Tag: mom life

My really dumb (tired) moment of the day…

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I had headshots/PR Photos done today by the illustrious and gifted Mary Gibson Photography. I’ve known Mary for about a year now and she’s done quite a few photo shoots of the kids and the family and so I asked her if she’d be willing to do the headshots for me. =)

We’re wandering around to different areas, looking for some different backdrops and whatnot, and some of the places are still a little muddy from the rains we had this past weekend. I’m setting my purse down on the ground each location and she sweetly offers to carry my purse along with all the other stuff she has so I don’t have to set it down on the ground.

Roughly THREE minutes after she tosses my purse on crossbody style, I’m leaning up against a wall looking at her and it occurs to me that I have a purse that looks JUST LIKE THAT! I open my mouth to tell her so, and then I realize…..

It’s my purse…. that I just gave her… three minutes ago.

*sigh*

Parenting Win?

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Y’all – My 22-month old (who doesn’t have very many recognizable words yet) just very clearly said “STARBUCKS” and I don’t know whether to be embarrassed or proud of that. 😂😂😂

Your mother wants you to buy this…

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Well, maybe not YOUR mother, but THIS mother wants you to buy this. Seriously, I’m going to be absolutely blatant with my product recommendation in this post.

This crap works.

I’ve been using Eco-88 since I very first started managing an upscale doggie daycare over 12 years ago. One of my customers told me to try it and I was skeptical, so I didn’t for over a year. I mean, I’ve used stuff like this before and it NEVER works as advertised. NEVER.

We had a stain at our old house in the guest room where our elderly dog had thrown up on the carpet about a year before. Finally I got tired of seeing it and decided to give a bottle of this stuff a go. I mean, I got an employee discount, right? Why not!

ECO-88 STAIN AND ODOR REMOVER

HOLY COW you guys, it took a YEAR OLD stain RIGHT OUT of the carpet, no scrubbing, no elbow grease, just sprayed in on and in minutes it was gone. It didn’t even bleach out the carpet. CRAZY BUSINESS.

So I started putting it on EVERYTHING. Random 14 year old stain at my parents’ house that had been there since they bought the house? GONE! That one took a little rubbing, but seriously…. FOURTEEN YEAR OLD STAIN….. GONE.

I started recommending it to ALL my customers, and NOT JUST those with dogs, ESPECIALLY those with kids. I had a “Mommy Meet-up” at my house once and one of the kids spilled a juice box on my carpet. The kid’s mom started freaking out and I told her, “don’t worry, I got this”, pulled out my little bottle of magic and it disappeared as about a dozen moms watched in awe and then asked where I got that because it was now a NEED.

Now, I don’t know what’s in this stuff… “enzymes” supposedly. To be honest, I don’t care. IT’S THAT GOOD. I will say though if you get it on your hands and don’t wash them when you’re done with your stain cleaning it will turn your fingertips white (I assume that is said enzymes eating your skin, because, you know, you’re organic and all) but I just don’t bathe in it when I use it so I don’t have that problem. Seriously. Spray, wipe/rub a little if you need to, and let it do its thing. You won’t be disappointed!

Here’s the link again, in case you missed it the first time. 😉


Social Media, the Ultimate Love/Hate Relationship… (A Rant)

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So this post is going to be more of a rant than anything else, but it’s something that’s been simmering with me for a long while now and I just feel like getting it off my chest, so bare with me for a bit.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the world’s love affair with social media. I know why it’s important across personal and professional relationships. I use it myself, almost all the platforms. But lately, I’m starting to get fairly angry about what it has done to our personal relationships. Let’s break it down.

Love:

I love that I can keep up-to-date on my friends and family and their lives. I love seeing the photos of people’s kids, reading about the funny things they do, hearing about vacations and momentous occasions. How amazing in this day and age how EASY it is to share long distance with the ones you love.

Hate:

“How EASY it is to share long distance with the ones you love.” – this right here is my main rant. I HATE how “EASY” Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites have made it to feel “connected” to those you care about, because while these sites make you FEEL connected, are you REALLY? What do you really KNOW about their lives besides what they share on their feed? Sure, it may LOOK amazing, but without that face to face or at LEAST voice to voice interaction, how do you know it really is? How many times do I see posts about people who committed suicide or went off the deep end, where the “friends and family” had NO IDEA they were hurting. NO IDEA they were struggling. NO IDEA they were depressed. I guarantee that at some point if SOMEONE had taken the time out to truly listen, ask a question, just sit down and say “hey, how are you REALLY doing lately?”, there would have been a hint, something to pick up on… a note of desperation in their voice, a stray comment, a tone, a FEELING, anything. It’s there, but we no longer search it out because we only see what pops up on our screens.

