We had a great week last week as we traveled through the state of Louisiana and visited so many wonderful friends and family members. It was great catching up with everyone and I’m thrilled that Hudson was able to meet so many people who love him.

I also enjoyed talking to everyone about motherhood and this new part of my life.  There were, however, a few moments when I felt like I just didn’t have an answer to the questions.  I’m a stay-at-home-mom now and stay really busy all day long taking care of Hudson and making sure all of his needs are met. 

When I was talking to some of our friends this week, a few of them asked, “Well, what are you doing now?”

This was right after I told them I quit my job at the end of July and decided to stay home with Hudson. I told  them again, though, when they asked the question. “I’m staying home with Hudson.”

“Yeah, but what are you doing?”

Hmm…. “Well, I’m feeding, burping, changing, playing, rocking, cleaning bottles, making bottles, feeding, burping, changing, playing, rocking, etc.”

“No, but what else are you doing?”

See what I mean? I just don’t know how to answer the question.  I chose to stay home because I wanted to be the one at home with our baby.  Occasionally I have to go to a doctor’s appointment or I go get my hair cut and highlighted.  I take him with me to the store and we’re at the point when we are bringing him to dinner with us instead of staying in all the time.

The question got me thinking about what it is I’m doing.  Don’t get me wrong. I’m 100% happy and content about my decision to stay home with Hudson.  But should I be doing something else? 

I’m not working from home in a way that I get a paycheck.  I’m not a runner.  That would take up a lot of time and be a really healthy hobby. 

I am in the Junior League and am about to get really busy with my placement.  (I’m on Holiday Market Tickets again this year as the Co-Vice Chair.) We’re involved with our Sunday school class and enjoy all of the time we spend with our friends.

I guess the question just caught me off guard.  I didn’t feel defensive, but I did question myself and my self-worth. Isn’t it crazy how one person can make you feel that way? I love my life and I love how I spend my day. I am so much happier every day than I was six months ago when I was completely stressed out. I felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders with everything I was trying to get done at work between all of the events, the budgets, and teaching classes that I wasn’t getting paid to teach.  Life is good and I love what I do. I don’t have exciting stories to tell about crazy things happening at work– and I had lots of those stories when I was working.  But I do get to spend my day with my precious boy and know that it’s making me happier than the way I was spending my days before June 5, 2009.

This post isn’t about being a stay-at-home-mom. It’s about my insecurities and my worry about what people think.  When I was working, I always worried that someone would think that my job wasn’t good enough or think that being an event planner at a University wasn’t a real job.  I didn’t make a lot of money doing it and I knew that. It always hurt my feelings when people were surprised to find out that I have a Masters degree to do my job. 

I think I’ve felt this way since I got out of college. I was really involved in everything in college and always had something going on. Or I was the President of something else. When I got out of grad school and started working, there weren’t many other responsibilities.

I just need to get over it and feel proud about all of the things that I am.

I’m a wife.  A mother.  A daughter.  A friend.  A sister.  And I’m a blogger. No, I’m not getting paid to do any of these things. I like to cook, organize, decorate, shop, read, and blog.  I’m looking forward to exercising again, but still have some physical limitations there. I’m also looking forward to using this time at home to figure out to turn my long term goals into a reality.  In the meantime, the answer to the question, “What are you doing now?” is simple. I’m taking care of the relationships in my life and creating a loving home for my family.

Does anyone else feel this way? Are you at a place in your life where you feel fulfilled but have a hard time convincing others that you are, in fact, fulfilled?

Patrick Swayze.

I’m sure that he was my very first celebrity crush and what a wonderful crush he was.

I saw Dirty Dancing for the first time the year it came out. I was only 5 years old, but my parents let me watch it anyway. I didn’t know what it meant when they said, “Penny got knocked up.” And I didn’t have any idea what kind of operation Baby’s father helped fund to get Penny out of trouble.

I just knew that Baby and Johnny were dancing and they were dancing dirty. I knew that I loved the soundtrack and loved to sing along. I got the soundtrack for Easter that year and I was 100% positive that Baby and Johnny were actually singing “Love Is Strange” and not just lip synching it.

My absolutely favorite part of the movie is at the end, after they’ve done their routine and did the summer finale “Johnny’s way”, when Johnny is again lip synching the words to “Time of My Life” to Baby. Then he scrunches up his nose and says, “and I owe it all to you!” I just melt. I still melt.

What an incredible talent and he always seemed like such a real person. He was from Texas. He met his wife when he was very young, and despite a very high Hollywood divorce rate, they stayed together.

It’s always sad when a celebrity passes away, but his story just breaks my heart. Mostly because that movie was such a strong piece of my childhood. It’s also sad because it wasn’t a sudden death. It wasn’t surprising to any of us that he died, but still terribly sad.

