Currently…

One month of summer down, one(ish) month to go. We can do this!

Thankfully, July month went by fairly quickly, and I’m certain August will fly by. I have a lot of things on my plate for this month: Julia starts preschool (or, like, pre-pre-preschool), MOPS starts up again (YAY!), and I’ll start gearing up for our road-trip back home. Yup, we’re hitting the road come September and going back to New Mexico for a couple of months. I have big plans for posts while I’m home, so I hope you’re ready to see my favorite state featured a little more here.

I like doing this post at the beginning of the month—it’s like starting with a clean, refreshing slate!

I’m Currently…

…totally blown away with your responses to my readers’ survey. I have to be honest; I was expecting maybe 10 responses, or 25 if I was really lucky. Well, I’m getting close to having 100 entries so far. That’s just crazy! The best part is that I finally have some data for this site. Now I know what you guys like and don’t like, how you “do business” online, and all sorts of good stuff. I’m sort of kicking myself for not doing this sooner, but I’m glad I did it now. I almost wish I asked a few more questions, but I wanted to keep it as short and easy as possible. I also wish I left an option for you to leave your name, because some of you left some really sweet responses, and I’d love to have a name to go with the response. If you haven’t taken the survey yet, I’d truly be grateful if you took the time to respond. (Take the reader survey here!)

…reading nothing. I just finished reading All the Light we Cannot See, so now I need to start another book. I’m actually not sure how I felt about that book. I liked it and it captivated me, but I feel like the ending just sort of ended. I was expecting more, maybe? There’s more I want to say about it, but I don’t want to give anything away if you haven’t read it—maybe we can have an email confab to chat about it. Now that I finished that book and had some time to digest it, I need something new to read. What are you reading? What should I read next?

…excited for MOPS to start again! Our local group kicks off  with its first meeting next week, and I’m pumped. I’m the publicity leader this year, and on top of giving our local blog a complete makeover, I’ve tried my hand in a few graphic design to make different marketing tools for the group. It’s a volunteer position, but I’m so happy I’m part of the group, and I’m loving the friendships I’m building because of MOPS.

Ladies, check and see if you have a MOPS group in your area and get involved! Curious about what MOPS is? Here’s a little info about it:

Whether you’re a stay-at-home, working, city, country, adoptive, special-needs, single, or married mom, MOPS is for you!

We’re a group of local moms who get together twice a month, and we encourage each another through all the ups and downs of motherhood over brunch. Childcare is provided for the little ones and there is always plenty of food and coffee on tap! 

Being a mom is challenging and it’s sometimes a very lonely job. If you’re a mom of a little one (pregnancy through kindergarten), and long for some “grown-up” time, then we’d love to have you!

…trying not to cry. In the past week we kicked Madilyn out of our room and into her sister’s room, so now both girls are roomies. We also spontaneously decided to give Julia a big-girl bed, and she’s been sleeping in it for the past few nights. My little girls are growing up so fast! It hasn’t been long enough to tell how the room sharing is going—some nights are fine, and other nights are…not so fine (because Maddie’s still working on figuring out how to calm herself back to sleep on her own) and I need all the coffee the next day. 

…watching Food Network Star, and I’m really sad Dom left. He was my favorite, and I think he’d be excellent if he just had a cooking show. He was wonderful when he just talked about his food, but when they gave him a time limit to “perform,” he failed. His personality, though, when he wasn’t trying to be what they wanted from him, is totally star-worthy. #BringBackDom

…thinking about the future. It’s that time again where we can start working on our “dream sheet” for the military. If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s basically a list of where in the world we’d like to go. You basically list out your desired bases, and then you wait for actual list of open opportunities to come out. Then, if a place and job matches up with what’s on your list, you get to go there! JUST KIDDING. It’s totally not that simple. Basically, making your dream sheet lets you think that you have some control over where you’re going, but really it’s just a way to start getting your hopes up by letting you think you may actually get what’s on your list. Sometimes you completely and totally luck out (and get to go to Italy), and other times you get orders to Georgia even though it wasn’t even on your list. Long story short: we’re torn on if we should try to go back overseas or stay closer to home and try to move out west. So many pros and cons.

…avoiding freaking out. We had two amazing babysitters and they both moved last week. One moved up north to Massachusetts for graduate school and the other moved to the next town north of here. We can definitely still use her if we go on date nights in that town, but during the day won’t really be feasible. Now I need to start the grueling search for someone wonderful to watch our girls. I’m part of SitterCity.com, so I just need to get on there and start looking again. Finding someone to watch your little ones is SO hard.

…eating snacks. We went through two boxes of these in less than a week. Good thing there’s a coupon for them. I also found these at Target, and oh man, they’re so good. I went back today and bought some maple and classic varieties.

…getting “swole” and making “gains.” Oh, please tell me you’ve heard that phrase, because I feel like a complete tool just writing it. Apparently, according to guys my husband deployed with, it means you’re working out and getting fit. With that said, I’m actually really, really enjoying my morning walks lately. Getting the girls up and out of the house (before I’ve even had coffee some days) is a really nice way to start the day.

…enjoying my new toy. Our two-year phone contract finally came to an end, so that means I could upgrade my phone! My old phone’s been showing me a “full storage” message for months, and if I wanted to take pictures I had to delete 20 just to take one new one. Now, I bumped up the storage capacity on my new iPhone 6, and I *gasp* deleted* all of my pictures so I could start fresh.

*Don’t worry, I saved the photos in three different places before I deleted** them.
**I also couldn’t bring myself to actually delete them; I had to have my husband press the button.

…loving my family. ’nuff said.

In Case You Missed It

Did you know I write for places besides this blog? Yup, sure do. Here are some posts I wrote last month:

• I Want to Have All the Babies #truestory (from Hellobee)
• How to Have Big City Fun in a Small Town (from Hellobee)
• I’m Jealous of my Daughter’s Babysitter (from Everydayfamily.com)
• You’re More Than Just a Mom: 5 Ways to Make Time For Yourself (Military One Click)
• What it’s Really Like for a Military Family Giving Birth Overseas (Military Wife and Mom)

I hope you all have a great week!