I have been working non stop on the Silent Auction fundraiser coming up next week and it’s Teacher Appreciation Week and Mother’s Day weekend. And we have company coming while we’re in the middle of home improvement projects. And, you know, there’s stuff like real life that tends to get in the way of productivity. I actually had to make a list of day by day items to accomplish this week because I was on overload with all the things. Basically, I’m a walking disaster.

Tuesday was Mommy Muffin Day at my son’s school. It was also the theme of “school supplies” for Teacher Appreciation Week, so we brought hand sanitizer.  I enjoyed spending the morning in the three year old classroom with all the other sweet moms and children. Even though my little guy spent the majority of his time acting like a wild man, I always enjoy a chance to connect with the other moms and the teachers.

I complimented his teacher on her cute outfit and she said “That’s quite a compliment coming from you Ms. Fashionista!” I was genuinely shocked by her comment and told her she had to be kidding. She said, “No, I’m so serious! You are always so put together! I can only imagine how perfect your house is, and truly if I could line up our teacher gifts I would know that the hand-sanitizer came from you guys. That’s so you!”

We laughed and made small talk and I thanked her but with an undertone of “oh please.” (Is that an undertone?)

Her sweet words completely made my day, but I was truly surprised.

Of all the things that I am and all the things that make me “me” being put together and called a fashionista is certainly not something I’ve heard often. I feel like a dirty ponytail, no make-up and “comfy pants” (work out pants that I don’t actually work out in) are my staple wardrobe and I ALWAYS feel like I’m a hot mess.

It was so nice to briefly see myself in someone else’s eyes, and realize that maybe, just maybe, my “hot mess” is just a feeling, not a reflection. I did actually take the time to have my hair cut and colored this morning. I felt like a new person.

Thank goodness that teacher can not see my laundry pile.

Have you seen yourself through someone else’s eyes lately?

Since January, we have been uncertain of where my son would go to school next year, whether or not my husband would do a fellowship (which decides when we will move) and maybe kinda sorta starting to TALK about having another kid. (How’s that for noncommittal?) As my son told me, “that’s only three things.”

I am a planner, and though my life has been nothing if not a constant exercise in change, I hate change. Hate it. I’m good at it, I do it a lot, but I can not stand it.

I like plans, and ideas of what will happen next and clear decisions.

And then today, we got some news.

My husband did not get his fellowship.

He told me with a huge grin on his face.

I think he really only wanted a fellowship because he felt like it is something he should do, not because it was something he was passionate about. And he is so ready to be done with residency and get a “real job.” Because our families still live in Georgia, our “real job” search will be in GA. We only have one year left in Richmond.

I have had mixed emotions all day. I have fallen in love with Richmond, and have established some amazing friends here. Richmond, VA is where we bought our first home, our son took his first steps, and where I finally found myself again after feeling lost from becoming a Mommy.

Secretly, I am also kind of relieved. I have to admit that living this far away from family is hard, and driving down to GA three times a year is extremely draining. At some point, we would need to just stop seeing family so much or just move closer to them because GA trips stress me out. A lot.

It also makes my preschool decision so much easier. As soon as I got the news I paid the deposit and turned in the contract for my son to stay at his current private school for pre-K next year. There is no point in changing schools for just one year right before moving and changing EVERYTHING. I am actually so thankful to be at peace about that. The preschool decision has been weighing heavily on me.

There is still a lot we don’t know. The job searching process will be a whole new adventure and we don’t know exactly WHERE in GA we would like to be. (Except definitely not the area we grew up in. That’s a story for a different day.)

But we do know that we will be moving away from Richmond, VA in the summer of 2014 and we know where our little guy will go to preschool next year. I feel like a huge weight has lifted.

As for the maybe kinda sorta baby thing? I can only handle so much in one day.

Our First CSA

In this family, we are good at a lot of things.

Meal planning, grocery shopping, eating healthy, or exercising are not really among them.

Most of my exercise attempts result in disaster or are incomplete, and we pretty much eat whatever we feel like eating.

WHICH IS TERRIBLE!

Besides being neglectful of our health, it’s also very neglectful of our money.

