Pepe Le Pew!

It’s not exactly what it sounds like. I was talking to my mom the other day about how I’m not so peppy anymore and the entire time I was talking she said she couldn’t think of anything but Pepe Le Pew..

I had a moment of clarification this weekend while my high school best friend was in town. I used to be easily excited, the first person to jump up and down for joy with good news, and always smiling. I miss that person I used to be. Then I looked at my mom and said, “My peppy went le pew..”

Who knows exactly when I lost it but one thing is for sure that I’m determined to get it back! How am I going to do that? Here’s how:

• I am going to do sweet things for my husband and child for no reason. My favorite thing to do was make others smile and surprise them in some way – so I’m going to start doing that again!!
• Lately when something awesome happens to me I tell my husband and my mom and that’s it. Who doesn’t love good news!? So now I am going to start telling all my friends as well and have them tell me when good things happen to them. Talking about good things instead of bad things is just what we all need.
• Spending a little more time in the morning making myself look good is something I loved. It made me feel like I could tackle the rest of the day because I was proud of myself to start out with.
• Not feeling guilty about doing what I want to is something that started when I became a Mom. I am the kind of person who always puts everyone before myself but repeatedly Brian tells me to put myself first. He’s right – so I am going to follow through with it and do a few things for myself. I have a feeling that’s going to be a major self-esteem booster!

We all need a little Pep in our life, and a little less Pepe Le Pew 😉

Love Always,

J

Nick Mom, You Crack Me Up

I don’t know if you all have heard of Nick Mom or not but while staying up and finishing chores I decided to watch it one night. I haven’t laughed so hard in such a long time! This show is like Comedy Central for mothers.

 

For those of you who are mothers that love to laugh at all the ridiculous things that your kids get into – this is for you. For those of you who are mothers that get offended easily – don’t watch this!! As for me, I’m a mom that laughs and this made me laugh.

They have two different shows that I’ve seen: Parental Discretion which is basically like SNL for Moms. Some parts are funny some parts are just plain dumb.

Another show is Mom’s Night Out which is stand up comedy, again funny.

Something you probably weren’t expecting, the commercials are even jokes and one liners to make you smile. This was definitely an interesting night for me!

Don’t have time or want to stay up to watch these shows? Oh don’t worry, they have a website! NickMom.com get your laughs in when you want 😉

Thought I’d share the fun!
Love Always,

J

Introducing My Mom!

Hey everyone! I am so excited to announce that my Mom is now a blogger!! She guest blogged for a while with my sister on http://www.krittersramblings.com and recently went to New Yorks BEA to meet authors, publishers, and fellow bloggers. It is a book reader & blogger’s dream come true and she came back more excited than ever to get her own blog up and running.

http://www.OpesOpinions.com is where you’ll find her writing book reviews, opinions about other things, and fun topics about her life in general. I’m so proud of my Mom for taking this big step on her own and learning everything so fast! She already has her first ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) book to read and review and is excited about taking on this new life journey.

Her link is also attached on the right of this post under my Blogroll where I post links to my favorite blogs that you might like!

I hope you are ready to sit back and relax when you follow her blog because that is exactly what she enjoys and would hope that you do too 😉

Thanks for stopping by!

Love Always,

J

Here’s what you’ve missed!

Sorry I have been MIA – this gorgeous weather has me cleaning and spending most of my time outdoors as well as some other reasons you’ll see below. There are so many new things happening around here that I can’t wait to talk about but since I don’t want to spoil it all – I’m just going to show you a few things that we’ve been doing (without spoils). Then when I get my schedule back in tact I’ll share all the goodies!

Here’s a few things you might have missed:

I attempted my first etching – which is obvious because it’s all uneven but who cares!!!!!!! I am so proud of me 😀 Once I get stuck in the house again I’ll be removing labels off of wine bottles like its nobodys business!

Since Brian and I have both been successfully working and doing our best at not spending any money unless it’s bills, gas, groceries, or necessities – we spoiled ourselves a little! We each bought a few things for ourselves and we bought these for Emma! How cute? She’s been wearing them almost all week since it’s been so nice outside and she likes to proudly say these are Emma’s NEW shoes!

