Living – Page 27

Living

Say Yes to Summer: 5 Ways to Spend More Time with Friends

I was compensated by Evite® for this post, as a member of the Evite® Influencer program. Now go forth and invite your favorite peeps to the party. I sure am.

The hustle and bustle of the school year makes it almost impossible to spend time with your favorite people. I mean if you are anything like me, they will text you one day and you may not respond for another four days.

I hate having to catch up on major moments in my friends life via social media, but the way people and their busy is set up sometimes its inevitable. Now that things will see a little chill for the next few weeks I’m making it a priority to catch up with a few of my favorite folks before the whirlwind starts again.

I’m planning to make the most of these laid back days to visit and host my loved ones. If I’m being totally honest if I don’t catch them in these next few weeks it might be Christmas before I see them again!

Here are 5 ways to plan some quality time with your friends and family.

Girls Night In

I’m getting old and I would rather laugh and have cocktails with friends at my home or some else’s residence. The thought of thirsty men and crowds and yelling to each other over loud music, if I had a preference I would choose a nice evening in private headquarters. Craft up some signature cocktails, and catch up over light music and bites. Don’t overthink it, your friends know you, throw something together or even make it a potluck and send out invitations via evite to make it real official for a fun night.

There are tons of free and premium options on Evite®. This washi tape one will be sliding it’s way into a few inboxes soon. Sending out an invitation is so much more legit than the usual conversation that goes something like, “We all should really get together, somebody set it up and I’m there.” We all know how that goes. Be the good friend and send out the Evite® invitation with all of the details! Evite® makes getting together effortless and the wide variety of cards to choose from makes it easy to find something that fits the occasion or allows you the freedom to craft up something of your own.

Thinking of a cookout or some outdoor fun? This entire group of Evite® invitations focused on outdoor gatherings will get the job done. Even send them by text to make your life easier.

Girls Trip

While this might take a little planning it could also be an impromptu weekend getaway or staycation in your city. Sleep in, order room service or try new restaurants in your own city or a city near by for a change of scenery. I’ve taken quite a few girls trips but the one to Austin and Waco last year has yet to be outdone!

Joint Family Vacation/ Weekend Getaway

If your families love each other and you can tolerate the behavior of one another’s offspring a joint family vacation is a great way to spend time together. Create a menu and work out the itinerary in advance, keeping in mind it is not necessary to do everything together. We did this last year with our family trip to Gatlinburg and it was everything.

Host a Playdate

For those with smaller children, finding a babysitter can be as trying as searching a haystack for a needle. With smaller children or nursing babies it can be so hard to getaway for a moment. In these situations a playdate is perfect. Kid friendly get togethers held during the day serve double duty. You get to hug up on squishy babies and rapidly growing kids while catching up on life. Sure, you may not be able to sip a cocktail or may have to break up a disagreement or three but you still got the opportunity to see your favorite people.

Host a Virtual Party

Some of our favorite friends and family members are out of town and an in person getaway may be a ways off. Set up a fun evening to chat over a Google Hangout or FaceTime session. Invite everyone to log on with their favorite drink and laugh and catch up over the internets. You are only as far away as a good internet connection.

This is just my take on how I’m planning on saying “Yes to Summer.” Show the world how you are saying “Yes to Summer, ” and get a chance to win $500. Enter here for a chance to win $500 from Evite® for sharing how you say Yes to Summer!Enter here for a chance to win $500 from Evite® for sharing how you say Yes to Summer!

This is a Fab Five collaboration. Please go visit the other four members of the Fab Five and see how they are saying “Yes to Summer.”

Kita @ It’s Really Kita | 5 Ways to Get Fit While Kids are Out of School

MJ @ Fab Haute Mama | 5 Ways Kids Say Yes to Summer

Bernetta @ Bernetta Style | 5 Ways to Say Yes to Summer When Your Kids Aren’t in Summer Camp

Lashawn @ Everyday Eyecandy | 5 Ways to Get Your Guests to Photograph Your Party

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Living• Parenting

Last Day of School Printables

So cliche the saying but no lies told….Time indeed flies, whether you are having fun or not.

Walking into the last week of school like how? Seems like we were just getting ready to go back to school.

