so sick and life got crazy.  We had a delicious dinner at Good Luck and hit up our favorite spot, The Revelry for a few drinks.  We are old and were home by 11:30, but it was so nice to get dolled up, out of the house and having actual adult conversations!

Sunday brought some time for Brooke & Joe to spend together.  Since she’s gone to full day Kinder, she doesn’t get to see Joe that much and we could tell they needed some QT. She insisted that I took her and Bailey’s photo.

That left Mr. Bubs and I to cuddle on the couch. I hope he never gets to the point where he doesn’t want to snuggle!

He is all boy.  If he’s not dressed up as a superhero, running, crashing, shooting, jumping, then he’s tinkering with his trucks, cars and guys.

While Bradley played, I sat with the laptop and caught up on some blogs; I felt called to sit and write.  I have abandoned this little space here for some time, but I know that it always waits for me to return.  If you’re reading this, hello! Welcome if you are new, thank you for returning if you’ve been around for a bit.  Hubby swooped home to gift me with a Matcha Latté and it was divine.

I also worked on some advertising for our social media pages.  I’m on the fence about joining Rachel Hollis’ business coaching.  I really love her and I think I would learn so much!!

Recently a new BK went in around the corner from us.  The kids have been dying to check it out as they have literally watched it form from the ground up! I think they just love the crowns.

The rest of the day was relaxing, as you’re supposed to work 6 days and rest one.

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Currently {Sunday Edition}

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Reading:

I love a good thriller, but I have trouble reading them at night!  Our local book club chose this book for our next read and I can’t wait to meet up with everyone in a few weeks!

I really loved this advanced reader copy!  I don’t even want to explain any of the book because it was THAT GOOD! You just need to trust me, and grab it once it’s available!!

 

 

Watching:

I hit up YouTube for some hair tutorials before our date night. I learned a few things! I think it came out pretty well.

Drinking:

All the water and all the rehydrate!  I noticed that I was feeling really yucky and after talking with friends and my hubby, we realized I was probably dehydrating myself.  I have upped my workouts a bit and also sit in the dry sauna–I feel so much better sipping on some electrolytes while sweating it out.

 

Listening:

I have been loving this book.  It’s inspiring me to stop and smell the roses more…as well as all myself to feel my emotions, but then let them go.  We cannot sit and dwell on things and I love this concept of acknowledging how we feel but then not allowing ourselves to run away with that.  Feel and release. It was an Oprah recommendation and I find listening to amazing books like this feeds my soul.  I guess you could say it’s like therapy for me.

I just finished this book last week.  It was a little bit meh in some spots, but I did have some interesting conversations with Joe about these topics.

 

Cooking:

This sheet pan dinner was super easy!  I sprinkled a little seasoning and evoo, baked at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes.

I’ve been digging oatmeal, but I may go back to this breaky.  I love to dunk the sprouted grain toast into the egg and always feel better if I add veggies first thing. (Side note on the cleanse: I officially lost 3 lbs. I feel like I’m getting a better handle on my eating, but I still need to play around with how much and when I am eating.  Work in progress!)

 

Baked Cod.  I melted a little butter, oil, wine and lemon to pour over the fish and baked it until cooked.  Brooke likes it!  I needed to add more spices for my liking.  I served it with mixed veggies & white rice.

I switch lunches up when the kids are home, so it’s a little bit of everything for them. It’s a great way to clean out the cupboards too!

Feeling:

I was going a little nutty gathering ALL the tax information for our properties, but it’s all done! Wooo Hooo!!

I’m also feeling strong.  Non scale victory–small tank tops my sister gifted me for Christmas now fit!  Working out again makes me feel less all over the place, more focused and a lot better overall!

I’m also feeling grateful for family time and enjoying time all together.

Loving:

This is excellent for headaches/sinus pressure that this wacky weather sometimes gives me.  I roll it around my hair line, being careful to not get it near my eyes.

 

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Thoughts as a Work at Home Mom

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Snow day (or rather, “Cold Day”) number 2 with the littles today!! Honestly, I am as giddy as ever when I see my babies will be home safe with me.  Being a former teacher, I have never outgrown the love a good day off from school.  I also have the pleasure (and stress) as being a work at home mom.

There I said it. Whew.  I think for so long I have been battling with this idea that I don’t really work…and in reality?  I really do a lot of work! Simply staying home filled my days with more than enough to do.  The laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, tidying, tending to, it’s endless, am I right? No matter if you stay home or work outside of the home, being a mom is hard work but someone’s gotta do it, and no one better than you mama.

