Making time for yourself

I have been at a time in my life that things have started running together. I am so far behind on folding laundry that I have a weeks worth piled on my couch. I have told myself day after day that I will get to it, but at the end of the day I push it off to the next day. It is a repeat cycle of "I'll do it tomorrow, I swear!" Well tonight before I climbed into bed officially, I sat on my phone watching TikTok videos because that is what is taking the world over. While scrolling I got to thinking about what I actually wanted to do, what I wanted for myself in life. I don't fully have that answer worked out, but I can tell you that I want to love myself. I have let myself go over the past few years, and I am yet to find who I truly am. Every day someone asks me what I am doing with my life, and honestly I have no clue. I have the whole plan in y head of what I want, but I do not have a set path of getting there. So tonight I took time to myself for relaxing music and working out. I haven't worked out in months, and tonight I needed it. I have been so hard on myself because I cannot truthfully answer people's questions about my life because I honestly have no clue what I am doing! So I figured me time would be the best thing for me.

I think everyone needs to take 30 minutes to an hour to themselves every night, or every morning, whichever suits you the best. I prefer night because I despise getting up early. I have no clue why I hate it so much, I just do. I think once I start getting up earlier and getting my day started that I will prefer mornings more, but I am a total night owl. I could stay up all night and be perfectly fine! So when I decided to take 30 minutes tonight to sit back and reflect on my life, it really got me thinking about what I honestly want in life. I want to build my own business, and I want to have my own time where I can sit down and breathe for myself. I don't want to worry about being yelled at because I needed a minute to bring myself back to reality, and that is why I want my own business. Sure there are many businesses out there in the world, and I know that, but I want this business to be something we can all do as a family because we need family time too. I don't want it to seem like a chore throughout our children's life. I want it to be something that they brag about in their lives, and that they get excited about because they get to work alongside of their parents. So that is what I want out of my life.

How am I going to get there? At this moment, I have no clue. I know I want to finish my schooling so I can graduate next October, and I know I want to take time to watch my baby grow up. I know I want time to myself, but also time with my boyfriend so we can focus on our relationship. There is a lot that I want in life, and it is going to be so hard to get if I don't have patience with myself and everyone around me. So I guess I am saying that it is going to take a ton of patience in order to get started. Once I figure out the top to bottom details, I will be sure to write about it, but for now it is time to focus on me and make myself happy. It is going to be a long journey, but I hope it will be long enough that I find the love that I should've had a long time ago.

Thank you all for being part of this, and I swear that I will keep you updated as time goes on. It is a stressful time that I am in, but I am making it work with the help of my boyfriend!

Juggling blogging and photography

     When I started thinking about writing a blog, I did not take into consideration what I would have to do. There has been a few late nights for me this past week because I am either editing pictures, doing homework, or working on my blog. I started looking into the ways to make money on my blog, but everything I found involved me spending over $130. If anyone knows me, I do not have that type of money in my hands. I have a son, and a little one on the way. I try to make ends meet by putting money back so we can afford things in the future. I have no clue how I am going to make a blog make money, but we are going to do it by the grace of God because that's how we do everything in this house.

     Until the first of the year, I have decided that I am going to be doing mini photo sessions to make a little money. It isn't going to be hard to do, but getting the clients in order to do it is going to be the problem. I have a little cheap Walmart camera, but it works really well! There are many people that are amazed by how good my camera actually is. I want to make this my life long career so that way my boyfriend can stop working and be able to stay at home and help out with the kids and animals. I am going to try my best to do something huge with my photography so I can become great at it, but I need help getting the word out because it is not easy doing that.

     Over the past few years, I have found my love of taking pictures, and I don't see myself going back on that passion I have. I try to capture the parts in life that people rarely see because it is so beautiful! I hope by this time next year, I will have a huge clientele, and that would be amazing because then I would be able to make a lot of things happen in life. So my goal for the next year is to build up my clientele, and then go from there.

     The clientele is going to be the trickiest part of all because so many people want all of the other local photographers doing their pictures, and it makes it hard for those that want to start the photography business because no one will give them a hand at getting experience. I believe this is why a lot of photographers use their families when trying to base a clientele. I love shooting pictures of my family because it helps me get practice with different people.

Mom Advice

     As a first time mom, I have got some amazing advice form a lot of people. There a few things that stand out to me, and some that I have tweaked to make them my own advice.

