A&A in Writing Wonderland @abiandavery-blog - Tumblr Blog

My turn! I choose number 5: a place you would live, but have never visited.

There are many. Partly because dental schools are located in some of these places but also because I love mountains, water, the thought of having seasons, different places, exploring, and something different than Florida. And Europe.

Portland, Oregon. Portland, Maine. San Francisco, Cali. Homer, Alaska... make that a lot of livable places in Alaska. Iceland! Scotland! Wales? South of France. Maybe Italy.

Short and sweet.

Abi has funny pet peeves. I, too, think it is rude when everyone stays silent when someone sneezes. God bless their life so they don’t die vs die, sneezer, die. And in the previous, the possibility of writing never wanting to own a minivan into her vows got me good.

Okay, so here we go. Number 15: Three Pet Peeves.

1. People who spoil things. Movies, books, stories, jokes, surprises all of it. I will hold you at a different regard if you spoil anything for someone else. If you spoil something for me, I will probably stop talking to you (unless I love you then I will just be very angry toward you for the rest of our lives). Why am I so extreme about this you ask? Because someone ruined the ending to Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows for me before I could read the book and I will never not be bitter about that. My mother is the worst at not spoiling things. I learned this attribute of hers earlier on in life and now start humming or yelling anytime she gets too close to a plot line of something I am interested in. Naturally, she hates when I do that. But I hate when she spoils plots. Twilight was a close call. Say or write “spoiler alert” ANY time you are about to say something pivotal. I cannot stress that enough.

2. People having too strong of a backbone online but having zero guts in person. If you would not argue with me in Publix about what you argue with me online, don’t write it. I tend to stay away from posting any controversial topic online solely for the fact of online backbones. Add online bullies and trolls to that too. I am totally happy to read your gushy romantic posts, animals, babies, adventures, whatever. But for the love of all that is right, do not argue online if you 1) wouldn’t do it in person, 2) don’t have a damn idea what you’re talking about, or 3) are being mean.

3. People who chew with their mouth open. Bad hygiene. People who are not grateful/thankful/respectful. Unfair parental treatment of their children- you can have a favorite but don’t let them know that. People who won’t help themselves. God gave you a brain, use it. Don’t live off others for the rest of your life. Wrongly placed entitlements. That is a LOT more than 3. I do not care.

I am apparently salty today.

Next choice is up and it is: number 15. Three pet peeves. I’m just in one of those moods today.

1) With the presidential election upon us, everyone is taking to social media to express their opinions and who they’re favoring. This is not the part that bugs me. The problem here is that no one can seem to respect other peoples’ choices and opinions. This is America we live in. Historically we have always been a melting pot. People from all different places and backgrounds. We have never been a uniform nation, and if we all agreed with each other this country would be boring and not progressive. It’s not hard to respect people. Especially through a screen. So if you see something you don’t agree with or want to have a mature discussion, personal message them, or better yet, KEEP scrolling!

2) Also, when people sneeze and no one acknowledges it. Very rude.

3) Some other pet peeves include: when Netflix shows end, the ice cream is all gone, having to get dressed, Florida heat. This is more than three, but getting number one off my chest made me feel a lot better.

I’m adding onto Avery’s choice of number 14.

My life in 7 years.

Gosh, Spencer and I talk about our five year plan all the time so this kind of feels like the same thing. In 7 years, I will be a wife. In 7 years, I will have children, not a child. But perhaps one will still be a baby, but do they ever stop being your babies? Hopefully there’s a son in the mix. In 7 years, I would like to have an SUV. Currently, I have a 2006 Ford Focus but it only has 50k miles on it! And is in phenomenal shape, but if I have multiple kiddos, I gotta have an SUV! No mini-van. None. Might include that in my marriage vows. In 7 years, I will have a degree, completed and graduated before 7 years or 5 years are up! I am not a career driven person so I’m not going to spoil what my degree will be in (maybe because I’m not sure now). In 7 years, Spencer and I will own a home.