I think I’ve struggled a little bit with coming to terms with working because I don’t exactly get a paycheck, nor do I get dressed up daily and go clock in somewhere.  It’s not the conventional way I used to ‘work’ when I was teaching full time and so I know that internally I had some things to overcome.

Sure I’ve done my fair share of side hustles.  I loved getting healthy with Advocare and with that, helping a lot of friends and family find a better way to live their lives as well.  Why did I stop?  Well, honestly some of the products just didn’t work for me the way that they once used to, or how I would have liked them to.  I still believe it’s a great company and I take daily supplements but my heart was not into devoting all the time and effort into that business.

As Bradley began crawling around, I saw the new up and coming jewelry KEEP and got super excited with that! I also felt that pull of needing to be a part of something. I reached out and did a ton of online parties, made some new friends and really had fun.  Which lead me to my next little venture with Stella & Dot.

Stella & Dot had been around for awhile and while I truly love love love their accessories, what I didn’t enjoy were doing in person trunk shows.  Sure you can still have a great business online, but at the same time as I was rocking with this biz, my husband and I changed the way we were running our real estate company.

Two years ago in March we decided to switch our business model from renting single family homes, to Rent to Own Homes.  This has totally changed the game for us, but as with any business, it continues to grow and evolve. We now have ten properties and a lot of book-keeping, marketing, advertising, taking calls, paper work, collecting money from all tenants…the list goes on.

What was once a small hustle, is turning into an empire.  My husband still works beyond full time and I refuse to raise Bradley differently than Brooke, in the sense that I don’t want to put him into day care and not be with me.  So?  Somethings have to give.  There is no ‘balance’ so I won’t pretend that I’ve found it nor do I believe one day I will magically feel all zen.   But I do believe that as we grow, change and become better versions of ourselves each and every day, we have to say goodbye to old patterns, habits and move forward.

All of my experience in MLMs or Direct Sales, whatever you’d like to call them, not only brought me the BEST of friends—hi guys!!– but also a huge sense of confidence in sales.  I now surround myself with other leaders, continue to read the best professional development books and know that when I have my down days, (and oh, do I ever!) It’s always important to pick myself up and keep going.  I also learned a ton about social media, how to connect with folks and as always the number one reason why we are on this planet?  To help one another.

So I suppose I share all of this because maybe you too feel a shift and want to change.  Perhaps there’s something new you’d like to try but maybe feel like you shouldn’t.  You are never too old and it’s never too late.  I went to school for a very long time; received a Bachelor’s Degree and a Masters Degree.  While these may just be pieces of paper to some people, to me I accomplished my goals, lived out some dreams and was able to teach some amazing and beautiful souls throughout my 8 years teaching English.  The best part?  I will forever have the knowledge I’ve gained, and if I decide to go back ever, I have a NYS certification.

As for now?  I will be parting ways come March with my fun little side gig of Stella & Dot.  It was sure fun while it lasted, but I feel that it is in my family’s best interest to focus on our family business and help grow what we have started to build.  Since realized that time really is the biggest and most precious thing on earth, I really value where I spend it and whom I give it to.

I think I’ve been nervous to admit that I do in fact work, partially because I wanted to be a perfect stay at home mom, making all the meals from scratch or at least semi-homemade.  Do all of the cooking, cleaning, organizing, shopping, etc…but if you are a successful person, you already know this: You cannot do it all.  With 24 hours in the day, it’s imperative to figure out what needs to get done and what and when to let go of things.  (Grocery pickup, I’m looking at you!!)

As far as 24 hours?  I saw a quote that said, there’s 24 hours in a day.  You deserve 1 hour to do whatever you want with it.  Or something like that. Basically, it put me into tears because so often I find myself turning into ‘all work no play’ and then turning into a potato at 8pm and scrolling FB/Insta because I never gave myself one small morsel of the day to spark joy, inspire myself or heal.

I need to write more, so that’s back up at the top of my list.  Working out.  Spending quality time with the kids and Joe.  Dating my husband.  Re-establishing and even creating new friendships. Cooking.  Building our real estate empire.  Playing with our dogs.  Being in nature (when it’s not a Polar Vortex!) Yoga.  Meditating. Networking with other leaders/girl bosses. Giving back to our community. Reading.  Walking. Being.

As I continue to lean into this year, 2019, the year of SIMPLIFYING, as long as this month seemed to be, I could not be more clear or driven on my purpose and reason on this earth.  I pray that we are blessed with better health in the coming months and that by Summer time, all these seeds that have been planted, will bloom.

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Hello 2019, you Sexy thing!

