Busy Bee

This past weekend was full of lots of fun with extended family.
Unfortunately, I have a HUGE yard sale to get ready for this coming Saturday & Sunday...and I didn't do what I was supposed to do this weekend.

So that means right now I'm up to my eyeballs in yellow sticky price tags and trying to decide if we really need to keep 3 million stuffed animals. (G is only 16 months, how did she get that many already???)


Hopefully I'll be back to myself soon. :)

Dream Interpretation

Sometimes dreams need no interpretation. They are obvious in their meaning. Or just really good representations as to what thoughts consume your mind during the day.

For example, my dream last night:

Ron Weasley (or perhaps Rupert Grint, it was not quite clear in my dream) joined the local Air National Guard unit. And I was somehow with him, every step of the way. Annoyed at his apparent lackadaisical approach to this complete life upheaval.

Yup. That about sums it up.

I'm a Slacker

Yes, I know I’ve been a little absent. I always find the first post after a long pause….awkward. And considering not many people read this, can you just accept my apology & we’ll move on like nothing happened?

Ok good.

I haven’t really been able to find words worthy of sharing. Not to mention the stuff going on that I WANT to talk about, but the hubby & I agreed we wouldn’t until it was ‘for sure’. As of this Friday it should be ‘for sure’, so I’m going to keep the anticipation up for just a little longer. (Though it’s all over facebook, and our entire families know…I still feel like I shouldn’t share it with the rest of the world yet…and no, I’m not pregnant…)

Otherwise we’ve been keeping busy at the Wally House. Since my last post we’ve had G’s first birthday party, my grandparents arrived home from FL (and we’re all adjusting to having 5 people in the house again), my sister’s bridal shower was this past weekend and coming up this Saturday is a BBQ for my dad’s 50^th.

I’m learning I enjoy planning parties & get togethers. I just wish I had more time & funds to devote to them.

I apologize for my kind of lame-o post. G shared her cold with me, and even my thoughts are congested.

I’m also going to be working on the look of my blog, and possibly renaming it. So this place is officially under construction. Please excuse our mess. J

Spring has Sprung...well it's trying...

Even though the weather can’t seem to make up its mind…I can feel spring. Some days you can actually feel it in the air: the warmer weather, the sounds of birds returning from the south, a muddy yard, flood warnings instead of winter weather advisories…but I feel spring in a different way.

Springtime is all about change. When a cold tundra turns into beautiful lush yards & fields full of birds, bugs, flowers & grass. It’s about starting anew, with spring cleaning, opening windows to let the fresh air in & finally hanging your clothes to dry on the line, like you swear you will do every year. Last year it meant a new baby. This year it means a new toddler. I can’t wait to see her run through the yard, to swing on the swing with her, teach her how to use the slide her cousins are handing down to her.

This year our family has taken the ‘freshness’ and ‘newness’ to a different level. Tyson started a new job today. In a construction field he has missed dearly. With Monday-Friday hours and much room for advancement & pay hikes. Roofing does require some long hours, and possibly a couple out of town trips…but that’s nothing we can’t handle. And maybe I’ll even learn to make those times fun for Miss G & me.

It’s nice to finally take a big exhale and enjoy the world unfolding around us. God is so good.

One of Life's Weird Coincidences

Today I had one of those “NO WAY!” moments.

I don’t know what made me think of it. Maybe knowing how Tyson is struggling to find work again, and how that’s been a trend with him since getting out of the Navy. How I was lucky to land the job I currently have, I started as a temp through a family member (whom I don’t even have contact with anymore) and now, 2 ½ years later, I’m an asset to this department.

Over the span of several years I worked for a portrait studio on & off. The job was always there when I needed it. It was a sanctuary for me when I was lonely & missing Tyson – there was always someone there to make me smile and work to be done to keep me busy. Then one day we received a phone call that the store would be closing 48 hours from then.

My whole world had been turned upside down when I heard this news. Between the loss of my sanctuary and Tyson being deployed I went into a semi-depression. Until that day life was promising. Tyson was being discharged in 2 months he’d move back to NY, get a job and we’d start our life together. Now we were looking at neither of us being employed & didn’t know which way to turn. The future we dreamt of felt so far away. It was today that I realized – we got that fateful store closing phone call on March 24^th. Three years later on that exact same day my life would be turned upside down once again with the birth of our beautiful daughter. (At least it was turned upside down in a good way this time!!)

We still might be struggling for parts of that dream we had 3 years ago. Certainly one amazing dream was realized in that bouncing baby girl.

Who knows where we’ll be 3 years from the day Tyson lost his job. It’s all in God’s plan. I was just never one to master the art of patience.

Just enough

The beginning of every weekend I always start out with big ambition; to do some project, make some new meal or clean, clean, clean.

