Making Friends As an Adult

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I'm a young Mom.  Most people my age are just settling into their careers or starting to get married.  The majority of people who were my friends when I was still school-aged are single and the few who are married are childless.  Actually, only two of the people I graduated high school with (granted my graduating class was about 75 people) are parents and as fun as it'd be to coordinate with these women, they're working Moms, not stay-at-home-Moms so schedules are challenging and it just doesn't happen.  I actually only have one local Mom friend who I get together with semi-regularly which is a funny thing to confess because I feel like one should have a lot of friends.  I am so very thankful for this friend and am always so happy when we find the time to get our kids together to play and spend the hours talking away.  We relate well to each other and conversation comes easily.

And the truth is, I've met other Moms.  I've met Moms in the neighborhood, at Chick Fil A, and in passing at Church.  I've even managed to have a few play dates with Moms I've met, but it's always a challenge because kids get sick or schedules get busy.

Talking to other Moms is pretty easy.  My Mom told me when I was pregnant with J that once you become a Mom it is so easy to talk to and relate to all other Moms because you're all "in the club" together and everyone can talk about their kid non-stop which makes conversation easy.  I think this is really true.  I can't tell you how many women I've sat with at Chick Fil A while I bounce E and watch J climb through tunnels and have thought, "Wow, we are having really great conversation!"  But then the conversation ends.  The six-year olds stampede in and we Moms of younger toddlers rush our children down while saying how we enjoyed the conversation and then a toddler (sometimes mine) sees the door to the play ground open and goes running through the restaurant so you have to take off.

These encounters always leave me a little dumbfounded and I wonder, "That went so nicely and I feel like we could be friends! Should I have gotten her number?"  And then "Call Me Maybe" pops in my head and I feel lame for not knowing what to do or how to connect beyond play ground conversations with other women.

The Church our family attends is huge and the way people get connected is through home group situations.  Josh and I have found it difficult to get plugged into a home group in our time at this Church because of our having such little kids.  Recently though, I started taking the boys with me to a group for stay-at-home-Moms.  It's been so lovely to visit with other Moms every other week the last few weeks, but even within that group, I feel like we're all having great conversations, but no one is really meeting or talking outside of the group.

...And that makes me wonder, do other people want friends?  Why are friends important?  I know for me the friends I have (married, not married, Moms - whoever) are important.  They encourage me.  My Mom friend and I can text frustrations about our nap time (and let's not forget the Twitter friends I have who share in these woes with me too!).  Other friends with their other lives challenge me in other ways - in my faith, in my individuality... friends are good and important and healthy.  And it used to be so easy to make friends, but is that just because environments like school and college made it easier?  Now as adults and parents we can be so easily distracted when it comes to having conversations and getting to the heart of the matter and isn't it the getting to the heart of the matter that makes such great friends?

I did have some luck in this area lately with a friend I met on Instagram of all places!  We "met," became online friends and then finally met up at the zoo a few weeks before she moved to Texas.  I felt like our kids got along great, we got along great, we had similar views, values, etc and I felt like it was so natural and easy to be her friend.  It helped that as soon as we met up she dived right into real conversation.  So is that what it takes?  And how hard is it to make yourself vulnerable only to be rejected or to even be the only one of the two making yourself vulnerable in the first place?

I have no resolution on this issue, but it's a topic that's weighed heavily on my mind.  I'd love to hear from you.  What stage of life are you in and how does that stage effect your ability to forge friendships?  Any advice for someone who feels like they're starting Kindergarten all over again in the friends department?

P.S. I remembered after writing this the friend I mentioned, April, wrote a post about friendship lately too.  You can read that here.  It's good!

A Toy Story 2nd Birthday Party

I've spent the last few weeks working on J's 2nd birthday party.  It was this last Saturday (even though his birthday is tomorrow).  If you didn't know he is OBSESSED with Toy Story.  We watch it every day (and boy am I glad there's 3 to choose from!), he plays with his Toy Story toys all the time and is always asking about Woody's hat.  I was excited to have this party for him & to see his reaction to everything we set up.  He was definitely excited when he walked into Grandma's house and saw everything, but let's be honest, the balloons were by far the highlight of the decor.  Haha.  Oh well, I've packed it all up and intend to reuse it again when he's older and will appreciate it even more!

We had two parties with him with our two separate families.  This first batch of pics was with my family at my Mom's house (our house is too small to hold all the people who came to this one!).

