A day in the life of me

Are you anything like me and love the know what the daily lives of moms are like? Or am I just the odd one of the bunch? I think my fascination stems from the idea that perhaps someone else has the "key" to life of motherhood figured out and if I keep searching I will find her and devour all of her wisdom to help my "so called life" run just a little more smoothly.  Well, I'm still searching, but meanwhile, I will fill you in on the dailies of what I describe as my life here at 523.

Monday thru Friday's are the exact same, on most occasions.  We run pretty close to clock work on the weekdays and that is because Caleb and I thrive on routine and knowing what it due and when.  So here it goes....

4:00 AM alarm goes off
4:30 I will finally get out of bed (hitting snooze 3 times which in turn drives Brad crazy)
4:35 Take Scooby out to go potty and then start my workout
5:00 Shower, brush teeth, lotion (etc) and then swish and swipe my bathroom
5:30 Get Caleb's lunch ready, unload dishwasher, start laundry, and coffee for me ;)
5:40 Hair and Makeup
6:05 Caleb gets up (well he opens his eyes at least) and gets dressed while I swish and swipe his bathroom and he makes his bed
6:20 Change over the laundry, make breakfast, load the car up
6:40 With breakfast in hand, Caleb and I head off for school and work

4:00 Pick up Caleb and we work on sight words during our drive home
4:30 Arrive home, unload the car, start more laundry, swish and swipe Brad's bath and help Caleb with homework
5:00 I have different things I do each day about this time, it will be my weekly home blessing, or zone work for the day.  Caleb usually gathers the laundry and will have one more small chore to do.
5:30 Caleb is usually finished with homework and is off to play, I will start dinner and fold laundry
6:30 Dinner time
7:00 Bath time for Caleb
7:20 Relax, talk with the hubs, hang out with Caleb
7:45 Put Caleb in his bed and read stories
8:00 Get myself ready for bed and then chill again with Brad
8:30 Bedtime....did you see the time I get up? I have to go to bed this early LOL

This goes on during weekdays and weeknights.  The weekend however is a free for all.  There is no getting up early in our house on the weekends.  Being that we do all of our work (if possible) during the week, the only thing that has to be done is making beds the dishes.  You will see that I didn't put dishes or making our bed on my list, that's because Brad does those two things.  Isn't he the best? :)   So with all of our typical duties done thru the week, Brad, Caleb and I use the weekend to go do different things with friends and family or just us or whatever fancy's us at the time.
That's a day in the life of me. What's your like?


-Kim

Favorite Holiday and Why?

My Favorite holiday is pretty simple.....its Halloween.
I have so many reasons why I love this holiday.  For starters it is in October which happens to be my favorite month of the year.   I love October because it is the beginning of the cool weather for us here in Texas  and let me tell you, after having 100+ degree summers, we graciously welcome any small sight of crispness in the air.
October is the the national breast cancer awareness month and that is the time of year that I am able to help out the ones fighting the battle by purchasing the sponsored "pink" colored products during this month.  So basically everything you could ever want in the color pink, you could most definitely find in October.    But this is about my favorite holiday, not month or color so....back on track.
For some (odd) reason I have this intense obsession with shows like A Haunting and The Haunted, that come on the Destination Discovery channel.   These all happen to start up or have new season of these around Halloween, naturally.  I am not quite sure why I love shows like these that feature peoples tales of ghostly hauntings, but I do and I won't deny it.  I will go on severe binges of watching these shows all day long (of course Caleb is a grandmas during this time) and chowing down on the Halloween candy that I purchased for trick or treaters, even though we are never home on Halloween.
That will lead me to the next one....the candy!! Oh how I love the chocolate-ness of twix, snickers and kit kats.  But I love just as much the ooey gooey sticky candy like dots and twizzlers.  I'm hungry for kit kats now.....just great.  I do my best to get my candy fill in before Caleb comes home with his bag of goodies so I am not "mean mommy" who eats all the child's treats from Halloween.  But, I'm usually grabbing a handful and heading to the only serene place in our home (I'm talking about the bathroom) where I can indulge in the sugary sweetness of my son's stolen candy.  No shame here folks.
But what I adore the most is getting Caleb dressed up and taking him around to the houses for a few tricks and way too many treats. I am one proud mama hen to my sweet angel and have had the absolute time of my life with him on my favorite holiday.

The Prince Charming was the last costume I was allowed to pick out for Caleb.  After that year he insisted that he picks out the remainder of his costumes.  

-Kim

Favorite Childhood Memory

photo by Ilya Ilyukhin

I was skimming thru Pintrest, not surprising, and stumbled upon a bunch of different list for blog post ideas.  This one happened to catch my eye of 105 Blog Post Ideas from the blog "It Starts With Coffee".  I loved this list and wanted to try it out, but didn't know quite where to start so I just decided to start from the top.  I guess I'm going to do my absolute best to go thru each one of these on the list here on the blog.  So here is the first one....

