I grew up suffering each year with horrible outdoor allergies. So much so that I actually could get out of any form of yard work at my parents house. Everyone but me would be outside working in the yard and I would actually be forced to stay inside because the allergy attack that occurred was so bad. My constant sneezing would actually get on people's nerves. The nice response of "God Bless You" would turn to "Would you just stop sneezing!!"
Fast forward to 2000 when I moved to Dallas. No allergy attacks anymore. I was free from whatever was plaguing me in Louisiana. Until now. It's back. If not on some medication, I sneeze every moment that I'm awake. Sneezing in the shower, sneezing checking the mail, sneezing while drinking coffee (that one is especially not fun)...you get the picture. I woke up in the middle of the night last week, sneezed about 7 times then fell back to sleep. And it is not just the sneezing - my eyes itch so bad and get so red and cloudy that I look like I've been crying for 2 weeks. My nose is congested and red at the edges. I look like a clown - not a cute clown.
Allergy season is no fun. I'm not sure what this season has that has made me so susceptible to these attacks, but I'm really wanting it to end quickly so that I can get back to normal life. Now I must go - no medication in me and I've sneezed over 10 times while writing this blog.
By the way - why do sneezes come in twos?
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
1st Mother's Day
This is my first year celebrating Mother's Day. It's like having a whole new birthday - people send you cards, emails, text messages and my hubby gets me a present. I should have had a baby years ago!
We started our day with big plans to make it to church. Instead, we got dressed and in the car just in time to beat the 11:00am deadline for Taquitos from Whataburger. It does not take much to please me and I have a slight addiction to a Whataburger Taquito. I used to say that Andrew was made of Taquitos because we would eat them 2 times a week during my pregnancy. It was why I was able to easily gain 53 pounds and Jeff was able to gain 25. Since Andrew's birth, I can count on one hand the number of times we have been to get my favorite breakfast. It's much more rare now that I'm back to watching what I eat. So, this simple and inexpensive breakfast is quite a treat for me. No lines, no waiting, no tipping and under $10 for both of us. Good start to the day.
Now that I'm full of good-lovin breakfast - Here are some ramblings in my head...
1. As a new mom, I now realize why they have an entire day dedicated to Moms and Dads. It's a hard job, it takes up most of your time and for the most part, it's pretty thankless. But one thing is for sure - it's absolutely worth it. I remember, as a child, wondering why they did not have a Kid's Day since they have a Mother's and Father's Day. Now I completely understand that Kid's Day is pretty much every other day of the year. I also want to thank my mom for the enormous amount of time and energy she spent with me. Mom - you are the best!
2. Life is so busy these days. I find myself constantly over-booked and running out of time to get everything done. I mentioned this to one of my best friends - explaining to her that I am just always under water and the wise, seasoned mom that she is told me "you just need to learn to swim better." She is so right. What I'm learning is that sometimes in order to swim better, you have to drop things out of the boat that you are dragging behind you. The non-essentials, the wants-not-needs and the controlling-everything-mindsets are being dumped from my boat. So, as I celebrate my first Mother's Day and the successful rearing of my child for almost 6 whole months (grins) - I'm also celebrating learning some very valuable lessons about life, time and what really matters.
Not to worry, I will still run my business(es), play tennis, work-out with my trainer, play volleyball, spend time with hubby, spend time with our child, interact with my friends, visit with family, manage our home and finances, plan a vacation and of course keep up with my blog - but what I'm dropping from the boat will make all of this much easier.
3. All day yesterday, Jeff and I were helping Jennifer move to her new duplex in Plano. We were finally headed home at about 10:30pm. Jeff and Andrew were in the Expedition and I was following them in Jeff's car. At one point along the ride home, I had this very surreal moment. I realized that in the car in front of me was my entire life. It was a very vulnerable feeling, yet also very calming. My life is very blessed. I have a wonderful family and support system, I have great people surrounding me on a daily basis and I get to spend time with some absolutely fantastic individuals. But, more than anything - those two fellas in the car in front of me are my world. I would not be the person I am if it were not for both of them. I thank God everyday that I was able to meet Jeff and we made such a fantastic little "Drewster". We made it home safe and I hugged my boys tight and we were all snoozing about 10 minutes later.
