Introduction

   

      Hello, and welcome to my blog! I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and why I've decided to go ahead and start writing. They say that it takes a village to raise a family, and the amount of helpful tips and tricks I've taken from reading blogs for raising mine has inspired me to throw my own two cents into the village. I'm not an expert by any means, and honestly I'll probably share where I fail a lot more than where I succeed, but every little bit helps right? I’ve tried a lot of various things when it comes to parenting, crafting, and personal care, so if my insight can help you- then I’m happy to share my opinion.


     As you can see from the picture, I’m married with two children. My son is 6 years old, and my daughter is 3 ½. I decided to share this particular picture because I’m in it, which is rare in my household since I’m the most likely candidate for taking pictures (although my son is showing potential if the various pictures of his shoes and nose hairs on my phone are any indication). Unfortunately, the second reason I’m not in many pictures is because I hate the way I come across. I’m self-conscious about my weight, and I feel like my smile frequently looks like an inner gremlin is trying to escape my body. I’m working on being in more pictures since my kids will remember me as the squishy gremlin anyway. Obviously, they're a large part of my life so I wanted to make sure that my blog included them as well.

     The second area that I have a passion for is crafting. Growing up I spent a ton of time with my grandmother, absorbing everything I could from her. I spent so much time with her that AARP started sending me letters when I was about 15 years old. I learned to crochet, sew, and knit. Although, if I'm being honest knitting takes forever and I dropped that pretty quickly. My family wasn't particularly well off so it was amazing when my grandmother would let me pick something out during the rare trip to Walmart. I was in awe the first time I saw scrapbooking supplies, and grandma bought me a special set of scissors that cut different borders! Of course I wanted more but my mother lacked any ability or desire to craft, so I didn’t really get a lot of supplies in that area. I had caught the scrapbook bug, and I wanted everything. Regretfully, as I got older at times that is exactly what I purchased and I somehow ended up with a small craft store worth of materials. I clearly needed all of the paper and embellishments if I was going to create my wedding album. Then time went by and it turned into needing things for baby albums. Scrapbooking led to stamping and children led me to explore all of the crafts I could do with toddlers. Now if only I had a place for all of my things…

   Finally, crafting is a joy but not my life. My life is teaching chemistry, which I know you’re absolutely dying to hear about. So in lieu of chemistry conversations I can share some of my experiences with things that I’ve tried to increase quality of life. Things that were supposed to help unwind, relax, increase quality time with family, help with weight loss, increase activity, or just plain make me or someone in my family feel good. Things that worked, didn’t, or maybe turned into utter failures. I’m not trying to sell you anything, just give my feedback on things I like and didn’t like to maybe save you a few bucks and mistakes of your own.
   They say it takes a village… and maybe some cool scissors will help too.