New Title?

It's midnight and I'm hot gluing felt onto a hoodie for my son's Halloween costume.  This blog should really be called the Half-@ssed Mom...

P.S. note that the hoodie is mounted on a paper towel holder and being supported with a mixing bowl and a Christmas dish towel.  Creative problem solving? Or I just might be an engineer. 

Best part about married life?

I've secured my bug killer for life! #4life!

Reason #512 why i don't sleep at night

Should I mention that he kicks, spins in circles and kicks while spinning in circles?  Yep.

Sweet relief

While having a rough go at work and life I was daydreaming about building a cookie fortress to surround myself and my TV. That's when I stumbled upon a pile of fruit snacks in a pocket of my work bag. 

Yes! Sweet mother of stress eating!  I have been DELIVERED! Could my luck have turned any better?

And in other news, I have the desires of a preschooler.  Dreaming of cookie fortresses? Clearly I've got a lot of growing up yet to do. 

Ehhh... And I guess there's the whole fact that I still buy fruit snacks too.

Ask and ye shall receive

Apparently it's easier to find time to blog than I thought.  All you need is one unruly baby that refuses to sleep and refuses to let you sleep.

Cue the walking, rocking, bottles, diapers, crying it out, is it teething? More walking, more rocking and the inevitable car ride.

Between my last hour and 45 minute stint to my current hour and counting I am beyond exhausted and hungry.  Thankfully there is a 24 hour drive thru by my house.  I generally eat healthy, but there are no words to describe my level of sadness when I learned I could not get the cheeseburger I planned on drowning my sorrows in.  Instead, I had to settle for oatmeal.  F'in oatmeal.  Who stress eats oatmeal?!?  Oh drive thru, I am disappointed in you.

Am i over blogging?

Is this it?  Am I over blogging?  I know I was taking some time to think about the voice and content of my blog, but after rocking my baby for the last hour and 45 minutes I really couldn't care less.  I've also been revisiting old blogs I used to follow and realized there was a reason I stopped visiting those sites.  For the most part I would rather read the news - a very thirtying thing to do, but I was also tired of feeling inadequate about not having a picture perfect life (thirtying) or even the time to shape a picture perfect post.  Time (thirtying, thirtying, thirtying). *sigh* That is a constant theme in my life.  I also get lifestyle envy (so thirtying) from all the beautifully decorated spaces and creative handmade items.  While I long for a life that allows me to do those things I am the most happy ignoring the mess, ignoring the projects and just spending time hearing my baby giggle. 

In some ways I'm glad thirty has brought with it a sense of urgency and a level of maturity where life pressures take the backseat and relationships with those I care about take the front.  Don't get me wrong there are still a million and a half things I want to change, but crafting a faux picture perfect glimpse into my life isn't one of them right now. 

I'm still not sure what will become of this. 

Intention

I am still trying to figure out what exactly I want this blog to look like, what aspects of my life I want to share, what I want to pour my resources into and what I hope to accomplish with it all.

However, there are some things I do know... I want to stop being swept up in this whirlwind of chaos, live a life of intention and create a happy place. 

    

Thanks, Dove.  I know I can always count on chocolate.  Yum!

2 steps forward, 3 steps back.

I managed to climb into bed minutes before midnight, but I'm not even sure what time the computer lid closed.  I did fight through a couple pages of the book I'm reading before I drifted off.  I think that alone should be considered an improvement. 

Another thing to remove me from my demographic is that on top of my full-time job (and being a wife and mom) I also help run our home business and sometimes it's all-hands on deck, much like it was last night.  It makes getting things done harder when I don't get home until 11:30pm.  (Note to self: figure out how to add in fun irresponsibility between all the responsibility.)

Now that I've got this blog going I feel compelled to continuously show that I am actually getting my sh*t together.

Does this look like a slow-mo train wreck to anyone else?

Anyway, it's a good thing I don't have to work hard for material... The lab company that did the blood work for my series of tick bites just sent me a threatening email.  Paid, paid, and paid. Good riddance! 

Finances and personal finances are something near and dear to me.  Maybe because in my former blog life I was a personal finance writer... or maybe it's because funding my retirement no longer seems like a good idea, it now seems imperative to my survival.  Ahh!

This topic is definitely to be continued...

Thirtying life spotlight - financial responsibility. Yay!

Reading that feels about as wonderful as I imagine licking sandpaper to be.  scrrrrrraaaapeh!  Scrrrape, Scrrrape, Scrape.

Scrapescrape. You get the point.

In this no-time life of mine, I've been putting off paying a medical bill from a series of mongrel tick bites I obtained at work last spring.  (yes, mongrel, really) My excuses were backing up and stacking up as my account must now be at least 3 months past due.  Put this on repeat: Where did that bill go? I don't know my login. Is it really safe to mail in my credit card number?  Where's my checkbook? Do I even have checks? what's this guarantor number thing I need? Where's that bill again? Ugh, I have to call? Really, I have to call? How much is that bill up to now?  I don't have time for this.  

Well the good news is the bill is paid and it took longer to write the above than it did to relay my payment information over the phone.  The bad news is I basically just shifted the debt to a credit card...  However, that is something I actually pay with regularity.  POINTS! Yay, Points!   

One small step for Thirtying, One giant leap for adultkind.

What else have I been putting off?  Time to get my responsible pants on. 

I probably wouldn't sit for two

30+1

First day, how did I do?

My intentions were to spend a few minutes before bed reading a real book (the old fashioned kind with some type of cover and those paper pages that you actually need to physically turn) go to bed early, wake up early and start a daily habit of writing in the morning.   

I realize that I'm probably setting myself up for failure, because those are some radical changes to my current routines.  My typical bed time ritual involves attempting to play catch up on everything that I've put off for weeks, feeling bad about the things I already feel bad about for not doing, attempt to watch a little Netflix, get overstimulated by my smart phone and drag myself to bed in the wee hours of the morning.  Followed by waking up to my variety of alarms (phone and/or baby), realizing that I've over slept, sprinting through the shower, acknowledging that I'm going to be missing my first meeting and then slowing down to a glacial pace while I try to finish matting down my hair, fight with the  Nespresso machine and simulataneously echo locate my keys, wallet, phone and work badge.   

I've only illustrated the tip of my messy lifeberg, but clearly there are some big things that I want to change. 

I started  off my night with a compromise.  (Way to go, Andrea.  Way to hit the ground running!) I have bookshelves of neglected books that I have been meaning to read.  I have piles of books that I've never finished.  I realized I didn't want to drag through a book over the course of many months or even years, so I picked up a cookbook.  One filled with personal stories, and pages of interesting tidbits to make it seem more like a "real book".  I read until my eyes got heavy and took the natural cues from my body to drift off into dreamland.  When I of course decided to check my phone one more time.  An hour later and I was still sliding into bed before midnight. That counts, right?  Success!

However, I still managed to oversleep, still missed my early meeting, fumbled through my Rube Goldberg-eque morning routine and arrive at work slightly more well rested than usual.  This is a start.