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Category: lifestyle

I’m Back!

posted in faith, family, home, lifestyle, marriage, motherhood by Sara on

Hi everyone, remember me? It’s only been like what, three weeks since my last post but who’s counting right? To be honest  real life has finally come and hit me square in the face and I’ve had to come to terms with what I can realistically do.

For the past year and a half I have enjoyed the luxury of being a “stay-at-home-mom”. It wasn’t always easy and there were days I wished it was me going to work instead of my husband. There are some people with the misconception that being a “stay-at-home-mom” means sitting at home all day and doing whatever you want (I know because I used to be one of them). However, this couldn’t be any farther from the truth! There is always a diaper to change, laundry to do, errands to run, and meals to cook. Then you have those occasional days when your children demand all of your, time, attention, and energy. It is at the end of days like that when I’d gladly trade my husband jobs.

Now that my husband is in school full time with a demanding schedule, it looks like my wish has come true. I’ve been greatly blessed to find a wonderful job that will allow me to provide for my family while my husband finishes school, but it has been a rough adjustment for all of us. I hope to one day find a good balance in my new situation, but for now I feel confused, guilty, and torn. Over the past year and a half my role has been to be a mother. I was fortunate enough to be able to stay at home and devote all my time to taking care of my baby and the home. It too was a rough adjustment at first but I came to find great joy in it. While becoming a mom is by far the greatest thing I’ve ever done, it has also been the hardest. It wasn’t always necessarily the sleepless nights or the 24/7 care that a baby requires that was hard but finding my own identity within  being a wife and a mother. I can honestly say that since having my baby I have come to find myself.

While being a mother and a homemaker is still a major role in my life (and the most important), I am now having to take on the role of provider, at least until my husband is done with school. It is a sacrifice I agreed to and am willing to make to help my husband fulfill his goals, but it certainly doesn’t make leaving my baby any easier. Since I started working a little over two weeks ago my time at home seems much more precious. With less time at home and more time away from my family I’ve been struggling to balance and prioritize my life. I’ve been force to really ask myself what things are most important and what things are not. In order to determine this I decided to make a list of what my underlying goals and priorities are in life. Here is my list:

1.  Be an attentive mother.
2.  Fall more in love with my husband everyday.
3.  Continue to build my relationship with my Father in Heaven and act in His will.
4.  Remain true to who I am and what I love.

These basic yet profound lifelong goals are what influence my daily actions and priorities. With all this being said, I also love blogging and am determined to continue what I began only four short months ago. I may not be posting as often (hopefully more often than every three weeks) but I hope you’ll continue to follow and enjoy my adventures in life as a working mom, wife, seamstress and blogger!


Inspiration Monday: Finding Balance

posted in faith, inspiration Monday, lifestyle, motherhood by Sara on

I came across my inspiration for today when searching for a little pick-me-up. It has been three weeks since the move and only two weeks since my husband started his doctorate program and I can already begin to feel the wait of it all. Even worse is how torn I feel about my role in this new chapter of our lives. Somehow I need to be a wife, mother, and bread-winner all at the same time and quite frankly I have no idea how. Being a supportive wife, an attentive mother, and dedicated homemaker while trying to provide an income and find time for myself has been a struggle. Balancing life has never really been a strong point of mine, but I know if I’m going to make it through it’s something I’m going to have to learn.

I light of this new found revelation, below are some great posts/articles I’ve recently read that have truly inspired me and have brought great comfort in the fact that I am not the only person out there struggling to balance a hectic life.

One of the greatest sources of inspiration I receive on a daily bases is from my twin sister. While she often seems like it, I know she is not perfect and is a mom like me just trying to make it though the day sometimes. I know I can always turn to her for help or motivation. She recently wrote a post on her blog about taking charge of her life and am ready to join in on the challenge!

Another source of great inspiration and encouragement is my faith. It is often what keeps me going and brings more joy and comfort than I could ever describe. I absolutely love this talk from Elder M. Russell Ballard on ,”Keeping Life’s Demands in Balance”.  He gives eight wonder suggestions on how to balance our lives so that we may live it to the fullest. I invite everyone to read it and benefit from it as well.

I sincerely welcome and encourage any advice, tips, comments, or inspirational articles you have on finding a good balance in life! Thanks for reading and happy Monday!