Those are a few of the random thoughts in my head as I celebrate my first Mother's Day. The rest of the day will be spent with Sybil, Mike, Jeff and Andrew. We will cook some good food, relax and spend some good family time together. Much love to Sybil for giving me my wonderful hubby and for being such a huge help to us every single day! You are a great mamaw!!
Happy Mother's Day everyone!
We started our day with big plans to make it to church. Instead, we got dressed and in the car just in time to beat the 11:00am deadline for Taquitos from Whataburger. It does not take much to please me and I have a slight addiction to a Whataburger Taquito. I used to say that Andrew was made of Taquitos because we would eat them 2 times a week during my pregnancy. It was why I was able to easily gain 53 pounds and Jeff was able to gain 25. Since Andrew's birth, I can count on one hand the number of times we have been to get my favorite breakfast. It's much more rare now that I'm back to watching what I eat. So, this simple and inexpensive breakfast is quite a treat for me. No lines, no waiting, no tipping and under $10 for both of us. Good start to the day.
Now that I'm full of good-lovin breakfast - Here are some ramblings in my head...
1. As a new mom, I now realize why they have an entire day dedicated to Moms and Dads. It's a hard job, it takes up most of your time and for the most part, it's pretty thankless. But one thing is for sure - it's absolutely worth it. I remember, as a child, wondering why they did not have a Kid's Day since they have a Mother's and Father's Day. Now I completely understand that Kid's Day is pretty much every other day of the year. I also want to thank my mom for the enormous amount of time and energy she spent with me. Mom - you are the best!
2. Life is so busy these days. I find myself constantly over-booked and running out of time to get everything done. I mentioned this to one of my best friends - explaining to her that I am just always under water and the wise, seasoned mom that she is told me "you just need to learn to swim better." She is so right. What I'm learning is that sometimes in order to swim better, you have to drop things out of the boat that you are dragging behind you. The non-essentials, the wants-not-needs and the controlling-everything-mindsets are being dumped from my boat. So, as I celebrate my first Mother's Day and the successful rearing of my child for almost 6 whole months (grins) - I'm also celebrating learning some very valuable lessons about life, time and what really matters.
Not to worry, I will still run my business(es), play tennis, work-out with my trainer, play volleyball, spend time with hubby, spend time with our child, interact with my friends, visit with family, manage our home and finances, plan a vacation and of course keep up with my blog - but what I'm dropping from the boat will make all of this much easier.
3. All day yesterday, Jeff and I were helping Jennifer move to her new duplex in Plano. We were finally headed home at about 10:30pm. Jeff and Andrew were in the Expedition and I was following them in Jeff's car. At one point along the ride home, I had this very surreal moment. I realized that in the car in front of me was my entire life. It was a very vulnerable feeling, yet also very calming. My life is very blessed. I have a wonderful family and support system, I have great people surrounding me on a daily basis and I get to spend time with some absolutely fantastic individuals. But, more than anything - those two fellas in the car in front of me are my world. I would not be the person I am if it were not for both of them. I thank God everyday that I was able to meet Jeff and we made such a fantastic little "Drewster". We made it home safe and I hugged my boys tight and we were all snoozing about 10 minutes later.
Those are a few of the random thoughts in my head as I celebrate my first Mother's Day. The rest of the day will be spent with Sybil, Mike, Jeff and Andrew. We will cook some good food, relax and spend some good family time together. Much love to Sybil for giving me my wonderful hubby and for being such a huge help to us every single day! You are a great mamaw!!
Happy Mother's Day everyone!
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
What happens when Daddy feeds me...
We've introduced solid foods to Andrew and he is adjusting to it quite nicely. We, on the other hand, are having trouble getting used to the new smells in the diapers that are enough to absolutely clear a room. How can such a small little thing do so much damage to a diaper? Anyway, I digress... Jeff was feeding Andrew the other day and it was really the first time that Jeff took the entire solid-food feeding from start to finish. I knew it would be fun to watch because our kiddo likes to grab at the spoon which is often full of food and then take his baby-food ridden hands and rub them on his face or reach out to grab anything in front of him. I think the pictures actually tell a better story than I can.
