Mommin' It Up!

July 30, 2015August 6, 2015

Take Summer Out With a Bang With LivingSocial #Giveaway

I am super-excited to bring you a sponsored giveaway from LivingSocial! All opinions are my own.

You guys KNOW I love a deal, so when LivingSocial debuted a few years ago, I was on it like white on rice. If there is an event or activity my family wants to do nearby, I always hit LivingSocial first to make sure there’s not an awesome deal. We’ve done some really fun family activities on the cheap with LivingSocial including our favorite local waterpark, bowling, and mini-golf! Bobby and I have also had some frugal date nights by purchasing LivingSocial vouchers for some local restaurants. And – beyond local, I’ve gotten some great deals on gifts at LivingSocial, too! I even got my Costco Membership for an awesome price there!

Another fun way I use LivingSocial is by checking out their local deals when we go on vacation! I’ve added some bang to our vacation budget by finding LivingSocial vouchers for family fun activities and eateries in the town we’re vacationing in! Bonus!

If you haven’t tried LivingSocial yet, you are REALLY missing out! So, I am going to give you some incentive. To celebrate the end of summer and making the most of what’s left of fun in the sun, I’m giving away $50 in Deal Bucks to LivingSocial!! Whoop whoop! It’s easy to enter: simply leave a comment below telling me the BEST deal you’ve ever gotten on LivingSocial. If you’ve never tried it, go to your local LivingSocial page and tell me which deal you most want to purchase.

One winner will be chosen at random on Thursday, August 6 at 6pm EST. GOOD LUCK!! Don’t forget to share this giveaway – and the LivingSocial love – with all your friends!

July 27, 2015July 23, 2015

And then yoga made me cry.

Just when I think I’m starting to get a handle on this whole menopause thing, something ridiculous happens to prove me wrong.

Yesterday I went to my first post-surgery yoga class. Up until now, I’ve been making a point to stay active, making sure I’m hitting my goal on my activity tracker each day, but I hadn’t really done anything except walk and play catch with Baseball Sammy. I thought I would ease my way back into it with yoga – something I love and had been fairly accustomed to at one point.

But as soon as I hit the mat, I could tell things weren’t the same. Nothing hurt per se, but everything was just different. As strange as it sounds, I couldn’t inhale the way I used to. I couldn’t get my lower abdomen to expand enough to take a deep yoga breath.

That’s when I started crying.

Even though evidence from the past two months points to the contrary, I am not a crier! That is Jenny’s role in our relationship, and as you know we try maintain our status as polar opposites.

But I sure was one yesterday. I think it was a combination of the realization that my body has actually been through a pretty significant alteration recently and processing some of the emotion I hadn’t really brought to the surface until I was in the quiet, intentional space that is yoga class.

It was so frustrating to me that my body wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do. I eventually sorted out, though, how lucky I am that my situation is temporary. I have no reason to believe that it won’t improve with time and practice, and plenty of people don’t have that light at the end of the tunnel.

If nothing else, this entire surgery/recovery experience has been a lesson in compassion and gratefulness that I desperately needed, and that’s something I want to make sure I don’t lose sight of as regular life resumes.

In the meantime, I am just glad people keep their eyes closed in yoga class, so only the teacher will think I’m crazy!

July 23, 2015July 22, 2015

Oh, Hi, Downtime. I Vaguely Remember You.

My family and I are on vacation at my parents’ house in the Blue Ridge Mountains. And it. is. fantastic! See?

porch view — The view from the front porch is pretty bangin’.

This has been a weird summer with me working from home, squeezing in 30 hours of work with just 14 hours of childcare, and still taking the kids to all their camps, summer school, VBS, speech therapy, and other activities that they want to do. I get up at 5:45 so I can get work done before they wander downstairs. I tell them they can’t get out of bed until 8, since they all still don’t know how to sleep in (although that’s not quite fair, Joshua WOULD if Jonah would let him, but alas, they share a room.)

So, basically, I have never needed a vacation SO BAD in my LIFE. And I am super-thankful for this week with my fam to REST and chillax.

I love my job, and I love my family, but I can’t wait to get back to the school schedule so that I feel like LESS of a CRAZY PERSON!

26 more days for the big kids, but I am still not sure how many days ’til Jonah goes back, because it’s always different for the preschool than it is for the elementary. But for this mama, it can’t be soon enough! I am ready for me work-life balance to go from non-existent to at least kind of existent.

In the meantime, I am soaking up this week with my beautiful family in this beautiful place!