This last week is going to be a bit emotional for me. My first born, the one that made me a Mama is headed off to the scary hallways of middle school. He’s excited about lockers, meanwhile I’m worried about the girls, and peer pressure, and weeping into my coffee that this was the last year him and his sister will ever be in the same school together…..like EVER.

His voice is changing, he’s nearly taller than me and now we are ushering him into the next phase of his education and development. I’m excited, scared and just overwhelmed at the idea to say the least.

I’ll chat about all of that in a later post.

~~Wipes tears off the keyboard~~

Y’all know I am serious about my first and last day of school photos. If you are new around here, I am serious about my first and last day of school photos.

Y’all get the picture.

I needed to create last day of school printables to be ready for Friday so I thought I would share them with all of you. CLICK THE IMAGE, a pdf of the selected last day of school printable graphic will open then click print!

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Living

Mom 2.0 Summit | Content. Community. Motherhood

featured image captured by Kita

Last week I had the amazing opportunity to attend the 9th annual Mom 2.0 Summit in Orlando, FL. For my inaugural conference attendance, I consider myself blessed to have journeyed there as not only a speaker but an award nominee for “Breakout Blog of the Year.”

Our journey to the conference really set the tone for what the weekend would look like. We girls tripped there, and the ride with Kita, Lashawn and MJ was a great time. We left around 1 am in the morning, drove through the night and arrived at the Ritz Carlton around 7a. We sang loudly, talked girl talk, clowned those that fell asleep early and just enjoyed the time riding together. Thank goodness the hotel was so accommodating and allowed us to check in early because we were exhausted upon our arrival.

Tired or not we found the nearest Starbucks prior to taking a rest before our 2:15 session, “Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork” where the Fab Five offered our expertise on how to build influencer collaborations to a pretty packed room. We rocked it, I am so proud of us for stepping out of the box and doing something that some of us had never done before.

Thank you Quiana for the photo!

After our early session, we were free to partake in all that the conference had to offer and I took in all that I could. After a fun and action packed three days of learning and networking, I left with my cup full and describing the experience in three words.

Photo Credit | Kita

Community. Content. Motherhood.

COMMUNITY

I walked into the conference having heard amazing things about how friendly and open people were. I was not disappointed.

From the elevator to the lunch table, to the evening parties there was always someone willing to connect with you. Of course there were cliques, I assume that to be normal when people have forged connections over the years and are happy to see one another. However, they were still very open to saying you can sit with us, and being inclusive. I imagine we all had differences in political and parenting opinions to say the least but these things were unimportant during this weekend of networking and building community.

Lisa from The Domestic Lifestylist and I hit it off! Kita captured this moment perfectly.

Meredith from That’s Inappropriate. She’s hilarious.

L to R. Bernetta, Lashawn, Aaronica, MJ & Kita

My new bloggy boo Christine from Canada. Met her the first night and we just hit it off!

Credit | Kita

I mentioned earlier I was nominated for a Mom 2.0 Summit Iris award for “Breakout Blog of the Year.” I was shocked at the nomination. While I did not win I was proud to be included in the category with some heavy hitters.

On the other hand Lashawn did win for Instagram of the Year. Her winning was enough for all of us. So incredibly proud of her!

CONTENT

Food, cocktails, free things and networking are all perks of conference attendance, however the main point is to learn. Learning how to hone your craft, find better ways to do things and be inspired to blaze trails that will lead the way to new opportunities and goals. Let’s just say I learned all of the things.

Every year, I come with my basic and standard blog post outlining what you can expect from this blog in the coming year, and every year I fall short of producing the content I want cause……life, time, etc. Leaving the conference I felt I have no excuses or barriers to getting this together. In a nutshell, expect to see a huge upgrade in the content. I’ll be hiring someone very soon, I have come to realize that I can only do so much, and help is good and needed.

At Mom 2.0 Summit we not only learned about how to be better storytellers, we also got in touch with brands that shared our messages. Some of the brands there included Kia, Lentils, Best Buy, Toca Boca, Domain Me, Olive Garden, Amazon, Facebook, Prudential, Babybel, Borden, UPtv, and many more.

One of my favorite brands there was Dove. We learned about their #RealBeauty campaign. As a woman of color I applaud this initiative and can’t wait to see more as they highlight stories of beauty from real women.

The amount of information I learned was unreal. Not that vague stuff that is followed up with a request for your email to add you to a sales funnel to then sell you a $400 course with the real information.