I saw an episode of Oprah where Patrick Swayze surprised the sweet couple that recreated the “Time of My Life” dance for their wedding. I couldn’t find the episode, but here’s a clip of it in this interview. Such a nice guy to do that for this couple– and can you believe he remembered the dance two years later? I’m pretty sure I did that dance by myself in my bedroom fifty times.

Hello to all of my accountability partners. This has been such an interesting week.

I’m sorry that Weight Watchers Wednesday had to come on Thursday this week. Todd’s new firm hosted an open house last night and I was busy all day yesterday preparing for that and then was there most of the night last night. So I apologize! Here’s the update from last week.

It was the beginning of football season, Labor Day weekend, and the beginning of my journey to lose 20 pounds. I bet you know how this all shook out. Football season and Labor Day weekend obviously trumped the journey to lose 20 pounds.

I did well at the beginning of the week. I was eating Lean Cuisines for lunch and depending on what our evening plans were, I was either cooking, eating Special K, or carefully selecting something off of a menu for supper. I think the hardest part about this process is keeping your husband satisfied. If we don’t have plans for dinner– a cooked meal or a trip to a restaurant planned– he’s going to eat cereal. That’s fine once or twice a week and I could probably do it every night of the week. But I just feel bad for him.

I cheated and had a Moo Moo Mr. Cow (kids meal) from Moe’s on Saturday night. I ate sushi on Friday night. But then I discovered my new favorite cookbook.

It’s Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast: 5 ingredient, 15 minute recipes.

Seriously, it took me 12 minutes to cook the meals I made last week. So convenient and it still goes along with my plan to drop 20 pounds.

I’m going to share one of the meals I prepared last week and we both loved it:

Balsamic Chicken with Roasted Tomatoes

1 pint grape tomatoes

1 tablespoon honey

1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt, divided

4 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Cooking spray

Balsamic vinaigrette salad spritzer (such as Wish-Bone)

1.Preheat oven to 450.

2. Combine first 3 ingredients in a small bowl; place tomato mixture on foil-lined jelly-roll pan. Bake at 450 for 12 minutes or until tomato skins burst and begin to wrinkle, stirring once. Transfer tomatoes to a bowl, scraping juices into the bowl. Stir 1/4 teaspoon salt into tomato mixture.

3. Place each chicken breast half between 2 sheets of heavy-duty plastic wrap; pound to 1/4-inch thickness using a meat mallet or small heavy skillet. Sprinkle chicken evenly with 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper.

4. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add chicken; cook 3 to 4 minutes on each side. P lace chicken on individual plates; coat each breast half with 2 to 3 sprays of balsamic spritzer. Spoon tomatoes evenly over chicken.

Yield: 4 servings

Points: 5

Mushroom and Zucchini Orzo

1 cup uncooked orzo

Cooking spray

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 cup diced zucchini

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black peper

1. Cook orzo according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Drain and keep warm.

2. While orzo cooks, heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add mushrooms and zucchini; saute 6 minutes or until tender and browned.

3. Combine orzo, mushroom mixture, and remaining ingredients in a large bowl, tossing gently.

Yield: 4 servings

Points: 4

So 9 total points is a little on the high side for a meal, but this meal covers all of the food group bases and it’s really filling. I highly recommend it!

And I’m sure everyone wants a report for this week on weight lost. I lost 2 pounds this week despite the cheating, football season kick off, and Labor Day weekend! Yay for 2 pounds.

How did you do?

Alright, so here goes another rant. I’m going to complain about something completely meaningless.

I love music. I don’t discriminate against any one genre of music. As long as the song is decent, I can listen to it. I even like Country music. Not all of it, but a lot of it.

I am, however, so frustrated when I listen to Country songs and they almost cuss. Why don’t you just go ahead and cuss? I’m pretty sure the little kids that are listening can figure out what you were going to say or what that almost cuss word really means. I know that Country music is supposed to be the most wholesome out of all of the music genres, but when you just rearrange the words to be bass ackwards, isn’t that pretty much the same as cussing?

Here are some examples of this:

“the fits gonna hit the shan.” (American Ride by Toby Keith)

“some beach…” (Some Beach by Blake Shelton)

“Shhhhh….. It happens!” (It Happens by Sugarland)

Now, I don’t particularly like to hear cussing in any kind of music, but these songs just sound like a 5 year old pushing the envelope with his mother just as far as he can. “I didn’t really cuss so you can’t get mad at me!”

And I know why they don’t actually cuss in Country songs. They want their song to be played and not bleeped out. It’s the wholesome genre. This just annoys me.

So it’s silly,  it’s a little bit fun, but it also drives me bonkers. If you’re going to make a statement by almost cussing, why don’t you just go ahead and say it? Because, seriously, it just sounds like a child trying to get away with something.