Toast 2 Mom

Related - not-what-so-ever

Day to day I jabber about my daughters and motherhood and such. While I'm sure I have a story or two to share, today I'm just going to post a couple photos of our backyard. We've almost lived in our new state for a year. We're still getting used to the climate, temperatures and seasons. To us it should still be cold, snowy and wet. About the most we get of that is mild, misty and fog. There have been several foggy days here lately. I'm not sure if this is a common thing for December or not. However, it has created some pretty interesting sunsets out our back door in the evening. I took a couple photos...because I thought it was neat.

 

I Got Nothin' But These Silly Pictures...

We're post birthday and post parties and post visitors in our household. Today Sydney went back to preschool. We have the house all picked up, laundry caught up, party decorations put away and bed routines back on schedule... And my thinking cap is still on a hiatus.

I have been feeling like I want to evolve my blog, but I'm not sure into what. This creative block has been weighing me down for some time. I want to write. I want to share. I want to show pictures. I want to do all of this and more....but I want to do something different too. It'll come to me eventually.

For now, though, I'm going to write when I can, post pictures when I can, share stories and funny tales when I can....and hopefully more...when I can.

Today....you get silly pictures. Some days are just like this...

 

Just Checking In...

The guilt of not writing or blogging or even photographing is getting to me...and it's only been a couple days. I am still here...though I am currently in the process of trying to accomplish a lot of things. Managing my time, among this chaos, is not working out as planned. Therefore, my sweet little blog is taking the backseat. It's this time of night that I'm usually able to sit and wrap up the day....but I'm not in the mood to use my brain to remember it all.

Been busy working on several house projects. Trying to prepare for next week - Grammy and Papa are coming to help celebrate Sydney's big birthday! So along with birthday preparations, I'm also in high gear trying to get our new house exactly the way I want it before we have company. Pressure!! :)

On top of that, the weather went from crazy sunny, hot and dry to crazy cloudy, wet and humid. I'm pleased for the rain, as it's made our brown town turn green again. But what a mess it also brings. I hope the sun appears again...soon.

So, anyway, this is my "I'm still alive....though I'm whining with so much to do on my plate" post.

Hope to at least get a couple photos taken this week...

Random

It's rainy outside, and quiet inside. The girls are napping. I should be napping, but duty calls. I'm surprised to not be tired, though. Not sure if it's been my few days of sniffles or what, but the past couple nights, I have been practically wide awake from the hours of 3:00 to 5:00. Last night I had company. Cheekers was also wide awake. I wanted to pull her out of bed to play but didn't want to start a bad middle of the night habit! I hope this is not a new thing, being awake at night, because I really love to sleep.

I suppose my mind has been racing a bit more lately with many things. I have Sydney's fourth birthday coming up that I am trying to think about and plan. I have been trying to get more and more projects done around the house. And I've always got my future on the brain - what I want to do with myself, what I want to be when I grow up, what I want to achieve and how a lot of that ties to the well being and future for my girls.

I also, unfortunately, seem to be in a down slope on my blog lately. I never want my writing space to feel like a task. The main theme of my thoughts and of this blog has evolved around the girls. They are on my mind a lot and I'm with them a lot. However, sometimes I don't want to fence myself in on my ideas.

So I guess today I don't have anything specific in mind I want to write about nor do I feel like I have to craft a story or come up with some memory I don't want to forget. While I really do have something to write about all the time, sometimes I just don't know how to do it...and therefore I don't.

Like today, despite the many things I have on my mind and would like to say, I can't seem to craft it. And even though I want to avoid my blog feeling like a task, I also enjoy its space, my space, to use however I choose. So today is random....I'm not sleeping very well, getting over a cold, my life is currently full of making lists and trying to make check-marks on those...and I'm hopeful that maybe tomorrow I'll feel more clever....but maybe I won't?

Writing Assistant

Hi. My name is Natalie Katherine. Although you probably know me by the name Cheekers. I am also called Natty or Natty Kat.

