Category Archives: On My Mind

Oh, Monday…

It’s been a stereotypical Monday that started out with sleeping through alarm clocks and a couple minor meltdowns, so I’ll be glad when it’s over. We had a nice long weekend and a visit from my Dad and Stepmom, but sadly they went home yesterday. I think Enzo was disappointed that things were back to normal this morning and he did not want to go to preschool today. He was upset when he couldn’t go see Miss Tammy (in the toddler room), and I’m sure not sleeping all that well didn’t help.

Hopefully by the time this afternoon rolls around, his day will have improved, and maybe tonight would be a good time to go to bed a little early… for everyone. Maybe it’s the weather making me want to hibernate. It’s a crisp Fall day, the sun is shining, I can see a bald eagle flying out of my office window, and I really just want to snuggle up in a blanket with a good book and a hot cup of tea. It’s feeling like a bit of an introspective day… maybe that is also just the time of year as we get closer and closer to 2014 coming to an end.

It’s only October, though, and really that’s plenty of time to still accomplish a few things and set some goals and get on track. I know for sure a few of the things I want to do, and now it’s up to me to make them happen. Time to have a “nothing will stand in my way” attitude and to embrace the fear of the unknown. All too often I just worry about everything, and I keep telling myself I need to acknowledge my worries, but also trust that things will be okay. Even if they don’t actually work out, I have to at least try because you never know until you try, right? It’s so easy to come up with excuses not to do things or to put something off, and eventually you either have to face the music, or you always wonder “what if.”

This post took a different turn than I meant for it to on a Monday morning. Such is life, though. How about an unrelated picture of a baby? I think I want to be more present and live in the moment… babies make it look so easy. 😉

Another year…

6 years ago.

Here we are, another year older, and I’m officially 32. It’s not old, but it feels like it, probably because I still feel like I’m in my 20’s. Maybe it feels even stranger because when I was younger I never pictured what my thirties would look like. I never really thought about having kids, being married – any of that, and now here I am! I’m married, I have two beautiful children, and life is pretty darn good. Yes, there are ups and downs, but that’s to be expected with life in general. Marriage can be hard, and having kids can be hard as well. While I’d love it if every day was fluffy bunnies and cupcakes, I’d also get sick of it after a while. That’s a lot of cuteness and sugar, you know?

We’re learning to laugh through some of the rough days, even though there are still those moments where we all drive each other crazy. As an introvert, it can be hard to recharge when you’ve got a house full of people and animals that need/want your attention all the time. So… I can get a little feisty. It’s not a terribly attractive quality, but it is something I am working on, especially since I can see a lot of myself in Enzo and like him I quickly and easily get frustrated and irritated in the right circumstances. I try to remember that and take that into account when interacting with him. Most of all, I want to be able to manage my own irritability because I want to have more good days (which may or may not have a quickly managed melt-down or two). More importantly, though, I want the kids to look back and remember all of the awesome days we had.

Yeah, we’re busy and there are a lot of things I want to accomplish and do right now, but I want to make family my #1 priority. My second priority is health and wellness – I want to feel my best. Everything else will just have to work itself in where I can. I’m currently studying to become a certified aromatherapist, so that’s going to take up a great deal of time, but I’m hoping it’ll be beneficial to our family and our friends. With luck, I’ll be able to do more with it down the road, and share what knowledge I gain with others. I’m at a point where I have so little free time that I need to figure out what brings me the most joy and focus myself on those things. One day I’ll have more free time, but for now? I think I need to limit myself to just a couple of hobbies and put my heart and soul into them whenever I can. It’s so easy to become distracted by timewasters (like smart phones, the Internet), so I also want to try and unplug more often. Looking back, I think I had more time for reading and other hobbies because there weren’t so many distractions (besides kids).

Maybe I’ll just hide my phone somewhere… with my memory I’d quickly forget where I put it. 😉

Photo… Dump? Deposit?

Photo dump just sounds so… blech, even though that’s kind of what this post is. I take so many photos of the kids and random things and end up editing them and uploading them, but don’t always use them in posts. So, I thought I’d just do a random mish mash post of things that happened and sort of fell through the cracks in the last few months.

I love making cookies, but when I do I never hear the end of it and Enzo won’t stop talking about them, and he’d sit down and go through the entire batch in one sitting if we let him.

It’s hard not to take about a million photos of this little girl… especially since her brother doesn’t like to sit still anymore and is more interested in what’s going on behind the camera than being in front of it.

She’s not quite as serious as she was a few months ago. Now she seems to be constantly smiling moving – not that that’s a bad thing!

Sigh… soon she won’t be using the Bumbo. She’s been doing so good with sitting up on her own. I still tend to stay really close, but even when she falls over she does it in such a graceful way… not like Enzo who would suddenly just tip and BAM. I guess he got that from me.