A local coffee shop (walking distance from our house) recently got a makeover and moved into a larger space, and also incorporated a chocolate shop (yum) and a small Farmer’s Market (cool) in it’s space. As we were browsing one day we discovered that we could sign up for a CSA program called Farm to Family and our pick up location would be right there, at that cute little coffee shop right by our house. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and you pay up front and then receive weekly produce from local farmers.

After a lot of discussion and evaluating our bank account, we decided it’s something we would really like to try.

There were different levels of involvement, but we decided that we’d really like to make a change. We signed up for the “complete package” weekly option which includes dairy, meat, produce, and bread. Each week, we will go to our local coffee shop, pick up our goodies, and return home with organic products all grown by local farmers. Though I was initially concerned about the price, once we looked at our bank account to see how much we actually spend on food, we will wind up saving money this way IF we eliminate the grocery store and cut back on going out to eat.

And that is absolutely our plan.

We are eliminating the grocery store from our lives for the duration of our CSA experiment, which will run for 24 weeks (about 6 months).

I can pick up toilet paper, paper towels and coffee at Target. My only other concern was toddler snacks, and though so far our little guy is doing well with strawberries and cheese, I don’t mind supplementing some Goldfish from Target at some point, too.

My husband and I both hope this will make a positive difference in our lives. We will be saving money and making our lives easier by eliminating grocery lists and shopping from our chores. Whatever is available each week at our CSA pick up is what we will have, and though I’m a bit worried about meal planning within those terms, my husband thinks it will be an exciting challenge. We will also be supporting our local farmers and eating food that is more fresh and higher in nutrients than food that has been shipped from far away and shelved at a grocery store. I’m also hoping it will help our eating habits. Having locally grown vegetables for dinner has to be better for you than going through the drive-through or having taco night. Again. And if it helps make that number on the scale go down a bit? That would be a very nice bonus.

We just picked up our first share on Thursday. This week, we got trout, cornish hen, 3 cheeses, yogurt, granola, a loaf of bread, strawberries, apples, spinach, potatoes, carrots, radishes, leeks, tomatoes, mint and mushrooms. I’m impressed with the variety and love the simplicity of going to a place and having your locally grown groceries already packaged and ready to go.

Another great thing about this plan is that we are already committed, for the full 6 months, to this program, so we really will have time to feel out how to adjust to make this work for us.

Have you ever tried a CSA?

Looking at last year’s sourrounding posts, all of them were light-hearted. Funny. Easy reads.

A post about my style (or lack of it), a silly post about the difference in fairy tales and real life.

Looking at my posts this time this year, they are heavy. Infrequent. I don’t have time to write and when I do it’s about nostalgia or searching.

I did tell you about Conan, but that seems like a small blip in an otherwise trying time.

I can’t explain it really.

Lately I feel heavy. Almost like a real weight is sitting on top of me and I just can’t shake it.

I’m craving sleep and snapping at my boys and when my husband asks what’s wrong I honestly say “I don’t know.”

It’ probably just a funk, or feeling stressed, or internalizing too much instead of processing it or writing it like I should.

Or maybe it’s just one of those things, those things where you don’t know what’s wrong. Worse, you don’t know how to fix it.

Today, I looked back at where I was last year and realized I needed to get back there. Back to the light, the funny, the more frequent writing and storytelling.

Life cycles, and so will my mood. I’m so looking forward to getting back to the light.

*Linking up with Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop with the prompt:  ”Look into your archives. What were you blogging about a year ago around this time? Are you still dealing with the same thing? Your thoughts?”

In a bold decision I decided to live in my sorority house that year, my sophomore year of college. The thing was, I had not made any friends in the sorority yet, and the few girls I was getting close to in my pledge class had chosen to live out of house. On the day my boyfriend and his brother moved me in (now my husband and brother-in-law) I cried and asked them not to leave me. Craving comfort and familiarity more than anything, I felt lost in in the walls of the old antebellum house and in the company of girls I did not know.