I was thinking to myself last night, chatting to an “online only” friend on Facebook Messenger (I told you, I use social media just as much as everyone else) – how sad is it that so many of my “REAL LIFE” friendships, people who I have had in my life for so long, people I’ve hung out with, seen marriages, babies born, graduated high school with, worked with, hung out together with our kids and had playdates… SO MANY of them have fizzled out. I get that life gets busy, and that I don’t “work” anymore and so many of them do. There’s just not two-sided effort being made anymore. No one pops in on messenger to check in and say “hey, how have you been doing, haven’t heard from you in a while”, or sends a text inviting their friend for a lunch date, or says “hey, let’s get the kids together this weekend”. Lately a few of them don’t even respond when I reach out. But because Social Media is savvy, I KNOW they’ve read the message I sent, and now I get butt-hurt because I feel like I’ve been broken up with and I don’t even know WHY. Then the self-doubt starts to creep in, the depression, the isolation, and believe you me, it can get pretty dark inside sometimes.

I can’t even tell you how sad this makes me. I’ve always tried to be that person that is always there, if you need a favor, if you need help with something, if you just wanted to chat… but where are the friends that want to chat and hang out when they DON’T need something from me? What happened to all that? I get that people have busy lives now, but come on, busy doesn’t stop most people from posting crap constantly on social media.

LOVE:

The ease of finding reviews, recommendations, and small or local businesses to try.

HATE:

The ease of finding reviews, recommendations, and small or local businesses to try. Y’all, I’ve seen this happen. I live in a small town now, and I’ve lived in a small town for YEARS. I even RUN a local FB Group. I have see this group social media mentality totally SQUASH a small business. Like burn it to the ground, seriously. ONE person has a bad experience somewhere, or even a mediocre experience that they’ve decided to embellish on, and it turns into a wildfire overnight. People immediately stop going there, and spreading the “well, I HEARD such and such” and within months, sometimes even weeks, someone’s dreams go up in smoke and that business shuts down. I dealt with it occasionally when I WAS working, manager of a small business, and it was BRUTAL. We even had competitors posting reviews pretending to be customers, or people who wouldn’t even step foot in our doors blasting us online for something they “heard” about us. We always managed to pull through (because our regular customers KNEW us) but so many smaller businesses are not so lucky.

LOVE:

Being able to connect with, or spread your message to so many people instantly across the world.

HATE:

The anonymity of the internet. People who think they can get away with bullying, racism, stalking, talking trash, trolling, and God knows what just because no one can see their faces. Bullying is at an all-time high and I really believe that social media is mostly to blame. Sure, there was bullying and violence before social media, I’m not dumb here folks, but once social media came along now all these bullies had an outlet to share their misdeeds instantly to a HUGE audience. One who would WATCH and SHARE, because no matter your position drama attracts us like bugs to light. THEIR MESSAGE of violence and hate just got blasted around the world, and so they’ll do it again, and again and again, because they got the attention they were looking for.

Gonna wrap this up…. because if I don’t stop now I’m going to get into using social media as a political platform, and no one wants to hear my opinion on that… 😉

I’m going to quit here, because honestly, the more I write about it the more fired up I get, the more disheartened I get, and the more I want to just cut the cord to all my social media and say I’m done with it. I’m not going to do that because I DO run two businesses that depend on word-of-mouth and social media marketing to get noticed, and I DO have family and friends who live far away that I probably would lose touch with completely if not for Facebook, and Instagram, and the like, but if you only take one thing away from this post, please let it be this:

DON’T let your “connections” on social media be the only connections of your lives. DO check in with your friends, send them a message, a text. Hell, I know everyone hates to talk on the phone nowadays but call them up. Send them a card or a letter. When was the last time you got something other than junk or a bill in the mail? DON’T let your real life friendships fizzle and die because you’re too busy, or you feel like just “liking” or “commenting” occasionally is going to keep it alive. It’s NOT GOING TO. DO continue posting those cute pics of your kids and awesome vacation experiences – everyone DOES love seeing what you’re up to, but hey, reach out and touch someone in real life occasionally. You deserve friends that love you and interact with you regularly. Everyone does!

Hide and Seek!