This weekend I definitely had big ideas – I was going to organize our bedroom, start working on some decorations for G’s birthday party and maybe try to make a pillow out of an old sweater. (Not to mention print out the party invitations, catch up on laundry, etc, etc, etc…)

Let’s see….I finished….none of the above. I did do some damage with the clutter in our bedroom, including completely organizing my side of the bed. I really should have taken before & after pictures, but I was a woman on a mission (and naptime was coming to a close) so I had to rush rush rush! This coming weekend hopefully I’ll tackle the closet. That will definitely require a before & after picture!!

Trust me. I’ve slept much better knowing I won’t trip over a pile of old paper work & magazines overflowing from a basket, if the baby wakes up in the middle of the night.

I did *buy* the things I need to make the party decorations. (At least the two-pack of Styrofoam balls did lead to a weekends worth of bad jokes & inappropriate innuendo between Tyson & me.)And really, let’s be honest, the invites don’t have to go out for at least another 10 days, so I was just being unrealistic with that one!

I didn’t make an incredible meal for my family. Saturday while grocery shopping we found Digornio made a pizza & cookies package…so of course we had to buy that. (My husband loves cookies. It’s an illness.) And last night was hotdogs. I just wasn’t channeling Betty Crocker this weekend.

All in all, I guess I accomplished something.

I spent time with my happy little family, so everything else really doesn’t matter.

February Blues

The bitter cold of this winter is starting to make this mama weary. I’m sluggish, and feeling lazy – though I know that is definitely not the case. It’s not cabin fever, because I’m certainly out of the house enough. (Probably more than I’d like to be…)

I now know why bears hibernate in the winter. I wish I could do that right about now. I’ve got a nice warm, comfy, fuzzy blanket on my bed, which is calling my name. (This blanket is magical; the baby will even cuddle with you for a period of time, as long as you have this blanket wrapped around you both! The warmth of the blanket & a snugglie baby, nothing is better!)

Everything seems to move slower when it’s cold. And I think that’s where I’m at right now. I’ve got some big things coming up, so hopefully I can thaw out a bit before then. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy this leisurely pace.

Whether the weather be fine, Whether the weather be not, Whether the weather be cold, Whether the weather be hot, We'll weather the weather, Whatever the weather, Whether we like it or not"

Now appearing on a Twitter screen near you...

That's right. I did it. I got a twitter account.

twitter.com/mama_wally

Just what we all need, more nugets of my random thoughts to share.

Could You Pass the Stuffing, Please?

My plate of life is full. It’s like the world is the table at Thanksgiving, and even though my plate is already overflowing with turkey, mashed potatoes & cranberry sauce…I want to pile on the stuffing too.

Mmm…now I’m hungry.

Anywho, yeah there’s a lot going on right now. I know this is all kind of random, but I just had to share because I'm excited about all of it. (So excited that I can't seem to concentrate on just one thing for more than 10 minutes...)

Okay....now.....what was I talking about.......

*Planning G’s birthday party! I can’t believe she’ll be 1 in just two short months! Fun, but frugal ideas anyone?

*Planning/Helping with my sister’s bridal shower! YAY!!

*I already posted on how I started working on our family’s genealogy. While it’s fascinating, it’s frustrating! I had a written copy of my Grandmother’s family tree, and now I can’t find it. I tore the upstairs apart looking for it. (And my mom’s copy is in storage!) My goal was to focus on Tyson’s Dad’s branch of the tree, and I’m now stuck at a Great-Grandfather who was born in 1800. Ugh. I guess I should be pretty happy with what I have so far. Not bad for only doing this for 2 weeks.

*Perhaps my biggest project: I finally decided - I am going to do it. I am going to start taking steps for my own photography business . I’ve said that so many times, but this time I mean it! I used the baby as an excuse…and before I know it I will have another baby to use as an excuse. I can at least try, right? Before I come up with another excuse. (Which I’ve already decided would be that I’m nervous about doing so well I’d have to leave the security of my current job….but isn’t that what I want???)

All this on top of STILL switching billing systems at work, trying to take care of my household as if I didn’t work 40 hours, planning 2 weekends away on a budget – one to NYC and one to Boston and wondering why the heck I can’t make a loaf of bread.

Daylight Savings Funk

I’ve really been struggling the past few days. My mind feels full to capacity, but when I sit down to put it in words….no words exist.

Everything seems to be overwhelming to me, yet I don’t have a reason why. Work has been stressful, and it makes me miss G something terrible. So maybe that’s it. What it all really boils down to. I’ve read that a new mom’s brain grows and her senses are more intuned to her baby. Maybe I’m so upset over the time I’m missing with her that this emotion has completely hijacked my brain.

Or…I could just blame this funk I’m in on daylight savings. (Much like I blamed daylight savings on the extreme urge to shove a fondue fork up a co-workers nose today. She really got under my skin, and that was the first image that came to mind. Go figure.)

.......Needless to say…....I have not been doing such a good job sticking to the organization schedule.