A New Beginning

posted in family, lifestyle, marriage, motherhood by Sara on

After hauling our little family and all of our belongings 1050 miles and then spending the next week cleaning, unpacking, and recovering from a nasty cold, I can finally say that we are beginning to settle into our new home. While I must admit that traveling 17 hours in a car with a 1 year old seemed daunting, Addie was a trooper through it all. As long as we kept the snacks flowing her way she was, for the most part, a happy camper. With that being said, since the move she seems to have developed a low tolerance for long car rides– can you blame her?

Having lived in Nevada and Utah up until now, Oregon is a complete change in scenery for me. It is so serene here with forests, vineyards, and fields as far as the eye can see. Not only is the area breath taking, but the people here are so welcoming and friendly. It definitely makes being far from home a little easier. Being in the heart of Oregon, there seems like an endless array of places to see and things to do. I can’t wait to see what this chapter in our lives will bring. While I am excited about life and for the opportunity to experience a new place and new surroundings, I’d be putting on a show if I didn’t admit that I am a little homesick and scared as well. It was not easy leaving my home, my family, and most everything I’ve ever known. Before beginning our journey, I stayed strong as I hugged my mom and family good-bye (we have been living with my parent’s for the past 6 months to save money for graduate school) but once I got in the car I cried like a baby.

That first night in our new apartment I laid close to my husband who cuddled our precious sleeping daughter in his arms. I normally don’t enjoy sleeping in the same bed as my baby but I was glad to have her close as I did not fully trust this new place or the people, not to mention the comfort I received from holding the two of the people I love most in life close. The next morning we began work on making this place our home. With each unpacked box I began to feel more comfortable and more at home. I even have room for all my sewing, fabrics, and crafting! Besides cleaning and unpacking, we did allow ourselves some time to roam around and explore a bit. We’ve only been in Oregon for less than 2 weeks and I can already feel myself falling in love with it.

Collin starts his Psy.D program next week and I couldn’t be any more proud and excited for him. Addie has been more smiley and playful then I have ever seen her, although she has learned the word “No” which seems to be her response to just about everything as of late. And due to the wonders of today’s technology we were able to video chat with both of our families and see their glorious faces even though they are hundreds of miles away from us. As for me I am grateful to be so blessed.

Guest Post: 5 Ways to Read Blogs and Still Come Away Feeling Confident

posted in lifestyle by Sara on

Here’s a hello from the road on our way to Oregon! Updates on our journey to come.

Today I’m excited to have my sister Hanna who blogs over at The Caldwell Couple share with us five ways to read blogs and still come away feeling confident. This is something I’m sure we’ve all found ourselves struggling with at one time or another in any social media we take part in. So read on and enjoy this great post!

I was talking to a close friend the other day and she mentioned how she read this article about why a woman stopped reading “mom” blogs. One reason I agreed with was that she thought reading all those blogs took time away from her family and left her constantly thinking about someone else’s family. Yes, too much of something can become a bad thing! However, one of her main reasons for ceasing to read blogs was because she felt she came away feeling less confident about herself and her role as a mother,wife, decorator, etc. I believe blogs are a great way for women to get inspiration and ideas on just about anything as well as have that social connection and support we don’t always get when we’re home with the kids all day and/or out working.
The point I’m trying to get at ladies and something that we all need reminding of from time to time is that we all have our strengths and weakness and there will always be someone out there who is skinnier, craftier, more productive or richer than us, but that doesn’t mean that we should feel any less about ourselves! So for my sake and who ever else’s out there here are 5 ways to still interact with other women and mothers, especially in the blog word and still come away feeling confident about ourselves and our situations!
1. Embrace other’s successes and strengths and learn from them. It’s so easy to look at someone else’s situation in life (especially those “picture” perfect blogs) and not get a little jealous or wish something like that could happen to us. What I’ve learned when I see something like that one a blog and feel myself starting to have “wishful” thinking, I just say “That’s great for them!” and then see how I can learn from that person’s success or strength to improve myself and situation if it’s that important to me.
2. It’s not all as it seems. Awhile back I did a post about struggling with always see blogs where everything looks perfect and not being able to relate to that. (You can read that post HERE if you missed it). When reading blogs we need to remember that there is a whole other side to that “picture perfect” post with things most people choose to leave out.  Ex. The fact that they just got dressed into something cute for a fashion post even though they’ve been wearing sweats all day, all the bumps that came up during a projects, or what they’re house really looks like on a daily basics rather than in that picture they took of their newly decorated room after spending the last hour cleaning it. Confession…I have totally done this last one. Remember THIS post of Mia’s bed reveal and that clean room? Well, this is what her room normally looks like and even worst most days when she decides to take all the clothes out of her drawers. But who wants to see pictures of that mess!
                        
