Wildly flailing in an attempt to stay standing... maybe..

Oh, where do I start. I know I haven't blogged about anything real in ages, but quite honestly, most of what has been happening over the past month or two is just too personal to put all the gory details on the internet. Lets just say it has been an extremely difficult few weeks and I've been feeling like I'm going to crack. However, things are (hopefully) going to be sorted out at least somewhat soon, I think. Hows that for ambiguous! Anywho, I've decided that its time to focus more on the things I have control of and forget/push aside and ignore the rest! So, here is my question. How do you other mommies out there do it? How do you find balance between improving yourself, being an involved mom, loving wife and working? See, I'm trying to balance all of the following...

1. a 2 year old thats potty training

2. a 6 week old who will only sleep when he's being held and is only happy for about 5 minutes when hes not being held. Seriously, this is not an exaggeration. I've timed it. Repeatedly.

3. teaching my 2 year old counting, abcs, manners, ect

4. a husband who is working full time, going to school part time and trying my patience much of the time. (Let me insert that I am super in love with James, he just doesn't handle the baby phase very well, so its getting a little tiresome!)

5. being a wife to said husband

6. baseball season. No, I don't play but I'm a baseball widow and its already starting. Ump training every other week, meetings, ect.

7. alterations season. I NEED the extra money, but I've got to figure out where I'm going to put all the dresses (somewhere safe) and how I'm going to get my baby to be happy for longer than five minutes, because if I can only sew when hes sleeping, I'm never going to sleep. I'm just going to sew instead of sleep. Which really won't be good.

8. trying to be more involved/play with my kiddo. This is something I'm not really good at for some reason. I've got TONS of ideas of fun things to do, but TJ doesn't like any of them. Or at least he didn't when I tried stuff before. SO I gave up and now hes seeming like he'll be interested, but I'm not sure how to "fit it in". Holy crap, don't I sound like a bad mom!

9. I've been lacking in spiritual drive lately and I'm positive its because I'm pretty wishy washy on studying my scriptures. So, I'm determined to be more dilligent. Again, the issue is time.

10. Losing weight. I've been doing really good at eating right (most days) but exercise is not happening. I LOVE going to the gym, but I don't have the money for a pass or the time to go. So, I'm trying to do stuff at home. I hate it and I'm not really dedicated because I'm not looking forward to it. Crappy. (As a side note, I would like to point out that I am already below my pre-pregnancy weight! Yep, you read that right! I'm not going to give you numbers right now because thats a whole other post, but whatever!)

11. Figuring out some sort of marketing plan for Yummy Mummy. This sounds simple, but the budget is very limited and I have no background in marketing. Sewing, no problem. Marketin, big problem!

12. All the other crap happening in my life!

This, of course, is an abbreviated list! I'm sure your lists are the same, so please, share your secrets with me! How do you do it? Any tricks?

And just because I've posted too many posts without pics, here are a few Rhonda took for us!

Family

*Sorry, this is a long, pictureless post! We had to get a new computer and I have none of my pictures put on this one! But, its a funny story, so hang in there and laugh at me!*

Happy Family Day all! Around here, James had to work, so the little boys and I hung out around the house and took it easy. With it being family day, I thought I'd let you in on the story of how our family started. In other words, how James and I met. (I'm totally stealing this idea from Rhonda, but her story was so great I thought why not!)

I had just started going to the student ward after going through my divorce and moving back home. Lets just say, I was in NO mood to deal with any serious relationships, but my bishop counselled me to go to the student ward instead of the family ward. My roommate and I ended up becoming friends with a few guys who were also roommates. When we first started hanging out and they found out that I was working at the Maple Leaf Pork slaughter house on the kill floor, they told me one of their other roommates lived there. I'd never seen him around their house or at church with them, so I had no idea what he looked like, but they told me his name was Gilbert. We all had hard hats with our names on them at work and no one that I saw had the name Gilbert on their hard hat. However, its a big plant, so I figurered we just were in different departments.

Meanwhile, there was a guy at work with the name James on his hard hat. I avoided him like the plague! Ever time I saw him, he was covered in pig blood, swinging his knives around and swearing worse than a sailor! (Let's just say James was less than active at this time in his life!)

A few months passed and I went to a house part with my roommate. I was pretty shocked to see James from work there! He was sitting on the floor, looking like he was either drunk or hung over and had a fresh tattoo on his let. I was even more shocked when he recognized me! I kept our conversation as short as politely possible (he was scary!) and then left!

