Balance is the new black

Pre-motherhood I was like, “I have a demanding (but good) job and a rockin’ social life, but a calendar to keep all the business all straight.”  Post-baby Reid, I’m like, “HAHAAHAHAHAHAHA.” I now agree with the recent statements by some CEO I saw on the news (name escapes me and no time to look it up) that women can’t have it all, much to my personal dismay.

I’m drowning in laundry and can’t remember anything anymore that I don’t write down.  And I feel all alone in this. Because when I do take a personal moment to check my Facebook and Instagram news feeds, apparently I’m the only one who isn’t growing a garden, working out with a personal trainer and taking my kid to the zoo or fishing.

Obviously, I’m not alone this, I know that. So why do you/we pretend we’ve got it all together?? There just CANNOT be as many of you out there as social media and general office conversation would suggest.  I have to believe that. I have to.  If you’re reading this and you do in fact have and do it all, PLEASE tell me, how and where do you get the time?!  I like learning new things.

 In lieu of any responses, I would like to start a new hashtag, #MHM (messy house Monday). I figure it #MCM (man crush Monday, which I had to google several months back because I’m lame now) can be a thing, why can’t this?! It’s not Monday but you can see my living room nonetheless, complete with dog toys and hair, baby stuff, and general dirt haphazardly strewn about.  I caught the room on a pretty good day actually, but then again, dust doesn’t photograph well.

I’m usually all for fakin’ it til I make it but today something just changed in my head. I started thinking, really, what’s my (or my husband’s, for that matter) ROI on in fact dusting? On staying up 30 minutes late, sacrificing sleep to unload the dishwasher? My/our moods and health are worse off for it and just because I crossed that task off my list, it doesn’t help my mental state when there’s still 50 other “to dos” on it. The queen isn’t coming over for dinner tonight – or ever -  so I’m pretty sure the clutter sit there another day, week, or month.  It isn’t anything to be ashamed of, right?!  I realize it’s many times my own fault, for lack of a better word, for assuming judgment on others’ part of my mess, so I’m publicly saying that I’m going to try to let that go.

Of course, I can’t ignore the“must-do’s” but I’ve decided to put everything else off until ‘tomorrow’ and spend time with my family instead; I want Reid (and heck, Matt, tooJ) to have fun and to remember my smile and my laugh. (Because they’re guys, they’re  as heck not going to remember or notice the mess!)  And I don’t care if you think this is stupid, I want my dog to have a good quality of life and in turn, caring for them is caring for myself. I will be happier, too, if I just finally need to give myself and accept a break. 

Starting right after this…because #TMI, but I technically wrote this via voice to text note on my phone (hands free) while driving AND pumping (which is a WHOLE OTHER thing for another time).

Like Father, Like Son?

I wrote in a letter now framed in baby’s room that “…if you are anything like your dad, the world will be a better place.”  I meant that it would be great if our baby was as kind, caring and laid-back as Matt (also, I really want him to have dimples).  Well, instead, it seems as if our dear, sweet boy has instead adopted his dad’s philosophy of time and is going to be late, two days post-term as I write this.

I don’t feel physically “DONE” or uncomfortably miserably as some pregnant family and friends of mine have described toward the end (feel so incredibly fortunate to still be able to get plenty of sleep), but I am entirely mentally bummed out he isn’t here.  What’s he waiting for? I get it, it’s cold outside but I’ve told him, that’s what blankets are for – and trust me, we have PLENTY of blankets (and clothes, and toys, books and anything he could possibly need).

I’ve tried a few old wives tales, but I can only eat so much pineapple. And I’m sick of the concerned, seeming judgmental stares from gym-goers while walking on the treadmills. I’m just going to have to resign myself to HIS timetable, however frustrating that is for type-A me. Again, of ALL the traits to take from Matt…

Here’s hoping when he does come, he’s extremely apologetic and wants to spend his whole life making it up to me by listening to and following every word I say from here on out. J

Throwback Wednesday

Yesterday was our two-year wedding anniversary. That also means we moved into our FOUR years ago same day. Whoa! l remember us eating dinner that night, cross-legged on the floor, in the stereotypical way you see in movies, furniture- and utensil-less eating out of a pizza box. How far we’ve come!

