Moving Day

I've moved... this place was feeling cramped by a life I know longer feel a part of... come visit me...

http://frequentnewgirl.blogspot.com/

What a year

So once again there has been a huge lull in my blogging. This year has been a very rough one for me and I think getting back to the world of blogging and looking at all the creativeness that abounds in the blogosphere. So now I am going to come back back time with posts about my life and all of the creative things I see. It's something I need.

Awesome Giveaway~!~~

Run! Don't walk and check out the giveaway over at Tatertots & Jello!!

And you can make this!~!!!

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme






TodaysMama (http://bit.ly/tmwishlist) and GameStop (http://bit.ly/gamestop10) are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.





1. What is your holiday wish for your family? I have been saying over and over how I want us all to slow down and enjoy the holiday's. My kids are growing up to quickly and I already miss them even though they still live at home.


2. What is your Christmas morning tradition? We start with coffee/hot chocolate and then take turns opening gifts while a Quiche I prepare the night before cooks. After all presents are opened and we eat everyone is free to play with all of their Christmas gifts.

3. If you could ask Santa for one, completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be? A vacation to a hotel room stacked with books that I could take one very very lazy week to read and relax.



4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money? We walk and enjoy the beautiful VA trees that have changed colors and admire all of our neighbors Christmas decorations



5. What games did you play with your family growing up? Scrabble, Charades, and many many card games



6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood? The kids always are only allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve and it's ALWAYS pajamas, it really tortures them and I LOVE it!



7. Where would you go for a Christmas-away-from-home trip? NYC to Rockefeller Center



8. Check out GameStop (http://bit.ly/gamestop10) and tell us, what are the three top items on your GameStop Wish List this year?  1. Kinnect for Xbox360 2. Just Dance 2 for Wii 3. SUper Mario All Star bundle

Invitations

I really think invitations set the tone for the whole party. Lately I receive less paper invitations and more Evite style invitations. I think in most cases that is perfect, it's an affordable means of inviting all of your guests and an easy way for them to be able to quickly and easily respond. Every once in a while for certain types of events I think that a "paper" invitation is just a great way to go. For the Tea Party shower I posted below I was very lucky to find someone to design the perfect invitation for me and for $35 spent I had them designed and professionally printed. The price was well worth it to me to be able to set the tone I was looking for.

I highly recommend Tiffany with Mira Greetings! Check out her Etsy store at the link below!

www.miragreetings.etsy.com

Mad Hatter Baby Shower

I recently planned a Mad Hatter Tea Party Baby Shower. I didn't want to go with the new Alice in Wonderland or the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, but more of a messy tea party with strange touches, something a little messy, not stuffy but fun! I saved so much money by using things that I already owned, hitting up many many yard sales, and even buying from Craigslist. 

Beautiful "fake" flowers from Michael's craft store! I was amazed how many people at the party thought they were real! 

We had an amazing amount of food!

Gorgeous cake made by Heidi Varden she spent days hand painting the gorgeous Alice in Wonderland sketch drawings I sent her!! The cake was AMAZING!

Beverage station~ featuring our YUMMY Mango Mimosas

I found these drink containers at a Big Lots store for $8

Yummo!!

I am a HUGE fan of Parmesan cheese crisps

These cheese straws were amazing and fit perfectly in the IKEA vases I keep on hand, they work perfectly!!

IZZE drinks make fantastic accents for beverage tables! Not only are they yummy but they come in amazing colors to coordinate with the party. The beverage tins were bought at Target on clearance for $5 a piece and they had "A" magnets on them which is the baby's first initial. The white makes it so easy for them to be used for many different events~~

Tea sandwiches on my GORGEOUS white cake platters

Gift table!!

Gifts!!

You can see just a bit of the FABULOUS fabric I found on clearance at Joanne's Fabrics for $1.50/yard. It had an amazing exaggerated floral print the really enhanced the look of the table

White roses with red paint dripped on them, total cost fifty cents, found the gorgeous silver footed bowl at a yard sale for $1 and the frame was in the clearance section at Big Lots

Favor boxes full of homemade FUDGE!!! Made by the always amazing Cassie of Goldilocks Creations

Food & Beverage table

Tablescape, the angels I bought a few years ago at the dollar store for a Valentines tablescape I did. I liked throwing in random things throughout the party

What looks like placemats are actually very large sheets of scrapbook paper I found at Michaels in a book of 60 pages. It was in the clearance sections for $8

I found an ad on craigslist that a man had placed saying he was selling all of the tea things from his failed tea house, I purchases 6 3 tiered servers many many tea cups and saucers and tea pots! You can just see a little bit of the amazing wing chair I bought for $30 on Craigslist last year, it was the perfect spot for the mom to be to sit

I like how random everything was, it made it so much easier to put everything out

Messy is fun!!

