Vlog: A day in the life of Caleb

I'm so excited to finally figure out this video editing thing and give you a glimpse into our weekend with Caleb.  We took him out to Brad's grandparents farm and let him run loose on his little four-wheeler.  

This is my first vlogging experience with the editing included and I have much to learn but will hopefully get better at it soon.  

Let me know what you thought about it.

Until next time, take care.

-Kim

Things a lot of people don't know about me

I saw an idea on Pintrest about this post idea and decided to go for it.  I love reading posts like these....it gives you a more deeper look into someone's personality and additionally you get to know some crazy quirks about people.  I know I have plenty of them.  LOL  So here they are, things a lot of people don't know about me are:

t-shirt

1. I have this weird thing that I don't really like things on the kitchen counter.  I don't keep our blender, toaster, mixer or even can opener on the counter.  It makes me feel clutter-ey and closed in while I'm in my kitchen.  However, Brad has his own little space on the end of the counter that he puts his stuff.  I really hate it but it's only one spot and I will go thru it periodically to minimize it when it gets totally out of control.  
2. I have this very hardcore interest in the paranormal.  Not aliens and UFOs, but ghosts.  It's strange and I get the oddest looks when someone finds out (because I don't openly state it).  I don't really know when the interest started either.  I remember having these really weird happenings at the first house Brad and I lived in when we got married, and I summed it up to the old lady who used to live there was just getting even with me.  This house actually backed up to a house I lived in with my parents. So when I was little I would sneak in her garden and sneak buckets of blackberries.  I guess she's come back to haunt me for it.  I deserve it, truly.
3. I love to wear uniforms as daily attire.  I enjoy dressing up on the weekends but Monday thru Friday, I adore the ease of a uniform.  I loved wearing uniforms when I went to a private school and desperately missed them when I moved and had to go to public school.  I enjoyed not knowing the financial status of others because we all looked the same.  I came to this conclusion when I was only 14 years old and has forever stuck with me.  Side note:  I wear uniforms to work also and I enjoy them just as much.
4. I struggle daily with insecurities.  I struggle with my weight, hair, mothering abilities, being a wife, keeping the house picture perfect.  More often than not it can be paralyzing to me that I have no choice but to break down and cry it out to Brad.  And that does happen much more than I'd like to share. 
5. I have a total full on anxiety disorder and (even though they are now rare) my panic attacks still immobilze me.  Oddly enough, I pull out my book called Sink Reflections and re-read it to calm my nerves.  I have this in the paperback as well as the Kindle edition and on my phone to listen to so anytime I have a panic attack I am prepared.  There has never been a time in my life that I claimed full complete sanity. LOL

So that's all I have.  I am sure there are more quirks that I probably do on a constant basis but can't think of them.  I will have to ask Brad what some of them are and maybe do a part 2 on this.  But that's just a little insider info on the girl that writes this blog.  Let me know what you thought and what your quirks might be.

Until next time, take care.

-Kim

April 24th Goals

Yay for Monday!! Am I right? No? Oh well, we still have to get thru Monday in order to arrive at Friday so we might as well make it count.

It's the first of the week and its when I like to make my goal list for the coming days as well as look back on last week to see how I did.

So my typical week will always begin with my home blessing.  I break up my tasks and do one or two per day until it's complete

• Change / Wash Sheets
• Sweep / Mop / Wash Bathmats
• Vacuum
• Trash
• Dust
• Clean Dog Bowls (yep, even Scooby has a part in my home blessing)
• Clean Microwave (it gets pretty gross if I don't do this each week)

I already have my menu made out for next week so I can check that off.

My zone area for the week is the living room so I am going to tackle the two closets, one at the entry way and one in the hallway.  I am wanting to have shelves put up in the hall closet so it can be kind of like a linen closet instead of an empty hole.  So I am going to get measurements and start looking up pricing on shelves.  With any luck I might be able to talk the hubs into going to the cabinet shop (family's place of business) and making me some shelves.  :)

Last week's health goals were to keep the sweets to just the weekend, one plant based breakfast and one extremely healthy dinner.  I did pretty good.  This week will be the same, being that I'm trying to get these down first. 

