Money Spent

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Jackie

The prompts that Mama Kat has are so easy. Every week I get the email with the new prompts for the Thursday link up and there is always one that stands out. One that I have something that I know I can write about.

I know…. I know… you’re thinking, ‘well if they’re that easy why don’t you ever write?’ Good question and my answer is that I’m lazy. I’ve let blogging fall to the wayside and I’ve spent my time doing other things (getting my life in order more or less). Sometimes I’ve done nothing at all too, which is also pretty nice.

So the prompt I picked…. The most exciting thing you purchased this month….

The brass M marks the center of campus

Well, hands down I would have to say that the deposit to the University of Michigan where my daughter will be attending this fall!

Cait in front of the U of M union

It really was exciting to spend the better part of the day at U of M walking around the campus, taking in everything that was going on, listening to my daughter tell me about all the buildings and some of the history behind them (she’s been there on a few tours so she knows a lot).

Even in the middle of a Michigan spring where it’s a bit chilly, a little rainy, and lacking in leaves swaying in the breeze it was a beautiful campus. I can only imagine what it will look like come summer or even fall. The campus is right in the middle of Ann Arbor, nestled in a little valley, and is full of old trees, gorgeous architecture, and something new around every corner to explore.

University of Michigan law quad

I can’t wait to see the law quad when all the trees are full of fall color! I think that it’ll look even more like Hogworts then!

There is something exciting about putting down that deposit and not just for my daughter but for me as well. It’s a new chapter in our lives…. a little exciting, a little scary, and at times challenging.

High school has been a long road and it’s coming to an end for her and when fall comes she’ll be off to a place that she absolutely loves. Knowing that she loves it there makes it a little easier for me… also that it’s less than 2 hours away helps too.

So tell me… what is the most exciting thing you’ve purchased this month? Can you top the U of M deposit?

Fall favorites

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Jackie

I have been patiently awaiting the arrival of fall… okay, so maybe I haven’t been all that patient. But it’s been in the 90’s the last few days with 100% humidity and it’s September. Fall weather should just about be here already!

I’m looking forward to fall for several reasons and one of those is fall fashion!

With cooler temps I can break out the boots, the scarves, cardigans, sweaters, and all of my fun layering pieces. This weekend the heat is supposed to leave us and much cooler… 60 degree temps should grace us and that means that an outfit like the one below is what I’ll be wearing.

Besides cute new fall clothes there’s Friday night football games (where I could wear the cute clothes). Even though our high school team has lost the first two games that they’ve played I have hope that they’ll win the next two games. Even if they do lose it’s fine because I really just go to see the band.

See… the band is the best!

Let’s see, what else is there in fall that’s amazing?

Oh yes, the beautiful fall colors. Here in Michigan the trees turn the most amazing shades of red, yellow, orange, and are intermingled with green and brown. As you drive around the state, especially the north and northwest areas, you go up and down huge hills that give you some pretty good views of the trees and the surrounding areas. There are even tours that you can take around the state.

This is across the street from my house

Halloween! The best holiday of the year hands down…. right next to Thanksgiving which is still during the fall season! Truth be told… I’ve already started my fall/Halloween decorating because it’s some of the decor that I can leave up the longest (I don’t take it down till after Thanksgiving), the kids love it, and it’s my favorite time of the year.

Our pumpkins

A few other favorites…. pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin bread, pumpkin oatmeal, and of course turkey and dressing.

What are some of your fall favorites?

psssttt…. it’s Thursday and time for Mama Kat’s world famous writer’s workshop! So I’m linking up with her and everyone else. Also…. I should mention that’s she’s pretty awesome because in her email we all get on Monday with the prompts in it she featured my post from last week about my top 6 apps! WOOHOO!

15 Reasons

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Jackie

This week is all off because of the holiday on Monday and so in honor of keeping things off around here I thought that I’d do one of Mama Kat’s prompts this week. The first one is easy peasy… 15 Reasons You’re Awesome and it’s kinda fun because the other day I wrote about 15 things then too! The real test will be if I can come up with a 15 list for Friday!

