Welcome

I sit here nervously staring at the page and not sure how to begin.  I've been thinking about starting a blog for awhile but have honestly always let the pressure get to me.  I didn't want to be forced to come up with witty rhetoric or anecdotes for the masses.  My sister has been pressuring me to to do it for a little over two years.  She seems to think that my family is hilarious and everyone would enjoy hearing my innermost thoughts and the hilarious stuff my son says. 

I've always had a lot of problems living in the gray area of life.  I'm very obsessive and am usually whole-heartedly on one end of the spectrum or the other (my family and friends are no doubt reading this and silently nodding their heads).  So for me, I had decided, if I'm going to write a blog I will have to be obsessed with it and hilarious or motivational at ALL times - and frankly I didn't have time for that amidst my many many many other obsessions.  Fast forward two years and many obsessions later and here I am, finally deciding that I HATE HATE HATE living in black and white.  It has taken me a month to really decide on my new years resolution and it is this - this year, and hopefully for the rest of my life - I'm going to live in the gray area.  So, on that note, I'm starting with this blog.  Maybe I'll write everyday and maybe I wont but either way it's going to be ok.  Maybe I'll be funny and maybe I'll be boring but again, either way, it's going to be ok. I hope you will find a lot you can relate to here as I'm a SAHM, a working mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a crafter, a baker, a perfectionist and most of all someone who is daily trying to figure out how to balance all of that in this chaotic life.

Let me tell you a little bit about me before signing off for the day.  My name is Nicole and I am married to the most wonderful man in the world, he makes me believe in fairy tales.  We have two beautiful babies!  Our first, M, just turned 3 and his little sister, E, was born just 2 months ago.  We are an ex-military family as my husband just got out of the Army after serving two tours in Iraq in a little less than 4 years.  I've struggled with my weight, as most women have, for most of my life.  During my husband's last deployment I started an incredible weight loss journey (almost 100lbs gone!) where I ended up at my goal weight and size just weeks before we got pregnant with our daughter.  Turns out that might not have been a smart idea as I then had a really hard time living in the gray during my pregnancy and gaining too much weight.  However my daughter is in my arms, smiling up at me as I write this and so I remind myself that it was worth it.  I'm also reminded not to have that bowl of ice cream I'm thinking of - but mostly reminded that it was worth it.

I have a wonderful job that allows me the flexibility of telecommuting so I'm able to have the positives of both being a stay at home, and a working mother.  I also have very loving and supportive family and friends who put up with my craziness on a daily basis.  So that's pretty much it, I'm a little bit crazy and a lot of fun ;) - I'm going to continue to play Cinderella with my modern rules and I'm going to embrace the imperfections along this journey to that illusive thing called BALANCE!  Who would have thought at the age of 30 I'd be dreaming of balance?  Tell that to my little 17 year old self and you will probably get a look of confusion and a smart ass remark about how I plan to do it all, but as my Mom always says 'It is, what it is!" so for now I'm just gonna go with it...