$45.75

I have been reading Reachel Meyer's blog for a while now. I think she is fabulous and some of her favorite posts of mine are her yard sale ones. She posts about her yard sale finds in her hometown. I have to admit that last weekend could have been the first time I've been to a yard sale in my adult life (unless I'm blanking on a time-which very well may be possible). I used to think yard sales were a form of punishment when I was little and my mom used to drag me to them all the time.

After reading Reachel's blog though I thought, hmm there may actually be some good finds out there. My neighbor was having a yard sale and we walked down, and I think I may have gotten hooked.The next Saturday morning I woke up, called my mom and downloaded an app on my phone that tells you through gps where all the yard sales are.Woo. I went out both Saturday and Sunday mornings and went to a good handful of sales, including a community sale with many stops. I usually never try not to buy anything unless I know I will use it and is relatively practical. I found some really great finds. So here we go.


$1.00

Brand new fabulous sandals for my little Raigan in her size.

$2.00

Brand new with the tag sandals for my little Riley that fit her perfectly. I was so excited about these and so was Riley!

$1.75

Books for my girls.

$1.00

A picture frame that I've been meaning to buy to put some of Riley's artwork in to display.

$1.00

An American Flag pair of Keds that fit me perfectly.

$1.00

$1.00

Love these- my size!

$2.00

Brand new with the tags Old Navy bathing suit for Riley

$1.00

Bathing suit for Raigan.

$1.00

Outfit, and Old Navy tank top and skirt in Raigan's size.

$0.25

Almost couldn't believe this one. A New York and Co maxi dress in my size for a quarter.

$5.00

A brand new pair of Nikes in the box for Raigan for school this fall. They are one size too big on her now, and I'm sure they will fit her in a few months. So excited about these too!

$3.00

Brand new. I have been eyeing these for Riley at Target, but didn't want to pay full price and when I saw these I would have plowed through the crowed to get them if I had to...

$3.75

Bored games that my girls love. I'm not totally sure about the whole Bratz thing, but we'll see how to the game works out.

$0.50

Shoes for Raigan.

$1.00

$1.00

$6.00

Old Navy pants for me in my size.

$10.00

20 pieces of clothing mostly in Raigan's size and one size up.

$2,00

Sweatshirt and sweatpants (not pictured, but look the same)

Total: $45.75

A steal for all the things I brought home.

I think I have found myself another summer hobby.

Life freaks me out a little bit how things fall into place and are such an appropriate part of the story line that it's almost like you're reading a novel that follows the perfect format. The intro, the problem, and the resolution with symbolism and foreshadowing. Sometimes it's like watch a movie too, when the perfect music comes in and sets the tone of the scene.

I am still dealing with my funk from time to time.

I have a lot of good days and some bad days just like everyone, but today was a bad one. It started out wonderfully as I went to breakfast with my girls and we ran some errands that went so well, and the girls were so well behaved. They took a nap and I became so tired and well, I was just tired. Tired and in a sour mood. I didn't want to do anything and couldn't wait for my husband to get home from work to relieve me and cook dinner and let me run away into my hole.

My wonderful husband took the girls to our community center to go swimming and gave me time for myself. I did what makes me happy and spent too much money on a Frappacino at Starbucks and wondered through a bookstore. I didn't know what I was looking for and wondered through each section just wasting time. I went to the bargain section just to browse and this orange book just caught my eye.

It was the perfect fit and the foreshadowing to my plot line.

When I picked it up this evening it was exactly what I needed to get back on my happy track and out of my nasty, sour attitude. The words were as if they were wrote just for me. It was like I was in my own novel about my life and this was the epiphany. If this was a movie a loud resolution music ballad would have began, and the damn clouds would have started to part. It's so nice how things come around and fall into place just the way it's supposed to.

The orange book was God Never Blinks by Regina Brett. It is about a woman that became an unwed mother at 21, an alcoholic, and a breast cancer survivor and the 50 lessons that life has taught her through all of her struggles and triumphs. If I wouldn't have know better, this woman wrote this book specifically for me on this specific day and the writer of my story had written a story line leading up to me being in the bookstore and finding my resolution of this book.

My favorite message from her book: You can either be miserable or happy; it takes the same effort. 

I have been reading more and more and cannot believe that I hadn't been doing it long before now. I have been missing out so much knowledge and have been closed to so many windows and doors until now.

Motherhood

Five years ago (and a few months) I was shopping for a baptism gown with my mother. A few hours later I was having a baby.

Back then, even though I had roughly 9 months to prepare myself, I had no idea what being a mother meant and had no idea what I was doing.

I was clueless, shocked, overwhelmed, sleep deprived, but so in love. It was the most overwhelming time in my life because everything changed when I gave birth to that little black haired girl.

Over 5 years and another little bald girl I think I have finally found my grove. I am still clueless about a lot of things and still overwhelmed at times, but more than anything else in my life I try my best and then some when it comes to motherhood. The love I have for these little girls is like no other and comes with this intense drive to do great things, achieve more, give purpose to life, and find the joys in the days.