1. Sleep when the baby sleeps: this is very true because babies tend to keep you up all night their first couple of months. I tried to do this with my son, but I could only sleep half the time he did. Thankfully by his second month, he was sleeping all through the night. We still got up and fed him throughout the night because he still needed his feedings. This was one method that definitely worked for me.
2. When breastfeeding, cluster feed too: I tried to breast feed because it was something I felt was right for my baby. I tried for about a month, and I couldn't get my baby to latch no matter how hard I tried. I ended up being able to pump just enough to make him a bottle every once in a while, but not as much as I needed to be pumping. As I prepare for the new baby, i am going to try breastfeeding again, and hopefully I will be successful.Everyone has recommended that I get the Body Armour drinks and do the Strawberry Banana ones, and the Watermelon Strawberry ones because of the ingredients that are in them.
3. Start reading to your baby and talking to your baby: This is very true because from a young age, babies understand what you are saying to them. they watch your actions when you speak, and they get use to that routine that you do with them every day. I started reading to my baby when I was pregnant with him, and I continued doing the same thing as he got older. My mom reads him a lot of books when she keeps him, and it is building up his vocabulary. He said his first words when he was 4-5 months old. They have always been gibberish until then, and he has made semi sentences since. We understand him when he says certain things because it sounds like the actual word, but we have worked with him on this.
4. Hold and cuddle your baby always: I know what you're thinking, "Doesn't she know that spoils the babies into being held constantly?" Actually a baby depends on you 24/7, 365 days a year. When a baby cries, it is because they are hungry, have a dirty diaper, want to be cuddled, or do not feel good. You are their source of comfort. Rather you're the dad or mom, the baby cries for you because you bring them comfort. As a mom, I have separation anxiety from my son, so it makes things really hard when he is away from me. I did not have a baby just to abandon it when it needs me most. So yes hold your baby when it's crying because it might just need to know you love it.
5. Watch your tone with your partner: Babies have this sense where they pick up on the tension in the room, the same as any person. When a baby senses the tension and hears strong tones being used to someone in the room, the automatically start crying because they try to stop what is happening. As they get older they hear certain words, and it triggers the memory from when they were a baby and their parents were fighting. I have always said that I never wanted my baby to hear his parents fight, but he has more than once. I hate it for him when he gets older, but I will explain it to him so maybe he will understand it better.

Having a lot of debt and being stressed

   

     I recently got to thinking about the best way to make my family have a better life. I am one of those people that overthink every single situation all the time. I stress myself out because I always have to think about all the stupid ways something could go wrong, but it never does.
     I got to looking through Pinterest at several posts talking about how these people made a huge amount of money doing blogs, how you can make the same amount doing blogs, and lots of other things dealing with making money. I rarely ever see someone be completely honest about their debt, and that is what has me stressing out. I absolutely want to make a crap ton of money because who doesn't need money now days?! Once looking at what I have to do in order to make money, I was like well what if I used some of the money I end up making to pay off debt? Which got me into this topic.
     I am a quitter when I get frustrated.

I am one of those that throws the towel in when life gets too hard because I cannot sit back and think of the proper way out of a situation. I have been that way most of my life, and it is honestly awful to even admit. I cannot lie about it, so might as well tell the truth right?
     I got to tallying up my debt that I owe, and let me tell y'all it is a lot! I owe roughly $32,000. $30,143 is student loans by themselves, and then the rest is around about of my credit card loans. So the school debt story is that I went to college for about 7 months, and life threw a huge curve ball at me so I dropped college and my job in March of 2017. When I decided I wanted to go back to school, I did it online because it was cheaper. Then the school closed when I was in the program for 9-10 months, so there is more debt on top of what I already owed! Now I am in school again trying to get my degree to be a Medical Biller and Coder, but I am determined that this school will be my last. I have been on the Dean's list since I started, and it has definitely not been an easy ride. i have had to juggle school with a baby and a job at one point. Now I have to juggle being a stay at home mom, a baby and school. I do most of the school work during nap time or late at night because it is easier since no one is screaming for me to hold them.
     I am wanting to pay off all of the debt that I have right now, and then possibly pay off the majority of my boyfriend's debt that he owes on credit cards. His debt is around $17,000, give or take, because Navy Federal is crazy with their rates on their cards. We have been struggling a lot with our credit scores, and our debt that keeps piling up. We have not had active credit cards in close 6-8 months now. We will not apply for them, and we will not speak about them.
     I am going to try Dave Ramsey's debt payoff that he does. I am also setting a monthly budget for the family so we can have the extra money in case something comes up. This is going to be far from easy, but I hope that I can get this debt paid off, and live debt free for the rest of my life!

