I need to start blogging in the morning.

I cannot even believe it's been over a month since my last post. I say that often, right?

You know how your mom always told you, "If you don't have anything nice to say then don't say it at all"? Well, that's why I've had so much lag time between posts lately. Sure, I'm busy but truth be told, the majority of what is really in my heart to write about lately...I just can't over the interwebs. I hate to be so cryptic but...

Here's what I will say:

It's still a man's world, no matter how we would like to believe it isn't. It just is and that pisses me off. Being a business woman in a man's world is...interesting.

It isn't that I don't have wonderful things happening in my life, because I definitely do, but I've figured out the problem to be that I blog at night- you know, after the trials and tribulations of the day to day have ran their course and I am just...well...tired and ready to zone out to Friends episodes (because they just never stop being funny). I need to start blogging in the mornings, with a fresh start and a clear mind.

I can say that February flew by at warped speed.

My mom and I went to San Francisco for 3 nights, which was the highlight of my February. I had a work meeting and decided to treat my mom for her 60th birthday (60?!) and had her join me since I knew I would have some down time. We had such a great time. It was our first mother-daughter trip- ever!

San Fran is a quirky city, much bigger than I thought it would be. The food is excellent and the cable cars are.awesome. We walked around Fisherman's Wharf and Ghiarrdelli Square, had chowder, stayed in Chinatown, ate at our first Vietnamese infused restaurant, saw bison lounging in a park, had the best cabbie tour guide take us around, went down "the crookedest street", and were about 20 feet away from the Golden Gate bridge and couldn't even see it because of the fog. It was such a fun trip and exactly what I wanted to experience with my mom. I hope to be able to do this again with her soon.

So, we meet again, spring time.
Florida did not see a winter this year so it feels strange to even acknowledge that the season has changed, but I'm glad it has. We have a lot to look forward to in the next few months: Toy Story 3 on Ice (Lily's first time to a show like this!), birthday parties, a weekend trip to Chicago for a wedding, and Lily's THIRD birthday.
Bring it on, spring.

Reverse Bucket List

Bucket lists seem to be en vogue. There is even a show on Discovery or National Geographic, or one of those channels that I don't watch, on the topic. It seems that ever since that terribly depressing movie, "The Bucket List",  with Jack Nicholson portraying a dying older-than-middle-aged man, people have been making and talking about what their Bucket Lists consists of.

Me? I don't have one. There are plenty of things I would love to do and places I would love to see but I don't feel inclined to write them down. I really don't want to be 82, pull out this list, and realize that I didn't accomplish much. It just seems like setting myself up for failure in some ways. Pessimistic?

Anyway, what I do have is a Reverse Bucket List. I post frequently in a forum, where my FIFs are, and someone posted about the reverse bucket list. It's made up of the things that you've already accomplished in life. Things that you're proud of. Things that others may not know about you. Things that may even make others a little envious. Things that may seem menial to others but are big accomplishments to you. I suppose it's a brag list but it was so fun to think about.

Here is my list, in no particular order, all since the age of 18....

• Completed over 1000 hours of volunteer hours in college.
• Graduated from Florida State University with honors.
• Was thrown in the Wescott Fountain on FSU's campus on my 21st birthday.
• Worked in the Social Work field.
• Have bought 3 properties so far, still owning two of them.
• Had a destination wedding.
• ATV'd in the mountains in Costa Rica, seeing amazing mountain towns, mountain tops, and beautiful waterfalls.
• Saw lava flow from an active volcano in Costa Rica.
• Baked a human being.
• Survived child birth with a failed epidural and semi-serious pre-eclampsia.
• Hiked with my toddler in the Costa Rican rain forest.
• Zip-lined in Costa Rica.
• Have traveled to San Diego (numerous times), Mexico, Dallas, San Antonio, New Jersey, Miami, Orlando, the Bahamas, and flying to San Francisco as I type, all thanks to my career.
• Been to San Diego Zoo twice.
• Raised a dog from a puppy.
• Fostered several dogs from a rescue.
• Survived an infant with colic/silent reflux.
• Experienced all that is good, bad, evil, awful, joyful, amazing in raising a toddler.

