SOCIAL MEDIA

Monday, December 11, 2023

Not Just a Mom: Favorite Books

 Good Morning friends! I am very sad to say that today is my last time being a host for "Not Just a Mom Life". Life has been a little too crazy lately with going back to work full time and grad school on top of being a mama. The blog keeps getting put on the back burner and I don't want to sign up to be a host when I'm "phoning it in" for my own posts. Please keep up with Adrienne, Dara, Jen, Joanne and Sarah though! Who knows, maybe the following year I will be able to join them again-- here's hoping!

Monday, November 13, 2023

Not Just a Mom: Comfort Foods

 Good morning! How was your weekend? My two best friends and I were able to get away for our annual girls trip and it was PERFECT! We stayed up way too late talking, slept in, just hung out around the house, did a little shopping, and more. I wish we were able to do this more than once a year!!


Monday, October 9, 2023

Not Just a Mom October: Money Saving Tips

Good morning friends! Happy Monday! 

Monday, September 11, 2023

Not Just a Mom: Our Hobbies

 Hi there! I hope you had a good weekend! The kids seem to have gotten their first bug of the school year. Just a little head cold thank goodness. Luckily, nobody has had to miss any school, but we definitely rested on the couch a little more than usual this weekend. Luckily there was some good football to watch and both kids are finally at an age where they are somewhat interested in it--  woohoo!


Ya’ll, I do not know how you full-time working mamas do it!! I’ve only ever worked part-time since having kids, and I gotta say, this is an adjustment! All moms are superheroes, and I have a new appreciation for moms who work full-time. My bedtime isn't too much later than the kids!

Monday, August 14, 2023

Not Just a Mom: What's Inside Our Handbags

Good morning friends! I hope you all had a wonderful week last week and a lovely weekend as well. We are in the midst of the back-to-school craziness over here, but I would be lying if I said, I didn’t love every single minute of it. It feels so good to be back at my old school, especially knowing that sweet Lily Grace is going to be just two doors down from me. I can’t wait to snoop on her throughout the day. Haha! 

Monday, July 10, 2023

Not Just a Mom July: Top 5 Favorite Family Activities

 Hello friends! I hope you've been doing well. It has been awhile since I've shown up here in blogland, but not much has changed. We went to the beach, it was FABULOUS, and now we are home and DAYS away from my last chemo treatment (wooohoooo!!!!!).

Monday, June 12, 2023

Not Just a Mom: How I Became a Mom

 Good morning friends and happy Monday! I hope you all had a nice summer-y weekend. My birthday was last Thursday so we had a weekend filled with birthday celebrations and playing at the Whitewater Center. The perfect weekend if you ask me! 

Monday, March 13, 2023

Not Just a Mom-- Day in the Life-- Weekend Edition

 Good Morning friends and welcome to the March edition of Not Just a Mom! 

Today we are sharing "A Day in the Life of Us-- Weekend Edition" and I am excited to see what everyone is up to on their weekends. 

Today I am sharing this past Saturday in the life of us. Before I start, let me just say this "Day in the Life" was on a day when I was feeling really good. I was 11 days out from my last chemo treatment and therefore, was feeling pretty close to my regular self. I intentionally did not choose to document the weekend prior to this because it would've been very uneventful-- I laid in bed and napped all day. I only say this because I would hate for someone else who is sick to read this one day and think "what the heck is wrong with me?" because I was able to be up and doing normal things. This isn't a "typical" day, this is definitely a "good" day, and I am very happy to document the good days right now!

Monday, January 9, 2023

NJAM January: Introductions!

Hello hello friends! Welcome back to the first Not Just a Mom of 2023! Today Adrienne, Dara, Jen, Joanne, Sarah and I are doing a little introduction to help you get to know us a bit better. 

Maybe you've been following along with our blogs for years, or maybe you're new. Hopefully you come away from our blogs today having learned something new about each of us!

Monday, November 14, 2022

Not Just a Mom: Internet Made Me Buy It

 Hello there everyone and happy Monday! I hope you all had a nice weekend. Our kiddos had parent teacher conferences last week so they've been out of school for 4 days. I LOVED having this extra time with both of them at home. Now that they are both in school 5 days a week I feel like I hardly see them. An added bonus is that they were both very ready to go back to school and see their friends again today. 😃

Today the Not Just a Mom group is linking up to share "Internet Made Me Buy It." I am almost embarrassed to admit I feel like this is 85% of what I buy. This could be the world's longest post, but I'm trying to keep it to 8 or so items-- and a random hodgepodge at that!

I am no stranger to an impulse buy and these dang influencers/bloggers get me way too often! That being said, every once in a while I feel like I totally got swindled (anyone else?) so not only am I sharing my impulse buys... but I'm ranking them. A 5/5 means "great purchase, very happy I bought it, would totally buy it again". A 1/5 means "I can't believe I fell for that". 🙈 This could be fun, right? Let's have a look:

Monday, September 12, 2022

Not Just a Mom: Favorite Workout Places

 Hello there! I hope you all had a nice weekend! Today the Not Just a Mom crew is linking up to share our favorite workout places. 