Mmm… cake. I should make more of this. However, the caramel sauce that day did NOT cooperate. Why do I have such trouble with caramel??

This guy can be so serious as well… his determination lives on, however now that he’s a 2 year old he makes it known when he gets frustrated. Sometimes he’ll just stay silent for a minute and huff, but other times he yells – more like roars – and throws whatever has made him mad.

In this case, he happened to be mad at Elmo for some reason. Or me… and he was taking it out on Elmo. That happens sometimes. So far we haven’t had to deal with much grumpiness from Phoebe (though I’m sure that will come), so let’s just end this post with another ray of sunshine, shall we?

Light that soothes

There’s something magical about that time of evening when the light is golden. There tends to be a certain amount of quietness in our house when that takes place, which only adds to the serenity of the moment.

When Josh was traveling for work, and it was just the kids and I, it felt especially quiet after they were both in bed. Even the cats were quiet downstairs, and I could take a moment to just breathe before tidying everything up.

Even the mess feels and looks different as the sun sets. I almost feel like we should all sit and be still while the light is golden… let everything wait for just a little bit.

Everything will still be there, and by the time the warm glow is gone, won’t we all feel so much more relaxed and ready to take on whatever nighttime tasks need to be managed? Rather than rushing around and rushing around until finally it’s all done and we want to collapse. Maybe we’d be less snippy with each other and more patient if we allowed ourselves those few moments.

Currently

I’ve seen other bloggers do a variation of what they are currently up to, so I thought I’d do the same thing since often it doesn’t fit anywhere else.

Throwback Thursday!

Reading

I’m currently focused on reading ‘Call the Midwife,’ and thoroughly enjoying it. I already recognized many of the stories from the show, so it was nice to see how much they based the show on reality. I really haven’t been doing as much reading as I normally do. I think I’ve been caught up in doing other things – puttering around the house and watching movies and shows with Josh.

Watching

Watching ‘Call the Midwife’ as usual, though usually a day late, and on the laptop. I really can’t get enough of this show. I’m not really watching a lot of other shows. Josh and I are still watching ‘Fringe’ and started watching ‘Oddities’ on Netflix for a quick 20 minute show. I think I’m going to go ahead and start watching ‘House of Cards’ soon too. I keep hearing great things about it, and who doesn’t love Kevin Spacey?

As for movies, we’ve watched a few since last time. I, personally, really enjoyed ‘Saving Mr. Banks.’ Josh was on the fence, though, due to how Disney chose to tell the story. I don’t know a lot about Disney’s relationship with Ms. Travers, so it didn’t bother me as much, but after learning the facts… yeah, Disney once again (and not surprisingly) made a movie that has a happy ending and is the story version they want you to hear. In Disney’s defense, they owned the rights to the story, but they did agree to give Travers script approval, and as is accurately portrayed in the film – she was not happy with a great many aspects of the film. I’m sure any writer will acknowledge that that is always the risk when selling the rights to have a movie made, however.

We also watched ‘Rush’, which we both enjoyed, and thought was a good film all around. Even if you don’t really care about racing (which we don’t) you can still enjoy it because of the good acting and characters – both likeable and not so much. It was actually really interesting.

Baking

I’ve been in a cooking/baking mood, so I’ve done a variety of treats lately, but now I’m in the mood for some cookies, and I really want to make some more ice cream – I just need to start slowly experimenting with some flavors. I want to try some actual recipes to start out with, but then probably branch out and see what kinds of combinations I can come up with on my own. And bread! I want to make bread because I haven’t done that in ages, and I love bread.

Loving

How much our kiddos are growing and changing. Sure, it’s kind of bittersweet, but it’s also fascinating to watch them both learn and change – sometimes overnight. Literally overnight Enzo outgrew half of his pants. Our little lady is growing so much too. She’s getting better at sitting, and is in love with the jumper. She’s also getting ready to start on some solids! I know I made a lot of Enzo’s first foods from scratch, but I picked up some organic baby food in case I just don’t have as much time to do the same for her. I want to make some of her first foods myself, but I’m being realistic as well, and going to put too much pressure on myself if I just don’t have the time in the evening. I think in order to avoid too much jarred food, we’ll be doing a lot more BLW (baby-led weaning) than we did with Enzo. We gave him “real” food when he was home with us, but sent purees to day care because they were more comfortable with that (and me too), but this time around, I’m less worried. I’m excited for her next big milestone!

Thinking About

We have a mini road trip coming up, which will be a first with the kiddos. A friend of Josh’s is getting married about 5 hours away, so we decided the easiest thing to do would be to drive with the kids the evening/night before and stay in a hotel (also a first with two kids). Because the wedding is earlier in the day (hooray!) we’ll be able to attend and hang out at the reception for a bit before making the drive back in the evening. We’re hoping that because the driving will be so late in the day, the munchkins will just fall asleep, especially if we put them in jammies beforehand.

Dino and Bunnies

Every day adventures