But mainly in 7 years, I hope that my family and I are happy. I pray that we are healthy. I hope we are thankful, kind, and genuine. I hope that I’m constantly doing laundry with mud stains and having to buy all kinds of sporting equipment. I hope I’m playing catch in the back yard and having tea parties on Saturday morning. In 7 years, I would like my family and I to be involved in a great church and that my children earnestly seek Jesus.

Also, in 7 years I better have a dog.

Maybe I’ll become more creative or eloquent too.

Since I briefly mentioned goals in the last post, I chose topic 14.

14: Your life in 7 years.

This is all hopes and dreams so I’m not going to say “hopefully” “possibly” etc. It’s what my goals are so enjoy.

In 7 years I will be 32. I will have had my masters degree for 6 years and my DMD for 2. I will be considered a General Dentist from the school of my choosing and working on finishing up the last month of becoming a Pediatric Dentist. I will be employed by a military branch of the great USA, who also paid for my DMD degree, living in a city we both love, helping humans in need, taking trips to far away lands for play and for work. We will have one kid and be pregnant with another. We will be debt free, have 2 years left in military service and deciding on if we want to stay in the military or move back to our roots to start a practice in good ol Bradenton or the lovely St Petersburg. We will have memories of spending anniversaries in Rome, Oslo, Reykjavik, Yosemite, and backpacking all through Europe for two months. The anniversary left out will be because we had a kid and couldn’t travel. There was that one time we rented a captained sailboat and sailed around Maine or the Caribbean or the Mediterranean. My father’s house in Alaska is officially fixed up and we spend winter nights there watching the Northern Lights dance along the sky. We’ll dance, we’ll kiss, we’ll be madly in love in this life we grew together pondering what’s next on our grand adventure together. We don’t need much but we also want for not. It wasn’t all rainbows and cupcakes but we made it.

7: What tattoos I have and their meaning:

I have two little tattoos that I love very much.

I made an appointment the day after my 18th birthday (mother would never approve of tattoos before turning 18) to get the words “fly away” on my hip. Why? I loved the idea of “flying away” and exploring and doing and blah blah blah. It was a lame idea. I cancelled the appointment and I still pat my 18 year old self on the back for making that decision.

My first tattoo is on my foot and it says “adventure is out there”. It’s from the Pixar movie UP! Tis my favorite movie. I got it on my foot to hide it with shoes when I wanted to and for the fact that your feet take you places- ie on adventures. I got it sporadically in Nashville while visiting my best friend. She got “Not my will, but His” on her clavicle and I got my little adventure words. I was in between getting the deathly hallows or adventure or adventure is out there. Ben helped me decide. I still love it and still want the deathly hallows somewhere on my body. Back of the ear? On my scapula? Inside my mouth? To be determined.

My second tattoo is on the inner of my left bicep and it says “always.” Ben totally failed at getting me a Valentine’s Day present so as we were walking to breakfast he was brainstorming on how to make up for it when the idea arose “do you want to get matching tattoos?”. Of course I did! I had the idea for a while but wanted it after we got married to kind of imprint our vows and love on each other. We wrote our own vows and the only guidelines that we had in place was to end with something about “always”. Why? Harry Potter of course! And The Hunger Games. Mostly just Harry Potter. So we went to the tattoo parlor on Valentine’s Day a few months before we got married and tattooed our love onto the inner of our arms. His is bigger and on his right arm in a different orientation than mine. I adore them. I still get little butterflies when I see his sometimes. On our wedding day, our photographers captured a few photos of my “always” tattoo and it makes me love, love, love it that much more.

Next tattoo? A landscape of scratchy trees with the words “& miles to go before I sleep” underneath. It’s from a Robert Frost poem and it speaks volumes to me. No matter how much I achieve, do, conquer there’s always another goal to reach. Graduate undergrad, get into dental, become a dentist, have a family, raise that family, stay madly in love, travel the world, be happy, do good, etc. All the goals. Here’s the last stanza if you’re unfamiliar with the poem:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

One day I’ll become more fascinating and better at writing. Today is not that day.

Ok, going strong on writing for this 30-day writing challenge! I am going to choose number 7 - what tattoos you have and their meaning - since it came up in my last post!

