Category: Life Lately

Tip Jar: Home Cleaning Schedule

My, my, my…what a crazy end of the year it was. I am so happy to start “fresh” in this new year! Routines have been out of wack for the the last quarter of 2019 and I am ready to roll up my sleeves and get things back in order around the house!

My main goals around the house this year: maintain a clean kitchen EVERY DAY, keep up with the house in terms of de-cluttering and reorganization and stick to my cleaning checklist. At the beginning of last year – I pulled together multiple cleaning checklists and used them to put together a thorough home maintenance schedule that worked!

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Through Her Eyes: Optic Nerve Hypoplasia

I wanted to start documenting a little more about my daughter’s eye condition – Optic Nerve Hypoplasia. First off, I want to note we are EXTREMELY fortunate with the hand she’s been dealt. I will get into the details further along, but while I have your attention – you are your child’s ADVOCATE. If you feel something is not right or you aren’t satisfied with a diagnosis – it is YOU who is the voice of your child. Push to get the answers you need and don’t be afraid to ask questions, take advice from others, research the heck out of something and/or get a second opinion. At the end of the day, you could be the difference between treating your child correctly for something before it is too late.

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How to Plan and Plant a Cutting Flower Garden: Part II – Flower Selection and Mapping

I’m continuing to share the details of how I planned my cut flower garden – in case you missed Part I – Planning and Preparing your Cut Flower Garden, feel free to check that out!

In today’s post, I am sharing the flowers I selected and why. There are so many flower varieties out there, but my main “must-haves” were easy maintenance, stems that were long enough, continual blooming and LOTS of vibrant colors!

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Tip Jar: Go-to “Baby Station” Products

As I mentioned previously in my Postpartum expectations post – setting up all types of “baby stations” around the house has been so helpful for me. This way if I have an emergency or need to get something with the two bigs, I can put baby down right near us!

I’ve had several people ask which ones to put on their registry and I will share the main ones that were either gifted to myself or recommended by other Mom friends!

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My Top Book Recommendations – Mystery/Thriller: October 2019

I was NEVER one who was into reading. Growing up, spark notes were my life to make it out of English class alive…It was when I was going to join my husband on a work trip about a year and a half ago that I had the thought, what should I do with my spare time? I would have a lot of time to myself on my flight and at the hotel, so I decided why not read a book. I had seen a review on The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware, which sounded like it was right up my alley and BOOM, I have been reading books of all kinds ever since.

I figured I would share some SUSPENSE/THRILLER books I have read recently that would be perfect for this month with Halloween right around the corner!

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Tip Jar: Postpartum Expectations

I cannot believe it has been nearly six weeks since the birth of our baby boy! First off, you forget just how teeny tiny those little babes are and how dependent they are of you. I’m not going to lie, these times are tiring and can be all kinds of different for everyone out there, but I figured I would share some things I have experienced postpartum this time around and some tips and tricks I have found useful over the past month and even after my other pregnancies.

I want to note – by no means am I an expert or saying that these pieces of advice are the end all be all! These are just things that have worked and helped me manage postpartum. After having our daughter, I had no clue what to expect so after dealing with this once again, I feel third time is (somewhat) the charm!

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What I Cooked Wednesday – Taco Tuesday – Ground Turkey Taco Salads

Today I am sharing our healthier take on taco Tuesday. We ditched the ground beef and tortillas and opted for ground turkey and put that on a bed of lettuce instead! This is one of our favorites.

As I mentioned in my previous posts – when I use ground turkey, I like to make sure it is seasoned right. Taco seasoning allows you to do just that and I can’t even taste the difference between turkey and ground beef.

This recipe takes 15 minutes and from a budgeting perspective cost no more than $8 to make!

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Tip Jar: Savings Challenge – The Final Verdict: Success or Fail?

Life Lately: Savings Challenge – The Verdict: Success or Fail?

So… I am so far behind with all of this – now remembering why it is super hard to get anything done with a newborn… I am so used to getting up early and taking care of as much as I can before the kids get up. I now find myself sleeping in until like 7:30am – 8:00am when the baby decides to wake up!

I wanted to share with you all the results of our Savings Challenge in August. For those of you who are new here, my husband and I took out $800 in an envelope to use solely for food and grocery. We were honestly spending well over $1,000 on food over the previous months and we could not believe it, so we decided to challenge ourselves to try and save $100 from that envelope every month. You can read more about it here.

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Life Lately: Back At IT – 9/6/19

Oh my goodness, what a couple weeks it has been! I have felt so out of the loop and like I am constantly playing catch up! I seriously cannot even complain because it has been so great to finally be up from the couch. Seriously guys, the botched epidural was the craziest thing that happened and of course we would be the “1%” that this happens too! I was telling people this delivery was one of the easiest for me – no issues outside the epidural, we arrived on time, five pushes – I’m telling you, I could have walked out of the hospital that day, that’s how good I was feeling! So needless to say it was extra hard when 99% of the experience was beautiful and truly amazing and just that 1% had ruined it big time for me.

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Weekend Rewind: Random Weekend – Flea Market Finds – 8/19/19

Good morning everyone, I hope you had an amazing weekend! Today I am sharing our weekend rewind. We had a pretty low key weekend and stuck around the house for most of it. Saturday, we went to a flea market and garage sale, hung some things up around the house and met up with some girlfriends who came in from out of town! Sunday, we went to church and breakfast at a local diner and did some major sorting and organizing of paperwork. Again, my documenting skills are awful, but it wasn’t the coolest weekend to showcase, ha!

We wanted to take the kiddos to a little amusement park and swim, but the weather was pretty weird all weekend so any set time we planned to go swimming in the pool was ruined by random spurts of rain, annoying! But we were able to end the weekend in the pool which was nice!

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