So one day you’re a twenty-something engaged gal. It’s all about you (and your groom) and you’re planning a gorgeous wedding, being showered with gifts, enjoying the time with your friends and family and relishing every second.

Then another day you’re a twenty-something married gal. It’s all about the two of you, still. Your home, your fun nights at home with dinner and television, your fun nights out with dinner and movies. You love your freedom to head to weekend weddings and weekend away game road trips. Maybe a fun mini-vacation is on the horizon and there’s nothing stopping you from going. You’ve saved your money and any trip is relaxing.

Then all of a sudden, you’re shocked and surprised that you are now a twenty-something married gal who is 7 weeks pregnant. After being married for five months. You can’t be selfish because your body has been turned over to your unborn child. Your eating habits, your drinking habits, your sleeping habits are no longer for you. There’s a big invisible sign that says, “stop what you’re doing and do it this way instead.”

After 9 months of selflessness (which includes complaining a little about the selflessness), your baby is here. And there’s lots of love and lots of activity. There’s also a lot of activity that is just done out of habit. And habit turns into sleepless nights, which turns into running on adrenaline. You’re still sacrificing sleep and because you’ve chosen to breast feed, you’re sacrificing certain foods and all alcohol.

But after the adrenaline wears off and you’re running on fumes, you start calling for backup. Because we all need a little sleep every now and then. And we all need a little time to ourselves to be selfish. To read a book, take a bath, dry our hair and look like a normal twenty-something married gal.

And I think that’s normal and okay. In the beginning I had a lot of pride and was so worried that if I asked for help I’d look weak. And I’d look like I was saying, “I can’t do this.”

But I could do it and I was good at it. I also needed some time to be alone. And if that’s selfish, then I’m okay with selfish.

Now that I have a 13 (almost 14) month old, I’m getting lots of sleep. I’ve been getting lots of sleep since he was 4 months old. But this age comes with other issues. He’s loud at restaurants and I’m easily embarrassed. He is starting to throw tantrums and that makes me nervous about what’s to come when he turns 2.

I’m adopting a new way of thinking when it comes to our family’s focus. Less stuff in exchange for a higher quality of life. It’s hard not to think about stuff when you’re a blogger who reads other blogs with gorgeous furniture, beautiful clothes, and yummy restaurants. I want everything I see.

So I’m working on selflessness when it comes to what I want versus what we need. What my family needs. It’s a hard transition, trust me, I know.

But I can’t stop being selfish when it comes to getting just an hour of time alone every day so I can breathe and decompress or get lost in my book. I think this is how some women stop knowing what songs are popular right now. Or how they end up wearing scrunchies in their hair twenty years after scrunchies have gone “out.” We get stuck in time because we’re so focused on raising the little people in our lives.

So I’m working on a balance. I never want to have regrets where I look at my house and see lots of stuff, but I wasn’t able to help pay for my child’s college education. And I want to be able to feed the parts of me that need to be fed in order to maintain my sense of self.

It takes constant effort to be able to do both of these things, and as mothers; working mothers, stay-at-home mothers, older mothers, younger mothers, single mothers, married mothers, I think we all know what this feels like.

Blurb is one of my absolute favorite online vendors and I am so excited about this giveaway! This will be my third giveaway with Blurb and I’m so excited. I know that I love Blurb and from your responses when I do the giveaways, I know that you all love Blurb.

To me, Blurb is the best bookmaking company out there. I have two Blurb books at home and I’m getting ready to make my third. I’m going to make a book out of all of Hudson’s first birthday photos, so I can have them all in one place like with our wedding books and engagement photo book.

This week, Blurb is going to give away 10 bookmaking codes for $39.95 to Blue-Eyed Bride readers! You can make a pretty sweet book for $39.95! Or you can put that $39.95 toward your large Blurb purchase.

Here is a link to a video that shows how to use Blurb BookSmart.

Some examples of Blurb books for your viewing pleasure.

To enter, just leave a comment on this post telling me what kind of book you’d like to make!

The winner will be announced at the end of the week.

• Hudson’s new favorite word is “hey!” He’ll walk into a room and just say it over and over again and it’s such a sweet little sound. It’s also kind of a loud little sound. Today I caught him standing in front of the mirror on the chifferobe in the future playroom, saying “hey” to himself. So funny.

• After church this morning, a large group for our Sunday school class got together for lunch. Hudson was eating dry Cheerios while we waited on his food to arrive and all of a sudden, he was throwing up. Projectile vomiting onto the restaurant table. Yikes. We have some very loving, very understanding, likely to be childless for many more years thanks to today’s events, friends. Really, if y’all are reading: thanks for being so understanding. TC took Hudson to the men’s restroom to clean him off. There was surprisingly not much on him, but we needed to remove him from “the scene” so I could get it cleaned up. Hudson got sick because he was reaching deep into his mouth to retrieve a Cheerio and gagged. Hopefully he realizes that he shouldn’t do that. This kind of goes hand in hand with last week’s post about bringing Hudson to restaurants. Never imagined that would happen!  He was feeling fine immediately after. The boy is like his mama and he’ll probably gag when he brushes his teeth.

• I decided to make a list today of all the home projects I’d like to tackle. I don’t have a deadline or timeline on the projects. I just like to have a list of everything I know I’d like to do and maybe that will stop me from buying an unnecessary dress or a useless pair of new shoes.

• On Friday I’m leaving for St. Louis! And then next Wednesday I’m leaving for NYC. I’m so excited, but that’s also a lot of time spent away from Hud Bud and TC. The reunion will be sweet!

• Mad Men Season 4 starts tonight. I’m so excited and seriously cannot wait. I love Don Draper and Betty Draper and I’m so excited to see what happens to the new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. And I’m so happy Joan Holloway is back and we’ll be seeing much more of her. I’m just so excited.

• I’ve lost my Blackberry for the fifth time this month. I always find it, but I can’t stand the hunt and not knowing where it is. I think I hid it from Hudson earlier so he wouldn’t drown it while he chewed on it. But now I have no clue what I did with it. That’s what I get for silencing it during nap time.

Have y’all ever looked at this website, Dead Malls?

TC is kind of obsessed with it and has a fascination with abandoned malls. He says it’s because he spent a good amount of his childhood in many of our local malls and it’s sad to see such large, sprawling structures turn into empty parking lots and empty retail space.

I spent lots of Saturdays growing up at the mall, shopping at Limited Too, eating Chick-fil-A or Sbarro in the food court, and sticking around to see a movie in the mall movie theater. Family Saturdays were spent at the mall.

Now you see empty food courts. And in one case in Columbia, even the Chick-fil-A has closed! What up with that?

We have two dead malls in Columbia and one that’s on its way to being dead. In one of these cases it doesn’t make any sense. The mall is located in one of the most prevalent parts of town and just can’t succeed. I don’t understand it.

this particular mall is lucky enough to still have a Dress Barn keeping the place afloat

the Richland Fashion mall– with a great Barnes and Noble keeping the place afloat– sort of

These days, though, I’d rather avoid malls and spend my time in local boutiques, supporting local business owners. We feel the same way about restaurants. We rarely eat at chain restaurants.

Walking around an empty mall makes me feel like I’m in a ghost town and that’s just a creepy feeling.

Do you think it’s creepy? Do you have dead/abandoned malls in your city?