Give and Take

Well... things have changed once again since writing this post about making changes. About two weeks ago I received notice that my CAPPA program was being canceled due to lack of interest. I was being issued a refund, and another date would not be set until they can generate enough interest for my area. I called the leader to find out if there was another program I could join but she informed me that they've been having trouble keeping the class sizes up, and was honestly not sure if there would be one at all this year.

Cue the sad music and the broken hearted emoji.

About a week later I received yet another large medical bill in the mail and the cold hard truth hit me: I simply cannot hold onto this money for a "hopefully it'll happen" dream when we have some serious debt to take care of. So, against my husbands instructions to stash the money in a shoe box until I can make things happen, we put it towards our always enlarging pile of bills. I am all too familiar with this type of sacrifice, which is probably why it didn't phase me.

Honestly, I was sad when I first found out the program wasn't happening but it's hard to stay sad when I see the pay off from using that money to help us get out of debt. It's not a life changing amount of money, or really even enough to pay off any one bill, but it will help. I am used to this situation, and I guess that's what it means to be a grown up- when you can put yourself last or your needs last for the greater good.

There is a "give" for me in the middle of this "take"... it gives me more time to focus on my bow business. I didn't anticipate to be so busy with orders before my shop is even completely open, so I consider this a blessing in disguise. Maybe its God's plan for this business to take off and I would have spent that money for nothing (you had to complete the program in a certain amount of time). Maybe His plan is for us to become pregnant soon and I wouldn't want to devote any time to studying.. who knows.

All I know is, despite this significant disappointment I am happily surprised at the quick success of my small business. Plus, it meant a lot to me that my husband was still willing to support my dreams, even in the midst of our semi-financial ruin. It says a lot about the type of man he is, willing to take on our hardships all on his own so I could focus on myself and the things I want. Right now though, my focus has shifted and what I want is to be able to give my daughter a life where she doesn't worry about money. The only way to do that is to make sacrifices now so this debt doesn't follow us into the years that she'll actually remember.

Strangely, I find it an exciting challenge to figure out ways to make traditions out of us being dirt poor. Like... what kind of memories can I create for her while spending $0.00 and all she knows is that it's something fun we do together as a family. I don't want her to have to think about these things until she is much older, and I want to be able to fund her passions... even if that means ignoring mine.

Office Update 2.0

As you may recall from this post we have been working on my office slowly but surely. When I think about how I used to get our entire house unpacked in a day (we moved a LOT) it's sort of depressing that we've been in this house for 9 months and we're only halfway done with every project haha! BUT, we do make progress one way or another every day... which is a huge deal in itself with a toddler!

The last time I updated about the office it was looking like this:

 

It's still not done, but let me share the progress I have made! Remember all those Mason jars from Averie's party that I had leftover? AND the 3 dozen I mistakenly bought in the wrong brand? Well, I was against giving them away just because it was such a big investment, so I've been finding other ways to use them:

 

Those are all the shabby flowers for my bow business. I originally had them in plastic baggies, but this is so much easier to see my entire inventory in one glance. The floating shelves were made by my super handy hubby from some scrap wood. These are above my "mailing station" for my business.

 

Ignore the empty gray frame on the wall. I'm not sure what I'm going to put in there yet, but I know that's the placement for it. That black filing cabinet used to be the only piece of office equipment I had. Now it's multi-functional. We use it to hold our appliance manuals, random receipts, and the tracking numbers for my shipped orders. (You can some ready to go in the boxes on the top)

 

Here's a close-up (for those of you that are nosey like me) It's pretty unexciting to the untrained eye, but to me, office supplies are crazy exciting! I didn't take a photo of inside the file cabinet, because well, that part was unexciting haha! (See that Mason jar rocking my stamps? Love those things!)

 

We painted the shelves "Polar Bear" by Behr to match the desk my husband made me. Speaking of the desk, here is another way I used those left over jars:

 

I love labeling things... and these jars that were originally adult party favors were perfect for all my crafting supplies. This picture makes my type-A heart happy! You can even sort of see Averie excited to get all up in there and mess it up on the right. Cleaning is Mommy's favorite, making messes is Averie's. Speaking of labels...