Honestly, I’m wondering if I can even come up with 15 reasons I’m awesome… then again I could just make things up and hope they sound good.

1. I am a mom. That alone is pretty awesome because it’s no easy task being a mom.

2. I am awesome because I finally stuck with a weight loss plan and am now starting to make better choices for myself. It’s no longer a weight loss plan… it’s a life style! One that will keep me in shape and hopefully in better health.

3. I am awesome because after deciding that I was done having kids before my 30th birthday I went out and did it again. That probably just says that I’m crazy instead of awesome, right?

4. I am awesome because I survived alcoholic parents & an abusive step-dad.

5. I am awesome because I finally decided to go back to college while working full time and having 3 kids at home. It was important to me that I did it and proved that I could do. What it proved, besides those two things, is that college is freakin’ expensive and that I’d go to school and listen to lectures forever if I could.

whew… this is getting hard! Listing reasons why I’m awesome… maybe I’m not as awesome as I thought I was!

6. I am awesome because I can watch Jeopardy and get the majority of the questions right. Yes, I am the queen of useless knowledge!

7. I am awesome because I am a blogger. That alone should be at the top of the list, right?

8. I am awesome because I can sit here and write this post while answering one of the kids, watching Jeff Dunham, and pondering dinner. #multitasker

Wow… look at that! I’m over half way done with this list.

9. I am awesome because my teen is painting my 3 yr old son’s nails and I’m letting her. My husband on the other hand won’t like it that much and we can’t hide it because the toddler is pretty damn proud of his pretty nails.

10. I am awesome because I’m not all hipster cool like that and I haven’t degraded far enough yet to wear mom jeans. But I do have mom hair.

11. Speaking of mom hair… that’s another reason I am awesome. Not everyone can rock mom hair…. maybe I’m wrong about that. I probably am.

12. I am awesome because I “rescued” a dog while out on my bike ride last night. The dog was following me so I pulled off on to a side road so neither of us would get hit by a car. The dog didn’t have a collar or anything that would help find his family so we waiting until my husband & toddler came to get us in the truck. We spent the next hour driving around, stopping at houses in the countryside looking for his home, and we never found it. So, we took the dog home, gave him a bath, and let him in the house. He was a super friendly dog and you could tell that he was used to being in the house and around kids…. I hope that he gets back to his home.

13. I am awesome…. I’m outta things

14. I am awesome because well, #12 should be enough to count for the two that I skipped.

15. I am awesome because I’m the mom and I said so.

There are millions of reasons why we are all awesome! It seems that I could have come up with a better list than this… oh well.

Now it’s your turn! Tell me why YOU are awesome!

I am…. a poem

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Jackie

I was pondering what to do for my post on Friday and was at a loss. My mind was a blank and I didn’t want to do a post full of pictures… not on a Friday! Besides… I need to save them for Wednesday.

Each week in my email I get the prompts for Mama Kat’s writers workshop and one of them caught my attention and I thought well.. that’s an easy one. I can do it.

I was wrong, because it wasn’t as easy as I thought. I wrote, deleted, and wrote some more until I had something that made a little bit of sense and captured how I was feeling at the moment…. and it was with a prompt. A poem none the less!

Anyway, I’d love to hear what you think.

I Am

I am curious and honest
I wonder why people do the things they do sometimes
I hear the sounds around me rushing by as I walk down the street
I see the lights, the buildings, and people
I want to understand and know why
I am curious and honest

I pretend that I am brave
I feel that I have no control sometimes
I touch the brick as I walk down the street
I worry that one day it will all be gone
I cry that one day I will be alone
I am curious and honest

I understand that all good things come to an end
I say that is fine… but I don’t always believe it
I dream that one day I will have it all
I try to understand the world around me
I hope that they understand me
I am curious and honest

Friendships

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Jackie

I have no idea where the following message originated from, but it’s been floating around Facebook for the past week…who does it make you think about?

