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The Neighborhood Circle

Florida life, florida sunrise, neighborhood circle, the circle

Hard to believe that just seventeen months ago our family consolidated our items, packed them into a 51 foot moving van, and set off across the country on a one-way flight. The event seems such a distant memory with much of the details still a bit fuzzy due to the expediency in which everything took place. Life seems so ordinary these days in the circle of our lives; work, school, sports, dinner, relax and bed, only to rinse and repeat each day. With the occasional weekend get together with our new friends in our neighborhood circle. Continue reading “The Neighborhood Circle”

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5 Tips for Eco Car Cleaning

5 Tips for Cleaning Your Car Without Using Harsh Chemicals, eco cleaning

5 Tips for Cleaning Your Car Without Using Harsh Chemicals

When you are the parents of young children, you probably realize that the areas where you spend a lot of time tend to get cluttered or dirty faster than others. The kitchen, family room, and backyard probably come to mind, but one true dirt magnet is likely to be the interior of your family car. Crumbs, spilled drinks, and accidents caused by a toddler in the midst of potty training can make the inside of your car look and smell dirty. Continue reading “5 Tips for Eco Car Cleaning”

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3 Ways to Spend More Quality Time with Your Children

3 Ways to Spend More Quality Time With Your Children

Are you feeling like you do not get to spend enough time with your children? Spending plenty of time with them is important because you want them to know that you love them, are there for them, and enjoy spending as much time as possible with them. However, hectic schedules and busy lives can often make it far more difficult for you to get that quality time in with each child. There are some simple ways to spend more time with the kids while focusing on building a much tighter and stronger bond. Continue reading “3 Ways to Spend More Quality Time with Your Children”

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Get In the Boat

get in the boat, marriage, increasing libido

At the ripe young age of 28 my marriage was heavily on the rocks. Not just waves breaking at the shore, more like icebergs to the Titanic. Our ship was sinking, we each had one foot out of the boat. Not fully committed to making our marriage work and swimming towards opposite shores, struggling with the loss of identity as new parents, and only been married six years. Each of us was toxic for the other where even the smallest of discussions turned into a catastrophic argument just for argument sake. Continue reading “Get In the Boat”

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Put on Your Best Face

Put on your best face, new mom smell, first time mom, becoming a mom, motherhood, first born baby

I have taken for granted the ease and grace for which I handled the chaos, the first three years, of day-to-day life with twins. Not just life with twins in those first three years, but life with twin infants and a toddler. Keeping one child alive was one thing, but keeping a toddler alive and two infants was a whole new set of balls to juggle. My first two requirements were always met each morning: keep the kids alive and keep myself alive. Mom success and I was winning. The number one question my friends and new mom friends ask is, how did I do it. How did I get up everyday and maintain a positive attitude, not completely lose my shit, and still manage to raise three really incredible people? Continue reading “Put on Your Best Face”

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Knives and Friendship

I had a set of knives gifted to me back in December 2016. For the past 18 months I struggled with these knives in my kitchen, I never had the right sharpness for what I was looking to accomplish in my culinary adventures. Constantly working against me, I would sharpen the knife, always giving the knife another shot that if I sharpened it just right and used what was provided (the honing steel) that maybe it would get the job done. I took great lengths to care for these knives, and hated to get rid of them, but one day I decided time to rid myself of the emotional upset of these knives and bought my very own set of Cutco knives. What never occurred to me was the metaphor of knives and friendship. Continue reading “Knives and Friendship”

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On the Move Again

moving, moving cross country, bekins van lines, bekins moving, planning a move

Twirling the events of the past year through my head like balloons whipping in the wind, The Chad and I are just amazed at all that we have experienced over the last nine to twelve months. In just three short weeks we are moving, yet again. Seems as though we only arrived here in Orlando a few days ago, but we are almost into this adventure a full year. How is this so? Apparently time truly does fly despite times where we think time is standing still. My twins were just born yesterday too if you ask me, here they are, a decade older and I continue to be in disbelief I gave birth and raising twins. Much like my disbelief that we have to be on the move again, only this time, our roots will be firmly planted here in Florida. Our family will be able to officially close our chapter of life in Arizona as we close on our home in Oviedo, just outside of Orlando. Continue reading “On the Move Again”

