Let’s Look: Low Level Goals for 2025

Happy Wednesday everyone! Today is a Let’s Look prompt where we link up with Shay from Mix and Match Mama blog and Erica from A Little Bit of Everything blog. I’m super excited about all the topics this year – they are just so creative and fun! So kind of them to do these link up parties!

This month’s topic is, low level goals for 2025. These low level goals are actionable and a means to an end or towards achieving your high level goal – more day to day goals.

In case you missed it, I blogged about my 2025 goals here

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Tip Jar: Budgeting tips for 2025

Tis’ the season! This past weekend, my husband and I sat down to do the annual exam of our household budget and savings plan for the year ahead. We thoroughly look at our budget and realistically examine potential expenses and find ways to cut/save money for the upcoming year.

The cost of living increase does make it difficult when it comes to trying to save and budget. We have a firm understanding of our budget and update an excel doc we’ve been using for years to see what has changed. One of things I cannot believe is how much our grocery and food spend has increased over the years. It’s slightly sickening!

Having a detailed awareness of your budget can allow you to prepare for future expenses (i.e. school, home projects, home maintenance issues, etc.), reconsider what items are truly important and remove things that waste money all while challenging yourself to become a better saver.

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Hello, 2025! Motherhood Monday: Happy New Year, I’m Alive and Mom Goals

Hey! Happy New Year! Wow, I cannot believe it’s been nearly a year since my last blog post! Where did the time go?! More on that and some pictures to share about our 2024 later this week! I’m here to report, I am alive!

I know I say this every year – I want to be more consistent at blogging, I want to blog, but I felt pulled toward doing less, and not worrying about the perfect blog post every single day. It honestly became easier NOT to blog!

With blogging – it took too much time for me to do, I wasn’t organized enough and the time I could blog (morning) interfered with my flower farming schedule – of handling things before the kids woke up. Blogging started to stress me out because I wasn’t consistent, couldn’t get ahead, kept missing days and felt my posts weren’t “good enough”.

Could this year be better? Possibly. We are in a different phase of life – the kids are a little more independent and I have mapped out a content calendar that could assist, but we will see where things take me!

Last year, I was proud of myself for letting things go. I don’t need to do ALL THE THINGS. That was one of my goals in 2024. At the beginning of the year and spring I noticed I was bogging myself down with “unnecessary” things that could easily be prevented, altered or eliminated altogether. In the summer, I decided to form a flower farming schedule that allowed me to be flexible so I wasn’t wasting time away from the kids and home. Weirdly, in the seemingly small space I “farm” on our property, it really can occupy a lot of my time with all the to-do’s. So, I altered my business a bit, made less bouquets to sell at market, bought an overhead watering hose and decided to work in hour batches that worked for me and the kids. I was able to achieve my goals for the season, could have done more, but that’s okay. My priorities are always family and our home.

This brings me to my new goals for the year, which is applicable to what I just stated above. These words are a continuation and a push to do better in this new year.

My 2025 “Mom Goals/ Words of the Year” are: simplified, streamline, stamina and satisfied.

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February 2024 Garden Update

Good morning and happy Monday everyone! I hope you had a great weekend! We’ve been enjoying the long weekend and have been staying nice and cozy during the cold snap we’ve been having! This week I plan to share some things related to winter months, so be sure to come and check it out all throughout the week! I decided, today, I will start by sharing a February “garden update”. In air quotes because there is not much happening out in the garden right now! Well technically there is, we just can’t see those things!

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Let’s Look: Little Things We Do Every Single Day

Happy Wednesday everyone! Today is a Let’s Look prompt where we link up with Shay from Mix and Match Mama blog and Erica from A Little Bit of Everything blog. I’m super excited about all the topics this year – they are just so creative and fun! So kind of them to do these link up parties!

Today’s topic is, little things we do every single day.

This one was fun to think about because it really is mostly my morning routine and some other things I do sprinkled throughout the day!

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What We’re Making Wednesday: Starbucks Cake Pop Dupes

Good morning and Happy Wednesday! Today’s post is part of my “What/how I’m _____ …Wednesday” series. Last week we saw a recipe for these and could not wait to try them. My kids LOVE cake pops, so anything we can recreate, we’re game for!

What I love, is these can be customized in so many ways! We decided to make some Valentine’s cake pops! Giving props to the initial recipe found here!

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Motherhood Monday: One on One time

Happy Monday to you! I’m sure all my Northeast Ohio friends & even Midwesterners enjoyed the beautiful sunshine this past weekend. My gosh, did it feel so good! I honestly think a gained a tinge of sun tan from laying in the sun in our front room! I can’t tell you what that sun does for my mood though!

Today is Motherhood Monday where I share a bunch of randomness related to motherhood, parenting. Today, I’m sharing something that has come up A LOT in our home recently with Audrey in particular. That is one on one time.