Favorite Childhood Memory
For a little history, I grew up in an average suburban neighborhood from birth until I was about 12 or 13.  I went to a wonderful private catholic school, my best friend lived directly across the street from me and I was one of four kids in our home.  I was well educated, I had plenty of siblings and my bff there to play with and a great neighborhood to play in.  I have many great memories from my childhood, but I'd say my fondest were always us playing in the front yard with the neighborhood kids.
My older sister's best friend lived next door, my younger sisters best friend lived across the street (she was the little sister to my bff) and my brother's best friend lived across the street and down two houses.  It didn't matter what the weather was like, the time of day or night even, we'd always play in the front yard and everyone would be there.  Of course it wasn't our front yard....nope, it belonged to the old lady that lived next door.  She had this beautiful St. Augustine grass that was so soft and lush, it was the perfect place to do cartwheels, hand stands and any other thing we could possibly thing of.  She was the perfect neighbor, she always let us play in her yard and a few times a month she'd bring over her famous freshly baked loaf of potato bread.....hot out of the oven, I might add.
One thing I remember the absolute most was when New Kids On The Block were the big boy band of the times (did I just tell you my age?) and we would sit on the brick wing of either my friends house or the old lady next door's house singing loudly to "The Right Stuff" whilst we dreamed about who we loved the most and would marry.  For me it was Joe....oh and I was going to marry him in a peach dress, not white, I was not very traditional when I was ten.  So we did that for the longest time and would sit on the brick wing singing for what I swear was like hours until it was too dark and had to each go home.
I had so much fun growing up in that beautiful neighborhood.  I have so many other great memories, too many to list here, but it all centered around having my best friend living across the street.
Thanks for taking the time to visit me here and I hope you return.  Let me know in the comments below what your favorite childhood memory was.

-Kim

Sometimes you just want to be the most interesting person you know

We've all seen the commercial....."he's the most interesting man in the world".

While scrolling thru Pintrest I was checking out blogging tips and the like and saw this comment on how to be a good lifestyle blogger.  While I never had even clicked on the link, nor could I even find it again, I'm quite sure, I did catch this one phrase that came across it.  It said "live an interesting life".  Have you ever heard of people having mottos for the year?  I had never put too much thought into it but after reading that one phrase, I decided that I had just found mine for 2017.  That's what I love about life.  It can be whatever you could possibly imagine.  And I've been told my imagination is a bit "interesting".  So with that all said, that's what I am setting out to do this year.

I am wanting an interesting life for a few reasons....one is to just say that I did these things, but I think the absolute most important one is to give Caleb an opportunity to see just how great life can be when you just try.
I stayed up awake in bed last night just pondering over how to make our lives more "interesting".  What makes an interesting life?  Well Merriam-Webster dictionary says that interesting is "attracting your attention and making you want to learn more about something or be involved".  In the kids definition is says "not boring or dull" .  It also says the word "life" means "period between birth and death".  So being involved, not boring, attracting attention making me want to learn more between the period of birth and death.  Ok, now that we've got that figured out (she says sarcastically).
So I think I will take a look at Caleb's little life.  How do I get his attention to make him want to learn more or be involved?  I had thought about when I was a child and what made me want to learn more and I think an apple dropped on my head because I realized that the act of "doing" things was what allowed me to want to be more involved and learn more.  So that is what I have set out to do.
My goal to allow me to live my motto is to take Caleb (and when the hubs work schedule permits, he will go with us) to do different things at least once per month.  This could range from things such as museums and parks or even volunteering options as well.  For the month of January a friend of mine and her son will be joining us as we check out Sci-Tech Discovery museum for kids.  February has been planned before my motto was even set, we have tickets to go see Cirque Du Soleil with my parents.
I am still curious about what else would make for an interesting life.  So after doing some more detailed research I have found these few things that will help allow one to live an interesting life.

Hello My Name Is Blog suggested to not be "one-dimensional".  He explains that a person who does not have an open mind or has limited views on activities and experiences other than their own personal passion can make for a boring person. I like this, it goes back to my idea of taking Caleb to do things outside of our comfort zone.  I am thinking the ballet might be in order for this family at 523. ;)

Elite Daily  states that interesting people have multiple hobbies.  I will have to really work on this one for me.  I don't know what kind of hobby I like, other than cosmetics and fashion.  Is there a hobby of getting dressed?

And the last one was one that I found on multiple blog post and websites.  It says to be a good listener.  I like to think I am a good listener, but who knows, I may not listen enough to even know if I am. I will need to research "good listener" and get back to that one.

So that's all I have for now, let me know what you think it takes to "live an interesting life".

-Kim