3. Remember the damaging effects of comparing ourselves to others can affect the ones we love. When I start comparing myself to others I get whiny and grumpy and end up complaining a lot more. My bad mood always seems to reflect on my family and let’s me honest…I’m sure Eric doesn’t appreciate coming home from work to that, in fact I know he doesn’t. Instead why don’t we greet them with “Guess what I learned today or what inspired me from this blog today!?…Let’s try it!
4. Be you and stop trying to be something you’re not. For example…I always seem to be attracted to blogs where these women are super high energy and manage to get SO much done in a day and barely seem to sit down and take a breather. So I decide that I need to try and be more productive and I start packing my day with ton’s of different things I need and want to do. In the end I get burnt out and grumpy because truth is it’s just not me! I’m not a really high energy person and I love sitting down and doing absolutely nothing sometimes! It rejuvenates me and I end up getting more done that way believe it or not. I’ve definitely gotten some great ideas to help me be more productive or do things more efficiently, but I still try to remember the main things that work for me.

5. Know your strengths and be forgiving of your weaknesses. I’ll be honest just writing this post it was hard to sit here and think of my strengths and not all my weaknesses. Anything I would come up with for a strength of mine I would then start thinking about all the times I wasn’t so good in that strength or how someone was better at that strength than me. However, if we already know our strengths as we read blogs we can then use what we read to gain inspiration on how to improve our strengths. On the flip side, knowing the areas we would like work on we can also us blogs to help us improve our weaknesses to and also even find support from another blogger who maybe wrote about a similar weakness.
If these steps haven’t inspired you at all then let the following quote do so! I couldn’t have put it better myself!

I would love to hear any other advice or tips you’ve used to feel confident and stop comparing yourself to others! Happy blog reading!

Life’s Simple Joys

posted in lifestyle, motherhood by Sara on

You know when you have a long list of things to do and then life happens and not a thing on that list gets done? Well, that was my week.

I seem to have been sick for most of June but not bad enough to keep me in bed. With an active one-year old, a new blog, and an array of many other projects to get done, I just simply did not have time to be sick. I mean, who has time to lay around these days anyway when there is so much to do?!

Unfortunately, my efforts to work through my sickness eventually came to an abrupt halt. My body finally called it quits and I have been in-and-out of the doctor’s office and practically bed ridden for the past four days. While it served me right, all I could think about while lying in bed was everything that was not getting done (and being miserable of course). Thankfully, after a physical and emotional roller coaster of a week, and with much help from my loving husband and family members, I have finally started to regain my health.

For the 4th of July we went and watched the local parade and then had a quiet BBQ at my grandparent’s house. Since I was still not 100%, we spent the rest of the day napping and lounging around. Later that night as I laid out on the trampoline next to my husband watching the fireworks, I thought back on how worked up I was earlier in the week about not being able to accomplish everything I wanted to and how silly it seemed now. And while that long to-do list is still waiting to get done, I came to the realization that some things in life are not always as important as they seem. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in everything I’m doing and wanting to accomplish that I tend to overlook the simple joys in life.

Life gets crazy, that I know, but it is all of life’s simple joys that keeps me going and that make life worth living. Simple joys like being able to watch my daughter’s every growth, witness all her goofy smiles, receive all her slobbery kisses and know that she is happy and healthy. Or sharing a pint of Ben and Jerry’s with my husband, talking and laughing as though the world around us no longer exists. Or taking a quiet moment to sit out on the porch right after it has rained when the world seems so fresh and peaceful.

There will always be laundry to do, bills to pay, dishes to wash, and projects that need finishing, but may I suggest that we make some time each day to enjoy the simple things that make life so great!

And hopefully, it won’t take becoming badly ill next time in order for me to take my own advice.