Me & the GORGEOUS mommy to be (again) :) 

Gorgeous photos were taken by the talented 

Erin of Erin Colleen Photography 

and 

Ryanne of Bzzy Bee Photography

Surprised on my ability to follow through??

"D" and I October 1995

Growing up as kid I pretty much lived in the same house all throughout my school years, I was never the new girl, I knew everyone in my school, neighborhood, burbs, other kids were new, but not me, I was staple on the streets of our neighborhood. I went to Kindergarten through High School with the same set of friends, of course adding new friends to our group as the years went, but they were always new and not me.

All of this was true until I decided to get pregnant... while still in High School, this automatically made me the New Girl. I was new to a whole slew of experiences, new to being the only girl in my high school to walk around with a 9lb baby growing inside me, new to a bunch of questions asked by an OB who was so amazingly sweet an patient with my lack of knowledge and understanding. New to just how frightening having your newborn whisked away immediately upon birth due to complications. New to not knowing how my life was going to work out and how I would be able to provide for another life.

Luckily and thankfully, "V" was much more of a man than I think he ever knew he could be at that time and our lives were made so much better by the fact that he had already joined the Army, which definitely helped to provide a life for our automatic and small little family when we were married shortly out of high school.

All of this of course led me to being the New Girl, for what I now think of as the rest of my life...

part 2 of a million more parts to come...                                      

No need to worry...

Not sure if I shared or not, but a few weeks ago I started having SVT attacks. 2 were long enough to send me to the ER, once in a lovely flashing ambulance. My heart has decided to run marathons without alerting the rest of my body.  So anyway after I felt like an idiot (right or wrong) the ER docs said I was having episodes of SVT. I need to see my doctor, the problem is my doctors office was flooded after a nasty Nor'Easter came through and so I had to go to another doctors office instead. The Army's health care system frequently leaves a lot to be desired, I am very greatful that I have it though. So I saw another doctor who said sorry I can't help you, you need to see your Primary Care Manager, now 2 weeks later I finally have an appointment to do just that.

I've been having frequent crazy heartbeats pretty consistently, sometimes it feels very hard and fast sometimes I get very strange butterflies/fluttering in my chest. It is concerning. I am doing the "exercises" the Dr's reccomend to make the SVT stop, and it's working, although it's not very convenient or practical to bear down while someone is sitting in your office. It makes for akward glances and quite a bit of 'splannin.

I hope today I get a few answers along with the referral I've been working on getting to the Cardiologist....

The girl who scheduled my appointment today didn't think I was very funny when I was explaining how irritated I was with the health care system, apparently they don't like it when you say "they're killing you". Okay enough rambling...

Oh and Mom if you're reading this, eveything will be fine!

Dining Room Makeover...finally!

Ok so here goes... months later and with a few odds and ends to still be picked up and placed in the room, I am finally ready to show you our dining room makeover...

Before

I think all in all it looks so much better, I definitely need a new rug and few more art pieces, for now I'm happy though!

So much to catch up on!

I swear when I get home after homework, cooking dinner and what seems like never ending Christmas decorating, I will be catching up with you my dear Blog. I am seriously behind, but I have LOTS to share...

Now how do I check to see if "V" is reading this Blog??? I would love to share my gift ideas for him!

Have I told you...

how much I love you lately? If not I'm sorry and I do, very much so!

Do not pass this up!

One of my favorite Blog friends Jen over at Tatertots and Jello (which by the way sounds good because i'm starving) is having 2 AMAZING giveaways over at her Blog right now. So run! Don't walk and enter here for a TWILIGHT Giveaway and here for the CUTEST ADVENT CALENDAR EVER!

Oh and I ordered something from Jen's Etsy shop for someone on my gift giving, but I can't say for who or what it is just in case they may be lurking around the ol' blog here...

Just not feeling it...

I'm trying I really am! I love this time of year I swear I do, but I'm feeling a little 'holiday block'. I'm just not feeling all the usual[ feeling I get this time of year. I feel very rushed and I feel like there is WAY too much to do and I just don't have the time to get it all done. What do I do?? How do I get the good feelings back? I think today I will take the time to get organized or at least some idea of organized.