A la last year’s anniversary post, we’re still having tons of fun! Some of this year’s adventures included:

“Successfully” graduating dog obedience and CPR classes.

Running in Omaha’s first Ugly Sweater 5K (and learning a lot about each other, and the layout of each of the Goodwill stores in town, in shopping for this event).

Attending National Figure Skating Championships, which Omaha hosted. It may not sound cool to you, but I love watching figure skating! Michelle Kwan was a childhood idol, toe pick!

An April girl’s trip to Vegas, mixing and mingling with country music star’s at the ACMs!

A long weekend with friends in Baltimore, MD! We toured DC for our first time (so cool!) and went to two Orioles vs. Dodgers baseball games at Camden Yard (also super cool). The Dodgers may have lost those match ups but look who is in the Playoffs now!! J

Another trip to the Kentucky Derby! Matt even picked the big race winner, Orb! I was too busy trying to keep dry and rain from the pouring rain to place many bets myself.

More successful sports seasons for each of us (I earned yet another gold medal in softball at the Cornhusker State games and Matt made his baseball league’s All-Star game)

And more….

We are hoping to take one last mini-trip yet this calendar year, but we have to mix that in with all the new home improvements projects we also have planned.  Now Creighton basketball starts in the next few weeks, and of course we renewed our seats for the Big East debut season, so we will be busy, busy!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – time flies when you’re having fun!

Fun with fate

"Serenity now" is one example of a phrase meant to elicit calrm and make you feel better. Over the years, I've had and still have many of these as inside jokes with friends. Recently, Matt brought one of his own home he thought would be fun for us to use in stressful times: "God will provide." A co-worker of his has decided to leave the company to begin one of his own and to address some of the concerns about taking such a leap, apparently that has been his response, "God will provide, right?" 

Well, Matt and I could not stop laughing yesterday when on our way home from grocery shopping at Target and a yard sign caught Matt’s eye that said “Moving sale – all must go – great deals” and  so he thought we needed to take a detour to go.  So strange because we've never been to a garage sale together and I'm not sure either of us has been to one individually either. Anyhow, we go for about 3 minutes, there’s nothing good – or at least, that we needed – except on way back to our car we found $40 simply lying on the ground so with no one remotely in site, Matt pocketed it.  Like God’s way of providing/saying “you don’t need this stuff – buy something better” lol

Here's hoping this continues. I could use some "providing," "serenity," whatever you want to call it these coming months.

[Another update with more details on that soon, deal?!]

My work personality works at home

"Blair talks a lot and very quickly," so says my latest personality profile. Indeed. 
I technically took said profile during the hiring process in 2011 for my current job, but about a month ago recieved these results. The intent I believe was to make each of us on the team realize how to better work with each other. Though truly SPOT ON, I was at first discouraged by the results, thinking I might be too intense a person to be a good co-worker, employee or even friend or wife. But then, I shrugged it off. Am who I am - and knowledge is power, so now I feel empowered and even more confident. Now, while I do, as the profile states, tend to do things quickly, rushed and angrily, Matt is much more relaxed, one thing at a time, methodical kind of guy, so if nothing else, reading these together and having him provide counterpoints about how what I was seeing as a potential negative in these bullet points was actually just further proof of how awesomely we complement each other was pretty cool. I think in the future I can continue to use these results/newfound awareness to my advantage in "selling" my ideas better at home not just at work! :)  All this talk about it, I figure I better at least share some of the profile's results:

I could be the next Pope!

On a commercial break from watching the Oscars last night, I randomly asked Matt what I should write my next blog post about, as I haven’t written anything recently.   Unexpectedly, he had answer right away: “Well, that church story is a great one.”

