A Not So Noteworthy Revelation | A Weekly Recap

I was thinking and thinking about what to write about today in this little recap. A lot has happened this week, but it was more of random bits and not really a huge post worthy situation. Little things here and there- Colton finally loosened the “sticking” of his door enough to open it without us, Andrew continued on his quest to conquer the entire house, me hitting my eye on the corner of our nightstand- but nothing that I really felt truly noteworthy. Then, in the course of my weekend, I realized something really important this past weekend and while it didn’t come as a huge surprise, it definitely solidified my thoughts in this stage of our lives.

Over this past weekend I decided to do something special for my business that would require my full attention for a whole weekend. Even though I would still be at home, my husband would be taking over all of the child care and just overall weekend chores. I’ve done a whole weekend once before at the end of September for a craft show, but for that weekend I actually left the house and was physically away during the day.

I think that it is so so important that everyone have some self care and take a little time to treat themselves, away from family, spouses, whomever. This self care can take different shape for different people and will be different lengths of time for different people. For me, typically, I’ll take a couple hours every couple weeks to go get pampered or go to the bookstore. This past weekend though, I decided to take a whole weekend and stay home, be by myself, and just read. *There is more to this, but I am shortening it for the point of this post.*

Honestly- I don’t think I will be doing it again at all in the near future. I’m just not in a space or time in my life that I really want to spend time without my children. I always knew that I wouldn’t be someone to be actively taking time away from my kids or traveling without them, but this weekend just continued to solidify that for me. Taking a couple hours of time away from them or having a date night out with my husband is one thing, but I do not want to actively choose to do things separately from them or spend a whole weekend without them.

It is quite simply not for me. If it works for someone else or is important to someone else that is completely fine, it’s just not for me. The whole weekend I felt like something was missing. Not that I was missing any big moments or anything super special, but not being able to just be doing the everyday things with them – I felt like something was missing.

My children definitely had their moments as well where they just wanted mommy and while I would take some time to be with them, it definitely wasn’t what was normal. I know that this is good for them and they had a good time with their dad and that it is good on all counts to have a little time away, but a whole weekend is a long time.

I honestly would NEVER judge another mom or dad who decided to take a weekend away and I know that this opinion may change as the continue to grow older, BUT at this time in our lives I just don’t think I could do it again. I think I’ll just continue to stick with a couple of hours here and there.

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Chatting about Even More Excitement!

Hi everyone! So much has happened this past week and I have so much that I want to talk about, that I am not quite sure what or where to even start! I think I am just going to kind of free write and see what happens. These type of posts often become my favorites to write and read because I find that you get a true sense of a person when you just let them chat and chat with them.

So, let’s see…where to begin…

I started to get heavily into my spring/summer day cooking and baking. That meant that we had a full Potato Salad ready to go for the week for lunches and dinner sides, rolls, smoothies and all sorts of yummy treats in the house! That is all good and dandy, but I’ve also made this past week the start of my return to healthier options. I find that summer time can either be a healthy time of year with fruit salads and salads, or it can be the completely opposite with soda’s and chips to complete barbecues. I’ve already been making healthier meals for my family during the week, but I have a big problem with snacking. This past week I’ve been trying to make a conscious decision to pick up fruit or veggies over grabbing a handful of chips or the chocolate bar that I like in the afternoon. I indulge once a week and I am hoping to keep that up!

This past week also meant the return of my husband from the school that he was attending! He had been gone for around 3.5 weeks and while we have said “See you soon” and “Hello!” numerous times before, the sadness of see you later and the excitement of a hello never fades. It is even more special each time now that we have children. Not only do I have my excitement and happiness, but to watch our son’s face light up when Daddy comes home makes everything even more exciting. He ran over to greet daddy and gave him a huge hug! It’s been great to have him home and to feel “complete” in our family once again.

April is very rapidly coming to an end and it is going out with a lot of rain! I am hoping that I can really let you know if the phrase “April Showers bring May Flowers” really rings true. It has so far with a lot of the month having days of rain. I am loving it as I am a huge rain fan and it is really helping out all of our flowers! Everything is really starting to come into bloom and I am hoping for a sunny, floral, May!

