I am thirty-five years old and FINALLY had my wisdom teeth removed on Friday. My dentist has been suggesting it for the better part of ten years, but when is there ever a good time to schedule an elective surgery. I have seriously considered having them removed a few times during those years, but things like trial schedules and pregnancies always thoughtfully rearranged my schedule. My goal was to have them removed over the Christmas holidays, but the surgeon was on an extended vacation, which bumped us to MLK weekend. I'm still thankful that I managed to schedule it for a long weekend because I was in no way ready to go back to work today. I'll be honest, they were pretty bad. I had one tooth that was part of the way in and already had a cavity. Two were completely impacted. The ...
5 on Friday: Chalk Talk
It's no secret that I love to draw and doodle. Heck, my parents paid for four years of college so I could do just that! Although my job isn't often a creative one, I find time wherever I can for artistic endeavors. The first few times I drew with chalk were for my daughter's birthday parties, because she loves sidewalk chalk and was used to having me draw her fancy things in our driveway. I never imagined it would turn into anything other than a way to spend time with her. In the past several months, however, I've done quite a few commissioned pieces and it has been so much fun! I'm hoping to continue this as a side venture and I can't wait for the day when I have a house big enough for a chalk wall of my own. This week, I finished up a lettered project of the United States. The ...
Coffee Date?
I thought I'd invite you on a coffee date today, but then I remembered that I'm on a coffee strike. Because, creamer. Apparently that's a no-go on Whole30, even though I only have coffee once a week or so. Instead, I thought I'd share this fun list of things I'm doing (inspired yesterday by Meg at Whatever). READING: Books have been a little slow going for me this month and I'll blame that on my love/hate relationship with digital devices. I love paper books, although I rarely ever read them, but the convenience of having your book with you always is pretty much amazing. I started reading the Maze Runner trilogy/prequel after watching the movie during the holidays, but I'm having to get used to holding a book again. The book is so good and Josh keeps chastising me about how long ...
Even MORE Christmas!
We are so fortunate to have an abundance of family who live close by. And remarkably, all of their Christmas celebrations coordinate quite nicely and we've never had any conflict. Josh & I were amazed when we first started dating at how well we were able to harmonize our favorite traditions without making any major sacrifices! For that reason, my girls get to celebrate almost every day for an entire week. We try hard not to spoil them, but that's almost impossible when you have so many people to love. First up was a box full of treats from our Aunt Lane in Kentucky. We usually save these gifts for after Christmas, but I decided to kick the week off on Sunday night with a pajama party in their room. Not only did she send them all of these wrapped gifts, but they got some pretty ...
A Christmas Recap
For whatever reason, Christmas didn't quite feel real this year. It came out of nowhere and I didn't feel nearly as prepared as I would have liked. I'll chalk it up to our lives being in a season of flux and I'm vowing that next year I'm going to pace myself and be sure to take in every moment. I read and heard from so many people that they just weren't in the Christmas spirit this year or were just ready to get it over with and no matter how "out of it" I felt, I don't think I'll ever have that attitude towards the holiday. I might have already taken my dying evergreen down, but every other decoration is still in place and probably will be for another week. Not because I'm lazy or are trying to avoid the process, but because I'm always so sad to pack it away for eleven more ...
Dear Taylor Swift,
You make all little {and big} girls' dreams come true. xoxo, one super excited mama I've made no secret of the fact that in our house, we love music. My daddy was teaching us Beatles' tunes before elementary school and I was introduced to the awesomeness of The Grateful Dead my freshman year of high school. I've seen some pretty amazing shows in my lifetime (Hello, Lenny Kravitz in his heyday) and still have plenty left on the bucket list to conquer. I have a vast collection of concert tees and I don't care how expensive or unnecessary they are -- if we go, I will buy. Even while my girls were babes in arms, I thought about how fun it would be to take them to their first concert. It might sound silly, but I wanted to be sure their first concert experience was one to be ...
2014 in Pictures
I know that the past year was sort of a bust. I don't know how many more times I should say "I worked like crazy for the first six months and then I was so exhausted and starved for family time, that we coasted through last six months". Maybe that will be the last time. What I do know is that in November I committed to a new blog schedule and in December I used my Life Planner to create a calendar for the month and I actually stuck with it and now on the day before January I almost have the entire next month ready to go. The last few months have left me feeling overwhelmed and out of control and I'm excited to start fresh with the next year. But before we can do that, we need to recap all the good that happened in 2014! I started sharing these "Year in Pictures" posts way back in 2009 and ...
Dear 2015,
Where did you even come from? I know everyone says this in the days leading up to the start of a new year, but you completely snuck up on me. One minute I was lamenting our lack of a summer vacation and the next minute we were bundled up in scarves and coats and tucking wrapped gifts under our tree. Last year certainly held some wonderful memories, but I'm predicting you will be even better. I'm not sure you'll remember our "theme" for last year, but we far surpassed our goal to be more intentional lazy! When I told Josh that I was blogging about the new year today, he just rolled his eyes and begged for me not to include anything about our diet or exercise routine. He pleaded with me not to be "those people." Let's just agree those goals are pretty much understood and cover all of the ...