5 for Five: Week 2

I'm back for this weeks round of 5 for Five. A little late, but such is life. Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with my mom, rounding out our holiday celebrations. We don't really have anything planned for NYE tomorrow and I think it will be the first year I'm not either working or on call in four years. 

1 // Send out my last round of Christmas cards. 

2 // Finish in schedule posts for this week. 

3 // Put together E's infant vehicle emergency kit.

4 // Update my EC with my work appointments, etc. 

5 // Edit Bryce's birthday photos. 

Only one out of five for the week. I have a bunch of posts in Draft and I'm in the middle of a Blogger to Wordpress transfer (gasp!). I still have a few more days off to get everything done. :) Tomorrow definitely needs to be a productive day in order to get everything done. I definitely slept in today. Oops!

Josh and I were supposed to go to Disneyland with my family this Sunday, but that's been postponed. No fun! But we're taking BFF out to dinner this week. I love spending time with her! 

1 // Spend all my gift cards. :)  

2 // Post WCMT to eBay or Spot's Corner. 

3 // Deep clean my room. It's a mess from all my Christmas gifts!

4 // Finish reading Insurgent. Omg, such a fantastic series! 

5 // Have no posts in draft before my transfer. 

Would you still send out a few Christmas cards even though the holidays are over? I'm undecided on what to do, but I know they'd all love to hear from us!

After Christmas Coma

It's the day after Christmas, and Joshua and I are getting ready to celebrate Christmas number three out of four. Oh, the joy of us both having divorced parents. No really, it's fun to keep getting to celebrate after the real holiday is over. :) We plan on celebrating with my mom on Sunday when we get home. 

This year we both made out like bandits and we're so thankful. I got three new pieces from Vera Bradley to add to my collection, Joshua got a new computer, and we both got a bunch of gift cards and sets of movie tickets. And to think it's not even over! 

I hope your Christmas was filled with love, fun, and good times with the ones you love. I love picking out and giving gifts but my Vera Bradley items were definitely my favorite to receive this year. They're being used as we speak and are perfect so far.

What is your favorite gift that you received this year? 

5 for Five: Week 1

Well well, it looks like I just couldn't stay away from the link ups. Especially now that I have the time on my hands! I see Paige do this link up every week and want to face palm myself for not planning ahead. I'm thrilled to finally be back! :) This link up is hosted by Jenn, over at Party of One. Head over to her blog to join in! 

This Week;

1. Send out my last round of Christmas cards.

I got some addresses kind of late and haven't had the time to sit down and write the cards out. Christmas is so close and they need to get mailed, asap. 

2. Finish and schedule this week's blog posts.

I have a few blog posts that I need to finish and schedule. They're all half way finished in my drafts. 

3. Put together infant emergency kit.

I've done one for preschoolers and one for toddlers, and now that I'm watching an infant it's time to do one for her too! 

4. Update planner with work appointments. 

Oh my goodness. I'm in charge of so many things at this new job, I need to update my planner to keep organized and keep on top of everything. I'm super excited, I just need to figure it all out. 

5. Edit Bryce's party photos. 

His 3rd birthday was at the beginning of November and I've barely started going through them. BFF fail, y'all. I'll be out of town at the end of the week so I'm hoping to do a bunch of blog and photography work while I'm gone. 

What are your goals for this week? 

Oh, How Things Have Changed.

It's been a long while since I've written about things that have been going on in my crazy, very busy life. Let's start from the very beginning, shall we? 

I found out that the family I work for will be making a cross country move early next year. Meaning my position will no longer exist as of January 1st and I needed to find a new job. I found out in mid-November and began the resume revamping and job hunting immediately. I applied for upwards of twenty jobs, interviewed for three families and found a perfect match in the third family I interviewed with. I stinking love them already and I haven't even started yet.

After over four years as a professional nanny, I'm finally a #babygirlnanny! I cared for two older girls at my last long term job but they were school ages and I did a very part-time nanny share with a baby girl over the summer, but this is my first legit girl nanny experience. Hey, even both of their animals (a dog and a cat) are girls! I'm absolutely thrilled and so ready for all the frilly things that come with a girl.

I also had three math tests between when I found out my job was ending and December 12th. Can you say holy crap? Yeah, talk about stressed the f-balls out. I took my math final and I'm so happy for the semester to be over! I went in feeling pretty ill prepared but I was totally psyching myself out. I had no issues completing everything and actually thought it was quite easy. I'm feeling good and will find out my final grade for the class next week. I had a C going into the final. So we'll see!

