Hey there, Readers! Remember me? I used to blog consistently and life happened and I went ghost? haha! That's the life of a blogger/mommy/small business owner.

I'll spare you the excuses and pretty much catch you up an all that been happening my life in the last four weeks since I posted. Let's go...

Family

The kiddos at homecoming

My family has been busy. My youngest turned three and this whole other personality came with it. His vocabulary has expanded, his energy is at an all time high, and oh yeah, the temper tantrums are at their peak. Y'all.  If the Terrible Twos are a thing, so are the Troublesome Threes. Good grief. This
kid has epic temper tantrums and meltdowns. Of course this isn't my first rodeo and I have steel resolve, but Lord, will he try your patience. Nonetheless, I'm pulling out all the mommy tricks with this one and they seem to slowly but surely be working. Fingers crossed!

My other kiddo is doing quite well. Homeschooling is going great, although finding a good rhythm has its challenges with my business growing. One of my newest clients requires a bit more hands-on support than I anticipated, which has cut into our homeschooling time. Nonetheless, it's time recalibrate and get it together. With the holiday season in full effect, I'm not stressing too bad about it because the top of the year will see an uptick in our school plans.

Hubby is doing great these days. Work is keeping him busy but so is his business. You know, it's so great to be married to someone who shares the same drive and ambition. We find ourselves up late, burning the midnight oil but we're doing it together. Makes this journey even more meaningful, ya know? Speaking of business...

Work

My business has seen an uptick in activity. I've taken on two new clients (yay!) and may be expanding into several more if things go well. I'm definitely thinking about scalability, as my mentor calls it, so the top of the year will see some strategic planning on my end. I plan to take the last two weeks of the year off to focus on just that.

As my clientele has grown, so has my realization of what I offer. You know, I pride myself on my ability to be flexible and adaptable. I went from starting a business consulting business to basically doing that and so much more. At least count, I have 6 active clients. And listen, it ain't no cake walk. I work well into the tonight and spend my days in front of my computer too. But, I do it all on my own accord.

In addition to my business, I'm still teaching and the semester is winding down which means tons of grading and prep for the next semester. I selected new textbooks for my classes so I will be spend Christmas break reading them and setting up my syllabus for the semester. Ugh! But you know what? Almost 5 years in, and I love teaching. Seriously.

Health
So, this makes me giggle. I have totally sucked on the health front. I was supposed to have 25 pounds by now and I keep losing and gaining back the same 5. I'm just not consistent. I have a gym membership I'm paying for and I rarely pay it visit these days. I really need to change that and I'm making that a commitment starting Monday (today). Hubby wants to slowly transition into a vegetarian lifestyle at the top of the year and we are spending December weaning ourselves from stuff. Pray for me...I have a weakness from good ol' fashion fried chicken. LOL

There are so many other things going on with me that I can share but who wants to dwell in the past? Tomorrow is a new day and I want to cease it and more.

How are things with you?

via GIPHY
via GIPHY

I'm one of those people who will get so wrapped up in work that I forget to eat. Yeah, yeah, I know. I need to do better about this, but by the time I look up, it's way too late to eat something heavy so I opt for something light and filling.

Enter: Hillshire Snacking.

I saw this product a few months ago at my local Kroger and didn't really pay it much attention. I actually thought it should have been over in the wine and cheese section, but nope, it was sitting right next to the Lunchables. Still, I didn't bother to try it until recently.

Oh.Em.Gee! I have a new favorite snack. Besides the fact that it's about 16 grams of protein (hello fullness!), it tastes pretty damn good. I love salami and this does not disappoint. Now, let me be honest, this isn't deli quality salame so don't get your hopes up. But, it is seasoned well and doesn't have a weird texture like some meats do. No, this one is smooth and yummy.

Sam's Club actually sells these as a 4-pack (score!) so I picked up a few to put in the fridge. Y'all, you have to try these. All that's missing is a bottle of red wine and some grapes.


In total, there are about 8 crackers, 8 salame discs and 8 cheese slices. The tray is pretty easy to open and you are immediately hit with the smell of pepper from the salami. Yum! There is not excess water floating around, which is pretty common in pre-packaged meat. The cheese is smooth and creamy and the bread is nice and toasty.


There's no right or wrong way to eat it. I like to stack mine and consume in small bites to stretch it out, but feel free to eat it piece by piece. If you need a quick snack to throw in your purse or bag, this is a great one to have.

Day 4 of the #everydayphotoaday challenge is Fall. I took this picture tonight because there was a big, fat super bright full moon hanging out on the side of my house. It was so noticeable that even the little one said, "Look mommy, moon!" If this doesn't scream of Fall, I don't know what does.

Day 3 of the #everydayphotoaday challenge is Sunrise/Morning. Every morning on my way home from dropping off my little guy at daycare, I am greeted by what I call "the smiling sun.". Just as the sun is starting to come over the trees, it gives us a little smile to welcome the new day. I kid you not, I always take a deep breath in that moment and smile back. It's own little way of saying I'm ready to tackle the day. 

Day 2 of the #everydayphotoaday challenge is Family. This picture right here is everything family to me. I come from a loud, large, opinionated family that loves a good party, but these 3 right here are my little family. They are the ones I stay up working all night for, cook every meal for, rub every back, and listen to the stories about their day every day. I will drop everything I am doing for these 3. When it all said and done, all we have is each other and love...

Fall is here! I love a good challenge and even more, I love a good photo challenge. I'm a naturally private person, but I am willing to go out on a limb here and share a bit more into my world. For this, I am joining the October Photo Challenge hosted by Everyday Eye Candy.

How does it work? You post a photo related to the topic of the day for each day, use the hashtag #everydayphotoaday and post to your social media accounts. I will be posting mine on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter if you want to follow along.

