Every day starts with grand intentions about “getting things done.” Then I spend the whole day in constant motion, on full mom mode- keeping the toddler happy, cleaning here and there, taking care of home stuff, trying to get blog stuff done, taking care of the dog, cats and fish.
And then I feel like I got nothing done, am totally exhausted and ready for bed, and then just do the whole thing over again. It goes something like this:
5AM – I’ll sleep just a little more and get everything done after he goes to bed tonight.
6:30AM – 8:30PM Spend all day entertaining toddler
8:30PM – He’s asleep! I feel like doing nothing!
9:30PM – I should go to bed early so I can get a good rest and wake up early and get things done!
5AM – I’ll sleep just a little more and get everything done after he goes to bed tonight…
and so on…
** It’s currently 9:28PM (when I wrote this) and I actually finished a blog post so I’ll just go pat myself on the back now…and go to bed 🙂
My friend Lauren’s invitation that sparked the Great Facebook Commentary
I’m new to this kid birthday party thing and one thing I keep running into over and over again is the “No Gifts Please” request. Seems pretty straightforward. They don’t need any more junk, but would love for you to celebrate with them. Just please don’t bring them any more stuff they have to find a place/use for, because they already have a ton of stuff.
However, my husband has always interpreted “No Gifts Please” as “We are just being polite, you should really bring some kind of gift or we’ll think you’re terrible people.”
This usually results in an argument where I tell him he can go get a gift if he wants, but he doesn’t, then we show up and see few people actually brought gifts, then he’s all “I told you so,” and then I feel like crap. This cycle repeats with every invitation. So when faced once again with the no gift plea, I turned to Facebook to see what the common opinion was.
Seems there’s a birthday party conspiracy theory running rampant that “No Gifts” should be interpretated as you see fit, and there are loopholes where you should actually bring a gift.
And then there’s the “I was raised to be polite and bring a gift” camp, but all those people don’t seem to realize that the polite thing to do is FOLLOW THE DAMN INSTRUCTIONS and honor the request of the people throwing the party.
If you are feeling confused, here’s the most popular reasons posted as to why they make the request for No Gifts:
1 – They live in a small space and already have too much stuff. They’d have to get rid of stuff just to fit in the stuff you brought that they didn’t want.
2 – Their kids are getting a ton of presents from family already.
3 – Their child is particular and probably won’t like it so they don’t want you to waste your money.
4 – Their child is turning one and isn’t going to notice anyway.
5 – They want everyone to come and have fun and not worry about spending money on a gift.
In case you are still not convinced and have to bring something to ease your pain about going against the social norm, the most popular non-gift gift solution was to get a gift card and give it discretely so you don’t make all the other people who followed directions feel bad. The other top ideas were tickets for experiences and bringing food items.
It all boils down to this: It’s not some social experiment. No Gifts Please really means don’t bring a gift. Not “get creative about your gift” or “I don’t want you to feel like you have to, but please bring a gift.” It’s straight, honest, and pretty easy to understand. And when you show up without that gift bag, I’m pretty sure the host will be happy you actually took the time to read her invitation.
I spent some time yesterday crafting a post about how toddlers are assholes. It was basically just me ranting about my tremendously crappy day that resulted in me crying while my son ran off to pee on the floor. (#momlife at its best 🙄)
But I didn’t post it because it wasn’t a full article type post with a point and perfectly prepared pics. Ha! Try saying that 5 times fast.
My original blog, the anonymous one about my IVF experience, really gave me an emotional outlet. I didn’t care about stats and likes, I just shared to get it all off my chest. But things changed when I decided to do a “real blog.”
My posts became more planned out. I started thinking of them more like magazine articles. And sometimes I’m doing paid posts and it starts to feel like a homework assignment!
It’s making it all more like work and less like the emotional and creative outlet that attracted me to blogging in the first place. So while I still plan to keep that part going, I’m also going to just pop in here with no big agenda, no sponsored links and just write about life and enjoy myself.