My sorority house in college

I went to college at the University of Georgia, where pledging a sorority seemed to be a quintessential part of the college experience and I sought out a family within the walls of an old Southern home. It’s what lead me to bid at that sorority in the first place; the old southern charm of the white columned house with black shutters. It was the prettiest house on Milledge Avenue, the road where all of the sorority and fraternity houses were located.

As it turned out, my sorority experience wasn’t all positive, because I felt I didn’t always fit in as a traditional sorority girl.

But I did find that in the upper corner of that house lived some of my greatest friends, two girls who I became incredibly close to during long nights of studying, drinking wine, and watching marathons of Sex in the City. These ladies became more than sorority sisters and roommates, they became true friends, and we all stood beside each other on our wedding days.

I remember beginning to think of that house as sort of a home at a time in my life when “home” was being redefined.

I ate dinner there, had meaningful conversations, lots of laughs, and even did Pilates every Tuesday in the formal parlor. How fancy is that?

I never yearn for college, because in all of the chapters of my life, that was not my favorite. I feel much more at home in my current stage of life than I ever did with big tests and nights of partying. My entire college experience was overshadowed by losing my Dad my first semester, and I spent a lot of time in the counseling department sorting, processing, and grieving.

I just saw a post on my personal Facebook of a recent Reunion Day where alumni were encouraged to come back and tour the newly renovated house. The beautiful antebellum mansion I called home for a year was updated and restored, and a beautiful addition was put on the house expanding it’s size but not taking away from it’s character.

And I found myself, just for a moment, yearning for the days before a mortgage and a husband and a toddler when I could call the four walls of that beautiful white house home and drink wine and watch Sex in the City marathons with my girlfriends.

And then I remembered that one day, this too will be a memory. The toy-strewn messy house, the toddler hugs; my husband and I still towards the beginning of our adventure.

And so I cherish the memories of that old white house, and I smile at the pictures of the beautiful renovations. And then I look at where I am now, pick up a pirate sword discarded on the floor in a quiet house where my husband and son are sleeping, and smile. For this too, is a memory to be cherished.

And tonight, in the midst of cherishing and collecting memories, I needed to gain that perspective.

*A link to the newly renovated Alpha Gamma Delta house at the University of Georgia: http://lisapoole.phanfare.com/6032969*

Linking up with Yeah Write, a wonderful blogging and writing community, for the first time in far too long.

I went to see Conan O’Brien.

I love Conan like Kimberly at All Work and No Play Makes Mommy Go Something Something loves Chuck Norris or like my best friend loved Jonathan Taylor Thomas when we were kids, or like you love Justin Timberlake. (I won’t tell anyone.)

I always joke with my husband that I married him because he has red hair and then we had a son with red hair too, who is the cutest toddler ever, so I must think red heads are adorable. It’s a subconscious thing.

I have loved Conan for YEARS and before I turned 30 it was one of my goals to see him in person. Then Team Coco announced that they would be filming a week of shows in Atlanta, 30 minutes from my hometown, so a plan was hatched. My brother and I both signed up for the ticket lottery. I didn’t win, but my brother did, and he said he would take me. (Best brother ever.)

After acquiring supermom status by driving down to GA with my son on Tuesday, I was up and ready to go on Wednesday morning at 4:30. In the morning. My brother and I met in downtown Atlanta at 6:00 in the morning and were the 31st and 32nd people in line at about 6:30 AM.

They would not start handing out tickets until 9:00, so we had a good three hours of talking and catching up (and freezing because I never am up that early and forgot that it’s cold before the sun comes up.)

We met some pretty cool people and my brother even managed to squeeze in some networking.

Around 8:00 they split the line to paper holders and standbys. After the standbys left, we were the 5th and 6th people in line. At about 8:30 they split the line again into blue and yellow. We happened to have blue papers, and we were the very first in the blue line! When they finally opened the ticket tent at 9:06, my brother and I got the very first tickets….and we were on the FRONT ROW!!! Totally worth it.

After we got our bracelets, we got Conan buttons at the photo booth and set out for a day in Atlanta. I am saving this bracelet and button forever.

We went to the World of Coke.

And toured the CNN studios.

And ate lunch at a really great local restaurant.

We also did a lot of Conan stalking, but he never came out of his trailer.