Over the last five years, I have accumulated my little collection of ink. In total, I have five tattoos. All of them are black ink, the idea of color and fading just daunted me. They are all fairly small stamps and no shading required on any of them! Whoo hoo!

1. My first tattoo I got was in November of 2009, I was sixteen years old (my seventeenth birthday was a month away) and I had parental permission. It’s a pea pod with the name ‘Poppy’ on the inside. I absolutely love the meaning behind this one. My grandfather aka Poppy had passed away a month earlier and we had a very close relationship. I had lived majority of my life with him along with my grandma and dad. Poppy reminded me of Santa Claus - he was plump, joyful, rosy cheeks, and loved spoiling his grandchildren. No white beard though. He was an infectious person to be around and could capture an entire room with his presence and enthusiasm for life. He was first diagnosed with cancer in 2002 and eight year old me decided to make him a handmade get well card. I basically told him he had to get better because he was “the quack to my duck, the peanut butter to my jelly, and we were two peas in a pod”. That card must’ve tugged on his heartstrings because the final eight years of his life I got so many pea pod memorabilia. I felt that a pea pod was the only acceptable representation of our relationship to display on my body.

But, LOL, side note, when I arrived the tattoo artist had thought I wanted the tattoo on my inner hip. Like no, I don’t want my Poppy that close to my lady region!

2. My second tattoo came spring of my freshman year of college! When people tell you tattoos are addicting, they are correct and I had caught the itch to get another! I got a small infinity sign with the words “one four three” in the middle of it in between my shoulder blades. In the olden days of ‘beepers’, 143 was a message that meant ‘I love you’. I’ll break it down for those who don’t understand - I is one letter, love is four letters, and you is 3 letters, hence 143. When I got an AOL account, my dad would message me 143 and from there on that’s how we always said I love you to each other. I have a stack of hand written notes from him and he always signed it ‘143 Dad’. So my second tattoo, basically meant I love you forever Dad. It’s probably my favorite tattoo because it makes me smile and he passed away several months ago. I miss him every day but I carry his love with me everywhere I go. :)

3. Goodness gracious, my third tattoo is the one I care about the least. I plan on letting it just fade out forever. It’s on my right foot - and yes, foot tattoos hurt. Anyway, it says “M’aimer pour qui je suis” which means love me for who I am in French. I can pronounce it, very roughly, and why did I get it in French? No clue, I think French is a beautiful language and certainly so to read, but just a dumb decision on my part. I had recently been dumped and was heartbroken. My mental and emotional state was iffy and I was all about finding myself, building confidence in myself solo, and experimenting with new interests (not to be confused with batting with the other team). That’s fine and great, but in hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have gotten this tattoo. I got it as a reminder to love myself first before anyone else, but I don’t need ink to remember that. Silly 19 year old me.

4. My fourth tattoo is very small and my secret one. Only two people knew I got it and it was originally supposed to be one. It looks like this ‘g>^v’. But actually it looks a lot better on skin because typing out the symbols on the computer makes it all look uneven. Anyway, it means God (g) is greater than (>) the ups (^) and downs (v) of life.

5. My most recent one, Spencer (my man) and I got tattoos together. It was our first date night since Harper had arrived in our world. He got her birthdate on his left wrist and I got her initials on my right wrist. Always a part of us. <3

Following up with Avery’s selection of our 30 day writing challenge!

T e n interesting f a c t s about myself! (Hang in there, these might actually be painfully boring) (or quirky instead of interesting)

1. I enjoy shopping, what girl doesn’t? But often times when I am online shopping, I will put things in my cart with full intentions of buying and then change my mind and never buy it. No FOMO here.

2. I am a little too obsessed with house projects. I just really love decorating and making a place your own and homey. Refurbishing furniture, cool ways to hang pictures, you name it. I blame Joanna Gaines and HGTV.

3. I love taking pictures, printing them, and scrapbooking. I wouldn’t say I’m photo op crazed because there are plenty of times I go out and forget to take a picture and I’m ok with that. But time is fleeting and one day pictures will be the only things to remember from certain times of life.

