Selfie, Not Selfie: The Story Behind My Profile Picture

The Hubs hates all forms of social media.

He barely uses Facebook and would probably cancel if it was not for our son on Facebook and he halfheartedly uses it for his freelancing - he is a photographer.

His phone, until recently, was a cousin to the Jitterbug, he only follows @iambaker on Instagram, and don't even ask to take a selfie with him. I have and he won't.

One day he finally said okay to my pouting for a selfie or an USie, but being a photographer and having his dSLR on him, he took his version of a selfie.

It started with this one on the train at Lodi Station Outlets last fall.

Girl, You Need Quality Makeup: 5 Essentials for Mom

This post contains affiliate links.

I have always said I wanted to age gracefully but this past year has aged me more than I care to admit.

Stress, work, life, kids - it really catches up and to my dismay, I can no longer fall asleep without washing my face. And, moisturizer is my new best friend along with foundation.

I didn't always feel the need to wear makeup. I even got compliments on my skin without it but I wore at least foundation most days. At some point, I stopped wearing makeup and when I ran out of moisturizer, I neglected to put it on the shopping list.

Then last week, the Hubs and I were watching Inside Amy Schumer and the skit, Girl, You Don't Need Makeup, came on.

8 Things I'm Putting Off for a Few More Minutes

Life moves so fast and I want it to slow down! 

I know it's silly, I can't stop the world from spinning but, with the constant reminders that kids are getting older, family starts moving away, and finding a few more grey hairs, it's hard not to wish for a few more minutes.

What I can do is put off some things to do later and enjoy some time now.

8 Things I'm Putting Off for a Few More Minutes 

Who really needs a clean house?

It's not like the dishes will get dirtier, well maybe they will get dirtier but maybe I'll let them soak for some extra time.

Folding laundry

Washing is easy, it's the whole folding and putting it away that takes so much time away.

Writing this blog post

Yup, I admit it - I've been slacking on writing. This is one area I don't want to be idle but, it happens.

Working out

This one is embarrassing because there is no excuse. I should be able to wake up 30 minutes early and I haven't been.

Taxes

Starting to run out of time here but, not yet. This weekend will be tax time, this weekend.

Updating my resume

I'm not looking for another job, which is obvious since I'm putting it off but it is something everyone should do every so often. It's good to look back and see where you have been and where you want to go but also to ditch the old or irrelevant.

Printing photos and scrapbooking

I know I should, it would be nice, but I haven't. And, I really need to do the little one's first year book, now that she is turning five...

Sleeping

There is only so much time between waking up and going to bed to get in extra time reading, sharing stories, cuddling, and being silly. Something's gotta give.

I ❤️ my #silly kids. #igdaily #photochallenge #LetsGetRealSocial #instakids #instagood

A photo posted by Mary Johnson (@mryjhnsn) on Mar 10, 2015 at 3:33am PDT

What are you putting off?

Some Mornings, I Just Want to Go Back to Bed

You know those days you wonder why you got of bed? 

Those mornings when the preschooler is crying because you had the audacity to pick out something for her to wear and the older one is shooting you piercing looks because you woke him for something as trivial as school.

It is the same morning that you woke up late because you think you are fighting off whatever sickness one of them gave you and your whole body hurts. Why can't they give you a clean room instead of the flu?

In the midst of all of this chaos, I crawled into my kid's bed and just laid there wondering why I was given these little lives to nurture and guide. I feel like I am failing left and right. Yelling to get things done when I know damn well that is not going to work. Counting to five to calm myself so much I have to wonder if the kids know I can count higher. 

How can she be so tiny and so willful! 

5 Reasons to Break Up with Candy Crush

It has been six weeks, three days, and several hours since the last time I played Candy Crush. 

That addictive, time killing, mind suck, has been a blessing and a curse. It distracted me when I needed alone time in a room full of people and calmed me as I waited in line at BMV. Plus, it's fun and challenging.

I knew it was time for me to give it up when my legs fell asleep while sitting on the toilet, long after I had finished, and I still could not move off the level I was playing.

