Always Playing Catch-Up

I don’t know how some people do it! You know, the ones with energetic kids, an important full-time job, and a stellar social life and yet they still always look put together and in their spare time make homemade crafts and volunteer at their local church activities… All I have that takes up my time is the job factor and yet sometimes feel like I can barely find any extra time or energy for anything else. In fact, I cheer like I won a gold medal if I do something like make it to the gym once that week.

So, of course, I feel like I never blog anymore! To those of you that like reading ramblings about my life {a.k.a. my mom}, I apologize for blog-slacking. And for those of you who find what I write quite droll and only check it out of obligation for our friendship {because you know I’ll annoyingly ask, “Didn’t you read about it on my blog?!”…} well, you’re welcome. I’m so behind on blogging that I guess we’ll have to actually talk like real, normal friends.

I’ve been working a fair bit of overtime to make sure all my work is caught up before we leave on our trip {which is in a week and two days… eeek!} I’m super excited but also a bit overwhelmed and nervous. We have the Ireland-Scotland-England portion of the trip pretty sussed out… but we still have a lot of planning left for the France-Switzerland-Italy half.

Besides working and trip-planning, life has also been a bit high-maintenance by demanding our time with few other events. Luckily, they were fabulously fun, so I’m only pretending to mind.

Two weeks ago, we got to spend the weekend with my cute family. I sure do like them… and when my dad takes us to play with guns {yes, I have the raddest dad in the world!} Ah, I miss the small-town life. It looks a little like this…

While there, I may or may not have also gotten my family addicted to Draw Something. For a few solid hours, M played on his phone while my mom, dad, little brother and sister squished on the couch with the 3 iPads in the house to draw pictures with each other. I love my nerdy family!

Another piece of exciting news is that M got another promotion! He was managing an office that the company considers a Level 1 {the levels are based on the size/amount of business done by the office} for only 5 months before his upper management specifically requested to have him apply for an manager position of a Level 2 office… and he got it!

I’m so proud of M. He is the kind of person any business would be glad to employ! He works so hard and is great with his customers. And in fact {okay, bragging time…} he totally revamped his last office and increased their profits dramatically in the short time he was there. I am so grateful he is such a great provider for us and is someone I can have so much respect for!

Speaking of M, his birthday was this week. It was his first day at the new office, but he was able to get away early, so we had more time to party. He was such a good sport to like the presents I got him. And I made the cheesecake we love!

Between awesome birthday parties, trips to see my family, and catching up on seemingly never-ending work has been awesome!

Once again, I apologize for being too busy to blog lately. But if it’s any consolation, I’ve neglected my Words with Friends and Draw Something games also. That’s pretty solid proof of my schedule issues, right?

But speaking of Drawsome and WWF, this graph was in a super legit work presentation discussing digital trends. And this slide of the presentation was the best part…

Happy Birthday M!

Happy birthday to the love of my life! 27 never looked so good!

We celebrated with burgers and cheesecake. Livin' the good life. I love this man!

Happy Easter {a.k.a. Chocolate Everywhere!}

I love love love holidays! So of course I was thrilled when I woke up to see that the Easter Bunny came!!

In our house, the Easter Bunny leaves a trail from bedroom doors to the baskets of goodies. It’s a tradition I grew up with this year and thought it was adorable that M surprised me with the same tradition for our Easter!

Of course, we got a ridiculous amount of delicious chocolate and an overload of sugar in each basket. We also got a couple new games {Scrabble Slam and Fruitominos} as well as a book to help us plan our trip to Europe!

For breakfast, I made pancakes that were supposed to look like bunnies but I think they ended up looking more like weird cats or something. Oops!

They still tasted awesome. Probably because of the chocolate chips.

This holiday was also really fun for me because it was the first since getting married that I actually got to cook our own holiday meal for M and I. It was the first time ever in my life that I cooked a whole ham.

So here was our feast: honey ham, rolls, au gratin potatoes, pineapple, my favorite ‘Nuts About Berries’ salad, and apple raspberry juice. Yum!

Safe And Sound

M made it back home safely on Sunday morning {even though he’s a punk and called to pretend there was a problem with the plane and said his flight was delayed for hours… but it was April Fools…} and I was SO glad to have him home!!

I knew I liked him a lot but I was surprised by how much I missed him! So it might seem like old news that he’s back since its been three days, but I still keep randomly thinking “Ah, I’m so glad M’s in Utah and that I get to see him after work tonight!”

You Are Beautiful. You Are Valuable. You Are Enough.

I’m having a sulky day. And I loved that a friend posted this on Facebook {I loved it so much that I’m reposting it here on my blog!} because something she says in here really hit home today.

Kate Conner blogged: 10 Things I Want to Tell Teenage Girls {and I say certainly not limited to teens!}

1. If you choose to wear shirts that show off your boobs, you will attract boys. To be more specific, you will attract the kind of boys that like to look down girls’ shirts. If that’s the kind of guy you want, great job – keep it up! But if you don’t want to date a guy who ogles at the breasts of other women, then maybe you should stop offering your own up for the ogling. All attention is NOT equal. You think you want attention, but you don’t. You want respect.

2. Don’t go to the tanning bed. You’ll thank me when you go to your high school reunion and you look like you’ve been airbrushed and then photoshopped compared to the tanning bed train wrecks formerly known as classmates – well, at least next to the ones that haven’t died from skin cancer.

