I've moved.....

I have pondered and pondered and finally inspired by a delightful conversation with my fantastic baby sister last night have decided to take the plunge.

I am not at all technically minded and so when a problem came about with this blog about a year ago I am sure I could have fixed it and I did attempt to once, but was unsuccessful. You see for some reason my blog stopped updating on people’s blog lists. So no one out there actually knew if I put up a new post. As far as I know this is still the case and I still have no idea how to correct it.

So I I have let go of www.blessedsoandso.blogspot.com and have moved.
It’s quite the change and I hope you all can remember where I am now!

Check me out and add me to your blog rolls (lists)!!
www.aeverydayblessedsoandso.blogspot.com

You are never too old for a good talking to....

from your mother!

I will say as I age I take those talking to’s a lot better than I used to especially when I know there is a significant element of truth and wisdom into what she has to say.

So what wisdom was my wonderful mother passing onto me her 29 year old daughter last night as we sat after dinner at her kitchen table sipping coffee?

She gently informed me that my life is out of balance, that I work full time and still do all the same things a stay at home mom does. Baking, cleaning the house, doing all the laundry, making all the beds, changing all the beds, going to every game, concert, making supper every night, making everyone’s lunches, coffee’s, juices, planning birthday parties, Halloween parties, valentine’s day parties so on and so forth.

She acknowledged with a smile that she was aware I didn’t ask her opinion, but that she was giving it anyways. She said that I was trying to have it all and that there had to be a cost. She said she thought the cost was my spirit. She commended my intelligence to go to bed at a decent hour and give my body the rest it needs, but that I took little time for myself, little time to relax and because of it my light was growing dim. She said that she’s observed apathy, something she’s never seen. Whatever the opposite of apathy is that is typically me, fired up and opinionated is who I characteristically am.

Her solution was that I needed to make a choice that I wasn’t super woman. Right now me choosing not to work full time is not really feasible financially and I told her as much. So then she said the girls and hubby needed to do more. Hubby has talked to me about this before that the girls have a pretty soft touch and I need to give them more chores.

I have made zero decisions as far as the chores go and the household duties. It is hard for me because I did have a mom that only worked part time and didn’t put very much on myself, my sister or my dad. I have decided to do a few more things simply because I want to, no guilt – just do it!

Even though my conversation with my dear mother didn’t cause an overnight changing, my lifestyle is still what it was yesterday I am so thankful to have a mother that can tell me what she thinks and observes, that she loves me enough to give me her honest opinion. I would not be who I am today without her. Thanks Ma!
If you would like to read how my wonderful mother views the world, glean a little from her incredible insight I urge you to check out her blog www.barb-insearchofeden.blogspot.com.

Step-Mom Blog???

I follow a good number of step-mom blogs and I suppose if you want to put Just Your Everyday Blessed So and So in a category it would firmly fit in the step-mom column. I am not a bio mom and can’t go in the mommy slot, I don’t do giveaways and reviews all the time so that doesn’t work, I am not focused on politics or religion so yes I suppose step-mom blog is how you would categorize these ramblings.

The only problem with this is in comparison to other step-mom blogs I have very little if no posts actually related to being a step-mom. I have no tips, no advice, nothing like that at all. Even when I read other posts that ask for the thoughts and ideas from other step-moms I never have anything to say.

I could smile and write that surely these facts stem from the sheer easiness being a step-mom is, that because all of this comes so natural to me it is as if I AM a bio mom and therefore should be moved to the mommy blogger side of life. The reason I have no thoughts or advice is because I have never been through any particular tough times.

Yeah I could write that.

I could write whatever I wanted.

I would be a huge liar if I did.

So what is the cause of my lack of step-mom posts and advice?

Closer to the truth would be that I have no idea what I am doing, that being a step-mom is hard, hard, hard work. That sometimes the competition between first myself and bio mom and second myself and big sis is exhausting and makes an already difficult job nearly impossible. Being a parent is hard work and when you have all the added dynamics that come with being a step-parent often you are left wandering through a forest of bewilderment.

Truthfully I often find myself in a whirlwind doing the best I can, praying, hoping, breathing, doing, never stopping. I have no advice, I am not an expert, I know nothing…

However I do love reading my step-mom blogs, I love having that connection with people that really get it, that understand and so often have great advice. So I will proudly wear my step-mom blog badge if for no other reason than it opens up a world of blogs to read and follow that I feel so blessed by.

Thankful Thursdays

Much to be thankful for this fine Thursday.

1. For a wonderful lunch out with the girls I work with last Friday – mmmm pizza!

2. Grocery Shopping & Supper out with the family – I am getting sooo old I look forward to grocery shopping now.

3. An amazing, amazing day with my Ma and adopted Grandma – spent the day in Calgary, didn’t get lost or honked at and had the most incredible quiche and the cheesecake café!!

4. Although I got ill before Thanksgiving dinner I am thankful my baby sister picked up my slack and being sick does make you VERY thankful once you feel better again!!

5. That I got my house all spic and span clean.

6. That Ma had a spare coffee pot to lend us when ours died, I have slowly but surely become an addict.

7. That although I had a close call I did not get run over by a semi yesterday in the snowy weather

8. I get to look forward to a date night with my wonderful hubby tomorrow!!

Tally It Up Tuesdays errr I mean Wednesdays.....

