What I Miss About Being Married

It’s been a little over six months since our marriage was dissolved as the courts like to call it. It’s definitely been a period of adjustment for all of us and it continues to be as we cycle through the first year of school, holidays, activities, etc… as a two household family. While I’m in a much better place now than I was a year ago, there are still some things that I miss about being married. Of course, there’s the typical things like clogged toilets, bats almost flying in the house, and ironing that I miss. Matt was always in charge of ironing and unclogging toilets, and if that bat HAD flown in the house, AR and I would’ve been sleeping somewhere else that night.

To be honest, while Matt always did all the landscaping and yardwork, I don’t really mind doing it because it gives me a sense of accomplishment that I can do it on my own… although I still haven’t mastered the art of weedeating... and he still does a much better job than I do. It still takes me probably 3-4x longer than if he would’ve done it but still, it gets done and I’m proud of myself for it! It also makes me wonder if I’d helped him with the yardwork, although he really didn’t need my help, if that would’ve helped things. We always operated separately, rarely as a team because we both knew the other was able to fulfill their “tasks” on their own. Still, there’s other things that you probably wouldn’t think of that I miss as well. 

Accountability-When Matt was in the house, and even when my mom was living with us, I was very consistent on getting AR to bed on time and she rarely ever slept with me. Now, it seems like a huge victory if she’s in bed before 7:30PM and most nights when she comes back after being at Matt’s, she somehow finds her way into my bed. I don’t know what it is about having someone else in the house but it helped to keep me on task as much as AR.

Eating a variety of food-I used to complain that I never got leftovers when I was married but now that there’s only one adult and one child in our house, I get PLENTY of leftovers. In fact, I’ve been eating meatloaf every day for the past week. Seriously, I can cook one meal a week and that’s enough for us

Roller coasters-Luckily, AR is small enough now that I can handle all the rides she likes for now. Once she gets older though, I have a feeling she’ll be a roller coaster riding machine and I’m not so sure I’ll be able to handle all that.

Milk-Here’s the irony… one of the biggest arguments we used to have would be over milk. Matt could drink a gallon of milk in a day and it would drive me nuts. Now that it’s just me and AR, we don’t even get through half a gallon before it expires.

Writing-Prior to the dissolution of our marriage, I was a writing machine, putting out a book every other month. Granted, I probably wrote as an outlet, but I'm very disappointed in myself that I haven't really found my "mojo" again. Sure, I've still wrote and published a few books but the drive isn't there any more. I don't want to hang it up because I have so many stories left untold so I just have to tell myself it's okay to just get to it when I get to it. I don't write for the money, I write for the stories so in due time, it'll all come out. 

It's funny how when life throws you a total curve ball, you only think about the "big" stuff that will change. I mean when we first decided to get divorced, one of the many thoughts that popped into my head was who will mow my yard, how do I take a mower to the store to get it maintained. I thought I would have all this free time to write after I put AR to bed at exactly 7PM. Then we have a night like tonight where we laid in bed, talking about our days and randomness then I look at the clock and it's already 8PM! We tend to forget about the small things, that add up to big things. Still, overall, I think it's safe to say all three of us are doing well, just learning as we go and adjusting to life like everyone does when things change but boy oh boy am I sick of meatloaf!

 

A Chill Weekend

All the time I feel like I post about how busy we are and all the super awesome stuff we do. To be honest, AR is just as content to stay home and play so that's what we did for the most part this weekend. It was just a nice, chill weekend! I was off work on Friday so we did a couple fun things outside of the house but for the most part, we stuck close to home.

We're dogsitting so first thing Friday morning, we took Char Char for a walk along the trail by our house. I'm slowly trying to ease into the exercise thing so we did lots of stuff to stay active this weekend, too.

Ever since we went ice skating over winter break, AR has been begging to go back. They had open skate on Friday morning and the place was dead. We basically had the rink to ourselves, not more than 10 people there. There was a teenage figure skater there named Faith. She was so sweet to AR, who kept skating up to her and asking her questions. Love teenagers out there like that! They seriously are role models to little ones like AR and their simple interactions with them make a world of difference!

I used a scooter too this time so after about an hour, I was feeling pretty confident to go without it. Here's AR and I skating together. You can't tell in the video but she doesn't quite understand not to cut me off or we'll both tumble! I got a great arm workout as I would basically pick her up with one arm to keep us both from falling.