 

 



People with OCD can have a sense of humor too! Those flowers sit on top of my new (to me) file cabinets. I found these bad boys on my local online yard sale site for $10 total! They were 2 different sizes and widths but in otherwise great condition. When I got the idea to look for file cabinets, I was going to hide them away in the closet. Then, I decided this would be a great opportunity to bring in more of my accent color and had my husband bring home some spray paint. In 20 minutes they went from this:

 

 

 To this! If that doesn't make your heart flutter, I don't know what will! To me, the differences aren't that noticeable after being coated in the same color.

 

Plus, the difference in shapes ended up looking like a cute little corner unit:

As for what I used them for:

Fabric!!! Instead of having piles of it everywhere I thought it would be easier to file it (thank you Pinterest!) The top is all my solid colors and the bottom is all my patterned fabric. It's so beautiful I could cry... more heart flutters over here!

In the smaller cabinet, it wouldn't hold file folders so I decided to use it as storage for my finished bow collection storage (on the bottom) and my huge supply of tulle (on the top). Eventually I'm going to expand my bow shop to include tutus, so I've got a stock pile I inherited from my crafty mom ;)

There is still the matter of curtains- the ones I made didn't look good with everything else I had going on so it's back to the drawing board on those. I am still working on artwork as well. Painting some new things, and going through all the boxes of decor that have yet to see the light of day in this new house. The whole-room "after" shot is going to have to wait just a little longer, but I already love working in there!

Pssst- For those of you who have asked for the link to my bow shop on Etsy, here ya go!
itsy bitsy bowtique

Hitting Pause

Mason’s day came and went without any major melt downs or revelations. It was a really nice day, when we woke up my husband let me have some time to myself to write in Mason’s journal then he made us a nice breakfast. We couldn’t go to the coast like we normally do, but our local town has a zoo and a water play park for kids, and we figured between the two we would find a peaceful place to sit and remember Mason. On our way to the zoo, Averie fell asleep so we decided to hang out in the huge park in front of the zoo and have a picnic. It was such a sweet and peaceful lunch just the two of us while Averie slept. When she woke up we decided to go and check out the Japanese garden that was also over there and we stumbled upon the most beautiful little pond. It was so quiet and serene, we knew right away that we had found our new spot to be close to Mason. It has a beautiful red bridge, koi, and lots of lush greenery. There are also a lot of little peek-a-boo spots if I really wanted to sit and blend in with the scenery.

 

After we spent some time in the garden we made our way to the zoo. It’s a tiny zoo (it takes less than an hour to go through everything) but it was the first time we had been there that Averie actually noticed the animals. She LOVES animals but never really focused on the animals at the zoo in the past (the other kids got all her attention) so it was like going for the first time watching her discover each animal, watching her wave at them and ohh and ahh. It was so sweet! Afterwards we went to the water play area and let her run around in the fountains that shot water out of the floor. Again, she was kinda too little to really get it, but she loved running after all of the other kids. It was a nice surprise to walk up and see our cousins there too, so even though we had thought we wanted a day just to ourselves, it was really nice to sit and hang out with them and enjoy the sunshine. Averie just loves them, and they are so sweet with her (and we really love that particular cousin!) so it ended up being a really great day.

After we were all tired from the water and the sun, we went and got ice cream. Another 1^st for Averie (we usually wait until she’s asleep to indulge) but she loved it. She wasn’t really into the cold ice cream though, she loved the mini m&m’s! We don’t give her a lot of sweets (yes, I’m THAT mom) so it was a nice little treat to share on a hot day. We had dinner at home, just the three of us and we cuddled while watching movies. It was such a great day as a family without any distractions like our phones or the Internet. It’s always nice to unplug and really enjoy your time together… something I wish we did more of.