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There is something “hidden” in this photo that proves that I’m a freaking awesome mom – and the first one to point it out gets….. nothing. Sorry, my kids take all my money. 😂😂😂 #badassmom #humbletoo #freakingawesome #bloggersofinstagram #sahmlife #sahm #momblogger #momblog #familyblog #familylife #motherhood #mommyblog #instamom #momsoninstagram #bloggerlife #dailyparenting #bestofmom #momlife #livethelittlethings #motherhoodunplugged #hotmessexpress #mommyproblems #momproblems #familymoments #parenting101 #nothingisordinary #motherhoodunhinged #motherswhoblog #lifewithlittles #mindyourbiscuitstx

Meet and Greet Series – Post 1

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Photo by the ever talented Mary Gibson Photography

I don’t show my crazy mug very often (and technically I’m not showing it here either) but a little series of “Meet and Greet” is in order so here goes.

I’m Jamie, married to the same wonderful dude for 12 years this fall, and we have two crazy and adorable kids, a 4.5 year old daughter and an almost 2 year old son (this photo was taken almost a year ago, I know he doesn’t look 2 here lol!) We have a 16 year old cat, Checkers, and a 16 month old border collie, Biscuit (the original Biscuit!)

Originally from the Blue Ridge Valley of Virginia, I’ve been in Texas since 1997. More in-depth (Part 2 of who knows) tomorrow!

#texasblogger #bloggerlife #meetandgreet

DIY Landscape Design… fulfilling, yet also kind of stupid.

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I get motivated to complete projects in the strangest of ways. Really, my hubs decided it was time to get the driveway concrete replaced, and so the crew arrived this morning and started the daunting (and crazy noisy) task of ripping out the old one and hauling it away. We have a TON of driveway so this is a fairly large project.

I see all that crap getting torn out and for some reason it gets me excited and motivated to start a project I’ve been avoiding for a couple months now – my flower beds. A few months back I got randomly motivated and completed all the current beds in the backyard by ripping out the 10 years of mulch the previous owners left behind coated in weeds and replacing them with nice stone edging and river rock. I have potted plants and container gardens strategically placed throughout. We still have two beds yet to be made or in various stages of half-assed back there, but that’s a project for a different day.

I decided to go ahead and start the front bed, specifically the large cut in portion by our front door and in front of our living room windows. We get a lot of water there so we’re working on the drainage, and I decided to do a wavy rock garden with some of the river rock we had left from the backyard project. Keep in mind this 1.5 tons of rock is currently housed on the back of our 0.75 acre lot, they’re ripping up the driveway right beside where the rock is being stored, AND the bed I want to work on is in the front yard. I spent most of the morning stripping out all that nasty mulch and this scrubby little ground cover plant that never took off and HOLYCRAP was that a lot of material to rake up and shovel into bags.

Got that finished and laid down the weed cloth, then started putting the rocks in. I puzzled over how to move them basically around the house crossing basically 3 sides of a 0.75 acre square and settled on small buckets pulled by a utility wagon. Smart, yet stupid.

That’s a lot of rocks. A LOT OF ROCKS. I made trip after trip after trip, dumping and spreading my rocks, then heading back the long way around the house for more rocks. Halfway through I start muttering to myself, and 3/4 of the way through I’m downright flat out bitching to myself. “WHAT stupid moron decided that an effing rock garden in the front beds would look good? Eh, Jamie? Oh yeah, it was YOU, you crazy delirious heifer. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING”

Luckily we have no neighbors within earshot on all three sides of the house that I was traveling so there was no one around to pass judgement on my sanity. My hubby made some sort of comment and I responded with something about my soft squishy mom body. I’m not even sure now what I was talking about, pretty sure I was delirious.

My whole day in painful photos.

I FINALLY got it all done, after modifying my “design” a little on the fly to accommodate some issues I didn’t think through or map out before I started. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, and VERY happy I probably won’t have to do this much work on the rest of the beds. (Not doing NEAR the rock work in those) – my current plans for this space call for some really large, low, round “dish” containers/pots to do some succulent container gardens in, a few small potted plants, and most likely a garden bench with flagstone stepping stones across to it.

What do you think? Do you love DIY garden or home projects! I’d love to see some of your work! Leave a comment and let me know what you’ve done!!!

Today, I almost died… or at the least almost lost my mind

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For realz guys, my life flashed before my eyes.

We had a great morning, a play date with friends, lunch at the roadside burger stand we love so much (well, that was so very close to being a disaster with a kiddo face full of barbed wire, but we narrowly avoided that little catastrophe…), and then on my way home I had to drop a check/contract by our utility district for a deposit on some concrete work we’re having done at the house tomorrow.