When I first read this statement my first thought was Yes! Of course. Why make all that effort if the other person doesn’t make an effort as well? Why try to maintain a friendship when it appears that the other person doesn’t care? Why bother when they don’t?

And then I thought about it a little bit.

Life is busy for all of us with families, work, and other activities. We have so much going on in our lives that sometimes we just get busy and sometimes friendships are the first thing we tend let slide.

Friends come and go through out our lives. Some are really good friends that we love and miss greatly when they are gone from our lives. And then there are others who are merely passing acquaintances who we either miss or barely remember.

Relationships take time, effort, and work for sure. This goes for friends, significant others, families, and yes… those mere acquaintances. A lot of work and please never think otherwise.

It’s important that we value the friendships & relationships that we make and cherish them. We must remember to never take our friends for granted and that a call is always better than a text, a hand written card is always better than a wall post on Facebook, and it’s that special touch that shows you care.

If you make an effort you can be sure that it will be appreciated and returned.

Now, on the other hand there often comes a time, due to circumstances, where you have to say that the friendship or relationship isn’t worth the effort anymore. I know this first hand and it was one of the hardest decisions in my life and it weighs on my heart.

How do you maintain your friendships?

Eating bon-bons & ending reality tv

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Jackie

10 things you would do if you didn’t have to work.

What a prompt! I mean seriously… I could come up with a whole lot more than 10!

I’ve been thinking about the list a little and this it assumes that I don’t have to work which would mean that we are financially well off. Right? Well the options are endless then aren’t they?

I’ll try to keep things down to earth though, alright? Good, now lets get this list started.

1. I’d lay on my couch eating bon-bons watching old soap operas like Another World, Days of our Lives, and General Hospital. Why? Well first of all I’ve never done it before (the laying around eating bon-bons part that is) and I like the old soaps because I actually know who some of the characters are and they aren’t all 20 yrs old (or younger based on what they look like now).

2. I’d go back to college. I would start taking random classes that sounded interesting to me. I loved the lectures and things like that when I was in school, hearing what the professors had to say, and sharing their life experiences was interesting to me. Besides it’s amazing how many great classes schools offer now! I would just go to be one of those life long learners not going for any specific degree or for a real purpose.

3. Travel…. you had to know that this one was coming! I would travel, but not the entire world because not everything out there interests me. So I’d carefully plan trips around the US, to Ireland, Scotland, Italy, France, and a few other places. The trips wouldn’t be solely focused on large cities either. I’d make sure that I spent a lot of time driving around the countryside checking out all the old castles, ruins, and other historical areas (I love history). Some of these trips would be with the kids and of course others would be without them.

4. I’d get more into this blogging thing that I’ve been dabbling in for a while. I hear that you can really make a go of it if you put a lot of time and energy into it. It makes sense that if I’m not working, the kids are in school, and the husband is at work that I’d have a lot of free time to do this type of thing, right?

5. Have a tea party. Yes. A real tea party in the afternoon with lots of tasty treats, tea, and mimosas. I’d invite all of my friends (the online ones as well as the in life ones) to join me at some fancy location where we’d chat, enjoy our lunch and dessert, and spend the afternoon together. And yes, they would all come because in my world they wouldn’t have to work either.

6. Take over the world. It’s not likely to happen but if Pinky & the Brain can try it every night I figure that I can give it a whirl too.

7. This one is a little more “normal”. If I didn’t have to work I’d just be a stay at home mom. I’d stay with my kids every day, take them to school, play dates, story time at the library, and lunch in the park. I’d volunteer in their classrooms and go on all the field trips, I’d be a band parent (more than I am now) and be on the PTO. I wouldn’t feel guilty anymore when I hear that my son had a major meltdown at the sitters because he was there longer than he normally is. Mommy guilt will be a thing of the past.

8. Redecorate my house one room at a time until it looked like it came from a Better Homes & Gardens magazine. Oh, I’d do the same thing with my yard…. that would take the longest because it is one hell of a hot mess right now!