4. I don’t like bananas, strawberries, or blueberries. Am I still American? Well I can eat strawberry and blueberry flavored foods, but anything banana is an absolute no. Smell. Taste. Texture. Flavor. Utter disgust.

5. I can’t help myself but smile or say “congratulations” when I see a pregnant woman. I just love babies and mommy hood that much.

6. I really like saving spare change and having all my pennies and coins in a jar for some sort of rainy-day fund. It’s aesthetically pleasing.

7. My sister and I once drove (she drove, I was the unfortunate passenger) off a mountain on a four-wheeler and survived. I’ll chalk that up to ‘interesting’.

8. My ears aren’t pierced! But I have five tattoos. (Getting desperate to reach ten)

9. I absolutely must have a list before I go grocery shopping.

10. I love all things chocolate, but despise tootsie rolls. Ew. Chocolate earwax, am I right?

#thatwashard

Day 2 of our 30 day writing challenge!

Since Abs got to pick the first, I am choosing the second. She chose her favorite number so I am following suit with mine; number 4. Coincidentally, our favorite numbers are back to back. I’m a fan.

Anyway, here it goes. Number 4 for day 2!

4. Ten interesting facts about yourself.

I am an aspiring dentist (is that interesting?)

My husband and I eloped to NYC to get married and used the money we saved up for a wedding to spend 4 weeks in Europe. I highly encourage everyone to elope- but still get beautiful pictures.

I have a backwards tooth. It grew in that way and the docs were like okay we’ll leave it.

I have a bachelors degree in Biology

99% of the time I have a book in my bag in case there’s an opportunity to read. Even at bars.

My Meyers-Briggs personality type is INTJ but I can be extremely extroverted when I want to be.

I am really interested in olympic lifting but you will never see me post nor talk about it unless you ask me about lifting. That being said I haven’t worked out since January. Is that an interesting fact or just sad?

I wanderlust so much if you catch me day dreaming I’m probably planning a trip to some far off land.

I (possibly) have an autoimmune disorder that makes me turn purple and blue when I get really cold and my hands turn white and I lose feeling in my fingers. I haven’t officially gotten it checked out by a doctor but enough people/doctors have seen it happen/seen pictures to tell me I have it. So I guess I’ll believe them because it’s apparently not normal.

I hate peppers and red velvet cake.

I feel like most of these aren’t that interesting but hey I tried.

Abi’s turn!

#30 day challenge #30 day blogging challenge

"Your feminine heart has been created with the greatest of all possible dignities- as a reflection of God's own heart."

Abi came up with a brilliant plan on how to get us two to blog more; a thirty day writing challenge! So. I’ve already failed her by waiting two days to write on the first day of this little challenge. Whoops! She chose the first topic to write on by choosing her favorite number, number 3. Here we go.

3. Your first love and first kiss, if separate, discuss both.

Part Uno: First smooch-a-roo (because it happened first and we should always go in chronological order for these kinds of things)

This is a complicated topic. My first “peck” of a kiss was technically in the 5th grade in a pool. I did it on a dare and laughed in the kids face afterward. Growing up with boys I rarely turned down a challenge.

My first “french kiss” was in 6th grade and it was sloppy, wet, and really gross. It turned me off of kissing until I was in the 9th grade. Details? I had just started “going out” with a boy (names are unimportant) the day prior and we were at a birthday party together. One of the boys older brothers took us out on their boat to this little island and had us two and another “couple” get off the boat first, then causally left us on the island. Fear really set in at that point. I started thinking of exit strategies and basic “I will claw your eyes out if you try anything” but he was kind and as awkward as I. The other “couple” was my now best friend, Shelby, and a boy whose name escapes me. The four of us sat on the shoreline until the boat came back to pick us up. When they did, the stipulation of getting back on the boat was to kiss our respectable boys. So we kissed and it was like getting my entire face licked. I avoided him the rest of the day and we “broke up” after a whole 24 hours of “going out”. Magic I tell you.

Part dos: First love

This is a fun topic. My first love. It might be a long story because it is such a good story.