A day late and a dollar short…

The first week after I create a theme and look at me posting Tally It Up Tuesday on Wednesday… I wish I could say Wrap It up Wednesday, but I am far from wrapping anything up.

So as for my long list of To Do’s I got one accomplished.

- The house needs a GOOD clean.

I did in fact give my house a good clean Sunday morning and oh it felt so wonderful! I had big, big plans to start organizing the basement on Monday since I had the day off and our big Thanksgiving meal was Sunday, but sadly around three Sunday afternoon I got very sick! It came on fast and hard, but I couldn’t eat my meal and I was not up to tackling any basements Monday. So for this week I will smile because I knocked one item off the list and be happy for that.

Now on a MUCH more exciting front my baby sister started a blog!
www.poeticaldevotion.blogspot.com

This is so exciting because she has such wonderful things to say and I can’t wait to read the thoughts she has!!! So I urge anyone to please, please go welcome her and encourage her to keep on writing for no one else then her big sister who loves her to the moon and back!!!!

Look at this family who couldn’t love them all????

Thankful Thursdays

In some ways I have had a bit of a rough week – some ups and downs emotionally – I’m a girl can I blame it on PMS??? Doesn’t that ALWAYS work????

As the name of my blog suggests I am a blessed so and so which makes Thankful Thursdays relatively easy even after a somewhat difficult week.

This Thursday I am thankful for:
1. A super great time on Friday at my sister's with the kids, I love chatting to her and I LOVE the cuddles!! I miss them!!!

2. An amazing birthday dinner on Saturday, shared with many wonderful people and a mother and father who contributed to the dinner financially allowing for the purchase of the MOST incredible bacon wrapped beef tenderloin... mmmmmm!!!

3. That there is such an out of this world butcher shop ten minutes from us.

4. A nice dinner on Tuesday put on by the councillors in the town I work at for all town staff and their spouses, it was good food and good company.

5. That I was able to not only find the hotel my seminar was in yesterday, but that I got their early enough to even find a MARVELLOUS back way out of there and now if I ever go to Strathmore for Wal-mart or Reitmans (I LOVE that store), I can get there pretty much without seeing another car or street light or person!!! I’m lovin it!

6. That even though the subject matter at the seminar was a bit dry the dork in me found it interesting enough to stay awake.

7. That I got an application that I was being hounded for done and away.

8. That my early morning headache yesterday disappeared completely just after lunch.

9. For birthday presents of course!

10. Birthday cards filling up the mail box!!

11. Mileage checks.

12. Good talks with my hubby.

13. Letting go of unrealistic dreams and moving on.

Wishing you all a VERY blessed week and many, many things to be thankful for. For the Canadian guys and gals out there it’s thanksgiving weekend so we will all have lots to be thankful for... mmmmm... turkey........

For a girl that said she didn't like themes......

Life has overwhelmed me. I don’t quite know when this happened because I spend great amounts of time starting to think about something and then quickly pushing it far, far out of my mind.

There are things in my home that have slowly but surely gotten out of control. I swear at one time things were much more in control, I swear!!!! I have a vague, don’t want to think about or deal with it because I will panic and soon stop breathing “To Do” list buried in my head.

Sadly burying it deeper in the grey matter encased in a rather large skull is not helping; as ignored lists often do it is growing each and every day in an attempt to grab my attention.

So here is what I need, either a week off work or a good four weekends in a row with nothing and I mean zero planned.

Sadly I have let all my holidays slip me by and spent those days (GASP) holidaying and the chances of me winning the lottery (of which I almost never even buy a ticket) are significantly higher than stumbling on four weekends in a row with nothing planned.

It is pretty clear what I need I am not going to get.

What to do? What to do?

Well I could continue to bury, deny and forget, except every day the panic rises a bit higher, truthfully one day it will simply bubble out before I can contain it.

Or I could stop the burying. I could face up to what needs to be done. I could take bite size chunks, do a little whenever I can and slowly decrease the list item by item.

This sounds easy enough. Lots of things sound easy. Michael Jackson’s moonwalk on ice skates “sounds” simple, but give it a shot – (no really try it, I could use a good chuckle!).

I wondered if maybe I created my very own blog theme – I thought I could call it; Tally it Up Tuesday’s. I could start my To Do list here and then each Tuesday tally up what I have accomplished.

This theme should help to keep me accountable and motivated.... sadly I have a feeling it will be lacking in the interest department, I hope the following will help smooth things over with you.

Dear Reader:

I earnestly and unassumingly rise before you, articulating my innermost request for forgiveness for the certain monotonous, repetitive, unexciting, mind-numbing, wearisome, uninteresting, lacklustre prose that will be brought into existence each and every Tuesday.

Yours Truly
Blessed So and So.

Now for an initial To Do List:

1. Fall yard clean up (dead flowers, garden items disposed of, leaves raked, decorative items put away etc.)

2. Basement needs a complete overhaul, boxes sorted, items gone through, floor swept, organize, organize, and organize!!

3. Winter coats, toques, mitts, scarfs need to be washed and went through

4. Halloween costumes need to be created

5. Halloween get together needs to be planned

6. Summer / soccer items need to make their way back downstairs into storage

7. Every cupboard / closet needs some SERIOUS organizing and attention

8. The house needs a GOOD clean

9. Ironing

So we shall see what I have to say come next Tuesday.....

(If this theme exists somewhere; since very few things are ever really new or inventive I apologize and feel free to comment and grab the acclaim that I inadvertently snatched away back.)