Happy Thursday!

This week’s Thankful Thursday is based on Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop prompt:  10 reasons you should be glad I didn’t blog in my 20′s.

In other words, I’m giving you 10 reasons you should be thankful that I entered the blogging world in my mid-30’s and not a decade earlier.

1. For starters I didn’t even know how to turn on a computer when I was 18.  Seriously, I kid you not.  Can you imagine the technical issues I’d have trying to write a blog?
2. Is it wrong to break up with my high school boyfriend over the phone, or do I have to wait until we see each other again?  Ugh!  This is, like, so hard to figure out!  (Boy drama, people.)
3. My college days were in no way near as exciting as some of those t.v. shows whose characters are in college.  I did 8 a.m. classes and worked in the library…no wild frat parties for this girl.  How exciting would it have been to read about my latest essay for European lit. class?  I’m getting sleepy just thinking about it.
4. Then there were the early years of teaching.  Long hours of grading papers and planning lessons — yep, that’s a world of excitement there!
5. No digital camera.  I don’t know if they had them back then, but I sure didn’t.  No fun pics to break up those posts.

   

6. You’d be missing out on all the funny things my kids say.
7. I guess I could have gone the route of a style-blogger…dresses and blouses with shoulder pads, hair styles to cover the fact that you had to chop your bangs off after getting them tangled in a toothed curling iron… Classy.
8. Or maybe I could have done a cooking blog.  Let’s see, there was the meatloaf my roommate and I made using vanilla oats because we didn’t have plain oats, the super small potatoes we baked in the oven until black, and the cookies we made with the flour that had weevils in it.  (Hey, it’s extra protein!)
9. Let’s jump to the later 20’s.  I learned that married life is not all sunshine and roses; those first few years, especially, can be tough.  There would have been a lot of boo-hoo posts.
10. Let’s face it, my life was not nearly as interesting back then as it is now.  Back then my lotion didn’t get squirted all over the bathroom, Saturdays meant sleeping in, and Ovaltine didn’t walk itself all over the carpet.

Do you blog?  What’s one reason people should be glad you started blogging when you did and not earlier?

And, as always, if you have your own Thankful Thursday post, be sure to link it up and spread the gratitude!

Linked up with Black Tag Diaries, The Fontenot Four

The post 10 Reasons to Be Thankful I Didn’t Blog in My 20’s first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Today I’m so excited to be featured over at This Busy Life, a wonderful blog full of delicious recipes, inspirational word art, helpful articles, and more to help us all enjoy life a little more.  I was honored when they asked to interview me for their bios section!

Please hop over to This Busy Life and check out the interview and then be sure to check out some more of this super helpful blog!

The post This Busy Life first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Sometimes those bumps make you stumble.  Sometimes they seem like mountains you might never get over.  Sometimes the bumps send you on a detour you never expected.

This Thankful Thursday I am thankful for those bumps in my road.

I am thankful for the bumps that made me stronger,

the bumps I didn’t think I’d get past,

and the bumps that sent me in a new direction.

Without them, where would I be?

Without each blister on my hands during bars practice, having to soak them in salt water at night so they’d toughen and I could compete in the gymnastics meet the next day; without each rude comment about the thickness of my glasses or the clothes I was wearing…  Each of these bumps made me stronger, whether physically, emotionally, or mentally.

Without the disappointment of not landing a teaching job that first year out of college, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to live as a substitute – where I learned so many things that helped me become a better teacher.

Without the betrayal of a jackass an immature guy who supposedly wanted to spend his life with me, I might never have known how caring and strong a real man could be.

Without the heartache of being turned down numerous times when we were looking for a puppy, we never would have found Fluffybutt – the perfect dog for us.

It is easy to be disappointed when we don’t get what we want in life.  Easy to feel angry and hurt when we are wronged.  It is easy to see the negatives instead of the positives when we hit those bumps in the road.