Fall is officially here and this picture pretty much speaks to how I'm feeling. I would love to curl up with some hot tea and a good book right about now. Instead, I'm sitting at my computer trying to avoid the mountain of papers on my desk that I need to tackle today. But, alas, let's talk about my weekend...

via GIPHY
Friday
In typical Friday fashion, I rushed through the day because I was super geeked about the night. My sister-in-law, Christine, my friend Angela and I, as well as our 4 sons, all ventured down to Atlanta Motor Speedway for the Georgia State Fair. This was my first time visiting the fair here and I had hear nothing but good things about it. I have to admit that I wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be. I suppose after attending the National State Fair down in Perry for years, this was a little a carnival to me. The kids had a blast and enjoyed spending all of our money, but I think I'll stick to the National Fair from now on. Here are some pictures:




Saturday
Everyone was exhausted Saturday morning but I decided to get up and get an early start on my day which mean grocery shopping! My mom tried to convince me to spend the day out shopping with her, but I said no way! Shopping with my mom is an all-day adventure that ends with you spending way more money than you had planned to and not getting home until sometime late that night. Seriously. I have to mentally and physically prepare myself to spend the entire day out and with the boys in tow, nonetheless. After some grocery shopping, I decided to take advantage of the nice weather start pulling out my decorations for Halloween. I LOVE Halloween. It's my favorite holiday next to Christmas. I'm slowly adding decorations around the house since I host a Kids Halloween party each year.




I decided to go pick up a few more things so the boys and I headed out to At Home to see what they had in store. Can you believe that they were already starting to convert to the store to Christmas stuff? That's wild! While looking at decorations, we ran across an upside down Christmas. Now, how cool is that?!




I can't wait to start decorating for Xmas on Thanksgiving Day. It's a tradition in our family that goes back YEARS! This year, we're going to buy a new tree for my oldest son. When the little guy was born, my baby shower was a Winter Wonderland theme since he was due on Christmas.

Sunday
Sunday was another lazy day as usual with lots of tv and laying around. I have no complaints about my Sundays - EVER.

Day 1: SundayFunday. This photo is from our Sunday at the park. The weather is too nice to stay inside so I stopped cooking in the middle of the dinner and took the boys to not one, but two parks for the afternoon. They had a blast and so did I.

Friday
You know how you know you've had a busy weekend? When you can't seem to remember what happened. That was Friday for me. If I know me, my Friday was spent trying to knock out client work before the weekend. I swear, I feel like I can never climb out of this hole that is work, and as soon as I see light at the end of the tunnel, I'm pulled back down. But alas, it WILL get done this weekend.

Saturday
Saturday morning was an early morning for me. The youngest one decided to wake up at o'dark thirty and refused to go back to sleep so I was up. Ugh. I cleaned the kitchen and did some other stuff around the house before out out to run errands. First stop was Academy Sports to buy new shoes for both kiddos.

Academy Sports came through as usual with new sneakers for both kids. Now, you may remember seeing these two in a previous post. As much as I love to shop, sometimes you just don't want to think about what to purchase so you stick to what you know. I did just that. I bought the same shoes but this time, TWO sizes bigger. These kids have grown two sizes in just a few months. How.is.this.possible?! 

After picking up shoes for them, it was off to our other favorite place: Lowes.


Beautiful weather and Saturday afternoons means Lowes to me. There's just something about it. And with Fall in the air, it was time to see what they had in store. I actually didn't get out of the car when we got there because the youngest one fell asleep for his nap so I missed the adventure. My husband and son enjoyed it because they came out with two folding tables he needed to pick up for his business. My parents were actually at the store too so we chatted with them for a bit before taking the party back home. The rest of the day was spent being lazy and relaxing before my nephew came over to spend the night.

Have you ever been in a house with 3 boys...at the same time..on the weekend? Good Lord. They are loud, will eat you out of house and home and have boundless energy. Needless to say, they had a great time and passed out some time around midnight.

Sunday 
Hubby had another shoot on Sunday so it was just me and the boys. I really didn't plan for much since I had tons of student assignments to grade and work to do. The kids entertained themselves in the backyard while I worked on dinner and meal prepping for hubby for the week.


His lunch was a hodgepodge of stuff but what I'm most proud of is the chicken. I marinated some chicken in a tomato, basil, garlic marinade with a ton of onions and bell peppers. If I had some mushrooms, they would have gone in there too. Then, the next day, I seared them before topping them with a can of diced tomatoes and putting into the oven for an hour.

Y'all, this chicken was so fragrant and tender. It was almost too pretty to eat. I made some garlic mixed veggies and macaroni and cheese from the box (ew!) and bam! This meal is husband-approved because he said it was really good.

The rest of the evening was spent relaxing and watching tv. I don't watch tv during the week because I'm too busy with the kids and work so I save everything for the weekend. This week is premier week and all my favorite shows are coming back so do expect tons of reviews.

How was your weekend?

via Google Images

Marty Byrde, a financial advisor, gets caught up in a money laundering scheme for his Mexican drug lord client, Del, along with his partner. Needless to say, things go South, the partner gets killed for helping another business swindle money from Del, and all hell breaks loose. To break even, Del tells Marty to get his money back ($8 million, mind you) or die. Uh ok, what’s there to even think about?
 Anyway, Marty tells Del about the Ozark mountains and how he can basically get the money back undetected and “clean” by investing in the businesses in the small resort town. Del agrees and Marty packs up his family and runs for the Ozarks. When he arrives, he realizes that swindling money in this sleepy town isn’t going to be as easy as he thinks. With a lake-based preacher, a cowboy-heroine supplier with a trigger-happy wife, a stripclub with some less-than-stellar talent and a couple of folks wanting to kill him, life definitely gets interesting for Marty and his family.