I know there is more and I'm skipping some, generalizing others, but those are the things that came to mind. I just loved, loved, loved thinking about all that I'm proud of. In life, we tend to be negative and focus on what we want to do, and where we want to go, wishing our lives away (or at least I tend to). Compiling this list made me feel proud and fortunate. It's amazing to say I have done so many fun and brave things in life.

I would love to read others Reverse Bucket Lists, so if you have a blog and you'd like to share, please do.

Fashion (non)Sense

I have no fashion sense. I was clearly born without the gene. To be honest, I don't even like to shop. I'm the one that likes to go for what I need and if I can't find it, I give up quickly. I just don't have the patience. Or, I'll go, with intentions to buy work clothes and end up with a ridiculous amount of clothes for Lily, simply because it's easy and fun to buy her clothes.

Even more shocking to most females, I HATE buying shoes. Hate. I will see a cute pair of shoes, pick them up and think to myself, "what would I wear these with?", which is when my brain goes on overload and shuts off, quickly dismissing the sale of the shoe. I get overwhelmed with not having the right outfit to match the shoes and the mere thought of finding something to match, OMG! Too.much.thinking. So, my closet is filled with black and brown shoes- flip flops and 2 pair of work shoes.

On top of the lack of fashion sense, I am also cheap when it comes to clothing myself. I don't think I have ever spent more than $40-$50 on an article of clothing, or shoes, I insist of making $100 go far. I will absolutely adore a pair of shorts but if they're marked $42, it's a no go. I'm too practical.
I also will not buy anything that has to be dry cleaned. Or ironed. (I just went from practical to lazy in two sentences.) I once bought a pant suit from Banana Republic on super-duper clearance and it ended up in the Goodwill bag a couple years later, after wearing it about 5 times, because it was dry clean only. I washed and dried it. The pants, of course, ended up to be clam diggers, which, apparently, is out of style now?

With the help of Pinterest, I have recently been inspired to become more fashionable. Or try to, at least. I see all of these great, trendy outfits, complete with accessories and shoes, and I want them. I want to be able to put an outfit together, other than a t-shirt, jeans, and flip flops, or black pants with a gray shirt for work, complete with my 5 year old black pumps.

Not being able to afford the trendy "pinned" outfits in their entirity, i decide to try my hand at being fashionable. So, I went on a mission today. I went with intent. I was going to find some cute, trendy clothes. Clothes that screamed that I know how to out an outfit together AND
that didn't look cheap.

After an hour and a half in the mall and an hour in Kohl's, I left with.... A pair of black pants, a pair of gray pants, a black shirt, a pair of black flats, and a pair of neutral flats.

Fail. Sigh. I give up.

Anyone want to dress me?

3 Christmases.

At 7 months, 2009...

At a year and a half, 2010...

At two and a half, 2011...

We had another beautiful Christmas filled with food, family, friends, and more presents than necessary. Lily really started to grasp the concept this year. She understood who Santa is and that he was going to leave presents. She LOVED the whole idea of opening presents, of course, but she also loved the fact that we all got to open presents. She would deliver a present to one of us and say something like, "And one for you, mom!! OPEN IT!!!".

It was so much fun and I can honestly say that Christmas is magical now. She is the only child that we've ever had in our family, so I've never experienced the holidays through the eyes of a little one. It's amazing.
I don't use this word often but I feel very blessed to have Lily and just to have this life in general. Lily continues to teach me so much and make my life...well...magical.

Christmas is in less than 6 days? Oh really?

You would think with all of this spare time I have that I would make some blog posts. Pfffftttttttt.

I don't have much spare time. And when I do, I'm sleeping. I miss spare time.

I'm not complaining. Really, I'm not. I love being busy, but I do wish I just had a couple extra hours in the day. Since my kid goes to bed at 9-9:30 every night, as opposed to the old 7-7:30, I usually go right to bed, too. Man, life is so different with a child. I still can't get over that sometimes.

Thanksgiving came and went like a blur. We had a great dinner at my in-law's house. No commotion, no tantrums, no drama, just dinner. It was lovely.