I split this up into two categories: my ideal workout locations and my typical workout locations. My ideal ones are the places where I have worked out in the past and would love to workout again, but due to the location are not realistic options for me to workout regularly. Let's be honest though, they make for a much prettier picture than the track at the gym. 😆. Let's have a look:

Ideal Workout Places

As many of you probably already know, I love running, yoga, paddle boarding, kayaking and hiking. Even when we travel, I still love to try to do these things if possible. When I first sat down to write this post, I thought about my favorite places I've ever worked out, and immediately this hike popped into my mind:

Monday, August 8, 2022

Not Just a Mom: Binge Watching

 Hello hello friends! I hope you all had a nice weekend. We had our first weekend in forever at home, and we used it to get a million things accomplished. It feels good to be able to check a bunch of things off our to do list!

Monday, July 11, 2022

NJAM July: Family Food Traditions

Well hello there my friends! I hope you all had a nice weekend. Devin came home from an 8 day work trip to Europe and the kids and I were thrilled to have him back. He landed Saturday night after the kids were in bed, but their sweet little faces lit up when they saw their daddy first thing in the morning. We had rainy weather all day Sunday so the kids played outside in their rain boots for a bit, then we spent the rest of the day cozied up in a pillow fort. Not a bad way to spend a weekend!

Monday, June 13, 2022

NJAM Dream Travel Locations

Good morning everyone and happy Monday! Today the Not Just a Mom ladies are sharing our dream travel locations, and this is a post that brought me a LOT of joy to write. I LOVE daydreaming about future vacations, whether I think they'll really end up happening or not. 

This is no surprise of course, but I love to travel. I love experiencing new cultures, learning how people in another country do something different from us as Americans, tasting new foods, seeing the natural beauty, etc. Honestly the list of places I want to go could be a dozen or more, but I tried to narrow it down by combining multiple stops on one trip. 

Monday, May 9, 2022

Not Just a Mom: Go To Gift Ideas

 Hello hello and happy Monday! If you are a mom, I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day and felt all the love from your people. 

Whew-- it is only May 7th (as I write this) and May-cember is already in full swing around here. 

Monday, April 11, 2022

Not Just a Mom April: What's For Lunch?

 Hello hello friends and happy Monday! Today Adrienne, Dara, Jennifer, Joanne, Sarah and I are bringing you another "Not Just a Mom" post. This month's theme is: "What's for Lunch?" In the interest of keeping this as real as possible, I took pictures of mine and the kids lunches over the past week. Why not Devin's? Well first of all he was out of town. But even if he had been home, Dev usually does his own thing for lunch. Sometimes he takes leftovers, sometimes they have lunch catered at work, and sometimes he goes out for lunch. I never know what his schedule is, so I let him handle his own food and I focus on myself and the kids (hence the pictures). 

The kids both have Bentgo lunchboxes that I use to pack their lunches for school. I really love these and think they have been super helpful when it comes to packing their lunch every day. Not only are the environmentally friendly because they eliminate us using extra plastic/trash, but they are helpful for reminding me to pack a little bit of each category from the food pyramid too. 

Since they are broken up into 5 sections I try to some type of sandwich, a fruit, a veggie, some cheese, and some nuts (Liam is not allowed to take nuts this year, so I put raisins or something else small in the last little section for his). The Bentgo's fit perfectly into their L.L. Bean lunchboxes

Let's have a look!

Monday:

Monday, March 14, 2022

Not Just a Mom: Reading Habits

 Hello hello! Today the Not Just a Mom crew are sharing our reading habits, and I am curious to read along to find out all about how you read, what you read, and what you do after having read a book. Thank you for reading along with Adrienne, Dara, Jen, Joanne, Sarah and I today.

Monday, February 14, 2022

Not Just a Mom: A Day in The Life

 Good morning friends and happy Monday! As I sit here writing this we are watching the Super Bowl and are hoping for a Bengals win. You all know I'm originally from Cincinnati right? I grew up hearing people refer to the Bengals as "The Bungles", and there were multiple seasons where they had the worst record in the NFL... so the fact that they even made it to the Super Bowl is a big deal. Also, I went to high school with the Bengals' punter Kevin Huber and he was a really nice guy, so it helps to have someone nice to cheer for! As we are all reading this Monday, we will know the outcome of the game. Let's hope it's a W for Cincinnati. 😀 Today the Not Just a Mom crew is sharing "A Day in the Life". I just recently did a regular Day in the Life post, and since I was substitute teaching multiple days last week, I thought it would be fun to share "A Day in the Life Of a Substitute Teacher". So that's my theme for the day 😉.

Monday, January 10, 2022

Not Just a Mom: Favorite Bloggers

 Good morning friends and happy Monday! Today we are kicking off the new Not Just a Mom for 2022. Here are our new graphics for the year (thanks to Adrienne!):

Monday, December 13, 2021

Not Just a Mom December: Favorite Holiday Movies

 Hello hello! We are back from our trip to Disney and while we are all exhausted, we are also all still riding the high of being in the Happiest Place on Earth for a week. I am hoping to get some blog posts up about our trip within the next few weeks but with the holidays coming up, I'm not sure how often I'll be showing up here on the blog. I still have some last minute shopping to do! Anyone else not done yet? It's crunch time! 😅 

Today I am linking up with the Not Just a Mom ladies and today we are sharing our favorite Holiday movies.