(The easel was a gift from my parents and my youngest brother drew the Woody. Everyone at both parties signed.  This was my Mom's idea & I loved it!)

Most of my time spent crafting was on this photo booth.  I saw the idea on Pinterest and loved it but wasn't sure how it'd pan out.  It ended up being so much fun for everyone and the pictures are incredible!  I'm so glad I ended up taking the time to do it and thankful to my sister who helped me with the props!

Special thanks to my husband who helped so much w/ the party & who dealt w/ a crazy woman as a wife last week.  ;)

Party two was at our house with Josh's family.  It started immediately after J's nap & he was pretty excited to wake up and see the party as still happening and his Nana & Pa had arrived for the fun!  My Mother-in-law contributed a few more decorations she picked up at Party City.  My favorite things were the giant Woody & Buzz and Jessie, Rex & Mr. Potato Head posters she brought.  J was impressed too.  They're now hanging in his room and spicing up his plain white walls.  Here's a look...

I'm typically not a fan of posting my kid's names or pictures on this blog, but since this is a birthday post here's a picture of the little man from the side admiring the large Woody poster during his second party.  I really can't believe he'll be two tomorrow and I've just celebrated that with the people who love him.  Time really does fly way too fast when you become a parent.  :(

Thanks so much for everyone who helped with the party! I'd like to put up a few tutorials soon, but in the mean time here's links to websites I drew my Pinstert-piration! 

Photo booth.

Banner.

E turns 1 on October 15th and I'm already planning (and pinning) the best Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party for him (he LOVES Mickey!) but I think everyone around me deserves a birthday party break.  We go to Disney World soon, but once we're back I'll switch over to party planning mode for my littlest man.  Hope you all have a good Monday! :)

5 Minute Guacamole

In June, I did a pin review on copy cat Chipotle guacamole. We make it frequently because as I mentioned then, Josh loves it.  I've come to just like it.  I'm not the biggest fan of raw, crunchy onions and I just don't like the random heat that comes from jalapeño chopped up in the mix.  Sometimes you don't taste it at all, sometimes you taste too much.  Josh disagrees with me and finds no fault with the recipe so if you like it, stick with it, but if you want something different, I have something for you!

I've been playing with guacamole a lot and I've finally found something I really like.  Guacamole is only time consuming when it comes to chopping everything up.  In this recipe, there's less chopping and the whole process is much quicker.  I'm able to make this in 5 minutes which is perfect when I want a little something fun with my lunch or when I'm mixing up some guacamole for our Mexican food night (although I'm only ever making this version if we're out of onion or jalapeño).

And, by the way, this recipe yields about 1 cup of guacamole.  If you eat it all it'll cost you 6 Weight Watcher points, but if you eat 1/3 a cup (like I do) it's only 2 points! Win!

...So here we go! 

Ingredients:

2 avocados (mine were medium-ish)

1/2 small tomato

1/2 tbs lemon juice

1/2 tsp lime juice

1/2 tsp jalapeño juice

2 tbs cilantro (unpictured)

1/2 tsp garlic powder

salt to taste

When making the guacamole I first get my avocado mashed.  I slice, de-pit, score*, scoop into a bowl, and mash.  I like to leave some chunks initially because by the end of the process there's been a lot of mixing and I don't want it to be free of some chunkiness in the end.

Next, I cut my tomato, scoop out the seeds and liquid and chop it up.  Set it aside and do the same with the cilantro.

Now take your juices - lemon, lime, and jalapeño and add them to the avocados.  Toss in your salt (less is more when you're starting) and garlic powder.  Give the mix a stir and give it a taste (preferably with a chip so you can measure the saltiness against the chips saltiness - you can tell this is serious business, right?).

Mix in tomato and cilantro and stir once more.  Now, have your official taste (the previous taste was more like a teaser) and decide if you need more salt or more garlic or more spice or more acidy.  Guacamole is so personal so this is more of a jumping off point and what I specifically like.

I hope you enjoy this!  As always, be sure to let me know if you try it!  For me it's so easy to mix up and there's something about the process of making guacamole that makes the fact your infant is pulling up on your leg to be held and your toddler is covering himself with infant saline solution that makes the world still seem ok.  ;)

*By scoring I mean slicing the avocado while it's still in it's "shell" as pictured above.  I saw this on Food Network once and my life was forever changed.  It's genius.