With April coming to an end, I am starting to look at what posts I want to be doing in May and all of the brainstorming and ideas I’ve got for upcoming blog posts. I think I am going to be incorporating some more posts about how I stay organized, how I manage to handle everything I do, how I stay positive, some self help type stuff, and of course, the transition from one child to two and anything to do with our family!

How have you been? How has April shaped up for you?

MiaLeave a comment

Bad Habits as a “Stay at Home-r”

Good afternoon everyone and Happy Friday!! The week has come to an end and what a week it has been!! This weekend is also Easter, so a very exciting weekend! Today I am going to talk about something that I have noticed since becoming a person who is home more than not. I’ve always been a homebody, but it is different when you are truly a Stay at Home Mom/Employee/Wife/Whatever. It is very easy to fall into some bad habits when you stay at home most of the time and are busy-ing yourself with things around the house.

I work part time, own my own business and am a mom, wife, and homemaker. I blog as a hobby and enjoy it! With all of that, I found myself going down the rabbit hole with some of these habits. I’m hoping that I can help you identify these habits too.

1.) Staying in your pajamas all day. Get out of your pajamas! I don’t care if you just get out of your sleep clothes and put on sweatpants, just doing this one thing will change a lot in your mindset. It is so easy to fall down a rabbit hole when you stay in the same pajamas or clothes all day and all night long (even if you are changing your pajamas frequently it’s the mindset of being in clothes that you sleep in that makes a difference). For me, I actually put on a full outfit every morning that involves jeans, a skirt or a dress. You will automatically be more productive and feel better when you change your clothes after getting up in the morning.

2.) Eat and Drink Appropriately. Another one that I just can’t stress enough. A lot of times when we stay at home we fall into two different categories; eating everything or eating nothing. Neither one of these options is a good option. Try to space out your meals and/or snacking and make sure that if nothing else- you get a good breakfast to start your day off. I find that when I eat a good healthy breakfast in the morning, I snack less throughout the day. Another big thing to make sure you are doing is hydrating. Drinking plenty of water is a big thing and will also help motivate you to be healthier and make healthier choices throughout the day.

3.) Staying in the House Too Much. It is really easy to just stay in the house and stay where you are comfortable. It is even easy to say, I’ve got too much going on to fit in time to run out without it being errands or necessary. It is essential to leave the house a couple of times a week just to change your environment and scenery. I will be the first to admit that I don’t do this very well. I find that even taking a walk through the park and out in the neighborhood halfway through the week works wonders for our attitudes and our outlook. In our home we try to take a walk halfway through the week or run out to a store or do something and then our weekends tend to be filled with seeing new sights and running errands. It breaks up the monotony of the week and helps it you to not feel like you are stuck in Groundhog Day.

These are the three biggest things that I have discovered, although keep an eye out because I’ll be talking more and more about some other habits to get into and how to break some of the bad habits that we may have! What bad habits have you noticed if stay at home?

MiaLeave a comment

My Evening Routine

Good afternoon everyone and Happy Monday! I hope that this week is getting off to a great start for you! It’s been fantastic here in our home as my nearest and dearest friend is in town visiting for a couple of days. It’s already been a whirlwind of a couple days and I can’t wait to see how the next couple days go!

Today I’m excited to share a little glimpse into my evening routine. You can find my morning routine HERE and while I get a lot done in the mornings and have some “me” time, I feel like my evenings are where the real relaxation is. It’s a great time for us to spend together as a family and when we get to just enjoy the coziness that is our home.

I work from home and then once I’m done with work, I typically do my daily chores around the house. I consider my day “over” around 4:00-4:30pm. At this time our little man is typically waking up from his nap, so I’ll get him out of the crib and we will enjoy a little bit of time together in the living room. I’ll grab his leftover milk out of the fridge and we just relax for about 30-45 minutes with a little TV or playing on the floor.

Around 5:15-5:30pm I start on dinner. I make home made dinners every night, except for a Friday or Saturday night, when we either do something easy or order in for our date night. Because I am making dinner almost completely (and completely in some cases) from scratch it can take upwards of an hour to cook. I enjoy cooking and typically during this time, my husband will arrive home from work. I try to clean as I go, rinsing out dishes and doing what needs to be done.