This week's pamper mission is to give yourself a much needed foot massage with lotion.  I am definitely going to do this.  Last week was a soak in the hot bath.  I did just that.  I kicked Caleb out of his room (that's where the garden tub resides), had Brad entertain him and got to soaking.  Caleb and I went to the mall Saturday and picked up Bath and Body Works new bath bombs and let me tell you, they were phenomenal! I came out smelling awesome and feeling even better.  

My last goal is to post something other than my weekly goals.  I was busy putting up Easter stuff last week and so I didn't get much of a chance to take photos of my posts that I want to write.  So this week I have a couple in mind to do.  I just gotta get the photos done.

Well, I think that's all I can fit into one week.  Tell me what your goals are for the week.

Until next time, take care.

-Kim

April 17th Goals

 

It's Monday  Tuesday!! That means I am late on posting my weekly goals.  LOL
I like to post them on Monday but because I do all my post on my computer at my office and I was off on Monday, then I don't get to post.

Anyways here we go.

The weekly pamper mission from Flylady is to take some much needed TLC in the bubble bath.   I am not sure when I will do this but I will try for Saturday.  Our only bathroom that had a full size tub is in Caleb's room.  So I will have to boot him out of his room for 30 minutes.  I will let you know how that works out. LOL  If all else fails I will have a pamper shower in my bathroom.

My usual Flylady weekly home blessing:

• Change / Wash Sheets
• Sweep / Mop Floors / Wash Bathmats
• Dust
• Vacuum
• Trash
• Dog Bowls
• Microwave

I will be remembering to make my menu BEFORE I go grocery shopping.

I usually clean my car out one week and clean out my purse the next and this week I will be tackling the car.  I'm pretty good at keeping trash out of the car each time I get fuel but I drive thru construction zones everyday so my car gets really dusty on the outside and by the two week mark it definitely needs a good vacuum and wipe down on the inside.

The zone area for the week is the master bed and bath.  I am working on cleaning all the doors in my house.  You know, just wiping all the fingerprints off and such.  I will be doing the master area's doors for this week

My health goals are same as before plus one:
One plant based breakfast, no sweets until the weekend, my pamper goal and I am adding to make one really healthy meal for my family.  Now, I try to make our meals as healthy as humanly possible being that my boys are very southern and so is my cooking.  But I am talking about making a sure fire, heart healthy, low carb, low sugar, full of protein type meal.  I want this to be packed with antioxidants and all the other good stuff I have not yet discovered. LOL.  My boys will surely moan and groan but I will make the day after their Taco Tuesday so I can balance out the heart hazard that comes with my tacos.  ;)

For last week's goals, I did quite well on my menu and home goals, but that might be from the fact of having 20 people come to my house for Easter that loomed over my head.  My health goals, well.... not so much.  I had my plant based meal but the sweets during the week are still my weakness.  But I am going to keep trying until I get it right.

I think that's all the goals I can fit into one week.  Tell me what yours are, I would love to know.
Talk to you again soon.

-Kim

Wet N Wild Tutorial - Walking On Eggshells / I'm Getting Sunburned

I have had so much fun playing with my two Wet N Wild trios that I got on my last allowance post that I wanted to show you one of the easy day time looks I created.  I am using both trios along with Nyx black liquid liner, the Milani Blossomtime blush and the lipstick is Milani's Ravish lip liner and Hard Candy's Velvet Mouse lip color in Sweet Pea.  **Note:  My lips are shiny because I didn't let my lip balm sink in enough so it made the lip color go on smooth and slick, which is not typical of the Hard Candy lip color.






After it was all said and done, below is the completed look.  I thought it turned out really pretty for a casual daytime look.

Caleb decided that mom was having too much fun taking selfies that he decided to photo bomb me.  But he's so stinking cute that I don't mind. :)

 That's all I have for today, let me know what you think.

-Kim

I'm linking up at:
For The Love To Link Party
The Blended Blog Link Up

April 10th Goals

It's Monday, (woo hoo!!) that means its time for my weekly goals and a look back to see how well I did from last week.  My home goals are pretty close to being the same as last week but my health goals have been added to, along with this week's pamper mission.

Goals for our home:

• Weekly Home Blessing is always my first goal.  

1. Sweep / Mop
2. Vacuum
3. Dust
4. Trash
5. Sheets
6. Clean dog bowls
7. Clean microwave

• Work on Zone 3 which will be Caleb's Playroom.  Caleb has a large table that he uses to build lego creations on but unfortunately he leaves them all scattered out on the table.  Being that we are having family over for Easter, and there will be some babies crawling around, I want to make sure all Legos are put away so we have not choking hazards. 