Honesty...

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My friend April tweeted yesterday about blogging.  More specifically, she talked about bloggers replying to their comments especially if the comments are fewer.  This statement launched a conversation about how I agreed and how blogging can be used to cultivate rich, wonderful relationships and one comment is how it all begins.  After agreeing, I expressed my sadness over having gone private with my other blog which is a family blog I started in 2008 after Josh and I got married.

It was fun to chronicle our adventures as newly weds, my pregnancy with J and J's first few months.  Before I even announced I was pregnant with E on that blog, I went private.  My followers there had grown from my Mom and Grandma to friends, family and strangers alike and I had put out more information than I felt comfortable sharing.  After years of posting, it was too late to go back and edit and I didn't want to wipe out the past posts as the blog had also become an ongoing monologue of our family's adventures, trials, and other life happenings.

I've continued to blog on our family's blog here and there, but the creativity in posting and the desire to seek my blog as a place to express my frustrations or our triumphs became less.  This is partially due to the community I lost in going private.  A few people can still read and do.  These people are the best friends I've made in the blogging community and I love that I can still read their blogs and they can read mine and we can stay caught up in each other's lives.  I love those relationships and the snail mail exchanged, the care packages sent, the text messages shared... I love that those relationships with those women have become real and I can call them all my friends.  But I do miss being part of the community.

When you're public and you post about a stressful day as a stay at home Mom, you generally get encouragement.  When you post about how your baby just crawled for the first time, you have echoes of cheering join you in your celebrations.  When you post about how you're just not sure if you're doing this or that right and you need help, people are willing to offer their suggestions and their encouragement.  There's a lot of good things about being a public blogger.

And that's why I started this blog.  It was a fresh start; a clean slate.

And now I'm here blogging in this blog and I'm a little unsure of what to do with myself.  My original intent was to simply use the blog as a creative outlet, but I'm not creative often enough to keep up with posting.  I know there's nothing wrong with turning this blog into another family-type blog either and that thought can be appealing because it means meeting even more blog friends, especially other Moms.  But how important is that?  I love the friends I've met through blogging but should most of my time be spent on these Internet relationships or should I put this desire for these relationships aside and focus on real relationship forming with my friends here in my real life?

And clearly, by submitting this post of story and questioning and by asking for your opinions on blogging and how important these Internet relationships are vs. real life relationships, I'm making this blog (at least in this post) less creative and more personal and that's ok.  Maybe sometimes that's just what I need.

Thanks for listening. :)

P.S. My amazing friends I met through blogging are: Caroline, Melissa, Liz, Allison & Krysten.  There's also Maegan who is a great online friend, but she no longer blogs publicly either.

Grandma T's Cream of Chicken Noodle Soup

Today I posted this picture on my Instagram feed and it got a lot of love from my online friends.  I gave out the recipe here, but it's so simple and delicious I thought I'd come over here and share it too!  We've been a sick house here lately and although we're all on the up and up, there's a lot of congestion.  So, despite it being 100 degrees out, soup seemed like a great lunch for the boys and me today!

Josh taught me how to make this soup so I take no credit.  It's what his Mom made him when he was sick and what he makes us now.  I just learned how to make it this last year.  It's simple, but comforting and delicious.

Ingredients:
1/2 bag no yolk egg noodles
2 cans Healthy Choice (reduced fat) cream of chicken (or normal... Josh likes the normal kind)
1 cup milk (I use 1%)
1 cup water
salt
pepper


Cook up half a bag of no yolk egg noodles.  While they're cooking whisk together two cans of cream of chicken soup, the 1 cup milk, and 1 cup water.  Keep it on low heat so milk doesn't boil and let it all heat up and get friendly.  When you drain your water and add the noodles back to your pan, pour in your creamy soup and stir.  Add salt and pepper to taste and voila, you have what I call Grandma T's cream of chicken noodle soup!

J, who is almost 2, ate 2 (toddler sized) bowls of this soup for lunch today so it's definitely a favorite among small children!  This amount serves two adult sized people and is 11 Weight Watchers points a serving.  And it only takes about 10 minutes to make.  Bon appetite!