If you are wondering if it is time for you to give up this sweet addiction - let me help!

5 Reasons to Break-up with Candy Crush

5 Things on Me (Plus 5 Great Quotes)

Five Things.

5 things you don't know about me

I'm a notary in Ohio.
I use to manage a nightclub in the Flats
I've miscarried
I have one grey hair and I keep wishing more would grow so I'd have a cool grey streak.
I almost finished NaBloPoMo, but not quite

A List of 40 Things to Do Before Turning 45

Today, I turn 40.

Yep, the big 4-0!

This year has been challenging with some stress, a loss, a bit of anger and forgiveness, but also some really wonderful, beautiful things.

I am really okay with this whole forty thing. How can I not? I don't have the stresses of youth and the challenges of middle age come with a partner. Plus, I have kids and neither are in diapers so all in all I'd say life is really pretty okay. Not perfect, not great, but very, very - okay. I'm fine with that today.

This year will be better and I am looking forward to New Years. Challenges, changes, and all the other bits that make life interesting.

It's me! Out on a Friday with good hair #latergram #noway

A photo posted by Mary Johnson (@mryjhnsn) on Oct 10, 2014 at 4:05pm PDT

I did not finish my list of things before I turn 40. I did 25, which is is a little more than half so there's that.

I'm going to try again. Yes, again, I am going to try and give myself a few more years.

39 40 THINGS TO DO (IN THE YEAR) BEFORE I TURN 40 45

Life is to Short to Explain

What do you do when the absolute worse person you know throws all of your insecurities in your face?

What do you do when this relative stranger tells you that the doubts and failures you already feel guilty about are why they don't like you and then tells you that you are the worse person they know.

What do you do?

Interview Much...? Stories from a Receptionist About First Impressions

By night I blog but by day I am an office manager.

I started as a receptionist which lead me to office manager. Despite the title, I am still a receptionist. My desk is in the lobby, I greet people, schedule rooms, and let vendors in. Well, all that plus more but for a good part of the day, I'm a receptionist.

I happen to love my job but like any great jobs, there are certain aspects that are not my favorite. Greeting people coming for an interview is one of those things. Don't get me wrong, I work with some fantastic people who once came for an interview. But, there is a larger percentage of would-be employees who don't make the cut. I can usually predict their outcome based on how they treat me.

I am no longer surprised by the rudeness I encounter from applicants. I also know how professional and nice they will be for the interview. What most fail to realize is that the manager doing the interview may ask my opinion or I'll tell them. Rudeness to those who might not matter does not look good and speaks volumes on your character.

3 Days of Doodles

I love to doodle.

I even like to color.

It may be the only way I was able to stay awake in school and now in meetings.

There was a study w-a-y back in 2009 that said that, "subjects given a doodling task while listening to a dull phone message had a 29 percent improved recall compared to their non-doodling counterparts." (source)

I don't need an excuse for doodling.

I even used a doodle in a post not that long ago.

I feel like I have discovered a whole world of other doodlers this week and it has inspired me to doodle more.

I was writing in my planner one thing I was thankful for a day; without success.

I am not saying I will doodle all that more often but maybe the days that words escape me I will doodle it instead.

On Doodle a Day - Miracle in a Can

Do you doodle? 

The Prompts: 4.) I love this idea of an art journal, try it (or have your child try it) and share your creation!

My Monday Top 5 - About Me

I really don't think I am an interesting person.  I suppose that is not true since I blog but that could be perpetuating my illusion that I am interesting when in fact, I'm not.  The point is I try and really, that is all we can do - try to be interesting.

My Top 5 Interesting Things About Me

1. I have 11 posts dedicated to coffee.  There will probably be more.

2. I can draw, not well but I can.

3. I can sing off key better then anyone I know.

4. I have fantastic hair.

5. I have been featured on BlogHer twice and on Mama Kat's World Famous Writers Workshop twice.  I am hoping to break this tie.

What are your top 5 interesting things about you?