What may help is that I got my Ornament Swap partner from The Mrs.! This is exciting! I love meeting new people on the blogosphere and how fun it will be to read and find a perfect ornament for someone I don't really know!!

Hopefull she's a T-Bow fan and I can get her this, lol, like I've just ordered myself!! Or maybe she's a Twilight Fan and would like this! Or she could be a dog lover and this ornament from Etsy could be perfect!

Hmmm, I guess I will just have to wait and find out.... maybe I'm starting to feel the holiday spirit a little after all!!

Draggin...

I am seriously draggin' butt today. Getting up at 5:30am yesterday morning and not going to bed until 3:30am this morning, oh wait and waking up at 6:30am again, may be killing me today. The real point though is that 'M' and I

LOVED NEW MOON!

Oddly enough this is one of the few books to big screen jobs I've seen where they stay pretty close to the book. I was very impressed. I'm being good and not giving anything away for those of you who didn't have the luxury of staying up at unnatural hours to see the movie, but hurry up and go see it, it's worth it.

Adventures of a 'cool mom'

Okay, so I'm being "cool mom" and 'M' and I are going to the midnight showing of
NEW MOON!

Now I'm not one of these creepy mom's



but I do like a good teenage Vampire love story as much as the next one. I like even more the fact that my daughter said she would rather see the movie with me than to see it with her friends, I'm verklempt.


So I can only imagnie the buzz of the blogospher the next few days!!

Okay off to do some actual work today!!

I would rather be here~

Life has been keeping me pretty busy these days. I’m starting remember fondly those days over the summer after the big move when, I knew no one and I was COMPLETELY bored. Now my clean house is not so clean, my clean kids, well I’m not sure if they’re clean anymore, I’m too busy trying to get dinner cooked and homework done. I keep trying to remind myself that this is what I wanted. I wanted to be busy again; I wanted to have something “to-do”.




I miss it here in blog land. For me it’s a peaceful place that I have been neglecting for far too long!

I really wanted to show you all my dining room makeover but my dining room is currently the home to “V’s” best friend who just moved to the area and is looking for a home. So until he finds one or I kick him out the photos will have to wait!

Till later blog land!

Stranger's in the night..

V and I are currently working opposite schedules, it sucks. We now usually have one full day together, Saturday, well it's a full day as long as you look past the fact that he has to sleep until 2pm so he can stay on his night shift schedule. The whole thing stinks. I feel like I am back to being a single Mom just like I was when he was deployed. I get up at 6:30am when he's going to bed and I get the kids ready for school and head off to work myself, he get's up around 3pm when the kids are coming home from school and head's to work at 4pm and hour before I get home. The whole thing is very taxing and it's definitely putting a strain on us.

My new job is okay, I really am not sure if I like it and it's pretty hard to explain why I feel that way. Hopefully I'll like it alot more when I get a full paycheck next month. In the mean time I am going to console myself with the dream that Daddy Warbucks is going to walk through the door any minute and I'll be rich...

The sun will come out tomorrow... unless it's overcast...

A year in the making!

V and I worked on some of the outdoor decorations for the house on Friday, above is the door alcove we "lit up" all spooky!

Below is the decoration I've been waiting a year to put together after seeing the idea at The Curious Sofa

I just love her! She came out super cute!

I'm hoping we can put together a few more fun things for outside. V would like to put some ghosts out and Lowe's has a cute Halloween fence idea.

Day 1

I survived Day 1 at the new job, seems like an okay gig, we'll see how it goes in the next few weeks.

I have BIG plans for this weekend, most of them include more organizational items for 'A' to help him adjust better to the idea of me working. For some reason my working is making him incredibly anxious and I would like to find a way to help him feel more comfortable with the idea.

Okay off to bed so I can be bright eyed and ready to go in the morning!

I think reluctance should be a 4 letter word...

courtesy wsvn.com

That's how I feel about the new job I took today, reluctant.

I was offered 2 and accepted the one with the better pay and less of a chance of weekend work, and yet still I don't feel good about the deal.

 I'm trying to think back to when I started my last job to see if I felt the same way, but it was so long ago I don't remember.

Maybe it's just the idea of the unknown that makes me nervous and the idea that I may miss being a SAHM even though I never felt comfortable staying home.

Who knows maybe this will be the job I was waiting for all along..