We did get some pretty awesome pictures of us standing in front of the Tabernacle (the venue where Conan was filming) and with an awesome basketball with Conan hair, designed to promote both Conan’s tapings and the Final Four taking place in Atlanta that weekend.

The doors opened at 4:00ish and filming started at 5:00. How amazing is this venue and these front row seats??

The show was awesome, and I was close enough to touch Conan. They were very strict with their photography rules, though, so I don’t have any pictures of him!! So sad. I very sneakily snapped this one, but it’s blurry.

We did get some good ones of ourselves though…

And I even made it onto TeamCoco.com with my poster!

The show was great, and I loved getting to watch Conan in between commercial breaks and pre-taped segments. He cracks himself up at his own comedy, which I think is adorable. His opening act, Jimmy Pardo, asked who the first people were and my brother and I excitedly raised our hands. Which I almost immediately regretted because a large part of his opening act was a “roast” of us, which was kinda funny and kinda not-so-much-please-stop-now.

After the show my brother and I waited for AN HOUR in the rain to see Conan. That’s dedication, people. He never came out, but we did see Andy from afar.

To be honest, I left in a bad mood 1) because I was EXHAUSTED, 2) the pre-taping “roast” dampened my mood and 3) because I really, really wanted to meet and get a picture with Conan. That is still on my bucket list.

But after getting a little bit of sleep, and getting to watch the show on TV, (you can totally see my brother and I on the front row in that episode!)  I have a much better perspective on how amazing the day really was. A fun day in Atlanta with my brother and getting FRONT ROW seats to see the love of my life, Conan? Not too shabby and totally before 30 bucket list approved.

It remained there throughout my college years, throughout my various apartments. The spreading of my wings was still grounded in an old blue house and with the realities and memories of the five of us.

And then home became elusive and undefined. The blue house was sold and painted white. It became a shell of what it used to be and though I would sometimes drive by when I was in town to visit, I knew it was no longer home.

Home became different from house.

My son and I have been traveling a lot lately. A big trip to Georgia to visit family. A trip to Alabama for a wedding. And most recently a trip to North Carolina to visit my best friends.

Lost in thought on yet another long drive I pondered home.

For over the past few weeks I have found home hidden in unexpected places, slowly revealing itself to me in tiny pieces.

I mostly find home now in an old house in Richmond, VA. We’re drawn to homes with character, my husband and I. I find home in this house’s creaky stairs and funny phone nook and the yard that sprouts clover instead of grass.

I find home in my husband’s smile and in toddler bear hugs. My son gives the best ones.

And then in our travels I found home again in the Georgia air. Ten hours south of where we are now, there’s just something different about the atmosphere in Georgia. Something comforting about old familiar roads and memories.

I always find home in the company of my mom and brother and sister. They will always be the first and best parts of my definition of home.

This weekend, I found home in my best friends. In memories of being young. In recalling how we met and who we used to be in the midst of who we are now as adults and mothers.

“Home is where the heart is” seems cliche and stagnant, though drenched in truth.

Home, to me, lies in memories and the comforting security of familiarity.

Home, it seems, exists not in a place, but in a collection of pieces of who we are and who we are yet to be.

And at every turn, it feels good to be home.

Me as SuperMom

I would like to officially nominate myself for SuperMom. It may be a fake contest, but I think I have a good chance of winning.

I’ve done a lot of SuperMom stuff before, like all of the things I do all of the time while my husband works 80 work weeks and we don’t have family around, or our disaster move to Richmond where I drove all the way up with a 9 month old and two cats by myself, or even the time I nursed while going to the bathroom, because hey, babies have to eat, even if it’s inconvenient.

Last week was my son’s Spring Break, and it was also my aunt’s wedding weekend. My brother also got tickets to see Conan O’Brien (the true love of my life) filming in Atlanta, so the stars aligned and a week long trip to Georgia was planned.

Except that my husband could not come.

On Tuesday, I packed up my son and I and drove the trip from Richmond, VA to Atlanta, GA by myself with a toddler. The 8 1/2 hour drive took 10 hours and I only got mad at my son once, so I consider it a great success. Enter SuperMom status.