All this was happening on top of working my normal forty hours a week and still having to apply myself as wholly as possible at work. There is so much more to share, but that's the gist of everything. I hope that I can get back on a regular blogging schedule soon :) I start my new job tomorrow and will be doing a nanny share this week with her and L, I'm tired just thinking about it. Two under two + toddler activities x3. You feel me?

Is there anything new going on in your life? How are you handling everything? 

Every Nanny Has Fails

I had a very scary, traumatic thing happen to me tonight. 

I was babysitting my friend Molly's charge, when I went to go get a phone charger out of my car because my battery was getting low. I'd already been out to my car once to get my purse, literally five minutes prior...

I closed the door behind me, proceeded to dig through my car trying to find a charger [to no avail] and grab my backpack and go to walk back in the house. Go up to the door and turn the handle... *insert wide eyed emoji here* Jiggle the handle. Jiggle the handle as hard as I can. Nope. You guys, E (5mo) and I were LOCKED OUT OF THE HOUSE, with nothing but my car keys and a vague memory of "the neighbor map" and who lives where on their street. Side note: everyone should have a neighbor map. It saved us, kind of. 

We went to their go-to house and knocked on their door, no answer. Then went to another house that was circled as a go-to house, again no answer. One more house, but it's old people and they don't really know the family I'm sitting for -- awesome. But, he comes to look and see if any doors or windows are open for me, which was super nice of him. 

So we sit in my car with the heater on for a while then go knock on more doors, luckily someone answered on the first try. They're looking for DB's business card when E starts crying because she's hungry. You guys, I totally cried in some strangers living room. SO awkward. 

Then I have an a-ha moment. DUH. I can tweet/ direct message Molly, their normal nanny. Surely she'll have their garage door code and know where the hidden key is! So the neighbors kindly let me use their computer to log onto Twitter. Low and behold Molly did have that info and just like that we were back inside the house. After a bottle, diaper change, and lots of rocking -- E was off to dreamland completely un-phased. 

I, on the other hand, am completely traumatized and will never be leaving any sort of work house without my phone ever again. I felt like a complete asshole for not being able to feed E on time, and for getting us locked outside in the cold in general. But on the other hand, I'm thankful I had my car keys and the baby with me. Imagine if I had left her inside while I ran out to my car. I probably would've called 911 from a neighbors house, no lie. 

Have you ever stranded yourself outside before? 

What did/didn't you have with you? Hopefully I'm not alone in this!

Handling Social Media

I was going through my blog roll yesterday, when I started wondering how other people handled their social media accounts. I post tweets, statuses, and photos to my various accounts whenever I want to, but have found myself going through my blog roll and YouTube subscriptions almost daily so I don't get too far behind. 

As far as blogging goes, it's usually on a whim. Like right now, it's 2:30a as I write this post. I'd like to try to get on more of a schedule, but that probably won't happen before the end of the year because things have so crazy lately. Maybe that will be one of my resolutions for the new year :) The only time things are scheduled and written in advance is during some sort of series or if I have a lot of time to write multiple posts. I also almost never have posts in my drafts because I'll start something, then forget about what direction I was headed in so I end up deleting it. 

Now I want to know what works for you, because I'm curious and totally nosy like that. Is your routine similar to mine, or totally different? Do you try to stay on top of everything by reading them as they come in? Or do you let everything pile up for the week and veg out on social media for an afternoon on a weekend? Do you set aside time for blogging or are you an "on-a-whim" type of writer too? 

Happy December!

We're just going to ignore the fact that it was EIGHTY degrees yesterday in Southern California and pretend like it's blissfully cold like everywhere else. December means the official start of the holiday season for me. 

It kicks my booty into winter gear which, in turn, makes me want to wear all the black things. Color is definitely a seasonal thing for me. I wear a lot of black in the summer, but even more in the winter. Winter also means Supercross season! YESS. I am so stoked. Anaheim One is six days before our 4th anniversary and we will be going, obviously. 

My December weekends are chock full of things, from babysitting to work parties. I'm also really hoping to work on NYE since that night is a huge money maker for babysitters and nannies, but alas I still have no plans. Sad face. But, there's still a bunch of time to book a job, so no worries there. 

It's also Cyber Monday! I shopped online on Black Friday, and I can't wait to share a little bit of a haul with you when I get everything in the mail. This is my first year Black Friday shopping, and I will definitely participating in years to come. I had a blast!

Are you shopping today? Did you shop Friday? 

I'd love to know what deals you scored!