We were talking and (doing a little math) and realized that we needed to hit pause on the baby making train. It’s important to us to leave certain months as “reserved” – for lack of a better word – like March, December and June. March is all of our anniversaries and Averie’s birthday and cramming another birthday into an already packed month would be a little crazy. (2 of my siblings have birthdays in March too) So, that means no getting pregnant at the end of June or the beginning of July. June is, of course, Mason’s month which means no getting pregnant in September. To avoid December we can’t get pregnant in March (which is sort of hard since those are our anniversaries haha!). We both have parents with birthdays in December and they have always forbade us to have a December baby- they always had to share their birthday with Christmas and don’t want that for our kids.

A lot of people give us a hard time for trying to plan it out, but I don’t see what’s wrong with a little planning (have you met me?!) when it means we can really celebrate both financially and emotionally. Those months are crazy busy for us as it is, and I don’t want our kid’s birthday being just another thing we have to get done. We aren’t in any hurry, it’s in God’s hands when we get pregnant again. (Even if He thinks it should be in the off limits months, we would make it work of course.) So all that means is we wait and try again in August- and then have to stop again in September haha!- and try again October through February. If it ends up that we don’t end up pregnant until after Averie’s 2^nd birthday, then that’s what God has planned for us. It may sound stressful to some of you non-planners but having a solid plan actually makes me feel less stressed haha! Although, by August I probably won’t be nursing much if Averie keeps cutting out feedings, so it may be a non-issue and we get pregnant right away. Who knows? All I know is I feel good about it (even with a few pauses in the middle) and it’s pretty fun to practice haha!

June 11th, 2014

I have a confession to make, I have been actively avoiding my blog. There are times where my blog is great for me to figure out how I feel, unless there are times (like right now) that I don’t want to know how I’m really feeling. Or, I feel fine and I am scared that blogging will bring out some sort of hidden emotion I didn’t know was there.

Tomorrow would have been Mason’s 2^nd Birthday.

I have a weird calmness to me, something I am not used to feeling leading up to and surrounding this date. I also feel some sadness, wondering what our lives would be like right now with a 2 year old and a 1 year old but mostly I feel… nothing. That sounds colder than I mean it to, but I am not overcome with any sort of emotion, good or bad. Does that mean I’m healing or does that mean I am a heartless bitch who has already forgotten the pain? My daughter definitely fills many holes in my heart and I think as she grows up those holes will get smaller.

The best way I can explain my eerie disconnected emotions is that sometimes it feels like I’ve lived two separate lives… one with horrible pain and sadness and one with complete joy and happiness. Sure, I still get sad sometimes and it’s hard to believe that I’ve actually had this experience at all. It almost feels like someone else’s life. Like I’ve been watching a reality show of my life, while hanging out in the present with my daughter. It’s all very strange, and the fact that I’m not a mess is very foreign to me! I’ve lived so much of the last few years as a hot mess, trying to pretend like I’ve had it together. Maybe now, I am just more comfortable in my not-put-together-ness. I’m not really sure of the reasoning behind it, but I can tell you I am grateful for it. I know I felt similar on this day last year.

I know that sounds weird too, to be grateful to not be feeling anything… I guess I’m grateful to not be missing any moments of my daughter’s life because I was too busy being sad. One day I will tell her about her brother, and that it was the hardest thing her parents had to go through, but I also want to explain to her that through that experience I learned so much about myself, and so much about her daddy. I want her to know through this pain, we came out stronger. I would love to tell her why it is that we go to the beach on June 11^th every year, why we always wear blue on that day. I would also love to tell her that this experience made me into the mom I am for her now. But for now, it’s kind of like it gets to stay our little secret. My covert mission to becoming a better mom if you will. She’s too young to understand now anyway, and one day we will tell her all about Mason… although on some level I suspect she knows she has a guardian angel, because she’ll do something or say something that makes me think he’s watching over her.