Here is another reason I haven’t had ANY time to update/work on my etsy page & blog. Someone decided that napping is no fun and they don’t want to do it any more. Therefore my two hours of work time during nap time have turned into scramble around with my head cut off time because I have no idea how to function without Emma having a nap. Apparently neither does Emma because here she is passed out on the couch an hour before bedtime. She decided to put herself to bed here – lol.

Our first nice weather accomplishment! I took an entire day to get the back patio set up, organized, toys cleaned, and make it Emma and baby friendly! It took FOREVER. But Emma decided to accomplish something as well – she climbed up the slide and went down all by herself! For the past year – all she would do is climb up and scream every time you tried to help her slide down. HOORAYY  she’s becoming so independent 😉

If you hadn’t noticed the same squinting face above – it’s Emma’s new way to say CHEESE to the camera. Silly girl. This was a Mommy-Daughter day out that involved so many errands that I had completely no intention of getting them all done. Since someone was a complete angel we got ALL except one of the errands completed (and that wasn’t her fault or mine!) so we got a milkshake for a treat – that Emma kept calling a cake lol.

So it’s not that I don’t love you. I haven’t posted because I’ve had my hands a little full these days! Either someone will start getting Quiet Alone Time or Nap Time happening soon or I’m going to have to find 2 different hours to get some work done 😉

Thanks for stopping by!

Love you all and hope to be back to chat soon!

Jennifer

 

Happy Birthday To Me!

I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a mom, a crafter, or just crazy but for me – my birthday gifts have seriously changed! This year for my birthday I got a Simple Human trash can (YAYYYY!!!) and a new cabinet for some more crafty storage (DOUBLE YAY!!!!). So of course as soon as I got off work I went shopping, came home and had the hubby put the cabinet together, and organized like a crazy person!!

 

I know it’s silly to be excited about this but I am!!

The two red baskets are new and the two brown ones are old – I’ll be replacing those with some matching red ones soon!

It’s nice to have everything organized so all I have to do is grab it and sew!

And now I have one more place to hide yarn!!

Now my craft table isn’t cluttered ❤ I love it.

I’m so excited to spend the rest of the weekend enjoying the new set up and being crafty!

Thanks for stopping by!

Love Always,

J

Crafts: New Daily Report Cards

Today started out awesome! I got a few things done that I had planned to do, then somewhere around lunch time I got a little lost. I started looking around and realizing that there was a ton of stuff I needed to get done and I was getting really overwhelmed. It’s like a little checklist was going off in my head and none of it was checked off. NOTHING! I started wondering what the heck was doing this past week and weekend? Did I really not get anything done!? After about a half an hour panicking and 20 minutes revamping my list and writing it down I started to feel a little calm and collected. Then E woke up from her nap .. an hour early .. this day was starting to take a turn for the worst!! Luckily my mom and B saved the day! Between my mom babysitting and B getting me out of the house for a minute and monitoring E while I got the rest of my list done I got my list checked off .. almost!

I got a good amount down. I still have vacuuming and giving E a bath on my list but I still have an hour to get those done. Maybe B will do one while I do the other?? Oh he spoils me.

Well my point for this ridiculously long explanation is I got two new report cards done for P!!

Check um out!

Sorry for the low quality of the second one. My camera was doing funky things and I couldn’t figure it out .. But YAY! I am pretty dang proud of them!

This might be the push I needed to get back into card making!

Love Always,

J

Crafts: Owl-tastic!

As soon as I posted my owl frames one of my amazing friends asked me for two!! I ran to three stores and was seriously shocked that none of them had frames. I special ordered 20 from JoAnn‘s and every time I get down to five I am going to do it again so I don’t have that panicky feeling EVER AGAIN! Well today was my usual Thursday errand day so I ran in to check if my order had come in yet – obviously not because it takes two weeks and it’s been one – and then ran to the frame section and HOORAYY! Four frames were waiting to be taken. I bought them all (like I always do… I clean out all of these stores of their poor frames 😉 haha) and got to work as soon as I put E down for a nap. I have one owl frame done, and one to go! I am thinking about doing Giraffe’s for the next one.. or maybe a duck one.. any suggestions!?

