Mommin' It Up!

May 8, 2009May 11, 2009

Hilarity Ensues at Mom’s Nite Out

Oh mah gizzooodness did we have FUN last night at the Dayton Moms Nite Out! You locals have just GOT to come next year, mmkay? It was a BLAST! After I got over my gut-wrenching disappointment that Emily couldn’t make it at the last minute :(, I had a LOT of FUN! (Seriously, though, the question, “Where’s Emily?” was asked like 400 times that night! We missed you cousin!!)

I hardly know where to start telling you about the FUN! First I want to thank my party planning partner in crime, the fabulous and magical Andrea of MommySnacks. Check her out singing “Eye of the Tiger” on Rock Band. MEOOOWWW!! She is hawt stuff. And might I add, she got a 100%

Might I also add that yours TRULEEE got a 100% singing “We got the Beat” by the Go-Gos? Lemme just tell ya that I missed my calling as an 80s pop star! It was pretty much the best moment of the night. Or maybe it was just ok. But it was FUN! Almost as fun as listening to this beautiful fun mom, my boo Amy in Ohio, sing “Roxanne” by the Police. You all are VERY sorry you were not there for that, trust me!

But we did not just have musical fun, y’all! We also had FOOD!!! Look at this great spread!

Special thanks to Kroger for the YUMMY fruit tray, Subway for the awesome sandwiches, and Pizza Hut for the great Panormous pizzas!

Of course we also had great SWAG bags!

Special thanks to Kroger AGAIN for providing us with re-usable Kroger bags to hold our SWAG! And special-er thanks to our girl Shannan from Mommy Bits for arranging it! WE missed you BAD last night Shannan! And we had amazing stuff in the bags from Palmer’s Cocoa Butter skin care (LOVE!! Thank you for the FULL-SIZE samples Palmer’s!), Prints Charming, Laundry Drops, My BFF Luanne with Mary Kay, Shandle and more!

Thanks to my aforementioned BFF Luanne, we also had some fun pampering courtesy of Mary Kay and did a fun “kissology” exercise where we determined what our lip imprints mean. This was slightly hi-larious. Here’s me preparing to make out with a piece of paper:

And here’s Casey getting ready to give her piece of paper the best night of its life:

Let’s just say I think it was good for her:

Mostly, though, we just had fun being TOGETHER. Being with other moms is good for the soul! And we had some really awesome moms there, like Tara of Deal Seeking Mom and Erin of $5 Dinners. Aren’t they gawg-eous?

Near the end of the night, our pal George (or my “shoe boyfriend” as my husband calls him) from Crocs put out a call on Twitter that the biggest Moms Nite Out group to get themselves on video shouting “Moms Nite Out loves Crocs” and upload and link said video would ALL win a free pair of Crocs. Since Mama didn’t raise no FOOLZ, Amy organized us and we got ON that and we WON us some Crocs!! Thanks George! Here we are being goofy for free shoes (can someone go back in time and make me CLOSE my mouth please???)

Thanks so much to ALL the great moms who made it – we had a BLAST! Here’s our awesome group:

AmyinOhio
Casey – Moosh in Indy
Erin – $5 Dinners
Marcy – Stretching a Buck
Katie – Domestic Debacle
Becky
Susie – Here Only
Luanne – I Want MK
Tricia – Once a Month Mom (not pictured, left early. WHY Tricia, WHY??)
Andrea – Mommy Snacks
Tara- Deal Seeking Mom
Moi 🙂

We missed all of our #BigDealMoms that couldn’t be there! Don’t let it happen again! Can’t wait til next year!

May 7, 2009May 6, 2009

On Being Me

I am many things. I am mom to this little cutie:

And this sweetheart boy:

But I am in a place where I am not entirely familiar with myself. It’s a bit unsettling.

It’s been an interesting week or so for me. Last week I spoke of a tightness in my chest that I thought was related to anxiety; four days of it and a trip to the ER later and I find out it’s actually an allergic reaction to Prozac, which I’d been taking for three weeks. So, today I go back to the doctor, which was already planned, and I suppose we’ll talk about a plan B.

I feel somewhat like a science experiment. I know all of it – the hormones and whatever other medication I end up taking – will take time to become effective. But I am growing weary of waiting.

Sometimes I feel ok, and sometimes I really don’t. I’ve always been blessed with good self-esteem; my brothers are fond of saying that my self-esteem “is like a broken bone. If you break it, it just grows back stronger.” (They credit themselves then, for what has been my extraordinarily good self-image.) But recently I’ve had some moments, many more than I’d like, when my self-esteem has been less than stellar. I’m not used to disliking myself. It’s not a good feeling. That sounds overly-simple, but I don’t know how else to say it.

I have things I am so excited about. I am excited about Mom’s Nite Out tonight and seeing all my friends. Keeping busy is good for my spirit. But in the quiet of the evening, after my kids are in bed, I’m left with restlessness and agitation. Sitting down to write this tonight, I was at a loss.

“I don’t know what to say,” I said to my husband. “I don’t know who to be.”

I imagine you only want to hear about the superhappyfun things in my life. I’ll do my best to bring those things to the forefront. But I haven’t exactly had any magical moments lately.

So right now I hope you’ll hang with me as I try to figure out how to be me. To get back to me. I promise, I am working on it.

May 5, 2009

Slow & Steady is the New Black

At the ripe old age of 31, I’d like to think that I have figured out how to do a few things right. But the truth is, each day for me still seems to have a fair bit of trial and error involved. What I want for myself these days is to truly take notice of those trials that end in error and learn from them, because honestly, I need some life hacks.

So, I am working on that, which is why I thought it was a good fit when Reader’s Digest asked me to read and then write about an article they’ve got out, 7 Dumb Things We Do and share my thoughts on these things with you. The article was for me, a bit of an eye-opener, because according to it, multi-tasking is one of the 7 dumb things we do that lead to mistakes!

Multi-tasking?? I thought multi-tasking was GOOD! I know in every job interview I ever had, I always touted my great, amazing, fabulous ability to multi-task. “Multi-task” was definitely a job interview “buzz word” for me.

But you know what? The article is right. I make a lot more mistakes when I multi-task, and I waste a lot more time. I’ll go to start an article and then I’ll hear my email ding. I’ll answer two or three emails and then my Twitter notifications will beep. I’ll reply to some tweets and then my Skype message will start flashing. An hour later I’ve still got one error-laden paragraph written of my article and my two-year-old’s nap – my window to get work done – is almost over! If I’d just closed everything else on my computer except for my article, I could have had it done in thirty minutes. Believe it or not, it took me reading this article to realize that!

Multi-tasking can be bad for my parenting skills too. Trying to check email or write while Sophie is trying to climb up on my lap? Doesn’t work too well. Writing an article while pretending to watch Joshua play computer? I’m disappointing my kid and not getting any real work done. Giving the kids my full attention and taking care of what they need and then coming back to my work makes the situation much happier for both of us.

The “trick” that I really took to heart from this article was to “slow down”. It seems simple, but for me, it’s helped so much. When I am trying to do too much at once, my brain just starts dropping stuff – I can’t remember what I was about to do or had been doing and it makes me feel sort of panicky at times. How I’ve put “slowing down” into practice is taking tasks or playtime one at a time, and by making a “to-do” list at the beginning of the day. Since after a distraction I sometimes DO have trouble remembering what I need to do, or was about to do, it’s great to have a list to refer to.

For me, multi-tasking was the one out of the seven dumb mistakes we all make that I am really going to try and stop doing! What mistakes have you learned the most from?

Post?slot_id=37154&url=http%3a%2f%2fsocialspark