So I was tagged awhile ago...

Here are my 10 things. I would like to say that for anyone reading this and not yet tagged, do this one even if you don't post it. It was a great self esteem builder for me, it made my day/week better.

10 Things I Like About Myself

1. I love that I am smart. I feel like I am bragging or something, but that’s something I really do like about myself. I really enjoy learning and was jealous when my mom went back to school. I miss the research and the papers. I am a nerd and proud of it! Whenever there is a new event in our family (illness, buying a house, getting a new carseat, replacing a heat pump, etc.), I research all I can about it. I have a desire for knowledge.

2. I love that I like to move. In my family we always say that there are nomads and farmers when it comes to liking moving. Farmers stay in one place; they plant roots. Nomads roam. I am a nomad. I have lived in six states and one foreign country in my 25 short years of life. I have converted my husband to nomadism (a new word I know). We have lived in 4 places in our 5 years of marriage. I would like to say that maybe I am converting to the farmer lifestyle, because I love where we live and don’t want to move. But we have been here for less than a year, and Brett keeps reminding me that I always get antsy and he doesn’t believe that I will ever be content staying in one place.

3. I love that I am confident in my parenting. I may not always do things the way I think I should (or the way others think I should), but I am confident that I am doing the best job that I can. I love that I rarely yell at my boys. This may change as they get older, but I am able to keep calm and rational during meltdowns, for the most part. This is more than I can say about myself in other areas, like dealing with obnoxious customer service phone people.

4. I love that I can crotchet beautiful blankets. It might take me awhile to actually get them done in some cases (sorry Marian), but they are dang good, in my opinion, when they do get finished. Here are some of them; I always take pictures since I give them away.

5. I love that I am close to my family. I talk to my sister April and my mom at least once a day. April and I talk probably close to 5 times a day on average. Even though I don’t live anywhere near them, I feel close to them and a part of their daily lives. I guess that’s probably why I don’t feel like I have to live close to family. Here is the most recent picture I have of April and I together…

6. I love that I am a mom. I guess this is really related to #3, but it deserves its own blurb. I love being the center of my boys’ worlds while I can be. I love fixing owies, making monsters disappear, and teaching my little men about sacrament and Captain Moroni. I love to hear I try out his new vocabulary (“Where grandma be?” and “I does” are some of my favorites) or watch C discover hide-n-seek. It makes me happy.

7. I love that I made the decision to marry B. That may sound kind of strange, but I had always planned on serving a mission for our church after finishing college (I finished at 21). I met B the summer before my junior year of college and had a hard time deciding to give up my plan to go on a mission. It was something I had always wanted to do. I don’t regret the decision I made at all. I love my husband and love being married. I am sad I do not have the experience of being a sister missionary, but when I look at the relationship I have with B, no experience on a mission could be as good. He is just who I needed and my Heavenly Father knew that and thankfully helped me to know that.

8. I love that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I love that I have a testimony of the Book of Mormon and a strong testimony of prayer. I love that I know that I am a child of God. I love that I am responsible for building my relationship with my Heavenly Father and I love that I have the faith necessary to do so.

9. I love that I am a homeowner. We have wanted to buy a house for awhile and we just lived someplace way too expensive to do that. But now, we are the proud owners of what I call the Massive White Beast. It’s really not all that massive; it is just very flat and white from the front, but it’s ours (or really the bank’s, but we’re working on that part).

10. I love that I can sing. This one is simple. I love to sing and always have. My parents have way too many home videos of me dancing and singing in front of the camera. I am grateful that I don’t sound too bad. I am not your next American Idol, but I can hold my own in any choir and an occasional special musical number at church. So next ward talent show, sign me up!

I tag April, Cheata, Emily, and whoever else should be tagged.

My sister, the Queen!

My little sister just called me and told me last night she was crowed Junior Prom Queen. It may seem silly, but I'm soooo proud. That's high school royalty and she deserves every minute and memory of it. Go Kelsey!! You are beautiful!

My Musical Man

Ian is a little sick today and I have a million things to do (this is not on my list), so its quickly become a movie day. So what movie did Ian pick out? No, not Cars or Monsters, Inc...he picked White Christmas! He's a weird one, but we love him anyway.

Woo-Hoo!