Now, here's Momma ice dancing... don't be jealous of my moves!



Early Friday evening, we went to my work to go swimming with AR's school. We saw old friends, we met new friends, and one of her new friends had this cool mermaid tail. AR was begging to try it the whole time we were there and the little girl was gracious enough to let her try it out.

We now officially have started her birthday list and guess what's on the top of the list?



After swimming, we headed to Main Street to meet up with Jenni and her family.  We met at Sugar Cubed which is a new candy store. They were having a s'mores night! My sweet girl, taking after her momma, picked a Reese's peanut butter cup to go on her s'more.

For $8, we got 3 s'mores and a special drink. We had the Capt'n Cutler's Cooler... blue sprite, lemonade, and Swedish fish. It was delish to say the least!

AR was diggin' the s'more, no matter how messy it was!

Okay then seriously we stayed home, or around home, the rest of the weekend! Saturday we loaded up the dog we are dogsitting and headed to a park in our neighborhood that we knew no one would be at. It's such a cute playground, tucked away in the middle of a bunch of houses so it's nice because we usually have it all to ourselves. It was almost 70 degrees so we decided we were going to spend the majority of the day outside if we could.

Of course, we had to do silly things with Char Char like put her in the baby swing, ride down the slide, and sit beside AR in the police car. ***No dogs were harmed in this trip to the playground. Both child and dog had a blast and spent the majority of the time laughing and barking at each other.***

We headed back home, played in the backyard some with both dogs then decided to get out our bikes. We had a bit of a crash and burn, scary accident but we both survived and aren't too scarred for life. After lunch and a nap, AR rode her bike while I walked to the 7-11 for a slurpee run. FYI-get the app and free small slurpees for the next 3 weekends! On the way back, we stopped at the playground in our backyard and she ran into some friends from school. Overall, it was an awesome, low-key, close to home day!

Sunday morning, we woke up and did some yoga per AR's request. She was the teacher and I was her student. Here we are in whale pose aka locust.

Saturday night I opened the freezer and saw a bag of chocolate chips. I decided to try my hand at making homemade muffins. After yoga, we made some using this recipe  plus we added some sugar sprinkles. They were AMAZING!!! Tasted just like Dunkin Donuts muffins, yum!!! Best part is that we have breakfast for the rest of the week. Thank you to our neighbor who let us borrow some vanilla!

Sunday was overcast and windy so we met up with some Jenni again at the mall so the girls could play and burn off more energy. AR had been asking for awhile to go to the playground. She got three this weekend so she should be happy! After that, we came home and she played in the backyard with the dogs while I made lunch and folded laundry. She's now quietly napping and when she gets up, it'll be time to start getting ready for the school week. Luckily, tomorrow starts National Lutheran Schools Week so it's pajama day-yah for pajamas on Monday! She asked me if I got to wear pajamas to work and I said, "I wish, baby, I wish..."

AR's First Blues Game-LGB!!!

So I guess you could say I kind of have this internal bucket list in my head of things I want AR to do, try, visit, etc... Ever since the STL Blues did so well in the playoffs last spring, AR has been slightly interested in the Blues... while having no idea whatsover they do or what's going on. I decided I wanted to take her to a game this year and it's been on my to-do list for the last two months. I've searched ticket prices, checked dates, and seriously only like one game in March fit our schedule. I'd at least narrowed it down to a date but I hadn't bought tickets yet. Monday night, my co-worker Holly texted me and said Bob had tickets to the game on Tuesday and wanted to know if AR and I wanted to go. I'd been avoiding going on Tuesday nights because AR has gymnastics but when a Blues legend is offering tickets, I knew I couldn't pass.

We got to the game late thanks to traffic but when we found our seats, they were awesome!!! AR seriously just stood for the first 10 minute mesmerized by the fast pace. Every now and then, she'd look at me and yell, "Mommy, I saw the little round black thing!!!" She also picked up on the horn/Let's Go Blues cheer pretty quickly as well.

This was the view from our seats, not too bad, huh?

I'd bought her a short-sleeve Blues tutu dress for Christmas, it only cost $10 from Kohl's. The girl hasn't stopped wearing it so of course she had to wear it to the game. And the Blues sweater she's wearing? Got it from a store going out of business for $10, too!