My Phone in #SixWords

Six words: My phone has never been quieter.

Source, Thom Weerd

We Are The World?

source: The Anti-Media

You know you are old when you hear someone ask, "What's We Are the World?" 

I wanted so badly to find out that they were joking.  They weren't.



I was eleven when this was released but it feels like yesterday.  
I had so much hope and truly believed that the world was going to hell but these people would make a difference.
I feel so old.  

The Prompts:  3.) You know you're getting old when…

Drawing a Dinosaur

The last time I felt guilty. The last time I felt guilty? I don’t remember a time when I didn't feel guilty about something.

I feel guilty writing this now.

The kids have been trapped in our home because of the weather and I’ve had my face buried in a screen. I have read two books on my kindle, played candy crush saga and worked on my laptop while catching up on Downton Abbey.

I can’t wait to go back to work and I feel guilty about that.

The Job I Hated Most? Sex Toy Consultant

I was a Passion Parties consultant and I was a hack, a complete and utter hack at direct sales. I could not get the hang of being a consultant. It was by far the worse job I have ever had.

It wasn't the sex part or the standing in front of a room of complete strangers talking about sex. No, it was going out and getting people to host a party with me.

I am in awe of the women (and men) who are in sales, especially direct selling and not just Passion Party but Tupperware, Mary Kay, Avon, and Tastefully Simple and on and on. To be able to hustle, get folks to host a party and then ask them to join their team - complete awe.

It took a year and a half for me to cave. It was hard to admit that I was just not going to succeed. I had a great team leader but I was lacking the commitment to just go up to strangers and say, “Want to have a sex toy party?”

27. I Won’t Cover (or pull) My Grey Hairs.

I am not sure when I lost interest in the need to change the color of my hair, and, not just my color but the length and curl. Extensions were not as popular when I was in my twenties as they are now so I would go short and blond or grow it and dye it red. I was to chicken to commit to platinum blonde or fire red so I stayed in the middle - anything but my mousy brown.

I would change my hair because the wind changed directions or my heart was broken. It got to the point that only my gynecologist and Miss Clairol knew what my true color was because I could not remember.

Eventually, I stopped. I stopped trying to change me. My hair I could control when nothing else was going the way I wanted. Or so I thought. After my first baby I wanted hair I did not have to work on and as a result it was cut shorter then I would have liked but worse, the guy who cut my hair butchered it.

Not only was it too short but it was choppy and uneven. I cried. I spent too much money trying to even it out so I looked good for my wedding and it was then I knew it was time to stop using my hair to hide behind, so to speak.

Just as I accepted that I am fine the way I am, I realized that my mousy brown hair is actually a gorgeous brunette and in the summer I get these fantastic natural highlights. I have awesome hair.

As I was looking in the mirror in the hospital when my baby girl was born I noticed something silver. Could it be? Could that be a grey hair? I have plucked that same damn grey hair out of my head for the last three years and it keeps coming back.

A few months ago I noticed another and then another. I am going grey. The question is do I go back to dyeing my hair or let it come in?

Obviously I have no problems with dyeing my hair, I did it for years, but do I want to make that commitment again? I can be lazy with my hair and not get it cut when I should get it cut. I can get away with a few weeks (or months) past what is recommended but coloring it? Never mind the money involved and the time to set aside.

I always imagined myself as a grandmother with long silver hair, braided down my back but me as a grandmother is another twenty or thirty years away.  Not now.  I should also mention that I am the only one can see it unless you are looking for it.



Have I lost the fight to stay young looking or am I trying age gracefully? I don’t feel my age so why should hair color matter to me. I decided to do nothing until I turn 40, in November. It is number 27 on my list of things to do before 40.

I’ll decide then what to do.  Next up - lose 39 pounds.



Mama Kat's Prompt: 2.) Write a post inspired by the word: lost.

Throwback Thursday Work Addition: My Colleagues Took Their Clothes Off

It is hard to imagine lives before kids but we had them.  I wanted to compare me from ten years ago with today but I found this gem from 1999 and that is close enough.  I am posing with a colleague during his shift.

