Living La Vida Loca and Loving It

What a long month it's been and we're only 10 days or so into it.

Last week was spent with two boys and a husband all with the stomach flu. It started on Halloween night and didn't end until sometime early this past Sunday morning. So far I haven't gotten it, but did have alternating chills and hot spells with nausea on Saturday night while caring for a still vomiting six-year old.

Earlier that day, though, everyone was fine – well, the kids and I were fine, Scott was still sick. We spent the day in Cumming with my in-laws taking in my niece's play in the a.m. and then going to my nephew's football playoff game that afternoon. Maybe it was the hot dog and Icee at the football game that did Brendan's tummy in.

Thrown into that mix were Brendan's first basketball practice, which he loved; starting his big first-grade Language Arts project on blends; and learning that we are doing Thanksgiving at our house because both my sisters-in-law have other plans with their families this Thanksgiving.

When I wasn't taking care of sick people last week, I spent much of my time updating my resume and sending it to friends in the hope of networking. I really need to create some more freelance work for myself and/or find a regular gig. There's something about working that makes me feel happy. I feel like a real human again, with my own thoughts and ideas that involve something other than what's for dinner. I enjoy talking about words and the functionality of web sites and how to translate one person's idea into words another person can understand and that drive people to action.

I also had an article published in Special Needs Parenting magazine. It's been really nice to get so much positive feedback on it. Mothering is an often thankless job. It has been nice to do something and have others tell me they appreciate what I did or that I did a good job on it.

I am working on another seralized article for a different parenting magazine.

With all of that going on, finding time to blog has been hard. I was awarded the "One Lovely Blog" by Sarah at The Stroller Ballet, but haven't even had time to write about it or share the bloggy love with some of my other favorite bloggers. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow.

For now, it's time to revel in the still warm and loved feeling I have after spending the morning with my Familia group from my church and get to cleaning the kitchen and starting supper before we head to speech therapy after school.

Have a lovely day, my friends. And thanks for stopping by. In case I haven't told you lately I really appreciate you all. Smooch!

One Big Holiday

I thought that once school began, I would become a blogging fool. Unfortunately, (or maybe it's actually a good thing!) I simply haven't had time. My seven hours of "free time" each day seems woefully too little. Every minute gets eaten away with something.

Of course, I am enjoying more one-on-one time with Beckett who seems to be enjoying it immensely. He has suddenly decided to speak, crawl, and learn to stand all at the same time. Of course, his mad burgeoning skills mean he is sleeping less, but unlike big brother, he (thankfully) has not had any truly sleepless nights. It just means he's waking once around 11 p.m. and going instantly back to sleep and then getting up for good around 6:30. I can't complain at all. And, naturally, I'm overjoyed that his first word was mama. Brendan went for da-dee as his first word, followed soon thereafter by 'nana which meant banana. Mama came very late to him for some reason. I think he even said uh-oh and ba-ba for bottle before he said mama.

Beckett seems – if it's possible – more verbally advanced. He said mama on Friday, butter, which we interpreted as brother, on Saturday, and then – and I promise I am not making this up – something that sounds an awful lot like I love you on Saturday as well. He has repeated each of these several times, so we're thinking they're not just flukes. And if you repeat the words to him, he says them back.

So, in addition to that excitement, I have been working very hard to find work and think I have done so. I had two interviews last week. One was for a PR job with the (okay don't laugh too hard) National Singles Association. The other was ghost-writing for a headhunter who has a regular column in several business publications.

I will be doing the second one. I started yesterday, brainstorming on topics we could write about. He will get all the credit, but I will get a paycheck which actually matters more to me right now.

I also have several other irons in the fire with respect to work and hopefully I can pull some of them out soon. We shall see.
Scott has a show on Friday at a local coffeehouse and wine bar called Java Monkey. I'm excited about that. He has two other shows coming up in September as well and I'm working on a few other things.

If you happen to be in Atlanta and read this, come by Java Monkey on Friday night and say hi. And, of course, check out my darlin's music.

I'm leaving out a ton of things that have been happening, but I need to get supper going. Scott will be home any minute and I haven't even started yet. Zoinks!