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In my pre-mommy days my hair was so thick that I struggled to twist the ponytail-holder twice around my mane.  When in a ponytail, my hair was so heavy that it gave me a headache by the end of the day!  After my first baby was born, my stylist commented that my hair was really falling out.  Although she said it was normal, she suggested that I continue taking my prenatal vitamins to help build up that hair loss.  My doctor had already suggested that I continue to take the vitamins (since we wanted another child at some point) so that wasn’t a problem.  After my son was born 5 years later, it seemed like my hair went through complete turmoil.  My hair thinned so badly around my hairline that I worried about female pattern baldness.  The men in my family all go bald starting around age 30, but the women seemed to keep their hair. What was going on?  The prenatal vitamins didn’t help and I started to feel very self-conscious about the thinning hair situation.   [Read more…]

Disclosure: I received a gift card for posting about my Schwan’s experience. The opinions shared here are 100% mine.  This post may contain affiliate links.

This year, I’m doing some things to make my life a little easier.  With both kids in school and starting a newish job (well, different subject area) there’s not a lot of free time left for myself.  Still, it’s imperative that I preserve a little of my sanity for those rare family days.  One thing that’s on my to-do list is a renewed commitment to cook at home.  Today we broke out the slow cooker for the first time in months.  Since I had a late meeting and stayed in my room to work a little longer, the kids and I were beyond tired when we finally walked through the door.  How nice it was to have a home-cooked meal waiting for us!   [Read more…]

Now that the kids are headed back to school, it’ll be time to sign those reading logs again!   My son has reading homework every night; he’s pretty bored with the books we already read a zillion times.  He really likes the new Little Critter board books from Tommy Nelson because they’re so easy for kids to relate to! [Read more…]

Disclosure: I received this book to review. The post contains affiliate links. The opinions shared here are 100% mine.

My husband and I lost a baby.

Although my hormone levels and general symptoms indicated otherwise, I was told that I had never really been pregnant. The nurse practitioner originally told us that  it was just a “chemical pregnancy” which I would never have known about it I hadn’t taken a POAS test.    Did that make it easier?  No way.   That’s a different post for a different day.  That experience came rushing back to me when I read Return to Love. [Read more…]

All my life, people have complimented me on my thick almost-black hair.  Until I was 21, my hair was waist-length.   After I had children, my hair started changing in dramatic ways.  The biggest problem I encountered at first was my grays.  I started naming them after my students as a joke but soon they became so prolific that I couldn’t deny it was time to color.  My husband is a very au-naturale type of guy; he swears that he won’t color his hair even if he has a skunk stripe down the middle.  It seems that the rules are different for men. After all, Sean Connery is still kind of hot even with the gray, right?  With women, it’s different.  When one of my students complimented me on my “highlights” –referring to the silver streaks running down my head — I knew I needed to keep up with it better!

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Disclosure: I received this product to sample. The opinions shared here are 100% mine.

Busy women just have to multi-task.  We can cook and talk on the phone, fold laundry while coaching our kids on their math facts, or exercise while we shop online.  There’s only enough time in the day to complete about half of what we need to accomplish, so we make the most of what we have.  Is your jewelry doing double duty for you, too?  What if your selfie could help a good cause?  Well, it can.  Have you heard about Altruette?

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It’s the first weekend after the first week back to school. Let’s just say that exhaustion doesn’t even cover it. Last night (and several nights this week) I hit the pillow at 8:00 PM or before. When the kids go back to school, I’ve already been back in the building for a week. For several years now our school system has invited students back on the very first Monday of August. Hard to believe since we used to go back in mid-August! It’s nice to get out in May, though, so my complaints are quite the under-my-breath type.

My feet aren’t used to being in career shoes all day anymore. They’ve become accustomed to flip-flops or even going bare. And my back? Bending over desks all day have me walking like osteoporosis hit early. I’m also teaching a new subject area (Language Arts!!! Hooray for books!) and it’s been a whirlwind of learning for me as well as the students. [Read more…]

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It’s been really, really fun to walk into a Language Arts class each day.  The biggest excitement comes from my soul-deep love of reading.  Sharing books with my students is such a powerful connection!   We’ve had some great discussions about Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and The Fault In Our Stars.  Until this point, only my mother-in-law, grandmother, and sister-in-law had to listen to my verbal vomit about books.   There are still so many books on my to-be-read list and the pages are adding up.  [Read more…]