9. I have 4 kids and only one of them has their baby book in any sort of order. I think that given the right amount of time and willpower I could actually get the other ones started and looking half way decent!

10. Find a way to end all reality TV shows. Why you ask? Well, because they suck. Every single one of them. I live in reality and those shows are so far from real! I like to watch TV to get away from it all… escape…. and reality TV just annoys me. And I know that I can’t be the only one that feels that way. So, I will put them to an end.

Oh… one last thing. I have this pretty nice DSLR camera… I’d learn to use that thing so I could take awesome pictures of my kids and everything around me.

See… I told you there was more than 10 things!

What about you? What would you do if you didn’t have to work?

The Crash

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Jackie

Today I’m doing something different for a change…. linking up with Mama Kat’s Writer Workshop. This was something that I used to do on a pretty regular basis and then at some point I stopped.

It was an easy prompt that I choose this week, write about a time you had to crawl through a window. Now there are bound to be all sorts of posts about our misspent youth and all the fun and exciting times that were had after climbing out of the window … if you were lucky enough to not get caught!

My story is a bit different though.

A few years ago some friends from high school and I planned a girls night out and get together. We hadn’t seen each other in years and thought it’d be fun to get out of the house without our kids or husbands and just catch up. So the evening was planned.

I spent a lot of time looking forward to the weekend and finding the perfect outfit to wear, which was a great pair of black pants and my favorite purple heels (I LOVE those shoes). I was ready, on my way, and pretty excited as well.

It was the end of January and winter had it’s tight grip on everything here in Michigan. The ground was covered in snow and it was freezing out but that wasn’t stopping myself or anyone that evening. I decided to take a back road for some reason instead of heading to main (busy) road into the city. This was a mistake.

I drive a 4-wheel drive SUV and it made getting through the snow a lot easier than a car any day. I was able to plow right through the snow drifts with ease, but those drifts aren’t always so easy to get through. I came to a drift mid way down a small hill and the drift grabbed my tires and pulled me towards the ditch so fast that I didn’t have time to think. I screamed as I let go of the wheel and covered my head. I flew into a ditch and then my truck rolled over 4 times in the farm field and then landed upright about 100 feet or so from the road.

An accident happens so fast that you simply don’t have time to react. I remember the truck rolling over and over, but not how many times (my husband told it was 4 times based on the marks in the snow). The sound of it crashing around me as we rolled was frightening.

When the truck lost momentum and came to a stop my heart was racing and I didn’t feel hurt. I scrambled to find my phone on the floor and call 911 and then my husband…. my hands shook as I tried to dial and explain where I was exactly which proved to be harder than I thought.

It wasn’t long before a volunteer was there to help me out of the truck. The door were both jammed because of the roof being caved in and the windows couldn’t be rolled down either. Luckily, the very back window on the drivers side had been totally broken out and I was able to climb to the back and get out that way. I was pretty unhappy that I had to walk through a field of knee deep snow in my shoes.

I was fine. I walked away with minor bumps and bruises, but I’m sorry to say that my truck wasn’t. It was totaled.

If it weren’t for the truck I wouldn’t be here telling you this story today.

We haven’t rescheduled that night out yet either.

Why Daycare Sucks

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Jackie

You know one of my favorite writing memes is Mama Kat’s Writers Workshop. But I just haven’t been able to do one for one reason or another (lazy) so this week I’m jumping back on the bandwagon and writing this post about daycare.

Daycare is good and bad… I hate having to send my kids there but it’s a necessary evil. There are some really awesome daycare’s out there and some that are not so good.

Many years ago in another place and time, or you could just say about 9 years ago but that doesn’t sound as good. My ex and I had to finally break down and find a daycare for our daughters and it had to be one where the oldest could catch the bus to school. Oh, it also had to have openings that was more than 2 days a week. After looking around we found a pretty nice one that was at a local church.

This was the first time ever that I was taking my 2 year old daughter to daycare and I thought that she’d enjoy it. She’d be able to play with other kids her age and have fun. I was wrong. Very. Very wrong.