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Our Family Favorite: Quick and Easy Breaded Chicken

Good morning and happy Friday! Instead of a typical Friday Favorite post today (since we just did a whole life update for What’s Up Wednesday – you can check that out here!), I figured I would share a family favorite around here. I will share a couple Friday fav photos from the week after I share this breaded chicken with you, so be sure to scroll to the end!

When I say, this chicken recipe is the easiest and most versatile recipe, I mean it! Dinner done in 15 minutes or less…you’re going to want to save this one!

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Valentines Gifting

Good morning and happy Tuesday! It’s almost February (which I can’t believe!), which means it’s almost VALENTINE’S Day! This year I found some cute things I wanted to gift the kids and some other items that would be perfect for gifting teachers or loved ones!

I felt like sharing those below and hopefully this week, we will button up the kids valentines for school and I can share those when they’re complete!

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Let’s Look: At Cleaning Our Closets

Happy Wednesday everyone! Today is a Let’s Look prompt where we link up with Shay from Mix and Match Mama blog and Erica from A Little Bit of Everything blog. I’m super excited about all the topics this year – they are just so creative and fun! So kind of them to do these link up parties!

Today’s topic is, how we clean our closets. I plan to share our closet (nothing to write home about), but the true star is Audrey’s “closets”. She has the best organization going on and I’m so jealous! I am also going to share our mudroom closet, because I just reorganized that over winter break!

Okay, lets have a look at our master bedroom closet shall we?

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Our Cleveland Staycation!

Happy Tuesday my blog reading friends! As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we did our annual staycation to end winter break and I have to say it was a good one! Not only was I grateful for the things we have in our life, but I was beyond blown away at how BLESSED we are to live in such a beautiful city.

Cleveland, Ohio gets a bad wrap. Not sure why, but in the past decade at least, there have been incredible transformations to the Downtown area. I have a great pride and love for our hometown and if you chose to visit it, I think you would be shocked too.

I highly recommend making a trip to Cleveland, especially if you have kids, there are plenty of things to do!

Summertime is obviously one of the best times to visit, you have the Flats, which allows you to dine on the gorgeous riverfront. There is Lake Erie and the Lake Erie Islands, where you can spend time on the beach or near the water! There is Cedar Point, an incredible place for families, I’ve shared this before. There are world class museums, beautiful architecture, incredible history, the second best Theatre District outside of New York City AND I cannot fail to mention our awesome sports teams, ha! Basically, you should add it to your bucket list!

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Motherhood Monday: Blessed to be a Stay at Home Mom

Happy Monday my friends! I hope you had a nice relaxing weekend! Our weekend was super nice! We are finally seeing some snow, which is a weird thing to be excited for, but it just makes the cold temps feel better!

Today, I’m bringing back my Motherhood Monday post. I got super emotional last week after our annual staycation Downtown. I plan to share a little recap of that 24 hour trip tomorrow, but in the meantime, I spent a lot of time reflecting on the past 5 and a half years of my life.

Okay, let’s back track a bit and for any new readers, now is a nice time to re-introduce myself and share my story!

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August 2023 Garden Update

Good morning – happy Thursday! I am so excited because today we receive our new mattress! I can’t wait to get some good sleep, FINALLY! It’s been almost two months that we’ve been sleeping on a foam mattress (which is crap and a story for another day!), so we are ready!

I’m a little behind on my garden updates so I figured I would share an August & September update with you today! I’ve loved doing these every year and it is so cool to look back on previous years and just a month ago to see how much has grown, changed, etc.

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Let’s Look: Our Evening Routine

Happy Wednesday everyone! Today is a Let’s Look prompt where we link up with Shay from Mix and Match Mama blog and Erica from A Little Bit of Everything blog. I’m super excited about all the topics this year – they are just so creative and fun! So kind of them to do these link up parties!

Today’s topic is, our evening routine. In some ways, I’m like, “what routine?”, but I realize we are falling into one! School has been excellent, extra curriculars are great, sports have been amazing, but it’s been a bit of a juggling act! Here’s our routine most days!

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Tip Jar: Back to School Checklist

Happy Thursday! I can’t believe we are a weeks away from a new school year beginning! We just got home from vacation and my husband just had a medical procedure done, so it’s been crazy around here! Last year, I put together a list of to-do’s to have completed prior to the first day of school and I figured I would share that here in case you are in the same boat preparing for all things back to school!

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Let’s Look: My Worst Habits

Happy Wednesday everyone! Today is a Let’s Look prompt where we link up with Shay from Mix and Match Mama blog and Erica from A Little Bit of Everything blog. I’m super excited about all the topics this year – they are just so creative and fun! So kind of them to do these link up parties!

Today’s topic is, my worst habits, boy do I have a bunch of those! There are several that come to mind right away and it makes me laugh that I’m so aware of them and still so terrible at making the necessary changes in my life!

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