Titles...positions....who are you?

We all associate ourselves with certain titles or names. Maybe your titles are Mother, Daughter, Sister, Aunt, Wife, Girlfriend, or any combination of these. Would losing one of the statuses affect you? Or do you identify with who you are outside of the titles? What if we are lost in the identity of these people and in fact don't know who we are outside of them?

If you were stripped of ALL of your identifiers, who would you be?

I think this can happen to a lot of moms...and most of them (us) don't mind. Many times I have been introduced at a child's birthday party as "Drea's mom" or "Charlotte's mom" and people will apologize sometimes and say "Oh, of course, you have a name...your name is not 'Charlotte's mom.'" Most of us don't mind being called or identified this way especially as proud mommies and daddies. It's not dangerous if you don't get lost in those identifiers. Unfortunately, I assume it's more common than not to disappear and forget who you are outside of that.

If you were stripped of ALL of your identifiers, who would you be?
Can you stand alone?
Who are you?

My own little editor

Yes, I deserve it...
We will all admit that. I have my own little editor. Her name is Drea.

I organized some of their toys last week and I was excited to use my post it labels so I labeled the bins. My theory is maybe if things have a specific place that is labeled it will be easier to clean up. (I'll let you know how it works for us.)

So I was showing the kids the newly organized area and Drea read one of the labels out loud, "Pet Shop and other Tiny Toes." She started cracking up and kept saying "Tiny Toes!" Tiny Toes!"

I thought it was great that she caught it! I really enjoyed it. And in case you don't know me well....that's usually my job! I'm normally the editor! Like mother, like daughter. 

I told her she could fix it and make a new label herself because I figured she would enjoy that. Then she pointed it out again tonight and started laughing. I reminded her she had to make a new label and she said she would rather leave that and enjoy a good laugh when she sees it.

Here's a picture of some of the organization. Then there's a close up of my lovely messed up label (which in already embarrassed to show you a pic of because it's very sloppy for me and not at all layed out or centered right...this was at the end of my effort and I was just determined to finish up the project.)

Clarksburg Grandprix

What a great day!

I took the girls to the Clarksburg Grandprix today. It was a beautiful, sun shining, day perfect for bike riding.

The Grandprix is a bicycle race that begins with collegiate racing and then amateurs. In between those, they have a kids race. So I signed Drea up for it and we went over after crossfit to check in and then take part in the other activities they have go on. There was free lunch for the kids; they received free helmets and had them properly fitted; they had their faces painted and spent most of the time just riding their bikes around in Jackson Square in Clarksburg.

Also, all kids were entered in to a drawing for bikes. BOTH of my girls won a brand new bike!! That was an awesome blessing because we needed to buy at least a new bike for Drea because she outgrew hers.

And they BOTH participated in the race. I didn't originally sign Charlotte up because I didn't know what it would be like and I didn't know if it would be okay to do with training wheels still on. When I saw it was a small little course and kids of all ages, I let her ride too. They both loved it! They had so much fun! We've already determined that we must do it again next year! And we have too make sure Barrett and Tyler do it too. Theo hung out with us and enjoyed the festivities and you never know he may be able to ride already next year because we saw some tiny tikes out there....it was so cute!

I'm so glad I decided to take them to this. I just happened to see a flyer for it in the Blue Bird and wondered if Drea would like the kids race because she really loves riding her bike.

Here are some pictures. Enjoy.

This is after we first checked in. (By the way, this is also before the new helmets and fittings...Drea has on my helmet which is obviously not fitting her well! Lol)

New Bikes

Ready to start their race

Theo's big fun

My big girls racing

This was them pretending to be on the winners block. All the kids get prizes in this race.

Playing

How come I'm so bad at playing? I just wish I was better at playing with the girls. I'm not creative and I get so bored. I also have a lot of trouble shutting off the "what I need to get done" in my head so I can just play.

Ending Hunger? Really?

I had to laugh today after I heated up my chicken pot pie for lunch and noticed the RED PUSH-PIN GRAPHIC on the front of the box.

 

Now let me say this....I get advertising. Shoot. I have a degree in it. I am no expert by any means but I get it. I get the way companies try to sell more products. I get the lengths they will go to develop brand recognition. I get the emotional factor they try to create in the public about their company. Most companies don't just do things. They do things for a reason/motive. There is a motive behind everything they do...or a goal behind everything they do.