Ah yes, it is.  But first, some background information: after getting engaged, we did attend church quite a bit and then of course had the full Catholic ceremony for our wedding, but since then, have only attended sporadically, on mostly the major holidays and the occasional free Sunday.  I’m not even baptized (gasp!)  

Because I am not sure who may end up reading this, I won’t get into the specific details of how exactly it happened, but what happened is this:  I accidentally ended up on a church communications committee!

(Pause to let those of you who know me well finish laughing).

Now, as the fourth member of said communications committee, I am responsible for helping with a monthly newsletter to more than 1,000 parishioners and updates to the church’s Facebook page.  The other committee members are older men, and only one of them is even remotely involved in communications in his career.  Needless to say, they are very grateful to have me, even though they might not be if they knew it wasn’t my original intent. Anyway, my first issue was emailed out at the beginning of February and I leaned heavily on my memory of my Catholicism classes at Creighton for story ideas. When I couldn’t come up with anything, I turned to www.Allrecipes.com for some meatless Lenten recipes to include and wrote an article and prayer for Fat Tuesday and how to make Mardi Gras meaningful.  The other guys filled in the rest of the space with blurbs about upcoming events.

While me writing for a Catholic e-newsletter might seem hilarious, even ironic to some (myself included), I just have to remember:  I enjoy writing and I enjoy working in groups. 

And this group really seems to like working with me, too.   On our latest conference call, giving me my own column was even discussed!  I’m not quite ready for that yet, BUT because I’m competitive, I need March’s issue to be the best, most read, most opened, most forwarded one yet.  Story ideas welcome.

God bless.  ;)

Resolve to be nicer than this guy this year

It has been since the Peter Parker encounter that I got a guy’s phone number.  But it happened again on New Year’s Eve.  And this time my husband was there for the whole thing.

That night, I didn’t feel well and ended up missing midnight but I took enough Zicam to get me by for at least a meal out at one of our favorite local semi-dive bars.

Soup, salad, and a few “surprise me” drinks from the bartender later, we were having a pretty good time. It only got better when a guy whom I’d noticed earlier as looking at our table an awful lot came up to us and asked if we were married. We said yes and he explained his disappointment because he was meeting a blind date (who does that on NYE?!) and told her he was wearing a blue polo shirt, which is what Matt happened to be wearing, so he was just curious if I was supposed to actually be talking to him. Ha ha.  Then he tells me I look familiar – and I thought the same too – and we discover it was at the formerly-named Qwest Center where we probably ran into each other when each of us was working a past job/event there.  During the “no, that’s not it, have you ever been to…” hulabaloo, in walks this guy’s ex-fiance! I mean, what are the odds?!  Apparently she put on a lot of weight according to him.

Anyway, back to his blind date.  I asked for the scoop and he told us he was so excited that he had a gay guy at The Buckle dress him.  He said he  she had a great personality, which he discovered when he had phone and text conversations with this girl. He'd only seen one picture  of her on social media. I asked him describe her and he said, “she’s not a perfect Barbie doll type but she isn’t an untouchable either” – charmer, this guy.  We small-talked for awhile longer about his potential midnight kiss and what he does now for a living, etc.  At one point I even invited him and the not-yet-there other stranger he was meeting to join us at our table for a drink (now who does that either?!)  Through the course of conversation, we learned that one of his side jobs is lawn care and we talked about him reseeding our backyard or something, which is when he gave me his number to call anytime. It wasn’t until the guy walked away a few minutes later that Matt said, “hey – how come he gave YOU his number, not me?”    

Finally, a girl arrives by herself. At this place, it’s really obvious when someone walks in so I think we all knew it was her.  And we all (me, Matt and our new friend Ryan) simultaneously gasped because let's just say she wasn’t exactly what any of us were expecting. Now, this is where our inside information ended and we didn't talk to him the rest of the night, but from what I observed, their date lasted one drink’s worth until he didn’t pay for hers and told her he didn’t like her and wanted her to leave – because that she did, without saying goodbye to him.

Cheers to not being single! And to a fun-filled 2013!