A week or two later, it was General Conference. My roommate and I were going over to the boys house to watch the Sunday morning session. Over the past couple months, I'd started liking one of the boys in the house and we'd been doing some pretty serious flirting. I have to admit I had slightly less than pure motives to watch conference at his house! While we were in the middle of the session, in walks a very hungover scary James from work! The boy I was snuggling with says, "This is my roommate, Gilbert, who I was telling you works where you do!" Turns out Gilbert and scary James were the same guy!

After that, we started hanging out. Things kind of fizzled with James' roommate, but James still wasn't the kind of guy I wanted to date. Fun to hang around as a friend, but that was it! Slowly, we started doing everything together. At first, there was always a big group of us, but then it started to be just us. After about a year, I was pretty into James, but he didn't think it was a smart idea. He'd come back to the church, but didn't think he was worthy of dating. He was SUPER resistant! So, I didn't push. We still kept doing everything together and everyone thought we were dating. On July 1st, he came with me to my Grandma's birthday lunch, but I was very careful to introduce him as my FRIEND. A week or so later, he told me we needed to talk. He drove out to a field in the middle of nowhere with the music blaring. (James doesn't handle serious discussions well at all!) For the longest time he sat there babbling about nothing and I thought for sure he was going to kill me and leave my lifeless body in the middle of nowhere! (Not seriously, but the thought did cross my mind!) Finally, he just blurts out, "I guess you can tell people we're dating, if you want to." With that, he jammed the car into drive and sped away. He didn't say a word the whole way back to town or when he dropped me off! Talk about romance! ;)

A month or so later, we went to a Bulls baseball game. James is an ump, so ball games had become a big part of my life. When we got there, he said he'd be right back, which was the norm, so I went to get a seat in the bleachers. It wasn't a super busy game, so I was sitting in the middle of a huge open space. Throughout the whole game, he kept walking in front of the seats, but never looked at me. I was wearing a bright shirt and waving, but he totally ignored me! I was SO ticked! Baseball was not my favorite thing, but he had talked me into going to yet another game and then he ignores me the whole time! When we left the diamond, I was cranky and so was he, although I had no idea why! We went to East Side Marios to get some food and he went to talk to a friend of his who was working at the bar, leaving me yet again! I was getting less and less impressed. As we were finishing eating, these two guys from the bar came by and said "We're not leaving till you do it." I had no clue what they were talking about, but they kept saying, "Come on, we've been waiting all night and we've got to go." I just assumed they were seriously drunk, but they weren't leaving. Finally James said fine, got out of the booth, got down on one knee and pulled out a ring! I was shocked, but managed to squeak out a yes! Apparently he had a huge thing planned at the ball diamonds, but he couldn`t see me anywhere! Oh well, it all worked out in the end!

I love him beyond words and love the little boys we share! I've loved (mostly) the past five years and look forward to so many more!

And the winner is....

All right, I wrote everyone's name on little sheets of paper, (two papers for those who got multiple entries!), put all those little papers into a gift bag (it happened to be close) and drew out a winner. And the winner is....

Rhonda

Congrats! Email me and we can figure out getting the skirt to you! This was so fun, I think I might do it again soon! Now I just have to find some time to sew something!

Giving it Away

So, WAY back in April I was taking a course at the college. (Truth be told, I'm actually still taking it, I'm just on a baby hiatus. Sadly, I'm only able to fit in one course a semester, but you do what you have to!) I was taking a basic sewing class. Lets just say it was not super challenging. At all. But its a requirement that you can't test out of. The "big project" for the class is to sew a skirt. I know, tough right! Please don't think that I'm making fun of any non sewers, but for me, a skirt is REALLY basic!) It is a little more difficult that just buying a pattern and sewing it. We had to design the skirt, draft (draw) the pattern and sew the skirt. Most people in the class were doing relatively simple skirts. I mean, it was the first time most of them had touched a sewing machine, so that makes sense. I, however, decided I didn't want to do simple. Simple was too, well, simple! This was not my first rodeo! So, I came up with an idea to do some fabric oragami. The execution of the skirt (cutting and sewing) was easy enough. The problem was in pattern drafting! I stumped my profs a few times, but we got it figured out eventually and I love the finished product. What do you think?

Like I said, I LOVE how it turned out, but there is a downside (for me anyway!) Because I had to make this for a class, it had to be a standard size ten. While I am working at becoming a size 10, I've got a LONG way to go. With closet space being at a major premium at our house, I can't justify having this beauty hanging in my closet any longer! So, I'm giving it away! Even if you're like me and not a size 10, think of how much you would be loved if you gave this as a gift! Here's how to enter:

1. Leave a comment saying what you like best about the skirt or photos (By the way, a MAJOR thanks to Camille for modelling!)

2. Put a post with a link on your blog. Leave your blog address in your comment here so I can check it out!

You have until February 15, so why are you still reading! Get busy and comment!