My daughter hated every single second of it. She’d start to cry as soon as we got close to the place… even at 2 she knew exactly where we were! She’d cry the entire time we were dropping her off, like we were leaving her with a mass murderer or something. She’d cry when I picked her up, wanting to leave right away. It was terrible.

The worst thing that happened was that somehow she got ringworm. Ringworm! How in the world does a 2 yr old baby get ringworm? I still have no idea.

Winter came around and the church (where the daycare was located) had a live nativity scene and my daughters grandparents took her and her sister to see it one evening. They no more than started down the street that the church/daycare is located it on and she started crying and carrying on because she thought that she was going to daycare. They didn’t make it to the nativity scene that year.

Now you’re probably wondering what kind of daycare is this! We checked it all out ahead of time, they had rules & regulations, and they had a great program. She just didn’t like it at all. And there was nothing that we could do to change her mind about it. Eventually, we adjusted our work schedules and were able to quit taking her to daycare. She was never happier!

She hated daycare!

My daughter was fine

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Jackie

So this week for Mama Kat’s Writers Workshop I decided to forget Thanksgiving, write about a time I fell down. Why? Well because everyone else is probably going to be writing about Thanksgiving in some form or another and eventually you’ll get tired of it. And well…. I want you to read mine.

Many years ago, like 15 or so my daughter was just a little baby. She was this cute, round, chubby thing with a head full of curls and she was absolutely adorable in her little dress and ruffle butt tights.

We were getting ready to get her 9 month pictures taken as well as a family picture that day. We were all set to go with the diaper bag and everything all packed and in the car all that was left was for me to grab my jacket and head out the door.

It was fall so it was cold, breezy, and wet as usual for Michigan weather. I started out the back door which had a set of wooden steps that led down to the ground and I didn’t realize that they were slippery even though I could see that they were damp. I miss stepped and slipped falling down 3 or 4 steps before landing on the bottom step that sits on the ground. Now you’re probably thinking oh, that’s not all that bad. But it was because I was holding the my baby girl.

I have never been so scared in my entire life. I held her tightly against me and just fell and it hurt like hell because I wasn’t letting go of her to catch myself. It was honestly the longest few seconds of my life.

After a few moments I realized that my daughter was fine. Not a bump, scratch, or anything. I on the other hand was wet, in some serious pain and could barely walk back up the steps to go inside the house to change.

All that mattered was that she was fine.

No Coffee for Me Please

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Jackie

I haven’t participated in MamaKat’s Writers Workshop in a while so I thought that I’d pick an easy one this week and jump in again!

Okay, so some of you may know via Twitter that I’m not a coffee person. I know, I know… blasphemy right! So here’s a list why I don’t.

1. The taste. It’s yucky. I just can’t get past the bitterness of it. I’ve done everything possibly known to man to make it taste better… sugar, cream, flavored cream, white milk, chocolate milk, hot cocoa… you name it I’ve tried it.

** I have not tried french press coffee which I’ve been told is amazing and you don’t get the bitter taste. I’m waiting for someone here at work to make the pumpkin spice again instead of the hazelnut and I may be brave and try it.

2. I LOVE pop! (Yes… I call it pop because that what everyone here in Michigan calls it)

3. Diet Coke is my best friend.

4. Diet Dr. Pepper is also my best friend.

5. Coffee can be addicting! I mean look at all the coffee shops around peddling their wares to you!

6. Coffee can be expensive especially if you go to one of those coffee shops every day! Besides I can get a pop from the vending machine here at work for a mere $0.50! How much does your cup of coffee cost?

7. It’s hot and I don’t drink hot things fast enough. They end up cold to fast.

8. Tea is much better for you!

9. I can open a can of pop or make a cup of tea faster than it takes you to make a pot of coffee.

10. And to quote one of my favorite books, “I do not like it here or there, I do not like it anywhere!”

So there you have my friends! My reasons why I don’t drink coffee.

With Just a Bit of Magic

Category Archives: MamaKat’s Writers Workshop