It's a rainy Mother's Day around here and we very well may spend a day eating a late breakfast, movies on Netflix, and a lot of popcorn eating. I don't think I could think of a better way to spend the day.

My Girls: Riley & Raigan

These are my two little girls: Riley and Raigan.

Riley is now 5 years old.

She is about ready to graduate from pre-school.

 She is super outgoing and very strong willed.

I have been reminded and assured at every dentist appointment that she has ever had that she will need braces in her future.

 According to her eye doctor she has perfect vision.

She protests every morning to me putting her hair up and prefers to wear it down with a bow or headband.

She has recently reached the epiphany that regardless of how much she makes a fuss she still has to make her bed in the mornings.

She could watch Barbie and a Fashion Fairy Tale on repeat all day if I let her.

She does very well at an online typing game and even knows how to keep her fingers on the "home row keys."

She reads very impressively.

With no assistance or influence from me she has developed a sarcastic quip about her.

She knows an impressive amount of French words for a 5 year old.

She is obsessed with Monster High dolls and has no concept of money still. Even through extensive talks and demonstrations she still thinks the money in her piggy bank (~$3 in change) equates to the $50 it costs to buy the Beach Monster High doll set with all of the Monster High characters.

She is very excited about our upcoming trip to the ocean in a few weeks and continues to tell me we need to start packing.

Her next birthday party theme: mermaids. 

 ***

Ragian is now 2 years old.

She has just started pre school.

She used to be the most quiet laid back baby in the world, but is now a very loud toddler.

According to her pediatric dentist we are jinxing ourselves by saying that she has nearly the closest to perfect teeth he has ever seen and she will not need braces. I'm sure a few years things will change and I will need a second job to pay for 2 kids in braces.

Raigan has no seen an eye doctor yet, but I'm sure her eyes work just fine, but I'm a little worried about her ears at times...

Her pulmonologist is hopeful about our little girls lungs and we are going off her inhaled steroids and don't have to see him again for another 9 months! Which is nice because our copay for pediatric specialist is more than I would pay for a pair of shoes, and that says something. 

When my little sugar lump awakes in the morning she tells me her eyes are broken and refuses to open them for a good while because she, unlike her older sister, loves to sleep.

She has not reached the epiphany of having to make her bed and plays the "I baby" card, when we all know very well that if you call her a baby she protests with a "I not baby, I big girl!" and is more than capable to pulling her blanket up and putting her pillows in the correct spot to make her bed. Girls... they know how to get what they want.

Raigan loves to watch Caliou.

She sleeps with little twin babies that she has named Boo Boo and Brother, but sometimes Brother's name is Jake and she is very offended if you think otherwise, even though sometimes he is named otherwise.

Raigan surprisingly remembers much about Hilton Head Island and knows what the ocean is and she wants to see mermaids there.

Her next birthday party theme: Tea for Three.

A Beautiful Busy Week

After writing and posting the last post I wrote I realized I've written that post over and over again. It's a recurrent fear of mine I suppose. I have made a point to soak it all in this past week. On my way home from work one day this past week when the weather was perfect I made point pulling into my subdivision to notice that everyone was out enjoying the weather. The neighborhood  sidewalks were filled with bike riders, people walking their dogs, and kids giggling and playing.

I took a deep breath in and told myself to remember it. To remember everyone enjoying themselves, the fresh cut grass smell of spring, and the beautiful pink and orange sky where the sun was setting.

I was beating myself up there for a short while that I wasn't doing enough fun things with my girls, being my really motivated self, and taking care of things. This week though I stepped up. In fact, I think I kicked butt!
Raigan had her follow up appointment with her Pulmonologist, both girls had their dentist appointment, and Riley had a full eye exam for her to start kindergarten in the fall. I worked 43 hours, took my girls to Sawyer Point, coached cheerleading clinics in the evenings with my girls, went shopping for summer clothes for my girls that Raigan really needed because Riley's hand me downs are still a little too big for her, and hubby and I FINALLY painted our bedroom. I feel like myself.

Of course this week didn't come with struggles, as it always does, but I focused on the good before it all changed to something else. There is one changed that came this weekend

When my husband and I bought our home a few years ago we painted the bedrooms before moving in.  I picked out this great green color that I thought would create a nice Spa Zen feel. We start to paint and it looked neon-like, but I thought it would dry darker and we finished painting the room because we had so much left to do and move our things in and clean our townhouse, so we just went with it. It turned out a pastel/neon Easter egg green, definitely not zen and I've pretended to like it ever since. 

It was such a relief to get our room painted, I have had blue painters tape on the trims for months and months now. I had gotten a few samples and tried patches on the walls and we really didn't like them, so they stayed on the walls for probably a month now looking terrible.