We met on a few occasions. The first is how he remembers it- in a church parking lot. He remembers skating outside a church parking lot with some of his friends when a really strange girl (that’s me) walks up to him and asks what he’s doing (as if it wasn’t obvious). He so handsomely replied (meaning the most jerk-ish way possible) “skating.” why? “because we can” and swiftly skates away. I remember doing this, but I don’t remember it being him. This happened somewhere in my freshman year of high school.

I remember meeting him officially by catching a ride home from school with a friend and he was sitting in the front seat of the car. He looked different than I thought so I asked him obvious and annoying questions until he got dropped off at where he worked. He was mean and evasive the entire time. Years later I found out he told Keith, who we got a ride from that day, to drive away when I asked for a ride. Thanks for that.

The third time meeting was precious.

My friend wanted to invite the boy she liked over to my house so they could hang out. As a rule, whenever she wanted to invite the guy she liked over, the guy had to bring a friend so I could hang out with them and not third wheel so hard. The friend ended up being him. The mean kid from the car. But this time he wasn’t mean. He was sweet and charming. He pushed me around on his skateboard and said funny things. He was winning my favor every passing second. At one point in the night, my girl friend had to go inside to call her parents and I accidentally insulted the guy she liked so he took off walking down the street which left us alone.

Me alone. With this undeniably attractive boy with the sweetest smile.

What does a normal girl do? Not what I did. I grabbed his hand, whispered “let’s hide” and started running towards a bush. So, there we were.. sitting in one of my neighbors bushes, huddled together, talking, and waiting for our friends to reappear. I might have fell in love with him right then and there. He told me about his family, school, his job, we just talked. In a bush. We must have sat there for twenty minutes before we gave up on hiding. Olly, olly oxen free. Once reconvened, we laughed more, and played more. When it was ready for them to leave, we exchanged phone numbers, embraced, and he was gone. My heart was fluttering. My friend and I gushed all night over those boys. It was Friday June 16th, 2006. The tail end of my freshman year.

The next night he called me and we talked for four hours. Even though it was after 3 am when we hung up, I called Erin. She had just gotten off the phone with her guy too. We gushed for a little and decided that the next day we would ask them out at the exact same time, 3 pm. He was at work when I called and when I asked him to be my boyfriend he said of course but I beat him to the punch and that he wanted to do it in person that night. Oops. It was Sunday June 18th 2006.

We’re married now.

After a long hiatus, I (Abi) have returned! Man, life is crazy! My fiancé, daughter, and I have taken a lot of road trips lately and have been doing a lot of house projects (and conquering them)! But since laundry is done, the house is relatively clean, and the child is fed I found some time to sit down and get some thoughts down. Plus we got a new desk and I’m totally in love with the little work/creative space we’ve made, I gotta break it in with a blog post right?!

So, I posted the 30-day writing challenge probably 30 days ago and starting it now, LOL, but I am going to do one today! I’m going to start in random order, whatever my heart is feeling that day…so my favorite/lucky number is 3, so we shall start there!

3. Your first love and first kiss, if separate, discuss both.

Oooh a juicy one to start with. I’ll begin with a first kiss since that’s what occurred first in my life.

Part I I was in 7th grade and ‘going out’ with a boy was all the rage. His name was Austin Hopp and we had gone to elementary school together and then reunited in 7th grade. Fate, am I right? He was a total 12 year old hottie, with the Bieber hair flip and rockin’ the knock off skater shoes. And there I was an inch taller, lanky, and wearing far too much eye liner underneath. I don’t really recall our first smooch, like a peck, but he was the first boy I attempted to make out with and that memory was traumatizing.

We were at a football game, and there was a lot of hype because we were going to kiss, WITH TONGUE, it was a big deal! And I was super nervous, so nervous I can’t even describe it to you without feeling uncomfortable to this day. Anyway, we met up behind a tree. (I’m having flashbacks and feeling embarrassed now as I’m typing this). We started kissing, and man I just did not know what to do! It was so much slobbier than what the movies showed and there was NO ‘chemistry’ between us. I just stood there, awkwardly, not knowing what to do with my mouth. And it lasted maybe 20 seconds before I got embarrassed and ran away. We broke up the next week and he told everyone I was a bad kisser. Middle school woes people! But like Celine once told me, my heart did go on.