I am so excited! Finally, after a couple of hand me downs, we bought a new computer! I can finally upload pics again. Its been three months since my computer would let me. It took me two months to get the last hand me down to acknowledge our printer. Brett didn't really see a new computer as a need, but I reminded him that I do make money selling things on Ebay and if I can't upload pictures, then I can't make any money. So, since we don't have enough money saved to get a new Heat Pump for the house (seriously the estimate was almost double what I had hoped, we will be getting another estimate of course, but it still can't be that good), we just borrowed money from the future heat pump. So now everything I make from Ebay for the next little while will be put back and in the end, everyone is happier. Seriously, its a pain not to be able to upload pics. I have to actually think about which pics I want to take, and then delete the bad ones to save space on my memory card. Also, the pile of things to Ebay in the garage has grown way too big! So, sorry if the next few posts have a lot of pics in them, I feel the need to catch up!

Backpack

I'm so excited. My addiction to craigslist has once again paid off. Thanks to my wonderful parents who were kind enough to pick it up in FL.

I am the proud owner of a Evenflo Trailblazer Framed Baby Carrier in excellent condition for $30! Some of you may not understand my joy, but I have borrowed backpacks so many times from friends, that it just became something we needed to have (thanks erin and heather, never again will I have to borrow them). A backpack was something we needed, but that I wasn't willing to pay for. These things are dang expensive. Think of a price range similar to a carseat. The cheapest being at about $50(scary enough to question putting my child in) up to about $200 (I am not going mountain climbing any time soon, I leave that to my sister Genevieve). And as for the used market, they go fast, are hard to find on craigslist or yard sales, and shipping is too dang expensive on Ebay. So, much to my disappointment, I looked at my local craigslist on Tuesday and saw that a Kelty backpack, at a dang good price, had been posted the day before. The day I actually took a break and didn't check my beloved craigslist. I emailed, but of course was told it was gone. Then yesterday I checked my parent's list, just in case of the good free stuff, and lo and behold a beautiful backpack, in great condition, at an awesome price. Amazingly it was available and now its mine! Now, I just have to wait to actually see it/use it until I see my parents again. Be excited for me, its the small things that make me happy!

Excess

So I love craigslist. I mean to the point where my husband thinks I'm crazy and I check everyday and often check my sister's city and some others just in case there is something good and free that I can have a relative pick up. Well today I was looking at the baby and kid stuff in the D.C. area and this woman posted some maternity shirts and EIGHT pairs of maternity jeans pretty much all the same size (size 0 and 1, gag me with a spoon please). Who needs EIGHT pairs of maternity jeans! Who needs eight pairs of any jeans. I would just like to own more than one, but EIGHT come on, that's excessive. Oh, to top it all off, she wanted to sell them all together, cause I'm sure someone else thinks they need EIGHT pairs of maternity jeans.

Working from Home

So I am a stay at home mother and I've never regretted the decision to stay home with my kids. I'm glad that around my sophomore year of college it finally sunk in that I really did want to be home with my future children and that maybe the prophet knew what he was talking about with the whole proclamation on the family. So I said goodbye to med school dreams and now plan to get my doctorate once my kids are older. I can always go back and get an advanced degree, no problem. I have a great example in my mother who just finished her law degree and is currently completing her masters in tax law (she's a nerd!).

Anyway, because we are a one income family in a two income world, sometimes finances are a little tight. Both Brett and I go, "if only we could buy....", but in the end we have everything we need, well really more than we need, and we are fine. But lately I have felt like I needed to do something to earn a little more cash, mostly so we can pay off our expensive little reflux man. I mean we are lucky to have good health insurance; I can't even imagine how much we would have to pay without it, but it would be nice to have Corban payed for. So when a friend of mine, a realtor, asked if I would like to do some writing for her, I jumped at the chance.

In the past week, I have gained a new respect for working mothers. For both, those who work from home and those who work outside of the home. I am not writing/working much and I can't seem to keep everything together. First, there is this whole having a deadline or responsibility for completing work thing. I have not been accountable for completing things in a timely manner to anyone but me, for three years. I'm not sure I'm a big fan of it. If I don't get my self imposed list of things to do done, no one cares! Brett would never come home and say, "Woman, why didn't you get the laundry done?" More likely he would just go put whatever he needed washed in and that would be normal. He is an amazing and accepting husband, but that is another post.

Okay so second, how do working mothers manage to keep the house clean, laundry done, kids fed and not screaming, and the floor swept? Our kitchen floor is gross! I really should be sweeping it instead of writing about it. Really all you working mothers are amazing. You non-working mothers are amazing too, its really just about different skills I guess. I think I have the basic none-working mother skills down, its the other more organized work from home skills that I need to get.

I have really enjoyed writing about my community and learning all these random facts about where I live. I wouldn't mind doing more. I really love to research and write, even college papers (I'm a nerd, too! Its genetic!) I just have to learn to manage my time better and maybe I will have to stick to the Fly Lady's schedule better!

So to all you mothers, especially you work from home mothers, you are amazing and I envy your organization and time management skills. Please, share some of them with me!