 

The problem: I think they created the wrong emotional attachment to their company from Stacey Niessner today. Yeah, and I guess I'm only one person but that's all that matters to me. lol!

 

Let me explain.

 



That red push-pin graphic says "CHILD HUNGER ends here." Below that it says "enter now. 1 CODE = 1 MEAL" Then it has the Feeding America logo and in small print says "See back for code and details. Program ends 8/28/14."

All I could think was... REALLY?!?!?! Really Marie Calendar's?! REALLY?!?!
So if I go to a website and enter some code, you will give a meal to a child. This is your effort to end child hunger?! So you can't just donate meals to children who are STARVING! You need me to enter a code for you to do that. You are probably a multi-million dollar company and the only way you are going to be considerate enough to help hungry children is for me to take initiative or perform an action. I did perform an action. I bought your chicken pot pie! How about you be truly humanitarian and donate a meal for every meal purchased!?! Does't that make more sense? But you wouldn't want to give too much to children who are starving. It would be better to just wait until I push a button since you can guarantee most people will not do that so you won't have to give away too many meals.

Am I the only one who sees it that way? It's called good will. It's called charity. If they really wanted me to look favorably upon their company wouldn't they just donate the meals and then label their boxes with a big ole' "1 MILLION CHILDREN FED in effort to stop child hunger."

I'm not sure why this angered me so much. It just did.

The thing is I was still going to go to the website to enter the code (and see if there was a place I could voice my opinion...not that my little ol' opinion means much but sometimes I just get in the mood to do that.) But I got in a flurry of things going on in my office and threw the box away and the janitors emptied my trash can already. So I guess one kid will go on starving because I didn't enter my code. That's awful. That's horrible to even think about.

Anyway....*steps down off the soap box.*

Critical-holics anonymous

I need serious help. I'm so critical! And I don't know that I'm am when I am and I don't know that I am until way after I am...if at all.

I really don't know what to do about it. This sounds like a funny post but I am being very serious. I have a tell problem and I need a real solution as impossible as it sounds to have a solution to something you barely recognize.

One issue: I usually think I'm just critical of myself because I tend to expect a lot of me. So I think I'm just hard on myself and others don't get the same from me or I don't have as high expectations of others. In reality that just isn't true.

Maybe if I reduce how hard I am on me, I will in effect ease up those around me....because what I wish people knew about me is I don't want to be critical of other people. I would prefer to hold myself to high standards. I do not prefer to hooks others to that. But maybe it all morphs together and I can't tell the difference.

Random...

1. I'm very frustrated every time I go inside my food cabinets to get something because I haven't decided how I want to organize them....and there are zero brainstorms happening about it. I guess I need to get "pinteresting" about it...

Matt, my counselor, would say I'm probably way over-thinking this.

2. It's really sad that I often know todays date because of what the "Use By" dates are on my food in the fridge. That's called OCD. I should probably say "Thanks Dad!" for that one. Lol!

If that is confusing to you...I mean, I knew today was March 26 because the hot sausage in my fridge had the date of 3/26 on it so I knew on Wed I needed to either cook my hot sausage or freeze it. Now no lectures about how that date isn't the exact date for it to go bad but I try to use that date for my own brain or I would accidentally let it go way past that date and then it would get stinky and I would have to throw it away.

Yeah, ok....Matt would probably say I definitely need an extra session on over-thinking now! Lol!

I miss baking

I love baking.....
It's one of the things I'm realizing that I have missed doing lately.

It's not always easy to do in someone else's kitchen or maybe I should say easy to enjoy. And even when I lived in Philippi...I guess I just never got to a place where I enjoyed baking again. Well, and probably after driving so much all the time because I lived so far away, I just didn't feel like it and I had too many other things to do.

Anyway, I'm excited to get used to my new place and start doing some of those things that I enjoy again. I just like baking....well, and cooking. I do enjoy cooking too. I made dinner last night and it was just stuff I threw together to make my own pasta dish and it was delicious! It's probably because I'm the only one who will be eating it. The girls won't eat the same thing I do...I made them a deconstructed version before I started mixing things together and seasoning them. I have spent the past couple years cookign for some very, VERY, VERY picky eaters. So cooking with freedom when it's only for me....delicious!