Cookies & Wine

For those of you that don't live in a rural area, or the sticks and I like to call it, entertainment isn't very easy to come by. Those that do, know what an evening with friends in a small town is like... There aren't many activities to go participate in no matter what day of the week it is.

Last night one of my great mommy friends called me to see what I was up to already knowing that Scott was out of town again for another week. My usual response is "Not much", which is really code for "NOTHING AT ALL" if it was possible to be doing "less than nothing" that’s the group I would be in.

My normal routine is much like any full-time mom, it revolves around your children. Get up, eat, change clothes, play, eat, nap, eat, play, change clothes, go to bed! Yeah, I know I said “change clothes” twice, that’s on a good day!

Well, it so happens that two of my mommy friends and me were all without husbands this week! So to break up the week we decided to get together.

This is called “Wife’s Without Husbands Night”.

We made burgers and mac and cheese for the kids and let them all play together outside while we sat on the front porch with a bottle of our favorite wine and B.S.ed the night away. This is a fairly normal activity for us but, its one of my favorite things to do!

When this friend called and asked me what I was doing, I was making chocolate chip cookies at 9:30 at night. I only wanted one cookie and had no other sweets on the house, so the Betty Crocker in me took over. My only requirement for coming over the next night was to bring the cookies.

Kymberlyn is the youngest one in this group for right now so I get to listen to the funny stories about their kids and all their antics. This usually follow with "See what you have to look forward to?" or "That's gonna be YOUR child!” Stories about the kids always crack me up.

The three of us think alike on a lot of different topics, which is probably something that our husbands worry about. But more than anything else its so good to have girlfriends that can understand what its like to have your spouse gone.

Sometimes its almost like we become each others spouses when our husbands are away. You always know if you need something they’re just a phone call away. Not to mention the fact that we’re all extremely easy to track down.

So girls, thank you. Thanks for being the best girlfriends I could have.

My Newest Hobby

Since becoming a stay-at-home mom, I've been trying to find a hobby for myself. A hobby that really means something to me, that is for me only that I can do in a limited amount of time. What I needed from this new hobby was to really be able to make it more than a fling. I've had plenty of those hobbies that I tried out for a couple of weeks and decided it was too time consuming or expensive or whatever.

I started looking at my friends hobbies to find something that might be a good fit for me. I have really enjoyed baking and cooking, but with Scott being gone all the time, who in the WORLD was gonna eat all that food??? Certainly not me, I'm still working on losing the "baby weight", which I've been told you can call it that for anywhere from 2-5 years! So, that's what we're calling it. Anyways, baking/cooking everyday was wasteful with nobody else to eat it so on my search continued.

Whatever it was, I did want it to be something healthy for myself. Lately I had been feeling incredibly stressed out with all the obligations that Scott & I have and I really needed a good form of release. So one day I'm in Grand Island and on a whim decided to stop at Hastings Bookstore to see what I could find in the catagory of "stress release, hobbies and fitness". It was there that I found a book on Yoga!!

I know, hilarious right?

Its only for skinny, veggie eating, tree huggers right? Oh no! I sat down in the aisle and read a few paragraphs of the opening chapter and it sounded like exactly what I'd been looking for!

I left the bookstore with one book entitled Total Yoga and then stopped at Wal-Mart and bought an exercise/yoga mat. After I started to read the book I found out that Yoga is more than awkward poses and saying "OM". The book shows you how to get into the pose as well as getting back out (which is MUCH more important than it sounds!!!).

It's been about a month since I started doing Yoga. I usually practice in the evenings after Kymberlyn goes to bed and make that my quiet time. There's something very relaxing and therapeutic about it if you let yourself really fall into each pose and listen to what your body is telling you. For myself it's a time for relaxation, reflection and meditation. I download podcasts off of iTunes to give me variety, plus they have music with it and guided instruction.

If you're looking for something to help relieve stress, lessen back pain or shut your brain off after a long day; I highly recommend trying Yoga. Though I will not be giving up meat or going on any nature retreats anytime soon its definitely something I'm going to continue doing and learning more about. Even though it'll be awhile before I successfully make it in AND out of chakrasana (wheel pose) or bakasana (crane pose) I'm excited to get there.

Small town Life

So after much reading of all my other friends blogs, I finally decided to create one for our family to keep everybody updated. It seems like we're always so busy and its near impossible to keep up with everybody anymore! Not to mention then you'll get to see and hear about all of our small town adventures!

To give a recap on whats been going on with us, Scott is STILL traveling out-of-town for work every week. He's currently in Colorado right now and will be for another week I think. I am a stay-at-home mom, which I will be honest, I NEVER thought that I would enjoy doing! But I really love being able to be with Kymberlyn and watch her learn and grow and explore. Somedays more than others but I would much rather be at home then have to be at a job that I don't enjoy.

We live just north of St. Paul, Nebraska where we have some really great friends that have become like family to us. As far as we're concerned, this is home! St. Paul is just over 2,000 people so we're really excited about Kymberlyn being able to go to school here. Small enough that she's not just a number, but big enough that she'll have plenty of opportunities to do just about any activities she wants.

So, here as where you'll hear about rural life with our 3 dogs Scylla (7 yr. old Great Dane), Louie (3 yr. old Great Dane) and Panzer (1 1/2 yr. old Rottweiler). All of our hobbies and of course my adventures in baking, cooking and other domestic duties will also be included! Everybody should get a big kick out of that!!!

Anyways, stay tuned! I'll be adding pictures and links as we go!