It's The Weekend | Number Seven

Prego Belly & Sidewalk Chalk 

This weekend I hope to finish our little gal's new pink room. We still need to build a bookcase and get her rug in her room. It's very pink and it's very fun. After that project is finished, I get to move on to the little boy's nursery. I am officially in my third trimester and I keep realizing how quickly time is flying. Holy cow, we have 12-ish weeks left!!! I feel like I was just starring at a positive pregnancy test at the end of October, while on vacation.

Here are the places I've been clicking this week. Lots of it has to do with food because I feel like I'm constantly hungry. Some links are about parenting because I've obviously had that on the brain. Some are about paint. Food, family, and home. Those are the things on my brain lately. You can look forward to a post on Marin's new big girl room and some more mom guilt rants in the near future. I'm sure of that.

Someday our kids will probably share a room. These bunk bed ideas are pretty awesome. I would sleep in them.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately | Why Kids Need Real Play

Lunch can get boring. Here are ten sandwich free lunch ideas.

15 tips on how to be a successful parent.

I'm all about white trim in my house. But, painting things black can also be awesome. 

This chocolate banana smoothie is right up my alley right now. This cobbler looks awesome as well. 

Speaking of food, Joy the Baker Over Easy: Sweet and Savory Recipes for Leisurely Days and Food, Health, and Happiness: 115 On-Point Recipes for Great Meals and a Better Life are my current reads.

I also just started reading Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path and I am loving it.

Have a great weekend! 

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It's The Weekend | Number Six

Our very neglected garden beds. 

It's been raining the last few days around these parts and my heart has been so happy about it. It reminds me of my season of time in the northwest. I just want to go play music and drink tons of coffee. If only that were a distinct possibility right now. But, it is the weekend and I don't plan on even leaving my house today if I can help it. 

I do enjoy finding great things out on the internet. There are lots of people doing some extraordinary things and I like keeping track of those things. Sometimes though, the internet is a cesspool of disgusting and hurtful things. Last night I was perusing Facebook and stumbled onto a video of a man beating a small child to a pulp. Due to the automatic play feature of most videos on Facebook, I didn't even realize what I was watching until it was too late. Ryan knows how it affected me I'm sure my pregnancy hormones were no help.  I was disgusted, frustrated, almost in tears. I went into my child's room and kissed and hugged her for good measure. There are nasty things out in this world. It took everything I had within me to get that image out of my head and to fall asleep last night. We watched a lot of funny cat videos and I read my new book in an attempt to drift to sleep. 

Anyways, sometime the internet is sucky. But, the links below help me realize that not everything out there is frustrating and ugly. This week, we are talking pizza, making a house a home, some parenting stuff, and the idea of gardening. Enjoy. 

I am making this pizza this week. I've been craving those artichokes. 

To continue on the pizza craze, because we love pizza in this home, how about some pull apart pizza bread for good measure?

I am always thinking about how to make our house a home.  I love the idea of embracing your story for your home. So often I get caught up in trends and what everyone else is doing. Just do you. 

This is a bit of a read but I thought it was interesting: How Parenting Became A Full Time Job. 

I also found this interesting....Visualizing the data of parenting.  

I've been thinking about gardening this year again. It's been a few years and I think Marin would have a blast. Here is some great gardening 101, especially with kiddos. 

Bedtime hoops...Four questions you should be asking your child at bedtime. I love this. 

Have a great weekend! 

Mom Guilt | What Keeps Me Up At Night

Last week we had a few rougher nights due to sickness in our family. One night in particular, Marin woke up around 1:30am coughing and crying. I went in and gave her some medicine. Luckily, she went straight back to sleep after that instead of trying to fight staying up. I on the other tried to go back to bed but proceeded to toss and turn for hours upon hours. My brain didn't want to slow down, shut off, and just rest. Instead, it mulled a million miles per hour and anxiety began to bend and sway within me. I'm not even totally sure how long I was awake for but it was bad enough that I was considering just getting up and working on stuff, at 3am in the morning. That's when you know it's bad. 

Laying there, I was just so anxious. For so many things. The biggest was regarding my job. I have discovered that I have this fear of going on maternity leave and everything either completely falls apart or they realize that they can do it all without me. This anxiety begins to well up hugely inside of me at 3am in the morning and causes me to be so torn. I want to be able to have our son and focus on him for as many weeks as I can before we have to dive back into reality again. No deadlines, agendas, emails, or projects. Just us. Just family. 

There's this thing in our society that tends to torment me. I think it's completely destructive and detrimental to mothers and fathers everywhere. You have to still do EVERYTHING, as you did before. Don't rest. If you rest, you job and life will move swiftly on without you. You must be at the top of your game at all times. No gaps in your career or resume. You want a career right? Blah, blah, blah. 

These are things that keep me up at night, that and pregnancy insomnia. Mom guilt is a real thing. I want nothing more than to take 6 weeks of our lives to figure out how to be a family of four and bring our new son into the world. This may very well be the last time we ever get this opportunity. I don't want to feel guilty about using my rights and benefits to spend time with our growing family. No more guilt. I know I can prep and plan. I know I can put things in place to help make this transition safe and secure. I know that my job is super awesome, as are our maternity benefits and I need to not worry about these sort of things. 

With my leave with Marin, I took twelve weeks but was still so very consumed by my job. I never fully embraced all of the new experiences of motherhood and those first few weeks are a total blur to me. Those first few weeks were so hard. I can never get them back. I was too worried about calendars, payroll, and getting my job done even though I was supposed to be on leave. 

My plan is take 12 weeks with our son. The first six...I don't even want to think about work. The last six, I'll work part time from home. The transition to having two kids is a big one for me. I am anxious and have no idea how to navigate life. As long as I don't try to everything all of the time, I'm sure we will be fine. 

This is what keeps me up at night. 

It's the Weekend | Number Five

Phew. This week has been a whirlwind of late nights at work for events. I'm ready to just chill at my house for the day with the kiddo. Nothing too crazy. Come tomorrow, the craziness will begin up again like it always tends to do.

Lately, I've have started to gather links of all of the places I have been perusing in the great, grand internet. There are plenty of people out there doing big things and small things. Some of these are practical, some are inspiring. Some just make me hungry. This week, we have an article on rage cleaning, eating healthier, and not waking up with regret. I also have been reading about podcasts and ways to become a better morning person. 

I tend to clean my house a lot. I thought this rage-cleaning mother article was pretty accurate.  

I saw these cheat sheets floating around Facebook this past week. I always need ideas for how to eat healthier.

I never want to wake up someday with regret.  These things are important.

Do you listen to podcasts? I do. Here's a primer on how to get started. 

I am normally a morning person because of the kiddo. Here's 8 things every person should do before 8am. 

I always have a thing for tortellini. Getting my family to eat more broccoli is always a win as well. This Lemon Broccoli Tortellini looks delicious.

Commonwealth and Do the Work: Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way just became available for me at the library for my Kindle. Time to get my read on. 

Have a great weekend!

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