It is such a challenge to photograph wall color and have it look how it actually looks, but take my word, the new color is way better than the green. The color we used is Stonington Gray by Benjamin Moore. I started to panic a little because the color was so white when we painted, but it dried just the way I pictured it! No horrible pastel green to live with for years to come.

Not only did we paint, but we super deep cleaned our room and while I'm sitting here typing this blog post, I feel so relaxed to know that everything is super clean.

at 

 Hopefully this next week will be just as successful, but maybe a little slower paced, but if it's not, I'll be just as pleased with it.

Change

I think it's pretty wild how fast things change. It seems as the more that time goes on, the faster it goes too.

A few years ago when were were in Hilton Head  http://megherald.blogspot.com/2010/09/wordless-wednesday_29.html in September time stood still. It was by far one of the most relaxing times of my life. I had to miss classes to vacation with my family (tough decision there...) and Hilton Head is amazing in the fall. The weather is still so welcoming and warm and the shops are only sprinkled with locals as all the tourists have returned home to begin a new school year and enjoy the fall. We played on the empty beaches, soaked up the sun, and let our sun kissed babies nap the afternoons away while we enjoyed the quiet sound of the ocean out of our window.

Specifically since that month of that year I have been asking myself where the time has gone. Time hasn't stood still since then. There are moments in all the flashes that I consciously pause and tell myself, "remember this" and try to burn it into my memory before it's gone. So much has happened and changed in the past few years, and even more so recently for our family. I have learned here recently that the only absolute constant in life is change.

The way the girls have changed over the years is just crazy to me, it's like a cut and paste kind of situation. One day I woke up and there was this toddler pasted where my baby was the night before. Riley is this little person and no longer a baby or toddler and shocks me with how bright and beyond herself she is. I just ask myself, wow, at what point did all this happen? I know there wasn't one specific moment when it all changed, and it worries me that I'm not soaking it all and noticing the tiny changes that add up to this really big change.

Raigan was always a super laid back reserved baby and I thought she would be quiet and reserved, but sticking to the theme of change, she has proved me wrong. She is a loud, crazy, outspoken, strongwilled little 2 year old, and I love it. This is our little family. I think this is exactly wherr we are supposed to be in our lives right now, even though it wasn't what was in my plans necessarily or how I saw it panning out, but that's the beauty of life. It's actually better than the plans I had for our family and we, or maybe even me and I push it on my family, are trying to embrace whatever comes our way and run like hell with it.

People give you a lot of advice (wanted or not wanted) when you become a mother and half the time I listened and took it into consideration and the other half of the time, I went with these instincts that are just there. No one told me (or maybe I didn't listen) how complex my feelings for these little girls would be. I love them so deeply and passionatly, I have this crazy need to protect them and provide for them and sometimes they drive me totally crazy and I need nothing more than a hot shower by myself for 5 minutes, but a minute into that shower it's been too long and I need them again. I fell pretty much crazy hard in love wtih my husband, but nothing compares to the love I feel as a mother and someone could give you all the advice and heads up, but you just can never understand it until you're there and experience it. 

I just hope that my girls feel this crazy involved intricate love. Not just the good times either, the times when I'm tired and my pateince is running short, I hope they still feel that love.

When I think about how much I as a person have changed it's just flat out crazy to me. I have discovered over the past few years, especially when Riley made me a mother, that I'm strong and capable of things I never thought I would be capable of. I look at the Megan from years ago, and I feel like it's a totally different person. I have changed physically with my hair color, the evidence of growing a child in the form love marks on my belly, and an extra 10lbs that I don't think I will ever loose, but how I've changed emotionally, mentally, and in my heart is much more noticeable than the physical things.

Another weird change about myself that I have discovered and never thought would ever happen is my new found love to read. I have always loved reading magazines and studies, they are my thing. I love articles, but have never enjoyed reading books. I was never the kid in school with my nose in a book and the idea of reading for pleasure would make me cringe. I supposed I was always picking up the wrong books, because when you find something that resonates with you it's great.

I now have stacks of books on my nightstand and can't wait to find 5 minutes to finish another chapter or section. I want to help my girls find their nitch and their love for books too, which I think will be much easier for them and take less time than it did for me. With that being said, I found some really great finds at a child's consignment shop in our area. I love kids books, but frankly, they can get really expensive. I think it's a great way to spend money, but I would rather get more for my money like anyone would. I loved as a kid, and still love The Magic School Bus books and movies. I think it teaches science in such fun, creative ways. When I found it for less than a dollar I scooped it up.

Also found this Madeline book collection of hard back books for $3!

Riley has been reading for a little while now and we love these Step into Reading books. Normally we pick some up at almost every Target trip and we got all these for the price of one.

I love that change brings about good things and even bad things that we are going to perceive as good and find the good in. Change isn't just something different, it's an opportunity to bring improvement and greater things. Greater things like a new found love of reading, a wild crazy toddler, and a husband's job that it working very well for our family. I just hope I take the time to study and enjoy the changes.

Happy Easter