Busy Sunday
Today started out by substitute teaching the 4th grade Sunday school class. We played ballooon volleyball to review the lesson.
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Saturday Rest
I got to enjoy a couple of hours all to myself this afternoon. Emerson was napping, and husband was running some errands. I cuddled up on the couch under my Grandmother’s quilt, and it was so cozy. It was quiet and peaceful and restful, and it was just so lovely.
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Family Dinner
My Grandparents built their home together when I was a teeny-tiny newborn baby, back in 1988. They lived there for almost 30 years together before my Granddaddy passed away in August 2016. Since then, Grandmommie hasn’t felt quite up to living alone, and so last weekend, their cute little yellow house in the country was sold. Tonight she treated us all to a steak dinner at Texas Roadhouse, in honor of that house. I’ll miss that cute little yellow house immensely (that used to be blue when I was growing up), but I’m thankful for the years & years of memories our family made there. Gonna end this here now, instead of getting more & more mushy….
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Books for Mommy & Baby
I always have a book in my desk drawer at work, and pretty much every day I spend my lunch hour reading. Today was no exception. I started a new book which I borrowed from the library. I sat at the picnic table outside my office, under the shade of a beautiful magnolia tree, enjoying the perfect “springtime” Florida weather. …
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5 Years of Service
After I graduated from Flagler College in April 2010, and spent my summer as a nanny, I started working for State Government at the Department of Corrections on October 1, 2010 as an OPS (Other Personnel Services) employee. Basically, you get paid hourly (not on salary), have no benefits, and no paid holidays. I started here thinking it was temporary job, and I would quickly find something different. Well, that didn’t happen, and so I just stayed. Then in July 2013, I got promoted to a new job in a new bureau, and I became a “career service” employee with benefits, insurance and a salary. And paid holidays! …
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Make Something Good Today
I’ve been inspired these last few days. Inspired to get back to more frequent blogging & writing. Inspired to remember the small details, as well as the big life events. Do any of y’all watch Home Town on HGTV with Ben & Erin Napier? It’s one of our favorites, and I’ve been obsessively reading entry after entry on her blog for the last few days, which is what has been inspiring me.
Since January 1, 2010, she has written a daily journal online, just looking for something good in each day. (P.S. – I stole today’s post title from her.) She took a few months off starting this January when she had their sweet baby girl, but she has written almost 3,000 entries by now! And I want to start documenting daily now too. Especially now in this season of life with an infant, who won’t be an infant for much longer. These are sweet moments & days, and I want to cherish every bit of them that I can!
So because of all this inspiration & creativity that’s bursting to get out, I’m going to start my own daily journal here. Well, maybe not daily, but a few times a week at least. I want to find the good in each day, and write it down to focus on those good things. It’s true that life with an infant is sweet, but sometimes it’s also incredibly hard. But years down the road, what I want to remember the most when I reflect back, are the sweet times we spend as a little family, and the cute things she does that she’ll so very quickly grow out of. I want to remember the good times of each day.
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April 2018 Recap Video
On January 1, 2018, I started using the app called “1 Second Every Day.” The app just records and keeps tiny little 1 second videos, and then you can compile them whenever you want. (I just added the music and title using a simple video editor on my phone.) My goal is to record video every day this year, and then make a large video at the end of the year. But I will also compile one for each month throughout the year. You can watch January , February & March if you haven’t seen those yet.
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March 2018 Recap Video
On January 1, 2018, I started using the app called “1 Second Every Day.” The app just records and keeps tiny little 1 second videos, and then you can compile them whenever you want. (I just added the music and title using a simple video editor on my phone.) My goal is to record video every day this year, and then make a large video at the end of the year. But I will also compile one for each month throughout the year. You can watch January & February if you haven’t seen those yet.
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Murder on the Orient Express (Book + Movie Review)
Most of y’all should know how much I love books & reading. We have multiple bookshelves in our house that are bursting at the seems. I have hundreds of e-books on my Kindle Paperwhite. And I frequently borrow both “real” books & e-books from our local library. Since 2014 (when I started meticulously keeping up with it on Goodreads), I’ve read 235 books! If you follow me on Instagram, I often post photos of the books I’m currently reading.
I’m “one of those” that believe the book is almost always better than the movie version, and I try to make sure I’ve read the book before seeing the movie whenever possible. So when I read a book and watched the movie version all in the same week, I decided this would be a fun “series” to start on my blog, of reviewing both the book and the movie. …
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Sweet Night-Night Routine
Emerson is a sleep fighter. The first few weeks of her life she slept like a champ. You know, like most newborns do! But then something changed. And girlfriend no longer wanted to nap… She wanted to stay awake and be a part of everything. We diagnosed her jokingly with “Baby FOMO.” In case you don’t know, FOMO stands for “Fear Of Missing Out.” And my baby girl definitely has it.
One trick we learned early on though, is that she loved the sound of running water, or white noise. The first time I tried it out was back when I was still on maternity leave. I turned on the kitchen sink full blast, and just stood next to it holding her for like 10 minutes while she calmed down. It would calm her down & put her to sleep whenever she was super upset and crying. Then we found this video on YouTube, and we still use it all the time when we’re out & about. We open it on one of our phones, and put it in the car seat with her, and it works like a charm every time! So when she moved into her own room/crib (she slept in our bedroom until about 6.5 months old), we knew she needed a noise machine in there. We ordered this one from Amazon, and it works great. One of the settings sounds almost identical to that YouTube video, so that’s the one we use every night. It has a timer for 15, 30 or 60 minutes, and we keep it on the 60-minute timer.
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