3. When you talk about people “vaguely” on Facebook, we know exactly who you’re talking about. People are smarter than you think they are. Stop posting passive-aggressive statuses about the myriad of ways your friends disappoint you.

4. Newsflash: the number of times you say “I hate drama” is a pretty good indicator of how much you love drama. Non-dramatic people don’t feel the need to discuss all the drama they didn’t start and aren’t involved in.

5. “Follow your heart” is probably the worst advice ever. Your brain plays an important part in your life.

6. Never let a man make you feel weak or inferior because you are an emotional being. Emotion is good; it is nothing to be ashamed of. Emotion makes us better – so long as it remains in it’s proper place: subject to truth and reason.

7. Smoking is not cool. Nothing more to say about that.

8. Stop saying things like, “I don’t care what anyone thinks about me.” First of all, that’s not true. And second of all, if it is true, you need a perspective shift. Your reputation matters – greatly. You should care how your words and actions come across to other people.

9. Don’t play coy or stupid or helpless to get attention. Don’t pretend something is too heavy so that a boy will carry it for you. Don’t play dumb to stroke someone’s ego. Don’t bat your eyelashes in exchange for attention and expect to be taken seriously, ever. You can’t have it both ways. Either you show the world that you have a brain and passions and skills, or you don’t. There are no damsels in distress managing corporations, running countries, or managing households. The minute you start batting eyelashes, eyelashes is all you’ve got.

10. You are beautiful. You are enough. The world we live in is twisted and broken and for your entire life you will be subjected to all kinds of lies that tell you that you are not enough. You are not thin enough. You are not tan enough. You are not smooth, soft, shiny, firm, tight, fit, silky, blonde, hairless enough. Your teeth are not white enough. Your legs are not long enough. Your clothes are not stylish enough. You are not educated enough. You don’t have enough experience. You are not creative enough.

There is a beauty industry, a fashion industry, a television industry, (and most unfortunately) a pornography industry: and all of these have unique ways of communicating to bright young women: you are not beautiful, sexy, smart or valuable enough.

You must have the clarity and common sense to know that none of that is true. None of it.

You were created for a purpose, exactly so. You have innate value. You are loved more than you could ever comprehend; it is mind-boggling how much you are adored. There has never been, and there will never be another you. Therefore, you have unique thoughts to offer the world. They are only yours, and we all lose out if you are too fearful to share them.

You are beautiful. You are valuable. You are enough.

Missing M Already!

I took M to the airport today so that he could fly to St. Louis for a business trip. It’s the first time we’ve been apart since we got married almost two years ago! I miss him so much and it’s only been a few hours. In fact, I was starting to tear up this morning before we even left for the airport. I feel like a bit of a lovesick fool… {How fitting that I’m listening to Jason Reeves’ album called The Lovesick. Check out his music. It’s so good.}

Because M is super-sweet, last night he decided we should go see Hunger Games before he left. So he took me out for a date night and {of course} I really liked the movie!

This afternoon, I was already missing him so I was so glad that my friend Danielle kept me entertained by being my dinner date and then took me shopping. She was a great distraction me from my evening alone. She’s fantastic. I’m so grateful for my friends!

Sadly, M doesn’t come home until Sunday. I have a feeling I’m going to be blog-whining {a lot} over the next couple of days about how much I miss him!

So Much To Say!

It has been an eventful weekend! It started off on Friday, when my boss asked me to come into his office for a talk… and I ended up with an 8.9% pay increase! Not too shabby.

Then after we got home from work that night, we hopped online to check flights we’ve been watching… and finally decided it was time to book them. So we are officially going to Europe May 5th – 22nd!! I am SO excited! Here’s the game plan:

I’m sure I’ll post tons of updates as we figure out the plans in more detail. Right now, we only have the flights from the U.S., so there is still lots to figure out.

But there is one detail we do know {and, to me, it’s the most important detail about this trip}… We have tickets to the last Tottenham football game of the season! Come on you Spurs!!

As much as I tease M for his football obsession, I am the one that is crazy excited for this game. It will be my first real live Premier League game and I am looking forward to experiencing the atmosphere. We watch a fair amount of football in our home and it will be so awesome to be there and see it all in person.

Of course, the things like Gareth Bale’s lightening speed…

But especially all the crazy fans…

Overall, I’m really excited to spend some time in London and see the world where M grew up. This trip will be fantastic!

Week of Birthdays!

Today is my cute mom's birthday!

Here’s to wishing the best mom in the whole wide world a very happy birthday! I love my mom! She is totally amazing.

Then, coming up on Sunday... happy 24^th, Kiera!

And last but not least, Monday will bring Kyle's 22nd!

Dang, I love this cute kid! Happy week of birthdays!

Pinterest Loving

I tried to jump on the Pinterest bandwagon. I really did. I wanted to fit in with so many of my friends. But I tend to get a bit bored with it. So when I found this, I thought it was hilarious because it seemed to be a perfect assessment of why my friends love Pinterest. Thank you, Pinterest, for providing so many with an escape from reality.

175,000 Miles!

{Apologies. It’s kinda hard to take a decent photo in bad lighting while driving 65 mph…}

But yes, it’s true… our cute little car hit his 175,000 mile mark! I’m so proud of him. He’s getting so grown up! 14 years old and still going strong. Isn’t he handsome?!