Hello February and Black History Month!! One month down, eleven more to go. Did you guys miss me? I know, I know, I kind of just disappeared from the blog and social media for a bit, but I'm back now. So let's hop into this.
What I Am Thankful For This Week
Mini Breaks | I know that I up and stopped blogging and posting to social media without any warning, but I can't say that I'm sorry about it. With everything that's been going since prior to the election and afterwards, I felt frustrated, angry, anxious and overwhelmed. Staying "on brand" or putting out fluff pieces just wasn't on my radar and didn't seem nearly as important as focusing on processing everything and explaining it to my children. Every time I sat down to blog about something, it just didn't feel right.
So I took a step back. Focused my energies on making a game plan, getting a handle of my emotions and honestly getting to reknow myself. My 7th blog anniversary was last month and I can honestly say that I've changed so much since I posted my first post on YUMMommy. Overall, I'm grateful for the break. I feel recharged and refreshed. And thanks to everyone who reached out to see what was going. I appreciate the concern.
Family Time | As I've mentioned before this is our last year in Charlotte. It feels bittersweet knowing that we'll be leaving this behind before 2017 is up. So the kids and I have been enjoying visiting all of our favorite places often while spending more time together as a family. I'm thankful to be putting more purpose into our family time. In some ways I feel like I'm glimpsing certain sides or traits of my Moo and JJ for the first time.
I'm learning more about them and who they are. For example, Moo is totally rocking it out in classroom and has an okay teacher, but she really doesn't enjoy regular school. She's curious about so many different things that aren't getting taught in grade level like science and foreign language. And JJ is quite the comedian. I had no clue my guy could be so funny.
Books | While We're not doing an official reading challenge together as a family like we did last year, that hasn't stopped me from getting my read on. I've pretty been inhaling books- fiction and nonfiction. The kids have come to enjoy chapter books more than picture books these days. We recently stumbled across a new author, Emma Shevah. We fell in love with writing style and amazing storytelling skills after reading her debut children's novel, Dara Palmer's Major Drama.
This book was so good. We laughed and we cried reading Dara's story. I don't want to go into details, but Dara is a part of a blended family and this book pretty much follows along as she tries to come to terms with being a part of blended family where she's the only one who looks different and so much more. We loved this book so much that we actually reached out to Emma Shevah to see if she was writing another as well as picked up her current book Dream On, Amber.
We've heard back from Emma twice since our first message and Moo is just so over the moon that her new favorite author is taking the time out to respond to our messages. Seeing my kid fangirl over books is beyond words for this book nerd mommy. Thank you Emma! We love you (and Dara and Amber too)!
Vision Boards | We finally finished up our vision boards this past weekend and I'm so thankful. The kids are really taking their vision boards (and mine) seriously. Everyday they're on me like "Mommy, we have do so and so. It's on our vision board." It's the cutest thing. I can't help but feel a little bit of pride knowing that I've helped to cultivate a sense of how important it is to take small actions daily to reach your goals and achieve your dreams.
I'm even more grateful that they've been pushing me as well as to work on making the things I put on my own vision board come to fruition. They are the best cheerleaders/mini managers a mom could ever have. Here's to the YUMMommy family taking the world by storm this year!
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