The SLUD, as it’s kind of affectionately named, is on the second story of a two story fancy-schmancy office building. I wonder if they’re spending so much on rent that they’re unable to afford repairs to our main roads, but hey, that’s a complaint for another day. I have both kids in tow, and it’s bordering on nap time, especially for the littlest. We go in, a baby on my hip and a sassy 4 year old by the hand, and I look around for the steps. Climb the steps to the second story, make it into the office, hand over the check while dealing with two kids annoying each other and squawking, and then head back out the office door. This is where it started to go downhill.

These kiddos are starting to get on my last nerve. Don’t judge my mom skills, y’all, I KNOW you’ve been in my shoes. Tatum (the four year old) insists on taking the elevator back down to the 1st floor….. from the second floor. I’m too annoyed/tired to argue, and even though I have this nagging fear of elevators I give in.

She pushes the button, the doors open, we get in. She pushes the number 1. The elevator starts to move….. ever….. so….. slowly.

DING! We make it to floor one…….

….. and nothing happens. Seconds start to tick by, and at first it’s ok, but after about 5-10 seconds (which seems like an eternity at this point) Mama starts to panic internally. Holy shit, I’m gonna get stuck on an elevator with two kids 4 and under who are overdue for their naps. I start to hyperventilate, I’m internally losing my shit, my life’s memories flash before my eyes. THIS IS NOT HAPPENING. Probably about 60 seconds in I become crazed and desperate. I start smacking the “Door Open” button repeatedly. The doors open up almost instantly like there was never any problem.

And mommy walks out, cool as a cucumber on the outside, baby on my hip, and a sassy 4 year old by the hand, and nobody is the wiser to my minute and a half of complete internal meltdown.

Living the dream, y’all…… Living…… The…… Dream……. 😉

Lesson Learned…

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After a tough morning of very little listening and crap attitude, and then asking her over a dozen times to get her socks and shoes on so we could leave, I decided I’d teach my 4.5 year old a little lesson about listening and following instructions…

-“Tatum, you have one more chance and then Wyatt and I are leaving and you’ll be here by yourself”

-“OK, Mom!”

-Waited a couple minutes, no action. So I pack up Wyatt, yell to her that we’re leaving, make a big production of opening and shutting the door. I put Wyatt in the car, get in, and start it. Then I wait, watching the front door……

-and wait.

-and wait….

-Shut the car off, go back inside. “Get your butt in the car Tatum, for realz. What are you DOING?!?”

-Cue the crying….. but not for the reason you think.

-“But I wanted to stay here by myself!!!!!!”

*facepalm*

Learning as I go.

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It’s kind of funny, but I’m starting to realize (yes, I’ve been a parent for almost 5 years now, why do you ask?) that you’re constantly learning and evolving in motherhood/parenthood. I learn lessons every day but I always forget to write them down, which means I generally forget the lesson, repeat my mistake, learn it again, and maybe that time it’ll stick.

Two Lessons I learned today:

Daylight Savings Time will ALWAYS suck when your kids are under 13.

Seriously, we never really had a problem with daylight savings time before. I am not bragging, it just never really was a big deal. For some reason, THIS YEAR SUCKS. It was fine all day Sunday, but Monday was fairly rough with neither kid napping much and both of them being fairy cranky. Then last night I SWEAR they didn’t sleep at all, followed by crap naps for both today, and it’s now 10:15pm at our house and they’re STILL FLOPPING AROUND in their beds. Now listen to me, I love my kids, but enough already! Whoever invented daylight savings time and decided to stick with it was probably a group of dudes who never had kids.

Going to a major attraction, like say, The Crayola Experience, on a rainy day in the middle of Spring Break is just stupid, stupid, stupid.

I got an invite, I didn’t think anything about it except “That should be fun, I bet the kids would love that AND playing with their friends?? Win Win!”

Lose. All around.

It’s a SUPER COOL PLACE, don’t get me wrong, and I’m certain we’ll make frequent use of the season passes I bought us, but hell’s bells people, not on Spring Break, and sure as hell NOT when it’s RAINING on Spring Break. I’ve never seen so many people in my life. It was by far my MOST stressful parenting experience so far in my life. At one point both my kids took off different directions, I lost one, chased the other one, and sighed with relief when I caught him and heard my friend yelling that she had eyes on Tatum. For realz. I don’t know how half those parents didn’t make it home without their kids. Insanity.