Assisted Treating & Zoo on the Loose
I dropped B-boy off at school the other day and planned to come home and clean. You cannot even imagine how gross this house had gotten. I’m not really sure what happened, but somehow my car drove straight to the pedicure place instead. By way of the donut shop. The donut shop and then the pedicure place. Fine, I am sure what happened. Treat yo’ self, you guys. A book proposal, Halloween, 7th grade sleepover, and a zoo trip down…I justified an hour of R&R. And donuts. Don’t judge me. Listen…I know that we’re well into Christmas season (looking at you, Starbucks red cups), but let’s slow our roll. I…
Hyperventilation with a side of Book Proposal
Sweet mercy. So many….so much….too many things not enough ti….{sigh} This month, you guys. This month – nay, several months – is full of such good things that are somehow proving to be incredibly stressful. Buying a house, having a baby, potty training, starting a new job, traveling to speak…all happening within several weeks of each other. [Side note: my husband is awesome. He is rockin out his new job, killin that Q-10.2b form or whatever he does, getting shoutouts from the CEO…I’m so proud of him. And I love his new company. Working in corporate financing at a theme park has it’s family perks.] Oh, and also? I just…
The Positives of Social Media: Niche Groups
It’s destroying communication. It’s a kidnapper’s playground. It’s ruining our eyes and thumbs. Touche, salesman. But social media is not always terrible. It’s not always ruining lives. Sometimes it can be good. So, over the next several weeks, let’s cover a few things we should be excited about, compliments of social media. We’ll start with one of my favorites: Niche groups. (image from Paints & Pistols, the Andrews’ fabulous blog) Meet the Andrews family. Christie and I were in college together. We had some mutual friends, but it wasn’t until a few short years later that we really became friends after being pregnant bridesmaids together…8 and 7 months pregnant, respectively.…
The Legend of the Roller Coaster
I love fall. So, so much. I love the weather and the soups and the festivities. I love that we, the American people, have a unhealthy obsession with pumpkin-flavoring. Pies, lattes, M&Ms, cookies, soups…name the food, it’s been pumpkined. And I buy it all. This month in particular takes me back to a time I’ll never forget: the legendary costume fail of October 2010. I could get into the whole back story behind this particular October, but all you really need to know is that we had started a new class at church that combined single and newly married folk – re-branded as a “Young Adults” class. The way we…
New site! Same awkward.
Yea, welcome to almost 2014, I finally stopped being lazy and moved my blog to a new platform. What the hack does that mean? Basically just that my blog has moved from taylorandsarahbrooks.blogspot.com to lifeasoflate.com and will be a little less terrible, functionality-wise. That’s nerd talk for don’t worry about it, just update your bookmarks. Seriously, you guys, this has been on my to-do list for about 4 years. And instead of just having someone do all the technical stuff for me (reason #1 why it has taken this long), I used my infinite very limited coding knowledge to do it myself. (Self-hosted, FTP, HTML, CSS, whatever other stupid phrases…
Kansas Extravangaza: 2 Parts Fantastic, 7 Parts Terrible
If you ever need advice on how not to take a vacation, hit me up. I’m your girl. My family is really, really good at taking bad trips. A little over a year ago was the beach trip from hell. You might wonder what could go wrong at the beach with the ones you love. Apparently everything. Jogging into fishing lines, hitting deer on the way to church, strep throat, ear infections, stomach bugs…you name it. What better way to commemorate that special time than to replicate it a year later? Just trade in those sunny skies and sandy beaches for some crisp, fall weather and grandparents. Just me, my…
Mental Dog, Car Shame, & Theme Park Love
Life is totes cray cray right now. Cray cray enough for me to have just used that phrase. Somewhere in the very illogical part of my brain I thought, “I’m having a baby in February, so clearly I’ll be out of pocket then. In the meantime I should probably just say yes to everything I’m asked to help with.” Such a good idea…until you see how many colors I had to use on our whiteboard calendar this month and how many activities are crammed in each day’s tiny box. (Why do they make the boxes so dang small, anyway? It’s America, for goodness sake. We love cramming our calendars full.)…
Another BOY!
[Quick note: if you recently subscribed to email alerts for this blog and are really only interested in social media posts (not posts with pictures of the cutest toddler boy ever), head here to subscribe for those. Thanks for stopping by!] She had a name. She would be Finley Hope, and she would be perfect. She’d be the perfect amount girly without being swallowed alive by ruffles or wearing headbands 3x the size of her face. (It’s how we do in Texas.) So when the sonographer informed me she was actually a he, I was shocked. Absolutely shocked. I tried to argue, but…peenie. Can’t argue with the evidence. Several months…
A Coffee Date Chat: Social Media Mindset Differences
I just thought you all should see my favorite 7th graders in the world. Completely irrelevant to this post. I’ve picked up on a few recurring trends when talking with parents (and youth workers and teachers) of pre-teens/teens about social media recently… I hear a lot of fear and uncertainty. I see a lot of deer-in-the-headlight, overwhelmed looks. And I understand. The world wide interwebs are big and scary and kidnappy. But if there’s one thing I think (or rather, hope) I might help you with, it is understanding your kids’ mindsets. They’re speaking a language you’re trying to understand and that’s scary. Or at the very least annoying. This is no…
A Word to my Friends about Ask.fm
{For my junior high and high school peeps. Do people still say peeps? I’m pretty sure they don’t. My apologies.} Hey, friends. I know you aren’t big blog readers, but I’ve been wanting to chat with you about something for a while now. If you’ll indulge me, let’s chat real quick about: You know…the thing where you love to ask each other (mostly) anonymous questions. I know you know about it because this is all I ever see in my Instagram newsfeed. And I totally get it. Don’t panic. I’m not here to get you in trouble – I even have one (…even though no one has ever asked me…