In between the 1st and 2nd period, Mr. Bob came to visit us. Mr. Bob is Blues legend Bobby Plager, who played for them in the late '60s. Holly met him last year and became buddies with him. I've met him a handful of times and he's a great guy and I should mention totally hilarious! Thank you so much for the seats, Mr. Bob, AR's first Blues game was totally magical thanks to you!

He even signed her sweater and put a smiley face in the P so AR thought that was awesome.

The night was going great... until the other team scored and AR was not happy. She also wasn't a fan of the loud horn but otherwise, she loved it!

When Mr. Bob came to our seats, he was like Santa and brought us three bags of giveaways. Our Blues apparel doubled!!! AR was most excited about the pucks and thought Mr. Bob looked handsome in his picture from back when he played.

The pucks were even signed by Ryan Reaves! Overall, we had a great experience and were completely spoiled thanks to Bob. A huge shout out and thank you to Bob and Holly for thinking of AR and me! LGB!!!

The Great Ice Storm of 2017

Last weekend, they started calling for a huge ice storm to hit STL this weekend. Luckily, I'd already taken off work on Friday so when I picked AR up from school on Thursday, we went straight to the grocery store and headed home. There was a bit of a commotion in the park directly behind our house so it was an interesting way to start off our weekend but without going into detail, AR and I are fine and thank you to everyone that texted or called to check on us. After that, we hunkered down for the long haul, charging all devices, and expecting the worse.

Friday we woke up and nothing had started yet. Around mid-morning, the driveway started getting slick and we had finished watching our first movie. A friend of ours texted around 1 or 2, checking in on us and seeing if we needed anything. I told him we were all good but thanks for checking. A couple hours later, his girlfriend texted, asking if they could come over and hang out. So they came over with their dog, cooked dinner, salted our driveway, and watched AR's amazing dance show. Let me sidebar here and talk about this friendship. It was a completely unexpected one that has grown into more of a family bond than a friendship one. They have been a true blessing to us and just like God proved to me last year with the people he placed in our lives, they crossed our paths at a time that couldn't have been more perfect. We love J & D and we're going to miss them when they move in the next month(s). AR and I promise, J, that we'll take care of D until she leaves, too. We love you guys so much and are grateful for everything you've done for us! Just remember as AR says, we'll always be besties for life!

Saturday morning we woke up and the driveway, roads, sidewalks all looked completely fine. After being cooped up for 24+ hours, we decided to brave it. We headed to 7-11 then dropped a card off at the police station to thank them for their work at the park last Thursday. After that, we headed over to our friends' house to drop off a card which turned into a two-hour playdate and lunch at Chick-Fil-A. It was exactly what the girls needed!!! I even learned that if CFA isn't busy, they'll let the girls make their own ice cream cones. Plus, we all need to pause and check out my little one's outfit she's got going on here...ice skating dress, high heels, and pants... God, I love her fashion sense and creativity!

Sunday we were supposed to get the worse wave of ice but the temperature had warmed up so it was just a muddy mess. Monday AR was out of school for the holiday and this momma said we're getting out of the house! Unfortunately, all my other mom friends had to work but our swim lesson buddy's nanny, TT, who we also love, loaded up all four of the kids and met us at Monkey Joe's. 

This was our first time at Monkey Joe's. I'll be honest, I'd been avoiding it because I thought it was way too expensive. A couple weeks ago, I stopped in to buy a gift card for a birthday party and checked out their prices. Compared to the other inflatable place, it's really not that bad considering there's no time limit. I went ahead and purchased the 10 jump pass. It was 10 visits for $75 with no expiration date. With spring break coming up and the hot summer months, I figured that was a good purchase and something that Nanny can do with her out of the heat. There were also TONS of inflatables, lots of space, tons of places for parents to sit, and free wi-fi, that's always a win for me!

Today was a great way for all the kids to burn off that pent up energy, look at how red their faces are. Thanks TT for coming out to play with the kids!

AR ran into a friend from school so we stayed a little bit longer. This author momma took out her computer and got some formatting done for her upcoming release. It's not the most traditional place to write but hey, whatever works, right? This is definitely multi-tasking at it's finest!

So there you have it, we survived the great ice storm that never was!