• I am still working on doing my daily swishing and swiping of the hubs bathroom.  So that's still on the list.

• Meal Planning for next week 

Goals for my health:

• I'm keeping it the same with banning the sweets during the week. 
• **New Goal** One breakfast per week will consist of plant based foods only.
• Pamper mission from Flylady's website - give my nails a hot oil spa treatment.

Ok so last week, I did pretty good with my home goals.  I am still lacking on the swishing of Brad's bathroom but I am determined to get this routine down.  I finished my home blessings and zone work and made my meal plan.  For my health I failed at the sweets department.  :(  I gave in on Friday when a coworker had a ton of chocolate candy that they couldn't keep to themselves.  But this is a new week.  I also did awesome at my pamper mission, which was to rest for two hours and during that I also did my pedicure and caught up on my reading.

I'm excited for this week because Caleb is out of school early on Thursday and we are going to eat lunch somewhere together and do our Easter dinner shopping and then he is also out of school next Monday as well and we are going to go to the movie theater.    I might be posting next week's goals on Tuesday instead of Monday since he will be out of school.

Well I think that about wraps up my April 10th goals.  What are you up to this week? Let me know in the comment section below.

-Kim

Linking up with: Let's Be Friends Blog Hop

Flylady Tips from a Veteran Flybaby

I am an avid Flylady follower, going on 10 years now, and will probably always be.  After a decade of being with Flylady and her system, I have seen flybabies come and go and then come back again.  To be quite frank, I had left the system at one time and then a couple months later realized just how important my routines were to my life and came back in the nick of time.

I hate to see others fail at the system, or get frustrated by their outcomes because I know from experience that it can and does work for anyone.  After seeing different reviews and instagram comments that weren't so positive, I realized that maybe some flybabies need a few tips or maybe just a different person's perspective to help them get off the ground so they may fly also.  So I decided to put together a list of my own "Flylady Hacks" to help you from feeling flustered and instead help you to fly high!!

By the way, I am a payroll she and when I started Flylady I would leave my house at 6:30 in the morning to be at work by 8 and get home at 6:30 in the evening.  Leaving me little time to do blessings, laundry, dinner and sink shining.  After about 3 years of flying, I had my sweet baby boy and then I had an infant to take care of during it all.  Where's the hubs you may wonder? Well he grew up in a house that the man did the yard work and major house repairs, not so much cleaning and taking care of kiddos.  So he had to learn himself what to do, and I had to learn how to ask him as well.  I now would love to report that my awesome hubby shines the sink, makes the bed and he helps our son with his homework each night (and has been doing this for a few years now).  I really owe that to the Flylady system.


Home Blessing Hour:
One of the things that used to frustrate me was that I wanted so badly to do my home blessing on Mondays in the one hour time frame, like Flylady.  Well, after battling traffic for two hours (I am a payroll she), and needing to get dinner started as soon as I walked in the door, that one hour just wasn't there for me.  It was so frustrating and I felt constantly like I was failing at flying.  I finally had to bite my tongue, suck it up and just split up the chores through out the week.  It took a little while but I realized that I can't have Flylady's routine because I do not have her job, schedule or home.  I have to take her ideas and make them my own and fit my home and family.  I am essentially the "Flylady" of my house. :)  I now will do a blessing or two in the morning and one in the evening.  I typically get my blessings done by Tuesday afternoon, but no later than Wednesday morning.

Zones:
The zones have always been a hard one for me.  I couldn't fit 15 minutes in after work to tackle a zone to save my life.  But how am I supposed to "Spring Clean" my home with the zone work if I can't fit in 15 minutes? Again, I felt as though I had failed because I couldn't do it the way Flylady said to do it. The things that I missed on this one was that I could do something towards my zone.  If I had thrown something in the oven to bake for 15 minutes, I would use that time.  If I had a spare 5 minutes in the afternoon, I'd do something.  I may not have been able to find the 15 minutes but I could find 1, 2 or 3 minutes throughout my evening or even the morning to do something towards my zones.  End result? No Spring Cleaning!! :)