My Mommy could not be here today. Well she could, but she said she was having writer's block. Then she was also busy making my dinner - because that is very important...and I plan to eat it all because my Mommy is the best cook is the whole wide world.

Mommy asked if I could get on the computer and let you know that she had just too many things to work on today. I told her I would love to help her out, not only because she is the best Mommy ever, but that I was really wanting to practice my letters some more...

But I have to go now... because my sister is swiping my animals. Please keep reading my Mommy's blog, because she writes about really neat stuff...me and my big sister!

Thank you.  Good-bye!

Cheers! Toast 2 Mom

Today marks the one year anniversary of my blog. Yea! A year ago today I sat down and talked about how I thought I was the last one to enter this blog world. With the number of blogs that were out there, I still kind of feel that way. Regardless, a year has gone by and I am so excited about this anniversary.

Recently my hubby told me that he was so proud of me for keeping up with my blog. I have a tendency to get myself involved in things and then lose the love…and therefore lose the “hobby”. I always have a rationalization for why I’m ending my relationship with this or that. I tried knitting…once. When I couldn’t even get one loop without wanting to throw the needles, I knew this wasn’t for me. I tried running, bad knees. I tried tennis, my eyes couldn’t stay on the ball (long story). I tried cooking/baking, burnt too much. I tried painting, no talent.

When I started this blog of mine, I had several big scope visions as to how I hoped this would be. I hoped to be one of the top Mommy bloggers, sharing my humor and stories to the masses. I saw myself on the Today show, laughing up parenthood with Lauer. I pictured myself writing a book and seeing it next to the animal limoges at Z Gallerie.

Yes, I like to fantasize big. Along the way, day to day responsibilities kick in and the result is me just trying to carve a few moments out of a day to share a story with family and friends. Even though I haven’t seen my words in hardbound yet, I’m still very content and pleased with the fact that my little tiny blog has gone as far as it has. I haven’t wanted to throw my computer across the room. I don’t get sore eyes over typing. With writing, I feel like time to time I might even actually have some talent.

Above all else, to have this outlet to document the encounters I have with my girls and life in general is just so very…cool! I love it. A year later, I still love to think about things I want to say. I love to share our experiences and know that someday my girls will get to see what a joy they are in my world. Sure there are the “writer block” days. There are the “uh, that sucked” days. That’s OK, though, because I am still with it…and that’s a good thing.

Happy Anniversary to meeeeeeeee…and many more! Cha, cha, cha!

 

Nothing is coming to mind...

I'm feeling a little lame lately. I don't feel like I've come up with many ideas to write about and this bums me out. I've mentioned that my organizational time throughout the day is a little lacking than it used to be when I was working in an office. At my job I had time to sort my paperwork, make some random phone calls, daydream and yes....write my blogs. I certainly had plenty of time to think about them anyway.

I don't feel like I've been able to get into that creative groove yet of using my brain in a writing way. My creativity lately has been used to perfect my voices during story time, making sure Papa Bears voice is much different that Baby Bears voice and definitely from the narration part. I've also been working on coloring inside the lines. I was never the best at this as a kid. Hmm, I'm pretty good at it now. I've also been trying to figure out how to explain how Candyland works to a three year old. When you draw a yellow card, you have to move your "player" to the nearest yellow square, not the one by the gumdrops!  

A few particular activities that took place in our household today were trying to locate a pencil sharpener before Syd pressed the color part away from her pencils, trying to cut up Natalie's second course at lunch fast enough before she palm shoved the first course into her mouth and it was all gone and how to get one area of the playroom picked up before Natalie demolished the opposite corner of the room before I could get there.

There is never a day in my new setting that is without activity, fun or challenges...and definitely all of these things are worthy of writing about. I am just lost on how to put a quirky spin or lesson learned into "how many times can Mommy pick up the sippy cup off the floor and put it back onto the highchair"?!