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What In the Health

The last ten months have been such a whirlwind for our family. Our move last August threw such a wrench in our normal operations from my kids acclimating to new schools, The Chad settling into and operating in a new, high level, position at work, and my overall operation. I tended to take on the majority of the stress for my family, I wanted to ensure that they would fall back into some formal of normalcy, despite moving 2000 miles away from everything we knew for the past 14 years. In taking on all my family’s stress, I had my own stress that I was not dealing with, emotionally, physically and mentally. Despite my trips to the gym and processing what I could, I had not dealt with the negativity of past relationships that I had severed (as they no longer served me or my family), the loss of my close friends and family, and being alone in a state where I knew no one. What I did not know was that all of this stress, coupled with the stress my body was put through with my weight loss journey would be a perfect storm for my health. Continue reading “What In the Health”

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Avoid Unexpected Wedding Expenses

Unexpected Wedding Costs You Might Forget to Prepare For

When drawing a wedding budget, you are likely to give your attention to big expenses such as venue booking costs, decorations, transportation, hotel accommodations, food, video and photography, and entertainment. Putting together a great wedding takes more than just accounting for these big expected expenses. You must also account for unexpected costs that may arise out of nowhere. Some of the unexpected wedding costs you might forget to include in your final wedding budget:

Unplanned Beauty and Styling Costs

The beauty treatments you may need on your wedding day may include more things than you have included in your budget. If you hire a stylist, you may want them to stay around for the entire day to touch you up when necessary. If they are being paid by the hour, the final costs may be more than you have budgeted for.

Pre-Wedding and Post-Wedding Celebrations

Your pre-wedding celebrations may eat up more money than you expect. Things like clothing and beauty treatments for pre-wedding events should be accounted for. If you have a destination beach wedding at a luxury resort for couples, you should also account for post-wedding expenses since some of your guests won’t return home until a day or two after the wedding.

Postage Costs for RSVP Cards

Depending on how big your guest list is, postage expenses can be a significant cost. The $2 you will spend on an average postage stamp will quickly add up to a 3-figure expense. When you are trying to put together a great wedding, every dollar counts.

Overtime Expenses

There are instances when your wedding organizers and other service providers helping you put your wedding together will work overtime. If they are being paid by the hour and they have higher overtime rates, you will have no option but to dig deep into your pocket to raise the money they’ve earned for an honest overtime work session.

Alterations to Wedding Clothes Including Wedding Dress

When you order a wedding dress plus suits and dresses for the groomsmen and bridesmaids respectively, you might want to make alterations to the dresses and suits so they fit perfectly. Very few stores will make the alterations for free.

Transportation Costs for Rented Items

When renting items for your wedding, you will quickly find out that some rental companies require customers to cater for the transportation of the rented items to the venue of the wedding. This is a cost most wedding couples forget to include in their wedding budget. Remember, also, that you will have to transport these items back to the rental company after the wedding.

Tips

Tipping etiquette is often very complicated and nothing is cast in stone. When working with various service providers, you will be helped by various professionals employed by the person you’ve hired – if they run a big enough operation. It is always a good idea to tip these people whenever they put in extraordinary effort or when the situation warrants.

Breakdown Costs

The typical wedding budget will include setup costs but will not cover breakdown costs. Labor isn’t free whatever the job is. Bringing down your wedding set up, dumping litter, and transporting wedding equipment to whatever establishment you got them from costs money.

Guests Who Don’t RSVP

If you have only accounted for guests who’ve confirmed their attendance, you are likely to have a few extra heads you haven’t accounted for show up to your wedding. Some of these guests could have forgotten to RSVP while others just didn’t care to. It is totally unfair but you will have to deal with it anyway.

Feeding Hired Professionals

You will probably hire various professionals to help you on your wedding day such as photographers, a wedding planner, a band, caterers, beauticians, and stylists. These are mouths you will have to feed on your big day. While you are not obligated to feed them as per the contract for services document you will sign when hiring them, it is good etiquette to serve them food along with your invited guests.

Necessary Extra Décor

You can’t really estimate with total accuracy how much your decorations will cost before the décor is done. As the décor takes shape, you may discover that some items aren’t enough, that you bought more of one type of flower than you needed and less of another or that some items have been spoiled and need to be replaced.

Hidden Costs

There are several hidden costs you may have to incur on your wedding day. You may discover, for instance, that a price that had been quoted for you did not include the required sales tax. When cancelling an order or booking in favor of another option, you may incur cancellation fees. All these costs can add up pretty fast to become a significant portion of your total expenditure.

Your wedding day is supposed to be one of the best days of your life. You don’t want to spoil it because you forgot about a small detail. While you’re planning your wedding, be sure to cover and prepare for any possible expense. You will be more at ease knowing if something pops up – you will have a plan.