Do it now principle:
The "do it now" term is basically doing what needs to be done right then.  Do not think about it or else you will just sit down and forget about it and then it grows into a large time consuming task.  When looking at your control journal you see your list of routines / zones / blessings, whatever it may be, you just take the first one and go.  This was another tough one for me even being a Veteran Flybaby, but I finally found a way to make it work a little easier.  I like the term "eat frog first".  I am not sure if that is even the correct wording and I know its not the exact quote.  But it means to do the hardest thing first.  I changed up my routines so that my morning routine had a frog first thing on the list which is my workout (ugh).  On my home blessing my frog was mopping my floors (double ugh), afternoon routine was swishing the hubby's bathroom (extreme ugh).  So do your hardest task first and then the "do it now" phrase won't be so hard.  After all, you just ate a frog, what else could you "do now" that could be worse?

My greatest lesson I learned from Flylady system was that it didn't matter how little of something I did, as long as I did something to push me forward.  My biggest accomplishment was our paper clutter.  It took me 2 years to clean out 15 years worth of paper work.  My husband and I had a 5 file drawer cabinet and four plastic tote boxes full of paper work.  I started just shredding a couple pages per day.  There were days I would take an entire folder and shred it on my lunch break at work and some days I'd only feel like shredding two pieces of paper.  When I looked at all I had left to do, it would seem overwhelming but I'd just make a deal with myself that if I would shred two pieces of paper right that moment, then I would call it good and go reward myself.  It didn't matter how much or how little I'd do because every single piece of paper was progression towards the goal.  I now have only two file drawers of organized by year, non-clutter, important papers that I can easily find in under 30 seconds. Two years may seem like a long time but it is something I never have to do again.  I just file or shred what I have when it comes in and that's it.  Now that this has all been established and is organized, I decided to reward myself with a larger prize.  We went and had our will made up and a  I had a life insurance policy taken out on myself to protect my hubby and son.  Being that I have everything in order, it was easy to find all the records I needed to do both of these things.  And the bonus is that my husband can find it easily if something was to happen to me.  I feel so empowered knowing that I have taken care of my family and it all started with shredding two pieces of paper per day, but it ultimately started with Flylady. 

Well that's all I have for now.  I am planning on adding to my "Flylady" tips soon and will post about my other flying adventures in the future, so keep on a look out for those.  If you have any questions regarding the Flylady System or how I made it all work for me, you may email me or leave a comment below.  I love helping others get their wings a flapping with routines.

Talk to you again soon.

-Kim

Loreal True Match Lumi Foundation

In my last allowance post, I had mentioned that I picked up the Loreal True Match Lumi foundation and was eager to try it out. I had heard so many youtubes rave about the luminosity of this foundation and was smitten to have glow-y skin.........or so I thought.

For a re-cap, the foundation was $10.97 from Walmart and I purchased it in the shade W1-2 Light Ivory.  It is waayy to light for my skin tone, but they didn't have the color I needed and since patience is something I lack, I went ahead and got the wrong color.

I wore it all of last week (went a little heavier on the bronzer to make it match) and I charted my results as to how it turned out.

Please remember that my skin is very oily.  I don't have issues with dry patches or flaky skin of that nature, it is an oil producing machine.  I always moisturize with Cetephil for oily skin (which is supposed to help control the oil) with SPF and let it sink in a few minutes before applying my foundation.

When you have naturally "dewy" skin such as myself, luminous foundations aren't really the type that one would normally gravitate to.  Typically I would use a powder highlighter, but I really, really wanted to try it out and see if I could attain the "glow from within" look.  I probably could have chosen a little bit more budget friendly-er version of luminous foundation but I heard too many great reviews on this one, so I dove in head first.

The first day I wore it, I really didn't pay any attention to it.  It was a Sunday so putting on my makeup was a long drawn out process.  I applied the foundation and then went for cup of coffee and a netflix show.  I came back and put on concealer and then got Caleb dressed.  I finished up with powder and then forgot all about the foundation and never looked back.

So the pictures above are of me wearing the foundation on two separate days.  The first one is about four days into having the foundation.  I am going to say that the Snapchat photo (second one) is very deceiving because the filter gives my skin a very gorgeous appearance so the real viewing of it is in the last photo of me and my sisters on another day of wear.

I have been wearing this foundation for over one week now and I have taken a few notes on how I feel about it.