Part II My first love came in high school. I was a sophomore when I started dating another boy who was in college. Our age difference brought on a lot of attention and probably some judgement too. But he was a really good guy, never got in trouble, hadn’t really dated any one before, and from a great family. My family loved him and his loved me. It was a totally immature relationship, but aren’t all first loves? We were totally infatuated and fought about the things that really didn’t matter. We hadn’t yet learned boundaries while arguing, but all we wanted to do was spend time together and laugh about silly things. Totally just young and in love. We went our separate ways eventually, but it was for the best. I got to grow up and really understand what traits I found admirable, what I didn’t want, and learned the areas I needed to work on for my next relationship. When I look back on our time together I have no regrets. We had an overall great relationship and I’m glad we were friends while dating and each other’s first love.

Alright Avery, tag you’re it! Or you can just add your experiences to this post :)

#30daywritingchallenge #firstlove #firstkiss #abiandaveryconqueringtheworld

Get ready because Abi and Avery, or Abery if you will is ready for the challenge!

Have you ever thought about how in some point of your life, your parents picked you up for the last time?

It makes me incredibly sad to think about that.

I’ve noticed a lot lately in my news feed people are complaining about the detrimental effects of social media. Which I find ironic they use Internet memes to post on social networks to complain about social networking. You know what I’m talking about. People are losing the art of conversation and reaching for their phone or tablet instead. Disconnecting people in attempts to connect people. What a conundrum. I totally agree to an extent that too much time with technology is detrimental, but I want to take time and refresh our minds of what a great tool it is. Specifically, I’m just going to talk about the advantages of Facebook (I don’t have twitter & I’m new to Tumblr).

1. Connecting people

This is obvious & the very reason it was created. It’s meant to reconnect people with family members and friends. Duh. As I have recently relocated, I’ve begun sharing more photos to stay in touch with my loved ones and dear friends.

2. Careers

Almost every place of business now is responsible for having some sort of social media account. It’s the new form of advertising! People can write reviews and business owners & employees can now be connected with their customers in a way never done before. Businesses can instantly share what’s going on! Large corporations often have a paying position specifically for this - social media director. Facebook and other social networks have created jobs for people, this is good!!

3. Access to information

Since most businesses and corporations (amongst newspapers, hospitals, schools, etc) have Facebook pages, everything they do can be shared on your feed with your friends. I have read numerous articles and learned so much about all kinds of things simply because a friend shared it! I mean, how cool is that?! Most likely I would’ve never even seen those articles (some educational, mainly Game of Thrones theories) if Facebook weren’t around. I’ve also watched way too many Tasty videos and gathered a lot of really yummy, easy recipes!

Of course, everything in moderation though. I am guilty of reaching for my phone instead of making conversation and I know the LED screen isn’t good for my vision, but I’m working to change that because I’m the major lead of an example for my daughter. But people, don’t forget that social media was created for good reasons. G’day folks and happy scrolling to you!

I’m adding on to Ab’s post because it is beyond relevant.

I was having a conversation with someone yesterday that I haven’t seen in five years when social media got brought up. She doesn’t have any social media outlets, except for SnapChat, all for her own reasons. I have all of the social media outlets. She hates that it became a play-by-play life update or complaining privileged Americans or how everything you post some how ends up in a debate. I try to ignore all of that and keep updated with friends and family who I don’t see everyday, friends kids as they grow and do funny/cute/weird things, life changes like marriage or babies or moving or being accepted into school, travels, etc.

But I also try to not let it consume my every day life and take away from the moments I’m supposed to be living in, not trying to share or see what others shared.