So the blog continues to evolve… even if it is something of a step back to a simpler time. A time before I knew what an Amazon affiliate was… lol
It’s Tuesday and I don’t have anything particular planned to post today. It was a busy weekend with two birthdays and family visiting so there was very little computer time. I even took the entire day offline Sunday and just worked in the yard. Not even one Facebook update about all the new things I planted. It felt good to just do things and not try and get a perfect photo and share and tag and hashtag.
There’s a lot of things I need to catch up on and do a blog post about – My son turned the big 3 on Saturday and I threw my first kid party. His birthday is almost the same as his dad’s, so they’ve been having combo parties until now. Birdy Boutique sent me several cute things for the party, including the awesome birthday crown I’m wearing in the photo. It reminded me of Max’s crown in Where the Wilds Things Are. Of course my son refused to wear that, or the bow ties, or super cool dinosaur capes they sent! So I’m still working on pics of all that.
My grandmother brought me a Copper Crisper air fryer thing and I gave it a try with sweet potatoes. I wasn’t blown away by the results, but I did take pics of it all, so plan on a riveting review coming soon.
House renovations are still in full swing. We are currently working on adding pavers and a fire pit to the big jungle area we have in front. There’s probably a blog post in there somewhere…
And we got a pile of great books from Good Night Books but seem to be stalled on the first one. I was really looking forward to trying to get a bedtime story reading thing going but Keelan just isn’t having it. I haven’t managed to get all the way through one of the books without him skipping to the end and throwing it. Starting to suspect this kid does not share his mom’s love of books. All I can do is keep trying right?
Well as usual, if it links to Amazon, it’s an affiliate link. I’m off now to go do a Skype interview for an infomercial casting for a new Ninja cooking system. I’ve actually done a lot of Skype casting interviews for reality type TV shows always wonder if I’m just wasting my time. This is my first commercial casing! But just like with reading books to my son, I figure if I just keep trying and not expect too much, maybe something will come out of it, lol.
Hope you all had a great weekend! Wish me luck on my interview 🙂
When I first saw bloggers posting about upping their Insta-game with a felt letter board, I didn’t really get it. And then when I saw it, I was like, well now I have to have it! It’s a framed felt board with little slots to stick in letters and numbers. The more I looked, the more I saw them being used and felt like I needed to give it a try.
I did some research and found a cute post on NestingWithGrace.com where they found a lot of good uses for their board (photo above) and another with good tips and tricks on keeping your letters straight and setting up your layout.
I got this 10×10 wooden framed letter board by Shiny Vita off Amazon and was ready to think of something brilliant to share with the world. (If you feel the burning need to get one too, go ahead and click my handy affiliate link there and use code “geekmamas” for 25% off.)
The board comes with little scissors and 680 letters, symbols and numbers attached to plastic grids. About half of them glow in the dark so you can marvel at your witty quotes even with the lights out. It also comes with a little bag to keep your letters in, however, I found the best way to organize everything is to get little plastic containers with dividers. I got a 3-pack of plastic containers which was enough to organize everything in its own individual space so it doesn’t take an hour to find the right letter or symbol.
But before I could get started, I had to get snipping. And snipping. And organizing…
After I finally snipped them all off (ok most of them) I was ready to put something on it! But what?? Stuff I made up? Quotes from other places? My super witty insights into #momlife? I stared at that board for a long time and only managed to come up with this:
So maybe I’m not ready to join the Instagram letter board brigade just yet…lol.
I have at least found some other creative uses besides quotes:
Hashtags at sampling and promo partiesSpecial message for Nanny on her birthday!
And next I’ll probably use it as a sign at my son’s birthday party. So it has come in handy, although I kind of find putting all those little pieces on the board extremely tedious and want to quit halfway through and find some better use of my time.
But then I think…how will my husband get through the night without gazing on my wisdom glowing in the darkness? And I just keep going…
Feel free to inspired me with your favorite felt letter board quotes and posts!
It’s Tuesday and I don’t have anything particular planned to post today. It was a busy weekend with two birthdays and family visiting so there was very little computer time. I even took the entire day offline Sunday and just worked in the yard. Not even one Facebook update about all the new things I planted. It felt good to just do things and not try and get a perfect photo and share and tag and hashtag.