Trying out Lifestyle Blogging

   

 I have always been very passionate about what goes on around me in my life. Since I was a kid, I have loved exploring different things outside. I loved looking through the photos my mom had and seeing the life that was displayed in them. I remember thinking as a kid that I wanted a camera so I could capture life when it was least expecting it because it was a beautiful thing. As I have got older, I have realized that I want to capture every part of life because it will only be a memory one day. I want to have stories to tell my children through photos. I have never realized how much taking pictures meant until I had my son, and now I snap pictures left and right of him. It is something that I am not ashamed of because one day he will want to see his childhood, and I will be able to show him every aspect of it. I'm sure people look at me and think of how I'm wasting my life away taking pictures of my son, but I am building his life with those pictures. There is going to be people he will never meet because they passed away when he was a baby, and I want to be able to tell him the things about those people that made them so great while he holds pictures of them.
     Now that I am an adult and have been looking at ways to be a stay at home mom and make money, blogging has been the one thing that constantly keeps popping up on every source of social media that I have. I have decided to give it a go because "You will miss 100% of the shots you never take!" I have been living by this quote a lot here lately, and it is becoming more and more clear as to what it is talking about. As an adult, I can fully understand that meaning. There are so many things I wish I would have done, or at least tried, before my son came along. I am not ashamed of having him when I did because that gives me something new to do in my life. I am actually very happy to have him because he is my saving grace in life.     I have decided that trying this blog thing out might be the best thing for myself and my little family. I will be updating on YouTube every week so I can hold myself accountable because I tend to give up on things like this when it shows no results. I am hoping that I will get great results out of this just because it will give me hope. If you have encouraging words, please do not hesitate to comment them on any of my posts that I have made! I will take every encouraging word that you have!

Being a mom without friends

     I wish I would have known that being a young mom was so hard. It is hard on me for many reasons, but the main one being that I lost all of my friends that I had in school. I no longer have anyone to call and talk to, no one to come over because they want to hang out, nothing. It is lonely being a young mom that has zero friends, including mom friends. Everyone moves on with their lives, and we never speak again.

     It wasn't until in the past week or so that I realized how many friends I don't have. My boyfriend and I go into a fight, and I went to my parents house for the weekend. I didn't have a best friend to call and talk it over with, or anyone but family to call. I figured out that his family talks crap about me to him, and he doesn't stop it. It is then that I need a best friend, but I don't have one of those anymore.

     Growing up I always heard that you will never have the same friends you had in school, and that is ever bit of the truth. It hurts to know that, but it is every bit of the truth. I had enough friends to get me by in school, and it is nothing that I can complain of now because it was a lot more then. I think it hurts me the most because they always said they would always be there if something happened, but none of them has shown up yet. 

     I remember in school we always made a list of who would be our maid of honor, our bridesmaids, our kids godparents, their aunts, and their uncles. We use to spend class periods making these lists, and putting a lot of heart into them. Now I cannot remember what who was on the lists, but I do know that none of them are in our lives now. Ethan has met a few of my friends that I have had over the years, but not all of them. He has met the ones that we have seen out in public, but have not made plans with. It is scary not having friends, but you eventually cope.

     To this day, Ethan is my little best friend. His dad was until our last fight because it broke me. Ethan has shown me what true love looks like, and he has always been a blessing to me. I am writing this right now to say, don't expect to always have friends. They will always leave you when you least expect them to, and it will more than likely be when you figure out that you're pregnant. When you have your child, or eventually children, just know that they will forever be your best friends.

     My mom and I didn't see eye to eye throughout my whole life, but when I found out I was pregnant with Ethan I wanted to call her. You see some of you are thinking that it was easy to do that, but it wasn't. At the point I figured out I was pregnant, it had been 2 years that I had spoke to my mom. When I moved out at 18, we stopped speaking because we were mad at each other. Now that we are talking again, I call her all the time about everything because I have missed her. So yes, your children will always be your best friends. My momma is my best friend, and I am very thankful for her.

     

Crack Rolls

Ingredients:

1 loaf of bread (crusts removed)
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese
3/4 cup of confectioners sugar
1 cup of sugar
1 1/2 cups of cinnamon
3/4 cup of butter, melted

Directions:

Flatten bread with a rolling pin. In a bowl, combine cream cheese and confectioners sugar. in another owl combine sugar and cinnamon; set aside. Spread about 1 tsp. of cream cheese mix on each slice of bread. Roll up, jelly roll style; dip in melted butter, then cinnamon-sugar mix. Place on ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 until golden brown.

*Good cold or warm*