Hey y'all,
To answer your question: yes, I do feel all the guilt for not posting. The biggest reason I haven't been posting? Life with a toddler is hard. (I'm positive a lot of you feel me on this one.)
On top of that, Mason gets busier every day; and let me just say right now that I had things soooooo easy with Katie Jo as a baby-baby. My son is infuriating in his independence and busyness. It's a good thing he is so dang handsome. Especially with a single tooth on the bottom. He really fits in around these parts. (Har har, that was mean.)
So what's been going on at my house? Not a whole lot, to be honest. It's been H.O.T. and muggy this summer. My garden is absolutely loving it. Katie and I just came in from harvesting like our fourth round of jalapeno peppers and our first pumpkin, though we had to toss a rotting watermelon. You win some, you lose some. This year is a big win in the garden for me simply because all the plants are still green, but they are also giving us a nice harvest. Yay! Points for Sam! With each round of veggies, we get more excited for our roma tomatoes to turn into homemade sauce and our cowhorn peppers to be ground up for chili seasoning this winter. Yum! We are already planning our much larger scale garden for next summer.
But since it has been too Southern-summery outside, I've been staying caught up on house chores (fist-pumps the sky) and trying to make more of an effort toward quality time with my kids throughout the day. I'm really bad at getting tunnel-vision about catching up on the chore list and just leave my kids to entertain themselves with as little supervision as I can get away with. Which, keep in mind they're both still under 2... Something I realized? I can get all the chore list done and I will every time feel major guilt at the end of the day because of how many times I told Katie to "just go read to herself".
My mom gave me a piece of advice (I call her like every other day for this stuff): alternate time spent on each thing. Sounds like a no-brainer, huh? Not for a perfectionist with tunnel-vision. So starting last week I began a new system: 30 minutes spent on house stuff followed by anywhere from 15-30 minutes spent actually playing with my kids. I saw a huge difference in all of our attitudes after just the first half of the first day spent committed to this routine. Really. It was astounding.
So now I have the rainbow-colored chore list with checkboxes to help me get things done, but I am also now equipped with the routine that works for my family to get it all done and not feel all the mom-guilt for it. Score!
Like I said, we've been spending a lot of time indoors. Besides the usual daily responsibilities, I've been reading Jane Austen and all of the Dave Ramsey I can get my hands on, doing our best to bounce back from unemployment the better for it.
In case you have to be told this: No matter where you are at financially, Dave can make you win with money. Check out his website if you have no idea what I'm talking about.
Jacob and I have a plan to retire with $17m. That probably isn't going to happen, at least, not to that scale; but my favorite thing about Dave is that he begs you to dream big -- and then he helps you make an actual plan to get where you want to be. He does it with Baby Steps. Jacob and I just finished our first Baby Step two weeks ahead of schedule. That kind of progress coupled with actually being able to tell our money how to work for us (and seeing it do just that) gives us so much enthusiasm for continuing on with the next Baby Step -- which will be paying off all of our debt in roughly 18 months. People do this all the time and then have a for real happily ever after. You can start at any time. Curious? Seriously, check out Dave's website. Then you can catch us at our home in the Bahamas and we can exchange stories. ;)I know this was a completely random blog post; but Paw Patrol is on the tv in front of me and I'm thinking about what's for lunch, when is Mason going to wake up from his nap, what chores still need doing today, and when am I going to get a shower all at the same time. Mom brain, anyone?
Thanks for caring enough to catch up with us. I'll leave your faithful self with a muchly-deserved baby montage.
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| Before |
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| After |
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| Yes, he's eating dirt... |
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| We'll finish up with their fur sibling. lol |
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