Fourteen years ago I managed a nightclub quite by accident. I was the receptionist by day and ran the coat check at night until the night managers quit to open their own nightclub.  One of my responsibilities became managing an all male revue (aka male strippers), overnight

Today, I order supplies and sign for packages.  Back then I ordered supplies, signed for beer deliveries and got to watch my co-workers take their clothes off. Every. Saturday. Night.

Good times.


The Prompt: 1.) Find a photo of yourself taken 10 years ago and display it on your blog along with a current photo. How have you changed since the day that photo was taken?

3 Words Will Change My Life

I hate resolutions.  Last year I wrote about my un-resolutions and this year I am embracing just three words - laugh, flourish, thrive.

I am slowly checking off items on my list to do before I turn 40 and the three words I have chosen will (hopefully) guide me for the next eleven months.  Fingers crossed and Happy New Year!

My Old School Happy Song

When I was young I worked at a nightclub.  I was a coat check girl, a door girl, occasional bartender, the office girl and a manager.  It was so cool.  I was so young.  The best part was being allowed in the DJ booth to play with the lights.  My favorite song at the time was Amber's Sexual and I only heard it at the club.

One of the DJs eventually put it on a mix tape of club songs so I would stop asking to hear it played.  I lost the tape but now I can hear it whenever I want.

This song still makes me so very happy.

I am Not a Morning Person.

I am not a morning person. I never was and it is even worse now that I am a mom of two kids. I have to wake up when the kids do and usually before they do. This was not the case when I was a mom of one.  I had no idea how unprepared I was for two.

I once cherished the morning hours, the raw sunlight, the beautiful silence and the slow easy way to wake up. And by wake up, I mean I was probably already awake from the night before and I was actually going to bed. Or, I was off to brunch with friends.

Working in bars and restaurants had led me to a nocturnal way of life. Sleep till ten, work at eleven and home by 3:00 AM. I worked two jobs and wanted a social life. Morning was for sleeping.

Even after having my oldest, I was still not a morning person. I had a proper day job which forced me to be up but my son was a pretty good sleeper so he was not getting me up much past his first his year. When I was laid off, I went back to work at a restaurant and got back in the lazy morning mode.

Of course working in a restaurant with a child is not ideal when denied for health care. According to the guidelines I qualified, but due to a crappy case worker who did not like me I got denied. That is not an exaggeration. WIC, yes, Healthy Child, hell no. I started applying for a good day job with benefits and was back in the nine to five grind six months later.

Don’t get me wrong. I l-o-v-e my job, love my boss and thankful for the employment but I miss mornings doing nothing. Now I struggle to get out of bed. I just want to stay in the warm comfort of my blanket.

It was when my baby girl was born when I truly learned what it was like to be a mom, a parent and without sleep, without mornings. I never cried about loss of sleep before but not only was I yearning for sleep, I was really crying due to the lack of sleep I was (or wasn't?) getting and it was the worse time for me.

Baby girl is now three and sleeping through the night is still hit or miss. When she sleeps, it is heaven, when she sleeps in her bed - nirvana.

I started waking in the middle of the night her second year. It was and is the only time I get to be alone. It is when I started taking blogging seriously and it is when I could catch up on TV show. I also spent an ungodly amount of time playing Angry Birds and Words with Friends. This was my time.

I did not feel like I was a mom until I had two kids. One kid is in no way a preparation for having two and I think I knew that way down deep and never truly felt like a parent but just a mom and a kid hanging out.

When moms of one complain I just look at them and wonder why. There are moments when I wish it was just the three of us again. I would not have it any other way, I adore my little girl, but there are moments when Baby Girl is at her worst that I imagine what life would have been like with just one child.

Of course I berate myself all night and into the wee hours of the morning but it is also mixed with the sounds of her night terrors slash temper tantrum, depending on the night.

Would I change it?  No, absolutely not.

Am I a morning person or night owl? Yes.