Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Best Friends

Facebook is my constant reminder that people have best friends.  They've been hanging out since high school best friend and I drifted to a point of no return.  We have nothing in common.  I find her parenting to be entirely different than mine (and my current friends who have encountered her and her child).  I felt like each one of my accoplishments in life made her jealous, whether she admitted it or not.  Sometimes she did admit it.

It's hard to be friends with someone who is jealous of you.  It's hard to be friends with someone who lives a completly different life than you do.

I'm married.
She's single.
We bought a house.
She lives with her parents still.
I had the girls after Josh and I were married 2 years.
She had her daughter at 19 with a boyfriend.
I've been promoted numerous times since I started my job.
She's been making the same pay since 2009.

The list can go on.  She claims the final straw for her was that I look down on people who eat "poorly", like fast food, Crystal Light and junk.  I don't.  I offered advice when she asked if it was okay for her daughter to drink a certain thing, I said I wouldn't give it to her and that the girls wouldn't be allowed to drink it.  I never accused her of being a bad mother for giving it to her child

My final straw is personal.  I don't want to say what it was on a public forum but people I have talked to it about it agree that it was time to let go.

There are times where I miss her but in all honesty the constant drama and me not being able to relate to her life were causing us to drift apart.

I can say that I am not anyone's best friend and I do not have a best friend.  I don't have a person to call if I need to talk.  I don't have a girlfriend to go out with for drinks or dinner.  I actually haven't been out to dinner with a friend in over a year.  While that does make me sad I have to image that there are other people in the same situation as me.

Right?  Do you have a best friend?  Do you keep in close contact with anyone from high school still?


Monday, December 1, 2014

Thanksgiving and Pictures

Our Thanksgiving ended up being awesome!

I did all the cooking and we only had my aunt over.  She ended up staying for a large part of the day and got to watch Annika learn how to ride a bike!  I can't believe she learned how to ride a bike and now she's already a pro!  I can't seem to figure out my You Tube account but once I do I'll post a video.

Here I am making Thanksgiving dinner.  Yes, I chop green beans with scissors and throw them in a steamer.  Soooo easy.



The prepared meal!  Annabel looks miserable and Annika looks like a weirdo!


Then we took some pictures.

Annabel's birthday invite picture.  I did my yearly "tradition" of forgetting Annabel's birthday is so soon after Thanksgiving and ordered invites way late.


The sister picture!  LOVE this picture.  I need to print it so I can frame it.


Our Christmas card picture!


Our little skater girl.  Not only can she ride a bike she's pretty awesome on the skate board too!


Annabel, eating pumpkin pie covered in whip cream, with her hands.


Do you have professional pictures taken for Christmas cards?  Do you include a picture or just send a normal card?  Do you even send cards?

I always send cards and since Annika was born I have made picture cards.  Last year was the first year we did professional pictures.  Usually we hope a family member or friend can get a good picture of us!

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Photo Dump Updates

So I thought since it's been a while I'd update with some pictures.

Annika turned 5 this month.  I know, how is this child already 5?



This is a shed my dad built, it's at my uncle's ex-wife's house.  Yes, we were visiting, my cousin still lives there.  The girls actually asked to go outside and Josh said it was like they were drawn to this shed.  They loved it (yes, we let Annika dress herself, makes for very creative outfits).


The girls having dinner at our friend's house.


Total impulse, I chopped 8 inches of hair off.  Best idea ever.  I don't know why I try to grow out my hair, it looks so much better short.  Annabel also got her first professional haircut this day, she's a cutie.


Sister Love!  I can't believe how big they are getting.


Question for today: Do I have any readers out there? Please comment if I do!  I want to see if I should start blogging again!

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Thanksgiving

It's weird how I sometimes feel the need to post.  At one time, way back in 2009, I had a blog post every single day.  Now in 2014 I haven't posted since July, almost 4 months.

Thanksgiving sucks.  I'm just going to say it.  The last time I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner was in 2009, when Annika was only a few weeks old.  It was the last Thanksgiving with my parents.

The following Thanksgivings went like this:

2010: We went to a co-worker's house and had dinner with her family.  It was actually very nice.  My dad was in the hospital and the nurses told me to make some time for myself and enjoy the holiday.  Basically they didn't want me sitting at the hospital like I was doing on a daily basis.

2011: My aunt made a fantastic dinner.  My other aunt was also there, my uncle and his wife, my grandmother and my great-uncle.  I was VERY pregnant with Annabel at the time.  Probably one of the best Thanksgivings.

2012: I wanted to make dinner at our house but we ended up having a dinner made at a local yacht club my uncle's wife belongs to.  It sucked.

2013: We were not invited anywhere.  My family made other plans without us.  Josh had to call his sister and ask if we could join them.  This is his half-sister so her dad was there, his wife, her half-sister and husband and our brother-in-law's brother and sister.  We felt a little off.  It was a great dinner, had fun with the family, but I couldn't help but feel a little like an outsider since we weren't actually related to everyone there.  Make sense?  Probably not but it just felt weird.

This year we were supposed to have dinner at a friend's house about 3 hours away.  Another couple with kids the same ages as the girls were also supposed to come.  Then they asked us to help with the cost of the dinner, fine.  Then no one would give him a clear answer as to how much "help" they needed.  Then one of our friend was having a lot of her family coming.  I canceled the plans with them.  I didn't want another Thanksgiving watching another family enjoying time together and us being there unrelated and feeling a little out of place. Plus how much is 1/3rd of the cost?  I have no clue why no one could tell me!!  I'm a planner and it bugged me not knowing.

So for $40 (which turns out is a lot less than 1/3rd would have been) I bought food for our own dinner and then found out that my aunt (the one who made the great dinner of 2011) had no plans.  So it'll be the 5 of us, which is fine with me.