But today I am choosing to be thankful for them.  After all, each and every bump has brought me to where I am today.

Now I challenge you.  What bumps in the road are you thankful for?

New this week – if you wrote a Thankful Thursday post of your own, link it up here!

The post Thankful for Bumps in the Road first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

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It was my junior year of college; I was sitting in my friend’s dorm room while she flipped through the pages of campus activities/groups.  She wanted to try the tae kwon do club and thankfully  talked me into coming along.

I never imagined how it might change my life.

There, in the front of the room, reflected by the wall length mirrors, and dressed in a black gi, was the instructor.  And he was HOT.  I was sure he had to be a grad. student, and he HAD to have a girlfriend.  Besides, I was in a new relationship myself (one of those rebound ones, to be honest).  He was totally off limits.

And yet, I found myself trying to get his attention.  When it was time to stretch for class, I pushed myself.  12+  years of prior gymnastics allowed the tips of my toes to touch the cinder block wall over my head when my friend helped me do wall stretches.  (I wish I had a picture of that, because I sure don’t bend that way now!)

Let’s just say I got his attention.

Speeding forward a bit, he didn’t have a girlfriend, and he was only a year ahead of me in school.  And 8 years later we were married.

*  Written in response to Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop prompt:  Describe where you were when you met a boy.

The post Thankful I Met a Boy first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

A new toy hidden in a shopping bag?  Better wait to sneak it in until they’re not around because they will easily see it through the bag.  The tiniest bug crawling on the wall?  They see it, from across the room.

Thankfully, at least so far, they don’t seem to have inherited my poor eye-sight.

I remember when I got my first pair of eyeglasses, back in 1st grade.  We went to church that Sunday, and we were sitting in the balcony, and I saw the faces on the priest and servers up at the altar!  I couldn’t get over it – I had no idea that everyone else had been able to see the faces of all those people from way up there.  I had taken for granted that at a certain distance things were just “not there.”

Through the years my eyes have gotten progressively worse.  To the point that when our eye doctor was examining my husband (right after he had done my eye exam) he mentioned that he had never seen anyone with such a high level of nearsightedness.  I think it alarmed my husband – we had not been married a very long time at that point.

Contacts?  I’ve tried them.  I suffered through them in high school – only for gymnastics practice and competitions.  In college I wore them for tae kwon do.  In other words, I only wore them when glasses weren’t really practical.  I remember one summer when it was suggested that wearing hard contacts might slow down the changes in my eyes; that was an awful summer…as pair after pair were tried.

Nope.  I’ll stick to my eyeglasses, thank you very much.

And, with any luck, these cute eyes won’t ever need to buy glasses!

The post Seeing the World through Glasses first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Welcome all party-goers (and my usual, wonderful readers)!  I’ve been looking forward to this moment ever since arriving to the party mid-week last year.  (Does that mean I was fashionably late?)

What’s a party without drinks and some yummy food to munch on while you mingle?  Thankfully my little helpers were right there, mixing up their specialty.  Of course, if you prefer something a little stronger (and real), there’s always the cupcake vodka my husband grabbed for me last Christmas.  Now where are those shot glasses…..?  Hmmm….

I know!  The cups from the play kitchen are the right size, and so much prettier, don’t you think?  Seriously, where are my manners?  I should introduce myself.

I’m OneMommy, and you’ve stumbled into my little spot of the web where I go to unwind, meet new friends, and try to get the never-ending Veggie Tale music out of my head.  I never pictured myself as a SAHM, and then I went back to teaching after our daughter was born.  That was the topic of my first Thankful Thursday post.  Now my days are filled with picture books, laughter, crafts, and trying to be the mommy my kids deserve.

Want to know more?  Check out 22 Things I’ve Done. (Once upon a time I used to shoot in pistol contests and actually won 2 pistols!)

Now, enough about me.

Grab a bite of fruit sushi and tell me a little about you.

The post Did Somebody Say Party??? first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.