As far as our plans for tomorrow go, we can’t go to the beach like we have done in the past. It’s too far from where we live now, but we will be near water. For some reason when it comes to Mason, I think of being close to the water and it makes me feel close to him. So we will have a family day, all in blue, near the water. I already let me husband know to give me some space tomorrow so I can write to him in his journal that I started before I even knew I was pregnant. I’ll tell him all about our year, his sister, our life. I know that he knows I miss him every day, that he is always on my mind… I know that he can feel the love I radiate towards him every day. I really do think my sense of calm and relief came from the comfort I found in Heaven Is For Real. I think about it every day, and it makes my heart so full, I don’t think I have the words to really describe the comfort that book gave me, knowing I’ll get to meet him one day. I still can’t say his name out loud and have a hard time hearing someone else say it but I’ll get there.

All of this gave me the freedom and courage to put those feelings aside so I can really be present for my daughter, which is a gift in itself. I feel like many moms who have lost a child feel guilty of those fleeting moments where you sort of forget what’s happened. Like you always have to be sad or people think you didn’t love your child enough. There are times when I am in the moment with my daughter or my husband or friends and I forget that this horrible thing happened to me… and you know what? That’s ok. He wouldn’t want me to never be able to enjoy my life. I think the concept of being ok with “forgetting” once in a while is really hard for moms like me, especially because it’s not one of those things that people want to admit they do, or something anyone wants to admit to. It’s life though, you can’t always be in your grief (just like you can’t always be happy) and once I realized it was ok to not think about it all the time it was so liberating! It was also freeing to see that just because I wasn’t “in it” for a while, didn’t take anything away from my experience or my love for him.

Tomorrow my son would have been 2, and sometimes I don’t know how to feel about it. Today though, I feel good and tomorrow? Who knows. I do know we will remember and celebrate him the way we do it best: as a family.

Learning to Listen

I just finished the book Heaven Is For Real by Todd Burpo and I think it may have changed my life. Even if you aren't religious, I highly suggest you read it. It is about a father who watched his son almost die, but then miraculously recovers and returns with amazing tales of his trip to Heaven. I have to say, I think God really wanted me to read this book. On the very same day, 3 separate people told me I needed to read it, and then 2 more on a different day. No one was talking about books or movies in any of those situations. It was super organic, which told me it was a sign that I did in fact need to read this book. So, my mom sent it to me and if I had my way I wouldn't have put it down.

Unfortunately, reading an entire book in 24 hours is a thing of the past with a blooming business, a one year old and a cuddly hungry hubby. Most of my reading happens when I'm pumping (15 minutes here and there) but I got a great opportunity to read this weekend on our way to and from a family reunion. To put it simply: I was a crying FOOL in that car! My husband was so cute, rubbing my knee while he drove and I wept. He kept saying "we're going to a party! Get it together!" Haha!

I don't want to give too much of the book's magic away, but there is a part where the boy, Colton, tells his mother that he met the baby she miscarried in heaven. He had no idea his mom had had a miscarriage (there are many other things in the book that are true, that he had no way of knowing unless his journey to heaven was real.) There were 2 sentences that had me crying an equal combination of happy and sad tears:

Colton tells his mom of his sister, "She said she just can't wait for you and Daddy to get to heaven" and after that conversation there is a moment where the mother is overcome with emotion and she says to her husband "She's ok, our baby is ok". I just lost it there... that's something I have wondered and prayed about since the day of my surgery. The Bible doesn't say much about the children in situations like ours. In my heart I always hoped that Mason was in heaven, but God basically forcing this book on me, was to let me know he's ok. He is with him in heaven and one day we will all be united again. It may sound silly to some, but this book is exactly what I needed to give my heart the peace it's been searching for.

I've been feeling the burn in my heart more than normal to put my life in God's hands, to let Him take the lead. For the last 8 months or so, I've been trying to control everything myself and trying to fool myself into thinking I'm actually in control here. It wasn't until I read the words in my friend's blog Whispering Brave that I was actually able to pinpoint my problem: I am in my own way. I am in my own way of listening to God and the things he has put into my heart. I've been so angry for so long that I didn't even realize that he's been answering my prayers, despite my anger towards him, all along.

