mom
Life as a mom of 4
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Room Redo: Creative Space for Me
This was not technically a room redo, but a portion of my bedroom was redecorated so I guess it is a room refresh! Our house is a large house and our bedroom is quite large. One area is the sleeping area with bed/side table and chest of drawers and then there is a little divider to this area where someone might have a sitting area in front of the fireplace. We do not use the gas fireplace as it is not cost effective but use one side as a prayer area. The other side looked like this: A few weeks ago, I decided I wanted to revamp that area and…
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Peepers Readers: My Review
Today, I am sharing my experience with Peepers readers. Once I turned 40, I soon realized the need for readers when reading a book, using my phone and reading on my computer. Now that I am 47, I make sure to have a pair of readers everywhere: in my purse, by my computer, on my nightstand or simply on my head! I wear contacts but switching to progressive contacts would be costly and might lead to headaches. Readers allow me to read everything from ingredients and recipes, blog posts and texts! My main issue with the cheap readers you find in grocery stores/drugstores has been that they often are not…
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Date Night: Dinner and Axe Throwing
After our trip to Costa Rica this past October, I decided to really work hard on planning regular dates and the occasional overnight date with my husband. The boys are old enough to where my 16 year old can watch them for 24 hours without me having to worry about them. So I offered to pay him for babysitting (he just got a car for Christmas and needs to pay for his gas) and he did a great job at watching and playing with his brothers. We used hotel points for our stay at the Marietta Conference Center (read about our last stay in this post). I love the addition…
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Exercise and a Blogging Break
Since we have 2 overnight trips planned for next week and I am trying to spend a little less time on my computer and phone with the kiddos at home, I decided I will be taking a break till the first of the year when I will return with the Sunday Showcase Link Up. I have many fun fashion posts planned for January and a couple travel posts. You might see more fashion posts for a bit as I do not have any travel content right now. I wanted to share the one thing I have been fairly consistent with this year as far as moving my body. No, it…
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November Budget Diary
I felt like titling this post: November Budget Diary, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly! I started the month strong with all of these lofty goals and then I succumbed to some spending, mostly good deals but still… Here is a look at my month day by day! Nov. 1 Free carwash Changed car/house insurance (estimate yearly savings -we were adding a new driver and current insurance was outrageous- $1800) Closed out October budget and added flexible spending categories Planned out November budget Nov. 2 Haircut J (savings $20) Nov. 3 Canceled Amazon prime music: $8.99 monthly savings Nov. 4 90c off gallon at Kroger: filled up tank! Nov.…
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Month in Review
September is always a busy month for us but this month was even busier than ever! Here is my month in review! 20th Anniversary Date My husband surprised me by coming home a day early from his work trip and we went out on a nice date. I was spoiled with a new wedding band (mine had to be caught off at the fire station last year as I couldn’t take my rings off after trying for years and it started to pain my finger) and a message in a bottle. Here is my quick look for our date dinner. Our big celebration starts today (I will share next week…
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May Favorites: Things that Make me Smile
We are heading on a vacation to New Orleans tomorrow and I only have a post scheduled for Monday. I will be back to my regular schedule starting with the Sunday Showcase on June 5. Today I wanted to end this month by sharing a few things that have brought me joy this past month. Lavender I have always loved the scent of lavender and kept some lavender my friend and I picked 25 years ago till just recently. I have been trying to grow lavender and my first plant is the only one that has done well and survived. This is a picture of some of the blooms. I…
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Lean Budget Month: March Goals and Tips
Last week, I enjoyed reading KellyAnn’s post entitled Closet Confessions. I have been wanting to do something similar for myself this year to help me get an idea of what I am buying, whether I am wearing it and if it was a good buy and also to help me decide when I should have what I can a lean month. A lean month is when I halt my clothes shopping for the month and work on preparing more budget friendly meals. Before sharing my tips for this month, I wanted to share my clothes spending for January and February. Please remember that everyone’s budget is different, what one might…
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Weekend: Key Ingredients to My Perfect Weekend
There are Sunday nights where I just exhale a soft sigh of happiness and contentment for having had a wonderful weekend. Today I am sharing which things I consider key to having a satisfying fulfilling weekend. Of course, this will look different for each person as we all have different likes and dislikes, families and schedules. Saturday Morning Run For the past few weeks, I have been running with a group of ladies (in their 40s to 60s) for 6 miles at 6 AM. It is an easy pace, we do different routes and we get to see the sunrise! It’s a great way to start the weekend! Breakfast and…
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How to Create Habits that Will Stick
We all start a new year thinking about the things we want to work on and improve whether we call them resolutions, goals or habits. Most of my habits are similar from year to year as I get lazy or forget about some of them throughout the year. However I have learned through trial and error what helps me create a habit so that it becomes part of my routine and this year I have done much better because I know what makes me tick for each habit. I am sharing these because some of my triggers or buttons might be yours too and you might get ideas or encouragement…