We then attempted our own photo shoot, after a Black Friday JCPenney Studio photo fail. Ok, maybe it wasn't a complete fail since we rendered this beauty out of the deal:

She has quite the personality. She did this unprompted just to be cute.
Aaaaand since that's the only picture worth anything out of that deal, we decided to take Lily to this field near our house:

And take these pictures that my friend Jessie edited:

Then, the next weekend was our Ugly Christmas Sweater party. 1st annual. It was fun and I think might become a tradition!

Finally, this past weekend, we were a part of our friends', Danny and Kendra's, wedding. Danny was a high school friend of Dustin's, a surfing buddy, and Kendra and I became really close over these past couple of years. They came to our Costa Rica wedding and we just fell in love with them as a couple. We knew this day would come for them. It was a great beach wedding, on a perfect day, with a fun reception to follow. Could not have asked for a better day...

Which brings us to this week- Christmas week- with all of the hustle and bustle that comes along with it. Work is super crazy busy, still have a present or two to buy, all the gifts have to be wrapped, and Christmas Eve dinner menu has to be figured out. I love the overall feeling of these last few days before Christmas every year. There is a certain energy that is just...fun.

I promise that one of these posts will have more substance than just boring updates that can be seen on Facebook. I really would love to get back to actually writing posts with some thought behind them. Perhaps a New Year's resolution....among others.

Opposite Life

A conversation between my husband and I last week:

Me: So, this might sound weird but do you ever imagine what your life would be like if it were the exact opposite of what it is now?
Him: :::Weird side eye look in my direction:::
Me: Like, for you, it would be having a suit and tie job on Wall Street, living in New York City, single, no kids, going out every night...you know, opposite of what it is now.
Him: Well, the Wall Street thing would suck but the rest sounds AWESOME!

I wasn't quite expecting that kind of honesty from him, but I had to laugh because, well, it does kind of sound awesome.

That conversation was inspired by an episode of Sex and the City that I had watched the night before. In that particular episode, Carrie was dating a guy named Aiden and she found an engagement ring in his bag, obviously meant for her. Her reaction was visceral, vomiting at the mere thought of her life going down that opposite path of what she was used to. It almost made me feel as though I was missing something important by not truly ever living the single, big city lifestyle. Is getting married and living a suburbia lifestyle really vomit inducing to big city girls??

Whenever I watch a movie or television show with Carrie Bradshaw-type characters, I imagine I am that person and try to imagine what my life would be like as a city girl. It would be the complete opposite of the life I'm living. My little "escape my life" fantasy is this: I imagine myself as a writer for a column in a magazine, living and working in downtown Chicago or New York, calling home a small, but very well decorated, apartment with windows overlooking the skyline, having a small group of girlfriends, all single as well, going out for martinis often, shopping at only the high end stores, and giving looks of pity to women pushing baby strollers.

Glamours, isn't it??
Sure, but how does this story end, I always wonder? Do I become an old dog lady? The eccentric one who travels to exotic locations with friends, or alone, who practices yoga every day, who dies all alone because she was too selfish to get married and have kids? My mind takes me to some weird thoughts, doesn't it?

I believe it's human nature to have curiosities about things we don't have. Not necessarily things we want, but just things we don't have. As a comparison, how many times have you wished you were wealthy? If you're like me, probably many. We assume life would be easier, more fulfilling, because we have money, which probably is far from the truth but it's nice to fantasize about.

Is there a true moral to this post? No. This is just me sharing my randomness.
And no, I don't want a different life, nor would I trade my life for Carrie Bradshaw's. She ends up getting married, ruining the whole fantasy anyway.

Three Halloweens.

At five months old...

At 17 months old...

And at 29 months old...

My, how time flies.
We had so much fun trick-or-treating. Lily really understood it and got into it, running from house to house saying, "Can we do another one, mom???". She pooped out after about 15 houses, which is when I chauffeured her around in this:

{Pictured with Ty the chicken}

I'm not sure who had more fun, Lily or me, but I can tell you it was the best Halloween yet!