Every day I pray for strength. Strength in being a better wife, a better mother, a better friend and a better daughter. Every day I pray that I wake up and am a better person than I was a day before. Every day I do this, and I am too busy to listen. I didn't even realize that he was trying to help me. Pretty recently, I have had a few difficult people put in my path. One is normal for most (I would think) but to have 3 at the same time- God is trying to teach me by testing me and I just wasn't paying attention.

I pray all the time asking God to show me how to teach my daughter to be a kind person, to be a compassionate person. What better way than to put people in my life that force me to live that way, thus showing her by being the example. He has been testing me, seeing if I really wanted the things I have been praying for. Once I figured out to listen to my heart (and Him), dealing with these people has been so easy. When you can remove your emotions from the situation and see that some people are just miserable, that it really has nothing to do with you, it is easy to distance yourself from them, and keep their negativity out of your life. It also removes the power any of their words might have on you, and it feels really good!

The same goes for the positive side, he also sent me people in my life that have shown me what true friendship is. He has shown me how to embrace them. By choosing to surround myself with people that are good and kind it will inevitably teach my daughter to do the same. Being exposed to the kindness of these people helps teach me what kind of friend I want to be. It's amazing to see the kind of friendships that I have had the pleasure of building once I made the choice to surround myself with positive, kind people. I used to think it was because I was young and immature that I didn't have these kinds of friendships when I was younger, but now a part of me thinks it corresponds to a time when I didn't have God in my life the way I have in the last 10 years. (This is not to say that I am only friends with people that have the same relationship with God as I do, I am just saying there is a distinguishable difference from one time period to another. The difference is largely in who I have become in the last 10 years.)

My journey to being a better daughter has certainly improved once I became a mother myself. My relationship with my own mother hasn't always been sunshine and rainbows, but I can say now, without wavering that it is the best it has ever been. I can see things that I couldn't see before becoming a mom, and my daughter was a gift directly from God, which means my better relationship with my own mom was too.

I think the task of becoming a better wife is a life long one. I am lucky because I have an amazing husband. However, I think every woman has moments when she doesn't feel like the best wife but if I took a minute to pay attention, I would have seen that we have never been closer- we are trying to have another baby- what is more intimate than that? Creating a life from love?! Amazing. More prayers being answered that I wouldn't have realized if I hadn't gotten out of my own way. Last night I had a dream that I was pregnant. (For anyone on bump watch- I am not currently pregnant.) I know this is God letting me know that he is listening to my prayers, and if I keep putting my heart in His hands I will always be a "work in progress" but on the right path.

Office Update!

It's finally happening! After 7 months of living in our new house I am FINALLY getting around to decorating it and "pimping" it out. I know, I'm probably too old to use that term but that's all I got! Haha!

Once again, I took to Pinterest for inspiration. I've never had a home office, so I didn't know what I wanted. I did know 2 things- 1. We're broke so it needed to be cheap and 2. It needed to be a place that I can escape to and be my creative outlet. We are still working on the room as a whole, but I wanted to share some of the progress that was made.

First things first, PAINT! This was another thing I debated a lot about... Here is the room before we bought it, during our 1st walk through:

This is the only room in the whole house that has this cork-board flooring. It isn't what I would pick for myself, but I decided to keep it since I knew I wanted to use this room as my office and I paint a lot. This flooring is perfect for wiping up paint, so for now it's staying.

When we first moved in I had planned to do a chevron pattern on that main wall, but I didn't realize how thick the texturing was on it, so that plan go squashed. Unfortunately, I had painted the other 3 walls a lilac before I realized that, so this room lived like this for a while:

 

It gets a TON of natural light since we haven't put up curtains yet so I decided to go a bit bold with the color scheme...