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I may have had a quiet night in and no, I didn’t even see the ball drop.  I think the last time that happened I was at my Grandma Owl’s house sleeping on her pull out couch? I feel like I spent NYE there quite a few times and loved it.

It was a long Winter break full of lots of sickness, but all is well.  I will miss my little girl today! I’m not ready to send her away all day.  There were moments of pure bliss where I would just stop and watch her and Bradley play so well together. (There were also time-outs and some fights but eh, I like to focus on the good!)  It made me miss having her around so much.  I haven’t had her all day long for over a week since August!

Since I was pretty much stuck at home with all the illness (myself included but I rebounded fast, thank you God!) I was able to really organize and de-clutter my office, Brooke & Bradley’s rooms.  I still need to go through the basement playroom, but after wandering around my extremely messy house aimlessly for about a day or so, Oprah finally told me, “what’s the next right move?” I was seriously starting to go insane not even knowing where to start or what to do with myself and the insanity that was surrounding me.

It’s so true though, just break down your overwhelmingly large to do list and just do one thing. SOME thing. It can be anything, but just do it.  Now all of the odds and ends are out of my office and I am actually sitting here typing my little blog here on a clean desk. #winning

Baby toys are gone and all broken, missing pieces, fast food toys and little annoying pieces of I don’t even know, are now removed from my son and daughter’s rooms and everything has a place, I mean EVERYTHING! We are only on day 3 of this, but so far so good! If they know where something is supposed to go, it makes pick up a whole heck of a lot easier.  Plus it will help with the random, “hey let’s dump all the toys out so I can find that one thing I am looking for!”

So my word of the year?

 

Simplify

I started a few years back with choosing one word and trying to repeat it to myself throughout the year.  {2017: Success & 2018: Be}

I know my life is chaotic but I believe it could be a more organized as well as simplified chaos.  I want to focus on what matters most, what has to happen/get done and what fills my soul with happiness.

This week off was unexpected. I thought we’d be here there and everywhere doing all the ‘fun things’ as well as having some down time.  But honestly?  This is just what I needed as well as my little family and though I would not wish sickness on ANYONE especially the loves of my life, I am glad I could be the one to take care of all of them.

So here is to an amazingly epic & simply sexy 2019!

What is your word or resolution for this year?

 

 

 

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Year in Review

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In January we threw our 3 & 5 year old a Troll Birthday Party

Rent to Own Open House was held come February, for our real estate business.

March made me lose my mind and We got a Puppy! 

My bestie got us tickets and in April I met RHONJ Teresa Guidice!!

May brought The Most Beautiful Mother’s Day Yet!

June was stressful but we still enjoyed Father’s Day & Family Time

Joe & I celebrated July and Our 8th Wedding Anniversary

On 8.18.18 My Momma Got Married!

September brought back to school.  (I vowed myself to be a present and happy mama when getting my oldest off to Kindergarten & my youngest starting Pre-school.  I made the after school cookies, I cooked healthy meals & was very in the moment. Apparently I was so in the moment with that I barely blogged…I did share some Fall Fashion. 

October I made an attempt to blog every day, and re-introduced myself.

November came and we Stay-Cationed.

Queen of Christmas, I made sure to soak up all the things in December.

Overall, 2018 was a pretty kick-butt year.  We had some downers, and I’ve learned not to trust people so easily.  (ALWAYS PERFORM A GOOGLE SEARCH!!!!) My family grew closer, loved ones beat illness, bonds grew stronger, we traveled with the kiddos on a plane and by the way, they just keep growing bigger and bigger!  Getting a puppy was probably the most stressful and one of the harder things of the year.  Things were just getting into a groove with the kids being older, and well having a puppy is legit 10x harder than a child. I said it.

I’ve learned a lot this past year.  I feel like I’ve finally understood how precious time and who and what to give my time to.  I pretty much re-learn weekly that I need to put myself first sometimes and that in order to give, I need to take time outs for just me.

I’m working on letting go, I know I’m a control freak and I want things to go a certain way.  Like this blog; I write because my soul craves it and my heart feels so happy when I share.  However, I struggle with how much I share because anyone can read it.  I’m always real, authentic and honestly don’t know how to be any other way.  This is my happy place and if I’m going through something I share because maybe my words could resonate with someone else.

There is so much power in written words.

I pray my words will be used for good and not against me.

I’m hopeful and excited for the new year.  I will be sharing my “word of the year” for 2019 soon and have quite a few blog posts already scheduled–who dis?!

Have a beautiful New Year’s Eve and stay safe friends!

 

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