At the beginning of this year I came to a realization of how much I am on my phone (probably about how much everyone else is on their phones) so I started trying to be actively present when there are people in front of me. I don’t answer texts if they aren’t urgent, which if they are urgent, I apologize for texting during our conversation. I try not to fill lull time or randomly start using my hands by scrolling all of the outlets when there’s a perfectly good human to talk to. And even when I am alone in public, I try to be more “there”. I try to look around to see what’s happening in the world around me and be more observant. Being actively present has lead to missed calls, not responding to texts for hours, neglecting Facebook or never catching up on my Instagram feed. But I find myself remembering more about conversations and stories. I engage with people more and try to really listen to the conversation. Sometimes I even sit in quiet. I’m not saying I never take my phone out, I do, it’s a work in progress.

I got fired from a job (I hated) because of a Facebook post. I’ve learned neat things by reading too many articles from HelloGiggles, Buzzfeed, science resources, GOT, Gilmore Girls, everything from scrolling on FB so long that my hands hurt and an hour has flown by. FB keeps you updated with everything- sports games, friends, celebrities, trending topics. We’re all addicted to the internet and there’s not much we can do about it.

Like Abi said before I added this entirely too long of a ramble with me saying “I” way too much-

G’day and happy scrolling.

Following my mama-on-mama crimes post, I also wanted to share a little tidbit about Joanna Gaines. If you don’t know who she is, close your laptop, turn on HGTV to tune into Fixer Upper, and behold the most wonderful woman you’ll ever meet (actually just watch on TV). She and her husband Chip host their own home makeover show on HGTV and do an amazing job. The show also gives us sneak peeks into their personal lives.

They live in Waco, Texas, have four beautiful children, and the most perfect ranch/farmhouse you could ever dream up. Did I also mention Jo is gorgeous? The couple met at Baylor University and are devout Christians. I recently came across an interview Joanna did and in it she talks a lot about motherhood.

One theory (my personal) as to why we bully other mommies is that we feel insecure. Parenthood is hard and as aforementioned, it doesn’t come with a handy rule book. A lot of the time you feel like you aren’t doing it right or being enough for all the needs in your life. Especially to your sweet child. But Joanna reinforces that YOU are ENOUGH. You’re doing great & to enjoy the season of life you’re in. They’re only little for so long and all they want is to spend their time with YOU (mommy/daddy).

Here’s the link to the article and I hope you find just as much joy and clarity in reading it as I did.

http://www.countryliving.com/life/a38438/joanna-gaines-letter-to-moms/

Babymakin bullies

I am new to the mom club, a fresh member for about 6 months now. That’s not including pregnancy.

You start receiving parental advice as soon as you start word-vomiting that you’re pregnant and your bump begins to debut. Most of this advice comes unsolicited and there’s so many different ways to be a parent. Then once that sweet little bundle of joy is here even more advice floods in!

Whether you choose to bottle or breast feed, comfort or cry-it-out, cloth diaper or disposable, working mama or stay at home, everyone has an opinion. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I get that. But I’ve noticed in the mommy world when exchanging info on how you choose to mommy, passive-aggressive comments spill out.

I’m a stay at home mama and my babe loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Guess what? I let her watch it. Since she was 3 months old. **GASP**

I bring this up because another mama whilst in conversation with me about her son, commented that he doesn’t care for the TV and that’s not a habit she would like to encourage. She loves the colors, songs, and once she’s old enough, it’s actually educational. I know I may be criticized for sitting her in front of a TV that will melt her brain and ruin her eye sight (are you picking up on the melodrama?), but she’s happy, healthy, and I’ve got a house to clean. So this whole situation got me thinking, am I also guilty of this? And why as mamas do we feel the need to behave this way?

We are doing something amazing (you too, Dads), we are raising little humans. Parenting came with no handbook, rules, or guidelines, besides the obvious like don’t let your kid play with a hot stove. As long as our babes are happy and healthy and turn into kind adults, what’s the point? Everyone has an opinion and every baby is different. Let’s start applauding one another and stop being so afraid of different things.

I love the meme on Facebook that says girls cut each other down, but women empower one another. Let’s do the damn thing! Speaking of which, my babe needs me, until we meet again Tumblr.

#HarperRae #kindofsoundslikehooray #MayisforMamas

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