P.S. I like this soup w/ a lot of pepper and a few saltines and Josh likes it with Ritz crackers.  :)

Pin Review: Cheesy Enchilada Casserole

I pinned this casserole awhile ago and shortly thereafter my good blog friend Melissa commented on the pin and said her family had made it and loved it.  And then I waited a really long time to make it because life happens and I was changing things up much.  But now, I am!  I made 3 new recipes just last week and this by far was our FAVORITE of all.  It was so yummy I got the ingredients to make it again this week.  I also didn't take a picture of my casserole because I was too busy stuffing my face so the photo credit goes to Jonna.

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When I first penned this casserole onto our menu I knew I had to figure up the points plus values then for Weight Watcher purposes or I'd cook it and have a "meh!" moment where I mentally declared it to be 5 points for half the dish (just kidding - kind of!).  The whole casserole was a lot of points so I immediately halved it and resolved to bake it into a 8x8 dish.  I then made some minor modifications that brought the total down to 10 points per 1/4th of an 8x8 casserole OR 7 points for 1/6th of a 9x13 casserole.  You could lighten it up even more by using a fat free cheese, but I just can't bring myself to enjoy fat free cheese so I use the real stuff.  You could also use less cheese but I don't because cheese is yummy.  And healthy.  Right?

So the modified recipe is...

1/2lb lean ground beef
1/3 onion finely chopped
1 1/4 cup salsa
1/2 can kidney beans (drained)
1/8 cup italian dressing
1T taco seasoning
1/8t cumin
2 low fat (I use Mission) flour tortillas (corn would also be less and you could use more)
1/2 can of corn
1/4 cup sour cream (light)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

For cooking instructions I'd like to refer you back to Jonna's site so I'm not hoarding the recipe here, but again, I'd like to stress this is indeed very, very good!

So this pin is definitely two thumbs up!  Thank you, Pinterest!  And Jonna!

Oh, and also, my almost-2-year-old loved this too and it was not too spicy for him.  A meal an almost-2-year-old inhales that isn't pizza or chicken nuggets is always a win in my book!

5 Things I'm Loving Right Now!

So this is my first official link up on this blog! I've done link ups in the past on a different blog and always, always enjoyed them because people give such fun prompts or directions for a post which makes for easy, breezy, fun writing!  Perfect for a Monday!  So without further ado, I give you 5 things I'm loving right now which is linking back to Julie's blog.

5. "Live Simply" 
This has been my mantra lately.  It is so easy to find ways to be discontent.  I love to cook, clean, decorate and organize but these things aren't my daily reality.  Especially the decorating because that requires more funding than I have.  So when I find myself feeling edgy and unable to do a project or in want of a second car when I know we can't afford that right now, I remind myself, "live simply," and think about how people have made due for generations without spending loads of money at a time to accomplish everything they want to be accomplishing... you know?  And one day when I have some money put aside, I will order this from Etsy and hang it front and center in my home!

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2.  All this cute Patriot door decor.
I've never been one to decorate much for any holiday aside from Christmas (mostly due to not having the resources), but this year I'm just in love with all these beautiful, Patriotic wreaths.  I wish I had had more time to construct one for our door!  Next year it's a must!

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3. This idea of writing journals to give to your children one day.  
I heard this idea as a teenager in regards to keeping a journal to give to your future husband and loved the idea.  I started one when I was seventeen and presented it to Josh when we got married.  It was full of little letters here and there and prayers I had written over him at different times as well as my hopes and dreams.  The same thing would be great for kids and I'd love to get started soon since they're already almost 2 and 8 months!

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4. Bloom! 
It seems like everyone is already reading Kelle's blog (if you're not, you should check it out - it's beautiful and inspiring).  I've read since Nella's birth story was published which happened to be when I was pregnant with J.  I think every Mom-to-be worries about every little thing that could go wrong but her honesty in her struggle really helped ease my own worries and fears.  Now I'm reading her memoir and am over half way through.  It is funny, emotional, and inspiring.

5. Weight Watchers, and more importantly, my Weight Watchers support group!  
I've mentioned before that I'm on WW (see my about me).  I started in December and have lost 28lbs.  It feels so, so good.  I love the program and the meetings, but most of all I love the community of women I've met on Twitter who have helped inspire me, hold me accountable, and encourage me every step of the way.  You can find me on Twitter here (@mynestinstincts).  Feel free to join us if you're on Weight Watchers and need encouragement!  Our hashtag is #wwladies (or go here) and we'd love to help you and be helped by you!

Thanks again, Julie, for such a fun posting prompt! :)

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