Stressed Moms, Stressed kids?

There I was standing in church, no less, complaining again to my sweet friend, the second one of the morning. I caught myself again and thought "oh my, what am I doing". 

You see, I was once again complaining about the hundreds of things I had to get done by a certain time. I have taken on too much once again and I needed to unload my stress. 

So it got me, as I was sitting with my kids on the couch watching another "Harry Potter" weekend. As I watched them trying to keep their eyes open in the middle of the afternoon. 

Are we stressing our kids out? Are we keeping our kids too busy?

You see, we parents, especially moms, have a habit of complaining about being so busy with life. So much we take on and stress us out. In fact, I wrote a post on my other blog about this same thing, you can find it here. 

But what is this doing to our kids? The stress that we have because we are committed to so much. Are they growing up in a world everyone is so stressed, where every conversation begins and ends with complaints about being strained and busy. 

My oldest is a bit of an overachiever. She makes straight A's, she plays travel soccer, she is in a number of clubs at school, youth group president, on a government group at the school board and this year an officer for the SCA. I ask her all the time, do you have time for that? What about a social life? Well, I got caught off guard a couple of weeks ago when she said, "I'm just doing what you would do". Well crap! What have I done!

Then I got to thinking as I was sitting at the table the other day working on a number of things and my son asked me yet again for the 100th time if I would come out and play baseball with him. I told him I couldn't yet, I still had a bunch of things to get done, and once again I got a sharp stab by yet another truth "Mom you promised you would play with me and I've been waiting an hour!" Yet again, I was losing sweet valuable time with my little man working on things I had taken on. 

I love my volunteer positions, I love all the work I do, I love my business, and well that can't go away because it pays bills. But over the past few weeks I have committed to change. If I have to wake up hours before my family then so be it. If I have to start using the word "no" to people then so be it. But something has to change. 

I don't want my kid's to be stressed now because of me, I don't want my kid's growing up believing that rushing around, complaining and being stressed is the way to live life. I want my kid's to enjoy their childhood now, to enjoy life, to enjoy me. 

So, as summer begins to come to a close and school is right around the corner, I will be sitting down with my kids and discussing this. I will be taking the month of August and spending much quality time with them. The emails can wait, the documents can get posted later and well if I miss another meeting I will just have to read the minutes. All the committees, all the emails, all the meetings will go on without me, just like life will too. But I'm not going to miss this time with my kids. I'm not going to have them look at me with stress in their eyes anymore. God gave each of us the job of being a parent for a reason, we must take that job so very important. These little people who are in our care will grow up to be big people. We want to guide them to be the best big people ever, we have to be the best examples we can be. Are you the best example? Or are you the stressed out, too busy example? 

I have a few weeks of summer left with my kids, then I have one starting junior year, middle school and 2nd grade. Before that starts I want to create some happy memories with my kids. I want to smile, laugh and play with them, not worried about the to do list sitting on the counter. What are you going to do? 

Secret of being Happy

Do you Pinterest? You know, sit for hours with your laptop, tablet, phone and scroll through photos of houses we wished were ours, outfits we wished we had in our closets, organized closets, articles about saving money or paying off debt or, my favorites, how to parent! 

Well I do! I scroll before bed most nights, I find it puts me to sleep. I'm not going to knock Pinterest (I actually love some of the articles and blogs on there and I use it as a marketing tool for my business). 

But I find that many people use Pinterest to try and become something they aren't. You see a farmhouse pinned with the most fantastic inside decor, door paint color and amazing landscaping and you start wishing it was yours. That's what's bad! 

I have a Pinterest board that I love (actually a couple of my personal ones I go back to regularly). But the one I am talking about is titled "Signs and Quotes". The other day I pinned a quote and it hasn't left my mind.  

I started this blog by writing about saving money, living on a Firefighter's income. I have friend's who make more money then I would ever know what to do with. They take vacations more times in a year then I could even imagine. They have huge houses, pools, new cars and their kids are always dressed to the T. 

It took me a long time to not compare what I have to my friends.You see, I love our tiny house, my kid's are forced to be with or around me all the time. They talk to me, they don't yell from one end of the house to the other. We love our "new to us" cars, because when my kids do decide to color on the roof with a crayon I don't have to worry about it! We travel, my oldest plays travel soccer and we have learned that turning those weekend trips into tiny small vacations are even more fun then long weeks away. 

You see, our lives are different then our neighbors. Heck, my life is different then my best friends, even my own brothers. And I am ok with that. Life would be so boring if we were all the same! My husband and I devote our lives to others. As a firefighter, he works everyday to save other people's lives. We serve the Lord our God in every aspect of our lives. We know that everything we have is given to us by Him. He provides for us. But it took us a really long time to get to this frame of mind. We struggled like I said. But we are happy now. We are happy with making our everyday lives the best with what we have. It's ok we don't take our kids to the movies or museums all the time, we have a blow up pool, water balloons in the back yard, a fire pit for s'mores and Netflix for family movie nights. And don't get me started on the endless number of board games for Family Game Nights! 

I wrote a post on my other blog that fits so well with this topic, Circle of Happiness. Check it out if you like. 

No one wants to struggle whether internally with yourself or for all of us to see. Be happy with your life, be happy everyday. If you truly can't be happy, then it's time to do something about it so you can get to that place of happiness. Life is a beautiful, fun, crazy journey; it's even better when you have a smile on your face! 

I pray today that each of you are truely happy with who you are and where your life is today!! Enjoy it! And don't forget to smile and share something positive with someone else! 

I'm Back!

Can you believe it's been about 6 years since I have done anything with this blog? Where I have been you ask, well let's see....
My kid's have grown! 

My oldest is driving! What?!? Yes, she is a rising junior and looking at colleges (waste of time since the only school she wants to go to is UVA and she will easily get in there!) She still plays travel soccer which keeps us all very busy. 

My middle one is starting middle school this fall! Oh my! She's not our athlete but she supports her siblings in everything they do. She has found her passion, sign language. She takes private lessons and has learned so much and wants to do this for a living! 


My youngest is now 7, in school full time (going into second grade) and now starting sports this year (we had him in sports, it was too much with 3 kids so he took a year off)

As a family, we have stayed busy. Continue to be a large part of our church, volunteering and staying active in all groups, youth, children and missions. We have started going each summer (this will be our 4th year) as a family along with 25 others from our church to attend a mission in Beverly, Kentucky to Red Bird Missions in August. We love our week serving there and love it! 

So why am I back you ask? Well, Ruffles and Bow Ties is growing. I have started doing the larger craft bazaars in my area, I have opened a second shop which is all my housewares. I have opened a Shopify shop to reach those who don't want to shop on Etsy (can you believe there are some who just don't like Etsy!). I started a blog for the my business, you can visit here. I am never the best at constantly posting on any blog, but I found that while I was posting on my business blog I had so many ideas. I had ideas about posts about kids and parenting, about being a mommy this day in age and how it compares to our moms, about school and our kids, about life and faith and I really could keep going on and on. All these ideas were floating in my head and they just didn't feel the vibe I had going on with that blog. So I thought, well I have another one, lets get that back up and going! I'm back!

I'll be posting regularly now on this blog, more so to clear my head of all my thoughts and opinions. I'll still post some savings tips, still post about my simplest life and even refer to my other blog here and there. 

I'm really excited to be back! I hope you are excited to read more about my nutty life! And I hope you share with your friends, I would love to share with everyone!