Mixing and Matching for Valentine’s Day

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I’m taking a cue from my friend Tamara and combining posts. I don’t know that I’ll do it with the skill and ease that she does, but I am going to give it a try. As you all know, the Ladies Only Blog Share (#LOBS) is the twice a month blog hop I do with some of my best blogging buddies. #AskAwayFriday is a another link up, where you have the opportunity to get to know other bloggers better.

I got an email from Sarah about pairing up for #AskAwayFriday. Sarah is a newer blog friend…I just met her very recently. Check over at Small Town Iowan to see her answers to my questions! If you’d like to see who else is participating, head over to visit Penny at The Real Housewife of Caroline County or Amber at The Bold Fab Mom. Then after you see my answers to the questions Sarah has sent my way, please join us in linking up for the Ladies Only Blog Share for our Valentine’s edition!

1.  Alright again my signature question lately.  Where do you see yourself in 10 years? I haven’t thought that far ahead! Life has brought me so many things, some of which I didn’t even know I wanted. I have a wonderful husband and three great kids. I’ve traveled to some amazing places. I co-authored a book. All I really want is to have more wonderful memories. In the end, that’s what we have to look back on.

By the way, our book The Mother of All Meltdowns is on sale right now over at Amazon for $0.99 for the Kindle version!

2.  Favorite room in your house, have a picture? The kitchen is definitely my favorite room. I shared this picture last week for a different question, but I’ll share it again. We’ve lived in the same house for 20+ years…almost as long as we’ve been married…and added on when I was pregnant with our third child. We had a really small kitchen, and we both enjoy cooking. Our old kitchen is now our dining room / backup office. That’s another story altogether…the backup office thing. We wanted it to be a place where people hung out in our house, rather than someone being stuck in the kitchen while people were elsewhere. There’s a few things I would change now, but not anything big. It was a nightmare while we were doing it though. We had to cook in the great room on a hot pot for months. That was not fun!

3. You’re daughter likes all sorts of things and she is the only girl.  What are some fun things you like to do with just her? I really enjoy watching her sports. She loves soccer and plays year round. She has since she was 4 (although back then it was just fall and spring, no indoor in the winter). Normally, I’d say it’s crazy for kids to do the same sport season after season, but when she was in kindergarten she came to me and told me she wasn’t doing scouts or dance anymore, only soccer. She just loved it so much. Eleven years later, she still loves it.  (She has tried cross country and track though).  I do like to plan mom and me time every so often…last weekend we went out to dinner, just the two of us. And last year my mother in law and I took her and a friend to NYC for her birthday for the weekend. We saw a Broadway show and went shopping at Century 21 (huge discount store with designer brands).

4.  You have two boys as well, what are some fun things you like to do with them? I enjoy the boys sports as well. We are really a sports family. Most of our weekends are spent at games or tournaments. In the winter, we ski, and we like to go as a family, but it’s not always easy with everyone’s schedule. The boys also love paintball but that’s a boys weekend…my husband goes with them and their friends. They stay in a cabin with no heat, no electricity and no running water or bathroom. No thank you. I stay home. I also try to plan one on one time with them as well. My oldest is the toughest in this regard…I think it might be taboo to be seen alone with your mom in public. He’ll watch a movie at home with me though. My youngest will still go out to lunch or dinner with me. The last time we went he really surprised me when we had a conversation about what he was reading…quite the interesting choice.

5.  Alright you have your choice of any vacation, no worries about money, where would you go? Right now it’s a toss up. My dream vacation is a quiet island with nothing to do but explore and snorkel and lay on the beach…and of course eat lots of great local seafood. But I also really want to go to Alaska. My brother in law is stationed there, and I know the scenery is spectacular. Plus I would love to see a moose. The ironic part is recently we had a moose right here in our town, passing through…he was at my son’s bus stop about 5 minutes before he got there (our neighbor took a picture), and he was also sighted in the hospital parking lot. I drove around town with my camera in my car all day and never once saw him.

6.  What does your typical day look like?

• Get up 6:30, take my oldest son to school at 7:15 (he goes to a private school in the next town over)
• Return home a little before 8:00, work on the computer for 45 minutes.
• 9:00 am meet a friend to run
• 10:30 home again, work from home until the kids get home and the after school driving begins. My oldest has basketball games on Wednesday so if it’s local, I usually try to go to that as well.
• In between all the driving, I will make dinner (hopefully it was prepped on Sunday…we try to get most meals for the week planned and prepped ahead when we can). When the kids are doing homework, I usually try to get some housework done, or work on my blog, or get other work done. If I am driving somewhere for the kids that I have to stay and wait, I’ll usually try to write a blog post then.
• Read before bed.

Of course there are errands occasionally, and girls nights, and even an occasional girls lunch! But this is usually what a weekday looks like for me during the school year. On weekends there is more fun time!

7.  How bout if you could be an artist, writer, singer, or actor for a day, who would you be? Probably a writer…or a photographer. I would never want to be in the public spotlight. I do enjoy writing, but I really love photography, especially sports photography. Here’s one of my favorite photos from the fall soccer season.

8.  Chocolate or vanilla ice cream? I’m not really a big ice cream person. I couldn’t eat it when I was nursing my last child because he had so many food allergies, and I never really started eating it again. But probably I’d go with vanilla over chocolate.

9.  Favorite color? That one is easy. GREEN. My closet is full of green. I’m drawn to it.

10.  If you could have your dream car, what would it be? I don’t really have a dream car. Just not a truck! I am such a nervous wreck when I have to drive my husband’s truck. Since my minivan has high mileage on it, and my husband doesn’t want me to drive long distances in it anymore (which is kind of a given with the kids’ sports schedules), he bought me a new car as a surprise recently. He came home with it on Black Friday. You can imagine my shock. It’s teeny tiny compared to my old van. It’s white, which would not have been my choice of colors because it shows the dirt so much, and I am terrible about getting my car cleaned. But I’m not really a car person, and my husband knows it. I’m happy with whatever. Plus he got a great deal on it, and it gets good gas mileage.

 

Now for the Ladies Only Blog Share! Our theme is Valentine’s Day, and we would love for you to link up with your favorite recipes, crafts, romantic stories or tips! Old and new posts are welcome…we can’t wait to check them all out! Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us at #LOBS to you!

Ready to head over to the party? Here are your fabulous hosts (besides me!):

Crystal at Mommifried

Kristen at Four Hens and a Rooster

Tamara at Tamara Camera Blog

Angela at Writer Mom’s Blog

Amber from City Girl on Hicks Farm

We would all love to connect with you outside of our LOBS Link Party as well. My buttons are located at the top of my blog. I am looking to increase my Instagram presence so I would really appreciate it if you could follow me there! I will be more than happy to follow you back! Please leave me a note letting me know that you are visiting from the Ladies Only Blog Share or #LOBS, either in the comments below or on whatever platform you’d like to connect on!

Time to get this party started!

Here’s the rules:

• Please follow your hosts/co-hosts
• Link up your favorite post for the theme.
• Please share so others can join in the fun.
• Visit at least 3 of the links and leave a thoughtful comment. Let them know you’re visiting from #LOBS.
• Pin your blog post to the Ladies Only Blog Share Pinterest board. Make sure you place the link to your post in the URL field. The name field should contain the title of your post.
• Time to PARTY!

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