On Wednesday, my brother and I spent all day in Atlanta and got front row seats to see Conan, which was pretty much the best day of my life, and my son stayed with my husband’s parents. I had dinner at my in-laws Wednesday night and then crashed at my mom’s.

Thursday was thankfully a laid back day with my mom, and then we geared up to drive 3 more hours to Huntsville, AL on Friday for the wedding weekend.

My son is three years old. This is the 5th (!) wedding he has been to in his life, and all of them have been 5 to 10 hours away from us. My husband has only attended 2 out of 5. It is very stressful to drag toddlers to weddings, let alone do it 5 times in three years, most of those times without your spouse. Enter SuperMom status again.

We survived the rehearsal dinner and wedding and set out to make the 12 hour drive home to Richmond, VA from Huntsville, AL on Sunday morning. Thankfully, my sister and brother-in-law were riding back with us that time since they had to head north to Washington, DC. I could not have made the trip back without them, because my son kept saying he had a hurt tummy and we had to stop twice for him to go to the bathroom with diarrhea and once after he projectile vomited all over himself, the car seat, and the back of my car.

I may be a contender for SuperMom, but I do not do vomit. It’s truly the one thing I can not handle. Thank goodness for my brother-in-law who helped me clean it up and my sister who calmly drove and stopped for our potty runs and vomit clean ups.

We made it home at 11:00 Sunday night, and after a day of much needed laziness yesterday, we entered back into the real world today. I have to tell you, I’m still not completely caught up.

What super thing have you done lately?

This Easter weekend, we were able to have a rare family night Friday night which we used to go out for Mexican dinner and clean the house together to get ready for the Easter bunny! The Easter bunny was coming Friday night because my husband had to work a night shift Saturday. Early Saturday morning we woke up to find the fun goodies left by the Easter bunny, and then we headed to a local park that does a large Easter egg hunt every year. We got there in time to have a wonderful egg hunt, play in the park, and enjoy the activities like the music, moon bounce  and slide. We even had a food truck lunch.

After that we experienced yet another novelty in our lives; the chance to go to the mall together. We racked up on new shoes for the boys and then headed home for a much needed family nap. After the hubs headed off to work the toddler and I enjoyed a quiet evening and went to bed.

Sunday morning the hubs was still at work and my son and I had to wake up extra extra early so I could be at choir rehearsal. My sweet little guy sat and watched our entire rehearsal before I dropped him off at Sunday school and sang through two church services. My husband met us at church and then we all headed over to a friend’s house for a wonderful afternoon of Easter dinner and fun.

And without further ado, I present to you the cutest little toddler ever in his Easter best.

Happy Easter!

For some reason, this decision seems monumentally hard.

I have finally succeeded in figuring out why…this is the first parenting decision I’ve had to think about.

Weird, right? From the time we find out we are pregnant we have to make parenting decisions. Doctors, birth plans, breast or bottle, crib or in your bed, stay at home or work, decisions, decisions, decisions.

The thing for me is, I already knew all of that stuff. I knew I wanted a natural birth (which didn’t happen…I wound up with a c-section.) I knew I wanted to breastfeed and have the baby in the bed with me and do baby wearing instead of car seat carrying. I knew I wanted to be a stay at home mom and I knew with 100 percent certainty that those were the RIGHT decisions FOR US. And they absolutely were.

When my son turned two I wanted him to start preschool a couple days a week. We found a preschool we loved and even though I had separation anxiety in the beginning, I knew it was a good choice. My son had an excellent year and I adore his first two teachers so much.

Then this year he is having kind of an off year in preschool, which made me wonder if his current preschool is still the right choice. He will also be old enough to start the Virginia Preschool Initiative Program this fall, so I wonder if we should take advantage of that resource. After a speech screening we also discovered that he needs speech for slight articulation issues which we have been paying $55 per half hour for once a week. He is not eligible for free services through the school system because his articulation is not severe enough to affect his development. So then enters a financial issue that we can not afford to continue private speech therapy AND next year’s preschool tuition. I am also the Parent Council Chair at my son’s school this year which has turned out to be a huge job.

Enter stressed out indecisive Mommy.