Guess Who’s Back?

Hard to believe but it’s been 4 years since I last wrote an entry on this blog. At the time I was burned out, tired of writing, and my heart wasn’t in it. It felt forced. If we’re being honest, I kind of felt that way about life in general too. I had 2 little kids, a busy job, a new house, and didn’t feel like I had anything “together”. Everything felt frantic and unorganized and crazy. I was overwhelmed.

So I stopped writing. It was a hard decision made easier over time. Every time I’d think about the blog I’d examine my life and it re-affirmed my decision to stop. I don’t have enough time. There’s nothing interesting to write about. No one cares what’s going on in my life.

And so it goes.

However I kept paying to renew the domain name and keep the site up year after year. Whenever I’d see a payment processed I’d cringe a little and tell myself I should just take it down. But I never did. Nostalgia perhaps? Sure. Thoughts that one day I’d write again? Probably. Lazy? Absolutely!

Recently though I’ve felt the itch again. 2018 feels like a year of renewal to me. A renewal of myself and getting back to feeling good and doing things I enjoy. For so long it felt like my own life was put on hold in favor of what the kids needed (Yes, I know thats called being a parent). I don’t feel that way anymore. I bought season tickets to the Broadway Series that comes through town because I love live theater. I’m going to several concerts this year because I also love live music and hate that I’ve missed so many amazing artists over the last couple years. I’m traveling a lot more (mostly for work) and enjoy every minute of visiting other cities.

I’m ready for more….more adventure…more fun…more laughter…just more!

I’m also doing more to take care of myself. One thing that’s stayed constant is my workout regime. That is something I’ll never give up. I work out at 5:30 am every weekday morning and I wouldn’t change it for the world. I also still play volleyball 1 to 2 nights a week and love it! However, my eating habits had gone way downhill. I was yo-yo dieting with no success. Eating all kinds of amazing tasting junk food and constantly feeling guilty. Then wondering why the scale wouldn’t go down. I was actually at my heaviest weight not including pregnancy/post-pregnancy. My confidence was way down and I felt icky. So I finally sucked it up, kicked myself in the ass and did the Whole30 program for the month of January. It was exactly what I needed. I feel great and like I’ve really gained my power back. I now make conscious decisions about what I put in my body and only eat what will nourish me and provide the best fuel. I lost 8 lbs. but had other major “non-scale victories” and am still going (I’ll do a separate post on Whole30 at some point).

Part of the Whole30 program is to keep a journal everyday of what you ate, how you feel, and your non-scale victories. I used to journal on a pretty regular basis, but like everything else, that went out the window. Bringing it back as part of the program was great and it reinvigorated my need for creative writing. I am an inherently creative person but have had no outlet for it in recent years. The itch was coming back. So I bought myself a new journal, some colorful pens and committed to journaling at least once every week. Nothing too crazy, no rules around it – just write once a week. So far I’ve been journaling an average of 3 – 4 times a week and loving it.

That got me thinking, where else can I do more writing?

I was talking to a friend, sharing another story of some bizarre crazy thing that happened in my life and he said “You should really write this stuff down!”

The lightbulb went off.

I used to write this stuff down and it was fun! Why not do it again? I pulled up the blog and read through the old entries and all those memories came flooding back and I realized this wasn’t an accident. This was the universes way of nudging me in the right direction.

So, here we are.

A lot has changed in 4 years but I won’t get in to those details now. Look for some upcoming entries with updates on the family, my life, and work.

Couple promises:

  • I will keep this blog light-hearted. My writing tends to err on the funny or sarcastic side. That’s just who I am so why force myself to be something else?
  • Some of my most popular entries were about work (Annexed, $#*! My British Friend Says). My job has changed – I’m in a different position, in a different building, with a whole new team. But we still have a lot of fun and I’ll share what I can out here.
  • I don’t know how often I’ll be able to write so I’m not putting any pressure on myself to do X number of entries a week. But I’ll do what I can.

So that’s it. I’m back and excited to pick up where I left off. Care to join me?

2011: A look back

Today has been great. Had a short morning at work, got the oil changed in my car, saw a great movie (“Sherlock Holmes 2” – RDJ and Jude Law – hello!), and then spent a fabulous evening with Isabella. We even had fun cleaning up! When we were done she said, “My playroom looks really nice mommy!”