Pink Salmon by Glidden in Satin Finish

 

Blue Grey Slate by Glidden in Satin Finish

 

 

I wanted something girly but something that could also transition if someone ever needed to use it for a bedroom down the line. I am obsessed with grey and although it looks dark in this picture, it's not such a shock in person. (Probably all that glorious natural light) My true inspiration actually came from Averie's party decorations. I had picked this watermelon-esq color for the long wall and painted it about a month ago. I was storing all my craft supplies in there and when I saw these boxes from Averie's party next to the wall it inspired me to go for grey.

I do have a couple tips for painting multi-colored textured walls. I've have been doing it my whole life since my love of multi-colored walls is not a new thing. (When i was a teenager my room was 4 different shades of purple). The fist thing for a textured wall- skip the painters tape. Seriously. It's not going to stick in a straight line anyway, so you might as well hold off on that cup of coffee and just eyeball it. Since textured walls don't have a smooth line from ceiling to wall, it'll look cleaner if you just drag and angled brush across it.

 

 

My other tip for doing the corners is to over paint the lighter color where they'll meet. This way, when you go to paint the darker color you won't risk having the previous color poking through where you might have missed a spot. There is literally nothing worse while painting then thinking you're done, seeing a bunch of missed spots, going to fix it, and then splotching the wrong color on the wrong wall. I used a 1" angled brush that I use when painting with acrylic to do the corner with the darker color. It doesn't take up that much time, it's faster than taping it off and using a larger brush. Promise.

 

The coolest thing that I didn't anticipate is how these 2 colors would make the existing cork floor pop. Here's a little before and after action so you can see what a difference it made:

Let's hear it for happy accidents! Haha! Here's the whole room, along with my amazing carpet that I scored at Target during their Spring sale!

I also love that my lamp that I've had for years works with both of these colors... not that I need any more light in this room haha!

The room was only left like this for about a week before I decided to put my husband to work in the name of a mother's day present: a huge custom made craft desk! This room is super awkward to shoot because it's sort of L shaped and it's really long. I wanted a nice big table to be able to lay out fabrics and paints ect. After showing him some pictures on Pinterest, he drew up this bad boy:

 

My table was going to be 56" wide and 48" long. That would still leave about 36" from the end of the table to the side of the closet. Not sure if that stick figure is supposed to be me, or him building it, but I can assure you when I sit at my desk, I don't make that face haha! The table is made from a couple sheets of the nicer- more fine- plywood and a Walmart shelf. In total, the supplies cost about $80 which is a far cry from the $1200 price I got from a carpenter. As far as how my husband crafted it, I have no idea! I was inside enjoying my mothers day ;) Here he is making sure my sewing machine fit into the nook:

 

We decided I didn't need the smaller cubbies in lew of my sewing machine having a nice, snug home. Here is the finished product (pre-white paint). Is it ok to be in love with inanimate objects? He even cut out 2 round holes on the top so I could stick my cords through instead of having them hang off the sides. One on each side, ya know... in case I want to have a buddy come sew with me! Since this photo I've painted it white and put a clear coat  sealer on the top. It looks the same so I didn't take a photo (since there are hardly any in this post haha!)

One more quick project I'd like to share is a custom photo holder I made for my office. I decided I wanted to use a robins egg blue as an accent color. (Besides all the white I plan to use to balance out the dark grey). It's pretty simple so I'll let the pictures do most of the talking:

 

 

 Taaa daaa!!!!

For the supplies, I found this frame (already painted- how lucky was that!) at an antique store for $15 and I already had the twine. For the little clothes pins- those are scrapbook accents from Target for $2 and the Washi tape was $3.99 (but I can use it for a lot of different things).

I'll keep updating as we finish projects in here, and we are due for a kitchen remodel update too! For now, I'll leave you with this closeup of the washi tape covered clothes pin and my favorite picture of Averie to date. Happy crafting!

Making Things Happen

Since I got side tracked by loving on my hubby yesterday instead of posting, I'm back again today to update on all the changes that are happening in the Just A Little Sparkle household! They probably aren't huge to the masses, but to me it's a big deal.