Yes, that is baby food from nose to chest. I think his eyes are saying -
"Um, mom - maybe you should take over..."
The grabbing spoon issue...
All in all - it was a great success. He seems to finally like everything we are giving him. Now as we feed him, he makes this YUMMM sound for every..single...bite. It's a hoot. I'll get it on video to share.
My new favorite pictures
I love taking pictures of my fella about as much as he loves the camera. He sees the camera and immediately is attracted to it and starts smiling on command. It's extremely convenient because it takes very few efforts at getting what I consider to be a really good picture. Here are a few of the latest and I will finish it up with my absolute favorite....at least for this month.
And, my absolute favorite picture of my baby boy is one that he did not even pose for or know that it was happening. I was holding him in my lap and he fell asleep and looked so peaceful.
Buckles To Billions... Not quite.
For anyone who does not know, we've had a belt buckle website for about 2 years now (www.bucklethatbelt.com). It's constantly this "work in progress" that never actually progresses. I am like an army of ants with this project - doing so little that it barely makes a difference at all. Fast forward to April of this year and Jeff decided he needed a "part time job" that made more money so that we could survive his Nursing School venture. We started to brainstorm ideas and after multiple discussions, we decided that Jeff working a booth one weekend a month out at Canton could be a great way to make some money without interfering with his busy school schedule.
Jeff's idea was to "throw some belt buckles on a table and sell the crap out of them" - my idea was just a bit different. Maybe it's my marketing background or the small slice of "girly" that I have running around in me that refused to just throw product on a table, close my eyes and hope for the best. In my mind, it was going to be a little different. When I need creativity, I tend to always go to Jennifer. She is an extremely hard worker that has tons of ideas on how to make a bunch of crap look cute. We brainstormed one night over a bottle of wine and some roasted veggies and came up with a few extra products to buy at wholesale and scoured our homes for cute things to use as a display.
The days of Canton were long, tiring and somewhat frustrating - but I think it's something that shows some great potential. Our location was really bad - for what we were selling. Now, if we were selling plants, metal cows or rugs - we would have been in the exact location that would have been fantastic. But, selling handbags, belts and buckles, blingy flip-flops, jewelry, etc... was a bit more of a challenge.
My dad drove in for the weekend to help out and of course Jennifer was there to see us through all the product we knew absolutely nothing about. Andrew was there as well - and he did fantastic!
Here are a few pics from our weekend.
Jeff's idea was to "throw some belt buckles on a table and sell the crap out of them" - my idea was just a bit different. Maybe it's my marketing background or the small slice of "girly" that I have running around in me that refused to just throw product on a table, close my eyes and hope for the best. In my mind, it was going to be a little different. When I need creativity, I tend to always go to Jennifer. She is an extremely hard worker that has tons of ideas on how to make a bunch of crap look cute. We brainstormed one night over a bottle of wine and some roasted veggies and came up with a few extra products to buy at wholesale and scoured our homes for cute things to use as a display.
The days of Canton were long, tiring and somewhat frustrating - but I think it's something that shows some great potential. Our location was really bad - for what we were selling. Now, if we were selling plants, metal cows or rugs - we would have been in the exact location that would have been fantastic. But, selling handbags, belts and buckles, blingy flip-flops, jewelry, etc... was a bit more of a challenge.
My dad drove in for the weekend to help out and of course Jennifer was there to see us through all the product we knew absolutely nothing about. Andrew was there as well - and he did fantastic!
Here are a few pics from our weekend.
Our booth in Canton
I think we will be trying Canton again next month. It's one weekend a month and it's actually kinda fun. Getting out of the house, setting up a booth and chatting with people all day long is tiring, but energizing. It may get very, very old after 2 or 3 months but at this point it was entertaining and was a great way for all of us to spend some good time together.
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