I feel like Josh and I are a little displaced for a lot of holidays.  We don't do anything special for Easter, we scramble for Thanksgiving plans and we've given up on Christmas and make our own traditions with the girls.  I just want our time with the girls to be special.

So what are your Thanksgiving plans?  I have to say I'm actually very excited to make my first Thanksgiving dinner all on my own!

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Missing People

We had family over this past weekend.

Josh's sister said something that made me thing, she said she missed her brothers.  We haven't seen her since last December and their brother lives far away.  I don't think Josh and his sister have seen their brother in about 2 years.

She misses them.  Then I realized.  I have no one to miss that I will ever see again.

While there are days that I miss my parents there's nothing bringing them back.  I can miss them all I want.  I can't talk to them.  I can't see them.

There is no one for me to miss.  I'm kind of alone.  No family (besides some aunts we occasionally see and hear from) and few friends.  Last year when we got together with Josh's family for Thanksgiving I felt horribly sad because all these people had each other and I don't really feel like I belong.

I'm extremely thankful though for the time we do get to spend with Josh's family and the few family members of mine that we do see and hear from.

Sorry for the rambling post.  I guess my point is if you miss someone and you can see them do see them.  Because at some point there will be no one left to miss.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

School Starts Soon

Can you even believe our girl is starting school this year?


For those of you who have been reading my blogs for years I bet it seems impossible.  She's 4, almost 5, and starting pre-K.  It's just crazy.

We've already bought her uniform bottoms (I have to buy the shirts from the school), socks, sneakers and this weekend it's "tax free" in our state for supplies.  I have a long list of supplies (I also need to figure out the differences between "skinny" markers and non-skinny ones!) and a few dates where I have to go to the school to buy the uniform shirts and meet her teacher.

Good luck to her teacher.  I do feel a bit bad.  Annika is a class clown.  She's social. She loves to talk and she loves to entertain.  I only hope she behaves in class and that she has a teacher who is understanding and doesn't crush her spirit.  Annika is my sensitive silly girl.  I want her to stay that way.


Monday, July 28, 2014

Weekend Fun + Some Oils

We had another busy, but fun weekend!

We went up to St. Pete Beach.  Our usually beach has always been in Sarasota but now that we've moved further north St. Pete is actually a bit closer and there is less traffic to get there.

We bought this awesome tent thing from Amazon.  It seemed silly to rent them from the guys on the beach (if you look to the left in this picture the yellow one you can rent) when it's $25 and we got this one for just a little over $50.  It gave us tons of shade and none of us got sunburned which is pretty good for us!


The girls love the beach.




They also like digging holes and sitting in them!



Or just laying in the sand.  I'm pretty sure she still has sand in her hair now after 2 showers.


Also to sneak this in we've gotten really big into essential oils.  I've already been into health eating (no artificial colors in our foods, fewer than 5 ingredients in all foods we buy, pretty much nothing processed, organic as much as possible) and healthy alternatives to medicine.

I'm sure everyone noticed my long blog absence and I will admit to some mild depression and anxiety at times.  Growing up with a mother who took every single drug possible for depression and bipolar disorder makes you fear taking anything yourself.  Plus I got promoted at work, there's no way I can hide at my desk for weeks not speaking to people anymore, I have to get up and interact and be prepared to do so every single day.

Currently I'm starting a few different oils from DoTerra and I am selling them, which means if you ever want to try some and buy some from my site I will make a small profit.  Small, very small.  Once I get feeling 100% I'll be sharing what I'm using and how it's working.  So far my depression is gone after only 5 days and tomorrow the two oils I want to try for anxiety will be coming the mail!  Looking forward to sharing how they work.

The oils also work great for the girls when they're super hyper and it's 9:30pm and I desperately want them to go to bed since I wake up at 4:30am for work!  Just 1 drop of lavender on their feet and they relax and fall right to sleep!

If you are interested the link to my site is here.  I swear I won't talk about them all the time but I thought it would be nice to share!

Monday, July 21, 2014

Annabel's New Bed

Annabel was ready for a "big girl" bed so we decided to go get her a new bedroom set.  She was using a tall dresser that actually matched Annika's set.  Since our entire house is dark brown we decided to brighten things up by getting her a white bedroom set.

I went to the store first and picked out one I really liked.  Then Josh went and even though I didn't think we'd get anything fancy he decided on this because "Annabel liked it".


Our 2.5 year old has a fancier, more expensive bedroom set then us.  We are insane.


At least she like it and sleeps in it!



Both girls liked it a lot.

That finally completes our house for furniture!  The only room that probably will need something eventually is the girls' playroom that still only has a bookshelf in it.



Thursday, July 17, 2014

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Well Hello There

Long time no see, right?

I knew I couldn't stay away forever.

It's only been, what, 8 months.

I miss blogging.  I miss writing.  I miss having a little diary of sorts to put together all my thoughts.

Don't you miss us?


What have we been up to over the last 8 months?

We had some Christmas pictures taken that were pretty awesome.  Finally family pictures!


Annabel decided to become a mini version of my mother, she will NOT smile for you!

But then she turned 2 and decided "I'll do whatever I want when I want because I want to remind you how stubborn your own mother was FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE".


We signed up Annika for soccer and played for 12 weeks.  Annika doesn't play anymore, it was just too much in our busy schedule.


The girls are best buddies now, 80% of the time.


We went for an awesome hike in our own neighborhood!


Annabel eats entire pieces of pizza.


And lollipops we got for free just because the girls are super cute.



We went to Disney World!!!  





We've also been going to the beach a TON.




Lots to post about and I do actually plan on blogging a little more often, you know, more often than every 8 months.

Hope I still have some readers!!  Let me know if I do!