Dinner time is typically around 6:30pm in our home and we like to sit around the table and just chat about our days. This is our time to catch up with each other and just chat. After dinner, I’ll get the kitchen and dining room cleaned up and my husband will either play with our little man in the living room or head down and do homework. One way or the other we will all end up on the floor in the living room playing until it is little man’s bed time.

We start getting little man ready for bed at around 8:30pm and my husband actually handles bed time for the most part. While he is getting little man ready for bed, I am taking my make up off and washing my face. I occasionally change into my pajamas at this time, but more than likely not. Once little man is in bed, we either catch up on some television or read in our living room until we are ready to go to bed. This is the time that we get to just relax and spend a little one on one time with each other, without little man.

So that is what our evening looks like! What is your evening routine like?

MiaLeave a comment

Healthier Living

Hello my lovely readers! I wanted to take a minute and chat with you about a transition that we had at our home earlier this year. It took a little time, a lot of dedication, and something that has really changed our household. I wanted to share a little bit of the journey that we went through and how everything came about.

I’ve always loved cooking (and baking). I always loved creating meals from scratch and experimenting with foods. When my husband and I first started dating, we somewhat shared the cooking duties, but my husband kind of did it a little bit more than I did due to our schedules. At the very very beginning, we had kind opposite schedules, so he would cook and then I would eat when I got home. Then once our schedules balanced out and matched we split the kitchen duties. We cooked from scratch some, and used frozen dinners or box dinners for quite a bit as well.

Then we moved to South Carolina and my husband became a Drill Seargent. Honestly, nothing could have prepared us for what that was going to be like. The long hours and the constant “tiredness” for my husband changed a lot. We started to rely on the box or frozen meals as they were quick to prepare, kept relatively well on the cooktop, and they allowed for quick eating late at night. Honestly, I kind of despised what I was making for dinner and felt very stuck in a rut of unhealthy but quick meals. This was a little over two years and that habit (even though I didn’t like it) became very easy to fall into. I made a promise to myself that once we moved and left that lifestyle I would make more of an effort to make full meals from scratch, no more boxes.

Fast forward to a few months after our little human was born, I finally felt like I was in a place where I could make good on that promise I made myself. Typically in our household it takes about 2-3 weeks to make a habit “stick” and one weekend I just decided that we were not having anymore box dinners. That’s exactly what happened. I looked up a couple of recipes to try out and made a meal plan that had Rigatoni, Casseroles, etc that I knew would be a good entry into this new lifestyle of dinners.

Honestly the only thing I kept thinking to myself was “Stick to it. 2 weeks, just get through 2 weeks”. I knew deep down that at the end of those 2 weeks I would be so hooked and it would feel like the new routine. And those first 2 weeks weren’t easy. They weren’t hard, per se, but they weren’t a breeze. Our little human was just starting to become more of a handful and it was difficult to set aside the time, but I made myself. I knew that it would be better for our family once I got into the routine and got away from the unhealthy things that we were eating.

I got through those 2 weeks and sure enough, the habit stuck and I started loving being back in the kitchen. I started venturing into new recipes and started making more complex recipes again. Along with this change, I tried to implement a couple of other changes, I cut most of my soft drink intake (only one a week, except on vacation) and started trying to eat better lunch and breakfast meals. I am also trying to start adding more salads and vegetables into our dinners.

Here is the biggest part of our transformation. Although this wasn’t a sudden change, when I decided to do it was and so therefore, we still had one Hamburger Helper meal left in our cabinet. My husband didn’t want to simply waste the box and I wanted to test and see how much we had really left the box dinners behind. About 2 months after making the homemade meals every night, we made the Hamburger Helper. It just so happened that it was one of my husbands favorite ones. After finishing, he found that he didn’t want a second helping (unheard of) and that he didn’t really like the meal! I knew at that moment that we weren’t going back and that we were back on track.

We’ve been eating homemade meals for ~4 months now and are happier and much healthier with the rest of our choices in food as well! My biggest takeaway was to just stick with the change, even if I had a night that I didn’t really want to cook I knew that I had to and that it would be worthwhile. It was and still is! Now, I’m off to eat my Chicken, Rice and Salad dinner. Until next time…

Curl Up with

A Cuppa Books

MiaLeave a comment