For those of you who don’t have a clue what I am talking about, here is a pick of the first two Owl frames I made. Sure I would gladly take pictures of the new ones but the cloud’s decided that to ruin my day and I hate taking pictures without natural light .. so I hope you can live with my originals 😉

I can’t wait until my order comes in!! It’s like a present. I don’t know why but ordering stuff to me seems like a double buy. You go online, pick out what you want, pay for it and are super excited about it! Then you are sitting around waiting for it, so when it comes in it’s like YAYY!! Double excitement. Or maybe it’s just me 😉

After I get the frames I am ordering some more yarn 😀 guilty! My mom and I are going in on it together so we can total enough to get free shipping! Hooray for free things! Not to mention the prices at this website are half or even more than half off what we pay in the store. Think about the gas money you pay to get there, the going out to eat (which we always end up doing because our favorite sub place is right next door – Jersey Mikes if you’re from the area = AMAZING), and them not always having what you want or the amount you need, AND paying double? Heck no! Totally ordering online. Anyways once my mom and I place the order I need to get seriously cracking on my crocheting. I got sidetracked making a scarf for S and I’ve been moving kind of slow on this new one. It’s always slow starting a new type of scarf, at least it is for me. I’m double worried about it coming out right so I take my time and check each hook instead of just flying through it! I am halfway done with it though, so two good nights of crocheting and I’ll have a pretty purple fun scarf to show.

Well little E is up and dinner is calling my name so I’m going to take a break here and hopefully I’ll have more to show tomorrow! (Which is my crafty day number two – with no interruptions!!)

Love Always,

J

Dreams Do Come True!

So I had this crazy dream last night and it’s been on my mind so I decided to share it with everyone before I forget it 🙂

I was getting ready for my 25 year highschool reunion (which I don’t plan on going to) and I put on a super hott summer dress with some awesome dressy sandals that looked like they came from a fashion show! E is now 20 years old and spending the weekend with a friend back home and we have a second child, a boy, who is 14 and staying with my parents. B is looking better than ever and his smile is reassuring me that I picked the perfect dress. We meet up with T (my bestie) for a quick bite to eat before we head to the school. When we get there almost everyone from our graduating class is there and it’s crazy how different we all are. Everyone is catching up and a group of my old friends are each telling their life stories, marriage, kids, work, where they are living, the usual. Someone asks me how I have been and what I have been doing and I tell them that I own a few companies but really all I am stay at home mom a majority of the day. They ask me what companies and I reply TT (I’m obviously not giving the store names in-case this comes true!) UC2 and a few smaller companies. I guess I wasn’t surprised when they looked shocked, everyone knew in high school that I never really made plans to make it big, that I just wanted to be a mom. Funny how things change 🙂

I move on and someone else comes up to me and says, “Hey J! I saw your name in the paper the other day, about writing a huge check to A’s little company to go world-wide!! That’s so cool!” I say yes and shake it off. I didn’t realize that it was going to be all over the papers.. I just wanted to do it for A. She’s always been there for all of my craft needs and I thought making her store global would be life-changing for her. I mean, it’s not like I really needed the money!

T’s hubby asks B how ESPN is going and one of our high schools football stars over hears and says, “Oh did you see that last report on ESPN about budget cuts!?” and B replies like it’s nothing, “I wrote that article.”

T comments again on how much she hates me because I am so tan. I tell her next time she shouldn’t skip out on a free cruise to Cancun!

Gosh can you believe it!!!? I own my own stores, gave the friend who has inspired me to use my craftiness a check for her own store to go global AND I am going on cruises like it’s no big deal!

Ahhh what a life.

Guess I need to get back to work so I can make that dream come true huh!?

Love Always,

J