I am not known as being the most patient person in the world, but when it comes to my future I seem to be very comfortable with the unknown and for waiting for the right time to do things. When my hubby and I were in college I had to drop out due to lack of funds so my husband could finish school and I could pay bills. (He was blessed with a better college fund while I had to figure it out for myself and still couldn't find a way to continue paying for it) So I made the decision that was best for us, figuring I would go back to school when he was done.

Fast forward a year and a half and I still hadn't made any steps towards going back to school. I always figured I would be a teacher, but with only half of that curriculum completed and a 1 year old I just didn't think that was in the cards. A few years ago I wanted to pursue being a hair and makeup stylist but ultimately decided not to once I saw how huge the time commitment was (and I couldn't afford it).

When I had my daughter it was pretty clear that I was obsessed with everything baby and did more research than necessary for my own situation. Armed with knowledge I found myself walking a few friends through their births, and even more friends through nursing issues. Then it all clicked- I've had such a hard time figuring out which passion I wanted to pursue because I hadn't had the life experience up to that point. Then one day I was at lunch with my girlfriends and they told me how they had an epiphany about what my calling was: a doula or lactation consultant. Once I heard the words out loud I was in. It was one of those angels singing moments haha! Even better, one of them had a link to a training program ready to give me!

I did a lot of research on all the different programs and I found one that combined my new found gift obsession and what I thought was my original calling: teaching. Through CAPPA I can combine both and get certified to be a lactation educator. After researching doulas, I decided the pressure would get me in the end, so I nixed that one. The reason I ended up choosing this program is because with my certificate I can lead classes, do private consultations and with a little extra certification I can eventually work in a hospital with new moms. Since we are hoping to get pregnant in the near future I didn't want to pick a program on a semester system. Through CAPPA I can work at my own pace- once you register you have 2 years to complete all the requirements (most finish in a year though).

You're probably wondering how are we paying for it when we haven't even been able to pay our bills? Long story short, I recently found out that my previous employer didn't give me one of my checks and it was the exact amount that I needed for this program. After talking with my husband he told me in no uncertain terms that I was to use this money for my dreams, that I have been waiting long enough. Since this money was unexpected, we felt like it didn't hurt us using it for something that will benefit our financial situation in the future. I really do have the best guy in the world. I start in June and I couldn't be more excited about it!

As far as my fitness update goes, I'm down 15lbs by keeping to what I said in this post and I'm hoping with the nicer weather I can start taking Averie on walks around the lake and work my way up to exercising regularly. Even if we get pregnant, I plan to exercise through it just like I did with Averie.

There is one last piece of exciting news (at least to me) I have decided to open a headband shop! I bought so many head bands and bows from other moms through Etsy and Instagram and one of my friends just opened hers and is loving it, and it really inspired me to go for it. I already have a lot of the supplies, and last month I started sewing like a mad woman so it won't cost much for me to get out a few products together and get my designs out there.

Right now, my soft opening date is set for July 1st. Our June calendar is super full so I want a realistic date, plus I am still researching what kinds of products I want to offer. (YouTube and Pinterest are coming to my rescue here!) I am hoping to purchase a nice camera by then as well and I need a little time to get my logo and business cards set up. Luckily, I married a graphic designer so I get to pay him in kisses for these haha! There is one little hiccup though- I can't decide what to name it! So if you wouldn't mind...

Vote in my poll to name my shop!

I had a brief moment where I thought "Am I biting off more than I can chew? Getting certified, Averie, trying to get pregnant AND a small business?!" but truthfully, the more hectic my environment is, the better I work. Plus, the certification is at my own pace and I don't expect to be hugely busy with the bow business in the beginning (here's hoping I'm wrong) but since I enjoy making them it won't feel like work. I have a lot of help between my husband and my in laws when it comes to watching Averie when I'm studying/crafting. When I'm doing things that will benefit Averie's future, I don't feel guilty about the time spent away from her. It's so exciting to get things in motion! I can't wait to see what the future holds!