I’m feeling really positive about life right now and why not? I have it pretty darn good. Sure, there have been some tough times, but who doesn’t have those? And I’m a firm believer that the hard moments are the ones that make you stronger.

2011 was a VERY busy year for our family. There were plenty of ups and downs and lots of changes.

January

The year started off mixed. On the one hand, I was energetic and excited for my resolutions and in what was sure to be a great year. However, on January 5 something terrible happened in our city. The vice principal at a local high school was shot and killed by a student. This is tragic in so many ways but it hit home for me because 1) many of my friends went to that high school and I would have had I not chosen to go the route of private school, and 2) the vice principal was my Uncle’s cousin’s wife, with whom he was close. A very sad start to the year for those affected.

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February

Bad = The Steelers lost the Super Bowl.

Good = fun family times spent playing in the snow and celebrating our love for each other!

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March

I ended 2 series on this site, Annexed and The OCp. It was bittersweet as I enjoyed it and know many of you did too, but also, it was time to say good-bye.

We also started the process of getting our house ready to put on the market!

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April

Most of April was spent frantically working on the house as we wanted it on the market in May. Lots of time and money devoted to that.

I also started a new job midway through the month!

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May

Our house officially went on the market in May! It was exciting and scary at the same time because it meant this was all really happening!

I had one really crazy day and got out of a speeding ticket just by being a good person. I totally rule. AND I spent the night with Josh Groban, with CJ’s blessing!

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June

In June we went on a big road trip to Michigan (and here and here and here and here) and then we drove to Wisconsin (and here). We had saw lots of family and had lots of fun. Isabella did great too!

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July

Continued projects on the house, trying to refine little things here and there, along with lots of summer fun like going to baseball games and playing in the park!

Also, on a sad note, my uncle died in July unexpectedly. It was really sad and hit home as it could have easily been one of my parents. Really makes you stop and hug everyone you love just a little bit tighter.

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August

We sold our house. We bought a new house. We lost a baby.

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September

In September I had the D&C procedure. Then it was time to move, move, move – literally! The whole experience of closing on the house and moving was a nightmare but we made it through. We moved on the last day of the month – on Isabella’s birthday!

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October

October was spent unpacking, rearranging and getting settled. In the middle of that our house was hit with the flu bug and we were all down for the count in one way or another. I also made a quick trip to Fort Worth, TX for work.

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November

Last month was a big month! I joined Kosama and worked my butt off (or tried). CJ and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary. I turned 35. I had an amazing night with Jacob and Edward. AND we were able to see a Steelers game in person (and freeze our little feet off).

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December

Shopping and decorating and baking – oh my! We saw some cool gingerbread houses, visited Santa Claus, fought with Isabella over brushing her teeth and had a lovely holiday season!

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Phew! A very busy but good year. Here’s hoping 2012 brings more ups than downs and many blessings to all of us!

Google me this…

Once again I am stealing ideas from other bloggers. Hey, it’s the internet. THAT’S WHAT IT’S FOR!

When I first started this blog, I was all focused on the stats – how many visitors did I have today? Which posts were the most popular? Where were people referred from? I can’t tell you how happy I was on the day I hit double digits for the first time! WordPress has a pretty good Site Stats page that tells you all this and more – such as what search terms people used to find you. I was sure this would be very  helpful and revealing information until I read the terms/phrases and realized it’s totally B.S. that people found me by typing in that. Some of the stuff was downright creepy and it worried me that my family friendly little corner of the blog-o-sphere could be uncovered by searching for something like, “wife catches her kids and neighbor kids sniffing my panties”.

Uh.

Until I realized that every blog gets those weird searches (for example here and here). So I’m following suit and using those crazy searches for blog fodder. Hopefully they make you laugh (or cringe or furrow your brow) as much as they did me!

1. Million Dollar Homes (related searches: 10 million dollar homes, million dollar houses, 5 million dollar homes/houses, million dollar dog house, island mansion plans, biggest dog house): By far the top search with about 175 people typing in one of these terms and finding Team Trader Mom. I can only assume they found me because Google thinks my current house looks like a million dollar home and my soon-to-be new house looks like a 10 million dollar home.  Or because I posted about my dream island and linked to some other websites that probably reference million dollar homes. But I’ll choose to believe the former.