First off, I tried this foundation three separate ways.  I went with a matte primer, pore minimizing primer and with out any primer.  It was humid for part of the week and the foundation practically melted off my skin with both primers and without but then the weather turned out really nice.  I would apply my foundation at 5:30 am each morning and for the first few days and it would break down and become an oily mess by 10:30 am and even earlier.

Setting the foundation was very tricky.  The first few days I would set it with the Maybelline Fit Me Matt and Poreless powder.  No matter what I used, brush or beauty blender it would always pull the foundation off.  I even let the foundation sit and dry for half an hour before powdering and it still pulled off the product.

I finally found out the trick to the foundation in the later part of the week.  I started using my Silk translucent powder and baking the foundation.  It dried within 10 minutes of the baking and lasted an hour longer before breaking down.

My final thoughts on the foundation is that it is not for me.  It takes too much work to make this sit still on my face.  If you have dry skin, I think this would be a dream come true but for my oily skin it was just a mess.  I am not finished on my quest for a "luminous" glow on my face but I think I might be trying the luminous primer next to see what that hype is all about.

Tell me about your skin type and the foundation that works well for you.  Do you have a recommendation of a foundation I should try?  Leave it in the comment section below.  I will talk to you all again soon.

-Kim


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April 3rd Goals

It's  Monday!! That means its the time of the week that I make out my weekly goals.  I will also take a look at last week and see how I did on my goals then as well and see where I can improve or just give myself a pat on the back for a "job well done".

Most of my weekly goals will stay the same but depending on the week there will be some minor tweaks.  This has to do with what home "Zone" we are in that week.

This week is almost exactly the same as last week.  I missed my pamper mission and my menu planning.  :(  That was quite the bummer but I definitely vow to do better this week.

Goal number 1:
Home Blessing / Home Zone Entrance / Front Porch / Dining Room

• Sweep / Mop
• Dust
• Trash (this is Caleb's job)
• Change / Wash Sheets
• Vacuum the floors
• Microwave
• Dog Bowls
• Zone work is to wipe the front door and the door by the dining room

Goal number 2: This is a repeat because there is too much stuff in this room

27 Fling in the Playroom closet for throw away, put away and give away.  I am out to tackle this room if it is the last thing I do!!  :)

Goal number 3:  Again another repeat because I didn't do very well

Work on swish & swipe in Brad's bathroom.  I have slacked on his bathroom and while he will eventually clean it himself, it still makes me feel better when I have cleaned it and know just how clean it actually is.  

Goal number 4:  Wow, this week is very similar to last week
Monday thru Friday with no sweets.  I did really well last week and am very proud of myself for this.  I am going to go at it again.   It's a lot easier when I know that come the weekend that all bets are off and I can finally indulge in my sweet tooth. 

Goal number 5:

Make my meal plan for next week.  Easy, peasy, right?  Wrong!! I totally botched this one for the week.  I have no clue what I am having tonight for dinner.  I have a lasagna in the freezer that I am sure will be crowing our table for dinner tonight and of course, I can't forget my boys "Taco Tuesday" that they have to have every single Tuesday (no lie).  But the rest of the week is beyond me right now. 

Goal number 6:  Pamper Mission!!
I am still in shock that I have to actually schedule myself time to pamper me.  I didn't do last week's pamper mission.  So I am going to for sure stick to it this week.  I said I would give myself a pedicure but didn't even make it far enough to take off the existing polish on my toenails.  So tonight that is what I am going to do.  I am going to baby step this all week until it's done.  Tonight I will take off the polish and tomorrow morning in the shower I will do some severe scrubbing and then the next day I will polish with some bright coral colored lacquer.  I am going to piggy back this with Flylady's Weekly Pamper Mission.  It's a 2 hour break.  I am thinking that Caleb and I are going to watch a movie on Sunday (it's the hubs Sunday to work) and spend some good quality "down time" with each other.  Who knows, if my toenails are done, I might just throw some bright colored polish on my fingernails to match my brightly colored toes.  :)

What is your week looking like?  I have been thinking about posting my weekly menus on this post in the future.  It might force me to be better at actually making a menu.

Well, I guess that is all the "goal setting" I think I will be doing for this. week.  Let me know what you think and what you have on your goal list for the week.  I love new ideas!!

Until next time, take care.

-Kim