NOPE.

You left with tangible, valuable content that you can apply and be just as successful as those sharing with you. RECEIPTS were shown. Matter of fact I left feeling a whole lot perturbed at those that are intent on swindling us out of our dollars for basic valuable information for their personal financial gain. For just the conference fee I feel like I left with an amount of information that would cost upwards of $5K with some of these “internet gurus.”

I leave that there.

MOTHERHOOD

The majority of us there were mothers. Never did I come across conversations where someone had to overly brag on their kids. We stated names, sexes, ages and kept it moving. We ogled and baby talked to smaller babies rolling in their strollers or being worn by their mothers. We picked up dropped bottles, shoes and toys that were thrown from strollers and rushed to get them back to the oblivious mom. ~~Any mom that has ever gotten home and wondered where the other shoe, toy or hair bow was gets it~~.

We quietly understood a lot of our motivation stands behind the ability to be available to our children while contributing financially to our homes on our terms. It was empowering without words. We cheered each other on, we supported one another and offered advice and tips and tricks for success in sidebar conversations. I found that to be more valuable than anything.

I missed my babies, but really needed the time away before the crazy of Summer kicks in.

My countdown meter has less than 10 days on it before I’m a full time mom, blogger, and business owner who will be in charge of child entertainment for the next 2 months. Eight weeks of crazy are to ensue, full of travel, fun and relaxation. I’m just trying to get ready.

I wonder if any of the other moms with digitally savvy kids had something like this go down in their DMs?!

I am still on a high, feeling like I have had a spark lit under my patoosh. A desire to connect and make real relationships and most importantly knowing that I can do it and mother and wife and laugh and live. I’m going to be tired as hell, but who isn’t?!

If you haven’t been to a blog conference, Mom 2.0 Summit is one to attend.

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Living

Life Lately

Hey y’all.

If we aren’t careful it is so extremely convenient to let social media overtake and consume us. The gift and the curse of social media at times can be described for me as a tug between capturing the moment for memories or just living in it and letting the mental memories outweigh the documented ones.

Lately I’ve been on the latter. Living daily, mostly documenting here and there on Snapchat and just being. I implore you to step away as well as you see fit. I’m learning to go with the flow and share when it feels natural and inspired.

That being said, a lot has happened. Lots of good, some meh and a little bad, but I’m here to tell the stories!

The most amazing update is outside of being a panel speaker at the upcoming Mom 2.0 conference, I’m also one of the SIX bloggers nominated for an Iris award for “Breakout Blog of the Year.”

To say I am humbled would be an understatement. I blog here authentically, I don’t feel the need to follow all of the “rules of blogging” and somehow enough folks thought enough of this little space on the internet to nominate me. I don’t take this lightly. Be sure to follow me on Snapchat and IG stories (I’m @UnlikelyMartha on both) as I share clips of my trip to Orlando and the Iris Awards ceremony next week starting on Tuesday.

I’m leaving on Tuesday and my son is leaving on Monday to go on a school trip and things are in super crazy mode around here. I’m listing and planning to keep everything in order. My husband and Dad are going to have to work together to coordinate school pick ups and drop offs while I’m away. Of course I feel like everything has to be planned out to a tee before I leave….cause control issues.

These days I’ve also been paying more attention to my health and fitness and it is making a difference. Physically I.FEEL.GREAT!! Even let my son talk me into taking a bike ride. Even though I ended up walking the bike back home I did better than I expected. I suspect this may be a new Sunday evening ritual.

I’ve cut out all juice and soda and have managed to guzzle down nearly a gallon of water a day for the past two weeks. I’ll have to do a post on all of the little things I’ve noticed since making sure my body is properly hydrated.

I’ve been working out 3-4 times a week and I think I am on schedule to keep it up. I hope.

My brown thumb is showing it’s green side. In my last garden progress post all of the plants weren’t in the ground and the fence wasn’t completed.

CHECK and CHECK.

Addison’s competition dance season is over. We attended the last competition last Friday in Macon, GA. We are currently gearing up for Summer recitals and intensives.

I’m out here just trying to catch my breath, make Summer plans and keep sane cause there are just 23 days left until the end of school and that is counting weekends *insert wide eye emoji*

What are you up to?

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