2. Leaky ceiling: this is the next top search with 18 instances. That’s a lot considering most of the search terms happened only one or 2 times. This one is no doubt due to the cruel and unusual conditions we had to endure at The Mall.

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3. Young girls biceps (also mom biceps, licking her own biceps, girl next door biceps, 13″ biceps, woman biceps, circus biceps, wonder woman biceps, april hunter biceps, big sweaty swollen biceps, fat girl biceps, my gunz biceps woman, a pic of my guns biceps, grandma biceps):  37 people want to know about biceps. All kinds of biceps. I don’t know who April Hunter is but I’m afraid to search for it. Apparently she has good biceps though. And hey, who wouldn’t want to see some grandma biceps? Or circus biceps! Count me in! Or not. I hope when they stumbled upon my biceps, they weren’t too disappointed. After all, though CJ calls me wonder woman, I don’t think I have her physique.

4. cute security guard at Oakview mall: 4. No where do I recall referring to cute security guards or Oakview mall but hey, if this so-called cute guard does exist, perhaps I should shop there more often! I used to work at Oakview back in high school and let me tell you there were no cute security guards then. But there was a cute UPS driver. Ah, the memories.

5. who went to private school on the steelers team? (also, Steelers bow, steelers fuzzy blanket, samson steelers, steelers spelled in hair, steeler cheese):  8 combined. Do you know how happy it makes me that my little blog home gets included when people search for Steelers stuff! I get where the bow and blanket references come from. And naturally if someone searched for a samson steeler, they would probably find Samson posts. But private school on the team? Hmm. If there is such a thing, sign me up! Steeler cheese? What a great idea for the next Super Bowl party (because you know we’ll be there – #7 baby!).

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6. i want to date josh groban (and also groban+frontrow seats + crew, josh broban omaha firebreathing panda, josh groban with mum, josh groban older women, i actually dated josh groban): 9. A lot of women like Josh Groban and who can blame them. No doubt they were all jealous of my date with him. Eat your hearts out ladies!

And now for the rundown of all the really weird ones:

  • person kissing fire truck – hey, whatever trips your trigger
  • mom pooping with daughter – um, ew.
  • snowpants camps – there are special camps where snowpants go to learn how to become better at keeping me warm and dry? Who knew!
  • snowpants peeing – peeing in snowpants is indeed a challenge. However I don’t think I need a tutorial on how to do it.
  • parts of a lion – I hope this person is looking for parts such as “mane” or “tail” or “big teeth” and not something else that would totally go in a different direction than I’m willing to go.
  • happy tickles – aren’t all tickles happy?
  • kids hazmat gloves – I’m sorry that someone needs hazmat gloves for their kid.
  • i have an eye patch – you do? Cool! Do you also walk around and say “argh!” a lot?
  • bikini model with big ass and breasts eating a cheese burger – there is one word that comes to mind when women see another woman, with a killer body, eating a cheese burger: bitch.
  • red thing on forehead – well that doesn’t sound good. I hope that clears up for you!
  • cj cake – now where do I find one of these cuz I think I need one for a certain 50th birthday that’s coming up next year….
  • 12 rods – split personalities – you’d think if you have 12 personalities, you could come up with 12 different names. Unless he’s the George Forman of schizophrenics.
  • homework sucks go scooter – homework does suck but go Scooter go!
  • pretty girl like you dont need to go messin round a dirty old house … ha . ii… i .mean .. aaah come on . t.t.m – I got nothin’

Well there you have it. Some of the ways that people got to my site. And yes, I’m totally aware that by typing the above phrases in this post, I’m more likely to get repeat traffic for some of those searches. What can I say, it’s a sneaky way for me to get more hits!

If you liked this, you might also like:

Time to Shop!

It’s a Record

TeamTraderMom.com

June Afternoons

One of the blogs in my list to read every single day is I Should Be Folding Laundry. Beth is a seriously talented photographer and great writer. She truly speaks from the heart and I really admire that.

Beth has started up a new project called June Afternoons. It’s basically an Etsy shop selling some awesome prints and things. All proceeds will benefit the March of Dimes. Go check it out! I’ve also added the logo to my sidebar for easy reference!